AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Oh, come on, man. I know you watched the interview. Our families grew up next door to each other. He was, and is, fucking her mother. Her father found out and was threatening to go public with some dirty laundry. Her mother is also the one hundred percent beneficiary of the life insurance.”
“Holy fuck. She didn’t say half that much in the interview.”
“Not publicly, but you can bet she’s telling the police.”
Again, he mutters, “Holy fuck. The police? This is not good for business. Clearly, one of you has to go.”
“I couldn’t agree more. I asked my assistant to set a meeting for tomorrow morning. You can waggle tongues all you wish in advance. And you can choose my father as your leader out of chicken shit fear over whatever crime he blackmails you with, and when he becomes a true crime story, hope the old adage, no publicity is bad publicity, is true. Or you can choose me, as I’m crime-free, and the holder of a written document from each of you committing to voting me in and him out. I’ll see you in the morning.” I disconnect, and my lips twitch as I decide I have him and the board by their sagging balls.
Alana’s live interview might just have been the end of my father, at least when it comes to West Enterprises, but my smile fades, and warning thumps earnestly in my mind. He won’t go down without a fight. Even if he walks out of that boardroom stripped of his power, he’ll come at me hard and fast, and if I know him well, brutally.
I glance up to meet Blake’s stare from where he sits across from me. “I need to get Alana out of town.”
By the time I’ve finished telling my story, Blake is in full agreement.
Alana already did her job, already pushed my father’s buttons, and he doesn’t yet know how well, but by tomorrow, he will. And he’s already shown the lengths he will go to in order to punish Alana for crossing him. She cannot be within his reach when he roars. If I could convince her to leave the country, I’d do it, but she won’t go without me, and I have to be stateside for the company’s transition of power.
I already know how this is going to go. It’s going to require an act of God to get her to leave at all, let alone another country, without me. But this is one battle I’m going to win, no matter how hard Alana wants to fight.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Alana
I don’t hear the door open when Damion arrives, and my nostrils don’t flare with the woodsy spice of his cologne that already lingers here and there and almost everywhere. This place envelopes me in him, and that alone is enough to call it home.
It’s the essence of Damion, but nothing is better than the real-life man.
I’m standing at the kitchen island, stuffing a chocolate éclair in my mouth, when he’s suddenly in view. Butterflies overwhelm my belly and flutter about, as if I’m a schoolgirl in the presence of her crush. I’m suddenly acutely aware of both my mouth full of donut, and him looking gorgeously male in a pinstriped suit, an air of arrogance and hotness clinging to him, far more delicious than my breakfast. If I were trying to impress him, of course, a mouthful of pastry, as well as the smudge of chocolate I feel on my face would not be the way to do it. But then, I’m not, I don’t have to impress him at all. This man has seen me with my hair standing on end and no make-up many times over, and he still wanted to marry me.
“Hi,” I say, grabbing a napkin to wipe the dollop of chocolate away. “How’d it go?”
He glances at Candace and says, “Hi, Candace. Nice to meet you, and I appreciate what you’re doing, but can I steal my future wife for a few moments?”
“Of course,” Candace says quickly. “I’ll go.” She eyes me and points at the door. “I’ll check on you later, Alana.”
“I’d love that,” I say. “Thank you for everything, Candace.”
She leans around the counter and hugs me, whispering for my ears only, “I do believe he wants to eat you, not the donuts.” Her smile presses against my neck, while heat rushes to my cheeks. “Savage will give you my number,” she adds, releasing me, and then she’s gone, heading toward the door.
Damion closes the space between me and him and captures my hand. “Come with me.”
He’s already walking, tugging me behind him, and toward the bedroom. “Don’t you have to go to the office?”
“Later,” he replies, and the next thing I know, we’re in the bedroom, and he’s shutting the door, planting me in front of it as if he expects intruders.
As if reading my mind, he explains, “Savage knows no boundaries. I don’t trust him not to walk in on us.”
“I think Candace has him under control. She’s his wife.”
His hand plants on the wall next to me. “Like you control me?” His voice is a low rumble from deep in his chest, the words seeming to vibrate with far more than their obvious meaning.
My brows dip. “Do I?”
“In ways no one else ever could.” He pauses a beat. “You said you loved me earlier.”
“Ah, yes. Because I do, silly man. What is this?”
His hand slides to my face and then under my hair to cup my neck, curling me into him. “I failed to tell you how damn much I love you. So much that it practically hurts at times.”
