Takeover: A Step-Brother Romance (The Legacy Book 1)
Read Takeover: A Step-Brother Romance (The Legacy Book 1) Online
Authors: Lana Grayson
Takeover (Legacy Series
)
Copyright © 2015 by Lana Grayson
Published by Lana Grayson
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.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you’d like to share it with. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.
Cover Design
: Rebecca Berto
Cover Images Purchased from
:
http://www.periodimages.com
Other Works By Lana Grayson:
Warlord – Anathema MC Series
#1
Exiled – Anathema MC Series #2
Knight – Anathema MC Series #3
Coming Soon!
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[email protected]
.
Please Note:
This story is a dark step-brother romance which will include scenes of captivity, physical abuse, non-consensual situations, and sexual encounters with multiple partners.
The series will end with a Happily Ever After, and will not feature themes of cheating/adultery.
All of the characters are over the age of eighteen and are of no blood relation.
However, certain scenes and descriptions may be uncomfortable for some readers. Please read with care.
Thank you!
To My Husband...
Yes, this is a book about a step-brother romance,
and no, it didn’t turn out as weird as you thought. ;)
Table of Contents
It wasn’t just a hostile takeover.
It was war.
The email jolted my phone. A flurry of text messages and calls rumbled it off the library’s desk.
I let it fall. My laptop dinged and threatened to blue-screen as it lagged over the invasion of alerts. A blizzard of emails flashed over the desktop, all attaching stock reports, portfolios, bond liabilities, and profit and losses. My life was a tangled disaster of graphs and spreadsheets that, until this quarter, predicted a booming year for my family’s farm.
“You’ve got to be kidding me!”
My voice bounced off the library walls, followed by a particularly angry hush from the students studying below. My apology carried too far, and I cringed as the next shush hissed into an unfriendly word.
God, did I envy the students just fretting over their midterms.
My thesis minimized under the mess of emails, reports, and numbers. The lab would have to wait. Again. I rubbed the exhaustion from my face. I’d have to redo the titrations before I finished the damn thing. That’d set me back another day.
It was okay. I could handle it.
I flipped through my planner and scribbled a quick note for Wednesday. The little block was filled with names, notes, and numbers. I scrawled in the margin instead.
Titration
. I could fit it in between my Soil Fertility exam and the presentation for the irrigation proposal designed for our south cornfield.
My phone didn’t stop vibrating. Maybe the battery would drain before I was forced to take a call from a nervous investor? A girl could hope. I snapped the buckle around my planner and shoved it into my laptop bag.
Dad warned about this. He knew it was coming, but he thought Darius Bennett and the Bennett Corporation would make the move when he announced the cancer. They didn’t, and the suspense poisoned us as much as his chemo. We prepared anyway. In the hospital, Dad told my brothers every last secret about our company, the farm, and the Bennetts. They were ready when he died.
But no one prepared for Josiah and Mike dying in a private plane crash just four months later.
And Dad never thought to share his secrets with me.
I shouldered the bag and burst from the library, nearly tumbling down the steps leading from the Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering loft. Studying in the loneliest section in the library didn’t bother me. No one was around to watch the CEO and prime shareholder of a multi-billion dollar company crash on her behind. Even better, no one spied me taking a hit from my inhaler.
The albuterol sucked, but it was effective. I blamed my trembling on the meds.
The Bennetts targeted my family for the past thirty years, but never once stole a single stock from my father’s control.
But Dad was dead now.
I hid the inhaler in my purse. In a way, the tightness crushing my chest composed me. I couldn’t rush, and I took greater care saving my breath on the most important words—all sound business practices according to my father. Fleeing from Broughton University’s library in a burst of paperwork and bumbling backpacks was not proper Atwood behavior, and I would not grant the Bennetts the satisfaction of seeing me rattled.
That bastard family deserved only the same grief they caused me.
My phone rang three times before I made it to my car. Our attorney, Anthony Delvannis, did his job well, but he had a bad habit of calling me during lectures and labs. He charged enough that he could have purchased some patience while I failed my classes for his conference calls. And it wouldn’t have hurt to buy a little bit of good news every so often. Apparently, that wasn’t part of the attorney/client privilege.
“We have a problem.” Anthony didn’t greet me. He never did—a relic from Dad’s time. Josiah had inherited the same abruptness, but Michael used to tolerate the pleasantries. “Bennett held a press conference.”
My fingers tightened over the steering wheel. “And?”
“You better get over here.”
“How bad is it?”
“I’d advise an immediate response. And I’d convince your mother to make a public appearance.”
“She hardly gets out of bed—”
“Force her, Sarah. The marriage spooked the board and dropped your stock prices. And now Bennett’s making these statements. Best not to hemorrhage any more money.”
Like we had any money left to lose.
“I’ll be there in five.”
Uttering an uncouth word might have relieved some stress, but my chest still ached. Darius Bennett didn’t deserve a single breath wasted over his name.
“Damage control,” he said. “Start thinking.”
The call ended. I hated this. I wasn’t Sarah Meredith Atwood anymore. I became Sarah
Damage Control
Atwood, though Sarah
Criminally-Underprepared-But-Faking-It
Atwood was probably more apt.
The University faded in my rearview mirror. What had been my life’s ambition now shifted. I was Mark Atwood’s only living heir, the last member of my family competent enough to act as owner of the farm—even if I was never intended to touch the books, make the decisions, or involve myself with the corporation. My role was to help Mom, study, and distract the guests at our parties with my pretty dress and sensible conversation.