Devoted: A Masters and Mercenaries Novella by Lexi Blake Read Free Book Online Page B

sighed. “It didn’t come up. It was more of a favor for Bridget than anything. And the asshole pissed off Big Tag. You know Ian lives to fuck with people who piss him off. She was likely very smart to fire everyone. She gave them packages. Only her father and this guy sued her.”
    “So the man who’s suing her is coming to us to sell her out?” Well, that was about as shady as it got. “I’ll call Curt and tell him I don’t want to have anything to do with the man.”
    The decision made him feel good. He wasn’t going to fall into that trap.
    Was it a trap?
    Mitch’s eyes narrowed. “Is this like what you said about talking to Wade and I’m going to go home and the dude will have moved in with you tomorrow?”
    A guy makes one little course correction and he’s got sarcasm forever. “No, I’ll call him right now. Do you see me? This is me calling.”
    He picked up his cell and hit the button that would connect him with his CEO, Curt Hamilton. It was to his personal line so Flynn didn’t have to go through either of the two assistants the man kept with him at all times.
    “Adler, I thought I was going to have to call the troops in to find you,” a deep voice said over the line.
    “You did. Mitch is here.”
    He chuckled. “Well. Trust the lawyer to get things done for once. Did he explain the situation to you? The man’s name is Ray Paulsen and he’s legit. I’ve checked into his background and he really did work for Slaten for years. Apparently he ran afoul of the daughter. She’s a ball-busting bitch according to him.”
    “Hey, don’t talk about her that way.” His anger flared.
    “What?”
    “How about we keep the sexual harassment to a minimum and just say she’s tough?” He couldn’t explain to his CEO that he was kind of involved with their biggest rival and now he wanted to punch Curt’s nose through the back of his face because he’d called her a bitch. She wasn’t a bitch. She was tough and smart. That made her good in his book.
    Unless she was setting him up. It occurred to him that planting someone like this Paulsen guy could put them in a bad position. He could also say anything he wanted, feeding them false information and causing chaos. If the employees knew there was a spy hunt, it could demoralize the entire company and they would lose some of their best talent.
    It would be a sneaky play.
    “Ray Paulsen is also suing her,” Flynn stated flatly. The jury was still out on whether this was a ploy of Amy’s or her way of figuring him out. He wasn’t sure and he wasn’t going to push it. Things were going well between them right now. Eventually he was going to sit her down and explain that he’d known who she was all along and they needed to come to an agreement on how to end this feud.
    If she wasn’t here to take the fight to a whole different level.
    “That’s not on us,” Curt replied. “That’s on him. He’s the one who stands to lose. Listen, let me put him on the payroll for a few weeks and see what shakes out. I’ll talk to him and that’s all it has to be. We gather some information and find out what’s happening over there. Consider it a fact finding mission.”
    He made it sound so reasonable. “No. We don’t need spies.”
    “You’re joking, right? Tell me you’re not that naïve, Flynn. You do understand two of the people she fired after she took over had been plants from your father. He knew what it took to do business these days.”
    He’d known his father was ruthless. “I’m not my dad. I don’t want to play like that.”
    “So you’re willing to let Slaten send spies in here. Look, we’re in the middle of negotiations to buy a company that will make your pet project work, right? If we can’t get the infrastructure to ensure we’re capable of selling that software, it’s utterly useless.”
    He didn’t need a lecture. “I expect you to be smart enough to buy the company. What can Slaten do?”
    “Slaten can find out what our bid