And when her arms wrap around my waist and her lips hit mine I realize I’ll spend the rest of my time on this earth undefeated.
Together we’re invincible.
“Amazing!” the announcer says as he sticks the microphone in front of me. “Words can’t describe what we just saw, Maddox, but you want to give it a shot?”
I take the microphone from him. “If you think that was something you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!” I say and the crowd goes wild.
And when I take a knee they absolutely lose it.
I take the box from my hand which my corner man slipped me as soon as the fight ended and I open it, placing the ring at the tip of her finger.
“I’m a man who knows what he wants and as you just saw when I want something I go and get it. And I don’t waste time. Beautiful, this is happening faster than anyone could have imagined…anyone but us that is. And life happens fast too, and I don’t want to spend another second of it without you. Today I’m the champion of the ring, but what I really want is to be your champion. Your lover. Your protector. Your husband. And soon the father of your children.”
The decibel reading on the side of the wall shows a new record for loudness at an indoor stadium. It’s louder than a jet engine at take off, and if she says yes that’s exactly what’s going to happen…our lives are really going to take off.
“Will you marry me?”
She grabs the microphone from my hands, holding it in both of her small hands. “Yes!” she yells and the decibel reading goes even higher.
I reach for her finger again, but this time it’s not getting away. Not before I slide the five carat diamond ring on it and then place my lips on top, sealing our love and my commitment to her forever.
The crowd chants my name and my team puts me on their shoulders, but I motion for them to put me down.
I scoop up my fiancée and put her on my shoulders. She’s the real champion today.
She won my heart and that is a competition that will never happen again. She’s got me forever.
And I’ve got her…forever.
Epilogue
Maddox
Four years later
“Wave at mommy!” I say taking our daughter Nastya’s little hand and waving it furiously as her mom walks across the graduation stage.
Her eyes catch us in the crowd and she waves back before blowing a kiss.
“Congratulations, Larry,” I say shaking his hand.
“Congratulations, Lucy,” I say kissing her on the cheek.
“Your girl did it,” I add.
“Our girl did it,” they both say at the same time and the three of us laugh.
“Mommy did it!” Nastya says.
“She sure did and you’re next, beautiful,” I say.
She looks at me like she’s confused, as she should be. At three years old she’s got a long way before it’s time for college, but I must say if the next fifteen years are anything like the first three it’s going to come way sooner than it seems. I feel like I blink and a month is gone.
One day she’s in diapers. The next she’s walking. Then she’s talking.
One of these days she’s…
No way. And once those boys find out about daddy’s history inside the ring she’s gonna be a virgin at least as long as her mommy was.
But when those boys watch videos of me inside the ring they’ll learn the most valuable lesson any man can learn…especially one who wants to learn about life.
My moment my life inside the ring ended and then my life outside began…because I put a ring on her finger.
I committed one hundred percent and have never looked back.
Technically I committed at that barbecue, but I just didn’t know it yet.
And in that line of thinking I committed the day I was born because I saved myself for the perfect mate, just as she did.
MMA has a lot of guys who think they’re “players.” They get as many women as they can but then wonder why they feel empty when the deed is over, or even worse when they’re older and beaten up.
And the worse beating you can take isn’t always inside the ring…it’s the one you take if you have a lonely heart, and thankfully I won’t have to ever know that feeling because I’ve got her, our baby girl, and my best friend and his wife by my side.
And grandma and grandpa love little Nastya, especially babysitting which allows me time to show just how much I still hunger for Anastasia.
And now that she’s finished film school it’s time for another vacation. Nastya’s gone on a few with us, but mostly it’s just the two of us. And since we’re celebrating this time I think we might need some alone time, but I’ve planned for the best way to accommodate that…as a family man.
“You got plans for next week?”
“Who me?” Larry asks as he tucks his video camera into the bag on his lap now that Anastasia is off the stage and out of a good viewing area from where we’re sitting. “Nothing out of the ordinary.”
“How about you, Lucy?”
She opens her phone and scroll through the calendar. “Nope. I’m free. What’s up.”
“Great,” I say. “Because I might need your help with…” I slide my hand inside my sport coat and remove five tickets to Buenos Aires… “these,” I say.
“Oh wow!” Lucy says grabbing them away from Larry and looking at the names on them.
“Please tell me we’re going to—“
“Tango? You know the saying, but we’re changing it.”
“Come again?” she says.
“Now it goes like this.” I pause raising my open hand to show all my fingers. “It takes five to tango.”
“Woo-hoo!” she says. “I’ve always wanted to try that dance!”
“And try playing polo,” Larry says and I remember his favorite animal in the world is the horse.
“And maybe even some Malbec,” I say.
“All of it! We’re going to try everything,” Lucy says.
“Including the boat to Montevideo and then a private driver to Punta del Este,” I say.
“Punta del what?” Larry asks.
“The South American Riviera that…isn’t widely known by Americans,” I joke. “Better brush up on your Spanish. It’s not the most gringo accommodating spot, which is why we’re going.”
“Off the beaten path. I love it!” Lucy says.
Nastya claps her hands together furiously for no apparent reason and then starts laughing uncontrollably.
“Apparently she likes it too,” I say.
“Mommy! Love!” Nastya says and the row of people in front of us turn around and admire our beautiful baby.
“She’s so pretty,” a lady in front of us says as she squeezes the hand of the man next to her.
“I highly recommend it,” I say. My gaze switches from her to her husband. “Children will make your life so much better in ways you couldn’t even imagine. Just when you think being a couple is perfect you’ll see how much better it is to add one of your very own…or two.”
The woman looks at her man. “Oh honey.”
They stand up and quickly shuffle towards the exits.
“I guess they took your advice,” Lucy says in-between laughs.
“I just hope my wife takes mine,” I say.
“And can we ask what that might be?” Larry says.
“My advice, if I can say it like that, was that if life was so much fun as a family of…five,” I say making sure to include grandma and grandpa, “then just imagine how much fun it would be with a perfect ten!”
“Ten! Oh heavens,” Lucy says.
“Heaven is right!” I say. “Ten would be heaven.”
And I’m not going to quit trying to convince my woman until we get there.
She’s the most incredible woman I know and I know she can balance being a career woman with a family, and if the family cuts into her career just a little too much then she always knows that daddy-o’s at home all retired and all he wants to do is enjoy
his life with his family.
Every minute of every day.
Forever.
Extended Epilogue
Anastasia
Ten more years later
“We did it, honey,” he says wrapping me up in a hug.
“We sure did,” I say.
“Okay, you did it. But I was here for support every step of the way right?”
“Right,” I say hugging him back. “I was just kidding anyways” he says.
I pause. “Do you still love me?” I ask.
“Of course! What are you talking about?”
“This is my sixth childbirth now Maddox. My body has been through a lot. I can’t look as beautiful as when we first met. Plus all those late nights at the office, and—“
His finger comes up to my lips. “Shhhh. You’re talking nonsense right now. You look amazing as always, better even in some ways.”
“Now I know you’re lying.”
“Never. You know why you’re looking even better than the best. You know you are the best looking woman in the world, right?”
“I’m not so sure about that, but no…why am I looking even better?” I ask wondering how he’s going to answer this one.
“Because this beautiful woman right here,” he begins tapping me on the nose, “with this sexy body right here,” he says patting me on the stomach, “has given me six amazing children and we’ve hit our original goal of ten in the family.”
“Our goal?” I ask, but wow, do his words ever make me feel better.
“Okay, my goal, but you never protested…much.”
“Apparently you didn’t hear me in that hospital last week,” I joke…sort of. The last one was the longest and I’m glad it’s our last…although I’m never sure with the way he can’t keep his hands off me.
“I did and that’s why we all chipped in.”
“You all chipped in for what?”
“Well we knew you were working hard helping all of us by giving us another beautiful member to our family and we wanted to thank you with this,” he says handing me an envelope.
“What could this be?” I say playfully getting excited.
I carefully open the envelope knowing I’m going to put it in my box of things I save. My memento box that I look at once every month or so remembering and cherishing our lives together.
“Oh! An entire weekend at the spa in Palm Springs.” I read it more carefully. “For four?”
“We figured you’ve given us so much family time lately that you definitely deserve some girl’s time with your friend.”
“Oh goody! Can I bring Sally, and—“
His finger returns to my lips.
“You can bring anybody you like because it’s your gift to do with as you choose,” he says and then his finger moves from my lips, gently sweeping across them and replacing them with his lips and I melt into his kiss.
“Oh, I want to bring you,” I say.
“I think a guy that looks like me and is my size would scare all those nice ladies at the spa,” he says.
“Okay, I get it,” I say. “But to be honest I don’t want you to go to the spa. You know why?”
“Why is that?”
“Because I know those ladies would be fighting tooth and nail to try and take you from me and I want you for me and me only.”
“Well they can fight all they want but you know my fighting days are over. I’m a lover now and that means your lover. Yours and only yours.”
“Mine and only mine,” I say and we kiss again.
“And you’re mine and only mine,” he says in between smooches. “Forever.”
“And ever and ever and ever and…”
58) BOSS’S BABYSITTER
BOSS’S BABYSITTER
Office romances are strictly forbidden where I work. But when the boss’s baby needs a babysitter this office girl agrees to watch the boss’s daughter, and quickly finds the boss watching her.
And for the first time this babysitter knows she’s met the man she’s been saving her very own first time for.
But what this office girl doesn’t know is that her boss is her dad’s best friend.
Will this older man and his baby girl have her thinking about another first time…her first pregnancy with her first love and a home full of baby girls and baby boys with her very own boss of the house?
Or will her dad’s best friend resist risking his life long friendship and business partnership with her dad leaving her with nothing more than memories as the boss’s babysitter?
Or will her dad’s best friend resist risking his life long friendship and business partnership with her dad leaving her without the partnership she wanted all along… as so much more than just the boss’s babysitter?
*Boss’s Babysitter is an insta-everything standalone romance with an HEA, no cheating, and no cliffhanger.
Chapter One
Jacob
Her face looks familiar but I just can’t place her.
It’s not that her face looks familiar because it’s the type you see every day. Not at all.
It’s the kind of face that’s so unique once you see it you never forget it.
And I haven’t. No way would I forget that face.
But I did forget her name. The cardinal sin in business and I’ve broken it.
But this isn’t about business. This is about so much more. This is about life.
My life. Her life. And how our paths need to cross right now.
“Janice,” I say to my secretary. She stands up from her desk and comes to the doorway of my office.
“Yes, Mr. Stone.”
“Who’s the girl in the company picture we took yesterday?”
“That’s Mina, the new hire. She works in admin down on the third floor.”
“Last name?”
“Let me check on that for you, sir.”
I stare at the picture wondering why I can’t place her and it’s driving me absolutely crazy.
“Lewis, sir.”
“Mina Lewis,” I say as I type it into my contact lists search bar. “Thanks, Janice.”
Is she a client’s daughter?
A rep of some sort who’s tried to sell our company some business equipment before?
How did we hire her?
No results to display.
Well, just because she’s not in my contact list doesn’t mean I don’t know who she is.
I pull up her file in the company database.
Good student. Interviewed well. Working a lot of overtime and not putting it on her timesheet.
Why in the world would she do that? She’s missing out on that time and a half? This could be a lawsuit waiting to happen, or she’s a genuinely generous person who’s absolutely a team player. Those are hard to find these days. Very hard to find.
I look back at her picture and focus in on those hazel eyes of hers again. There are almost golden specs in them. It’s absolutely crazy that I can tell that from a picture of a group taken at a distance. She must be a good five to ten yards away from the camera and I can pick out the specs in her eyes.
But that’s not the only thing I can pick out.
I can see she’d be perfect for another position I need filled. One that requires the utmost in trust, confidentiality, and commitment. And she’s already shown she’s more than capable of all three just by those overtime hours she’s not billing.
But that needs to stop. She needs to be paid for the work she’s doing. I’m not a miser in any sense of the word and there’s nothing I like more than rewarding hard work, especially when the worker doesn’t seem to be getting noticed for it.
“Janice, can you call Mina into my office?” I ask.
“Sir,” she says.
“Can you call Mina into my office?” I repeat. I need to see this girl right now. I need to know what makes someone like this tick. Why she chose to work at Stone Solutions. Last month we had a reporter take a job here to try and dig up dirt on me, but I can see just by looking at her
picture she’s not that kind of person.
She doesn’t have that harsh, corporate ladder climber look. How did we find an employee like this? And much more importantly why haven’t I ever been able to find a woman anywhere remotely like this for my own life?
“No need to call her in, sir.”
“What?” I ask. Why is Janice suddenly acting so strange?
“She’s standing in your doorway.”
Chapter Two
Mina
I feel my fingers on both hands tighten their grip around the manila folder I’m holding in front of my waist.
I’m focused on keeping my head up high and my shoulders back, but not too far back to make it look like I’m sticking out my chest. I want to appear professional, and not available.
But now that I’ve seen him in person for the first time the thought of not being available suddenly seem like such a bad idea.
But what does suddenly seem like a bad idea was coming up here and trying to negotiate with a man whose entire existence screams power.
As he stands I see his summer wool suit is wide at the shoulders and tapers quickly to match the V-shape of his body. It has to be custom made, not because he must be worth millions at a minimum, but because he’s in tip top shape regardless of whether he’s thirty-seven or any age for that matter…not that I’ve been Googling him relentlessly the last three days in preparation for this moment.
I read an interview he gave on negotiating where he compared the pros and cons of having as much information on the other party as possible before the negotiation. Well, I took that approach of having as much as possible, but regardless I’m quickly seeing I’m way out of my element here. And in way over my head.
And as he approaches me I can also see he’s well over a head taller than me. My mom named me Mina, and the name fit. Both my parents were both tall, but I’m definitely diminutive as in small and feeling even smaller with each step towards me he takes.
A Man Who Knows What He Wants Box Set 5 Page 34
