Her Tycoon to Tame. Emilie Rose

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СКАЧАТЬ you need to know is that Wyatt has agreed to keep the current staff for a full year unless obvious incompetence leads him to decide otherwise.”

      Her shoulders snapped straight at the insult. “Sutherland Farm doesn’t employ any incompetents.”

      “Then no one need be concerned,” Jacobs said.

      Desperation clawed at her throat. “Daddy, please don’t do this. I’m sure there’s a way you can undo the paperwork. Give me a chance to prove to you that I can run the farm and—”

      “Hannah, we closed the deal a week ago. Today was merely the first time Wyatt and I could meet personally to discuss the transition.”

      “A week ago,” she parroted. Her world had crashed and she’d been oblivious. Head reeling and legs shaking, she tried to make sense of the upheaval to come.

      “I’ve already purchased a townhome and the movers have been scheduled,” her father added, sending another shockwave rippling through her.

      Jacobs stiffened. “A townhome? What about the cottage?”

       My cottage! Ohmigod. Where will I live?

      Her father’s expression turned cagey. “Hannah lives in the cottage.”

      Jacobs’s hands fisted by his sides and anger lit his eyes.

      Confused by the exchange, Hannah looked from the interloper to her father. “My home and my job are part of Sutherland Farm. Where will I go? Where will I live and work?”

      Her father sighed and turned toward the bar cart. “I’ll let Wyatt explain.”

      “Luthor excluded the cottage and two acres inside the stone fence surrounding it from the deal. You’ll get to keep your house. And, as your father has already explained, like any other employee you’ll be kept on staff as long as the quality of your work meets my standards.” Jacobs’s voice carried about as much warmth as liquid nitrogen.

      The man would be her boss.

      “Your standards?” From his tone she gathered his standards would be impossible to meet.

      Her cottage, the original Sutherland homestead, sat smack in the middle of Sutherland Farm. She’d be surrounded by enemy territory. But at least she’d have a roof over her head.

      She swallowed her panic and fought to clear her head. “When is all this upheaval scheduled to take place?”

      “I’m taking over as CEO today and moving into this house as soon as your father has vacated.”

      In other words, life as she’d always known it had ended.

      Two

      Anger licked along Wyatt’s nerve endings like kindling catching fire. Luthor Sutherland had deliberately deceived him.

      The man had no intention of “retiring” to the original homestead as he’d led Wyatt to believe when he’d insisted the parcel be excluded from the sale, and Sutherland’s daughter was one of the employees Sutherland had been so eager to protect. If Wyatt had known, he would never have signed the employee agreement Sutherland had insisted on.

      But if Luthor expected Wyatt to cut his princess any slack, he’d be disappointed. If Hannah couldn’t carry her weight, she’d be fired—per the performance clause Wyatt had included.

      What incensed him the most was that he knew he had no one but himself to blame for deception getting past him. He’d been neck-deep in closing an international distribution deal and because he didn’t have the time, interest or knowledge in running a horse farm, he’d delegated the job of finding a self-sufficient operation—one that wouldn’t require him to be on-site—to the best buyer’s agent in the business.

      Sutherland Farm met all his criteria. He couldn’t help wondering if there were any more surprises in addition to the leggy brunette liability yet to discover. Whatever the issues, he would find and eradicate them.

      He had enough problems without having to deal with a pampered heiress who had been living out of her daddy’s deep pockets. The snippets of conversation he’d overheard through the patio door made it clear that description fit Hannah Sutherland from her silk shirt to her polished high-heeled boots.

      He’d bet his seven-figure investment portfolio that Hannah had coasted through life on her beauty and pretty-please smiles. His gut warned him she’d be nothing but trouble. And his instincts about people were rarely wrong. He didn’t need to see the two carats of diamonds in her ears or the watch on her wrist so pricey that a thief could pawn it to buy a car or her short but perfectly manicured nails to confirm her overindulged status.

      “I want every employee’s file before I leave today,” he demanded without looking away from the smoky blue eyes shooting flames at him.

      “That’s confidential information,” Hannah protested.

      “Hannah,” Sutherland’s lawyer interjected, “as the new owner of Sutherland Farm, Mr. Jacobs has unrestricted access to employee records.”

      “But—”

      Wyatt nailed her with a hard look. “I’ll start with yours. I have a pretty good idea what I’ll find. Private schools. Sororities. European vacations paid for by Sutherland Farm.”

      Hannah glared at him. Tension quivered through her slender, toned body. Her breasts rose and fell rapidly, and despite his aversion to spoiled women and his anger over his predicament, awareness simmered beneath his skin.

      Something about her got to him. She had a subtle grace and elegance about her that both attracted him and, because of his past relationships with her type, repulsed him. He’d been burned by her kind before.

      “I graduated from an accredited veterinary school,” she said through barely moving lips. “My credentials are valid, and since Warmbloods are a European breed, visiting the established and successful breeding farms to study their setups and evaluate their stock for potential matches is a necessary part of my job.”

      “I’m sure you have references from your previous employers to prove your worth as an employee.”

      Her chin jerked up a notch and she managed to look down her straight nose at him in the way only wealthy women could—a lesson he’d had driven into him like a railroad spike when he’d been seventeen and green and working at his stepfather’s stable. Back then he hadn’t been smart enough to know rich daddy’s darlings didn’t marry boys who cleaned stalls for their stepfathers’ stables no matter how intimate the relationship might have become.

      “I have worked here since graduating—almost five years. I’m good at what I do.”

      “I’ll be the judge of that.”

      She folded her arms and cocked back on one of those long legs. “Tell me, Mr. Jacobs, what exactly are your credentials for determining whether or not staff members are performing well?”

      “Hannah—” the attorney cautioned, but Wyatt silenced him with a look.

      “I’m CEO of Triple Crown Distillery. I employ over six hundred. СКАЧАТЬ