Controlling Interests: A Step-Brother Romance (The Legacy Book 2)

by Lana Grayson

  She went to them first.

  And, together, they’d present their plan to me.

  “You no longer have a controlling portion of the Bennett Corporation,” I said. “But you have enough shares to make it…difficult, if you so choose.”

  “My goal isn’t to be difficult. I want the controlling interest.”

  “That won’t happen.”

  Her eyes revealed so many things she didn’t say. “It can if I’m given additional stock. If I can earn it, I can use Josmik and the purchased shares to take a majority and vote out your father.”

  She didn’t know how dangerous the board was. They would never sell an Atwood her shares. She had all the stock she could possibly acquire, and my father’s partners controlled the rest.

  “Sarah, there isn’t any more stock you can cheat, buy, or steal.”

  “Yes, there is,” she said. “And you’re going to give it to me.”

  She silenced.

  My brothers revealed nothing. They waited for my reaction, for my decision, as they always did. Since when did Sarah Atwood have such control over them?

  “I’m going to give…what to you?” I prompted.

  Sarah held my gaze.

  “Everything.”

  “Everything?”

  “I will buy your complete portion of the Bennett Corporation. Reed and Max already agreed to sell me theirs, but you hold the largest percentage. With your stock and Josiah and Mike’s collected shares, I’ll have my controlling interest. I will own everything.”

  My voice lowered. “You want me to give you…”

  My entire life.

  My fortune. My empire. My future.

  Absolutely not.

  “Sarah, this isn’t a game,” I warned.

  “I never said it was.”

  “You don’t realize what you’re asking.”

  “I’m asking to combine our power. I understand the risks, but this will work, Nick. It’s our only chance.”

  “You are jeopardizing the stability of both our companies. This is stock for a corporation worth billions.”

  “I know.”

  “Do you understand what would happen to the Bennett name if an Atwood seized control of our family company?”

  Sarah bristled. “Yeah, I do. About the same thing that would happen if I waddled onto an Atwood farm eight months pregnant with a Bennett’s bastard heir.”

  Damn. I wasn’t ready to admit that concession.

  Reed’s sigh was heavy. “Nick, dude, this the best idea I’ve heard since you tossed her naked over a desk.”

  I anticipated him siding with her. Reed had already pledged his stock. He’d surrender his name and carve out the genes he shared with our father too, but that didn’t make it a good idea. It just proved Sarah wasn’t the only one in danger.

  My father already threatened Max and Reed for refusing to harm Sarah.

  If he knew they allied with her? That they offered their birthrights to an Atwood?

  I couldn’t protect everyone, and no place in the world existed where we’d escape my father. He’d spend millions to track down anyone who wronged him. I saw it firsthand, remembered the money spent and the days wasted while he tracked the man who severed the break line in my mother’s car. Killing Mark Atwood would have only drawn attention to us, pin-pointed the crime to our name, but he made an example of the one he hired.

  He’d do the same to my brothers without thinking twice, especially if they betrayed our family.

  “No.” I said it gently, but it struck Sarah harder than any of the welts on her body.

  “No?” She shook her head. “You don’t understand the plan.”

  “I understand it.”

  “Then why?”

  Max frowned. “We can’t risk it anymore, Nick. Dad’s not going to stop until she’s knocked up or dead. Who the hell knows what he’ll do next, or what he’s told the board about your takeover attempt.”

  A valid concern. “This is too dangerous. Why risk her life? He’ll kill her before the contracts are signed.”

  “That’s not true,” Sarah said. “This is the cleanest, safest, best solution we have. Why oppose Josmik if you can use it to your advantage?”

  “And what advantage is that?” I asked. “Think of the money lost between the stock transfers—”

  “Oh, please. This isn’t about the money. You have the money. Don’t pretend you’d mourn the loss of a couple million dollars when this plan would guarantee you control of your entire company.”

  “Would it?”

  She hesitated. Max and Reed tensed.

  It took only a moment for her to spark with a quick fury. Sarah shuddered, but not in our offered pleasure or her nightmarish fear. I rarely saw her angry. That was good. The little fairy turned imp, and she seethed in solemn rage.

  “You don’t think I’ll give it back.”

  Partly.

  The Board would skin her alive before they let an Atwood control anything relating to the company. If the vile men lurking in my father’s shadow encouraged their future CEO to kidnap and rape an innocent girl, I imagined what they’d expect to prevent her from seizing our assets.

  Her words trembled. “You don’t trust me.”

  “Sarah.” Christ. She should have asked anything else of me. Anything. I’d kiss away her pouted lip and spare the pain she tried to hide. But not this.

  “You don’t think I’d return the control. That I’d…”

  “Destroy the Bennett empire brick-by-brick, starting with me?” I held her gaze. “Sarah, I love you. And you know I am doing everything in my power to protect you.”

  “Are you?”

  Why was it easier to love than it was to trust?

  I wanted Sarah Atwood. The dark fantasies I imagined of her tied to my bed, wrapped within my arms, or swelling with my child were nothing compared to my dreams of her being happy.

  I couldn’t risk freeing her—not with the power she wielded or the threat of my father—but I still hoped I treated her well. If not now, then eventually, once the madness ended and the takeovers cleared and…

  Once she conceived my son.

  I needed her in my possession.

  I had to defend her from the board.

  I was the only man who could stop her from harming herself.

  “What good is a promise with this?” I said. “This requires a contract. Signed and notarized and witnessed. Sarah, no agreement is completely secret. Someone would know, someone would tell my father, and you would be in even more danger.” I paused. She was unconvinced. “This plan will only work if you stay alive until you are given the trust.”

  “So keep me alive.”

  “Then you have to conceive.”

  She scowled. “Or, you could sell me your stock now and end this game with your father.”

  “How?”

  “Here’s an idea.” Her voice chilled. “Why don’t we kill Darius before he kills me?”

  The air thickened.

  Max nodded, as though he agreed, as though he’d ever dare to actually raise a hand against the man he loathed as much as he longed to impress. Reed said nothing. He’d never get his hands bloody, not when he had the courage to simply walk away, strike out on his own, and make his own life beyond our family crest.

  The thought burned me, but the fire suffocated with Sarah’s broken expression. The edge in her voice wasn’t bravery. It was fear.

  She really didn’t trust me.

  I didn’t know if that was wise or an insult.

  “Don’t assume I haven’t considered it.” I softened my voice for her. Those wide eyes stared at me, pale and shaken. “Don’t you think that hasn’t been the first, last, and only thought for weeks?”

  “Then…” She crossed her arms and hugged herself. I should have been the one to hold her. “It’s our only option.”

  Poor girl. It was never an option.

  “Sarah, believe me. I planned. I thought of every possibility. It won’t work. If h
e dies, and it’s suspicious in any way, his will stipulates everything freezes. The money, the stock, the company. Everything.”

  Max rubbed his face. “If I know Dad, he’s already pointed fingers at us. We opposed him one too many times. I’m sure he knows we’ve considered it.”

  “And I’m the sole heir to the Bennett Corporation. Billions of dollars are at stake. The police would look to me first and foremost.”

  “And Reed and I would inherit our own money. We’d be just as culpable.”

  “He’d rather dissolve the company than reward disloyalty,” I said. “I won’t let that happen.”

  Reed snorted. “I don’t care about the company.”

  “I do,” I said.

  Sarah tensed.

  “I am not putting the company or money before you,” I hated that she even thought it. “But the Bennett Corporation is mine. I’ve worked my entire life to assume leadership, and I’m not going to endanger it, our money, our employees, anything if I’m not convinced you’ll be safe.” I paused. “And I’m not.”

  Max frowned. “Why? If Dad’s dead, who would fuck with her?”

  The four remaining members of a board I couldn’t control—and they’d show less restraint than my father. They wouldn’t care about acquiring Atwood Industries, but they’d do everything to ensure Sarah never gained a single share of the Bennett Corporation.

  Sarah had only hope and impetuous courage to guide her. Revealing the board’s corruption would destroy both.

  And God only knew what my brothers would do if they realized men they trusted their entire lives would murder them for refusing to aid my father.

  “I understand Dad,” I said. “I’ve spent my life learning from him, studying him, mimicking him, and I’ve come to despise everything he expects of me. Every decision I’ve made was meant to make me a better man than him. I’ve ignored his lessons and attempted to manage this family and company the way I think it should be run.” I tapped my temple. “But I know how he thinks. He is always two steps ahead. He knows we would kill him if given the opportunity.”

  “Then why wait?” Sarah said. “Why not just do it. You know what he tried to do to me! He’s a monster. He doesn’t deserve to live, not after what he’s put me through.”

  I stood, buttoning my jacket. “And that’s why your plan won’t work.”

  “Why?”

  I brushed a hand over her cheek. She didn’t flinch away, despite the tightening of her jaw. She bit back a hundred insults to feel my touch. The desire would either safe her life or ruin her before I could help. “You want revenge. I can’t blame you. But you aren’t being rational. Vengeance isn’t clean. You’ll get hurt.”

  “This isn’t about revenge,” she said. I insulted her. “This is about protecting me.”

  “And I will.”

  She didn’t believe me.

  I didn’t believe me.

  Sarah held my gaze only to rip out my heart. “The only way you can protect me is if you let me go.”

  How many times would she force me to tighten the collar over her neck, trap her in my bed, or repeat the damning truth? She was mine. Forever.

  “I can’t let you go.”

  “No. You won’t let me go.”

  “You are safer with me than you are alone in the world hiding from my father.”

  She meant to be strong. Instead, her voice laced with hope. “Then come with me.”

  It was a greater impossibility. Not with my role in the company, the expectations, the possibilities I had in play that would save us all without bloodshed.

  “Enough, Sarah. I know you’re frustrated.”

  “I’m not frustrated!” Her voice rose. Hamlet galloped to her side, bumping her hand before she wound herself up. The damn dog comforted her more than me or my brothers. “I can’t live like this anymore. I won’t slink around the estate because I’m afraid of a beating. I won’t be paraded like Darius’s long-lost daughter so he can humiliate me before his partners.”

  It was far worse than humiliation, but I wasn’t ready to break her spirit just yet. It was easier for her to hate the Bennetts than to endure the betrayal of the outside world. At least I could protect her from that.

  “Sarah.”

  “He’s planning something. He wouldn’t offer to buy my research and bring me Hamlet and not lay a single finger on me if he didn’t have something planned.”

  “Nick scared him off a bit,” Reed said. “He’s not going to try anything with you again.”

  It didn’t comfort her.

  Just the opposite.

  “You don’t understand. I don’t care what Darius does to me…” Her eyes paled with dread and memory. “But what if he makes you guys hurt me? He’d have you beat me or starve me or…” Her words edged with the threat of panic. “We’re trapped, and as long as he’s alive, we’re never going to be free of his sadism.”

  She coughed. Harsh. It did nothing. She couldn’t breathe, and, suddenly, neither could I.

  The choking gasp frustrated her. She clawed at her neck as someone would swat away a fly, but this was no mere inconvenience. Reed moved quickly, helping me set her on the couch. Another cough.

  I knelt before her and offered the inhaler as a tear stained her cheek.

  Not fear.

  Not shame.

  Anger and confusion and a defensive hatred.

  She scowled as I forced the medication in her hand. She refused.

  “Don’t start,” I warned. I uncapped the inhaler and threatened to push it into her mouth. “We’re on your side.”

  She tensed but reluctantly puffed. Reed kept her close, rubbing her back with a comforting hand. Max forced himself to kneel beside me, patting her knee. She tolerated us, taking her first clear breath of air with a frustrated gasp.

  My brothers and I let out our held breaths too.

  We hated the asthma as much as she, and for the same reason. The helplessness, the uncertainty. Every night she coughed in her sleep, and I woke, dreading the next time an attack stole her strength and she collapsed, helpless in my arms.

  Christ. If it wasn’t my father or the board, it’d be her own body.

  I cupped her pale cheek. “Are you okay?”

  She was too weakened to lie. “It’s not right that he has this control. I hate not knowing what he’ll do to me.”

  She was right. My pulse thudded with fury, adrenaline, and absolute sorrow.

  I was supposed to love this woman. Instead she cowered before me in terror. Or rage. Both were too ugly of emotions for someone so beautiful, so strong.

  I looked to my brothers. “She doesn’t feel safe.”

  Max shrugged. “None of us do.”

  True, but I could offer Sarah some protection, a little reassurance even in the darkness. Something she could use to give her strength.

  “She needs to have a safe word.”

  Reed snickered. Max didn’t.

  “A safe word?” Max grunted. “Nick, nothing about this family is safe, sane, or consensual.”

  “No, I like this idea,” Reed said. “If we all want to trust each other and pretend this family is halfway functional, she should have an escape.”

  “Don’t you think Dad will get suspicious if she screams out a word and I stop beating her ass?”

  Reed shrugged. “So she says the word, and you flip her over. Flog her stomach instead of her ass. Or shove her down and make her blow you instead.”

  Sarah flinched. Her soft words were meant to call Hamlet to her side. A cover for her trembling hands.

  “This will give her some control over what happens. If something overwhelms her, she should have an escape, even if we can’t stop it altogether.”

  “You understand what we’re saying, baby?” Max asked.

  “Yeah.” She pocketed the inhaler. “I guess.”

  I loathed the thought of her so frightened or hurt that she’d scream for mercy, but if it helped her, calmed her even a little around my father, it was wort
h it. She let me take her hand.

  “Listen to me, Sarah,” I said. “The phrase can’t raise suspicion. My father must not realize we’ve allied together.”

  “Okay.”

  “If you’re overwhelmed or frightened…” Only one phrase would delight my father as much as her pain. “You will scream out I hate you.”

  She pushed me away. “I would never say that to you, Nick.”

  A relief. “My father doesn’t know that. He expects it.”

  “Darius can rot in hell.” She stood and immediately coughed. I didn’t have to move. Max and Reed pushed her onto the couch. Max kept her still, Reed gave her his water.

  We offered her comfort she didn’t want and options that did nothing to truly save her.

  She’d fight me on the safe word if for no other reason than she’d hate to use it. She’d never voluntarily admit her fear or beg for mercy.

  Was I so different?

  Her takeover, led by the stock she inherited, was her real safe word. And a viable one, even if my gut told me trusting an Atwood, even my Sarah, would only end in ruin. But we had no other options. Sarah suffered an asthma attack simply thinking of my father.

  I wasn’t going to risk her health because of my pride.

  “Sarah.” I ignored the churning of my stomach as I made the promise. “I’ll sell you my stock.”

  She puffed with excitement. I stopped her before she spoke.

  “But it doesn’t happen now. For any of us.” I nodded to my brothers. “Call it a fail-safe. If we have no other options when the trust is awarded to her, then we’ll sell, and she’ll take control.”

  “Nick, thank you!” She hugged me. “I promise. This will work.”

  I lived for her touch, but I pushed her down, forcing her to listen. “We don’t move on it now.”

  Her eyebrow rose. I wasn’t fighting her on this.

  “We say nothing. We do nothing. No money exchanges, no contracts are written. The day you are awarded your trust is the day I give you my stock, but not a moment before, or I won’t be able to protect you.”

  “Once I’m in control I won’t need to be protected anymore. We’ll win this, Nick.”

  I wasn’t about to deny her hope.

  But I was prepared to lose everything if Sarah Atwood’s vengeance extended beyond my father?