by Jessica Loft
He didn’t have to say anything. The look in his eyes told her everything she needed to know. He took her in his strong, toned arms, looked deep into her eyes and kissed her, passionately.
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More Than A Merger
Chapter 1
Her eyes seemed ready to bulge out of their sockets as she looked at him. He had to be kidding.
“Look Jessie. I understand that this may come as a shock to you, but it really is for the best.”
“For the best, Frank? For whom? Not me, that’s for sure.”
“I understand you’re upset, but this was an offer I couldn’t refuse. It was too good of an opportunity to pass up.”
“I’m sure. Look, I get it Frank, but to sell out? Why?”
“I’m ready to retire. As simple as that.” He patted her on the back. “Yes, I know as CEO you run the place and I put my total confidence in your abilities. I always have. You’ve been the son I never had, Jessie.”
“Thank you Frank, that is sweet, but that doesn’t help me now that I’m out of a job with no warning.” She shook her head in dismay as she fell back into her chair. Jessie had been the CEO of Billings, Inc. for over 6 years. It was her life. She was an only child and after her parent’s death, she devoted all of her time and energy to her career. Now, that was being taken away too. His next words caused her head to jerk back up to look at him.
“No, you misunderstand, Jessie. You’re not out of a job. On the contrary. Nobody is. That was one of the stipulations of the deal. It’s just new ownership.” He looked at her for understanding. “ I’d like to retire. I’m old and I want to live out my days on some sandy beach with little umbrellas in my drinks. I would never throw you to the wolves’ child.”
She took in a deep breath and slowly released it. “So we run as usual then?” Her eyes narrowed as she watched him shuffle his feet.
“Well.”
“Well what, Frank?” There was a warning in her voice, with good reason, as she nudged him to answer.
“It’s a merger. It will be one huge company when it’s all done, so you will have to work with their CEO.”
“So they are local then?” She thought for a minute. There were only a few advertising companies in the area. Her eyes widened as she realized who it was. “Not Capers Corp.”
At the guilty look he gave her she knew she had figured it out. Capers Corp. was their biggest competitor. Their CEO, Damon Sinclair, was an arrogant, rude man. She had encountered him multiple times at functions they both had attended, he always seeming to love being the center of attention. Although they had shared time at the same place more times than she could count, they never spoke. Then again, why would they? He was the enemy. Her competition. Now he would be her co-worker.
“Yes. Capers Corp. But you will be sharing the CEO role with Sinclair. Neither of you will have more power than the other. You’ll both have to learn to work together.”
“You want me to work with that pompous windbag?”
“You don’t even know him, Jessie.”
“Yes, I do. I know plenty.”
“Do you now? So you have spoken to him? I know you know who he is, but do you really know him?” His eyebrow shot up on one side with the question.
“No, I’ve never spoken to him. But, I do know of him plenty from reading the newspaper. He cares about nothing but his own personal gain.”
“Yes, he is very dedicated, but then again, so are you.” He gave her a look that had her frowning. “Anyway, you need to put your differences aside for the sake of the company. He should be here in…hmm,” looking down at his watch, “about 20 minutes, I’d say.”
“What? You’re kidding?”
“Nope, so you have 20 minutes to pack and relocate your stuff to my office if you want to claim it, before he comes and takes it for himself.”
She hurried to gather her things into the box he’d brought with him. The box had been the main reason she had jumped to the conclusion she was out of a job in the first place. There wasn’t time to think about that right now, she wanted Frank’s office. And she definitely didn’t want Sinclair to have it. Although the two spaces were almost the identical in size, Frank’s was a corner office which provided the best view of the city. It was breathtaking, to say the least. Her office faced the parking lot and the huge building beside them.
She had just finished arranging her pictures on her desk and sat down to turn on her computer when she heard the elevator. Their floor only consisted of two offices and a bathroom, so she knew it was them. She started moving folders around on the desktop and saving everything from her portable hard drive onto it wanting to seem busy. She glanced down and noticed the empty box sitting beside her. Worried they would push her back into her old office, she pushed the box under her huge desk with her feet, just in the nick of time.
“Jessie. This is Damon Sinclair.” Frank announced from her doorway.
She looked up at the men in front of her. Damon Sinclair was standing arrogantly next to Frank. If she had been in the mood to be objective and honest, she would have to admit how gorgeous he really was. His brown hair lying perfectly at his collar and dark blue eyes staring at her, intense and electrifying. Her eyes slowly slid down his toned body to his shiny shoes, then back up the perfectly tailored suit. When their eyes met again, she could see the laughter in them. He knew she was checking him out. Her cheeks flushed crimson to causing a wide smile to spread across his face. She was amusing him and that angered her even more. But, being the professional she was, she reigned in her anger and turned her focus to the reason he was there and returned his smile with a nice big, fake smile.
“Hello, Mr. Sinclair. Welcome to our office,” she drawled, making a point to emphasize the word ‘our’ in the sentence.
He smiled again. “Thank you. I am glad to be included.” She realized that he was taking the “our” in the sentence to mean the two of them. “I’m afraid that Johnny couldn’t come right now, so it is just me. I figured I would get set up, then we could meet tomorrow morning and go over some of the plans for both companies. I will have IT in here tomorrow setting you up as well.”
“Setting me up for what?”
“Well, we need to merge the files, of course. So I am having our data brought here to combine client lists and go over them together. Don’t worry, I will have my assistant get everything together for you.”
“Your assistant?”
“Yeah. Becca is the best.” The way he said it gave her a funny feeling in her stomach. Office drama was the last thing she needed right now.
“That will be fine. I need to scan through my client lists anyways and have my people notify them about the change of hands.”
“That is unnecessary, I’ll handle that.” He leaned back against the doorframe. Jessie could feel her anger bubbling up inside her threatening to explode. Who did he think he was to come in here and start throwing his weight around like he is the boss?
“Please, Mr. Sinclair.” She said sweetly with a sarcastic undertone. “I can handle my own clients. I have been doing it for quite some time now. I don’t need you to take them or anything else.”
“Fine by me.” He waved his arm through the air. “I’ll see you tomorrow then. Oh, and Jessie, please call me Damon.” He turned and strode away.
She could see the determination in each step, and with each step he took, she grew angrier. Did he just dismiss her like she was a child? Yes, this was going to be a whole lot harder than she thought. Mr. Damon Sinclair was going to be a handful, but he clearly had no idea just who he was dealing with.
Chapter 2
Jessie went home that night with an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. She couldn’t shake the sense that something big was about to happen. It would seem like the company being sold and finding out she’d be working closely with someone she couldn’t stand would have qualified as big, but that wasn’t it, something else was n
agging at her. Shaking her head slowly she made her way into the house.
Throwing her purse on her entry table and sliding out of her heals, she sighed in relief. She was grateful to have such a good job, but she knew she’d worked hard for it as well. It hadn’t been handed to her on a silver platter; she’d fought her way up the corporate ladder and had finally reached the top. Her house she felt was modest, with three-bedrooms, a pool in the backyard, and a fence around the entire property. It was the typical home that most women dreamed of having. White picket fence and all. It was a place she could call home and revel in her solitude.
Jessie made her way to favorite place in the house. A cozy room off of the kitchen she had converted into a small library. She filled it with the books she had gathered over the years. Some of them had been hard to find. But she loved to read...it was her greatest source of enjoyment. It was her escape.
As she walked through the door of the library her stomach growled loudly. Sitting in her oversized, soft lounger reading a good book would have to wait. She realized that she had been so caught up in Damon Sinclair that she hadn’t taken a lunch that day. Now she was famished. Not really feeling like going out to get something, she made her way into the kitchen and threw some leftovers from the night before into the microwave. Even though she was starving, she sat down at her granite island and slowly picked at the old pizza and fries while she thought about the events that had occurred that day.
After more than 30 minutes of picking at her food Jessie decided to stop forcing herself to eat and head up early for a nice, hot, shower and bed, instead. Sleep proved to be elusive. Jessie spent what seemed like hours tossing and turning, unable to stop the thoughts racing through her mind. By the time she finally fell asleep the images that came were haunting. Dark, piercing blue eyes, a sexy grin, and herself smiling with a sigh on her lips.
Jessie woke up the next morning tired and irritated. She slid off the bed and stomped into the kitchen to brew herself a hot cup of coffee. Staring at the dark mud pouring into the mug she wondered what the day would bring. It was going to be her first full day working with her nemesis, and now co-CEO, Damon Sinclair. She hadn’t even met that new owner yet. Damon had mentioned that due to a trip out of town, possibly a week would go by before she could meet him or her.
She grabbed her mug from the Keurig, purse at the front door, and slid her feet into her heels ready to start her day. An hour later she pulled into her parking space outside the building and made her way into the office. The building was completely quiet and dark as usual, she cherished her personal, quiet, alone time. Arriving at 6 a.m. gave her solitude to devote everything she had to her work without interruptions. She was always one of the first to arrive, a fact that she believed had contributed to her move up the corporate ladder. She sat down at her desk and lost herself in her clients and files.
It was some time later before she heard any noise on her floor. Looking down at the clock she seethed with anger. It was after 9! She heard the whistling before she saw his face pop into her office.
“Good morning.”
She looked up at him with a frown. “Don’t you mean afternoon? It is well after 9 o’clock.”
“Well, actually afternoon is from lunch to dinner, so you see it is still morning. Unless you get up in the middle of the night and go to bed with the sun that is.” He quirked a questioning eyebrow at her before she grimaced and looked the other way.
She heard the chuckle as he walked away. It made her boil with anger inside. If they were to be considered equals, she expected him to do just as much work as she did, and that meant showing up for work at a reasonable hour. Who does he think he is? She felt a strong need to scream and throw something. Taking a deep breath and loosening her tense muscles she forced herself to calm down. She knew that it wasn’t just because he was late she was so angry. It was a mixture of everything. Damon was cocky and arrogant. He was quite the ladies-man, with a reputation for jumping from bed to bed; she had heard the countless stories of his exploits. Just from these two days of meeting him she could already tell how irresponsible he was. It would be like having a child in the office, babysitting wasn’t in her job description. She didn’t know how she was going to do this, but she needed to get rid of him. There was no way she was going to just let all of the hard work she had done to get where she was go to waste. This company was everything to her and all she had.
The next couple of hours went by slowly and things were quiet. She had almost forgotten Damon was there until his head poked into her office at noon. “Hey, watcha doing for lunch?”
With a deep sigh, her head rose to look at him. “I have a salad.”
“Ugh…how boring! Come on, let’s go to lunch.”
She sat back in her chair and glared at him, slowly crossing her arms in front of her. She couldn’t imagine why, but the way he was looking at her had her feeling a little insecure. “I have a salad, I’m fine,” she looked at him passively and didn’t say another word.
“Suit yourself. I’m sure I can find some other pretty lady to go to lunch with me if you won’t. Have a good one then.” He turned and started whistling as he made his way to the elevator. She heard the ding as the doors slid open and then shut. Making her way to the small refrigerator she had in her office, she pulled out the salad she had bought from the store. As she sat back down at her desk looking at it, she suddenly didn’t want it. For some reason, it didn’t seem appetizing anymore.
Chapter 3
It was an hour later when she heard the ding again. This time the sound of female giggling echoed through the halls. Jessie didn’t know why but it made her anger burn even more at the fact that he would bring some flighty woman back to the office with him.
She walked over to her door and slowly closed it trying not to be seen, but not before looking out to see him standing there with a petite blonde. Damon turned and smiled a greeting, but the blonde woman’s expression was more of a threatening glare. Apparently the girl thought she had some claim to him, and wanted to make sure Jessie knew it. Ignoring the girls stare, Jessie quickly closed the door. She could hear his low voice in almost a whisper through the door, setting off more giggling from the girl.
She sat down angrily at her desk and threw herself back into her work, trying to ignore the sounds coming from the other room. Hours later, Jessie glanced down at the corner of her computer screen, startled to realize that it was close to 7 o’clock. It was time to go. Past time. She rose slowly and stretched her arms in the air with a yawn. Grabbing her purse, she slowly shut down the computer and started out of her office, stiff from lack of movement.
“Well look who decided to join the living today.”
She looked up to see him standing at her door. She shook her head as she pushed by him. “Good night Mr. Sinclair.”
“Actually, I’ll join you for the ride down, if you don’t mind.” Not waiting for her response he came up behind her. Taking a deep breath, she prepared herself to be next to him in the small elevator space. She could already feel herself having trouble breathing. It was just an elevator ride for Pete’s sake, but something about him was making her jittery. Being alone with him made her uncomfortable, and the idea of sharing the confined space was not helping.
They stepped in unison into the elevator and she reached over to push the button. He did the same and his finger slid over hers, causing her to jerk away. He chuckled.
“You are a very uptight woman aren’t you?”
“I just didn’t expect—” she refused to look at him as she spoke, instead trying to find a focal point to concentrate on in the silver interior of the elevator.
“I know. Me either. It’s funny how things happen, don’t you think?”
She turned to look at him then. “I don’t know what you mean?”
“You will.”
“Really?”
“Yes.” The elevator stopped at the ground level and he smiled at her. A tempting and irresistible grin. It screamed sex and
gave her the impression that he knew exactly what he was doing. “Ah, we’re here. Shall we?” He gave her a bow with a huge flourish of his arm and held the door for her to walk through.
“Thank you.”
She was surprised to find him walking beside her to her car. They walked in silence, and the short distance to her car felt like a mile. When they finally arrived at the driver side of her Tesla, Damon opened her door and held it open while she got in to the driver’s seat. “I want to talk to you about tomorrow.” He said.
“Yes?” She looked up at him with a look of wonder. What could he be talking about?
“I want to start planning a party. You know a merging party. To start the whole project out right, you know?”
“Oh. Sure. That would be nice.” Jessie replied, relieved it was just about a party.
“Would you help me plan it, though? I’m not good at those sorts of things and could use the help.”
“Okay. I would love to help, although it might not be up to your standards.”
He chuckled. “Good. Tomorrow we can send out a mass email informing the employees when it will be and go from there.”
“Sounds good. Have a good night.” Jessie said with a small smile.
“You too. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Chapter 4
When she arrived the next morning, Damon was already there. She was surprised and even slightly irritated that he was disrupting her morning solitude. She called out a polite good morning anyway and headed for her office. At least she could close her door and ignore him. She sat down at her desk and powered up her computer, maybe she could complete the two projects that came through her email last night before lunch. Moments later she looked up from her desk with a frown as Damon came barging through her door.
