Most Eligible Bastard: an enemies-to-lovers romantic comedy Read online

  Basically, she’s about to vote to strip her own voting rights. Once she votes for that, we’ll reorganize the company. Reorganize her and the dog right out the door.

  I yawn. Sure enough, she yawns, too. “All in favor,” I say. She turns her brown eyes to me. She’s been doing that. Pretending she understands and then watching me for a cue how to vote. Smart enough not to vote against her own meal ticket, I suppose. I created a nonsense amendment to the test the theory, and I warned the group ahead of time I’d do it.

  Kaleb wasn’t happy with the plan; he said it went too far. He always feels like I go too far until Locke needs to send a hard guy to the negotiating table, and then he’s happy for me to go too far.

  So he went along, because I haven’t been wrong once, and I built the shit out of this company. Even with Kaleb acting like a giant boulder around my ankle, keeping us back from real progress, I built it.

  Even through the crash and the real estate downturn, when other builders were wheedling out of paying subs, I found a way to pay people, to finish jobs the right way, to keep our Wall Street end happy.

  No way will a small-time scammer get the best of us.

  I finish rattling off the amendment where she agrees to have no more say in company business.

  Vicky isn’t paying attention, though Smuckers is the very picture of alertness, suddenly, eyes like black buttons, tongue hanging out, staring at me like he’s spotted a squirrel riding on my head. I look away, not wanting to encourage his excitement.

  “All in favor,” I say. We start around the table. My heart speeds up like it always does when I go in for the coup.

  Vicky’s going to go for it. I feel almost sad for her.

  Almost.

  These shenanigans wouldn’t fly in a publicly traded company. Then again, neither would a dog on the board. In a private family company, all bets are off.

  Listlessly, I raise my hand. “Aye.” We get a string of ayes.

  She raises her hand. Her pretty lips part. Her chest rises slightly, and then she pauses, brows furrow. “Wait, I don’t even know what this is.”

  I sigh and read it off. “All present in favor. Just waiting on you.”

  She cranes her head forward, eyes narrowed.

  “Can I get a definition of reallocation of plebiscite by seniority?” Vicky asks.

  My heart sinks. “What is this, a spelling bee?”

  “I just don’t understand it.”

  “It’s a procedural motion to ensure continuing smooth operation. An agreement on forms of agreement. You’re going to have to get used to voting on matters of procedure.”

  She watches Brett and Smuckers. “Specific definition, please,” she says softly.

  Mandy groans.

  “It’s procedural,” I say, sliding a packet of printed bullshit across to her. “A matter of continuation.”

  She lifts her gaze back to me. She’s a fish out of water. A fish on land, really, flopping around, visibly confused. But she keeps flopping, keeps fighting. She’s a scrapper, really. “Reallocation of plebiscite?”

  Everyone looks at me. She’s asking the right question. “The rule gives precedence to experience.”

  “What’s plebiscite?”

  “Ballot.”

  Her chest rises again. Another intake of breath. I know exactly when it dawns on her, because that glow comes back in to her face. “Precedence to experience. As opposed to a…?”

  She waits for me to fill it in. I sit back, as if bored. I'm anything but.

  She fixes me with a wry smile that twists up some part of me. “Maybe as opposed to a fluffy little dog?” she finally supplies.

  “Not how I was going to put it.”

  “Well, then.” She sits up straight. “Smuckers has considered your amendment, and he’s decided to vote no.” She turns to Smuckers. “What is that, boy? Oh, I’m sorry, nay.” She glares at me now. “I can’t believe you tried to strip him of his vote. Do you have no decency?”

  “When it comes to protecting this company? No.”

  Her gaze intensifies. “Just no?”

  “None at all,” I say. “No decency whatsoever. Nada, if you will.”

  Her pretty lips part. It’s shock. Maybe a little bit awe.

  I give her an amused smile, adjusting my jacket sleeve over my cuff just so. The suit was tailored by a man who charges three hundred bucks an hour and is worth every penny.

  “Uh,” she says. “You think you’re all that? You’re not.”

  “Oh, I am,” I say. “I very much am. And for the record, I will crush you in the end.”

  “Smuckers had this medication once,” she says. “We tried to hide it in his food, and he spit it out. No matter what we did, he’d spit it out.” She puts one finger on the paper with the new amendment we printed up and slides it back across the desk. “Smuckers doesn’t like when people try to fool him. That’s his message for you.”

  “I have a message for Smuckers.” I put my finger on it and slide it back across to her. “Smuckers needs to know that we have a private investigator on this case. Smuckers might not have very nice food to eat if you ended up in prison.”

  Finally she looks scared.

  Brett swoops in. “I think we can all walk away from this table happy. Maybe Henry was hasty with that ultimatum. I say we settle this. One-time offer from me personally.” He writes the number—$4,500,000.00. “This offer expires in two minutes.”

  My heart pounds. This is sloppy. The third final ultimatum. But he’s doing it as a personal thing. And if she takes it, okay. We’ve shown how close she can come to losing everything.

  She looks at the paper.

  She’s all alone caring for that sister of hers. She’s poor—we have her banking information; we know it for a fact. She has every reason in the world to take it. Yet she hesitates.

  “This is our last offer,” Brett says. “After this, we’ll take the company from you, and you’ll get nothing.”

  She raises her brown eyes to me. It’s me she’s really dealing with. I like that she knows that. “You know what Smuckers hates even more than being fooled?” she says.

  My heart pounds. She almost lost everything to me, and now she’s going to tell me a dog story?

  “He hates being threatened,” she says. “And bullied. He really, really hates it.”

  “Well he’s going to have to get used to it,” I hear myself saying. “He’s used to bubbles and bows and sunny parks but he’s in the jungle now. There are animals who are faster and stronger and smarter than he is.”

  “Then you don’t know Smuckers very well.”

  “Oh, I know all about Smuckers, and I’d suggest he practice rolling over. Baring his belly for the superior predator.” I lower my voice. “Begging for mercy.”

  The color heightens in her face. This shouldn’t be fun.

  I keep going. “Smuckers may think he can request packets and bylaws and definitions and get up to speed, but he can’t compete here. He doesn’t have the skills.”

  “Smuckers thinks owning fifty-one percent is the best skill to have,” she says.

  My pulse quickens. “I’m afraid Smuckers should prepare to be disappointed.”

  Kaleb clears his throat. “I think this meeting has devolved to the point where we can adjourn.”

  “We still have issues to take up,” I say.

  “More plebiscites?” She shoots a hard gaze at me. “No, thanks. Though I do have one request. An assistant.”

  I wait. She can have whatever she wants. Does she not understand that? She could take an entire floor as her office if she wanted. “Do you have an assistant in mind? You can bring in anybody you want.”

  “I’d like somebody familiar with the company and the board. Maybe April?” She gazes over at April. It’s a good choice.

  “If April agrees.” I wave a hand at April. Of course she’ll agree. Being Vicky’s assistant will be a cakewalk compared to what she’s doing. “You can take her to HR and hash it out. T
ry it on a thirty-day trial basis if you like.”

  April nods

  Kaleb moves that we schedule the next meeting for a week out. All present agree.

  Vicky scoops up Smuckers, nestles him back into her purse, and swings out of the room.

  “We got this,” I say to the rest of the board. Everyone drifts out except Brett. He backs into the door, closing it behind him. Blocking me from leaving.

  “What?” I say.

  “Are you looking to fight her or fuck her?”

  Seven

  Vicky

  I can’t believe how close I came to signing it all away. Henry is smart. And he’s willing to play dirty. It’s sink or swim, now, and I need to swim.

  I’m a little bit scared. Last time I tried to swim, I drowned.

  But I’m in it now. The ultimatum has been offered and yanked away. The only alternative is running away with my tail between my legs. And what kind of example is that to Carly?

  April agrees to become my assistant. I don’t think it’s out of any real loyalty to me—I don’t have illusions of her being my ally now or handing me secret strategies. April is a Girl Scout whose allegiance belongs to Locke Worldwide. She seems to think that if I understood what they’re all about, I’d love Locke Worldwide, too.

  We visit different offices in the Oz-like glass building, gathering things for the packet, and then I take her out to a French bistro and grill her on how the board works and what the people are like. She’s smart. Straightforward. I like her and her Princess Leia hair.

  I give her the rest of the day off and head home with the packet she put together for me. It’s a sheath of bylaws as thick as my thumb, along with some smaller envelopes, one of which contains a credit card and activation instructions.

  In another I discover a check for seventy-five thousand dollars, one month’s pay for being on the board.

  I stare at it a long time. April told me I was getting it, but I’m still shocked it was just sitting in there. I take it out and hold it up to the light, as if that will tell me something. Is this really the check? Like maybe it’s a piece of paper announcing the coming of the check, mentally preparing me, so I don’t keel over out of shock. It seems like there be more fanfare around a check that large, like it should be brought in on a satin pillow amid a heraldry of trumpets.

  But of course it’s real. I don’t waste any time, because I still feel like Henry could yank it all away from me at any moment. He’s probably working on it right now, spinning plans and sharpening swords.

  I get right on the bus and head down to my bank. I hand it over to the teller expecting her eyes to pop out of her head at all the zeroes. Or maybe she has to call somebody over. But she just puts it in. I’ve asked for $600 cash back. She asks if I want that in fifties. I nod, waiting for an alarm to blare or something.

  Instead I get the cash.

  I have the account number of Carly’s meager little college fund. I load in fifty thousand plus a chunk of my Etsy savings. It’s something for Carly that nobody can take away—not even Henry.

  Maybe that sounds paranoid, but it’s not paranoid if you went through what I did. Rich men have a different set of laws, and sometimes they can bend reality.

  I take the cab home, feeling excited and scared. I have so much money still left, it boggles my mind. I’m thinking about the people I could help. Mostly I’m thinking about this makers space I belong to. It’s a shared workshop in a shitty, run-down section of Brooklyn. They have kilns, blowtorches, soldering irons, circular saws, industrial sewing machines, that sort of thing, and struggling artisans like me rent space there.

  My mind races with ideas for all the pieces I could buy from my friends there, how much that would help them out. Henry Locke couldn’t take that money back, either.

  I smile. I feel strangely alive.

  It’s not just the money or helping my friends at the makers space; it’s something about sitting in that boardroom fighting Henry. Something got stirred up; I don’t know what.

  Carly gets home and asks how it went.

  “It was amazing,” I say.

  “They were nice?”

  “Complete assholes. Especially Henry, the leader of the pack. One of the biggest jackasses I ever met. He tried to fool me into voting against my own wishes, but I didn’t.”

  I think back on his words. Baring his belly for the superior predator. Begging for mercy. And the way he smiled when he said it. It’s the first time I noticed he has dimples, and they’re lopsided—one deeper than the other. Like one dimple gets more excited.

  “Uh! Such a jerk!” I say.

  “But you didn’t vote against yourself?”

  “Hell, no.” I look her in the eye—I need her to hear me on this. “When people come at you, you have to stand up for yourself. Nobody will fight for you quite like you will fight for you.”

  I want it again.

  I’m already thinking about the next board meeting. It’s next Tuesday, and I plan to be ready.

  I should be working on my line for my Saks meeting. I have five days left and need drawings for demure little hoops to go with the small necklace set. I should be thinking about soldering the mock-ups, but instead I pull out Locke Companies materials.

  I pull out the credit card. April told me that it’s for things we need for the meetings. Anything used in a board meeting can go on the credit card she said. A new briefcase. A movie projector, a purse for Smuckers. If you use it in a meeting, it goes on the card. I’m thinking of my friend Latrisha, a furniture artisan. I could use the credit card to commission a new carrying case for Smuckers.

  But then I get an even better idea.

  I walk Carly to school the next morning. We wave to the beginner mimes, hard at work building their sadly misshapen invisible wall. We do a bit of window-shopping at the Fluvog store—I’ve told Carly she gets two splurgy purchases with our new money.

  I wave as she disappears up the school steps. I bundle Smuckers into his flowered carrier and hail a cab, giving the address for the cavernous makers space.

  All kinds of people rent space there—tattooed woodworkers and potters, hipster upholsterers, and jewelry-making metal workers like me. It’s open twenty-four hours, because so many of us have straight jobs during the day, the bread and butter job while we try and make it as artisans.

  I find Latrisha at her corner station, sanding away at a mod chair. I go over. “Sad face,” she whispers. “I brought cookies and everybody ate them all.” We bring snacks a lot. Sometimes we bring wine. The she notices Smuckers. “The baby!”

  I take Smuckers out and soon a dozen people are around, petting him.

  I leave him with his new fans and go around and commission things—a pottery bowl set, metalwork shoe rack, glass-blown things. I write checks on the spot. I tell people I came into an inheritance; they don’t need the details. I’ll use the stuff for future Christmas gifts. I just want to spread around my windfall.

  People buying stuff makes such a huge difference to makers.

  Finally I get back to Latrisha.

  “What?” she asks, because I’m smiling so hugely.

  “I have a commission for you,” I say. “It’s something a little offbeat. A beautiful piece of furniture. But I need it in a week.”

  “You’re hiring me.” She crosses her arms and raises an eyebrow. “You know I’m not cheap. Especially for a rush job.”

  “I don’t expect this to be cheap. In fact, cost is no object.” I pick Smuckers up off the floor. “I want a really special piece of furniture for Smuckers. I’m imagining a cross between a dog bed and a throne. And it can’t be plain. I want flourishes. Scrollwork. Metal. Jewels. Whatever. Just make it wildly outrageous. Maybe four feet high or so. I want him to be really comfortable, but regal, elevated above everybody else.”

  “I think you’re taking this new dog mom gig a little seriously. You can put a bowl on the floor and he’ll be just as happy.”

  “It’s not for my house—i
t’s…a long story. Trust me, I want a dog throne, the most elaborate thing you can possibly make.”

  She tilts her head, peering at me as if through a haze.

  I give Latrisha the big update. She already knew about Bernadette and the fake whisperer gig, of course, but not about the will or Henry or my first board meeting.

  She stares at me for a long time after I finish my story. “I can’t believe you’re in charge of Cock Worldwide. They sound like asshats!”

  “You don’t even know.” I tell her how they tried to trick me. I repeat the jungle things Henry said.

  Latrisha frowns and puts her fists on her hips. “A dog throne, you say.”

  She starts designing, showing me ideas for freakishly elaborate millwork. We push it further and further. We get a pounded sterling guy involved. She has this vision for some sort of medallion for the seat back. “I’m seeing it the size of a coffee saucer. Like a coat of arms, except not.”

  I sit up. “It needs to be enamel!” This is my territory—I used to love working in enamel. I do a sketch of Smuckers’s sweet little face with a sequined bow-tie collar.

  Latrisha bends over my pad. I tell her what it is.

  “I fucking love that,” she says. “What are you setting it in?”

  Henry’s face comes to me, and I’m thinking WWHH—What Would Henry Hate? “Pink alloy. Neon pink alloy. This huge Smuckers face medallion set in neon pink.”

  “Like candy.”

  “Like candy.” Yeah, I’m spending way too much time on a medallion for the Smuckers throne, but I haven’t had so much fun designing something new in forever. The jewelry I create is as subdued as my court clothes and not really fun, but this? I’m loving it, even though it was inspired by that jackass Henry Locke.

  Henry is a breed of man I avoid like the plague, thanks to Denny.

  The minute I sense a guy might have family money, I’m out.

  I’m merciless on CupidZoom, passing over any man with an Ivy League college, any man who shows pictures of himself wearing a Tartan plaid scarf, or who likes two of the following list: sailing, downhill skiing, golf, plus anyone who uses the term equestrian, or has a pilot’s license. If he likes Coldplay, or if the only rap music he likes is Eminem, he’s out. And if there is a III at the end of his name? Triple adios, motherfucker.