Devoted: A Masters and Mercenaries Novella (21 page)

How will the board feel when they find out you’ve been sleeping with the enemy? When I’m done filling them all in, they’ll call for a vote. Especially after they hear the rumor that you’re about to be investigated by the FTC. Sometimes, dear daughter, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. See you in a few weeks.

Liam’s phone trilled but she didn’t truly hear it or the conversation that took place. All she could hear was the way Flynn said her name and how crazy he was about her.

All lies.

“Amy? You went pale,” Liam said. “Erin’s on her way over with Adam. We’re going to fix this. I promise. There’s nothing he could have done that we can’t fix.”

Oh, but there was no fixing what he’d done to her.

She nodded. “Of course.”

She sat down and went back to work. Years of pretending had taught her how to look perfectly placid on the outside while she was dying on the inside.

Plans. Her father had them. Flynn had them. It was time to make a few of her own.

* * * *

“So we can get it done?” Flynn asked, looking over at his brother.

The afternoon sun flooded in, illuminating the stacks of papers, reports, and binders filled with corporate law that Mitch had been using all day to try to get Flynn out of the mess he found himself in.

After he’d dropped Amy off, he’d called his brother and they’d been holed up in Flynn’s condo ever since.

He had to find a way to make this right. He had to or he would lose her and suddenly losing her seemed like the end of the fucking world. Not getting to hold her, to cuddle with her and comfort her seemed like a black hole of an existence.

God, he hadn’t realized how much he loved her until he’d realized he could lose her.

Mitch rubbed a spot on his forehead as though trying to stave off a headache. “We can do it but it’s going to cost you and you’ll very likely have to go back to California during the transition.”

He hadn’t thought about that. If he ousted Hamilton, he would have to run the company until he could find another CEO.

Mitch had gone over all the pros and cons of getting rid of their rogue CEO. Naturally he’d done it in the most sarcastic way possible. He’d made a list.

Cons—probable stock devaluation, employee and customer unrest, possible lawsuit

Pros—Flynn’s dick might not get left in the cold

Yeah, his brother was a giver.

“I can find another CEO very quickly.” He still had the candidates from the last search on speed dial. One of them would do.

Mitch turned serious eyes on him. “You’re playing fast and loose with a lot of people’s jobs, Flynn. I know this sounds insane since you’re doing this all for her, but Amy Slaten would never do this.”

“I wouldn’t want her to.” He didn’t like how Mitch’s words were making him feel. He hadn’t wanted any of this responsibility. He’d never liked management, wasn’t suited for it at all. “Amy’s better than I am. She’s good at her job. She gives a damn, which is precisely why I can’t allow my CEO to try to ruin her.”

Mitch groaned. “He’s not trying to ruin her. He’s playing hardball. She’ll counter punch and the game will go on. It’s the way business works. Hamilton isn’t doing anything a thousand CEOs haven’t done before.”

“She wouldn’t do it.” He knew it deep down. Amy wouldn’t play fast and loose with her morality. She would be forthright and she would play fair.

“I agree with you, but I can also assure you that lighting a torch to Glendale won’t fix the situation. Sit her down. Explain what happened. Hell, tell her what Hamilton did and help her come up with a way to maneuver out of the trap. There’s a reason he wants her out. She’s a much better executive than her father ever thought of being. Hamilton’s scared of her.”

He should be. She was smart and determined. All she really needed was the right support. A man who would stand beside her and make sure she knew she was loved.

That was the job he wanted. He wanted to be the man behind the woman. He could do the work he was passionate about and ensure Amy had a happy home to return to each night because she would bear the burden of running the business.

One big business.

His employees deserved the very best CEO he could give them. They deserved her.

“What are the ramifications of merging Glendale with Slaten?” Flynn heard himself asking.

Mitch’s head fell back and he groaned, though it wasn’t an unhappy sound. “He learns. Thank god. The ramifications are you become way less of an asshole, the company gets an amazing leader, and I don’t have to worry that Will is going to murder me. So yes, that is what we should start talking about doing.”

Flynn breathed a deep sigh of relief. The answer had been staring him in the face the whole time. Amy was a brilliant executive who cared deeply about her company and employees.

Could she care about his, too? Could she make it hers?

“I’m going to run some numbers and see where the redundancies would fall.” It was the first time Mitch had smiled all day. “You were actually planning an expansion so I’m hoping we wouldn’t lose any jobs in a merger, simply shift employees around and let older employees choose very nice early retirement packages if they like.”

“She has to say yes.”

“Convince her,” Mitch shot back. “She doesn’t have to marry you. This is about what’s best for both companies. Naturally you’ll also have to have a very close working relationship with her, and if that leads to more intimacy and eventually marriage, then good all around.”

“You’re a manipulative bastard, Mitch. And way more romantic than I gave you credit for.” It could work. He would sit her down, explain the situation and give her the solution. She might be a little angry at first, but she had a good head on her shoulders. It would be all right.

There was a chime that let him know someone with a code was coming up. Only a few people had the code to his private elevator and he wasn’t set to pick up Amy for a few hours.

“Is Chase out of class early today?” Flynn asked.

Mitch shrugged. “No idea. You should probably tell him you’re going to merge Glendale with your sub’s company. He’ll be thrilled. He doesn’t want the job any more than you do.”

At least he didn’t have to worry about his brothers being upset about handing over a multimillion-dollar company to his girlfriend.

But one day that girl was going to be his wife. He just knew it.

The doors opened and he felt a smile cross his face. Amy walked out of the elevator, still dressed for her meeting.

And then his smile died because the expression on her face was a careful blank and she wasn’t alone. Liam O’Donnell stood beside her and he wasn’t bothering with a blank expression. He looked thunderously angry.

Mitch cursed and stood up. “Li, I can explain.”

“You fucking better be able to, Mitch, because you know how Big Tag is going to handle this. You better be damn happy I’m the one on your doorstep and not him. Fuck all. You know he can’t handle this shite right now and here ya are, helping your brother scam my bloody client.” The Irishman continued his curse-filled rant.

Flynn felt the bottom drop out of his world. He wasn’t sure how she’d found out, but she definitely knew he’d kept something from her. He turned to Amy. “Baby, we need to talk.”

She looked through him. “I only came along with Li because I left a few things here. I’ll get them and then I’ll be out of your way. You and your brother can continue with whatever meeting you were having.”

She started to walk back toward the bedroom, ignoring him utterly. He hated the blank expression on her face, loathed how shut down she was. This was supposed to be her big day. Win or lose she was supposed to feel something, and it looked like she was completely ice cold.

He’d done that to her.

“What happened? How did you find out?”

Her voice was as cold as her expression. “How did I find out you were playing me? Well, I learned it the way I learn all the hard lessons in my life. I learned it from my father. I suppose you weren’t afraid of him outing you because you already knew what he was doing.”

The words stopped him in his tracks. “What do you mean?”

She kept going. “He’s been following me. I guess you made it easy for his PIs. Having an affair with you won’t go over well with my board. I’ll either be conspiring against my own company or too stupid to realize I was sleeping with the enemy.”

He had to jog to catch up with her. What had her father done? If he found out Hamilton had anything to do with this, he would kill the fucker himself. “We’re not enemies. Our fathers might have been, but we’re not. You and me. We’re Flynn and Amy and not our dads.”

She opened a drawer and pulled out a pair of pajamas she’d left there. He’d liked her having a drawer. He wanted her to take up half the space. He wanted to open his closet and see her clothes hanging alongside his. “No, you’re worse than your father. From what I can tell your dad merely reacted to mine being a complete dick. I’m sure he did something awful to start the feud.”

“He slept with my father’s first wife.”

She turned, her eyes flaring. “So you decided to pay my dad back by fucking his daughter? I could have told you that wouldn’t work. He doesn’t care about me. The minute I broke with him I became less than an insect to that man. All he wants to do now is step on me and be done with it.”

At least there was some emotion in her now. “I would never do that. Not to any woman much less one I care about.”

“It’s over Flynn. I got Clannahan to sign so if you’re trying to protect your place with me so you can torch my negotiations, you’re too late.”

He smiled, a real genuine relief. “You got them? Baby, I can’t tell you how happy I am about that.”

Dark eyes rolled as she reached for the bracelet she’d left on the dresser top. “Sure you are. What’s the game now? You didn’t get Clannahan so you’re trying to find another angle.”

He’d found his angle. “There’s no game here. There’s just one insanely stupid man. I should have told you in the beginning. I recognized you. I knew who you were. I went to Sanctum on that first night to explain to Wade why I couldn’t be your training Dom.”

“You didn’t explain very well, did you?” Sarcasm dripped from her mouth.

He ignored it. She deserved a few digs. “I saw you and I knew I had to have you. No matter what the cost was. At the time I thought the cost would all be mine because I was absolutely certain you were the one playing me.”

She snorted. “Now you know. I’m far too stupid to ever win a game with you, Adler.”

“No games, Amy. I wasn’t lying. I saw you and I knew I had to try with you. God, do you think I get that jealous of all the women I’ve recently met? I acted like an idiot that day because something deep inside me had already connected with you. You kissed me and it was more erotic and intimate than all the women I’d slept with before you.”

“Don’t bother. It’s not going to work.”

But her face had flushed and her breathing had picked up. He moved in, taking up more space. She held her ground as he got closer.

“It has to work. It has to because you’re so fucking important to me.”

Her eyes were on his chest, as though she didn’t dare trade stares with him. “If I was, then you would have told me. You thought I was trying to steal your software, didn’t you?”

“At first. Your father sent a lot of spies our way, pet.”

“Don’t call me that,” she demanded, her voice rough with emotion. Finally, some emotion.

“All right, I’ll stop for now, but know I’m using it in my head because I can’t think of you and not want to pet you, not want to have you curled in my lap and purring in my arms.”

Now those eyes came up, flashing fire. “Yes, I suppose I did seem like an idiot kitten to you, didn’t I?”

“Not at all.” He had to stay calm. He wanted to force her to listen to him, but he had to use persuasion. It was everything he’d been afraid of. Maybe in order to get past his lie it was time for him to start telling her the truth. No matter how vulnerable it made him. “You’re everything, Amy. I did worry you’d manipulated your way into my house so you could take the software. It’s everything I’ve been working on for years and I still risked it because I wanted you so badly.”

“Or you wanted to catch me.”

He shook his head. “I wanted you.”

“So you didn’t watch me carefully? I should have known there was a reason you insisted on taking me to and from work and spending all your free time with me.”

“That was because I was already crazy about you. I didn’t want to spend a minute away from you.”

She wasn’t having it. “Did you or did you not put security measures in place after that first morning?”

He winced, but he was determined to be nothing but honest with her from now on. He’d fucked it up so badly. “I had Simon Weston put in some cameras because it looked like someone had tried to get into the tower to take the drive. It turned out to be not a screwdriver but my housekeeper’s old vacuum cleaner. It had some metal parts and she scratched it up when she was trying to clean the rug around it. I felt so stupid I bought her a new one.”

“You took video?”

“Yeah, but only until I figured out what had happened.” He realized what she was worried about and shook his head immediately. They’d made love at his desk. “No, baby. There was a tiny camera and it was at the same level as the tower. No one could see more than legs. I swear.”

She’d turned a brilliant shade of pink. “You’re a bastard. Whoever watched those tapes knew. They knew what we were doing.”

“I watched them. I definitely knew what we were doing because I was there. Simon loaned me the cameras as a favor. I did all the surveillance.”

“And who ran all the checks on me?” Amy asked. “According to Adam Miles, someone’s run several rather invasive checks into my background and my finances. Were you looking for some kind of payoff for me spying on you?”

At least she was listening. “No and that was all in the beginning. I called off everyone a few weeks ago.”

“Everyone except your CEO, who seems to be in league with my father.”

“I’m going to fire him. That’s what Mitch is doing here today. Go and look at the paperwork. I’m going to pay his ass off and get rid of the fucker because I won’t let anyone treat you like that. I didn’t realize what he was doing until last night.” He moved in again and this time he got his hands on her arms and put his forehead to hers. “We can call him. Hell, I’ll let you give him the news. I don’t care. I just need you to forgive me. I know I should have told you, but I was happy. God, for the first fucking time in my life I was really happy and I was scared to lose it.”