Devoted: A Masters and Mercenaries Novella (6 page)

“You don’t think you can stand to be around me for six weeks? I find that a bit arrogant when you know nothing about me. It appears to me you’ve already judged me and found me lacking. I don’t understand it. Maybe it’s your way of getting the upper hand. I believe you’ll find humiliation was one of my hard limits, Flynn. I’ll have a talk with Wade after class and explain the situation to him. Good luck.”

She turned to go. She would get dressed and have a long talk with Wade. There were things she couldn’t put up with. They’d chosen improperly for her. She couldn’t stand any man who had no warmth.

But he’d seemed so warm before. So giving.

Maybe that was how he trapped his prey.

“I was jealous.”

She sighed and turned. “Jealous of what?”

His cheeks had a slight flush. “You objectifying the other men. It bugged me and I know that it’s stupid because we’ve known each other for less than an hour.”

“I made a joke,” she stated flatly because that wasn’t an excuse. Not a good enough one. “And you made me feel like shit because of it. Is that the way you handle things when you’re jealous?”

“I don’t get jealous.” His voice had softened and he stepped toward her. That hard stance he’d taken relaxed a bit as his shoulders eased down. “I haven’t felt that way since I was a kid, Amy, and I didn’t handle it well. I’m sorry. I had an emotional response and I haven’t had one of those in a very long time.”

If they could be civil she would greatly prefer to take the class. As soon as it was over, she didn’t have to be close to Flynn again. She didn’t want a jealous jerk in her life. “I’m not something to possess or to punch when you’re feeling bad. I flirted with you pretty hard downstairs. Hell, I was excited about the potential of you being my partner. I did not like how you made me feel so let me apologize for flirting.”

His face fell. “Can we please start over again?”

Not until she’d made a few things clear to him. “I’ve been batted around all my life, Flynn. I’m not going to take it from a man I barely know. I need you to understand that if we’re working together, you can’t do that to me again. You do it again and I will walk away.”

“Hard limit,” he said with a nod. “How about I take a fist bump this time and we slow down?” He moved in and brought his hand up, his thumb swiping across her cheek. “Amy, I’m very sorry. I didn’t mean to make you cry. Please forgive me and know I won’t do it again.”

He sounded so sincere. And why did she have to cry? She thought she’d purged that from her system a long time ago.

She nodded. “So maybe we can be friends.”

He held a hand out. “Friends who see each other mostly naked.”

She had to smile at that. She shook his hand. “All right.”

It was a start.

Chapter Three

“What happened to ‘I’m going to talk to Wade, Mitch? I’m going to do the right thing and end this fiasco before it begins’?”

His brother didn’t even wait for the elevator doors to close behind him. He was yelling as he got off the private elevator that led to Flynn’s penthouse. He was dressed for work and still carrying his briefcase, a sure sign that he hadn’t even stopped at home before coming over for this particular lecture.

Flynn winced inwardly. He hadn’t exactly gotten around to telling his brother that the whole walking away from Amy Slaten thing hadn’t happened. It had been a full week and he’d managed to avoid this conversation altogether.

Now he was a little worried he was about to get found out.

Next week he would have his first night at Sanctum with his training sub at his side. He’d gotten his pick of nights and he’d selected Thursday because Mitch and Laurel didn’t play on Thursdays. He’d hedged his bets. Amy’s sister, Bridget, was on bed rest so he wouldn’t have issues there. He wasn’t sure the rest of the Daley clan would even know him by name. Everyone else at Sanctum had no idea that Amy and he owned companies that were involved in a feud. Oh, he was certain Big Tag had some understanding of it because the big guy seemed to know everything, but he wouldn’t come up and ask questions about it.

Mitch might be another story.

“She’s different than I thought she’d be.” Flynn had spent the five classes they’d had studying her mostly. Sure, they’d gone over contracts and how to behave in the club and started to explore the equipment, but mostly he’d watched her.

“Different how?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. She’s funny. She’s kind of weird.”

He liked her weird. That talking thing she did always amused him. Her stream of consciousness commentary when she got nervous led her in odd directions. Before the spanking class she’d spent fifteen minutes talking about how she’d read about spanking but had never actually had one before, and somehow she’d ended making a statement about snowflakes.

He found her fascinating.

Mitch sat his briefcase down on the bar. “Weird?”

How did he explain this? “She’s not the girl I thought she would be. She’s open and funny and weird. Like quirky weird. She has quirks.”

He’d expected a tight-assed Type A. Since that first day in training class, he’d looked into her a bit. Nothing more than reading her bio. And finding pictures of her and the ex. Now that he didn’t expect. The ex looked like a flipping male model.

He was surprised at how strongly jealous he could be about her. He’d been a complete ass that first day. He’d walked up those stairs and she’d been talking about objectifying the other guys and they’d all been leering at her. Maybe not leering, but definitely looking and admiring and it had bugged the holy fuck out of him.

He’d been engaged. He’d asked a woman to marry him, helped her plan a whole wedding, and when he’d found out she was marrying him for money and had a lover on the side, he’d very calmly broken everything off. Oh, he’d been angry, but it had been a controlled burn.

What he’d felt for Amy hadn’t been controlled. It had been a flash fire and he’d behaved like a fucking caveman. He’d almost lost her.

He still wasn’t sure what the hell he was doing, but he felt more alive than he had in a very long time so he was kind of going with it.

He was careful. They met at the club for class and they’d had dinner a few times afterward. They’d talked about innocuous things. She liked baseball and watched an enormous amount of science fiction and fantasy shows. He’d been shocked at that fact. Outside the club and in street clothes she looked very much like the type of woman who would run a company. Her clothes were all designer and flattering, but they reminded him of armor. She didn’t look like a girl who had watched every episode of
Star Trek
.

The truth was he was pretty geeky himself. His tastes ran to superheroes. Normally he tried to hide that fact, but Amy just put it all out there. She loved a show called
Dart
that he followed too, and they seemed to have similar tastes in movies. They’d passed a very pleasant evening talking about
Doctor Who
.

He liked her. He had to face that fact. Maybe she was the single smartest woman in the world and she knew how to play him on every level, or maybe she simply was who she was. He needed more time to sort it out.

He needed more time because he wanted so desperately to get back to that place where she stared up at him like he was something to memorize right before she kissed him.

“Everyone has quirks,” Mitch shot back. “I’m the quirkiest motherfucker on the planet but that doesn’t mean anyone should risk their business reputation to sleep with me. I assume you’re already sleeping with her.”

His brother was an optimist. She’d been sweet and friendly, but he’d fucked up that first day.

Shouldn’t she have forgiven him much more quickly if insinuating herself into his life had been the plan all along? Should she have taken his jealousy and used it against him? Instead she’d told him to fuck off.

Had that been calculated, too?

“As a matter of fact, we’re not sleeping together,” he said as he closed the lid to his laptop. He should have known his brother would figure it out. It wasn’t like he could hide it forever.

But he had to admit, it had been nice for a while. It had felt intimate, like he had a secret. Like they’d been the only two who knew what was going on.

He kind of liked playing this game with her. He’d started to wonder if she hadn’t done this so she could get to know him. Maybe if she came to care about him, she would back off and figure out they didn’t have to be enemies.

Stranger things had happened.

Mitch sighed. “You want to explain to me what you’re doing then? Because if you’re playing her, it’s going to blow back on me with my friends. Big Tag will have issues with you using a training relationship for some kind of revenge plot. If she’s playing you, it could have very bad ramifications to Glendale and we’re both heavily invested. Chase is, too.”

“I’m not playing her. I’m still trying to figure out if she’s playing me. I’m kind of starting to believe she’s not. Do you think it’s possible she’s feeling me out? Like she wants to get to know me?”

Mitch seemed to visibly calm, his face turning curious. “Is that what you’re doing? Getting to know her?”

He had no fucking idea what he was doing. “Maybe.”

“What has she told you about herself?”

There was the rub. “She said she works for a big corporation. She told me it was too boring to go into. When I try to talk about her work, she diverts me.”

“Does she ask about your work?”

“Yes. I told her I worked for McKay-Taggart writing code for their security systems.”

A long sigh issued from Mitch. “And you say you’re not playing her.”

“I’m feeling her out. I think that’s what we’re both doing. And I do write code and I have been working with Chelsea Weston on a security system code.”

Mitch settled himself on the couch across from Flynn. “I know you do and it’s important code. That’s why I’m worried. Have you talked to your CEO today? Do you know what’s going on?”

He felt himself frown. “I got some texts but I was busy.”

“You’re not paying enough attention to the business,” his brother chided.

“Do you have any idea how much you sound like our father right now?” Big brother was taking on their father’s persona in his old age.

Mitch sent him his happy middle finger. “Dad ever do that?”

“Our father was actually quite proper and uptight, so no. I never saw him shoot anyone the bird,” Flynn admitted. “You know you could take over the company. I would one hundred percent give that job to you. He left you stock.”

“Yes, which I offered to give back to you and Chase,” Mitch pointed out. “I’ll oversee legal, but I’m happiest working for myself. Have you considered selling?”

Only a million times. He could take the money and use it to start his own tech business. “I can’t until I’m sure Chase won’t want to take over. I’m keeping it solid until he’s old enough to make an informed decision. He needs to get through college and then we’ll talk. Until then, the guy I hired to run the company is solid.”

“He’s a ruthless shark with five rows of razor sharp teeth,” Mitch pointed out.

“Yes, so he’ll take care of the company. He’s being paid a nominal salary. His real money comes in bonuses if he meets the company growth goals.” It was the way CEOs got paid in his world.

“He called me an hour ago, which is another reason I’m here. He couldn’t get you on the phone. He said he got a call from a man who used to work for Slaten. He’s willing to talk for a fee.”

“Talk? About what?” His stomach tightened. He didn’t want to discuss this. It was so much easier to pretend Amy was nothing more than his training partner and a girl he was trying to get into bed. He was happier with that Amy. They were rapidly becoming friends.

He hadn’t had one of those in a very long time.

“About Slaten and their business practices,” Mitch said with a frown. “He says he knows the ins and outs like no one else and he can prove that Slaten has been sending in corporate spies for years. He claims there are still a few. He’s also willing to talk about their upcoming bids.”

“And he used to work for Slaten?”

“He was fired by Amy about a week after she took over the company. You know new CEOs like to clean house.”

They tended to want their own people in the power positions. “How many people did Amy fire when she took over?”

“Her father’s entire management team.”

He’d hoped to hear something different. “It’s not unusual.”

“Her father was a genuinely terrible human being. He still is. There was a reason I helped her with the takeover.”

“Did she enjoy the fact that you were her rival’s son?”

Mitch sighed. “It didn’t come up. It was more of a favor for Bridget than anything. And the asshole pissed off Big Tag. You know Ian lives to fuck with people who piss him off. She was likely very smart to fire everyone. She gave them packages. Only her father and this guy sued her.”

“So the man who’s suing her is coming to us to sell her out?” Well, that was about as shady as it got. “I’ll call Curt and tell him I don’t want to have anything to do with the man.”

The decision made him feel good. He wasn’t going to fall into that trap.

Was it a trap?

Mitch’s eyes narrowed. “Is this like what you said about talking to Wade and I’m going to go home and the dude will have moved in with you tomorrow?”

A guy makes one little course correction and he’s got sarcasm forever. “No, I’ll call him right now. Do you see me? This is me calling.”

He picked up his cell and hit the button that would connect him with his CEO, Curt Hamilton. It was to his personal line so Flynn didn’t have to go through either of the two assistants the man kept with him at all times.

“Adler, I thought I was going to have to call the troops in to find you,” a deep voice said over the line.

“You did. Mitch is here.”

He chuckled. “Well. Trust the lawyer to get things done for once. Did he explain the situation to you? The man’s name is Ray Paulsen and he’s legit. I’ve checked into his background and he really did work for Slaten for years. Apparently he ran afoul of the daughter. She’s a ball-busting bitch according to him.”