One Saturday morning Nathan came knocking at my door and I burst into tears all over again. He took me into his arms, and even though I wanted to send him away, some powerful hormones came with this pregnancy, so I dragged him into bed instead. I fucked him as many times as I could stand it before I was exhausted and he watched me as I snuggled next to him. “What’s wrong with you, Alyssa? Why have you been avoiding me?”
“I…I found out I was pregnant about a month ago. I’ve been lost about it and tried to figure out what to do,” I told him after several moments of silence, burying my face in my pillow.
“Pregnant? With my baby?” Nathan questioned as I groaned out loud and closed my eyes.
“I haven’t been with anyone else,” I shot back as I felt him move close to me, lighting the fire inside of me all over again.
“I know that. I’m sorry.” Nathan apologized, and I raised my head to look at him.
“Have you?” My voice was high, and I stared at him as he gave me an incredulous look.
“Fuck, no. I miss you, Alyssa. Come back to New York. We can make it official and raise this baby.”
“Are you insane? Dad will be pissed, Nathan. You might lose your job and your life there.”
“So what?” He asked as I rolled away from him. “Alyssa, come back. I can work anywhere, here or there.”
“You’re not throwing away your career there for me,” I scoffed as I pulled on a robe and walked into the kitchen.
“I love you, Alyssa. I want all of this with you. I just didn’t know how to say it before.” I looked out of my window and wondered when everything went so wrong, why this happened to us. It was good sex, hot and wild, nothing that needed to turn into shared parenthood.
“I’m tired. I can’t deal with this,” I told him as I went back to bed and pulled the blankets over my head.
I shut down, and he went home angry and resentful at my attitude. I didn’t know what I was doing as I worked through my days and cried myself to sleep. I missed him so much, but it seemed hopeless in my mind.
I noticed that the phone calls stopped and the texts just didn’t come through as I kept being silent. I was scared that I’d lost Nathan, but maybe that was best. I had a good job, and I could raise this baby myself.
I was checking the mail and found an envelope that was marked with Nathan’s return address. I carried it to my place and sat down to open it, finding a plane ticket for the following weekend. I grabbed my phone.
Me: What the hell is this?
Nathan: I want you to come here so we can figure this the fuck out. I am going to talk to your dad and tell him everything, Alyssa. I love you, and I hate that I’m missing everything about this pregnancy.
Me: Are you insane? I wasn’t going to tell him that it’s yours.
Nathan: I want the world to know that this baby is mine. I’m sick of hiding this. Get your ass back here on that flight and face your life. I've had enough of this.
I smiled and started to cry.
Me: Okay. Know something? I love you too.
I was scared to death the entire flight as my stomach twisted and turned inside. Nathan picked me up at the airport and drove me to his house, announcing that we were having dinner with my father the following night. I still tried to argue the idea, but he shut me up with a kiss, something that I needed.
It felt good to have him bare inside of me. It was not necessary now, and I rode him that night hard and deep as I gave into the orgasm that I desperately needed. We stayed in bed until we needed to get ready for dinner, and I slipped on some leggings and a long t-shirt as I pulled my hair back.
Dad looked shocked when I showed up with Nathan. He stared at us as we sat down at the table and his face turned beet red as Nathan told him what was going on. “She’s my daughter. How dare you think that this is okay.” Dad growled as I jumped in my seat and felt Nathan take my hand.
“I wouldn’t have chosen this for her, but it happened. I love her, and we’re going to have a family. I’ll do right by her, Brad.” Nathan told him as Dad threw down his napkin, stomped out of our dining room and slammed a door in the house.
“That went well,” I muttered as Nathan stroked my hair.
“Give him time,” Nathan murmured before he led me out of the house, getting Thai food on the way back to his house.
Dad wasn’t there when we found out the baby was a boy, at a doctor’s office in New York. I’d agreed to move back in the week that I was visiting. Nathan insisted that I take it easy and we stayed in the house after I’d sorted everything out in California. I knew that I wanted to work eventually, but I let him have his way for now.
He had proposed a week before the baby was due, in front of the fireplace. I was heavy and full of our son and cried buckets as I sobbed that I would marry him. We’d worked through a lot in the few months that I’d been back and I suspected that Dad was coming around. Nathan worked it out enough to stay at the firm, and he even agreed that Dad was warming up to the idea of us.
Epilogue
Braden Leo Moore was born on an early November morning, beautiful and loud. Nathan bent over me as I held him against my bare skin and cried for what we created with our love. I struggled from time to time with us, but now everything was perfect. It wasn’t what one might classify as a normal relationship, but we both knew that it was a genuine one.
His sister was out in the waiting room, and she came in with flowers before she carefully picked up the little bundle of blue. There was a tap at the door, and I glanced up to see Dad coming in, holding a huge vase of white roses and purple lilacs. They were mom’s favorite flowers and I smiled as he came in and set them down beside me.
“So this is my grandson?” He asked as he looked at the baby.
“Yes, his name is Braden.” I knew that he’d talked to Nathan about things, but we weren’t on good terms until this moment as I got my son and offered him to my father. He teared up as he held him and I lost it as Nathan came to stand beside me.
I knew that everything would be okay. I knew that my baby would have a family, all the while with my mother looking over all of us.
Nathan leaned over to kiss me, bursting with pride and love as our eyes locked. This wasn’t what I ever would’ve guessed for my life, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
*****
THE END
Contemporary Romance: Hungry Boss
Description
What do you do when the hottest, most annoying billionaire on the planet wants a fake marriage... with you?
I’m a twenty-eight-year-old gal, saving myself for the one.
The perfect one. So definitely not for him.
He’s one of the world’s most famous playboys and not interested in relationships.
Did I mention he’s my boss? He is.
But he’s in trouble.
His old man has given him an ultimatum: he has to settle down in three months or he won’t be president of the family’s multi-billion company.
One mistake, one night with too much liquor, and I wake up married to the guy in Vegas the next day.
So we just get an annulment, right?
Right. Until he makes me an offer I can’t refuse.
He’ll give me the thing I want most if I continue with our legal but unconsummated marriage.
What’s a girl to do?
Chapter One
Matt Cross made the trip to his father’s office feeling like he had as a small child when he’d been called into the old man’s study. Somehow, in some way, he had disappointed his father yet again. The elevator dinged and he got off on the old man’s floor.
Bypassing his father’s assistant, who just waved at him with a smile, Matt knocked on the door and let himself in. His father, Richard, was on the telephone when Matt entered, so he made his way to the small bar and poured himself a bourbon. It was too early, but if he were going to get lectured, he needed the drink.
He settled on the leather couch as his father finished up
his phone call. Running a multi-billion dollar luxury hotel chain was hard work—and it was work that Matt looked forward to undertaking. His sister was a stay-at-home mom with four kids. She didn’t come anywhere near the business.
Their parents were well into their late-thirties before they had married, and forty before Matt was born. Matt was thirty—young to take on such a role—but his father was seventy now and ready to retire.
Matt had worked for the company since graduating college at twenty-one. He’d worked his way up to a vice-president position. It didn’t take a lot of thinking to conclude that he would become CEO and president when his father retired in just three months.
Finally, his father hung up the conference call and gave Matt an assessing look. “It’s a little early for alcohol, isn’t it?”
“I’m still on London time. It’s past five there.”
Richard shrugged. “Well, thankfully, I’m not here to talk about your drinking. That’s one problem you don’t have.”
Matt leaned forward on the couch. “Exactly what problem do I have?”
“Flitting around the world, for starters.”
“I don’t flit, father. I travel for work.”
“Meh, there’s no point in it, son.” Richard waved a hand in dismissal and sat back in his buttery cream leather executive chair. He left one hand to rest on the steel and glass modern desk.
“I fix the problems no one else can handle. Those hotels, every one, are either in crisis or running at a loss. Without my intervention, those locations would have been shut down within the year.”
“You’re putting out fires. When you’re this high in the company, you don’t put out fires. You hire good managers who can do it for you.”
Matt stood up to pace his father’s large office. “Why hire someone to do something I can do better?”
“You’ve got to learn to look at the big picture. You’ll never become CEO at this rate.”
Frozen, Matt stared at his father. His blood turned to ice water in his veins. “What the hell does that mean?”
With a sigh, his father leaned his head back against the headrest on his seat. “It means that I’m considering making Gary interim CEO and president until you get your life together.”
“My life is together. What is this about? And don’t tell me it’s just about how I do my job because I can tell that it’s not.”
“I’m talking about marriage and children. Things you’ll be—you are, the way you work—too busy for if I make you president. Without an heir, who will this company be passed down to?”
Matt threw himself into a soft armchair in front of the desk and ran a hand through his perfectly trimmed hair. He’d tried marriage once already, when he was younger. He’d wed his college sweetheart. Matt had insisted they didn’t need a prenup because they were so in love. Months before he turned twenty-five and came into his trust fund worth billions, he caught her cheating on him. They’d divorced and she’d taken half of what he had at the time.
Now, he knew women were only interested in him for his money. He dated the most beautiful actresses and models. He bought them jewelry, paid for expensive trips, took them shopping. It satisfied both their desires. He had no intention of ever marrying again. “Diane has four children, in case you’ve forgotten. Your legacy is already assured.”
“She’s not raising them to be in the business. You knew how to balance a ledger at twelve. How to—”
“Yes, yes. You did a good job, father. What’s your point, is what I’m wondering.” Matt picked up his forgotten bourbon and took a sip. It burned going down his throat, but it was a welcome heat.
“I need to see some maturity from you, son. Prove your worth to this company, learn to see the big picture, and, damn it, date someone for more than a month. Settle down.”
“You’re retiring in three months. You expect me to do all this before then?”
“If you can somehow swing a miracle, that’d be nice. Otherwise, Gary will take your place, until you’re ready to head this company.”
The unfairness of it all threatened to erupt from him, but his father would see that as no more than a petty, and childish tantrum. Matt did, indeed, need a miracle. He needed some way he could convince his father he was ready to take the company into the future, without becoming tied down with an unappreciative wife and a few kids he’d never have time for.
***
Brooke Monroe was already late for work, but Matt would understand. He knew she had obligations to help her father care for himself. She’d made him breakfast and he was trying the new weighted fork she’d purchased from a website for people with Parkinson’s. Her dad had been diagnosed seven years ago, before her mother’s death. He’d went downhill quite a bit since becoming a widower.
Brooke made her way through the small kitchen into the cluttered living room. She couldn’t find her keys anywhere. This place was wrecked. She tried to make strides on it when she actually got to be at home instead of traveling for work, but there was just too little room with her and her father’s things piled into the two-bedroom apartment. They’d had to sell the family home to cover her mother’s medical bills after she died.
And that was her biggest problem now—her dad should be in an assisted living home, but his insurance refused to cover it. She picked up a box of old records and her keys fell to the floor. She assumed her father must’ve moved the box last night onto her keys without realizing.
The CNA who came by twice a week would be in today to check on her father and make sure he took his medication and had a good lunch. On other days, Brooke had to lay everything out, labeled with post-it notes detailing which pills he should take and when, what container his lunch was in, and how long should he heat it.
When she went out of town, her friend Carrie, a child psychologist, checked in on her dad and helped take care of him. She was utterly indebted to Carrie for the help, but Carrie herself always said she had no family of her own to care for, so she liked helping.
“I’m leaving now, Daddy. Bye!”
“This fork is great, Brooke. It’s helping a lot.”
She paused, door open. Her dad tended to be impulsive now and focused on what entered his mind at the time. Sometimes, like when she was late for work, it was a struggle to be patient, but she tried so hard. “That’s great. I’m going now. Love you.”
“Love you, too. Have a good day at work.”
Brooke rushed out to her car and turned the key. It roared to life. She wished she’d had time to warm it up some. Mornings were still pretty chilly here in Chicago, but she’d just have to let her coat do its job and keep her warm.
She mused to herself, making the drive to the business sector, how she could do more for her father. Without more money, she couldn’t. She made enough to support herself; his income paid for his medications, co-pays, and insurance. There just wasn’t any extra, even between the two of them, to pay for more care or the assisted living home she’d found. If only she’d win the lottery. Unfortunately, Brooke was far too practical to squander her money playing the lottery, so it seemed unlikely.
She just felt so awful for her dad. Her parents had had the perfect marriage—this wasn’t the life they’d envisioned sharing together one day.
And she didn’t know when—between traveling for work and taking care of her father—she’d ever get the chance to meet the perfect man for her. Besides all that, who would believe she wanted to wait until marriage before having sex when she traveled constantly with one of the world’s most famous playboys?
Never mind that she was halfway in love with her boss—who would never settle down again in a million years. Matt was so generous and understanding. It was a shame he was so against loving again. Not like she had a chance with someone like him anyway. He dated supermodels and famous actresses.
It was with a lot on her mind that Brooke finally pulled into her parking space at work, a perk Matt insisted she needed. She rushed upstairs and got off of one elevator ju
st as Matt was getting off another.
“Miss Monroe, you finally made it.”
He called her Brooke most of the time. He only called her Miss Monroe because she had the same platinum blonde hair and clear blue eyes as Marilyn Monroe. The comparison ended there; where Marilyn was curvy, Brooke was thin and petite. Mostly, Matt knew it annoyed her.
“Yes, Mr. Cross.” That annoyed him worse. He hated formality when they worked so closely together. Brooke had told Matt all about her father and the duties she had to take care of for him.
He’d offered to pay for the assisted living home, but Brooke couldn’t bring herself, no matter how much she needed it, to accept such a gift. How would she hold her head up, knowing how very much it cost, how much she owed him?
“Stop calling me that.” They fell into step together as they made their way to his office. “We’re leaving for Vegas this evening.”
“You’ve got to be kidding. We just got back from London.”
“I know, but it can’t be helped.” He opened the door for her and she settled in at her desk. She had messages to go through, correspondence to sort. So much work to do since they’d been in London for five days.
She looked up when he didn’t leave. He just stood in front of her desk. “Is something wrong?”
“How was everything at home today?”
“It’s pretty obvious I’ve had a rough morning—I’m an hour late. Why?”
“It’s nothing. I’m going out for the rest of the day. You leave here by three, so you can pack, and meet me at the airport at eight.”
“You’ve already booked our flight?” She found it hard to believe Matt could do that on his own. She was his right hand, and she knew it. It paid well and at least she had job security. That was more than a lot of people could say.
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