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“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you could help him. Marry him and you are pretty much a guaranteed cosigner.”
“Can’t we just cosign anyway?” Taylor implored.
Todd shook his head slowly. “You cannot make any purchases or mergers with any organization until you sign off as CEO, which cannot take place until—”
“I get married,” Taylor finished. “I got it.”
“Do you, Taylor?”
“Yes, Todd, I do!” she hotly assured him.
“Great,” Todd replied. “Then let me get a justice of the peace down here, and—”
“Get out.”
“Taylor—”
“Get out!”
“Fine. But all these plans and designs you are putting forward are going to be worthless if you don’t make some decisions,” he said as he got up and made his way to the exit, “and fast.”
Well, doesn’t this suck?Taylor thought as Todd disappeared through the door. She hated when he was right.
Just then, a text came in,Relax! Going into the air. Call you when we land.It was Derrick, and the tension crept right back up to full tilt.
He needed the public to take him seriously, to show that he had changed. Too bad he couldn’t be seen doing something like saving someone, be a hero. If that happened he could have his deal, and she would feel a lot less guilty about stringing him along. But how?
Light bulb!
Taylor picked up her cell, found her contact list, and dialed before she could change her mind.
“Hey, Marty? It’s Tay! … Yeah, I know, this running a corporation really diminishes my spare time … It does suck … Look, I need a break. Your brother thinks I need to relax … Dinner? Hmmm … I had something else in mind. Meet me at your house in an hour? Great. Oh and, Marty, I need clothes … yeah, for dancing.”
Chapter Twenty
Derrick’s moodwasn’t any better once he was in his car. He had wasted his entire day after clearing his schedule for what he assumed was a done deal, but that had not been the case. A lot had happened: a lot of shouting, a lot of negotiating, and a lot of nothing.
He was really sick of being labeled.
Damn it, he wasn’t a freaking lost cause. In the two years since getting onto the board at Fletcher Enterprises he had implemented more deals and mergers than had occurred in the five years prior. He had driven their stock margin up nearly 215%.
But did that make the papers or blogs? Nope.
Instead they waited and watched to see when he would screw up, fall off the wagon, whoop it up.
Like last month when he was called a loose cannon when he punched that photog in the face. The bastard was so goading Derrick. Pushing, prodding, and then he had mentioned Taylor. “You gonna run and hide like Taylor Preston?”
Wham!
Money could definitely shut that one up, but it had regressed him in the eyes of business.
Now they wanted Taylor’s company to back him in deals, just in case.
“You understand of course, Derrick?” the CEO had told him in today’s meeting.
“No, I don’t. You want to make a deal. You called me here, and for what? To tell me that my fiancé and I have a deal with you. Well, our business dealings aren’t a packaged deal. It’s Fletcher Enterprise with an interest, most specifically me. So is it a go or no?”