Bought: A Bad Boy Romance

by Molly Thorne

  “OK, OK. Just tell me this, Sandor: how do you know Marcus?”

  Sandor gives me a look of utter defeat. He knows that I know. He wasn’t sitting at a nearby table that day. He’d been talking to Marcus, discussing the details of the secret operation they shared. They both were traitors. Marcus had manipulated the numbers in Everwood Press to make my father and the board think the company was in deep trouble and the shares were worth way less than they thought; Sandor had made up an excuse to get Theo interested in buying that stock dirt cheap. They were just two rats in different nests, doing rat things together. I happened to walk into the coffee shop when Sandor was going to the bathroom, or maybe paying the check at the bar; I had interrupted their secret talk of betrayal. Undoubtedly, they had resumed it soon after. That’s how Sandor knows who I am.

  I’m boiling inside, and part of me wants to slay him on the spot, but in a way, I pity him. He’s done a lot of harm, but he’s just a minor player trying to play with the big guys. Theo is the big guy here, and I’m his girl, and Sandor knows full well that I can crush him like a cockroach with just a word.

  And Marcus? Dad will kill Marcus too, if I say a word to him.

  “We— we’ve been talking about this”, Sandor begins. “The operation...”

  “Of course,” I say, and raise my hand to signal that he may stop talking already. Then I let it rest on the beautiful locket adorning my neck. A horse. Such a noble animal. “The operation. Thanks for the date, Sandor. It was a lot of fun.”

  As I walk out of the bistro, part of my soul is debating between revenge and mercy. Another part is burning in desire. It just wants to call Theo and love him so hard.

  * * *

  Half an hour later, Theo walks into my apartment. I’m already there, waiting for him.

  “Well, hello,” he says, failing to hide his surprise.

  I’m standing in the middle of the room, completely naked. The only thing I’m wearing is the silver chain with the locket he gave me in London.

  “Will you take me now, Theo?” I ask in a toyish voice. “Do you want me? Or maybe you want this?” My eyes look down, meeting the locket. I know exactly what it is.

  “I want it... and I want you,” he replies, fumbling with the buttons in his shirt.

  “You’ll have both,” I assure him, taking a step forward. “I only hope you’ve recorded everything.”

  20. TRICKS OF THE TRADE

  They say time flies when you’re having fun, and we’ve had a lot of fun last night. This morning I feel like a wreck, but in a good way. After my tense “date” with Sandor, with all its shocking revelations, and the steamy session of wild sex that I had with Theo, I can barely stay awake. I’ve drank three cups of coffee since I woke up, and if Theo hadn’t been there lying beside me, nobody would have been able to make me leave the bed. But his sweet kisses are magical, energizing.

  We are both in his office, waiting for Sandor Vandell to arrive. Theo has stacked some papers on his desk and is now opening various windows in his computer. Meanwhile, I’m texting dad to let him know of the news. There was no time... or energy... for that last night. It all felt like a long, hot, marvellous minute, and then came the blessed sleep. Too little of it.

  When Sandor enters the room, he knows he’s condemned. His expression reveals that he’s determined to fight, though. Maybe he’s endured Theo’s “punishment” sessions before, but oh boy, betrayal is a completely different thing.

  “Come in, please,” Theo says, in a perfectly polite tone. He gestures indicating a chair, and the head of acquisitions sits down, crossing his legs and sending a vengeful look my way. I’m sitting a few inches from the desk, so I’m located in between both men.

  “Good morning,” Sandor says.

  “Sandor,” Theo begins, with a neutral expression, “I won’t go into much detail about what you revealed last night. There’s no denying it now, since it’s all recorded in an audio file. You see, I had provided our friend Lara with a transmitter which –unbeknownst to her at the time– was capturing your conversation as you talked in the bistro. This transmitter was in plain view for both of you, in the form of a locket shaped as a horse. Please don’t try to argue that you didn’t say what we heard and recorded.”

  “Fair enough,” Sandor says. “I own up to it. I maintain that I always acted in good faith, even when I didn’t explain everything to you. As an expert in acquisitions, I know the market, and if I tell you that buying some company is a good strategic move, it’s because I truly think so.”

  “Oh, yes, yes. That’s all fine and dandy,” Theo says. “The question in any case is: strategic for who?” He fumbled a bit with his papers, grabbed one seemingly at random, looked at it as if it was the first time he saw it, and continued. “Last night, Lara realized what you had done, aided by your friend Marcus. I had figured it out some time earlier, when I did my research on her. You know, I like to know who I work with, especially when we work so closely.” He winks at me, making me blush. “In the process of figuring out who she was, I discovered what you were doing. The question was why. Will you tell me now, Sandor, or will I have to explain my latest findings?”

  “I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about, Theo,” Sandor says.

  “Oh, I think you do,” Theo objects. “A man who knows the market knows what he wants to do, and why. You know the market, and I know my men.”

  Sandor may be lying, but I, for one, have no idea what Theo is talking about. I can’t begin to comprehend why Sandor would be interested in fucking with my dad’s publishing house. I only know that he did, for whatever reason.

  “When I started reading about Everwood Press, I realized I didn’t know a thing about that market,” Theo continues. “Obviously, I needed to know more. So I kept reading. You know what? There’s competition in the publishing world, too. In the case of Everwood Press, there are several companies that compete for the same market. Everwood was the most successful... until this mess happened. It was followed closely by this other company, WildImprints. Have you heard about it?”

  “Of course,” I blurt out, before realizing that Theo’s question was directed to Vandell. He kept silent.

  “Yes, you have,” Theo says, “and Sandor has, too. Sandor, can you guess who’s been buying WildImprints shares more or less at the same time that we bought Everwood stock?”

  He doesn’t wait for an answer. He rotates his monitor so that both Sandor and I can see what it’s showing. It’s a spreadsheet, a listing with several columns. One of them shows a name, the same name repeated in every entry; the other columns are dates and numbers. The numbers are vaguely astronomical. The name is a name I know very well.

  Sandor Vandell.

  “Sandor, I know my men like a shark knows other sharks, and I know these numbers like a shark knows food. These numbers are telling a story. Can you read it?”

  “I can,” I say. It’s a really simple story, boiling down to plain deceit, ambition, and treason. Old as time. “Everwood Press and WildImprints are competitors. If Everwood wins, WildImprints loses. If Everwood falls, WildImprints rises. If you buy WildImprints stock when it’s losing, but then destroy Everwood so that it loses its value, the WildImprints you own will soar, and you will get rich. This guy used the Lambert Group’s power to make that happen.”

  Sandor nods quietly and keeps silent. He looks at me, wondering, perhaps, why I haven’t jumped at him yet and tried to stab him with the paper cutter.

  “You can do all the competition crushing you want,” Theo says, with a glint in his eyes like cold steel. “With your own money. Not with my millions.”

  “Just tell me one thing, Sandor,” I ask: “how did you pay Marcus? Did he get at least one million from it? Or maybe you gave him some bloody stock?”

  Sandor ignores me. He looks at Theo in the eye, and speaks coldly. “You can’t save the company anyway. It’s too late. Deal’s done,” he sneers.

  “Oh, yes. A done deal. There’s nothing I lik
e more than a done deal,” Theo says, echoing the words he told me a century ago, when we were all still wearing our masks. He points at the computer screen. “This is your deal, I understand.” Without ever looking away from Sandor’s eyes, he picks up the phone and says just one word: “Now.”

  Something happens in the screen. All the rows flicker at the same time, and when it’s over, all the names have changed. I have to do a double take as I identify the new owner of all the stock. It’s no longer Sandor Vandell. Now all the rows showed a different name.

  Of course.

  Theodore Lambert.

  Sandor’s face has become a pale mask. Then it reddens progressively, as the enormity of what had just happened sinks in. “I– I’d never sell those,” he stutters. “This is a lie. This...”

  “This is reality,” Theo snaps. “Do you know who’s on the other side?” He lifts the phone from the desk and offers it to Sandor.

  Vandell’s hand is shaking slightly when he grabs the phone. He lifts it up to his ear very slowly, as if fearing that the device is going to explode.

  “Hello?” he says.

  Theo has turned on the speaker. A voice comes from it.

  “Hello, Sandor.”

  Sandor’s face grows pale again, in an instant. He looks as if he’s about to faint. Maybe he is.

  “Ned,” he says quietly.

  An audible click can be heard, as the other person hangs up the phone. There’s no need to say anything else.

  “I’ve known what you did for some time,” Theo explains. “I reached out to Ned, your dear friend, a couple of weeks ago. I know he had instructions not to sell your shares, but I can be very persuasive. He works for me now,” he said. “Oh, and you don’t, by the way. In fact, Ned is my new head of acquisitions. You’re dismissed.”

  This is the way of the shark.

  Sandor gets up and leaves without a word.

  21. EATING GHOSTS

  “Well, I have to give it to you: that was impressive. But it won’t save my father’s company,” I say at last. “He put it in death row when he realized he couldn’t stop the takeover. Everwood Press is no longer viable.”

  “I know,” Theo says. “But Sandor was right in one thing. Everything can be fixed. Your dad can start anew. I will let him make an offer for this company.”

  “What company? WildImprints? He will never match the price,” I protest. Is he mocking me? Dad’s competitor was already an important company, and now it’s stronger than ever, while Everwood is sinking fast. There’s no way dad could buy its main competitor.

  “He will, if the price is low enough,” Theo says. “Look, I will write it down here.”

  He grabs his phone and types a number.

  It’s high.

  For a college student, that is. For the company he’s just acquired, it’s ridiculously low.

  “Are you serious?”

  “Very.”

  Theo’s eyes are hypnotizing me again. He looks so sincere that I feel a bit ashamed that I just doubted him.

  “B-but you’ll lose millions.”

  “And I get to keep you?”

  * * *

  Investing experts sometimes describe what they call the Pac-Man defense. It’s a wildly uncommon scenario that can arise during the course of a hostile takeover. In an attempt to avoid being acquired and perhaps dissolved, the target company may turn the tables and try to buy the hostile acquirer, turning it into the target to be taken over. It’s named the Pac-Man defense because it’s similar to what happens in the videogame when Pac-Man is being pursued by the ghosts and swallows a special, big, blinking pill. At that point Pac-Man turns into an angry ghost-eater and the ghosts start fleeing in fear of him instead of following him in an attempt to eat him. The prey becomes the predator, at least for a short while.

  Theo had coined his own, more complex version. He called it the transitive Pac-Man maneuver. In this transitive version, the target company, T, is about to be taken over by the acquirer, A, only for a third player, company P, to target A and then be bought by T. In this way, the target performs a Pac-Man defense on the acquirer through this other third player.

  What he did in this case, though, was even more complex, and he came up with a new term for it: the Cold War takeout. In this case, a faction of the acquiring company attacks the apparent target T but in reality wants a different target U; a different faction of the acquirer reacts and neutralizes the threat by attacking U, putting it (via a transitive Pac-Man maneuver) in the hands of T, which then becomes a permanent ally. There are spies everywhere and almost everyone acts according to their own agenda. Companies as a whole matter very little and the players are individuals trying to deceive each other.

  I remember all this because Theo explained it to me many times. Boy, how he loves to brag about his conquests. Like most men, the only thing he enjoys more than butchering an enemy is telling everyone how he butchered his enemy and how good it was.

  I don’t care much about those gory battle tactics. What I admire most in his modus operandi are subtle traces of prescience, like a kind of magic. For example, when he set me up for a “date” with Sandor, he knew I’d wear the locket without him even mentioning it, and without me even suspecting what it was or what he wanted it for.

  Just as accurately as he predicted my actions, he guessed at Sandor’s motivations. This is one of the marks of the shark, getting into the minds of his enemies before making a move.

  “If you knew what Sandor was up to, you could have done this before. You didn’t need to wait so long,” I protest. I’m lying beside him on my bed, kissing his hairy chest, feeling the hardness and weight of his muscular arm.

  “Oh, I knew he was an asshole,” he replies. “But I wanted you to know it. From his own lips.”

  I keep arguing, only stopping once in a while to kiss his chest some more.

  “But you didn’t know he was going to tell me. You just set up a date. He decided to tell me because...”

  “... because you’re a fine piece of ass,” Theo interrupts me, with his typical finesse. “And more than that. I think he may be in love with you. I was pretty sure he would try to win you over. That’s what I would have done in his place.”

  “Would you?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “So, what you’re telling me is that you may be in love with me?”

  “Not in the books,” he replies, and says no more. Conveniently, he starts kissing me, but then we both erupt in laughter and have to stop.

  We keep laughing together for a while, and then fall asleep.

  22. HERE NOW

  A few weeks ago, nobody in their right mind would have imagined that Theo Lambert would give the big step. For him, marriage was like a dark, intolerable prison.

  And yet, here we are, descending on the big circle painted on the boat’s deck.

  From up above, the gathering looks like a black garden full of colorful flowers, as the dresses of the women contrast with the black suits of the men. Dad is there, looking healthier and happier than ever. He covers his eyes with his hand to block the sun as the helicopter descends slowly and finally comes to rest in the center of the circle. Callie is there too, and Maurice, which makes me glad because I’d thought he wouldn’t come. A few members of my extended family have come as well, as well as a dozen friends and relatives of Theo’s.

  People who aren’t here: Marcus Feller, Sandor Vandell. People who fell off our story, never to return. It’s been six months since Everwood Press took control of WildImprints and there hasn’t been any reason to go back to that darkness. Bad apples rot alone.

  Someone who’s also not here: Vanina Vokhtazin. Yes, I googled her. I feel bad for the girl. I hope she can find happiness whatever she does, wherever she goes. But this ship has sailed.

  Theo arranged the wedding to be performed on a boat, in secret, because he didn’t want the press to ruin it. “I already have enough of the magazines when I’m not getting married,” he told me. “I d
on’t need more coverage.” I concur. In my mind, I can already see the titles they would publish: “TAMED!” “SOLD!” “OUT OF THE MARKET!” We don’t need that.

  Also, getting married on a boat is cool.

  Theo opens the door of the helicopter and gets down first. Then he extends his arm to help me. When the engine stops, I can hear everyone’s cheers over the sound of the boat cutting the waves.

  Callie is the first one to come and hug me. She’s in tears before we even touch each other. Her hug is the most intense I’ve been given in my whole life. She’s so genuinely happy for me that she’s making me even happier than I already was. Damn, I truly couldn’t have asked for a better friend.

  We make the whole round of hugs and kisses on the deck, beside the helicopter, and then we go inside, where the priest is waiting for us to begin the ceremony. It goes as well as weddings go; I’ll spare you the details, except for the vows. Theo had written some vows, which he read aloud at the ceremony. And since they speak to both of us beautifully, here they are:

  All of my life I’ve been buying and selling things. The idea is, always have been, buying low and selling high; the difference between these two numbers is what businessmen call “happiness”.

  Among businessmen, there is a special class: the ones we call “sharks”. Sharks aren’t content with buying low and selling high. They grab something and crush it until it dies, then they sell whatever took its place. They don’t go in search of opportunities; they create them. For a shark, happiness is not in the numbers, but in crushing and smashing.

  They’re all wrong. What they call “happiness” is a crock of bullshit. Happiness is not there and will never be there. To be happy, you have to be crushed. You have to be bought when you’re at the top and sold on the cheap. My father never understood this, and I was going on the same path until a woman appeared and saved me.

  This woman, Lara Everwood, is you.

  You came to me as a spy, and I blew your cover. But in doing so, I was only blowing mine.