Chapter Fourteen. Rowan
FOURTEEN
Rowan
“What the…?” I mutter to myself as I walk onto the fourth floor of the TinSpirits offices and come face-to-face with the painting that started it all.
The one Holden won in the auction over Rhett. The one that marked his presence in Westmore society. And the one that put us on this path to where we currently are—him, the majority owner of my family’s company, and me, getting screwed out of the promises I so blindly thought were real.
The painting hangs on the entrance wall, positioned perfectly over a decorative table where a vase with an array of twisty sticks and fake plants usually sits. And in a position that no one can miss.
The image is chaos personified. Loud, brash, contrasting colors splashed on a canvas without any precision. There is no structure to it, no goal, and while others might find it beautiful, I find it garish at best and obtrusive at worst.
An emergency board meeting on a holiday and the appearance of this ugly, $3 million painting that represents chaos?
That means Holden is most definitely pulling a power play to piss off my brother. And while I think I might enjoy whatever is in store over the next hour or so, I also wonder why the hell am I here?
I’m not a board member.
I don’t have a seat.
I have no say in anything to do with the company.
And yet … the invitation was extended to me as well.
Either that or he’s announcing the deal is done, the company officially sold, and he wants to watch the shock of it all hit me. Almost like it’s his little vindictive payback for my getting engaged to Chad.
“Rowan?”
I look down the hall to where Audrey stands with her hand on the conference room door and her eyebrows raised at me.
Yes. Sure. No problem. I can’t wait to sit in the conference room where the reminder of Holden and I having sex on the table is a constant.
“Coming.” I force a smile and prepare myself for the gut punch of seeing Holden again. Then again there can’t really be a gut punch when my stomach has been twisted in knots ever since his lips touched mine on Friday.
With a fortifying breath, I enter the room to the list of usual suspects.
The board members—mostly men—seated around the table.
Many of the faces I saw less than seventy-two hours ago at the engagement party, but this time around, rather than smiles and glasses lifted in cheer, irritation and impatience emanate off all of them.
“The stupid fucking painting,” I hear my brother grumble to Chad, but then their heads shock still when they see me there. Others take notice and they turn to see what Chad and Rhett are looking at. “What are you…?”
I shrug. “I was asked to be here.”
“But…” But you’re not a board member. I can see it register on everyone’s faces around the table at different times.
I take that as my cue to smile politely and move to the only open seat left, which is, of course, at the head of the table. The one place where it’s impossible to fly under the radar.
I set my things down and get settled, purposely avoiding Chad’s probing stares as to why I’m here. I want to tell him I don’t have a clue, but the other part of me wants to watch all of them squirm.
The deal is done, no doubt, and this is the unveiling of Holden Knight as the new majority owner.
Even though he threatened stability to everyone but the very people sitting in this room, here I am proving his intentions true. If I’m here, change is coming or is somehow on the horizon, and no doubt it’s probably unsettling to all of them.
“Such a great party the other night,” the man to my immediate left, Barney, says. A man who Gran’s notes say is a solid guy who has secret bank accounts to hide his gambling addiction from his wife. “Susan and I were so thrilled at the news of you and Chad. You’ll—”
“Good afternoon,” Holden says as he strides into the room and commands its occupants’ attention. Heads whip and bodies shift uncomfortably in chairs. The man definitely unsettles people.
“What’s the purpose of all this?” Rhett asks, his chair scraping back as he stands. You’d think by now he’d know not to go head-to-head with Holden in front of an audience, and yet here he is, doing just that.
“Take a seat, Rothschild,” Holden says, not looking his way. But he looks mine and holds our gaze. “Rowan,” he murmurs with a soft nod.
I don’t know how I feel about being called out in a room where I’m already an oddity, so I just nod in response.
Holden clears his throat as he takes his place at the front of the room. “I know it was short notice so I appreciate you all coming in today.”
“You didn’t really give us a choice,” someone grumbles, but no one dares take their eyes off the man who owns our attention.
“You’re right. I didn’t. Just like Rhett didn’t give anyone a choice in making pay cuts last year—for the good of the company—while he gave himself a raise.” His smile is as biting as his tone.
“Again,” Rhett grits out as his cheeks flush red. “Why are we here?”
“I’m here to announce that the deal has been closed. I am now the new majority owner of TinSpirits.” There’s shuffling around the table but everyone listens with rapt attention.
Including me.
“And as your new majority owner, there are a few changes that will be made, effective immediately.”
In my periphery, I see Rhett glance at Chad and then back toward Holden. My brother is the one who signed the fucking deal, so why is he so leery when he didn’t get screwed out of anything?
“While I’ll remain the final word on all major decisions, I will also be creating a new position.” He pauses for dramatic effect. “Co-CEO.”
“What the fuck?” Rhett barks out, echoing my own thoughts. The deal stated that Rhett was to remain the CEO and Chad the COO. A co-CEO? Is he going to bring in some outsider corporate bigwig to further decimate this company?
Dread filters through me. No doubt another man to push me out.
“Explain yourself,” Chad says, and by the grit of Holden’s jaw I fear for Chad’s safety.
“I don’t have to. That’s what happens when you own the keys to the company.” He unbuttons one of his cuffs and rolls his sleeve up. The whole room watches with bated breath. Each roll of his sleeve, a stretch of uncertain seconds.
My chest burns and my hands tremble. He’s doing this, inviting me here as a witness to see what he’s about to rub in my face.
“Excuse me.” My chair scrapes even louder than Rhett’s as I shove it out behind me. I can’t be here. I struggle to breathe as the room feels like it’s closing in on me.
“Rowan,” Holden says my name. It’s not a question, but more like a command, and that makes me even angrier. “Sit.”
The room falls silent, almost holding its breath to see if I’ll defy him or not. I take a step back, fold my arms over my chest, and lean against the wall.
I refuse to obey him and by the flicker of a smirk he offers me, my silent protest is noted and admired.
“As I was saying, the co-CEO is a new position I’m creating to effectively distribute authority so that there remain checks and balances on power in this office. Major decisions must be signed off by both CEOs before coming to my desk for final approval.”
I can see the panic in my brother’s face—the wide eyes and gray pallor—of realizing he’s about to be put in check. How will he siphon money from the company if he has to get everything approved?
As much as I’m supposed to loathe Holden right now, I might admire him just a tad for doing something I can’t—scaring the shit out of Rhett and stripping him of his autonomy.
“This new position is effective immediately. She’ll have—”
“She?” someone repeats the same thing I’m thinking.
And my mind goes there. To the stunning woman in the pencil skirt who strutted down this very hallway a few weeks ago like she owned the place. Holden greeted her and then met my eyes as he shut his office door and proceeded to spend hours behind those doors with her.
It’s her. She has to be the new co-CEO.
Acid churns in my gut at the thought of her working side by side with him. At them sitting at this conference room table after knowing how he bent me over it.
Nowhere in whatever this is do I have to justify every single person I meet with … and you don’t want to be the woman who asks me to. I assure you of that.
Weren’t those Holden’s words when I asked who she was?
Now I know.
“Yes,” he states resolutely. “She’ll.” He pauses and meets the eyes of everyone at the table before continuing.
A nonverbal warning that we may be in Westmore, but we’re playing by his rules.
“She will have the same authority as Rhett or whoever her co-CEO is.” My brother bristles at the unspoken warning that he is replaceable.
“As well as a seat here on the board with voting power.”
“You can’t just do that,” Mr. Seymour, one half of a power-hungry couple sitting at the far end, says.
They’ve been a part of this company forever but I’ve never liked them and always considered their seats here a bribe of some sort by someone in my family.
Especially after seeing all the dirt Gran has on them.
“I can and I did,” Holden states.
“There needs to be a vote somehow before anyone gets a seat on the board. You can’t just add them as you see fit,” Chad says.
“Not per company bylaws there doesn’t.” He points to Audrey in the back of the room, who holds up a stack of papers.
While we can’t read the words on the cover, we can all assume they are in fact the bylaws.
“As the majority owner, I have the authority to create new positions as I see fit so long as they are for the benefit of the company. Any new executive position I create also has the opportunity to gain a seat here at the table with you all if I choose.” He lifts his eyebrows, a taunt to test him. “And I chose.”
“We should get a lawyer to look at this,” Chad says.
Holden’s chuckle sends chills over my skin.
“Considering it was a Williams who helped establish those bylaws way back when, I’m pretty sure they’re solid—unless of course you don’t trust your own family and their integrity?
Should I worry, Chad? You did once tell me they would bend rules for me, didn’t you? ”
There are a few cleared throats as Chad’s cheeks flush. “What are you talking about? I’d never say that.”
“Ah, so that’s how this goes. Good to know. You catch that, Rowan?” Holden asks, putting me on the spot. His little display of who has the bigger dick is more than obvious to me, but then again, no one in this room knows I’ve slept with him, so there’s that.
“So, yes, a lawyer has looked at it for all of those still wondering. TinSpirits’ own lawyers implemented it years ago and I had my own lawyers go over it with a fine-tooth comb to make sure everything I was doing was within my legal limits.
In fact, this deal was closed a few weeks ago, but I was waiting to get their sign-off before I informed all of you. ”
“Get on with it, Knight,” Bertrand and his fluffy gray eyebrows mutter from the far end. “You’re wasting our time justifying what you’ve done. If you own the company, then there is no justification required.”
The smile crawls onto Holden’s lips. He just found an ally in a room full of undecideds.
“I still think we should get a say, an approval, of this person,” Rhett says from his place in the middle of the table. Several other people nod in agreement.
“Not necessary. I already vetted and approved her on behalf of all of you,” Holden says as he looks around the room and then back to me.
All eyes staring at their fidgeting fingers on the table swing his way. Curiosity wins out over their unease of coming face-to-face with this outsider who now has voting rights that could switch up the power play and possibly affect their share prices with her vote.
I don’t know why my pulse begins to race, but it does as I look toward the open door and wait for Pencil Skirt to strut in with those gorgeous lips of hers in a smile.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the board, please meet TinSpirits’ new co-CEO, Rowan Rothschild.”
I hear his words but don’t process them. My eyes whip to his, to the look of satisfaction in them, and I don’t know what to do.
Confusion, anger, surprise, and disbelief all reverberate through me, and I don’t know which one I need to hold on to.
“Don’t you need to ask me first?” I ask. And while it might not be the response I mean to give or he expects to receive, he gives a slow nod and his eyes never leave mine.
“I already did. Months ago.”
My brow furrows and I let the confusion reign. “I don’t…”
“Yes, you do. You’re just afraid to believe it.”
I bolt from the conference room. Past the protest no doubt my brother is about to voice, beyond the narrowed brows of Chad as he tries to read into that exchange, and far removed from Holden Knight and this hold he seems to have over me and my emotions.
He can handle the board.
I need to figure out what I believe.