Wrapped Up: A Triple Threat Sports Romance (15 page)

I took it nice and easy. At first. As driving seemed easier, I picked up speed.

I rolled the windows down and felt the night air coming into the car. I remembered why I liked to sneak out and drive myself. It was because I loved driving. It felt a lot like running the ball down the field. It was like I had something that everyone else wanted, so I had to pick up the pace and get ahead before I got tackled.

I started running, deciding I had to make it the full hundred yards across the field. I kicked it into high gear, trying to get away from everyone behind me, everyone following me. I convinced myself they were trying to get the ball.

I wasn’t sure how I made it onto the interstate, but it was the easiest way to try to get away from everyone. It was a straight, wide-open highway stretching out as far as I could see. I gunned it, flooring the gas to see how fast I could go. The world went whizzing by me in a blur.

The way I was driving, I was going to get away from the people behind me, but I felt like I was also going to get away from all of my problems. I wasn’t worrying about not being able to play football. I wasn’t worried about Brooke. I wasn’t worried about the one who got away. I was the one getting away.

Cancelling the marriage meant I didn’t have to worry about putting on a show for everyone anymore. It meant not having to worry about a divorce anymore. It meant not worrying about that damn company and owning something that really wasn’t mine.

It was time to go home. My mind was wandering all over the place, and it felt like my car was starting to as well. I felt like I was starting to outrun my buzz. The night air rushing through the open windows had me feeling sober again.

I saw the exit to take to get back to my house and hit the brakes to slow down. I felt the car jerk to the side as I took the turn a little late. I was sure I was alright, but everything seemed to turn the wrong way all of a sudden. I didn’t know where I was going, but it didn’t feel like I was going the way I wanted to. That was it.

I closed my eyes. I knew I was in trouble, but I didn’t want to see it. I didn’t want to know what was about to happen. I wanted to close my eyes and let myself black out during it. I figured that was the best way to handle it.

“I’m sorry, Brooke,” I said as I felt the car leave the road.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Brooke

With my paperwork from Hollie under my arm, I called a board meeting without inviting my father. My father was retired. He had no business interfering with board meetings as far as I was concerned.

I waited in the boardroom for them to show up, taking the seat normally reserved for my father. Hollie accompanied me, just in case I needed backup, in case there were things I forgot to bring up. We had discussed and planned what I was going to say, but I still felt better having her by my side to step in if I left anything out.

My stomach was tied in knots. Jake hadn’t come home the night before. I had woken up alone, unable to share my wonderful news with the one person I thought would have appreciated it as much as I did. I knew I had screwed up, but I didn’t realize just how badly. I tried not to think about it, tried to push my thoughts of Jake out of my mind so I could focus on the meeting.

I stood as the board members entered the room and took their seats at the table. They were all older, successful gentlemen. It had never really registered with me before that they were all men, but it did on that morning. I was reminded of my father’s words, suggesting that I needed to meet higher standards because I was a woman—a girl in their eyes, since most of them had known me since I was little—trying to impress these men.

“Thank you all for showing up on such short notice,” I told them as I started the meeting.

“Where is your father, dear?” one of the older members asked in a creaky voice.

“My father was unable to make it to this meeting,” I said quickly, trying to proactively shut down the objection I knew I was coming.

“Shouldn’t we wait until he can be present for the board to convene?” another voice asked.

I sighed. I hadn’t seated myself yet, opting to remain standing in an effort to control the room. It would have been nice to have had Jake’s support to fall back on, or to have had him to tell me it was a bad idea, not to do it.

No. I didn’t need a man to stand behind me and tell me whether or not to proceed with trying to take my father’s company out from underneath him. There had only been one man who had stood behind me to guide my actions, and that had been my father. I didn’t need someone else to try to fill his shoes. And that was where I found my inspiration, in focusing on my independence.

“Actually, gentlemen, my father is why we’re meeting today. It is my opinion that he is unfit to continue influencing the company.” My voice hardened as I talked. The board listened to my presentation. They looked over the evidence I gave them to show that my father had actually been unfit for his position for some time. I watched as they pored over the pages and listened intently as I explained the information in those pages. I could see they were considering what I was telling them, and a few faces seemed to agree with me.

“What I am asking is that my father be relieved of his shares of the company. I believe he should be stripped of his title and removed from his honorary position on the board. His retirement demonstrates an admission of what the evidence I have provided suggests. He has been unfit for some time and remains so,” I explained in closing.

“You have definitely given us something to consider with this,” one of the board members said. “I think I speak for the rest of the board when I say we need time to consider your proposal. We will reconvene in a week to go over a possible plan of action to move forward.”

With that, they were all standing and leaving the room.
A week?
I didn’t want to wait a week to find out what they thought about my father’s inability to carry on as an honorary board member. He was essentially a retired employee at that point, and he was using his former status as the CEO to influence the board to go against the company’s best interest.

I was livid. I wanted a fast answer, not a week to mull it over.

“Relax,” Hollie said after the board members left the room. “You did fine. They’d be crazy not to side with you after everything you showed them today.”

I nodded. “I just hope they’re not crazy,” I said.

I checked my phone. There were no texts or missed calls from Jake. It was like he’d fallen off the face of the earth.

“No word from Jake?” Hollie asked.

“It’s that obvious, huh? I told him off yesterday. We had a fight because of my father’s decision to make him the majority shareholder after our marriage. I tried to talk to him about the prenuptial agreement, and he refused to do it that way. So, I told him I was going to call off the wedding, and I think that set him off,” I explained.

“So you guys are breaking up?” Hollie asked.

“It seems that way,” I said, letting out a heavy sigh.

“It’s okay. This will probably fix it,” she said reassuringly. “Just give them some time to look over everything. And tell him what you’re trying to do.”

“I’ve tried, but he isn’t answering or returning any of my texts,” I told her, sounding much more pathetic than I wanted to.

“I guess you should give him time, too,” she said with a smirk on her face. She put a hand on my shoulder to guide me out of the room.

As we reached the door, my phone buzzed in my pants pocket. I shot Hollie a look. The timing was just too coincidental. However, when I pulled my phone out of my pocket, I saw that it was my father—a decidedly worse consequence.

“I think I’ve been sold out,” I told Hollie before I answered it.

“So, you think you’re going to kick me out of the company I created?” He was already talking when I put the phone up to my ear after accepting the call.

“Who told you?” I asked.

“Does it matter? You’re not getting the company, Brooke. Not now, not ever. I don’t care if you get married or not,” he said.

“Now, you listen here,” I started, but he cut me off.

“I will not listen.
You
listen. I will not have my daughter going behind my back to try to steal my company from me. Do you understand?” He scolded me like a little child.

“You can’t just keep changing your mind from one minute to the next like this,” I argued.

“As long as I have the board on my side, I can do whatever the hell I want. And don’t think for a second that you’re going to turn them against me. You’re on thin ice, Brooke. I’d tread very carefully if I were you,” he threatened.

“What are you going to do, fire me? Put me out on the street?”

“I might. Two can play this game, child, and I’m better at it than you are.” He disconnected the call, leaving me with a chill in my veins.

I slowly pulled the phone away from my ear and looked at Hollie. She must have seen the terror in my eyes, because she dropped her role as my lawyer and picked back up as my best friend. She rubbed my back to comfort me.

“Is everything okay? He didn’t just fire you, did he?” she asked.

“No, but he threatened to. Someone on the board sold me out to him.” I spoke, but my voice seemed distant, as if the words I heard came from someone else.

“Don’t worry. We’ll just have to figure something else out,” Hollie said.

“We’ll need to do it soon, before he has the chance to retaliate,” I added.

“Right. Still nothing from Jake?”

“Nothing.” I looked down at my phone and shook my head. It was like he had vanished into thin air.

She sighed. “It would be nice if he could help in some way, wouldn’t it?”

“Now you sound like me. No, I think I can do this without his input. I would rather do it that way anyway. I don’t want another man having power over me the way my father does right now,” I explained.

“Good. I have an idea that might just work. Let’s sit down and reassess our goals here to make sure this will help, but I think I’ve got a way to do it without ousting your dad, which will still technically take away his control, but he should have lost that already,” Hollie explained.

“Great. Let’s get out of here and take a look.”

We went out for coffee and to look over some of the paperwork Hollie had on the company, mostly information she hadn’t brought up during our first look at everything. She had financial records of every board member, company bank statements, the board’s by-laws, the whole nine yards.

We sat down and looked through every number, every line of data. I didn’t know what we were looking for, so none of it really made any sense beyond looking at the investments and returns on the board.

“What exactly are we looking for?” I finally asked after my second cup of coffee.

“Any irregularities or mishandling of company funds,” she said. “If there’s anything in these papers, it should be easy to spot, and there’s always something. There’s always some discrepancy that at least looks worse than it really is. I’m just not seeing anything. You?”

“Nothing. I just see numbers. They aren’t telling me anything other than the fact that my father is still the majority shareholder.”

That was when it hit me. I had the perfect way to get around my father without getting rid of him.

“What if I convince the board to transfer enough shares to me to make me the majority shareholder? That would essentially make the company mine, right?” I asked.

Hollie looked up from the papers in front of her. “That should do it,” she agreed.

“And my father could keep his honorary position on the board. He could still be part of the company. It would just be mine. The board would turn it over to me instead of waiting for my father to decide to do it,” I continued, thinking out loud at this point.

“Right, and you wouldn’t have to get married or anything like that.”

“Good,” I said with a laugh. “He’s not calling back or anything, so I think marriage is off the table now.”

“That was a ridiculous idea anyway,” Hollie assured me. “So archaic.”

I looked down at my phone. While I agreed with her, I had built the idea of marrying Jake up in my head to the point that I really didn’t want to let go of it. The worst part of it was that I was feeling that way and couldn’t get ahold of him to share the news that we probably weren’t going to have to worry about the wedding due to my plans with the board.

It was probably for the best that I couldn’t talk to Jake right then, because nothing had been decided. Marriage was still on the table as the main way to get my position in the company. If I couldn’t get what I wanted the way I wanted, I would still have to resort to giving Jake my hand in marriage.

Now if I could just get him to check his messages or give me a call back.