Declaration to Submit (14 page)

Surprisingly, Tori glared at Gina. “Shut up.”

Gina wisely changed the subject. “What about you, Nell? How is working for the mysterious Mark Conners?”

“I like him.” What an understatement, Nell thought. The last few weeks had been so happy it made Nell nervous. Since that first week, Mark had not neglected her at all, giving her an erotic education that made her sweat thinking about it.

Tori grinned. “She’s holding out on us.”

Nell cleared her throat. “At least he’s not laying everyone off.”

Gina gave her a puzzled look. “No, but he’s definitely pissing people off enough they’ll quit.”

“What do you mean?” Nell hadn’t heard anything lately. Once she had become Mark’s secretary, many of the former Sunsoon employees had been distant. Well, more distant than they usually were.

“He slashed the software development budget. Every single purchase order goes through Atticus now. You should have seen Yarina. She was furious,” Tori said and shuddered. “That woman scares me.”

Gina smirked. “She should. The woman’s vocabulary is extensive. I know. She ripped into Reena too.”

“Does she know Mark is the one who cut her budget?” Nell couldn’t believe she’d been so blind to all of this. It was unfortunate that he hadn’t asked her first. Of all the Sunsoon employees, Yarina was the one most likely to rock the boat.

“She knows now,” Gina said. “Reena told her this morning.”

Nell shook her head and tried to eat, but her stomach churned. Though publicity was Reena Barrett’s purview, Nell had always handled some of the trickier issues since many of them involved personnel. It had always been her job to keep employees from creating bad press.

With Pete Dawson refusing to return her calls and Yarina Tourine having issues with the new regime, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something bad was coming. There was no way she could tell Mark about Pete. Nell was well aware Mark had a phobia of personal publicity of any kind. Whatever fiction Pete was going to spin around the photo hadn’t hit the newspaper yet, and Nell wondered why.

Yarina, however, was trouble she could bring to him to keep him in the loop.

When she got back to work, Mark stood in the doorway to his office with his arms crossed. He seemed pissed. “In here, Ms. Armstrong.”

He closed the door behind her, and she waited for him to speak. This didn’t seem like one of their secret liaisons. Every one of his muscles were tense, and his gaze was cold. He threw a newspaper down on the desk. “Would you like to tell me what this is?”

She stared at it and shook her head. “I have no idea.”

“This, Ms. Armstrong, is an advance copy of the
L.A. Times
business section.”

Her hand shook when she picked it up, and the first thing she saw was the photograph she’d hoped to suppress. But the article was worse.

Pete Dawson had dredged up the whole story of Mark’s father, of the money thousands of investors had lost, and of the lavish lifestyle Mark’s family had lived at the time. He replayed the whole hurtful episode in the ugliest manner and connected Mark’s past to his present. The article had confidential financial documents that showed the missing money from the software development, but the whole issue was used to imply that Mark Conners was like his father and misused the money.

“Oh no,” she breathed out and glanced at Mark’s face. “Does Reena know?”

“Reena is the one who brought it to me. I think you should have told me,” he said furiously.

Suddenly, she understood. “You think I did this?” At the look on his face, she closed her mouth with a snap. “And exactly why would I risk my job and…and…everything to do this?”

“Maybe your acquiescence to the takeover was an act. Maybe you want revenge. You’re loyal. I profiled you, remember?” His tone was almost sneering.

It felt like a kick to the stomach that he could believe such crap and use what he knew about her to justify it. But he wasn’t done yet.

“And you confirmed it with your many phone calls to Pete Dawson.” He tossed a phone record on the desk, but she only glanced at it. “From what I understand, he’s a personal friend of yours. Is he the one who dug up the information on me for you?”

“I didn’t—”

“You got what you wanted. Your friend sent a copy of this drivel to the board, and they are demanding my resignation. I’m surprised you didn’t tell him everything. Or did you hope to blackmail me to keep it all out of the papers? Of course, I walked right into it, didn’t I? I put that damn clause in your employee agreement. How much of it was real, Anelda?” His tone was hard and unyielding.

He used her name, the one he used when he fucked her, when he— Her throat closed up, and she couldn’t speak. If she did, she’d cry, and there was no way in fucking hell she was going to cry in front of him now.

She turned her back on him and left the room, closing the door softly behind her. He didn’t follow her. She sat down at her computer and typed out her resignation. The more she wrote, the angrier she got. She flipped through her agreement until she found what she wanted in the bullet points laid out.

After printing out the document, she put it in an envelope and stomped into his office. He looked up, a surprised expression on his face. God, he was so perfect, so wonderful. But he’d judged her and demeaned something beautiful.

When she slapped down the envelope, he grabbed her hand. “What’s this?” he asked.

“What else? My resignation. I don’t work for anyone who thinks I’m a traitor.”

“Nell,” he said in a warning tone, his hand tightening around her wrist, but she didn’t care.

“Get your fucking hands off me. I gave you everything. I surrendered. I did things I’d never—” She stopped. That wasn’t the point. “I proved myself. You didn’t even wait to see if you were wrong. You just accused me.”

“That article—”

“Fuck you,” she snapped and yanked her hand away. She pointed at him. “I suggest you look for someone else. I did everything right. This is about your fear that I might care about you. Or maybe it’s because you think you might care about me. I don’t fucking care. You accused me of not only lying to you, but betraying you.” She clenched her hand in a fist and forced it to her side before he saw how she was shaking and trembling. “I loved you, Mark Conners. And you didn’t want it. You didn’t have to do this to tell me.”

She turned on her heel and walked out the door.

After she’d stormed out of the office, Nell took a moment to assess the damage. This was partially her responsibility. Not in the way Mark had implied, but because it was her fault that the whole thing had a chance to come out in the first place.

If Mark hadn’t been tempted to take over Sunsoon, he wouldn’t have come back to L.A. where his family’s misfortune had begun.

She drove to the
L.A. Times
building and requested an interview with Pete Dawson.

* * * *

“Tony, maybe I should step down.” Mark stared out the window of the conference room and wondered how he could be such an idiot. The story hit the stands, and the board had called an emergency meeting to vote on the demand for his resignation. None of it mattered.

All that mattered was that Nell was gone.

Now, he and his partner waited for the board to arrive. Hopefully they could reassure the senior officers to stay the course, but if the stock tumbled, people would get fired.

Tony shook his head. “Bullshit. What’s wrong with you? We always knew some day your dad’s shit would come back. Not once was ‘resigning’ on the list of what to do. We own the stock. We lay down the law. But we owe them a meeting.” Tony’s tone vibrated with frustration. “Meanwhile, put your balls back on, will you?”

Mark put his head in his hands. “I fucked up, Tony. She’ll never forgive me.”

“She might not. She knew you for what? Three weeks? It’s a lot to ask. But maybe you’ll get lucky.” Tony shuffled some papers. “She’s worth fighting for, isn’t she?”

Yes. Yes, she was.

Mark sat down and was relieved to see Atticus and Reena arrive. The rest of the board members came, and the meeting began.

It got off to a rocky start. Every one of the directors was a former officer in some company that ConFed devoured. They were the “good people” ConFed kept, the brains behind the successful parts of the business’s acquired. If Mark was honest with himself, he would accept that every one of them had a reason to see him fall.

“The publicity is going to kill us,” Myers said. He was a financial analyst. Numbers, numbers, numbers.

“I don’t think so,” Reena replied. “The story can be used to our advantage. There’s clearly been a leak of information, and our software will fix it. In two weeks, the press will believe we created the story.”

“The story is true, isn’t it?” Ferris asked. “His father ripped off millions of dollars from investors, didn’t he?”

“It’s true,” Mark said shortly.

“Then Mark should resign,” Myers said firmly. “The company should come first.”

The argument went on, and Mark checked out. What did all of this matter? He’d called Nell, and she wouldn’t answer. He wouldn’t admit he was wrong on a message, but he begged her to call him. Couldn’t she hear the desperation in his voice?

Suddenly, the door to the conference room slammed open. Mark had never noticed how intimidating Tori Rodgers appeared, but she certainly did at the moment.

Atticus was on his feet. “Tori, don’t.”

“You can go to hell,” she said with a glare. She strode straight up to Mark and confronted him. “Is it true? Did you think Nell was the one who gave that toad the story about your father?”

Mark lifted one shoulder. “It seemed reasonable.”

“Get up, you prick.” Her fists were clenched, and her cheeks were flushed. The woman had the greenest eyes he’d ever seen, and right now they were filled with anger. “Get up so I can kick your ass.”

“Tori,” Atticus said in a stern voice.

She whirled around to face him. “Fuck. You.”

“That’s it,” Atticus said, now seemingly as angry as she was. He always seemed unruffled and nice, but Mark knew he had a steel core in the center.

But Tori was clearly too furious to care. “Tell them.” She wasn’t speaking to Atticus or Mark, but to Reena. “Tell them who gave you that information you passed on to Mr. Secretive here. Tell them who provided all that perfect intel so that the great Conners and Fedder could buy the stock. Tell them who really orchestrated the takeover for ConFed.”

Reena took a deep breath. “She asked me to keep her out of it.”

“Because she thought no one at Sunsoon liked her or respected her. She knew they called her ‘Dragon Bitch.’ She figured if the information came from the beautiful Reena Barrett that everything would go smoothly.” Tori glared at Atticus. “But you realized what she really was to all the employees. You set her up as mother hen and then you”—the woman glared at Mark—“had the unmitigated gall to think she’d sabotage you.”

Mark was still trying to wrap his head around what Tori was suggesting. He met Reena’s gaze, and the Domme looked away. “Reena, would you like to explain why you didn’t tell me this?”

“The company was in free fall, and Victor wouldn’t budge. Dover wouldn’t fire Yarina for the misappropriation of the money in her department.” Reena finally raised her head and tipped her chin defiantly. “Victor was going to lay off hundreds of Sunsoon employees. Nell thought they’d have a better chance with you. And she was right.”

“But someone leaked this crap to force the stock down,” Atticus said. “Clever. They must have known that Nell was—” He stopped and glanced at the directors. “They must have realized you would blame her.”

“Well, Nell took care of it.” Tori threw a newspaper down on the table and turned away, disgusted. “My resignation is on your desk,” she snapped at Atticus.

“I won’t take it,” he bit back, and she blinked at him for several minutes before she stomped out of the room.

Mark picked up the paper. It was an interview with Anelda Armstrong, confidential secretary to Mark Conners.

“Gentleman, we’ll adjourn and meet again next week. It seems we need more information.” Tony rose and nodded. “I promise we’ll be back on top by next Wednesday.”

“Or Mark Conners will resign?” Myers made the mistake of asking.

Tony’s face hardened into a cold mask. “Let me make this clear. Mark Conners is not resigning. If you have a problem with that, I’ll buy your shares at the highest market price they’ve ever been, and you can get the fuck out.”

Myers shut his mouth; then he and the others exited the conference room, leaving Mark, Tony, and Reena alone.

In the silence, Mark read what Nell had to say. She stated unequivocally that the money had been misappropriated long before the takeover, and that the money problems had led directly to weaknesses that made Sunsoon vulnerable. Pete Dawson asked hard questions, and Nell answered them with candor and style.

And then, Dawson had asked her about the picture of her with Mark. Her answer was like a stake to his heart.

I asked Ms. Armstrong if she was biased because of her relationship with her new boss, and she admitted that she was.

“When you took that picture, Pete, I was only an employee of ConFed, but you can see there’s definitely something there. The minute he and I realized we wanted to see each other on a more personal level, I resigned.”

“So you’re having an affair with the boss?”

She laughed. “I know it’s cliché, but you can’t help who you love.”

Mark’s heart clenched, and he groaned. Tony took the article from him and read quietly. Finally, he said, “She may have just saved our ass.” He handed the article to Reena.

“Mark, I owe you an apology,” Reena said, her face white as chalk.

“Yes, you do,” Tony snapped. “You let us think that you were the one who had discovered the financial issues.”

“Nell begged me to do it.” Reena glanced at both of them. “She knew, you know.”

“Knew what?” Tony asked.

“Knew you were sexual Dominants. Even though she couldn’t find out what either of you looked like, she found out you played when she researched you both. I told her she could use that to stop the takeover, but she convinced me that you would be good for the company.” She tightened her lips. “And she was pretty sure she could convince me to intercept you at the gatherings. I didn’t even know she knew what I was until she informed me that I could meet you there.” Reena clenched her teeth.