They All Chose Her, Then Found Out I Owned the Company Their Pack Needed novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Owner Takes the Head Seat

Ward, Brynn, Rafe and two elders demand the owner at MOONHOUSE headquarters, and Linnet walks into the boardroom and sits at the head of the table.

MOONHOUSE headquarters took up the top three floors of a glass tower in Denver, and I had not slept.

I walked in through the staff entrance at seven, and the security guard stood up.

"Morning, Ms. Averill," he said. "Coffee's on the fourteenth."

It was the first time in two years I had heard someone say it without lowering their voice.

I had done what Brynn's warning said and told no one at Ridgeline where I would be at nine.

Only Rodrick knew, and Ward was still going to walk through that door.

In the lift, Rodrick straightened my collar.

"You don't have to do the boardroom," he said. "I can take them down in the lobby."

"I want to do the boardroom."

"Then I'm sitting by the door, and if Ward says one cruel thing, I'm throwing the water jug."

"Throw it at the right person."

By nine the boardroom table was laid with water and pens.

I took the chair at the head of it, the one nobody had ever sat in because it was mine.

The skyline stood behind me in the window.

At five past, the receptionist's voice came over the intercom.

"The Ridgeline party has arrived. They're asking for the owner."

"Send them up," I said.

They came through the double doors together.

Ward Standish led, in a grey suit and a brown tie.

Two council elders followed him, a heavy man and a thin woman, both wearing pack pins.

Brynn came next, in cream, her hair in a smooth twist.

Rafe came last.

He had not shaved, and he looked at nothing but the floor.

Rodrick stood up from his chair by the door, buttoned his jacket and said, "Good morning. Please sit."

"We're here to see the owner of MOONHOUSE," said the heavy elder. "Not the front man."

"You're looking at the front man," Rodrick said. "Sit."

They sat.

Then they looked down the long table and saw me.

Nobody said anything.

The thin elder put her hand to her pin.

Rafe lifted his head for the first time since the doors, and I watched his face go through every possible expression and settle on none of them.

"Linnet," he said.

"Ms. Averill, in this room."

"You're..." He stopped.

"The founder," I said. "Three years ago. My name is the only one on the deed, and my brother is the only reason you ever got a call back."

The heavy elder laughed once, short and angry.

"That's absurd. She's a girl who arranges flowers."

I slid a folder across the table to him.

It held the incorporation papers, the signed Ridgeline contract and the termination notice with my signature across the bottom.

He turned the pages.

His color went.

"The woman you called wolfless on a live stream," I said, "owns the only ground in the country where three packs can meet without a blade drawn."

"You can't cancel a signed contract," the thin elder said.

"I can, with ninety days' notice, or immediately for a breach of guest conduct."

"What breach?"

"You humiliated the owner in front of four hundred witnesses. Clause nine. Rodrick, do we have the clip?"

"Forty-one thousand views by midnight," Rodrick said. "It's still climbing."

The thin elder shut her mouth.

Ward had not moved.

He sat with his hands folded on the table and watched me with polite attention.

I had expected him to gasp.

He did not.

"Good morning, Ms. Averill," he said.

He did not say it like a stranger.

"You don't look surprised," I said.

"I've followed MOONHOUSE's growth with great interest."

"You called me wolfless in front of everyone."

"And you've been very discreet about your own accomplishments," Ward said. "I assume we both had reasons."

Rafe's chair scraped back.

"You knew?" he said to Ward. "You knew what she was while the council was voting?"

"I knew what the pack needed," said Ward. "And I know what a woman with a company can do for it. Sit down, Rafe."

Rafe did not sit.

He looked at me, and I did not look away.

I wanted him to see me at the head of my own table.

I wanted him to see everything he had never asked me about.

Brynn leaned toward me across the corner of the table and spoke so low only I could hear.

"I sent you the message last night," she said. "He's the one who told me not to."

Then she smiled at me, small and warm, and straightened up and folded her hands.

← Chapter 2 · All chapters · Chapter 4 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend