by Lexi Blake
“Such rubbish.” But Weston gave his wife a wink. “Amy’s got to be curious about how you afford this place.”
“She hasn’t asked. Not at all.” Because she was being polite or because she knew the truth? “If she does, I’ll explain that my father was a wealthy man and leave it at that. I don’t suspect you go into how your family owns a good portion of England.”
“No, I don’t.”
“He had a relative who got his head cut off for screwing around with Anne Boleyn,” Chelsea said cheerfully. “I mention that all the time.”
“Yes, well, luckily we Westons were a fertile lot. We did seem to get executed quite a bit. I should never have allowed Chelsea to spend time with my mother. She thought it would do her new daughter-in-law good to hear all the family stories. She wanted Chelsea to know what a noble line she was marrying into. Sadly, all my wife was interested in were the criminals and philanderers.”
“Hey, I told your mom all about my Russian mobster family,” Chelsea offered cheerfully.
“Yes, it’s the only time I’ve seen my mother faint.”
“That was not about my family. That was the caviar. I’m certain it was bad. It tasted horrible. Why can’t anyone in your family simply make a grilled cheese? Lunch is like fifteen courses long.”
They were off, bickering in their affectionate way.
And he missed Amy. Despite what had happened this morning, he felt the hours they’d spent apart.
What the hell was he going to do if he found out she was lying?
And what would he do if she wasn’t?
* * * *
Amy was glad she wasn’t on the computer with Frankie. He’d called in but she’d put him on speakerphone instead of Skype. It was a good thing or he would likely see the ridiculously silly grin on her face.
“I like him.”
His golden voice came over the line. “Yes, I can hear that in your voice. And you said his name was Flynn, right?”
Oh, he wasn’t pulling that trick on her. She knew exactly what he would do if he had a full name. There would be a PI on Flynn’s ass before they hung up the phone. “Yes, and that’s all you’re getting out of me, mister. I know your tricks all too well. I don’t want you running some kind of security check on my new boyfriend.”
There was a pause on the line. “I thought you said this was casual.”
Yes, so glad they weren’t staring at each other over a screen or he would have seen her blush. “It is. I misspoke. Honestly, we’ve only had a couple of dates.”
And the hottest night of her life. After the weirdness of Flynn catching her trying to use his computer, he’d gone right back to crazy sexy lover mode. He’d tossed her on his bed and he hadn’t let her up for hours. He’d devoured her like a starving man. She could still feel his hands on her.
“Dates? I thought he was your training Dom. You’re supposed to see him in class for the first few weeks and then in the club.”
When had he gotten so particular about the rules? Of which there were none at Sanctum. They were very much “live and let fuck.” “We’ve been out to dinner a few times. Sanctum isn’t like your club. They’re all friends so they don’t have such rigid rules about contact among trainees.”
“Well, maybe they should. You don’t know this man. I don’t know this man. Does your sister know him?”
She shouldn’t have said anything beyond it was going nicely and she was enjoying the class. “Bridget doesn’t know him, but he’s Will’s best friend’s brother, and Flynn and Will seem to get along well.”
At least they had in the ER when they were working in tandem to treat her like an invalid.
“I like Will. He’s got a good head on his shoulders, but with the baby coming and him being promoted to head of Neurosurgery, I don’t think he can properly look after you.”
She felt her hands clench. She hated that idea. That she needed to be looked after. Like she wasn’t competent.
Except with Flynn. He hadn’t treated her like she wasn’t smart enough to take care of herself. She’d been hurt and he’d been there to make things easier for her. He’d taken care of her and let her take care of him. That had felt like real caring. A true exchange of affections.
“Don’t. Don’t treat me like I don’t have a brain in my head.” She’d had far too much of that to last a lifetime. No matter what she’d done, her father had treated her as incompetent. The only reason he’d promoted her up the ranks was she had the name Slaten. If there had been a brother around she wouldn’t have been encouraged to go to school at all. There were still members of her board who thought because she didn’t have a penis she couldn’t properly run the company. She couldn’t handle it coming from Frankie.
“Hey.” His voice lowered and though she couldn’t see him, she could practically feel his hand on hers. “I didn’t mean it that way.”
She knew he was trying to protect her, but his version of protection would be selecting a date for her and ensuring that he treated her properly. Frankie couldn’t help himself. When he loved, he tended to try to take over.
But she wasn’t his wife or his lover or his soul mate. She’d loved him, did love him, but she needed to make her own decisions about her love life. She’d been strong enough to take the company away from her father, strong enough to move them across the country and press on with her vision. She had to be strong enough to risk her heart for the right man.
“You did,” she replied, but with a softer tone. “You think I’m naïve about men. You know I’ve had some sex in my time. I’m not exactly a virgin.”
“Yes, but that was all about pleasure, my darling girl,” he replied with a long sigh. “If I thought for a second you were simply enjoying this man, I wouldn’t say a thing. When it comes to love, you’ve only really had one of those and he proved to be so very inadequate.”
Tears threatened. Something about being able to cry the night before had made her more emotional this afternoon. Opening up to Flynn had made her more vulnerable to everything. “You weren’t inadequate, Frankie. You just couldn’t love me back.”
“Loving you wasn’t the problem. I love you so much it hurts.”
Her heart ached, but she’d dealt with this a very long time ago. She’d known her first love wouldn’t, couldn’t be her last.
“All right, you couldn’t love me the way I need to be loved.” She often thought that Frankie would have been perfectly happy staying married to her. He would have enjoyed living with her, being her companion. Oh, he would have had a boy on the side, but he could have been happy. They’d made their arrangement for business purposes, but she’d seen his sadness when she’d moved out.
She needed more.
“Does it help that I wish I could?” He was quiet for a moment. “I’ll never find a male version of you and I don’t know that I can be happy without it. So I’m being selfish because I don’t want to lose you. You can’t know how important you are to me.”
She could because she felt the same way. “I love you too, Frankie. But I need you to stop being my protector and be my friend. Stop trying to figure out whether Flynn is good for me and accept that he’s in my life.”
There was a pause on the line and then the sound of him sighing. “All right. I can do that on the romance front, but you can’t expect me to do it on the business side. I’ve heard some rumors.”
Rumors were the bane of her existence, but still it was nice to talk about something they could agree on. “Of what?”
“Glendale is meeting with Clannahan.”
The whole room seemed to go cold. Of all the things she wanted to hear, the very last was Glendale having anything at all to do with the Irish company she was courting. “Why the hell would they meet with Clannahan?”
“No idea, but that’s the word on the street,” Frankie replied. “Glendale is looking to buy a couple of smaller companies. From what I understand, they’re looking for a company to help handle some new product they’re developing. Do you kn
ow anything about that?”
“I try to stay as far away from Glendale as I can.”
“Sweetheart, you have to have some sources. You need to figure out what they want from Clannahan. If that means you have to use some of your father’s old connections, you might think about it. It seems to me that Glendale is still up to its old tricks. How else would they have known about Clannahan? It’s a tiny Irish firm with very few connections to the States right now.”
“But they have some very innovative processes when it comes to delivery. It’s precisely why I want to work with them.” But she couldn’t afford to buy them. A merger was what she was looking for.
And yet they were so small. Glendale would need a larger firm. One on US soil. The only reason for them talking to Clannahan was to fuck with Slaten.
If Glendale swooped in and took her prize…she had no idea what she would do.
She took a deep breath. She would simply find another way. She wouldn’t give up. She would never give up fighting for this company and the workers who had shown her such kindness when she was younger, the ones who depended on her now.
She needed to regroup. If they were trying to steal Clannahan, she needed to figure out where her leak was and how to plug it.
There was a brief knock on her door and then it opened. Val scrambled in.
“I’m so sorry. I couldn’t stop him.”
“Babe, I’m going to have to call you back,” she said grimly as her father strode in. Before Frankie could say anything she hung up because she couldn’t spare another second.
The devil was in the room and he demanded all of her attention or he would work his way into some kind of trouble.
“I thought I had barred you from the building.” She forced her whole body to go icy cold. There was no room for anger or real emotion with the man who’d sired her. “Val, could you please call security for me?”
“Don’t bother.” Her father was dressed in what had to be a thousand dollar suit and designer loafers. “I’ll leave as soon as I’ve explained to you that I’m back on the board. Here’s the judge’s ruling that states plainly the tape that fucker Taggart took of me isn’t admissible in a court of law.”
She watched as he placed a folder on her desk. She didn’t bother to open it. A phalanx of lawyers would have already gone through it. She was certain that urgent message from legal had something to do with this. It had come in from California earlier this morning, but she’d been busy with Flynn and then she’d called Frankie.
“I’ll have them argue that California legal standards have nothing to do with our bylaws. The corporate bylaws were written by you.”
His mouth spread in a shark’s grin. “Yes, I believe my lawyers covered that in the case. Legally you can remove me as the CEO because those bylaws were in effect then. I wasn’t arguing that. I was arguing that you couldn’t force me to sell stock I owned. You’ll find Andrew and Aunt Vespa have given the stock back to me. I can now own stock since you changed the bylaws.”
She’d changed the bylaws because they’d been draconian. Oh, she’d used them to oust her father. He’d had a set of strict morality clauses that he’d broken on a daily basis, but used as a whip to put fear into everyone else and bring them into line.
She’d counted on her relatives greed. Originally he’d been forced to divest himself of all stock. Apparently he’d sold it to relatives who’d simply held it until he was ready to spring his trap.
Damn it. Now she would have to deal with the snake in the grass at every board meeting.
How much cash did she have? She could likely buy out her cousins. They were always looking for a quick buck and they tended to not be smart enough to know what financial security really meant. There was also the public stock. She would have to take a look at that.
“Well, then the board meetings should be a blast from now on, Dad.”
His eyes looked vaguely reptilian as he regarded her. Like a snake about to strike. “You know, I underestimated you.”
“You tend to do that with women.”
“I didn’t realize how much you’d learned from the old man. You’ve even managed to put the company in the position where when I get it back, I won’t be able to sell it. Not for a while. Touché, dear daughter. You know if I’d realized you would be more loyal to the idiots who work for us, I would never have allowed you to intern.”
“Why on earth would I show any loyalty to you?” She was pleased with how cold the question came out.
He chuckled as though he found the question endlessly amusing. Very likely he did since he wouldn’t understand what loyalty meant if he was staring at the definition. “Because I raised you, little girl. I brought you in and taught you, and now I’m going to teach you another lesson. I’m going to take this company back and I’m going to ruin you. When I’m done, no one will hire you. I’ll get the company back where it needs to be and then I’ll sell it. All you did was put off my plans. You didn’t ruin them. And thank you for bringing the company here. The taxes are so low. I’ll make a fortune. Don’t expect to be in my will.”
“Don’t expect me to let go without a fight.”
Luckily that was the moment security showed up. Two big men in dark uniforms entered the room. Bill and Carl. They were nice men with families. They worked the day shift and came in early because she so often did. When she’d realized they came in before their shifts started so she wouldn’t be alone in the building, she’d made sure there was coffee and some overtime pay for the two.
“Is this man bothering you, Ms. Slaten?” Carl asked, his voice deep.
This man? He knew exactly who was standing in the room. She kind of loved them both in that moment. “Yes, he is. I think he should definitely leave. Perhaps you could escort him and make sure he finds his way out.”
Bill nodded. “Yeah, Ms. Slaten. We can do that. We wouldn’t want him hanging around.”
If her father was bothered, he didn’t show it. He shrugged. “Well, you won’t be able to keep me away from the board meetings, Amy. I wonder what the rest of the board will think about your newest venture? Really, did you think I wouldn’t find out about the Sanctum thing? How will the board react when they know you’re a fucking pervert? Sweet little Amy is involved in a sex club.”
She felt her cheeks flame, but she refused to back down. “I don’t care what they think of my personal life.”
“Time to go,” Carl bit out, moving in.
Her father’s smile was chilling. “They will care, Amy. Whether or not there’s a morality clause, you know what they’ll think of you and you know it will affect how they see you. I’ll make sure they know everything that goes on at that club. Don’t expect them to look you in the eye again. I’ll make sure everyone here knows what a whore you are.”
Bill nodded her way as he started to follow her father out of the room. Carl closed the door behind him and she was left alone with her assistant.
“Ms. Slaten? Are you all right?” Val asked.
She wanted to cry. It was all falling apart. Her father could hurt her. She could hurt the club if her father decided to go public with what he knew. Had he been following her?
Could he hurt Flynn?
“I’m fine.” She ensured her face was perfectly placid.
“No one will care,” Val said quietly. “Well, some of them will because they’ll want to know where the club is. Is it one of those ones like in your sister’s books? Are the men really attractive?”
Amy was so startled she laughed. “You’re married.”
Val grinned a little. “Yes, I’m married, not dead.” She sobered a bit. “Don’t let him stop you. Every single employee here knows what you sacrificed to save their jobs. We love you, Ms. Slaten, no matter how you choose to relax. But seriously, what about the men?”
She was eased somewhat by her assistant’s kind words. “They’re spectacular. Every single one of them.”
But one in particular was amazing.
Was she going t
o have to choose between her career and Flynn?
“And Val? What’s up with the ‘Ms. Slaten’?” She’d never asked her assistant to call her that. She was much less formal than her father. The only time Val called her Ms. Slaten was around clients.
Val huffed slightly. “That man doesn’t get to call you anything but Ms. Slaten. I don’t think he should be allowed to hear your first name. Ever.”
At least she had allies. “I was named after that man’s mother.”
“I hope she was nicer than he was.”
Her grandmother. She’d been a lovely woman who lived out her last years in a gorgeous beachfront house in Malibu. When she was well she would bring Amy and Bridget out to visit.
The one thing you can’t ever give up on is yourself, my darling.
Those had been the last words she’d heard from her grandmother. She took a deep breath.
“Val, I’m going to need you to call a few people in. We’ve got some work to do. Bring my lawyer in first. And get me everything we have on Padraig and Seamus Clannahan.”
There had to be something she could do. She couldn’t win a money battle with Glendale, but sometimes these small family companies valued other things. If there was a way in, she was going to find it.
It was time to get ready. She was going to war.
She had to wonder what price she would be forced to pay to win.
Chapter Six
Flynn frowned and set his phone back in his locker.
Bear, who had the locker next to him, closed his door with absolutely no sound. For a man named after a grizzly, he moved like a panther. “You alone again tonight?”
It had been a solid two weeks since the morning he’d found Amy sitting at his desk and he was frustrated more and more every day that passed. “Yes. She’s working late. It’s the second time this week. I have to talk to Wade to figure out if she can even complete the class with two absences. I would call her and discuss it, but she’s in a meeting.”
She’d been in a lot of meetings this week. When she was in bed with him, he could feel how close they were. When they weren’t, there was a distance he couldn’t seem to shake.
