Seduce Me (Austin Singles 1)

Note to self: I’m giving up on men. Every last one of them.

My phone buzzed next to me, causing me to cautiously glance down at it.

Marge.

With shaking hands, I answered it. Seeing her name made me remember the thumb drive with the videos on it that I hadn’t looked through yet.

“H-hello?” I said, my voice much weaker than I wanted it to be. Marge didn’t notice though.

“I found it! Charleston … I mean … Charlie! I found it!”

Leaping up, I clutched my chest. “You did? Can you meet me at the office in thirty minutes?”

Hell, I wasn’t even sure where Marge lived. She might not live that close. “Or just get there whenever you can.” I added.

“I’ll be there in fifteen.”

I rushed into my bedroom. “Great! See you then.”

Throwing on jeans, a light sweater and my hair in a ponytail, I ran to my bathroom and attempted to put a little bit of makeup on. I looked like hell, and it was obvious I’d been crying.

On the way down in the elevator, I pulled up two names on my phone. I called them both and told them to get to the office and meet me in the boardroom in two hours.

Slipping into a taxi, I dragged in a shaking breath. My heart was firmly on Tucker, but my head needed to be in the game. I needed this to work. If it didn’t, I had no idea what I was going to do. No idea at all.

I NEARLY RAN to my office after getting off the elevator. Marge was sitting at her desk. It was the first time I’d ever seen her in regular clothes. She looked younger. Her hair was half up and half down. Usually she wore it up in a tight bun. She had on jeans and a sweater. Unlike me who threw on sneakers, she had on a pair of black flats.

Damn. Why didn’t I think of that?

She must have seen me looking at her shoes and then mine because she said, “You’ve got a pair of Jimmy Choo black flats in your office in the closet.”

I did have a pair in there!

“You’re a lifesaver, Marge, remind me to give you a big-ass raise.” Kissing her on the cheek, I rushed into my office with Marge on my heels.

Kicking my sneakers off, I pulled off my socks next and slipped into the flats. “Mr. Knots and Mitchell Landing will be here in an hour and a half. Let’s take a look at the tape and get a game plan together before they get here.”

Marge was already on the other side of the room, getting her laptop connected to the large TV on the wall at the end of the board table. When I mentioned Knots’s name, she looked up and frowned. I knew she didn’t like the man; he was one of those lawyers who were part of the good ol’ boy system. He started working at CMI when my grandfather was still CEO.

“This is a copy. The original is in a locked safety deposit box at my house.”

My head jerked over to look at her. “O-okay,” I replied, my brows pulled in tightly as I looked at my executive assistant. Did she think someone would try and break in for it? No one even knew we had tapes from my father’s office.

When she was finished, she looked at me; sadness swept over her face. “Charlie, this video was taken two weeks before your father’s death. Your father had found out that your grandfather tried to sneak the bylaw in without any votes on it because he knew it would never pass. It has absolutely no merit. He told Ricker to remove it.”

“What?” I gasped. “Ricker made it sound like Dad knew for a while.”

She nodded. “Come on, sit down,” she said, grabbing my hand and pulling me into a chair.

A video started up. It was my father and Paul Ricker, who was sitting in one of the large, leather chairs in front of Dad’s desk.

My chest ached at the sight of my father. Tears filled my eyes, and I had to work hard at keeping them back. I missed my parents so much.

“Paul, you and I both know this won’t hold up. It’s ridiculous and will never stand up in any courts nor get any votes. Get Knots on this before Charleston hears about it from someone.”

My heart dropped. Had all of this been a waste of time if my father didn’t think it would hold up? Knots said it would take months to work through the court system. They lied to me.

“I never did think that would hold up and so did a number of the board members,” Marge tossed out. “Scuttlebutt was going around about when the bylaw was put into place because no one had voted on it.”