She didn’t answer and I stepped closer, crowding her space until her back brushed the edge of her desk. I didn’t touch her, but I might as well have.
“Look around if you don’t believe me about their intentions,” I said. “This is what they think you’re worth, yet you’re the only reasonThayeris worth a single dime as it stands. They won’t even give you one fucking window in a building made ofglass.”
Her throat bobbed as she glanced around almost reluctantly, like she didn’t want to, but also couldn’t help just checking if something had changed since we’d walked in, but nope. It was the same cramped, dark space filled with secondhand furniture it’d probably been since the day she’d first started here.
Her gaze snapped back to mine and I narrowed my own, still not giving her an inch of space. It was time she opened her eyes to what was really going on here. “You’ve spent the last year trying to dig this company out of a hole while the board buries you alive.”
She opened her mouth, but I went on. “I’ve seen your projections. The contracts lost during your father’s trial thatyou’re trying to revive. The long game you’ve gotten caught up in. It’s child’s play and you know it.”
Her lips parted in outrage. “Excuse me?”
“You know better,” I said. “But you haven’t had the resources or the connections to make the moves I know you can make.”
“That’s incredibly arrogant,” she shot back.
“It’s also accurate, and you hate that, don’t you?”
She pushed off the desk, trying to create space. “You don’t get to rewrite the course of my career just because you married me. You don’t have the answers to everything, Alex.”
“No, but I think you do. Insofar as this company is concerned, anyway. I’m just sick of watching you fight with one hand tied behind your back.”
Her eyes flashed with indignant rage. “You don’t know what it’s like to build something when everyone is waiting for you to fail.”
“Do you want to know why they’re scared now?” I asked. “It’s because they thought they had you cornered and now there’s me.”
She let out a bark of laughter. “Oh, please. This is about control for you.”
“If it were, I’d be backing their acquisition plan.”
She stiffened. “What?”
“I told you, Jane. They’re keen on an acquisition. Selling Thayer off piece by piece. Steel here. IP there. Legacy gone.”
Her face drained of color, so I kept going before she fainted. “I’ve already shut it down, Killer. Hard.”
She stared at me, searching for the lie. “Do you think that means I should trust you?”
“No,” I said. “I think you shoulduseme. You already know how this world works, Jane. Stop wasting time pretending you don’t.”
She glared at me. “What exactly are you suggesting?”
I didn’t hesitate. “Trent.”
Her sneer was instant. “Trent Shepard is a rancher?—”
“Trent Shepard is the son and heir of an oil baron worth five hundred billion dollars. That’ll be his one day. Regardless of whether he wants it or not.” I watched her go completely still, my eyes moving from one of those gorgeous grays to the other. “Do you know what Thayer could fetch if you sign a contract with his family?”
When she didn’t answer me, I did it for her, even if it was bullshit. She knew this. She just didn’t think she could have it. “Billions.At leasta billion dollars in steel over the course of forty-eight months, but you know that already, don’t you? I’ve seen your projections, Jane. I know you know.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said tightly. “I don’t have the connections or the right to approach?—”
“I do,” I cut in. “And you will.”
She let out another snort of humorless laughter. “Excuse me?”
“Youwill,” I repeated, my voice flat and unyielding. “Because if your board doesn’t play the game by my rules, I’ll take everything. I’ll pull the rug out from under each and every one of them, and I made that crystal clear to them today.”
“While you sent me to a day spa!”
