“Yeah.” Carl coughs as he steps into view in the doorway, his voice raspy. His clothes are torn, muddy, and full of hedge leaves. His face is bloodied, and he looks plenty pissed off ... but he is very much alive. “Well, you did a piss poor job of it.”
He turns his shining smile on me. “Hi, baby. Told you I’d protect you.”
I smile through my tears. “Yes. You did.”
In the end, all Shayla could do once she ranted off empty threats was sit on the floor and cry like an overwrought toddler. I watched her while Carl untied me with blistered hands, and wondered why I had ever feared her—before she hired an assassin, at least.
The police brass seemed to understand that they had a mess on their hands, and the lieutenant who had taken Shayla’s bribe was quietly fired. Shayla and her errand boy were packed off to jail.
Carl took Jenny, Flubber, and me off to vacation in Humboldt for a few weeks while the lawyers sorted out the redistribution of my parents’ estate. I saw sea lions for the first time, and drank California wine.
He introduced me to ball gags, so that I could scream as much as I wanted even with Jenny sleeping in the next room. (They’re getting a lot of use).
I hired a cleaning crew for my parents’ house and someone to redecorate, and someone to sell off my sister’s things while we were in California. I kept myself busy by day. Carl kept me busy by night.
By the time we pull up in front of my family home in the Garden District, other than the permanent burn scar on one of the trees, there’s no trace of Shayla left in this place at all. I have even had her room repainted. And I made sure the yard was safe—and escape-proof—for both dogs and little kids.
I smile proudly as the stately old house looms before us, and Jenny gasps with joy. “It’s a castle!” she cries. “Look, Daddy, I told you Emmie’s a princess! She lives in a castle!”
He laughs and tightens his grip on me, kissing my temple. “I already knew that, sweetie. Anyway, now you live in a castle too. This is our new home.”
Her face lights up even more. “Come on, Flubber!” she calls, and the wandering puppy barks and scrambles after her as she hurries up the stairs to the door. “We’re gonna live here!”
“So how did you get everything ready for us?” Carl’s voice is still a little raspy, but his throat has healed. We walk up the stairs more slowly, arm in arm.
“Oh, you know. Deep cleaning, a premature estate sale.”
“No exorcism?”
I think of Shayla, now sulking in a cell. “We already handled that.”
He laughs and wraps an arm around me as we go to join his daughter. “That we did.”
The End.
The Reconstruction of Cyprian
A Billionaire Bad Boy Romance
Cyprian Girard is a 35-year-old billionaire investor who works like hell all week, making himself (and others) tons of money.
On the weekends, he parties like there’s no tomorrow. Being a confirmed bachelor, who’s looking to score all the tail he can possibly get, has him making his move on a certain convenient store cashier, who ignites something in him as she’s not about to give into his charming ways.
Camilla Petit is a 25-year-old Science Major at Clemson University in Clemson, South Carolina. She’s working as a cashier at a convenience store to help her makes ends meet while she goes to college. She works the night shift and every weekend, she sees the driver of the ultra-rich Cyprian come in and purchase condoms along with other things. One fateful night, Cyprian himself gets out of the car to make his own purchases and sets his sights on her.
Camilla is nobody’s fool. She’s on the verge of starting her career as a lab technician and womanizing men have no place in her life. But Cyprian is no ordinary man. He’s been constructed, nearly from birth, to charm women into his bed and then leave them wanting more.
With a lifetime of kudos from his father on his romantic endeavours, can Camilla, who he affectionately calls Cami, reconstruct him to fit into her world? Or will it be the other way around? Will Cyprian mold her to his specifications, making her just another notch on his bed post? Can Christmas give them both a miracle?
Book 1: The Flirt
Chapter 1
CYPRIAN
A golden hue falls over the crowd of people who dance under the disco ball as yellow lights shoot up at it and bounce off the millions of mirrors used to create the magical ball. Loud music vibrates my body as I sit, unseen, at the top of the spiral staircase which leads down to the ballroom of my father’s mansion.
He’s having another party, the way he does each and every Friday and Saturday night. Sunday is reserved for other social functions. On Sundays, we go to watch horses run around a track while my father trades money with the people around him. On occasion, we get onto the jet and go to other places where my father bets with other people about various things.
Once we watched dogs run around a track and that was cool, because he took me to look at them before they raced and I was allowed to pet a couple of them. The horses are always too high-spirited. I’m never allowed to touch them.
I am, what my parents call, a happy mishap. My mother left me with my father when I started kindergarten a year ago. Up until then, she and I lived in Los Angeles. We lived in a small home and she stayed with me.
She decided, since I was going to start school, she could go back to her job. So, I came to live with my father in Clemson, South Carolina. I am what they call a child prodigy.
I was reading and writing at 3-years-old. I was drawing pictures which won awards at 5-years-old. Now, at 6-years-old, I’ve skipped a couple of grades. I’m in third grade now and my teachers believe I will continue to skip grades.
My father owns a company that makes investments for people. He’s already tutoring me on what types of things make good investments. He tells me often we are a family who works hard and plays harder.
Looking down at the men and women who are dancing, hugging, kissing, and drinking things that make them stagger at times and slur their words, I find my father out of the crowd and see him with a woman on each arm.
He must sense me looking at him, as his dark eyes scan the staircase until they meet mine. He smiles and tips his tall hat at me. The women wave at me and blow me kisses.
I blow them back and they act as if they catch them and hold their hands to their hearts. With a sigh, I get up and make my way to my bedroom to study some more before I go to bed.
My life is full, not the way most children’s are. In other ways. I spend the school days having breakfast with my father, then his driver takes me to school. I stay there for a long time and then the driver brings me home. My nanny makes sure I eat dinner and bathe then I get into bed and go to sleep.
Only in the mornings, do I see my father. We go over the newspaper to see what the stock market is doing. Then we head off to do work, as he calls it.
On the weekends, I do not see him at breakfast. My nanny makes sure I have my breakfast and maybe at lunch, my father will come out of his bedroom. He always has different women with him when he does. Sometimes there are two or even three women who come out of it with him.
I don’t know what they do when he has his sleepovers. I just know I’m not invited to join them. And I’m not to get to know the women. I am to exchange polite hello’s and goodbye’s but that’s all.
My father makes it crystal clear, none of the women have a place in our little family. He and I are a family and my mother and I are a separate family.
I asked my father one time about love. A friend from school told me his mother and father are in love and they are married and live together. He told me he has brothers and sisters and a real family. Not like mine.
When I asked my father about that, he said some like to live life that way, but he doesn’t. He has little time for relationships. His time is better spent on making him and other people money. And when he’s not doing that, he wants no fussing and fighting. He says those things come along with lov
e and marriage.
I suppose he’s right. I saw one of my teachers arguing with a man in the hallway once. When I asked her if she was okay because she was crying, she told me the man I saw her with was her husband and they’d had a disagreement.
If a mere disagreement can make a person, who is in love, cry then I too want no part of that either. Just like my mother and father. I’ve never seen either of them cry and I also have never cried unless I was in physical pain.
I did cry a little when my mother left me here with my father and a nanny. But she told me that I’d be fine and she’d see me when she could. I see her once a month. She comes to my father’s parties for the weekend at the end of every month and I see her some while she’s here. She was right, I was fine, eventually.
I saw her dance one time at one of the first parties she came to. That’s when I found out what the job was she wanted to get back to. She is, what my father calls, an exotic dancer.
At one of my father’s parties, I sat on the stairs, watching my mother dance and toss away her clothes, my nanny found me and scooped me up and took me back to my bedroom where she sat outside my door in a chair to make sure I stayed in my room. She told me I shouldn’t see my mother doing that.
I asked her if what my mother was doing was considered wrong. She told me there is no wrong or right. But some things should go unseen by one’s children.
With no wrong or right in this world, I suppose it is my destiny to follow in my parents’ footsteps. Love may be what some people fall into. I am not like those people. I am like the one’s I came from.
My father told me I was not planned. He wasn’t sorry that I came along but he wasn’t happy with something called the condom that gave me to him and my mother.
Apparently, this thing called a condom has the power to stop an egg from becoming a baby. The one he said he was using must have had a hole in it. He told me never to skimp on condoms and always make sure I had plenty of them when my time comes.
I don’t know when or why my time will come to use condoms but I will remember my father’s advice on them. He must know what he’s talking about since he’s never had any other happy mishaps. My mother hasn’t either.
Laughter fills the hallway outside my bedroom and I get off my bed and sneak to the door, pulling it open only a tiny crack to see who’s coming upstairs.
My father has the same two women under each arm as he did when I saw him downstairs. They’re taking turns kissing his cheeks and he looks very happy and relaxed. Not the way he looked when he got home from work, earlier this evening.
“Goodnight, Papa,” I call out as I open the door a bit more.
All three of their heads turn my way. “Hey, cutie,” the woman with red hair says to me. “Aren’t those pajamas the cat’s meow?”
My father jostles her a bit to get her to look at him. “No talking to the kid, Bonnie.” He looks at me and gives me a grin. “Goodnight, son. I’ll see you for lunch tomorrow. You get some rest now.”
“You too, Papa,” I say and close my door.
Going back to my bed, I have to admit my father looks way happier than my married teacher ever does. His way has to be the best way. He and my mother are happy people. I want to be happy too.
My friend from school will most likely follow how his parents live and I find myself feeling sorry for him and how his life will certainly turn out.
Poor kid…
Chapter 2
CYPRIAN
The disco ball is reflecting purples and pinks as I walk down the spiral staircase to go to my graduation party. I’ve finally earned my Bachelor’s Degree in Investment. I still have to get my Master’s in Finance, I’m not quite ready to become the CEO of Papa’s company just yet. But I am working at Libertine Investments as an assistant to the CLO, Stan Franco. He oversees all the legal affairs of the company.
At 16-years-old, I am the youngest person who works at my father’s company. No one treats me like a kid, though. Not when I can handle myself like an adult. And being the boss’ son doesn’t hurt either.
As I hit the last step, I am met by a couple of beauties. “I’m Roxanna,” the brunette tells me. Her arm moves around my waist as she leans in and kisses my cheek, purposely rubbing her breast against my arm.
“Hello, Roxanna,” I say and turn my head to catch her lips with mine. She tastes like rum and coke as our tongues move around together.
A touch on my ass has me pulling away and looking at the skinny blonde who’s also waiting for my attention. “I’m Bambi. I work at your mother’s club in L.A.” Her breasts are nearly popping out of the tight dress she has on. The silver beads on it catch the strobe lights, just like the disco ball does, making her light up.
“Nice to meet you, Bambi,” I say and take her waiting red lips and kiss her too.
She’s a smoother kisser than the other woman. But the other woman has the curves I like.
I guess I’ll have to keep them both for the night!
The music goes down and I hear a clanking sound. Both women wrap themselves around me and I wrap my arms around them as my father calls everyone’s attention to him as he walks up on the stage.
His temples are going gray in his otherwise dark hair, he’s growing older, a thing he reminds me of often as he seems to be hurrying me along to take over his position as CEO of Libertine Investments. He looks out at the crowd of people who’ve come to my party.
None of my schoolmates were invited. I never made any friends while in college. I wasn’t there to make friendships, my father told me. School was work and not a place to fraternize.
He took care of filling his parties with people. I found out almost every woman who comes to them are escorts, provided by several adult clubs around the nation. And at times, they come from around the world.
My father calls himself a connoisseur of fine women. He likes to taste them all. And escorts are liberal with their bodies. The men who fill his parties are business associates. Some of whom I know are married men but they come to enjoy the buffet of beauties who don’t mind at all showing a man a good time.
I find my father holding up my degree and a smile fills his face.
“Tonight we’re here to celebrate my son, Cyprian Girard’s, achievement. He’s earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Investment. He has a Master’s Degree to get before he can take over my role at Libertine Investments but I have no doubt he’ll make quick work of that. The way he’s done with everything else, academically speaking. And sexually speaking as well! Am I right, ladies?”
Cheers go up as women hoot and holler. I smile and wave then give them a bow. I am my father’s son, after all. I have learned from the most sexually advanced women on the planet, thanks to my father’s generosity when it comes to bringing in women for his parties.
The two, who have claimed me for the night, hold tight to their prize and I have to smile as I find other women looking at me with lusty gazes and some flat-out show me parts of themselves to entice me.
I found out, when I first started my sexual endeavors, when I was thirteen, not to go overboard with too many women at one time. My father caught up with me after an all-nighter with seven women. He told me, just like candy, whiskey, or food, you have to allow yourself to have only what you can handle. Moderation is what he taught me, in all things.
So, now I limit my women to three, tops. I find a feisty woman, with pink hair, looking at me with a raw hunger I think this current threesome could use.
My father goes on as I wiggle my finger at the vixen who is salivating over me. She comes to me as my father continues his speech. “Cyprian is the only fruit to have fallen from these loins.” He gyrates his pelvis, making the women scream. “My happy mishap has made me very proud of him on this day, and all days, for that matter. So, please join me in letting him know he’s appreciated by us all.” More cheers ring out by all the attendees as the pink-haired girl drops to her knees in front of me.
I look back and forth at the women on each
side of me.
“I’ll let you two decide. Can Pinky, here, join us this evening for some fun?”
Roxanna asks the new woman, “Do you mind kissing another woman?”
“Excellent question, Roxanna,” I say and give her cheek a quick peck.
Pinky, as I’ve dubbed her, shakes her head. I look at Bambi. “Do you have any questions for her?”
She looks Pinky over then asks, “Do you have any piercings that might add to the night’s activities?”
Her mouth opens and I find a silver stud on the tip of her tongue. Bambi and Roxanna both gasp then Roxanna says, “We’d love to add her to tonight’s activities, Cyprian. Please add her in for our complete enjoyment.”
“Seems, you’re in, Pinky,” I say as she gets up and runs her hands over my chest.
“My name is Paula but Pinky will do,” she says then kisses me, using that little bead on her tongue to run over the roof of my mouth.
I’m happy with the addition to the pack and find myself ready to dance a bit, drink a little, and then fornicate like animals for the rest of the night.
Life is good…
Chapter 3
CYPRIAN
It’s Friday and my nerves are frazzled as the board meeting has gone on longer than expected. “Iran is a no go,” I say as I slam my fist on top of the huge, dark oak table. “I will never budge on that! I am not my father. I will do no business with countries who are terroristic.”
“But their money is as good as anyone’s, Cyprian,” the CFO, Bob Steward, argues.
“Not to me, it’s not. Can we end this now?” I ask as I look wearily at the board. “I will not cave to you people. I am the CEO now. My father, Corbin Gerard, has entrusted this company to me and I have gone to school for a long time to get to where I am. I’ve studied the outcomes of such investments. Something like that, in a time of war, could end any political plans anyone of you may have.”
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