“You know damn well they aren’t my thing,” I told her, earning one of her loud guffaws. “How about we go see an all nude version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream?”
“That sounds delightful! Just tell me these are all young folks because I don’t need to see saggy tits and balls for three hours,” she grumbled, finishing her lemonade and topping us both off.
I enjoyed these afternoons with Maple. She was getting older even though she’d never admit it, and we had the perfect living arrangement, thanks to her foresight. About a year after the plane crash that killed my parents, Maple took the insurance money and bought a duplex in a nice residential neighborhood in the heart of Portland. She rented one side out and we lived in the other, until I finished college. With a proud smile she handed me the deed and said the unit next door was finally empty.
We’ve been neighbors ever since. “It’s a mixed bag, Maple, depending on the role.”
“I guess that’s all right, then. Plenty of time for pre-show cocktails.” My grandma, always worried about the important things.
A knock sounded on the fence that led to the backyard, startling us both. “I’m looking for Poppy Masters,” a deep, very masculine voice called out.
“You selling something?”
“No,” he said, voice clearly amused.
“Then it’s open.”
The wooden door swung open and a tall well-built man in a blue suit, complete with a vest and everything, walked through. He held a soft leather bag as his lean legs carried him up the stairs. “Hello, I am Anderson Hargrave, attorney for the estate of Arden Masters.”
“Arden! What’s that old coot want?” She rolled her eyes but smiled affectionately at the mention of her brother. Older by nearly twenty years, they’d never been close.
“I’m sorry ma’am but Mr. Masters died about a week ago.” He offered up a polite smile of condolences.
“No one told me,” Maple grumbled.
“I’m Poppy and this is Maple, Arden’s kid sister.” His skin paled, but only slightly.
“Poppy Masters, according to Mr. Arden Masters’ wishes, you are the sole beneficiary of Out & About Apparel. You may do with it what you wish, but only after running it for twelve months.” He kept talking, about money and a home in Aspen and a bunch of other details I zoned out on because, what the hell had just happened? “Do you have any questions?”
Only about a million, but the most pressing popped out first. “Why me?”
He smiled, and damn but he was a good looking guy. Not that I was in the market for any kind of guy, but I could enjoy the view. “You are the youngest Master among Arden’s children as well as his nieces and nephews, unmarried and with a skillset Out & About Apparel could use.”
I blinked. “Seriously?” He nodded. “Well then I suppose you should have a seat and tell me everything.”
Blake
“I can deliver what you want, Mr. Sayers. For a small favor in return.” Victoria Sanchez sat on the other side of my large oak desk, perched on the edge of the leather chair in her pink and gray suit, looking every bit the socialite she was.
But the fact was, I wanted Out & About Apparel and she could help me get it. But favors had a way of coming back to bite you in the ass and I only allowed that in the bedroom. “I wonder how small this favor is, that you’re willing to sell your shares of a highly profitable company to get it.”
She smiled, her recent Botox injections making her look shocked rather than youthful. “Well you are offering more than they are worth at the moment.”
And if I didn’t get all the shares I needed for a takeover soon, I would end up paying more than the shares were worth. Despite the fact that this long lost heiress didn’t know a damn thing about outdoor sports or apparel, somehow they’d bounced back from the past few quarters. They were still lower than Out & About usually did, but still number one in Oregon and throughout the Northwest. “At the moment,” I repeated firmly.
“Right. Well, Christianne is in need of a man with a firm hand to guide her. You could be that man.”
What Christianne needed was a babysitter and maybe an exorcist. “I’m not marrying your daughter for a company, Victoria.”
She flashed a small smile. “It was worth a try. But I am still willing to help.”
“Why?”
“That woman is awful! She shows up to work in jeans. She has purple hair, Blake, purple! No sense of decorum.” She sniffed the air and shook her head, completely dismayed. “Anyone would be preferable to her.”
“And I thought you were all about the money, Victoria.”
“Well I do love it,” she said wistfully. “But I’ve been on the board of Out & About Apparel for a long time and I’d hate to see it fail because of some silly will stipulation.” She looked at me with an assessing gaze. “She’s a chubby girl who dresses oddly Blake, surely that face and charm are good for something?” She stood and left, leaving me along with my thoughts.
I prefer to play by the rules. Rules gave you a clear outline of what was right and wrong, leaving a whole swath of gray open to creative thinkers like myself, and since seduction didn’t break any rules, it was always option. It would definitely stay on my list of options but buying the board’s shares would be easier. Most of them had shown an interest in selling thanks to their lack of faith in the Masters heiress. A takeover was less complicated and messy, which I preferred. I liked to keep my business and my life neat. Tidy.
I buzzed my assistant. “Get Lacey and Lukas in here, please.” My younger siblings were not only twins, they also worked at our family company, Peak Adventures. We planned extraordinary adventures all over the world and our apparel line is slowly growing. Too damn slowly.
“What’s up, big brother? Looking for another company to steal?” Lacey marched in, dark blond curls swinging with every step and our mother’s deep brown eyes glared at me.
“I’m not trying to steal a damn thing. I’ll make a proper offer on it, but if I don’t need to, I won’t.” It’s not like I woke up one day and thought, ‘hey a hostile takeover is what I need to spice up my life’. Arden Masters wouldn’t consider selling and I understood, it was his business and he’d worked hard to build it. But this heiress, she didn’t have any such connection so a takeover might be easier than waiting for her to work through her own thoughts of Out & About Apparel.
Lacey dropped down into her seat with all the drama of the only girl in a family of brothers while Lukas took a more sedate approach, making sure his black suit didn’t get wrinkled in the process. “I don’t get it. You only want the company because it’s out performing our apparel division!”
“Someone give that girl a cookie,” I said sarcastically, ignoring the way she stuck her tongue out. “Yes, Lacey, that is how business works.”
She gave me a one finger salute and threw in a grunt just to make sure I knew how unhappy she was with me. “I know that, dumbass. What I’m saying is that you have no desire to change our old, ugly and outdated apparel. You’re happy to keep clothes on the racks that Jane Fonda and JFK used to wear out in the woods. So what, you buy Out & About Apparel and then you have the same shitty designer create their stuff until the brand is dead too? Great job, brother dearest. Excellent business sense,” she said sarcastically.
“What do you think, Lukas?” I could always count on my brother to keep emotions out of business matters.
“I think Lacey could have made her point more delicately, but she’s not wrong. Take a look at how many employees actually use the discounts offered.” He waited while I pulled up the numbers, muttering an expletive. “Exactly.”
Not one employee discount had been issued in the last three years. “How is that possible?”
“Two words,” Lacey began, holding up one finger and then the other. “Ugly. Shit.” She sat forward, all business now. “Seriously Blake. The problem is the style, the color, the design and the color.”
“You already said that.”
She grin
ned. “That’s how big of a problem it is. But since you won’t listen, neither will Greta the Great,” she said sarcastically, using the nickname I’d heard around the office for our Lead Designer. “Maybe, just maybe, we should try to clean up the shit in our own backyard before adding a brand new playground.”
Lukas snickered at his twin. “That was some metaphor, Lace.”
“Right?” Her tone was proud, clear she’d taken it as a compliment.
“I want Out & About Apparel,” I told both of my siblings in no uncertain terms. “Lacey you’re coming with me to do a tour of the place.”
She shrugged. “When? I’d love to get a look inside that place.” The building was magnificent, rumored to be a converted silo because of the tall glass elevator at one end of the red brick building.
“I’m still working on a date.” The new owner wasn’t being very cooperative in setting up a tour. “You’d think the woman would be eager to collect the cash and run.”
“Careful big brother, your bitterness is showing,” Lacey said in that sing-song voice that I loathed.
“Then I’m counting on you, Lacey, to make her like me.”
“Just try to be…less you,” Lacey whispered as we sat in the waiting area, where we’d been for the past twenty minutes.
“You say the sweetest things.”
She laughed. “I’m just saying, you come off a little arrogant and condescending.”
It wasn’t the first time I’d heard it and it wasn’t even the first time this week Lacey had said it to me, but it didn’t bother me. “It’s not a beauty pageant.”
“Ms. Masters will see you now.” A curvy redhead stood in front of us with a polite smile on her face. “Can I get either of you a drink?”
I grunted a refusal but Lacey never did. “Do you have green tea, I’m feeling a little jittery today.”
The woman turned with a smile. “I have some matcha that will fix you up, if you’re game.”
“You are a goddess,” Lacey told the woman as we followed her into the office.
“Ms. Masters, I’m glad we could finally meet.” I punctuated my words to let her know that I was unhappy with waiting two weeks to get in here.
She looked unconcerned as she stood and accepted my hand. “Mr. Sayers, have a seat.” I blinked at her command but her attention was already on my sister. “Ms. Sayers, nice to meet you. Your ads for the light up snowboards were amazing.”
Lacey flushed an alarming shade of pink as she extracted her hand from the woman and fell into the chair beside me. “Thanks.”
While she and Lacey chatted, I looked at the woman called Poppy Masters. She was almost exactly as Victoria had described, except she wasn’t chubby. No, she was tall and curvy, maybe even supple from what I could see of her, but not chubby. The rest though? The ends of her sable hair looked like they were dipped in purple paint, she wore a small gem in her nose though I couldn’t see the color from this angle, and she had on jeans with a t-shirt and a red leather jacket.
“So, Mr. Sayers, what can I do for you?”
“I think you mean what I can do for you,” I told her confidently because I’d looked into her. As much as there was to look into, anyway. For a graphic designer who did most of her work remotely before inheriting Out & About, she had a small online footprint. “I’m willing to buy your company from you for a very fair price, and you needn’t worry about what will happen to your family’s company. I fully intend to keep it as is.” I kept my gaze on her, waiting for her to look away. She never did.
In fact, Ms. Masters held my gaze, studying me. But those blue-green eyes gave nothing away. “Who said I was interested in selling?”
I leaned forward and flashed a smile that no woman could resist. “Come on, Ms. Masters, be serious. What do you know about running a company, particularly one so targeted?”
Lacey sucked in a breath and muttered, “Crap,” so low it wouldn’t have been heard except for the deafening silence in the room.
“First of all, Mr. Sayers, my proficiency is none of your concern, but since you are so interested I’ll tell you I was born and raised in this town. I’ve climbed Hood and Jefferson. I have a degree in business and marketing, and I already run my own business.”
She was hot when she got all fired up like that, but I didn’t like difficult women. At all. “Doing a few graphics jobs here and there isn’t working for yourself.”
She stood and crossed her arms. “If I ever decide to sell my company, it won’t be to someone who clearly does half assed research.”
“You don’t want this to get ugly, Ms. Sanders.”
She smiled and for a moment, a brief one, I was stunned. She wasn’t just pretty, she was beautiful. “I believe I do, Mr. Sayers.”
And stupid, clearly. “Then that’s how we’ll do it.”
Her laugh was thick and soft, like making out on a blanket in front of the fire. “Oh please, that was your plan from the start, let’s not pretend otherwise.”
Lacey jumped up. “Don’t mind my older brother. He’s not used to people telling him no, especially not women people. Thinks his charm can achieve anything.” She smiled, and surprisingly, Ms. Masters smiled in return.
“Well, we all have our delusions. Some days, I think I’m five-two and can sing like Adele.” She shrugged, commiserating with my sister like they were talking about a precocious child.
Lacey’s smile widened. “I like you.”
“I like you too, Lacey. I may not even hold your brother against you.”
“He’s right here,” I said angrily to both of them.
“Not for long,” Ms. Masters said, rounding her desk and pulling the door open, staring at me.
I stood and waited for Lacey to pass and then I stopped in front of the dreadful woman with the purple hair. With those crazy boots on she was just a few inches shorter than my six-four, and eager to get in my face too. “I hoped you’d be nice about this.”
“You mean you hoped I’d acquiesce.”
“Call it what you like.”
“Spoiled, that’s what I call it. I don’t want to sell my company so you’ll try every dirty trick in the book to get it. Yep, sounds like a spoiled brat to me.” Lacey snickered behind me but I couldn’t even respond because I was too distracted by the splash of freckles on her nose and cheeks, or the marble swirl of blue and green in her eyes. She licked her lips, drawing my attention to her lush, glossy pink lips. “Have a good day, Mr. Sayers.” She slid around me and went to Lacey. “Nice to meet you too, Lacey.”
I stared at her for a long second, trying to figure her out. Was this some kind of ploy to get more money out of me for the sale of the company or did the crazy woman actually think she could run the company?
I shrugged and walked away without another look. She didn’t want to do this the easy way, then the hard way it would be.
Poppy
“Thanks for your help, Bette.” The efficiency expert I hired before I walked into Out & About Apparel offices because I needed to know what I was up against, had just given me a preliminary report. The one thing I knew about corporations was that they thrived on waste. Used a lot of money on unnecessary things, usually at the top. I needed an objective opinion, one I could trust, before I could make any real decisions about OAA.
“No problem. So far things look like what you’d expect, but I’ll keep you up to date.”
“Once a week is plenty until you’ve finished your report,” I assured her. I’d spent the first six or seven weeks getting to know every one and every department as best I could which meant everyone was nervous around me, worried about their jobs. They didn’t need to worry, though because the company was performing well. Better than well and with minimum waste once you moved away from the executives.
The board members, were just plain assholes. At least some of them, which was weird because I was under the impression that they only cared about the money in the bank each quarter.
One member in particular, a woman
with an affinity for pink suits, had been very nasty. Apparently, she didn’t appreciate my hair or my clothes. Or my ideas, though I suspect she hated the source more than the content. Not that I cared. Much. With majority stock in the company there wasn’t much they could do, individually. But the threat of Blake Sayers loomed over me like a damn black cloud.
It didn’t help that he showed up at the office whenever he pleased, with one board member or another in tow. The move was meant to intimidate me, make me worry about what he was plotting. But I already knew and I had an appointment with Mr. Hargrave just to straighten a few details out. Just in case. There was no reason why I should feel so proprietary of the company already, but I did. It was mine and while I had it, I would make sure the place was the best it could be. If I decided to sell, it wouldn’t be to Blake Sayers and it wouldn’t be before the year was up.
“Hey Poppy, what do you think if we make these thermal shirts reversible?” Reggie was the assistant lead designer and eye for color that helped Out & About Apparel rebound after two consecutive quarters below average.
“I like it. What if we invert the threading on the logo on one side? That way it looks like two different shirts.” He contemplated a moment and smiled.
“I think I like it. I’ll show you the finished product,” he said and raced off while I walked around just getting a glimpse of what’s going on. This was my favorite place in the whole building, always buzzing with energy.
“Are we in trouble or something?” April, the tall thin blond who ran design asked with nervousness. She was beautiful and capable and kind, a killer combination that was as rare as a unicorn.
“No, why do you ask?”
She looked over her shoulder and back at me. “You’re down here a lot and people are…worried.”
Naughty Takeover_An Enemies to Lovers Romance Page 11
