Takeover

by Diana Dwayne

  TAKEOVER

  PART I

  D I A NA D W A Y N E

  Copyright © 2014

  Published by: Rascal Hearts

  All Rights Reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

  For questions and comments about this book, please contact us at Info@RascalHearts.com

  Book Cover By: Rosy E. Fisher

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter One

  The Color of Sky

  I’m sitting at my desk, just outside the office of my boss, Rory McDaniel. Mr. McDaniel is the CEO of Opulence International Business Group. Imagine: these guys actually named the business “Opulence.” When I was chosen to be his assistant—although he insists on calling me his secretary—I was delirious with excitement to be so close to the man at the top of a Fortune 500 company. That’s not true anymore.

  Don’t get me wrong, I’ve never made this kind of money as a “secretary” anywhere else, but the fact that I can hear him through his closed door, right now, screaming at his CFO—the magic has kind of gone out of it for me.

  He’s screaming, “Do you have any fucking idea what you’ve cost us? I thought CFOs were supposed to know how to handle business. You, Atkinson, are absolutely fucking useless!” and the door does little to muffle the sound.

  I take a deep breath and try to focus on typing up a report that Mr. McDaniel wanted me to have done about three hours ago. In my defense, it’s really difficult to concentrate with him shouting in the next room.

  I tune him out by slipping in my earbuds, but his voice overpowers the audiobook version of “How to Win Friends and Influence People.” Ironically enough, it’s right at the chapter where Carnegie is talking about how one should never engage in an argument. I’m starting to think the author missed something because Rory has been at the top so long, everyone just assumes he’s going to be there until the sky is affixed with crime-scene tape and the oceans have turned to sparkling white wine. Now that I think about it, I may have misread The Book of Revelation.

  Atkinson—a burly man in his mid-forties with hair short enough that it almost obfuscates the fact that he’s past the point of balding—comes out of the office and by my desk, somehow managing to smile at me as he passes. I didn’t hear specifics toward the end of the conversation but, given the look on his face, he’s either just been fired or he will be within the week.

  That’s the way McDaniel works. He’s almost pleasant until something goes wrong in the company: whether or not you had anything to do with it, in his eyes, it’s your fault. Luckily, I know where the man’s skeletons are buried, or at least enough of them to keep my job as long as I manage to keep my head down.

  The phone on my desk buzzes and I remove the headphones from my ears. Apparently, I don’t do this quickly enough, because now Mr. McDaniel’s office door is swinging open and slamming into the wall to end its trajectory.

  “Pearson!” he bellows. “I want you in my office thirty seconds ago.”

  “I’m coming,” I say, my voice even smaller than normal. He storms back into the office, slamming the door shut for what I can only assume is emphasis. The man scares me, but this is my job. Ah, the glory of getting paid to be abused. It’s the American Dream. Actually, that’s probably not right; it’s the American Reality.

  I walk through the door, and it’s not even shut before he’s yelling at me. “Pearson!” he starts in, “Did you finish that report, or are you as incompetent as Atkinson’s stupid ass?” He’s on the other side of the room, but I can smell the stale liquor on his breath from here.

  “I’m not incompetent—” I start, then stop. What I really want to say is I’m not incompetent, you’re just a mean old curmudgeon who hasn’t taken responsibility for anything since I’ve been here working for you, but I can see that plan backfiring. “The report is almost done,” I respond anew. “Is there anything else that you need, sir?”

  “Yeah,” he says. “I need you to move my appointment with the Japanese ambassador from 4:30 this evening to 5:30 tomorrow.”

  “Sir, you’ve already rescheduled on him twice.”

  “Are you my secretary or aren’t you?”

  I sigh. “Okay,” I respond, “I’ll get that moved and let Mr. Yamamoto know about the change. Hopefully he’s willing to come by that late.”

  McDaniel manages something that looks like half of a smile mixed with a type of murderous rage to which I’ve grown all too accustomed over the years.

  “I’ll get that done first, so that Mr. Yamamoto—”

  “I honestly don’t give a shit how you do it, just fucking do it!”

  My boss has quite the mouth on him. “Okay,” I say and turn toward the door.

  “Okay what?” he asks, his voice still dripping venom and firewater.

  I hide my sigh as best I can as I respond, “Okay, sir.”

  That closest thing to a smile that he can muster with his clean-shaven face and short, auburn hair, returns and he says, “Much better, dear, now run along and could you at least try to have a little more enthusiasm in your work?”

  I’d have a lot more enthusiasm if being around you wasn’t like being on the wrong end of a shotgun blast to the face. “I will certainly make a better effort, sir. Thank you for your candor.”

  “And for god’s sake, I know all about women’s lib’, but does that mean that you have to come in here dressed like a fucking Sunday school teacher every goddamned day? Jesus, you’re the first point of contact that people have with me, and I’m astounded they don’t think I’m just a gigantic pussy from the way you dress.”

  My mouth drops, but he just waves me off as he begins mulling over what I can only assume are the papers regarding whatever catastrophe he’s pinning on Atkinson.

  I’m back in my desk chair before he finds another reason to scream at me. I start flipping through my rolodex. Sure, it’s not the most up-to-date secretarial tool, but it is more secure than storing numbers on the phone or my computer where anyone could steal all that personal information. You’d be surprised how often that sort of thing happens in this company. Actually, when I really think about it, I don’t think that’s ever actually happened to Mr. McDaniel. Huh.

  I dial in the number and explain the situation to the ambassador, not bothering to ask him why the main focus of his trip to our country seems to be meeting with my boss.

  The man is disappointed, but not enough to forego asking me to get McDaniel on the phone. I ask him to hold, but it’s only a courtesy. I’m not going to bother the beast in the next room with the request. The megalomaniac has made it perfectly clear that he’s not willing to take phone calls. I don’t mean phone calls of this type; I mean phone calls in general. The man won’t even pick up when his wife calls about the kids. Can you imagine? There’s actually some woman out there who would willingly procreate with this man.

  I shudder and take the ambassador off hold. “I’m very sorry, Mr. Ambassador, Mr. McDaniel is unavailable at the moment, but I’d be glad to have him call you back when he
returns.”

  The reasonably high-ranking government official on the other end of the line groans, but says, “No, I’ll just come by the office later this afternoon.” I try to interject, but the ambassador hangs up before I can get a word out.

  This is just great. McDaniel is going to throw a shit fit, and I’m going to be the one on the receiving end of it. Oh well, at least I get to go home to James. If it weren’t for him, I don’t think I would have been able to stomach working here this long. The yelling is tame in comparison to most of the other stuff that I’ve overheard and personally witnessed since I started here.

  I knew that this wasn’t going to be just any other job when I walked in on Mr. McDaniel with his pants around his ankles, his flabby gut resting on the bare backside of the woman bent over his desk. I had met the woman a few days before; she was the wife of one of the board members. I say “was” not because her husband, the indomitable Mr. Fyurek, broke it off when he found out about her revised coital itinerary. It was nothing like that. He filed for divorce when he found out that she was sleeping with his boss and hadn’t been using her new “connection” to further his career.

  Despite my odd and, to be honest, somewhat tragic working environment, I still believe that people are inherently good. James, my fiancé, is proof of that.

  I manage to finish up the report. I put it in Mr. McDaniel’s inbox and give him a quick buzz to let him know that I’m going out for my lunch break. His response is brief, just enough to let me know that he “doesn’t give a fuck,” but I’m not going to let his miserable attitude ruin my day. Tonight will be my first night living with James.

  It took him a while to talk me into giving up my apartment and moving in with him. To be honest, I never thought I’d be the type to shack up with some guy, but he isn’t just some guy. I’ve known James since we were in high school. Well, saying that I knew him might be a bit of an overstatement. He was captain of the football team, and I was that loner bookworm, secretly dripping bits of dew at school dances, just praying that someone would come and talk to me. He wasn’t very aware of me, but I was very aware of him.

  Now we’re moving in together.

  We’re meeting for lunch, and I can hardly keep my breath from getting lost on its path to and from my lungs. We’ve been dating for five years, and I’m only now beginning to realize just how patient he’s been. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no saint, but I do still have the whole virgin thing to hang on to.

  I get to my car and have to brace myself against the wheel. I don’t know why this is hitting me so hard; James and I have been together for a long time. He knows me better than I know myself, and he still wants me to move in with him. Why then does this feel like a panic attack?

  I take a few breaths and turn the key in the ignition just enough to get the stereo going. I’m not big on music, per se. When I was younger, I always tried to show up at school blasting whatever kind of music I thought might make me seem more interesting, but my real love has always been books.

  Maybe I’m giving the wrong impression of myself. I’m not now, nor was I then, someone who would change everything just to fit in. It’s nothing like that. It’s just that I had this thought in my mind that if I projected certain things about myself, I might attract people with interests similar to my own. Oddly enough, when I was in high school, the people that I saw most often reading in the halls—not because they had to, but because they wanted to—were the black leather-clad goth kids.

  I never quite got the whole statement of gothdom. To me, it seemed like rebelling against the norm by falling into an even more strict way of being, but I wasn’t about to put up posters in the cafeteria inviting people to a book club either. That time in my life was awkward enough and, to be honest, I don’t think I had the strength then to be one of the “nerdy” kids.

  The one thing—well, the only thing that really made me comfortable about my time as a quasi-goth in high school was that I could pretend I was an outcast by choice. Those nerdy kids were the ones that really had the courage to be themselves no matter what.

  I let the familiar words of Kafka’s “The Hunger Artist” sooth my body back into a more amenable type of discomfort: the uncertainty of me. Maybe it’s that I’m the middle child in a family of seven; maybe it’s that I’m the only girl, but I’ve never quite been comfortable in my own skin. Poor James has had to work so hard to try and convince me that I’m something special and that I’m—I can hardly even say it with any sort of seriousness—beautiful; only, he doesn’t realize that there’s a part of me that will always be that awkward teenage girl, wondering what it is that I did wrong to be so alone in the world.

  But I have him.

  I finally catch my breath, and my heart rate returns to only mildly elevated as I drive off. I’ve wasted about ten minutes of my half-hour lunch, but today is Monday. My boss always uses my Monday lunch breaks as an excuse to draw some young thing into his palace of debauchery. I like to be out of the office as long as possible on days like today.

  This drive is taking forever.

  I’ve been thinking about high school a lot lately. My class’s ten year reunion is coming up in a little over a week, and I keep trying to tell myself that I’m going to be the darling of the ball—whatever that means. I landed the hottest guy in school. I should be excited to see all of those vapid troglodytes and rub their faces in the fact that I’ve won the game. The problem is that every time the thought of seeing those people again comes to my mind, I’m right back in my old skin, pale and festooned with black, vegan-friendly-faux-leather everything, being rejected by the rejects because I can’t stop myself from wincing every time Dani Filth opens that ridiculous maw of his.

  I tap the button on my car’s console and open a call to James, but he’s not answering. He must already be at the restaurant, waiting for me. Maybe he thinks that I’m standing him up, but why would he think that? I just need to calm down, take a deep breath and listen to the voice coming through my speakers.

  When I finally arrive, I easily spot James’s car in the parking lot. I don’t know why I get so worked up over nothing. He must already be inside because, as I pull around his car with its deeply tinted windows, I can’t hear the usual soft-but-loud bass line of some rap music. I never quite understood the appeal of listening to people talk about how many “bitches” they “get with” over really lazy techno music but, like I said, I’m not well schooled when it comes to music. I’m sure I’m just missing something.

  I park my car and enter the restaurant. It’s not too busy, and I’m able to spot James pretty quickly. He’s sitting at our usual table. There’s something so nice about having a “usual table,” isn’t there?

  He sees me and waves, his face beaming that same smile he had when we were both seniors in high school, and it still implants that swarm of butterflies in my belly every time I see it directed at me. I blush and walk toward him. Why am I blushing?

  “Hey sweetheart,” he says. “How is work going today?”

  “It’s going great,” I say. James doesn’t know what kind of man my boss is, and I don’t want to become one of those suburban housewives who can’t stop complaining about everything all the time. “I actually talked to the Japanese ambassador today,” I add proudly.

  “Damn,” he says, smiling. “That’s amazing.”

  I want to say, No, it’s really not, that whole thing is a nightmare, but I don’t want to burden James. “How are things at home?”

  “That’s actually why I asked you to lunch,” he says. “I mean, apart from the fact that I wanted to see you.”

  I swear he says stuff like that just to see my face go red. It hasn’t stopped working yet.

  “I have a surprise for you,” he says. “It’s nothing too big, but I think you’ll really like it.”

  “Really?” I ask, trying not to cry. What is wrong with me?

  “Yeah,” he says. “I wanted to keep it a secret, but I can’t hold it in any longer. Do you think
your boss will let you come home early?”

  I asked Mr. McDaniel for an early day once. I’m still surprised that I got out of his office without getting hit in the face. “It’s a really busy day,” I say. “I can’t leave him hanging like that.”

  “That’s okay,” he says, shaking his head. “I’ve waited this long. I can wait a few more hours.”

  My phone starts to ring, and I know exactly who it is. I have six brothers, a mom, a dad, five aunts and uncles and two grandparents that are still living, but the only person other than James who ever gives me a call is the old lecher that I work for. “I’m so sorry,” I tell James.

  “You just got here,” he says. “He can’t want you back at the office already. It’s your lunch break.”

  “He’s my boss,” I say, defending a man who would sooner throw me out his office window on the fourteenth-floor than treat me like a human being.

  “You know that he’s legally obligated to give you a certain amount of time for lunch,” James says.

  While James is correct, he’s not taking into account that by the time I get back to the office, it will have been half an hour. “I know,” I say. “Things are just really busy at the office.” I answer the phone. “This is Rose P–”

  “Where the fuck are you?” my boss shouts in my ear. God, I’m glad that I keep the volume so low. “Your lunch break ended half an hour ago!”

  Actually, my lunch break began twenty minutes ago, but I’m not about to rock the boat. “I’ll be right there,” I say, and Mr. McDaniel hangs up on me. “I’m so sorry,” I tell James. “Things are so crazy right now, but I’ll be home a little after five.”

  James smiles.

  “What?” I ask, nervously.

  “You just called my place home,” he says.

  “Hey,” I tease, “it’s our place.”

  I kiss my fiancé and quickly make my way out to the car. This is my life and, all things considered, it could be a lot worse.

  Chapter Two

  Your Shadow

  I get back to the office just in time to place a bet on whether that vein in Mr. McDaniel’s forehead is about to burst. Apparently, while I was gone on my scheduled lunch period, for which I had received my boss’s approval, he had made the egregious mistake of answering the phone. It was the secretary of the Japanese ambassador, calling back to tell him that if the meeting couldn’t happen at the original time, the ambassador will cancel it entirely.