Page 1 of Wicked Takeover
Chapter One
Doomed didn’t begin to describe her predicament.
Frantically, Lauren Simms dug through her purse, grabbed her phone, and took a deep breath at the notification on the screen. One missed call; one voicemail message. Her hands shook. “Please, let this be it.” She begged as she’d never done before. “Please.”
When she’d been sixteen, she would have prayed for a boy to call and ask her on a date. Any boy, as long as he didn’t mind that she was painfully shy, only mildly pretty, and indisputably full-figured. Definitely not a guy magnet.
At twenty-seven, Lauren no longer hoped for everlasting romance and men. Now, she needed cold hard cash. Specifically, a job. After being laid off from her human resources position, she’d sent out hundreds of resumes and snagged a few interviews. During them, those HR professionals had grilled her harder than the Senate did a radical nominee for the Supreme Court.
Not one of those companies had wanted to hire her. She’d been unemployed for nearly six months and was about to run out of benefits, a measly two hundred bucks a week.
That small sum was beginning to seem like a million.
Sweat ran down her neck. Her Honda was warmer than a sauna thanks to the muggy Florida weather. She would have sold her soul to turn on the air conditioner, but that ate up too much gas. Perspiring badly, she held her breath and checked her voicemail.
An automated message came on. “Do you need affordable healthcare and dental insurance?”
She held back an oath, deleted the robocall, and checked her email. The messages were from useless job boards advertising the same crappy positions. None from people who’d interviewed her.
She slumped in her seat. In another few months, she’d blow through her meager severance and tiny 401(k) to make her car, condo, and utility payments that would come due again in a few days. That wasn’t the worst. She had nearly seventy thousand dollars in student loans that she also had to pay on time. Loans she’d eagerly taken out in order to have a solid and practical career in human resources.
No lender had warned Lauren that her company would outsource her job as they had everyone else’s.
She bit her lip and considered her final option. She’d tried to ignore it, tried to ignore him, but it was getting harder and harder every day she didn’t get a job.
The attorney’s letter stuck out of her purse. Its contents taunted her. She’d received the notification weeks ago that she’d come into an inheritance from Frank. Technically, he was her father.
She’d last seen him when she was five, before he’d so cruelly abandoned her.
The car vents blew humid air that ruffled the papers. Lauren had purposely avoided them as she would have done with him, afraid both would rip open a hurtful wound she’d fought long and hard to heal.
However, being in debt and without work hadn’t given her much choice as far as contacting the attorney.
After making her wait five minutes, he’d come on the line. “Your dad left his business to you.”
She couldn’t have been more surprised that Frank owned a company, but even more startling was that he’d actually remembered her. Once her shock drained away, she’d steeled herself for the worst, not wanting to feel anything for him. Not like when she’d been his little girl, and he’d been her whole world. Only he could read her a bedtime story as she liked, making her laugh at the funny voices he used for the fairy-tale characters. There wasn’t anything he didn’t know or couldn’t do. Most importantly, he was as predictable as the sun rising each day…until he wasn’t. There’d been no warning. He simply kissed her good-bye, as he always did when he left for work, and vanished.
In the early days of his disappearance, she’d bolted to the front window upon hearing a car or footsteps, knowing he’d come back. The walkway was always empty. Like most children, she’d blamed herself for his absence, knowing she’d failed him somehow. She hadn’t been a good girl. She’d cried countless tears until she grew old enough to realize she couldn’t have done anything to have convinced him to stay, which made her feel even more powerless and unworthy. At last, she accepted reality for what it was. He’d made his decision concerning her a long time ago. She’d be as brutally indifferent as he’d been.
His disinterest in her had lasted twenty-two years.
She managed her hard-nose attitude for two seconds and then asked the attorney what had happened. “I’m not being nosy. It’s really none of my business. However, I…well…that is…you see, I was wondering… How did he go? You know, pass away. What happened?”
“Heart attack. From what I understand, it was mercifully quick and relatively painless.”
Spoken like someone who hadn’t died.
Seamlessly, he got to the point. “His life insurance paid for the taxes, staff salaries, and other expenses for the next several months.”
Sounded nice until the time ended. “After that?”
“Uh, well, I suppose with proper management, the business could generate a modest profit.”
Or it could suck her deeper into debt. She’d told the attorney to sell it. Sounding delighted, he detailed his outrageous fee to handle the transaction. Money he’d get whether the sale went through or not.
Lauren was short on hope, not brains. Not liking the odds he’d proposed, she’d told him to forget it and would find a buyer herself. Right after she checked the place out, which her father had named Wicked Brand. A freaking tattoo parlor. What had he been thinking, leaving it to her, Ms. Practicality?
She wasn’t surprised he hadn’t considered the problem it would create for her as to whether she’d want to deal with a failing business, especially one that was so far from what she would ever be interested in. Of course, he hadn’t known that or anything else about her, had he? Even after all these years, that part of dear old Dad hadn’t changed.
