Old Miser *

Recap...

Eva managed to escape her family and the arranged marriage, but her grandpa Peter Lark caught her and threatened to work for him or he will target her friends and tell her parents where she is. 

***

I stayed at the mansion of that hateful con man grandpa Lark.

The entrance to the college would be in a couple of months, but everything was already prepared. Even my new and better identity. 

He chose my name, of course. Though, he didn't change it that much.  I will be Eva Cote, a model student, with a full scholarship thanks to the wonderful support of the Lark Foundation.

Grandpa said my surname Lark was just an advantage that I shouldn't have if he wanted to see my real potential. What a scam. 

It wasn't fair, because my brother Ian and my cousins whom I hadn't seen in years used their last name however they wanted. If they didn't, they would waste several opportunities. 

Besides, Imperio College wasn't a place where the last name counted for much. The professors and the same director and owner of the university did not allow nepotism and favoritism to exist within the walls of the school. Although there were always ways to use the money to entice teachers and students.

However, it was better for me to use another surname, I even changed my appearance. I was no longer the glamorous girl from before, now I had to see myself as the scholarship type of girl who lived for studying.

With glasses, wavy brownish hair that covered my face, with freckles, and no makeup. Careless and brutally honest. That was my persona. 

Grandpa saw me acting like this in the mansion and he could only laugh at me. Damn old man.

"What have you thought about the companies I asked you to check?" He told me while we had breakfast together.

I had a piece of pancake in my mouth and was ready for the milkshake in front of me. It looked delicious.

I remembered that at my parent's house, I barely had an appetite to eat these things. If my mom caught me eating this kind of high-calorie food, she'd kill me with her fancy one-liners, and she'd send me on a diet for the thousandth time. I felt so skinny that I would have disappeared if not for Hannah. 

"Two are viable, one needs too much start-up capital, it has a lot of risks but if achieved, it can make you twice as rich as you already are, the other three are useless..."

I finished my pancake right away but signaled our wonderful butler Niguel to come over and bring me another plate. I felt like a child discovering the most delicious dessert in the world.

"Are you sure?" asked the old man, still drinking from his refined tea cup. As always, she looked elegant. "None of those companies have a solution?"

I sighed and smirked. "If you want you can give them to me and I'll see what I can do."

The old man has been taking advantage of my marvelous intelligence for days to give me tasks, projects, and consultations. He has me as an exploited worker. But he does pay me a considerably high salary with big bonuses.

The man laughed and put down the cup on the table. "You already have too much work on your hands, and you want more?"

"You know I don't do everything myself," since I said goodbye to Vin and Maya, I contacted them two days later, which I found ridiculous. 

I told them that I had been kidnapped by my grandfather. They began mocking and laughing at me. I felt so humiliated… damn. In the end, I offered them a job.

Maya agreed immediately, but she didn't even know what it was about. Though, she just needed to look pretty and be my contact with various companies.

Vin, on the other hand, along with the fan club he had founded to worship my other persona, Storm, well they formed my group of sweatshops. We all created a company. 

Also, I got an unexpected helper too. The wonderful Lucas Fergusson and his beautiful sister Sarah, both of whom had been extorted and swindled by Ian, now worked for me.

Grandpa knew it and let it go. He was even happy. "Fine, I'll give you the companies, but I want them to be a success by the end of the year, or you'll have to pay me back all the principal I invested with interest."

Damn swindler!

"Okay," I said with another pancake in my mouth. 

There were at least three companies, one team of e-sports that had been having trouble winning tournaments, an infrastructure project in an underdeveloped city, and the most complicated of all, a publisher in decline. They hadn't produced a good book in years since they were swarmed by plagiarism lawsuits and other scandals.

The previous director had escaped and left his poor niece in charge to sort everything out and pay the debts. The 21-year-old was desperate. 

"By the way," Grandpa continued, "your parents are still looking for you, the same as that old man from the Evans family."

I locked my eyes into his. He was having so much fun at my expense. 

"Don't you want to marry Liam Evans? He is quite a handsome and talented young man. Maybe you will like him."

"Someday I'll get married," I said without looking at him, "but I'll be the one to choose who, no one else," that was also a warning to the man in front of me. 

If there was something wrong with these high-class families, it was that they tended to use their daughters or granddaughters as bargaining chips. And I wouldn't let that happen to me.

The old man just smiled and then laughed.

"You're not going to tell them I'm here, are you?" I asked him with a timid voice.

"And lose a hard worker who in just a few days has made me earn more money than my two sons combined in a year? Of course not, I have the goose that lays the golden eggs, why would I give it to someone else?"

"Old miser," I rebutted and popped another chocolate pancake in my mouth. It was delicious. However, I will end with a heavy stomach ache after this. Hopefully, Nigel carried some medicine with him.

"But you'll have to see your parents and the rest of the family in at least two weeks," he told me calmly as I nearly choked on my pancake.

I signaled Niguel for help and the man called two assistants to hit me on the back.

That old man wanted to kill me.

"What are you talking about?" I asked fearfully with little tears around my eyes. This was a mess. How can he ruin my dear breakfast?

"It's a family reunion and you have no way of turning it down."

"B-but..."

"We'll say I invited you as the scholarship student going to Imperio College, the other boys are coming too, that's where you'll meet Jason, the spy," he smiled as I was cleaning my tears. "Wear your disguise, dear. They better not realize it's you."

I want to kick his old ass and make fun of it as I record it and post it online.

This is going to be more complicated than I thought.