by Layla Hagen
Only With You
Valentina & Carter ~ The Connor Family
Layla Hagen
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Only With You
Copyright © 2019 Layla Hagen
Cover: Uplifting Designs
Cover Photography: Nicole Ashley
Only With You
Copyright ©2019 Layla Hagen
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, including electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Table of Contents
Copyright Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Epilogue
Chapter One
Carter
“Carter, you’re doing it wrong. You’re supposed to make bows, not knots,” my five-year-old niece informed me.
Peyton sat on the dining table, dangling her feet, giving me a severe look while I worked the ties at the end of her dress sleeve.
“Guys, come on. I don’t want to be late on the first day. It’s a new school. I need to make a good impression,” April called from the hallway.
“I’m going to ask April to do it,” Peyton said impatiently.
“Okay. Off you go.”
I kissed the top of her head before helping her down. She skittered toward her older sister. I looked at my two ladies, smiling even as April rolled her eyes at me. She was almost fifteen. Eye rolling came with the territory. Peyton usually thought I walked on water, except when I couldn’t pull off the style she wanted... which happened all the time.
Once they were both ready, we headed to the underground parking lot of the building.
“What’s with the smug smile?” I asked April as we drove off.
“I love this car. People will notice it. They’ll think I have a cool uncle.”
I was driving the black Porsche this morning. I owned two other cars. What could I say? I had a weakness for automobiles.
“April, I am cool.” I attempted to sound serious.
“Umm... being on Forbes’s list of top whatever means you’re rich and successful, not cool. Plus, none of my friends read Forbes. Now, if you appeared on TMZ or Hollywood Reporter....”
For three years in a row, Forbes had included my law firm in their top recommendations in the Los Angeles area. Business was booming, which was why we were moving into a larger office this week.
I was getting the keys to the place later today. It was a week of changes for all of us.
“TMZ and Hollywood Reporter don’t care about lawyers.”
“Well, no, but you could date an actress. Or a model. Someone cool. You’re definitely great-looking. Moms check you out all the time. I don’t get why you’re single. Being single sucks.”
“Language, April.”
I glanced at Peyton in the back seat. She was humming a song to herself, oblivious to our conversation.
I hid my smile, focusing on the road. I liked keeping the girls in the dark about how active my dating life was.
But then I replayed her sentence in my mind, zeroing in on a particular detail. Being single sucks, she’d said. How would she know? She hadn’t brought boys home yet. April was a great kid, but I sensed that my laid-back, anything-goes parenting style wasn’t going to work as well in her teenage years as it had for the past five years.
“You have a boyfriend?” I asked casually, trying to sound more like the cool uncle and not the overbearing uncle. April was a beautiful girl. Both girls resembled my late sister tremendously, April especially. She’d inherited Hannah’s dark brown hair and eyes. Peyton had her mother’s hair but her dad’s eyes.
“Considering it,” April said nonchalantly. “I can’t wait to invite new friends over to our apartment. They’ll be psyched. Everyone loves our flashy place.”
“Girlfriends?”
April narrowed her eyes, pointing a finger at my chest as if she wanted to stab me with it. “Oh, no! You do not get to police me. I can have any kind of friends.”
“Yes, of course, you can have any friends you want. But I would like to know who you bring over. If you're bringing boys, we will need some rules.”
She raised a brow. “Really? And you think I’ll listen because you’re a fancy lawyer?”
“April, you know I don’t like policing you. But I’m the adult here, and even though you’re old enough to make decisions, I’m responsible for you. Rules aren’t to encroach on your territory but to keep you safe. We’ll have to compromise on things.”
That was a very lawyerly way of saying that I was in charge. There were things on which I wanted to put my foot down. Did she want to wear a short dress at school? No. Piercings and tattoos? No and no. Staying out after ten o’clock? Negotiable. Inviting over a boy when I was not at home? Hell, no. But I had to find a smart way to lay out my rules. I was one of the top lawyers in the Los Angeles area. Opposing counsel had been known to drop cases when they’d found out they were going to face me. But I didn’t want to raise the girls like a despot.
April sighed. “Carter, you’re becoming less cool by the minute. Just thought you should know.”
I was sure Hannah was looking at us from somewhere above and having a good laugh. Before she and my brother-in-law passed away, I’d done nothing but stomp on all the rules, always taking April’s side. Whenever I was visiting, I’d take her shopping, buying everything her parents wouldn’t. It had been five years, but I still missed my sister every day.
After I pulled the car into the parking lot in front of the school, I half turned, grinning at the girls.
“Ready to go?” I asked.
April grinned back, and Peyton squealed from the back seat. It was a big day for my girls. I planned to take them out for a treat tonight, to spoil them a bit.
An hour later, I held in my hand the keys to the new offices of Sloane & Partners. The building manager, Kate, had given me a tour of the space, and as we neared the end, she said, “I’m hosting a charity event for deaf and hard of hearing children. Would you like to participate? It’s in one month.”
“Email me all the details. I’ll send a check if I already have something planned.”
“Sure. But I’d love to have you there. I manage a few buildings in the area, and all my clients are participating. Even the owner of my big fish, as I like to say, Valentina’s Laboratories. It’s the huge gray
building around the corner. Big name in cosmetics and fragrances.”
The name didn’t ring a bell, but since I wasn’t involved in that industry, it wasn’t saying much.
“She invited some of her Hollywood connections, so the place will be packed with celebrities. Might be good for business,” Kate rattled on.
“As I said, send me all details.”
“Will do. Okay. That’s it from me. If you need anything, give me a call. When are your movers bringing the furniture?”
“Later today. We’ll open up for business tomorrow.”
“My, that’s quick, but I suppose you don’t build a reputation like yours by being anything other than sharp.”
“It’s necessary. Our clients don’t like to wait.”
“I’ll leave you to do your thing, then. Welcome to your new office. I might be biased, but I think you’ll like it much better here.”
Chapter Two
Val
I called my sister Hailey as I flagged down a cab, grateful that this terrible date was over.
“Hey, sis! Where are you?” I asked when she picked up. I knew she was out with our other sister, Lori.
“Uh-oh. Date over so early?”
“Yep. Are you two still out? I can join you.”
“Right.” Hailey rattled off the address just as a cab pulled in front of me. They weren’t far away, which was a relief. Traffic in LA could be madness. I tried to push my crappy date to the back of my mind as the cabbie sped through town.
Half an hour later, I walked inside one of the many beach bars along Santa Monica, twisting my waist-long dark hair into a bun at the base of my head.
My sisters were sitting at a high bar table in one corner of the terrace. Hailey waved enthusiastically. As I approached them, I noticed three glasses of cocktails.
“What’s this?” I pointed to the third glass.
“You sounded like you needed it,” Hailey explained.
“So we thought we’d be prepared,” Lori added.
I climbed on the chair, sipping the cocktail. Yum; it was delicious.
“Spill it,” Hailey said. “The secret to getting over a bad date is to describe it in extraneous detail so we can commiserate with you.”
“Chad seemed like a nice guy,” I began. “You know, on paper. Decent job, not too bad to look at. He had no sense of humor, but hey, you can’t have it all, right?”
“Yes, you can,” Lori said with a dreamy smile. She was married to a great man.
“What happened?” Hailey asked.
“Turns out he’s an ass. Was checking out the waitress right in front of me.”
Hailey wrinkled her nose. “Ugh. You do have bad luck, sister.”
For the past two months I’d been seeing this guy, Ethan. Two weeks ago I discovered I wasn’t the only woman he was seeing. The humiliation of finding out still stung. One of the reasons I’d gone out with Chad tonight was to move on from that. The joke was on me.
“What if it’s more than bad luck? I think I must give off the wrong signal.”
I was usually a confident and optimistic person, but my recent experiences had done a number on me.
“Valentina Connor,” Hailey said carefully, “you are one of the smartest and kindest women I know, and you have great fashion sense. Don’t doubt yourself.”
She pointed to my attire—a dark green summer dress that reached my knees and brought out the green in my eyes. I’d paired it with black flats. I was tall enough even without heels. Hailey almost always wore sky-high heels.
I drank some more. “You have to say that, though. We’re related. You can’t be mean to me.”
Lori chuckled. “No, but we wouldn’t lie.”
Well, that was true. My family rarely minced words. I could count on them to be honest. I looked at them warmly, happy I could spend the end of this evening with them. Others needed ice cream after a bad date; I needed Hailey and Lori. They weren’t just my sisters, they were my best friends. We were a team, whether we were on a shopping spree or relentlessly teasing my brothers during our weekly Friday dinners. Yeah, we had the kind of family dynamic that often made people wonder if we were grown-ups after all, but it worked for us.
“Val, what’s wrong?” Lori asked, pushing a hand through her blonde hair. “You’re usually optimistic. Is it the issue with Beauty SkinEssence?”
My stomach rolled. The second reason I’d accepted a date with Chad was because I’d been desperate to take my mind off that.
I nodded. “I have a meeting with a mediator tomorrow.”
“Val, you have nothing to worry about.” Hailey put a comforting hand on my shoulder.
I owned a cosmetic and fragrance company, Valentina’s Laboratories. My team had developed a formula for an antiaging cream, and now one of the multinational conglomerates were claiming they’d done it first. There was no patent, and they hadn’t advertised it anywhere. The only mention had been in a French trade magazine three months ago, but we’d been working on our formula for nine months at that point. I was fairly certain that what Beauty SkinEssence wanted was for me to drop the line, because if we launched similar products at the same time, profits would shrink for both sides.
The company was my baby. It had taken me twelve years to grow it to the successful business it was today. I wasn’t going to allow anyone to threaten what I’d built or smear the hard work of my team by calling us copycats. I looked up from my cocktail to find my sisters exchanging a glance. I suppressed a smile, certain that I knew what would follow.
“So, it looks like we have to plan an intervention,” Hailey told Lori, confirming my suspicions.
I laughed, throwing my head back. God, I seriously loved these girls. Interventions were a common thing in the Connor household. Whenever we thought one of us needed some shaking up, we’d pull one. If shit hit the fan, an ambush was needed.
I had introduced the concept of interventions at twenty-one. After our parents died in a car crash, my twin brother Landon and I took care of our sisters and two brothers. In that difficult time, we needed the goofing and silliness that came with interventions. But the tradition stuck to this day. At thirty-six, I loved it as much as I had in my early twenties.
“How about I make you a deal? You wait until after my meeting with the mediator. Otherwise you might have to work on another intervention tomorrow.”
“We don’t mind,” Lori assured me. Hailey backed her up with a vigorous nod.
“Nah, we don’t have time. I should get going. I need to be up early tomorrow. The meeting is at eight o’clock.”
I’d insisted the mediator come to me so we could have that first conversation on my territory.
Despite leaving after only having one other drink, it was close to midnight when I arrived home. Alone in my house, I started fretting over the meeting again. My company wasn’t just a way of making money for me. It was who I was.
I put together my outfit for the next day, as usual. Doing so bought me time in the morning, when I would sell pieces of my soul for a few extra minutes of sleep. I’d taken out a fire-red pencil skirt and a black blouse with a sleeve that hung off one shoulder. It wasn’t exactly typical office attire, but I loved it, and it was weather-appropriate for mid-September. As a plus, it was my lucky outfit, and I was determined to turn around my luck.
Chapter Three
Val
Next morning, dressed in my lucky outfit, I stopped by Walter’s, the coffee shop across the street from my office building. It was the closest one, and I liked to start the morning by buying a cup of coffee before heading to work.
I usually ran into a few patrons I knew, people who worked at some of the other offices nearby. I waved to the head of the HR department of a beverage company with whom I’d had lunch a few times.
Then I slid my gaze over the perimeter for anyone else I might know. My gaze fell on the stranger in line next to me, and I straightened a little, paying extra attention. He was taller than me (and the lucky outfit re
quired me to wear heels). His shirt stretched over a broad chest and a tapered waist. His strong hands ended in long fingers that made me wonder if he played the piano. I even got a fleeting look at his face as he turned to study the menu. His hair was almost black, and I was sure that his eyes were hazel, providing a beautiful contrast.
I hadn’t realized I was staring until he unhitched his gaze from the board displaying the menu and turned to look at me. He was absolutely gorgeous. I’d been wrong; his eyes weren’t simply hazel. They had golden flecks too. I broke the eye contact as my turn came. I ordered my usual—cappuccino with whipped cream and caramel topping.
While waiting for my drink, I discovered that I’d developed a wandering eye that was intent on surveying the stranger, cataloging every detail. He joined me in the waiting corner. Now he was close enough that I couldn’t look at him without being obvious. But oh, I could smell him. I recognized the cologne instantly. It wasn’t one of mine, but it was a favorite nonetheless. I concentrated on the sweets display, my mouth almost watering at the sight of the blueberry pancakes. Nope. I’ll be strong today. No pancakes.
Our drinks were placed on the counter at the same time. The stranger reached for his first, but the server must have placed it too close to the edge, because it toppled right over... knocking mine as well. I jumped backward as the hot contents spilled everywhere.
“I'm sorry,” the stranger said. Ah, that voice. Just another tool in his arsenal to make him more irresistible to poor souls like me. “I’ll buy you another one.”
“No need.”
“I insist. I knocked it over.”
A man with manners. Will you look at that?
“Well, if you insist, I won’t say no.”
We went back to the cashier.
“A cappuccino with whipped cream and caramel topping for the lady. And a blueberry pancake,” he said.
I looked at him questioningly. “Why did you order that?”
He gave me a half smile and a wink. “Saw you looking at them earlier.”
I smiled, caught by surprise. I hadn’t felt like smiling all morning. I’d woken up in a frenzy, with my heart in my throat. I’d hoped that sticking to my usual morning routine would keep the nerves about the potential lawsuit at bay. But until this beautiful stranger had made me laugh, my insides had been twisted together like a vine.
