Blackbird (A Stepbrother Romance #1)(7)

Here they come. The board of directors. I’ve already spoken with half of them and I control enough of an interest in the company to be one. I’m about to make the case that their current chairman is an idiot and is running the company into the ground and I can save it.

Six of them file in.

Then a seventh.

Victor Amsel.

The room is utterly silent.





Chapter Three





Victor





I walk into the room and lock eyes on Evelyn. She’s frozen, still as a statue, staring at me. Her eyes trace me to my seat as I sit down at the end of the table and rest my attache on the wood. I run my hands over the tabletop. Antique, I think. I’ll bet it’s as old as the company. The top is perfectly smooth, polished to a high mirror shine. Evelyn’s reflection is dark and wavy in the surface. Her mousy little assistant doesn’t seem to know the score, from the way she looks at her boss. Evelyn recovers, her face going still. I’ve seen that mask before. Her face just sorts of goes blank. Models do that when they run the catwalk, just go still. Your gaze could slide right off her face, except for her eyes. They’re razor sharp, and somehow in the middle of that neutral expression is a cutting look.

“Why is he here?” she says, calmly, clearly meaning me.

“He was invited,” says Thorpe.

He toys with his suit coat as he sits down, and looks around with a smile.

“Gentlemen, I’m not going to lie,” he says, smiling at his board, his friends. They’d all cut his throat, but everybody in business is always friends. “We’re in trouble, here.”

Business is the art of pissing on people with a smile, my Dad used to tell me.

Trust me, I’d rather be elbow deep in an engine block right now, but alas. I drum my fingers on the briefcase.

“Miss Ross,” he says, turning to Evelyn. “Care to begin?”

“After he leaves.” She’s never taken her eyes off of me. Her face is a mask but her tones are acid.

“He’s been invited here by the board,” Thorpe says. He shifts uncomfortably under Evelyn’s icy gaze.

She looks at me again, and her perfect mask cracks into a scowl.

“This man is a convicted felon. You may have missed it, Mr. Thorpe, but he went to prison for embezzlement and insider trading.”

“It was only medium security.”

Evelyn has the most pretty lips. She doesn’t wear makeup. They’re a pale soft pink, and she’s cute when she sneers, no matter what anybody says. It makes me smile. I can’t help it.

I hate you, you bitch, I think to myself, stop being cute.

The innocent girl I knew was a lie. She was always her father’s creature. A thief in the night who stole my life. They took my home, my legacy, even my mother. They ruined me. I have to remember that. I have to.

Silence has stretched from brief to uncomfortable.

Thorpe clears his throat. “He’s staying. Were you going to begin, Ms Ross, or do we need to hear what he has to say first?”

Her face flushes up to her hairline.

Damn it, Eve. Stop being so pretty.

“Very well. Alicia.”

God this shit is boring. Evelyn spends the next hour reiterating reports and data and sales figures, all publicly reported and freely available, she stresses repeatedly. Every time she mentions contacting Thorpe she throws in a line about talking to his secretary. The change in her tone, the flutter of skin around her eyes is very subtle, but it’s there. She knows, and Thorpe knows she knows. The tension in the air is like the presence of hornets. You heard the f*ckers buzzing and then they stopped, and you just know they’re there. The presentation is mostly for Thorpe’s benefit, the real message between the lines, and that message is: You are my bitch, bitch. She’s getting off on this, or she’s trying to, anyway. She keeps a bunch of papers on the little podium, and spends half as much time giving me a death glare as she does actually addressing the board.

The point of all of it is this: Thorpe is going into a death spiral. Their suppliers are raising prices, their distributors are raising prices, the union is threatening a strike, and there’s a new regulatory issue the company hasn’t yet dealt with. Something about the way the boxes are labeled, a new rule about calories and nutrition facts or something. None of the details matter. The point is, the money coming in is already not enough to cover costs; the costs are bloated. Evelyn stops just shy of helping them, smirks at her own expertise. When she does she looks wicked and wanton.

I keep forgetting I’m supposed to hate her.

Yet I don’t understand her. The Evelyn I remember was wide-eyed and shy, terrified of the world around her, sheltered. The Eve I remember needed me. This… this ice queen doesn’t. The presentation reminds me of a cat playing with its prey, without even planning to eat it. This is all a game to her.

She looks a lot like her father.

My hands squeeze into fists.

“Amsel has considerable resources to bring to bear to correct these deficiencies,” she says, beginning her close. “I am not planning to swoop in and replace everyone. Yes, some bloat will need to be shed. Many of your business practices will change, but what I am proposing today is a partnership, not a takeover.”

The takeover would come if they defy her, I realize. It’s in her tone, the subtle way she moves. Everyone in this room is a guppy, in a tank with a shark. I can see it on three of the six board member’s faces. They’re already convinced. She probably took care of this well before this meeting started. If I were a more hateful man my first thought would be she slept with one or all of them, but Eve would never do that. Or maybe I just want to believe that. She was so shy, so fragile. I wonder where that girl went and where this creature came from, with her skin as hard as ice and her sharp claws.