Summoned by the CEO

by Annabelle Winters

  And it tells me that this is real.

  It tells me that this is fate.

  It tells me that maybe I am a character in a romance novel, that maybe this is my happy ending, that maybe Archer will come bursting through the door and sweep me off my feet, sweep me into our shared forever.

  “Well, now I have to call him, don’t I?” I say as the blood pounds in my head. “I can’t not call him now that I know I’m pregnant with his baby. Which means the decision is made for us, isn’t it? There’s no second-guessing this now. With a baby involved, we’re going to have to give it a shot. Shit, now common sense is on my side! A month ago it seemed crazy to stay. Now it would be crazy to leave! The universe just answered everything for me! Squeee!”

  Squeeee goes my phone just as I reach for it to call the office and get transferred to Archer.

  “Wait, why is work calling me?” I think, my heart leaping as the answer comes to me like a song. “Ohmygod, it’s him, isn’t it! We are connected in some weird, cosmic way! How could I have ever doubted him, doubted myself, doubted what my body was telling me with such clarity?!”

  I’m still babbling as I answer the phone, and it’s only when I hear a woman’s voice that I shut the hell up and listen in shocked silence.

  I listen as my world suddenly goes dark, like the light just went out, like I just got reminded that life isn’t a fairy-tale, that happy endings don’t just float in with a simple phone call.

  “Ohmygod, did you see the news?” comes the woman’s voice over the line. It takes me a moment to realize it’s one of my coworkers. I didn’t recognize her voice at first. Still don’t, in fact.

  “Why do you sound so stressed? What news? Did Canada just invade us or something?” I say, trying to smile though I feel a sense of dread looming before I even hear what she’s calling about.

  “Aran Archer,” she says in a whisper. “He was in an accident, Angie. A bad one. They don’t think he’s gonna make it. It’s total chaos in the office, because apparently Archer has a totally crazy succession plan if something happens to him. He’s such a control freak that he can’t let go of his company even if he dies! Angie, it turns out that his policy is that if he dies suddenly, the entire company gets liquidated. Broken up and sold off in pieces. He doesn’t trust anyone else to run it if he’s not here to control everything. Doesn’t trust anyone with his legacy, his name. Told you he was a crazy control-freak. We’ve been told that at least the severance pay will be generous. But it’s still chaos, because nobody knows what’s gonna happen! We’re all wondering if we’re just gonna get severance checks and pink slips on Monday!”

  I drop the phone without even bothering to say a word in response. In a daze I stumble over to my computer and pull up the news. There it is, in black-and-white print, like a slap in the face from the universe, fate flipping me off, destiny flapping its wings and flying away from me as if it was my choice that led to this, my lack of faith in forever that stole that forever from me!

  ARCHER INDUSTRIES CEO IN CRITICAL CONDITION AFTER PLANE CRASH

  Enigmatic CEO Aran Archer was involved in a plane crash in the Rocky Mountains earlier today. The small plane flew into bad weather even though it was advised otherwise by Denver Air Traffic Control. Aran Archer was the only person on board. He is a licensed pilot, and although is reported to be excellent behind the controls, clearly flying a single-engine prop-plane through a Rocky Mountain snowstorm is a sign of arrogance that may have paid off in the business world but led to his doom in the world of nature. Doctors do not expect him to survive the weekend.

  Almost bigger news is the update from Archer Industries’ Attorneys. True to his oddball reputation, CEO Aran Archer had instituted a succession plan that involves no successor at all! Yes, you read that right. In the event of Aran Archer’s death, the company is to be liquidated, shut down, split apart and sold off in bits and pieces in a way that ensures no other company can put the pieces back together! In other words, Aran Archer was so obsessed with control that he put in a plan to take his company with him to the grave!

  We’ll never truly understand the rich and famous, will we? And given what we know about how Aran Archer’s mind works, that’s probably a good thing.

  “Fuck you,” I snarl, my anger directed at the anonymous asshole who wrote that news report. “I understand him! He’s my man, and I understand him. I understand him, and I love him. I love you, Archer. I love you, and I’m coming to you. Don’t die on me, Archer. Just hang on, baby. Hang on for your butterfly. I’ve found my wings, and I’m gonna fly to you as fast as the wind will carry my stubborn, stupid ass.”

  8

  ARCHER

  “It’s not just stubborn, it’s fucking stupid!” comes the angry whisper as I slip in and out of consciousness, hovering between life and death.

  It’s one of my lawyers talking on the phone. I thought phones were banned in the ICU. Maybe he wants me dead. So what. I kinda want myself dead. Fuck, maybe I am dead and this is just my consciousness breaking into pieces, being liquidated just like Archer Industries probably is right now.

  I feel a wave of despair go through me as I think back over the past month. The worst month of my life. A month of pining for a woman I know is mine but won’t accept that simple fact. So many times I almost lost my patience, almost lost control, got so damned close to storming over to her apartment, kicking down her door, telling her that time was up and if she couldn’t come to terms with the truth, then I was gonna remind her of the damned truth.

  But I held back, reminding myself that I’d decided to show her that I could yield to her just like I dominated her. I’d wanted to show her I could step back, control my temper, control my possessiveness, control my nature and let her find her wings.

  “Find her wings,” I mutter in my delirium as pain shoots through my limbs, agony racks my body. I hear my heartrate monitor beeping up a storm, and I close my eyes and wonder if maybe this plane crash is my fault, if the decision I made to let Angie walk away a month ago is what changed our fate, sent our destiny down a different path, stole our forever because I didn’t have the balls to take what I knew was mine, lock it up and throw away the fucking key.

  “He insisted on flying right through the snowstorm,” my lawyer is barking over the phone. “Dismissed his pilots and took the smaller plane so he could fly himself. Some meeting about some deal. Apparently Aran Archer doesn’t miss meetings for the weather. He thinks he’s stronger than Mother Nature. Now a billion dollar company is going down in flames along with that plane. Madness. Sheer madness.”

  “Can we keep the volume down, please?” I snap at the company lawyer. “I’m trying to die in peace here.”

  My lawyer almost faints when he realizes I just heard everything he said. I grin when I see him squirm. But then I sigh when I realize that I’m on my deathbed and the only person in the room is the company lawyer. Is this really how it ends?

  “No,” comes her voice from the doorway, and I almost do die when I realize it’s Angie. Wait, is it Angie or am I imagining it? Is this real?

  “No,” comes her voice again, and suddenly I feel myself being pulled back from the edge of life and death. Pulled back from darkness to light. Pulled back by my fate. Pulled back by our shared destiny, the promise of our forever. “Nobody’s dying. But if I ever hear you speak about Mister Archer like that again, your career is dead. Understood?”

  I blink at the sight of Angie in all her curvy glory, dressed in blue jeans and a red sweater, her pretty face as red as that sweater as she just unloads on my poor lawyer in a way that makes me laugh so hard it hurts. Like really hurts, considering I’m broken in more places than they can fix in one surgery.

  The lawyer scurries out of the room, and Angie steps all the way inside and closes the door behind her. I see the shock register on her face when she takes in the sight of me wrapped and bandaged, tubes and wires sticki
ng into me and coming out of me, machines and scanners beeping and ticking like they’re counting down to my death.

  “Just a scratch,” I say, trying to smile as I see Angie bite her lip to hold back the tears. I haven’t looked at myself in a mirror yet, but her expression is as good as a mirror. It’s bad. Really fucking bad.

  “Clearly just a scratch,” she whispers, standing by my bedside even though I can tell she wants to fling herself on me and kiss me back to life, back to our forever. “You’ll be back at the office Monday?”

  “Yeah,” I say, grinning even though I know my jaw is partly wired shut. “Hold my calls till then.”

  She smiles too, wiping tears from her eyes as she carefully takes my hand in hers. My one hand that isn’t broken. “I’m not your damned secretary, you know.”

  “No?” I say as her touch sends a warmth through me that I know comes from our connection, from our bond, from our love. “Then what are you?”

  “I’m yours,” she says softly, squeezing my hand just enough to tell me that she’s been through a month of hell too, that she’s been staring at her phone just like I have, wondering if we lost our chance at happiness by not seizing it a month ago. “That’s what I am, Archer. Yours. Your anything and everything. Your woman. Your floozy. Your everything. Yours, plain and simple. I knew it the first day we met, but I was too . . . too sensible to accept it, too stubbornly practical to give in to an impulse so strong it scared me.”

  I nod, squeezing her hand as I feel my strength return like her touch is a drug, a magic potion, maybe just pure magic. “Are you scared now?” I ask.

  “Terrified,” she whispers. “Terrified that I caused this by not trusting my instincts, not trusting your instincts.”

  I grunt as the pain returns for a moment. “Well, my instincts had me fly into a snowstorm, so I wouldn’t go trusting them too much.”

  “Yeah, I saw the news reports,” she says. “What the hell were you thinking, Archer?”

  I take a breath and take in the sight of her face, the face of an angel, the face of my reason to live. “Maybe I had a death wish,” I murmur, tightening my broken jaw and looking away. “I thought I’d lost you. Lost what I knew was mine. At the time I decided I needed to give you the space you asked for, the time you asked for. I needed to show you that I could dominate but also submit, that I wouldn’t just overwhelm you in a relationship, that we could be equals, that my queen sits on a throne right next to mine.”

  “I know,” she whispers. “I know it went against the control freak that you are. I could see that a part of you wanted to lock me away in a room until I came around.” She blinks and smiles. “I’m kidding. But you know what I mean.”

  “Kidding? That’s pretty accurate, actually. In fact I have a safe-room adjoining my office. It’s equipped for a stay of up to a month. Safer than a vault. I absolutely would have locked you up in there. But then I gave in to this new-fangled thing called women’s-lib. Apparently a woman now has a choice or some shit like that? Fucking Millennials. Cut your hair and get a job, you hippies.”

  She digs her nails into my hand and tries to pull away, but I grab her by the wrist and hold her in place.

  “You really are a relic from like the 1950s,” she whispers as I see goosebumps break on her smooth forearm. “I seriously should have taken the Plan B pill.”

  I frown as I see the color drain from her face and then return in a flush of heat. It takes me a moment, but when I see her close her eyes and bite her lip, I know. I just know.

  A moment later I yank her down to my bed, and she kisses me on the few places she can on my face. She doesn’t need to say it. I know it. I knew it when I claimed her. I knew it would happen.

  “It had to happen this way,” I whisper as joy lights me up from the inside, the thought of my baby growing inside this strong, beautiful woman’s womb filling me with energy, bringing me back to life, breaking me from death’s cold clutches. “Hell, Angie. It had to happen this way! I can’t explain it, but this is part of our fate, part of our story, part of our journey. You did need that time. And I . . . I . . . I needed this to happen. I needed to understand that I’m human, vulnerable, breakable.” I blink as I think back to what my lawyer had said over the phone. “I also needed to understand that my idea of dissolving the company when I die might possibly . . . just possibly . . . be a symptom of an unhealthy obsession with control.”

  “Maybe a teeny bit,” she says with a giggle and an eye-roll. “But it’s moot, since you’re not going to die. It might be a while before you’re back behind your desk, but your desk will be there when you do get back.”

  “There’s still the deal, though,” I say through a grimace as I remember where I was headed. “It has to get done before the markets open on Monday.”

  She looks at me like I’m crazy, but I’m used to that by now.

  “Um, the deal can wait, Archer,” she says softly.

  “Not this deal,” I say, the realization that I’m not gonna die reminding me that I’ve got a business to run, still got an empire to extend, still got lands to conquer. That’s part of my DNA, and if this woman understands me, then she’ll understand that. “I’ve been trying to buy this company for years, take over its territory. But the owner never even took a meeting with me. Pissed me off, but I hung back and watched, waited for my chance. And finally it happened earlier this year. The owner got too aggressive. Expanded into territory where he didn’t have an advantage. Had a couple of rough quarters and his company’s stock took a hit. So I started buying shares of his company over the months, and now I own a sizable percentage of his company. Not a majority, of course, but enough to make him nervous because if I sell all those shares at once, it would drive his stock price even lower. I have him backed up against the wall, Angie. This meeting was gonna seal the deal. I made him an offer for the company that makes him rich, makes his shareholders rich, and makes me even more dominant in the industry.”

  “Makes you more dominant?” Angie says with a raised eyebrow. “Or makes the company more dominant?”

  But before I can answer she smiles and shakes her head with an understanding that almost makes me cry. She gets me, doesn’t she. Damn, she gets me. She knows who I am, that I am that vulture waiting to swoop in and finish a kill. I am that dragon counting his gold—not because I love money but because I love winning, love outscoring my opponent, love being the king, the man, the goddamn boss.

  Of course, it’s hard to finish off even a weakened opponent when I’m strapped and tied to a hospital bed, tubes and wires coiling through me like snakes. I take a breath as I wonder how this deal can work. Then I frown when I think back to what I saw in Angie when she spoke sharply to my lawyer—who’s actually a bad-ass motherfucker himself, a man who doesn’t take shit from anyone, sometimes not even me. But he stood down to Angie, didn’t he.

  Yeah, I think as I shake my head at the wonderful way things work out. It had to happen this way, I think again. Growth. Discomfort. Pain. It’s all part of the puzzle. Part of our story.

  “There’s a flight that’ll get you there tonight,” I say without even bothering to explain. She’ll get it. She’s already getting it. She knows she’s my equal, my partner, the only person in the world for whom I’d give up control. “You’ll close the deal, Angie.”

  She blinks and tenses up. But then she swallows and takes a breath. “Archer,” she says. “I don’t know the first thing about negotiation!”

  I snort. “Honey, you know the most important thing about negotiation.”

  “What’s that?” she says.

  I smile as I think back to one month ago, when she walked out of my office, out of my life, exposing my vulnerability in a way that almost wrecked me. “The person who has the guts to walk away from the table always wins. And you had the guts to walk away. You walked away from me and you won. You won me over by making me even more certain that
you were one for me, Angie. You won then, and you'll win now. You’ll win, Angie. I have faith in you, and you need to find that faith in yourself if you haven’t yet. You won’t bend. You won’t break. All you need to know is the offer price for his company, and you don’t budge from that price. Not even one cent. If he says he can’t accept the price, you shrug, stand up, and walk away from the table. Then you’ll see him fold like a deck of cards. And you’ll know what it feels like to win. You’ll know what it feels like to be a fucking boss.”

  She snorts at how excited I’m getting. Then she swallows hard and finally nods. “All right,” she says. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but all right. I’ll close your damned deal for you.”

  I frown again as I think about some of the legalities of the situation. Then I laugh out loud and shake my head when I realize that it actually isn't that complicated. Or it won't be in an hour or so. Maybe less. After all, Angie’s here, she’s mine, and she’s going to have my child.

  “Call my lawyer back in,” I say, narrowing my eyes and making a firm decision about what needs to happen now. Right now.

  She does it, and I look up at him and nod. “I want a city judge and a witness in here within the next thirty minutes,” I tell him matter-of-factly. “Do it now, please.”

  My lawyer’s gone before the second hand on the clock moves, and Angie’s looking at me like she’s wondering now what.

  “I’m going to close out the biggest deal of my life right now,” I mutter. “Before you walk away from the table again.”

  “I’m never walking away again, Archer,” she says, her breath catching when she realizes what I mean. “I’m yours. I said I was yours, and I’m yours. Your woman, your girl, your floozy, your—”

  “Wife,” I say firmly. “My wife.”

  9

  ANGIE

  “I now pronounce you husband and wife,” says the city judge as I hold Archer’s hand and blink at the surreal scene.