Too Late: Desired By The Rival Boss

Reese Summers POV:

Today was my twenty-seventh birthday. I came home to a silent house and no birthday dinner. My husband, Grant Mercer, president of the Red Basin Motorcycle Club, was at the clubhouse, partying with another woman.

I'd rushed through forty-eight hours in the workshop, fine-tuning the vehicle dynamics algorithms and tire-wear models for the upcoming High Desert invitational. I dropped my laptop bag on the entryway console and checked my phone. No missed calls. No messages. Just the telemetry update I'd sent Grant three days ago, still unanswered.

Marlene Carter, the housekeeper who had managed the Mercer property since before Grant took over the chapter, stepped out from the hallway holding a dried-up fern.

The moment her eyes landed on me, she froze.

"Mrs. Mercer," Marlene said, her voice dropping into a hurried whisper. "You're home early. Mr. Mercer said you'd be locked in the testing bay through the weekend."

I walked over to the kitchen island, pouring myself a glass of ice water from the pitcher.

The cold condensation stung my fingertips.

"I pushed to get the work finished early," I said, offering a tired smile. "It's my birthday, Marlene. I wanted to be home to celebrate with my family and friends."

Marlene looked away, staring hard at the tiled floor.

She wiped her palms on her apron, her mouth working silently before she found the courage to speak.

"Grant isn't here, child," she said softly. "He's down at the Red Basin clubhouse in Fernley. He took the whole inner circle with him."

My fingers tightened around the glass.

Forty-eight hours getting his bikes ready to win, and he'd taken everyone out to celebrate without me. Anger cut through my exhaustion.

"And nobody thought to call me?"

"There's a party," Marlene muttered, refusing to meet my eyes. "They've been drinking since noon."

I set the glass down and dialed Grant's private line.

The phone rang five times.

Just as the automated voicemail was about to pick up, the line clicked open.

A wall of deafening sound poured through the speaker-heavy bass, screaming electric guitars, clinking beer bottles, and the roar of straight-pipe V-twin engines from the yard outside.

"Grant?" I said, raising my voice to cut through the racket. "I finished the race package early to come home for my birthday. Where the hell are you?"

"Oh! Reese?" Brooke Sutton cooed, her tone dripping with sweet condescension. "Grant's on the main stage right now. He just called a church meeting to announce the new racing management structure. He named me Director of Race Strategy for Mercer Racing. He's taking me out on his bike to celebrate. Guess who gets your seat?"

My half-sister.

The girl my father had paraded into our lives after my mother died, the one who had spent the last two years hovering around the edges of the Red Basin paddock in tight leather and platform boots.

I'd caught her sitting in my husband's lap more than once, his hand resting on her thigh. Every time, they'd acted as if I were the one making it inappropriate by noticing.

My stomach twisted. He'd let her sit on his lap, and now he'd handed her the job I'd spent three years building.

"Put Grant on the phone, Brooke. If he's giving you my job, he can tell me himself."

"He's busy," she said with a soft laugh. "You can congratulate me instead."

I straightened, my free hand clenched against the marble.

"Strategy director?" I snapped. "You don't even know how to parse a CAN-bus data log. Take the title. You're not getting another line of my work."

"Grant says the paddock needs a face that sponsors actually want to look at, not someone hiding behind screens in a dark trailer," Brooke purred. "He said you work too hard, sister. From now on, I handle the team and the glory."

In the background, a roar of male laughter erupted.

Someone whistled loudly.

Then came another voice-younger, eager, and painfully familiar.

"Brooke, look at the sponsor deck! It looks incredible!"

It was Harper Bennett.

The twenty-one-year-old girl I had pulled out of a broken foster home, the kid I had spent three years teaching how to read telemetry curves and calibrate oxygen sensors.

Harper was laughing right alongside the men who used to treat her like a shadow.

My anger sharpened at the sound of her laughter.

"Did you hear that, Reese?" Brooke laughed softly. "Don't wait up. Grant won't be back tonight."

"Tell him his new director can finish the season package. I'm done carrying both of you."

I ended the call before she could answer.

Marlene stood five feet away, her hands wringing her apron, her eyes filled with helpless pity.

"Mrs. Mercer... do you want me to fix you something to eat?" she whispered.

"No. I have something to take care of."

I returned to the entryway, opened my laptop, and canceled the scheduled delivery of the new-season files. Then I pulled the thick, bound paper copy from my bag.

It was the complete strategy deck for the new season-the paper copy I hadn't yet handed over to Mercer Racing. It contained the custom mathematical formulas that gave Grant's bikes a four-mile-per-hour exit speed advantage on every high-speed corner. My source code, original development records, and private backups were secure on my own drives.

I walked over to the stone fireplace in the living room.

I took a long wooden match from the brass holder, struck it against the brick, and touched the flame to the corner of the title page.

The paper curled.

The blue ink of my handwritten equations blistered and turned black.

I dropped the burning stack into the hearth, watching his plans for another championship go up in flames.

For once, he could explain a losing season without my notes in front of him.

The heat brushed against my face, warming the cold numbness in my skin.

"Marlene," I said, watching the gray ash float up the chimney. "Call the bakery in town. Order a four-inch chocolate cake. Put one candle on it."

Marlene sniffled, nodding quickly.

"Yes, ma'am. Right away."

I turned away from the fire and walked up the carpeted stairs to the second floor.

I pushed open the heavy bedroom door.

Grant's heavy leather jackets, stamped with the Red Basin three-piece patch, hung in the closet alongside rows of heavy engineer boots.

I grabbed my worn black duffel bag from the top shelf.

I didn't touch the diamond earrings Grant had bought me to show off at club runs, nor the designer dresses he demanded I wear to press dinners.

I packed three plain black t-shirts, two pairs of jeans, my work boots, and my own faded leather jacket-the one with no club emblems on the back.

Then I walked over to the mahogany desk in the corner.

I pulled open the bottom drawer and lifted out the document I had drafted six months ago, back when I still believed Grant was just stressed by the club's expanding territory.

I smoothed the papers flat against the wood.

I unscrewed the cap of my fountain pen.

At the bottom of the final page, beneath the words Petition for Dissolution of Marriage, I signed my name.

Reese Summers.

The ink dried dark and final under the desk lamp.

In the morning, I would file the petition. Tonight, I was leaving.

I checked the time on my phone.

It was eight in the evening.

By sunrise, the Mercer name would belong to my past.