He Came Back Running (Maya and Mason) novel Chapter 24

Chapter 24

Mason’s POV

By Wednesday I had a plan.

Not a reactive one I’d been running those for two weeks and they had produced nothing except an empty apartment, an anonymous shareholder, and a board that was beginning to ask questions in the specific tone that meant they were already composing alternatives. A reactive plan is just a slower way of losing.

This was different.

This was a trap.

I called Reeves at seven in the morning and told him to come to the office directly, not to stop for anything,

not to take the call in the car.

He arrived at seven forty–two with his jacket already on and his reading glasses already off, which meant he’d been thinking on the way over.

“The Right of First Refusal,” I said, before he’d sat down.

He looked at me.

“We invoke ROFR across the entire shareholder register,” I said. “Effective immediately. Any shareholder intending to sell their position must offer it internally before taking it to the open market. Any sale that bypasses that process is void.” I moved to the window. “Every share that comes available… every share our anonymous buyer has been collecting from has to come to us first.”

Reeves was quiet for a moment. “The articles of association support it. We’d need a board resolution to enforce it formally, but the mechanism exists.” He paused. “This closes the window on open market accumulation entirely.”

“That’s the point.”

“Whoever has been buying will have to stop.

“Or come into the light,” I said. “Which is the other point.” I turned to face him. “If they want to keep building a position, they’ll have to make a formal offer. And the moment they make a formal offer, I know who they are.”

Reeves nodded slowly. “It’s a strong move”

“It’s half the move.” I sat down at the desk. “The other half: I want new investors brought in quietly. Friendly capital firms I have existing relationships with, people who understand where their interests lie. We issue shares to them through the authorized but unissued capital reserve.”

“That dilutes the existing float”

“It dilutes everyone’s position proportionally. Including the anonymous buyer’s.” I held his gaze. Whatever they’ve accumulated over the past two weeks becomes a smaller percentage of a larger total. And my board base expands with people I trust.”

Reeves sat with this for a moment, running it through whatever internal legal framework he used to assess

risk

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“It’s clean,” he said finally. “Both mechanisms are within your existing corporate authority. The ROFR can be enforced within forty–eight hours of a board resolution. The new issuance can be structured within the week.”

“Then structure it”

He stood and gathered his folder. At the door he paused. “Mason. If the anonymous buyer is sophisticated enough to have built the position they’ve built… they’ll see the ROFR for what it is”

ding still.”

“Good,” I said. “Let them see it. I want them to know I’m not standing

The board resolution passed at four that afternoon.

Six votes in favor. Cho abstained. Whitmore, who had sold thirty percent of his personal position the previous week, voted in favor with the enthusiasm of a man trying to rebuild goodwill with both sides simultaneously.

I noted this.

By end of day the ROFR enforcement was on record, filed, and distributed to the full shareholder register. The new investor structures were in motion…. three firms, capital arranged, documentation moving through legal at a pace that cost more than it should have but was worth the speed.

I sat at my desk at six–thirty and felt, for the first time in two weeks, the specific sensation of having ground under my feet.

The anonymous buyer was boxed. No more open market accumulation. If they moved, I’d see them. If they stayed still, the dilution would erode what they’d built. Either way, the window they’d been exploiting was

closed.

All I needed was one mistake.

One moment of impatience, one move made under pressure, one filing that revealed the hand I still couldn’t

see.

They would make it. Everyone made it, eventually, when the walls started closing.

I closed the laptop and told the driver to take me home.

The penthouse felt different that evening.

Not in any way I could have pointed to specifically… same rooms, same light, same harbor view going dark below. But Selina had done something with the living room, moved something or added something, and the space had shifted in the way spaces shift when someone has been spending time in them with intention.

She was in the kitchen when I arrived. Not cooking, Selina didn’t cook, had never pretended to cook, which was one of the things I had always found straightforwardly honest about her, but sitting at the kitchen island with a glass of sparkling water and a magazine she wasn’t reading, her hair loose, dressed in something soft and unhurried that said she had decided tonight was going to be different from the recent pattern of evenings. looking all sexy..

She looked up when I came in

N

“You look better,” she said.

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“The plan is moving.” I set my jacket over the chair. “Both mechanisms are in place.”

“Tell me later.” She stood and came around the island and did something she hadn’t done in days, put her hands on either side of my face and looked at me directly, no agenda in her expression, just the particular clarity of someone who has decided to be fully present for a moment. “Tonight I don’t want to hear about mechanisms.”

I looked at her.

The past two weeks had been a specific kind of distance between us, not hostile, not broken, but stretched, the way fabric stretches when it’s pulled from opposite ends. I had been in my head. She had been managing her own calculations. We had been in the same rooms without occupying the same space.

“The baby’s well?” I asked.

“The baby is excellent.” She dropped her hands but stayed close. “Dr. Mercer is very pleased with us. I told him it was my discipline and good genes.”

“And my contribution?”

“I gave you partial credit.” The corner of her mouth moved. “Don’t push it.”

I almost smiled. “What do you want tonight?”

She reached up and loosened my tie with the unhurried certainty of a woman who had no intention of being rushed. “I want you to stop thinking about anonymous shareholders for approximately eight hours.” She held my gaze. “Think you can manage that?”

I looked at her, at the particular combination of calculation and genuine feeling that had always been Selina’s specific quality. She wanted things from me that were partly real and partly strategic, and she wanted them simultaneously, without contradiction, and I had always found that easier to navigate than the alternative. Maya had wanted things that were entirely real, and I hadn’t known how to hold that.

“Eight hours,” I said. “I’ll make an effort.”

She laughed, soft and satisfied, took my hand, staring into my eye.

Selina is seated close to me in the plush velvet armchair by the window, legs crossed elegantly, the soft glow of the candlelit chandelier catching every curve. God, that nightgown. It was new…. blood–red silk that clung to her like a second skin, the thin straps slipping just enough to tease the swell of her full breasts, the hem riding high on her toned thighs.

The fabric shimmered with every subtle shift of her body, dipping low between her cleavage and whispering promises against her wide hips. It screamed dominance and seduction all at once, the kind of garment that made a man want to rip it off with his teeth while begging for permission first.