Irresistible Bachelors: Books 1-5 by Landish, Lauren (bts books to read TXT) 📕

tie before I get my coat and leave my room. I pause in the hallway, admitting to myself that I’m not looking forward to going to Sophie’s room after the other night. We haven’t talked much since. Sunday had about three words, and Sophie only came out of her room when it was time to get takeout. She wouldn’t even let me cook her breakfast but instead took a couple of packets of Pop Tarts into her room.

I try her doorknob, but it’s locked. I lean my head forward and almost rest it against the wood. I want to bang on the door, demanding she let me in. We’ve been lucky. We haven’t had anything like this happen before. Instead, I remember what Roxy told me, and I take a deep breath. Knocking softly, I force myself to talk normally. “Sophie? Time to get ready for school.”

Her door opens so quickly that I don’t even have time to lower my hand. “Already am,” she says sullenly, brushing past me as I take a stunned half step back. She stalks down the hallway, and I follow her into the kitchen, watching as she half slings her backpack onto the table.

“So what would you like . . .”

“Not hungry,” she says before I can set my coat aside and grab a skillet. “Already had a Pop Tart.”

I can’t lie, her words really sting. I’ve cooked her breakfast every morning that I’ve been home for as long as I can remember. Now, she’s eating goddamn Pop Tarts, of all things. But at least she’s talking.

“Okay,” I say, mixing up a meal replacement smoothie of my own. It’s green and tastes like I’m licking the inside of a lawnmower, but it’s quick. Just as I choke down the last of the gloop, Sophie crosses her arms over her chest.

“Can we go?”

I grab my jacket, fishing out a breath mint as we go downstairs. On the way to school, she’s silent, staring out the window as the city rolls by. Finally, when we’re about a half mile away from school and stopped at a red light, I can’t take it anymore. “Look, I’m sorry about what happened. And you’re right, I’m not Dad, but I can’t allow you to break the rules or the law, no matter how much that makes you hate me.”

“I don’t hate you,” she says quietly, still looking out the window.

I snort. “Sure have been acting like it. We’ve always been close.”

Sophie turns, looking at me, and I see the same stubbornness that I swear must run in our family. “I just didn’t think it was fair. Jax is not a bad guy.”

I could argue the point. “It might be true,” I say, “but the fact that he’s going out with a minor and thought it was okay to bring you to a club says he doesn’t think.”

“Jake—”

“Hang on, I’m not done,” I say quietly as the light turns green. “Sophie, I’m only going to say this once, and I don’t have a lot of time. First, I love you. I’m kind of learning as we go on, so I’m nowhere near perfect. But I know guys like this Jax. Maybe he does care about you. But if he does, then he should care enough not to be doing the things he did. He should respect you. Don’t settle for a guy who won’t.”

Sophie says nothing. I pull up in front of her school and look over at her. “I’m on your side in this. I know I’ve been lax and haven’t been paying attention to you. I promise I’ll do better.”

“Right,” she says sarcastically. Shit, most of my talk didn’t get through to her. “Have a nice day at work.” She gets out and shuts the door hard, just short of slamming it.

I sigh. With all the good things going on, I guess everything in life can’t be perfect.

* * *

“And that's how I’m going to bring the Franklin division back to profitability within two quarters,” I say. It feels a little strange to be doing a presentation when most of the board of directors aren’t even in the room. “By shifting focus toward the emerging biotech markets and out of the old markets, things are going to turn around.”

“What about layoffs?” one of the members asks. They don’t have the power they used to have, but they still have advisory and speaking rights in meetings like this.

“Thanks for asking,” I reply. I hit the button on my laser pointer and continue. “I’ve spoken with the union representative for the non-salaried employees, as well with various senior management. By limiting new hires and encouraging an accelerated retirement program for workers who are reaching that age, Franklin will reach appropriate manpower levels within one fiscal year. We might need to shift some workers to different departments and trim a little fat, but our losses should be less than 1% of employees, and even with severance packages, we’ll reach all of our transition goals.

“The fact is, we need a strong workforce at Franklin. While cutting the workforce with broad-scale layoffs might have the corporate shareholders happy for the next quarter, we’d be shooting ourselves in the foot if we do. We need to have happy, experienced workers in key positions. We owe it to the employees who stayed with Franklin through this transition to make sure we do everything we can to take care of them. If we do that, they’ll work their asses off for us because they’ll be working their asses off for each other.”

I can see nods and even a few smiles as I continue, and by the end of my presentation, I’ve done what I thought would be the impossible a month ago—make both sides of the Franklin merger happy with the changes we’re going to make. Corporate is happy that I’m turning around a non-profitable division, and the Franklin people are happy I’m not going all slash and burn around here.

There are several more speakers,