Devoted: A Masters and Mercenaries Novella

by Lexi Blake

  “You stay out of this.” Her dad looked like he wanted to hang up that phone, but he thought better of it since Flynn was guarding it. “I have no idea why your sister allowed you any stock at all, much less a voting share. One more ridiculous move she made. I thought you were smarter than this, Amy. I will not allow you to bring my company down.”

  Flynn stood immediately, but someone else put his big body between her and her father.

  “Don’t you even think about touching her.” Frankie. She would know those broad shoulders anywhere.

  She’d been so intent on staring at Flynn that she hadn’t noticed Frankie sitting there.

  “Get out of my way,” her father said. “You don’t belong here either. Unless she talked you into marrying her again. Business is the only way that little bitch can find a husband. I guess you don’t care that she’s been fucking around with that one over there. She’s not exactly your type, is she?”

  Flynn started toward him, but Frankie held a hand out. “Don’t. We’ll never get this done if you’re in jail, Flynn. He’s all talk. Ignore him. Treat him like a troll on the Internet. Don’t feed him.”

  “Punch him instead.” Bridget had always been a little bloodthirsty.

  “You can’t hit him.” Her father would sue Flynn in a heartbeat and they wouldn’t get through this meeting.

  “I’ll let it go for now, but I swear if he says one nasty thing about my…about Amy, I’ll spend the rest of my life making his hell,” Flynn promised.

  “See, Amy, he’s totally likable.” Bridget chuckled over the line.

  “He might be.” Amy couldn’t take her eyes off him. He was here. Right here. It was as though she’d conjured the man in her darkest hour.

  “If you think for a second that you can take my company, you bastard, you’re wrong.” Her father seemed to find a better target in Flynn.

  “It’s not your company,” Flynn shot back.

  “It will be once the rest of the board gets here.” Her father strode back and forth, looking out the glass windows as if waiting for someone.

  He was waiting on Violet and Meryl. He didn’t know they’d sold their stock. He didn’t know he’d lost their votes.

  “He looks angry surprised, right? Damn it. I miss all the good stuff,” Bridget huffed.

  Amy glanced back at Flynn. He looked so good it almost hurt to stare at him.

  “What are you doing here?” She kept her voice down, well aware that she was surrounded by members of her family and they lived to gossip.

  “Trying to make amends. Start the meeting. I want to get this over with. I know you’re nervous, but I’m nervous, too. I want to find out what happens next. I need to know. It’s been killing me.” He turned and walked back to his seat. He was sitting between her uncle and a man who had to be her aunt’s proxy. Frankie took the seat beside where the CEO sat.

  What happened next? She wasn’t so sure what was happening right now. And why was her ex-husband here?

  “Why are you here, Frankie?”

  “I should have been called the minute it all went wrong,” Frankie said with a frown. “The only reason I even know you’re in trouble is Flynn. You didn’t let me help you so I helped him. Now go and start this meeting. Flynn’s right. We need to get this over with as soon as possible.”

  Frankie was helping him? Frankie winked her way. What exactly had they done? What were they going to do?

  A calm came over her as she looked at Flynn.

  What kind of man was he, really? She’d spent weeks with him, gotten to know him intimately. Who was this man? He’d lied to her. He’d tricked her. He’d thought she was the enemy at one point. He’d given her what she needed. He’d held her while she cried.

  He’d made it possible for her to cry.

  Why would he be here today? Why would he have bought the board seat? Seats? Frankie’s money was like hers—tied up in the company at this point. Her mind worked, calculating how much two voting seats could possibly have cost. At the very least fifteen million. If her cousins negotiated at all, likely twenty.

  Flynn had twenty million just lying around?

  His condo. Bridget said he was in the process of moving. Had he sold his condo in order to buy the Slaten stock she needed to retain her job?

  She moved to the head of the table, her heart starting to pound. Whatever happened now changed everything. Flynn glanced up at her, his eyes locking with hers.

  What kind of man was he?

  He was the kind of man who would try to make up for his mistake with a massive gesture. He was the kind of man who might be dumb enough to want a woman so much he lived in a dream world where he let go of reality and prayed for the best. Flynn was a dreamer. She was the realist. He needed her to watch over him while he did all the crazy imaginative things his brilliant brain could do.

  He was her knight in a pocket protector.

  He was here to save her. She knew it suddenly. It was right there in his eyes.

  She was fucking going to win.

  She stood in front of her board. “I call to order this meeting of the Slaten Industries board of directors, the purpose to vote on the confidence or non-confidence of the CEO. I must recuse myself for the simple fact that I am CEO. Can we vote to forego everything but the vote? I need an aye or nay.”

  She easily got the go-ahead for the vote, though her father dissented. No one it seemed wanted to go through all the ritual procedure associated with meetings of this kind.

  Amy ignored him. “Then we’ll get on with it.”

  Her father stood back up. “No. I want to understand where your cousins are and why those two are here now.”

  Flynn sent him a grim grin. “I bought them out so you should stop waiting for them to show up. Because of the way your daughter rewrote the company bylaws, I’ve signed over a voting portion of the stock I own to Frankie. Your daughter is very egalitarian and doesn’t want any one person to have too much power so I had to work around her.”

  Her father nearly went purple. “You can’t do this.”

  “Call the vote.” There was a definite bounce to her sister’s tone, as though she was perfectly satisfied with what was about to happen.

  She didn’t hesitate. This vote was going to go her way. “This is a vote of confidence for Amy Slaten as chief executive officer of Slaten Industries. I need an aye or a nay.”

  “Aye.” Bridget gave her the only vote she’d thought she would have.

  “Nay,” her father said, looking at her uncle. “I say nay.”

  Her Uncle Jasper wouldn’t meet her eyes. “Nay.”

  She’d expected that.

  Her aunt’s proxy looked like a young male model. “I’m supposed to read a statement before giving Beverly Slaten’s vote.” He looked down at his tablet. “I don’t like Amy. She’s a little prick who thinks she’s smarter than everyone else and who doesn’t dress for her body type.” The proxy grimaced. “Sorry, I’m supposed to read this in order to get paid. I think you’re lovely.”

  So her aunt still managed to get the dig in. “Proceed so we can get this over with.”

  She didn’t need her aunt’s vote.

  The pretty boy nodded and went back to his tablet. “Still, it turns out she’s very likely right and she is smarter than the majority of nitwits who make up this family. Her sister writes porn and her cousins think Tweeting is some form of social justice. She’s certainly smarter than her father, who can’t keep it in his pants and would sell the company and its revenue out from under us. Did you think I wouldn’t find out? Screw you, George. My vote is aye.”

  “It’s called erotic romance, Aunt Beverly,” Bridget said. “Not that you would know what an orgasm is. I swear the woman made her money by shoving lumps of coal up her tight ass and shitting out diamonds.”

  The proxy grinned. “She also says a bunch of stuff about how everyone is disinvited to Thanksgiving and Christmas, and then there’s a bunch of paragraphs about how she would like you to die, Mr. Sla
ten, but it’s surprisingly graphic. Can we just say I read it?”

  Amy gave him a thumbs-up. She moved to Frankie.

  “Aye,” he said with the sweetest smile.

  They’d started this together and he was still with her. Her sweet friend. She’d worried the way she’d felt about Frankie all the years had ruined her for men, but now she realized her heart was so much bigger than she’d thought it was. It was a massive thing and it could heal quite quickly for the right man.

  “And you, Mr. Adler. What say you?” She looked at him, feeling the connection over the distance that separated them.

  “Aye,” he said, his eyes soft on her. “I will always have confidence in Amy Slaten. So much that I want to offer her my company as well. It seems I’m down a CEO. I can’t think of a single person better suited to watch over a merger and ensure both firm’s employees are treated with kindness and fairness.”

  Oh, when that man made a grand gesture, he did it on a massive scale. She had to take a breath at the thought of what he was asking her to do.

  Her father stood again, fists clenched at his sides. “You’ll never convince the board to merge.”

  Flynn didn’t take his eyes off her. “I will when I explain that my software is almost done and by merging our companies we’ll be able to take it to market across the globe and we’ll make a billion dollars together. You and me. I’m going to need it because I find myself seriously cash poor.”

  Frankie nodded, winking her way. “He’s sleeping on his brother’s couch.”

  “See, grand gesture on an epic scale.” Bridget sighed as though it was all too lovely.

  So he had sold the condo. “You are insane.”

  “And I’ll sue.” Her father didn’t seem to get that this was a very romantic moment. But then again, he was the king of the dick move. “I’ll sue both of you.”

  Flynn just smiled her way, his eyes steady as if he couldn’t stop looking at her. “Luckily I know a good lawyer.”

  “He’s going to use you to take us over and obliterate this company.” Her father changed tactics and came after her. “Can’t you see that?”

  Maybe it was far past time to ask him some simple questions. “You going to ruin me, Flynn?”

  “No, baby. I need you far too much to ever do that. I’m going to sign over every bit of stock I own in Slaten to you and then I’m going to push for a merger. I have a presentation and everything,” he said quietly.

  “He’s got a very nice PowerPoint ready for you,” Frankie agreed. “I approved it myself. I happen to know you prefer graphics and charts in your presentations. He wanted to make sure he also used your favorite colors.”

  She could almost see Flynn asking Frankie that. A smile started to creep over her face. “Did you really sell the condo?”

  “I did. I sold everything except my computers and my stock in Glendale. I need that. You should understand that once I sign the Slaten stock back to you, I’m not worth as much as I used to be. You’re going to be the big net worth in this relationship. Everything I have is tied up in Glendale. I have to make sure the company makes it. I need to put it and my future in the hands of the only woman in the world I trust.”

  “You’re going to make this hard on a girl, aren’t you?” How the hell could she stay mad at a man who’d put everything on the line for her?

  “I have to make it impossible because nothing is more important to me than getting you back and getting the one job in the world I want more than anything.”

  She was going to cry. She was going to do it in front of everyone and make a fool of herself. “Don’t say it.”

  He got out of his seat and moved toward her. “I have to. I didn’t say what I should have said before. I should have taken one look at you and put my hand in yours and given you everything I had. I didn’t. I was foolish and awkward and arrogant. I love you, Amy Slaten. The only job in the world I want is to be your husband.”

  “See,” Bridget said, sniffling audibly. “I told you he was sweet.”

  So freaking sweet. “The ayes have it. I remain the CEO of Slaten Industries. Please let us have the room. And get the security guards if that one won’t leave.”

  Frankie was already moving her father out. “He’ll leave or I’ll drag him out myself. Move it.”

  The room emptied and she was finally alone with him.

  “What did you do?” It was completely insane. No one would do what he’d done. No one in their right mind gave up everything to maybe get another shot with a woman they’d slept with.

  But maybe, just maybe a really crazy man would do it for another shot at a woman he loved.

  Flynn moved in but didn’t touch her. “I’ve been miserable without you. I can’t sleep. I don’t want to eat or work. I need you in my life. Any way you’ll have me.”

  Crazy man. “You think if I take over the CEO job for Glendale Slaten, I’ll fall in love with you because we’ll be in close proximity.”

  “Glendale Slaten? I like the sound of that,” he admitted. “And I hope you’ll fall in love with me because I’m so madly in love with you.”

  “There’s only one problem with that scenario, Adler.”

  He winced at the way she said his name. “If it helps, I really am called Flynn by absolutely everyone who knows me. And if there’s a problem, I’ll handle it. I’ll do what it takes.”

  Did he honestly believe she would put him through more hoops? Her whole being felt suffused with joy. He was truly here with her this time. No playing around. There was no way that man was lying to her this time. “I don’t think you can solve this problem, Mr. Adler.”

  That didn’t mean she wouldn’t drag this out a little.

  His jaw went tight and he finally reached for her. “I can’t let you go. I’ll work every single day to make it up to you. I swear, Amy, I’m going to spend the rest of my life trying to get you back.”

  She moved into his arms because she couldn’t hold out on this man. Her whole body responded to his nearness. “You can’t make me fall in love with you because I’m already there, Flynn.”

  He hauled her into his arms, his lips finding hers. He kissed her over and over again, drugging her with his love.

  “I couldn’t lose you, pet. I love you too much. Stay with me,” he whispered against her lips.

  “I love you.” It felt so good to finally say it.

  “Could y’all talk a little louder?”

  Flynn groaned and moved over to the phone. “I think we need some privacy.”

  They definitely needed some. They had two companies to merge and she knew exactly how she wanted to celebrate. With a merger of her own. “Good-bye, Bridget.”

  “Damn it. It was just getting good.” The line went dead.

  Amy walked to the glass windows and started to pull down the shades. Her sister had no idea how good it was going to get. “I think we should take a private meeting, Mr. Adler. If we’re going to work together, you should know what I expect.”

  His hand went to his tie. “Oh, I think we should definitely talk about expectations, Ms. Slaten. I think you’ll find they’re quite high. If you’re going to be my CEO, we should set some rules, perhaps agree to a mutually beneficial contract.”

  He was so gorgeous and he was all hers. “I think we can come to an agreement. Though it might take a while.”

  When the door was locked, she went about negotiating in the sexiest way possible.

  Epilogue

  Flynn opened the door to the hospital room with a smile on his face. It grew wider when he saw his gorgeous fiancée pacing the floor with a bundle in her arms.

  She looked good with a baby cuddled close.

  One day it would be theirs. Today it was his almost nephew.

  “Flynn, welcome back.” Will looked up from his place on the small sofa near the hospital bed.

  He’d come straight from the airport. He’d been in San Francisco at Glendale getting everything ready for the new CEO’s meeting with the staff nex
t week. They were going to love her. “I came straight here. I knew Amy would be here with that little guy.”

  “Little?” Bridget shook her head, but she was smiling as she looked at her son. “He weighed nine pounds. The only kid in the hospital who was bigger is Erin’s boy and he’s a Taggart. They’re all giants. Will is perfectly normal sized. Why did he have to make a linebacker baby?”

  Flynn stepped close to his girl, kissing her cheek before staring down at the baby, who looked awfully small to him. “I think he’s beautiful.”

  Amy practically glowed as she looked up at him. “He is. Brendon Glen Daley. He’s such a sweetie.”

  Flynn couldn’t help but move behind her, putting his arms around her. He was in the same room with her. He needed her touch. Always. “I think I’ll be a fabulous stay-at-home dad one day.”

  “Really?” She grinned up at him. “You think you can code with a baby in your arms.”

  It was a problem he could work on. “I’ll type with one hand.”

  “I’ll pay for that show.” She kissed her nephew’s head and passed him back to her sister.

  Bridget cuddled her son close. “How did the merger meeting go?”

  “We’re a go.” After he’d made his presentation and gone over Amy’s goals for the company, the board had voted unanimously to move forward with the plan.

  Everything was falling into place.

  “And the FTC investigation?” Will asked.

  He shook his head. “It was all bogus. I’ve cleaned house and no one is coming after her again. My former CEO was too much like my father when it came to business. I loved my dad, but I think he enjoyed the game too much. I want some peace in my life.”

  “And George?” Will asked.

  “My father is an idiot,” Bridget interjected. “We don’t have to worry about him. He can’t come after Slaten now and Mom is talking about divorcing him. I think Aunt Beverly is an evil genius. She’s a horrible woman, but she likes the idea of the merger so she sent Mom pictures of Dad kicking a puppy or something. You know Mom. She hates humans but loves those mean corgis of hers. I swear she trains them to pee on my shoes. So now he’s going to be fighting that battle and we’ll have time to merge the companies and live happily ever after.”