Worth Fighting ForHope Harbor Series
Ann B Harrison
Contents
Worth Fighting For
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Worth Fighting For
Copyright 2019 Ann B Harrison
Kindle Edition
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Ann B Harrison is the internationally best-selling author of thirtyfive plus romance novels including her fabulous Watson Brothers Romance stories published by Tule Publishing Group.
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Chapter 1
Mia Morgan pinched the skin between her eyes and swallowed back a groan. This wasn’t how she saw the day unfolding. Her intention was to head into work, pull up the stock sheets, and see which outlets were meeting her targets. Then she was going to call the slower-selling stores and see what she could do to improve things. And after that she still had to deal with those emails from the production company that had insisted she’d be a fabulous candidate for her own reality show. The idea was tempting because she’d be able to focus on repurposing furniture and styling—the very things that’d gotten her into the homewares business in the first place. But they wanted to talk her through their ideas when she had a moment to spare. Right!
Instead, she was dragged into the general manager’s office for an emergency meeting. She didn’t have time for this. As always, she’d organized her day down to the last minute. Uncle Ryan could deal with any emergency, surely? It was why she’d offered him the job back when she’d first started her business, so she could get on with what she did best and let him take care of all the other issues that went with running such a large company.
She sat back and listened as Ryan repeated what the board members had come up with at the last meeting, her toes twitching as the case against her was laid out. Yes, she worked her butt off. Yes, she rarely took time off. No, she didn’t think it was an issue. No, this company wasn’t in trouble. Nothing more than a minor hiccup with sales that she was on top of. She could fix it easily if he’d just let her get back to work.
Uncle Ryan tapped his fingers on the long walnut desk to get her attention. “You were the one who decided it was a good idea to take this company public, Mia.” He pointed out the obvious when it suited him. The turncoat. “You lost control the day you listed it on the stock market. It may have been a good idea in your mind, but I advised you against it.”
For a fleeting moment, Mia questioned her decision to appoint him manager of her company but loyalty kicked in and she gave herself a mental shake. He’d been the best person for the job then and if it wasn’t for her bitchy attitude now for having her routine disrupted, she’d still stand by that. She knew better than to push him. She tried to focus on the vibrant reds and oranges in the painting hanging on the wall to stave off the urge to snap at him. When she’d purchased it in a gallery in New York, it’d made her happy and every time she looked at it, she was reminded of that. But sadly not today
He tightened his lips as if fighting for control before he gave her an exasperated look, one that told her he was praying for patience. “Because now I have to answer to investors—not you.” He clasped his fingers together and softened his face.
That was when Mia knew she was really in trouble. It didn’t happen very often because it took a lot to get Ryan pissed off. She wasn’t going to be able to make him change his mind. He was an ex-banker who did everything based on the bottom line.
“We’re all of the same opinion. You need to take a break and re-evaluate the way you’re running the company before you do some serious damage. If you don’t change things, our profits are going to drop and the investors don’t want that.”
“And you think I do?” It wasn’t that bad, was it? But Ryan wasn’t the type of person to get on her case for the sheer hell of it. Things must be worse than she’d first thought.
She would have known if that was the case. Someone from accounting would’ve knocked on her door and given her a heads up. That was how things worked in her company. At least they used to. Had she been so busy that she hadn’t noticed? The last thing Mia wanted was her business to tank.
“Some of the decisions you’ve made lately have been, shall we say, unwise?” He gave her a look bordering on sympathetic, which made her pause and start to question herself.
The hairs on the back of her neck stood up. She felt threatened, fearful for the first time as a business owner. “Such as?” Mia gripped the edge of the walnut desk, desperate to keep her emotions under control, feeling them spiral out of control.
“Sending those high end homewares to the rural stores for one. Their clientele is different from the city stores. You know that, and we discussed it after last month’s figures came in, but you ignored my advice. That put the profits down and hurt the bottom line. It took you too long to correct it, Mia, and spending up large
