Once Upon a Daddy: A Romance Anthology

by Kelli Callahan

  Interviewing with him is going to be a lot more intimidating than I realized.

  Alexio Hawkins had a commanding presence. When he walked into the conference room, everyone sat down and immediately turned their attention to him. I watched through the glass wall, and while I couldn’t hear what he was saying, I could tell that it wasn’t pleasant based on the body language of the people in the room. The meeting lasted nearly twenty minutes, and I just—sat there. All of the important people appeared to be in the conference room. The secretaries weren’t invited, but they furiously worked at their desks the entire time. The one that previously spoke to me would occasionally look towards the conference room and give me a glance, but she never said anything.

  It looks like they are finishing up—time for me to prove that I deserve to work here.

  The conference room door opened, and everyone started filing out. They looked like they had just been scolded. The only person that didn’t look like they had just been taken to the woodshed was Alexio Hawkins. He was the last one out of the room, and he had an intense glare etched on his face. He walked over to the woman that appeared to be his secretary—the one who had spoken to me—and leaned over to whisper something into her ear. She nodded, and he walked towards his office. He slammed his office door, and she stood up—then she started walking towards me.

  I can do this. It’s just an interview—the most important interview of my life.

  “It was Faith, right?” She tilted her head as she approached.

  “Yes ma’am.” I looked up at her and nodded.

  “I apologize, but something has come up. Mr. Hawkins will not be able to interview you today.” A sad expression settled on her face. “We’re going to have to reschedule.”

  “Oh…” I blinked in surprise. “Okay, I understand.”

  I got up from the chair and tried to hide the disappointment on my face as I walked back towards the elevators. I wasn’t sure what happened, but I assumed that the meeting had something to do with it. My heart sank into my stomach when I got to the bottom floor of the office building and made my way to the exit. There was still hope—but that didn’t make me feel any better. A man like Alexio Hawkins didn’t have a lot of time on his schedule, and every minute was precious.

  I had no idea how long it would be before I got the call again. It had been months since I applied to Hawkins Capital—and I didn’t hear from anyone at the company until they called to set up my interview. I drove home with my stomach twisted into what felt like a permanent knot. I really did feel like my opportunity had passed me by—all because an emergency stole the precious minutes I had to sit down across from Alexio Hawkins and convince him that I deserved an opportunity.

  “Okay, are we opening this bottle of wine to celebrate?” Jennifer hopped up from the couch as soon as I walked into our apartment.

  “What are you doing home? I thought you were working today?” I looked at her in confusion.

  “I left early. I wanted to be here when you got back. So—how did it go?” She held up the bottle of wine and grinned.

  “It—didn’t go at all…” I sighed and looked down at the floor.

  It looks like I’ll be drowning my sorrows instead of celebrating…

  Two

  Alexio

  “Deana, get your ass in here.” I opened my door and motioned to my secretary.

  “Yes sir, Mr. Hawkins.” She hopped up from her desk and walked towards my office. “What can I help you with?”

  “I asked for a report from everyone in the meeting before three o’clock. It’s—ten minutes past three. Where the fuck are my reports?” I walked over to my desk and took a seat.

  “I don’t know, Mr. Hawkins. I’ll round them up immediately.” She trembled as she spoke and then made a dash for the door.

  Yeah, you do that.

  I was on edge, and I had good reason to be. I wasn’t supposed to be sitting in my fucking office. I was supposed to be across town at Stone Properties—signing a contract to add the company to my portfolio. Something went wrong, and I had no idea what happened. I made arrangements to buy enough shares of the company to be the majority owner, but someone had blocked the sale. I wasn’t sure if the SEC was up my ass again or if someone had made a play against me—either way, a head was going to roll once I found out who had the balls to fuck with my deal. It had been a long time since someone tried shit like that—and I needed to make an example of them. It was a cutthroat business, and mercy was a weakness.

  “Okay, Mr. Hawkins.” Deana opened the door to my office. “I have all of your reports. There was an issue with the email server that delayed them.”

  “I don’t have time for that.” I glared at her and snatched the reports out of her hand when she approached.

  “I’ll get in touch with the IT department and figure out what happened.” She nodded quickly.

  “Don’t figure out what happened—fire someone,” I growled under my breath.

  “Yes sir, of course.” She nodded again.

  “Get rid of that ginger-haired fucker that always acts smug when he has to come up here to investigate a problem.” I glared at her. “I hate that guy.”

  “He is a bit of an asshole, isn’t he?” She tilted her head slightly. “I’m sure that will get the point across, regardless of who is actually responsible.”

  “I think I’m rubbing off on you, Deana.” I tossed the reports on my desk and chuckled under my breath.

  “Maybe.” She shrugged. “If you have a minute, we need to talk about the interview that I had to cancel.”

  “She was the top candidate, right?” I looked at the reports for a moment and then lifted my head.

  “Yes, but that’s not what I meant…” Her words trailed off for a minute. “I can reschedule her the next time you have an opening in your schedule—I’m talking about the other interview.”

  “Right…” I sighed. “See if you can set something up for Saturday. Just have Ms. Reynolds send the girl to my house. That’ll be easier for me.”

  “Yes sir.” She nodded. “I’ll take care of it.”

  I needed to get the other interview over with as soon as possible. My schedule was so busy that I didn’t have time for a relationship, but I had needs. It had been so long since I had a woman in my bed who could satisfy those needs that it was starting to fuck with me worse than the blown business deal. Ms. Reynolds was a madam who knew exactly what I liked—and I paid well to make sure that she kept my bed warm. I had very specific tastes, and while I trusted her, I still liked to sit down with the women she picked out before I agreed to share my bedroom with them. Plus, there were contracts to sign and a non-disclosure agreement that was required to make sure there were no loose lips once the arrangement was over.

  I could use a pair of lips right now—but I just don’t have time to interview anyone until I figure out what the fuck happened with the Stone Properties deal.

  I spent the rest of the day going over the reports that my team prepared, and I was still combing through them with a fine-tooth comb when everyone else left the office for the day. There was no smoking gun, but I hoped that there would be a clue—somewhere. My clients expected Hawkins Capital to turn a profit for their investments, and I couldn’t do that if I was blowing business deals. All of the money I invested in Stone Properties was wasted if I wasn’t the majority shareholder. From what I could tell, it looked like a small group of anonymous buyers pulled out at the last minute—conveniently, it was just enough shares for me to own forty-nine percent instead of fifty-one. It was a bold move. My lawyers would rip them apart once I found out who had the balls to violate the agreement that we signed—if I didn’t rip them apart with my bare hands first.

  I should catch up on the rest of my work before I go home for the evening.

  I tossed the reports to the side and nudged my mouse so that my computer would wake up. I never imagined being the kind of man that lived and breathed by a calendar of events which determined how I sp
ent my time every day. I certainly didn’t imagine being the CEO of a Fortune 500 company before I turned thirty. Hawkins Capital was originally just a dummy corporation that I set up in college. One of my friends asked me to invest money in an app that he was developing and thought that having a corporation listed as the biggest backer would help him secure additional funding. It worked—and so did the app. The investment made me a millionaire before my junior year—not bad for a kid that only got an opportunity to go to college in the first place because I could throw a football.

  Okay, if I read another email, I think my eyes are going to start bleeding. I need to unwind and get some rest, or I’m going to be worthless tomorrow.

  The next day

  “What the fuck is going on?” I looked around the top floor of Hawkins Capital—it appeared that I had just walked into mass chaos.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Hawkins. I was going to call, but I knew you would be here soon.” Deana ran up to me in a panic—but at least she remembered my coffee, even in the midst of chaos. “The computer issues we were having yesterday are back—and they’re much worse. The email server is down, the company calendar appears to have been wiped out, and our servers are lagging so bad that we can’t even get our trades to go through.”

  “I’m going down to IT,” I growled under my breath and walked back to the elevators.

  It was the worst time of the day for us to be having any kind of problem with our network. My team of Investment Managers had to be lightning quick when they were making trades—a delay could cost us millions. I wasn’t in the mood to lose money after everything went sideways with the Stone Properties deal. I was already going to have to answer for that the next time I had one of my investment strategy calls. I needed answers before I had to get on the phone with the people that trusted me to make good decisions with their money—but first I needed to find out why we were having so many fucking problems with our computer systems. I was ready to blow a gasket when I got to IT, but I tried to get my composure so that I could ask a few questions before I totally lost it.

  “What’s going on, guys?” I bit my tongue instead of unleashing a torrent of profanity mixed with threats—they already knew we fired the ginger-haired fucker.

  “Mr. Hawkins, we’re about to get the network back online, I promise!” Jake, the guy who was in charge of IT, met me at the door.

  “Good, tell me what happened.” I kept my voice calm, which wasn’t easy for me—I preferred a less subtle approach.

  “It’s a cyber-attack.” Jake pointed at one of the computer screens. “We thought it was just some kids screwing around yesterday—that’s usually the worst thing we deal with.”

  “So what is it? We’re a big company, so I’m sure that makes us a target.” I looked at the screen and saw that our security software was lit up like a Christmas tree with multiple attacks hitting at once.

  “Yeah, and we normally handle them without any issues, but this is a lot more concentrated—it’s a well-organized attack. Usually the attacks are just trying to access our system—steal customer data—the normal stuff you would expect. This is a denial of service attack—DDOS is what they call it in my line of work.” He exhaled sharply.

  “I know what a fucking DDOS attack is.” I glared at him. “Just fucking fix it. That’s what I pay you for. If this network isn’t online in the next hour, I’m going to start firing people—staring with you.”

  I made eye contact with every member of the IT team to make sure that the message was well received before I walked back to the elevator. I didn’t like ruling with an iron fist dipped in fear and dripping with the blood of their fallen comrades, but it was necessary. I tried the nice-guy approach the first year that I ran Hawkins Capital, and we nearly went bankrupt. The employees took advantage of me, and our competitors thought the company was a joke. It was a ruthless business, and the weak got trampled under the feet of the ones who were strong enough to survive. The people who were investing millions of dollars in the fund that we ran wanted sharks—not minnows. Once I realized that I became the apex predator—I stopped being nice, and I started acting like a conqueror.

  “They’ll have everything fixed in an hour.” I motioned to Hannah as soon as I got back to the top floor. “Gather everyone in the conference room. We need to have a meeting.”

  “Yes sir, Mr. Hawkins.” She nodded. “Right away.”

  I wasn’t a fan of useless meetings, but it was better to get everyone in one place and try to restore a little bit of order. Thankfully, we got the word that the network was operational in half the time that I gave the IT team. The delay was going to cost us some money, but the day wasn’t a complete loss. I instructed Deana to get a full report from the IT team before the end of the day and to make sure the authorities were notified about the cyber-attack so that a full investigation could be launched. I didn’t care if it was an individual or a group that was trying to fuck with Hawkins Capital—I wanted someone in handcuffs so that anyone else playing hacker on the Internet would know that we would take action if they tried anything.

  Later that day

  “Here’s the report from the IT department.” Deana walked into my office and put the report down on my desk.

  “Thank you.” I sighed and reached for it. “Can you set up a meeting with the CEO of Stone Properties tomorrow? I wanted to sit down with him today—but then all this other bullshit got in the way.”

  “Yes sir.” She nodded quickly. “Everything seems to be fine now, but it will take me a couple of days to get your calendar fixed. We had meetings scheduled—for months.”

  “Yeah.” I exhaled sharply. “It’s okay. Just make sure we don’t miss anything important.”

  “We won’t.” She pointed towards my computer. “By the way, I set up the meeting for Saturday. I made sure to take care of that as soon as everything was back online.”

  “Perfect.” I flipped through a couple of pages in the report from the IT department.

  Deana had been my secretary since I started Hawkins Capital. She was one of the few people I trusted with the details of my life outside the company. I was never going to be the kind of man that met someone, dated them, and eventually fell in love—I sure as fuck wasn’t going to get married. I didn’t have time for a wife or a family. I believed in satisfying my needs with a temporary arrangement instead of a permanent one. I never let a woman spend more than thirty days in my bed. That was my rule, and it allowed physical pleasure to exist in a fragment of time that ensured there was no heartbreak when the arrangement was over. The fact that I was paying them for their time did the rest—I would never fall for a woman that was getting paid to spread her legs. Those women didn’t have expectations outside of the price we agreed on—and that was exactly what I needed when I could pull myself away from the office long enough to chase my carnal desires.

  It’s not like a woman would ever fall in love with me anyway—I’m too complicated and broken to give them what they really want.

  A few days later

  The weekend was supposed to be my moment of zen after a week of giving every bit of myself to Hawkins Capital. When Saturday rolled around, I wasn’t feeling very relaxed. My meeting at Stone Properties wasn’t very successful. The CEO was running a fucking zoo and had no control of his company. He was able to figure out which shareholders pulled out of the deal at the last minute, and they were nothing more than opportunist little fucks.

  I kind of hoped it was an actual competitor—someone with the balls to make a play against me—someone I could castrate in a public demonstration of dominance. Instead, it was just a few greedy assholes that wanted to get a bigger cut of the pie because they realized they had a chance to make a few extra bucks once I was heavily invested with no choice but to pay their price. That was boring, but they got what they wanted. They could shove their blood money up their asses for all that I cared—they would never get an opportunity to make that kind of play again. Every company they involved themselves in it w
ould be blacklisted from my fund, and if I blacklisted a company, the rest of the industry followed my lead.

  Tyranny at its finest.

  Unfortunately, the other issue I was dealing with wasn’t resolved. The hackers that hit Hawkins Capital with a denial of service attack were still trying shit. The team was doing a good job of keeping control of the network, but it was a daily struggle. The authorities said the team was based out of Singapore, which meant they were virtually untouchable unless I took a trip there and tracked them down myself. That was tempting, but it was easier to just pay for a few upgrades to make it more difficult for them to hurt the company.

  “Mr. Hawkins.” My maid, Olivia, interrupted my tumultuous thoughts by opening the door of my study.

  “Yes? What is it?” I looked up from my desk.

  “It’s two-clock.” She raised her eyebrows as if I was supposed to know what that meant. “You have an interview.”

  “Oh, right.” I nodded. “Yeah, send her in.”

  I leaned my head against the back of my chair and closed my eyes. I really did want to meet the girl that Ms. Reynolds had found for me, but my head wasn’t in it. I certainly needed to get my rocks off—that would help ease some of the stress that had turned into a tight ball in my chest. The door of my study opened again, and I leaned forward as I opened my eyes. For a moment, I was—kind of stunned. The girls that Ms. Reynolds sent were usually beautiful, but they were nothing special. The woman that walked into my study was downright gorgeous—she had dusty-brown hair, an olive complexion, curves that made me blink a couple of times to make sure I wasn’t seeing things, and her pale-blue eyes were almost haunting.

  “Please—have a seat.” I motioned to the chair in front of my desk.