More than hate you, p.12
More Than Hate You, page 12
We’ll see about that… “You lack the experience to save this company on your own. Evan and I started Stratus just out of college on a shoestring budget, with nothing but cockiness and a prayer. We made some tough decisions and hard sacrifices to grow Stratus into the business it is. But you’ve never worked with a company gasping for survival. You can’t be sure what cuts will help and which will just twist the knife deeper and leave it to bleed out.”
“I figured that out.”
She doesn’t say she was afraid of making the wrong decisions, but I see it on her face. I soften. Damn it, she’s the competition. She’s vowed to hate me. She’s definitely trying to. I should want to bury Reservoir alive—and her with it.
I don’t.
“I’ll help you, like I promised. But nothing will truly improve until Bruce Rawson kicks Shane out of the CEO’s chair.”
“He’s not prepared to do that.”
Is the old man losing his mind along with his health? “Then I don’t know what to say. If we manage to salvage the situation today, what’s to keep Shane from coming behind us and undoing everything?”
Sloan presses her lips together and glances out the window. My guess? That question already occurred to her, and she doesn’t have an answer.
“Just fix it. I’ll worry about the rest later.”
“Baby—”
“I said don’t call me that.”
I would worry I’ve genuinely offended her, except her eyes sheen with tears she quickly blinks back. “You don’t like terms of endearment?”
“I love them, just not from men who stab me in the back.”
“This arrangement is only going to work if we deal in the truth. I didn’t come after you; I came after Reservoir. I came after the competition. Separate the two, baby. Second, if you can’t stop Shane from seizing control of the funds and spending them in whatever irresponsible way he wants, there won’t be a next time, not judging from what I see. And third, maybe you should stop giving all your mental energy to someone who doesn’t value you, either personally or professionally, and start giving it to someone who does.”
“Mr. Rawson values me.” She sounds defensive, like she knows she’s lying to me.
Does she realize she’s lying to herself, too?
“Bullshit. He values your silence about the fact he’s your father. Anyone who treats you like their dirty little secret doesn’t deserve you.”
“You’re trying to shake my loyalty. It won’t work.”
Damn, she’s stubborn. “No, baby. I’m trying to save you from heartache.”
Sloan gapes at me. “You can say that after the way you lied to me?”
“About professional shit, yeah, I did. I admit it. But everything I said to you personally? The concern I felt when I thought you were in danger? The fact I flew from Hawaii to help you when you asked me to? The way I kissed and touched you? That was all real. That was all me.”
She stares me down, lips set in a stubborn line. “Save your charm for someone who doesn’t know better. My feelings about Bruce Rawson are none of your business and out of bounds for a professional conversation. Right now, he’s aware that Shane made some unwise decisions with company funds, and he has authorized me to hold the purse strings until you can analyze the damage and make recommendations to fix the situation. That’s all you need to know.”
“You know the minute Shane realizes that he has to come through you for his party funds he’s going to attack you, right?”
“I’ve got that handled.” But her expression says she hasn’t considered that possibility before now.
“How long do I have to complete the analysis?”
“A week.”
I blow out a breath. Surely, Sloan knows that dissecting an entire corporation, down to every last expenditure, employee, and income stream, will take more than five days. “If I can’t?”
“Then Jeremy will be fired. And his reputation will be toast—Mr. Rawson’s words, not mine. So if you don’t want your pal’s professional demise hanging over your head…”
I need to save this sinking ship—and Sloan with it. Otherwise, she’s going down, too, and taking responsibility for this Titanic as if she were its captain.
Since I’m afraid to analyze why my urge is so strong, I focus on the next most important question: how the fuck am I going to accomplish that?
Time slides by quickly. The rest of Monday is a blur that doesn’t end until the lights automatically shut off in the rented office suite at ten p.m. Tuesday is a repeat of the previous day, minus any personal conversation. Knowing I have until Friday to save Jeremy’s professional reputation and Sloan from devastation, I work like a maniac. She’s right beside me, giving me a lot more help and a lot less snark. When I have questions, she finds answers. When I’m missing information, she retrieves it. When I need new formulas embedded in the spreadsheet, she writes them.
Thank fuck she also brought a coffeemaker to the suite. And good coffee with it. She has tasty lunches catered in, blessedly with only an occasional mocking nickname for me when she orders.
Honestly, I’m loving this work—in-depth problem-solving that requires creative, out-of-the-box solutions. But by Tuesday night, I have two glaring problems.
First, Sloan is a distraction. She doesn’t have to wear a short skirt or flash cleavage for me to notice her. Sitting beside her is enough to turn my head. When I’m close, I smell strawberries…and I remember the scent in her hair as I kissed her. Leaning in to look at something she’s typed, I brush her arm…and I remember the softness of her skin against mine when I undressed her. The longer I’m with her, the more I’m haunted by that night—her lips brushing mine, her legs spread and welcoming, her head thrown back in pleasure as the taste of her coated my tongue. My craving to touch her again grows every minute. I picture Sloan on her knees with her lips wrapped around my aching cock or her pussy taking every inch of me as I give us both the hard ride we need until she screams out in ecstasy. And I sweat.
Sleep is difficult. Concentration is impossible. My frustration climbs.
Second, since Reservoir has failed on several clients’ maintenance schedules lately due to supposed budget shortfalls, their equipment is experiencing more outages than normal. That’s translated to more customers than projected exiting their contracts and deactivating their service. So not only has Shane been stealing the profits for his own pleasure, Reservoir is collecting fewer dollars than Perez and his bean counters planned on.
The ship is sinking even faster than I suspected.
“You’ve looked at that same column and checked the formula three times. I checked it, too. It’s right. What’s wrong?” Sloan asks.
It’s nearly eight o’clock. Neither of us has had dinner. She looks tired and anxious. I hate to tell her that, even with the most stringent cost-cutting methods, even if Bruce Rawson fired his son tomorrow, it’s probably too late. But I think on some level she knows. In fact, I suspect she knew before she even called me, and she hoped I could find a miracle.
Unfortunately, I’m no one’s fairy godmother.
But tomorrow is soon enough for her to hear my assessment. She’s too stressed for me to heap more on her now, and waiting to deliver the death knell won’t change the outcome.
Instead, I shake my head. “I couldn’t remember if I’d checked. I’ve been looking at this so long I think I’m cross-eyed.”
She glances at her computer screen, then out the window. Only the last glimmer of dusk remains. “It’s later than I thought. Maybe I should order us dinner in.”
So she can grill me while we eat? “I need sleep.”
Sloan looks frustrated that I want to call it quits for the evening, but in the next breath, she yawns. “I guess I do, too. If I drink any more coffee, even the good stuff, my stomach will corrode.”
I hear that. “We’ll pick this back up tomorrow.”
“Yeah.” She closes her computer, shoves it in her bag, and stands. “Eight a.m.?”
“Sure. Unless…I’d love to take you to dinner, if you promise not to talk business.” It’s a long shot, but why not try?
Sloan snorts as she picks up her purse and computer. “So you can pretend to flirt with me, work whatever angle I know you’re sharpening in that crafty brain, and try your best to play me again? No, thanks.”
Before I get a word in, she pushes her way out the door and disappears down the hall.
“Fuck.” I’m annoyed that she left, but it’s probably better. I have precious little time to decide what to do.
Thankfully, the corporate apartment Reservoir keeps is a mere two blocks away, and I have to pass one of the best Indian restaurants on my way there. I’ll grab dinner to go.
And while I wait, I’ll return Evan’s four voice mails asking for updates. That is, once I’ve decided what to say.
If I tell Evan the unvarnished truth, he’ll insist we scoop up Reservoir, probably for a fraction of what it was once worth. Evan is too smart not to grab it for a steal. But the minute that happens, Sloan will never forgive me. Hell, she’ll never speak to me again.
Sighing, I shut down my borrowed laptop, lock it in the cabinet where Sloan told me to leave it each night, and drift out of the suite, deep in thought.
At the front of the building, an evening receptionist sits, looking significantly less polished than her daytime counterpart. “You done for the evening?”
I nod. “Back in the morning.”
“Suite number?” When I rattle it off, she grabs a walkie-talkie and pages the maintenance guy. “We’ll lock it up.”
“Thanks.”
“Have a good evening.”
Fat chance with this decision I have to make, probably in the next fifteen minutes. “You, too.”
Outside, it’s balmy and slightly humid but not unpleasant. Sloan’s car is gone from the lot. The foot traffic downtown is thinning out. The suits walking to their destinations look as haggard as I do after a long fucking day. Are they also having to choose between their best friend after committing the sin of falling for his wife and the first woman to make them feel alive since her death? Yeah, probably not. And good for them. But right now, I am.
This shouldn’t be hard at all. I owe Evan. But this decision is fucking brutal. I’m not ready to burn any bridges with Sloan.
Where does that leave me?
In my pocket, my phone rings. I pull it free, already knowing whose name I’ll see on the display. “Hey, buddy.”
“Hey,” Evan barks. “Two days, and no word. What’s going on there?”
Of course he doesn’t waste any time getting down to business.
“I’m great. Thanks for asking. You?”
“Sorry. We’re good. The baby is kicking now. It makes Nia’s pregnancy feel more…real.”
Evan didn’t ask me to comment about their coming child, but I know he’s worried. “You won’t lose this one. Not the woman or the baby.”
He blows out a breath. “Logically, I know the odds of that happening again are astronomical. I’m probably more likely to win the lottery twice. But with the anniversary of Becca’s death in nine days, I won’t say it hasn’t crossed my mind lately—a lot.”
“It’s crossed mine, too.” But not the way I expected. Instead of grieving a lover I never had, my thoughts are filled with Sloan and the million possibilities for how things might play out between us, including the glimmer of a possibility that we could share a future—something I never had with Becca.
“What’s the appropriate way to remember your wife and unborn child a year after they’re gone? I don’t know. If you’d asked me the day I buried Becca whether I’d ever be married again and expecting another child, I would have said never, especially not less than a year later.”
“When was the last time you visited her grave?”
“The day before we moved to Maui. I said goodbye for good then.”
After he realized what their marriage was…and wasn’t. But it’s only been a few months since I learned that Becca had loved me in life enough to leave Evan for me. I pressed that knowledge into my heart. Sure, I felt guilty as fuck about it, but knowing she felt the same about me was a strange comfort.
She’s gone for good, though…and I’m still here.
Even a few weeks ago, I told myself to move on, but I couldn’t seem to since no one would ever be Becca. Sloan definitely isn’t. In fact, the only thing they have in common is blue eyes. In every other way, Sloan is her polar opposite.
And she fascinates me in a way Becca never did.
“I wanted to protect her, you know?” I confess.
Evan laughs. “Every man did. Becca had a little-girl lost quality that constantly drew men of all ages to her.”
I frown as I realize something I haven’t considered until now. “You fell for a woman totally unlike her.”
“Yeah. That shocked me, too.”
I’m in the same boat. “Why?”
My buddy lets out a long breath. “I eventually realized a damsel in distress who needed my shoulder, my guidance, my understanding, and my direction to get through even the simplest day wasn’t fulfilling me. I need a woman who challenges me, who matches me in drive and intellect, who…completes me, as corny as that sounds. I don’t have to take care of Nia. We work together to take care of us. Jesus, this is getting deep. Is something going on?”
And here comes the unavoidable decision. I owe Evan too much to shut him out, especially after he’s been painfully honest. “I’m falling for Sloan, for all the reasons you just mentioned.”
“Shit.”
“It’s incredibly inconvenient,” I admit.
“You’ve got to rein it in, buddy. You haven’t stopped Reservoir from coming after Wynam yet. And we still don’t know the identity of the spy reporting our business to Sloan.”
“But I have kept her from dragging our names and Stratus’s through the mud.”
“So far. But she seems to be one step ahead of you.”
That’s less important to me than what happens next. “Professionally, she needs me more than I need her. So I’ve got the upper hand.”
“For the moment. But later?” he asks rhetorically. “Where is Reservoir financially?”
“It’s still inconclusive,” I hedge. “But it doesn’t look good.”
“Great! Maybe the solution is to buy them out and take over.”
And crush them. That’s what he means.
“Fire everyone, absorb the parts you want, and junk the rest?”
“That makes the most fiscal sense. Why would I run parallel organizations?”
Without a compelling reason, he wouldn’t. And I wouldn’t expect him to, especially since he’d lose money doing it. “What about the parts and people worth saving?”
“If there are any, you’ll help me figure out how to maximize them.”
And if I do that, it will crush Sloan. “I have another idea…”
“Tell me.”
“Well, I’m not done assessing Reservoir’s financials yet…” Technically, it’s true, though I already know they’re in the toilet. “But it’s clear they need an infusion of cash.”
“Why would we give the competition money?”
“Two reasons. First, the loan will come with strings. Tight ones. They’ll have to agree to certain terms before we deliver the funds, which means the organization is already loosely under our control. You’ll appoint an interim CEO—”
“That’s easy. You. What’s the other thing?”
“Why not Sloan? She knows more about the business.”
“Because her first loyalty will always be to Reservoir and her father. Yours will be to Stratus and me.”
His logic is sound. I can’t fault it, but I’m torn. “And second, no matter who Wynam gives their business to, we win.”
Evan turns quiet, and I know my brilliant, methodical pal is studying my proposal from every angle. I just hope he agrees. As far as I can tell, it’s the best way to give both Evan and Sloan what they want. While I get what I want.
“I see one problem,” he says.
Probably the same one I see. “I know. A mere loan isn’t enough to tie up the organization. We have to do more than inject cash and take temporary control. We have to prevent them from using our investment to improve their position, then ousting us the minute they don’t need us anymore.”
“Exactly.”
“I’ve thought ahead and I’ve got a solution. Leave it to me.”
By the time I reach the corporate apartment, my head is buzzing with ideas.
The last thing I expect to walk in and find is Shane Rawson naked and being pleasured by a trio of women with fake tits and high heels while wearing a small fortune in cocaine on the tip of his nose.
Does his father have any idea this is where his company’s funds are going?
I stop in the doorway, and Reservoir’s current CEO scowls, clutching a fifth of whiskey. “Who the fuck are you? You look familiar.”
Shit. “I’m the consultant.”
He grabs the hair of the woman between his legs, sucking his cock with gusto, and lifts her off. “The one that meddling cunt talked my father into hiring?”
“She’s your sister.”
“The hell she is,” he growls. “How was my dad sloppy enough to knock up some stupid new hire? Birth control existed twenty-five years ago. He should have fucking used it. Reservoir doesn’t need Sloan.”
An insult burns the tip of my tongue. I’m itching to plow my fist into his face. But that won’t do anything except get me fired and arrested.
Swallowing my rage, I set my food on the hall table and casually withdraw my phone, pretending to look at it while I start rolling video—just in time to capture him shoving the kneeling woman back onto his cock while another licks his nipples, and the third hoists her long leg onto the arm of the chair and grinds against his face.
Just wow.
“Don’t blame Sloan. Your father approved hiring me,” I point out.
“Ah, fuck.” He shuttles the woman on her knees deeper onto his dick, hissing, lips pursed as if he’s concentrating on his pleasure…and like he’s watched enough porn clips to convince him his O face is cool. “My father needs to stop sticking his nose in my company. He gave it to me. Oh, yeah…” he groans. “But you’re giving it to me better, aren’t you, slut?”
