Billionaire Mountain Man

by Claire Adams

“Gee, thanks, Dad.” He missed the sarcasm in my tone. “Whatever, I’ll be there. See you Wednesday.”

  Despite being my father’s only biological child, I had to schedule appointments with him just like anyone else. All while his 53 or so players had unfettered access to him.

  I guess that was just the way it was when your father owned the Miami fucking Dolphins.

  Chapter Three

  James

  My hangover had become a distant memory as I hit the punching bag in the team’s gym. A fine layer of sweat covered my body.

  The door banged open, and Coach Jim came striding through it, ending whatever call he was on when he spotted me.

  “In case no one told you, James, the season’s over. You can take a couple of days off.” He grinned, but his face was red like he’d been fighting with someone on the phone.

  My breath came in quick gasps. I hunched over and clutched my knees, waiting to catch my breath. I guess I’d been hitting it harder than I’d realized. “Yeah, I know. Getting a jump on next season, I guess.”

  Jim’s raked his eyes over me, his concern clear. “You okay, son? I would’ve thought you’d be taking a few days to spend some time with Harper?”

  “I’m fine, Jim. And I will, this afternoon. I don’t want to disrupt her routine just because mine changed.” I’d had enough people warning me about routine and all that shit that I didn’t need to test it for myself.

  “I can respect that. Even so, you should take some time for yourself. Relax.” Jim surveyed me, again, probably trying to assess if I’d caused any damage to my body.

  “That’s what I’m doing. Relaxing. Getting a jump on next season at the same time.” There was an edgy undertone to my voice that I couldn’t quite hide.

  “Therein lies the problem, my boy. You need to unwind. Maybe take Harper somewhere nice and just relax with her for a week or so. I’m sure she would enjoy it.”

  Was that the problem? Because the problem, at least the way I saw it, was that I was the only one in there focusing on next season. The guys who should have been here busting their asses were off somewhere licking their wounds. He may have had a point about Harper, though.

  “Yeah, maybe I will. That’s not a bad idea, actually. I just can’t get that last game out of my head.” My fists clenched in frustration. That game ran on a loop in my head. It had been, ever since the final whistle blew and I had to accept that I wouldn’t have a shot at a ring, again.

  “It was pretty bad.” He shook his head.

  It was way fucking worse than “pretty bad.” And he knew it. “Pretty bad? We were shit, Jimbo. There are high school teams out there who could beat us.”

  The coach mulled over my words. I could practically see the gears turning in his head. “That may be a slight overexaggeration, but I get the point you’re trying to make. What does that mean for you, though?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not sure about my future here anymore. I want to stay, but if I do, they’re going to have to make it worth my while.” I hopped on the balls of feet, anticipation coursing through my veins. They were already paying me well. I was pushing my luck.

  Jim didn’t even flinch. “You mean you want more money?”

  “For starters. I have to provide for Harper now, too.” It felt good to get the admission off my chest.

  “I get it, James. Trust me. Just know that I would hate to see you go. You’re a great player, son, but you’re a better leader. The team needs you. Hell, I need you. Why don’t you talk all this over with Richard?” His voice rang with sincerity. Maybe I wasn’t pushing my luck, after all. Besides, he was right about one thing: they did need me.

  Everyone knew the Dolphins had to get into the business of keeping their players. We needed to build a team around our strengths rather than one that had to rebuild every season. To do that, Ralls had to identify players we couldn’t lose and hang on to them with both hands. I was one of those players.

  If I’d been having any doubts about it, my mind was made up after talking to the coach. He was great like that. “I will, Jim. Thanks. I’ll let you know what he says.”

  “You do that, son. I’d hate to lose you. Take it easy with that thing.” He gestured to the punching bag and disappeared into his office, leaving me to my workout.

  ****

  “James Skye calling for Rich.” That was all it took for me to be connected to one of the wealthiest men in Florida. Sometimes it was unbelievable to think that I had that kind of clout.

  Richard Ralls’s voice hit my ears through the speakers of my Range Rover not a second later. “Jamie, my boy. How are you?”

  I made a left onto my street, suddenly itching to get to Harper. She’d crashed into my life like a comet 18 months ago. After the initial shock had worn off, she’d become the most important person in my life. “I’m all good. Thanks, Rich. How are you?”

  “I can’t complain, son. What can I do you for?” Richard cut straight to the chase.

  I hesitated. It wasn’t something that I did very often, but Richard and I had gotten close over the last two years. He had become something like a father to me. I hated that I had to have the discussion that I was about to have with him. But at least I had the balls to talk to him myself instead of having my agent do it.

  “I need to talk to you. As soon as you’re available.”

  “Sure thing, James. I can’t see you today. I’m out of town. I’ll be back first thing in the morning. Come by tomorrow. I’ll make time for you anytime. That good for you?”

  Fuck yeah. “Sure, Richard. I’ll drop by tomorrow morning.”

  I felt like a complete douchebag. Richard was a good guy. He had given me a chance when I needed one. Maybe I should stay with the team without asking for more money.

  Harper’s warm eyes flashed in my mind. As did my own dreams.

  No. I couldn’t stay for nothing more. I had to provide the best I could for Harper. And I wanted a ring more than I needed a friendship. Even if it was a friendship that I valued more than almost anything.

  He clicked off the line just as I pulled into my cavernous garage. If you’d have told me two years ago that I’d have a house out in the suburbs near the beach, complete with a swing set in the backyard and a swimming pool covered in a child safety net, I would’ve laughed my head off. And then probably have kicked your ass all the way to next Sunday.

  That was exactly what I had though, all thanks to the little girl with the bouncing dark brown curls, my exact shade, and hazel eyes careening towards me.

  I dropped to my knees and opened my arms, grinning like an idiot as my baby girl flung her skinny arms around my neck and hugged me tight.

  “Harper!” Mrs. Watson’s voice called out from the doorway where she watched us, shaking her head with a slight smile on her face. “Every darn day. At least we’ve taught her to wait until the engine shuts down.”

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way, Mrs. W.” I smirked as I scooped Harper up and carried her to the kitchen.

  “I know, Mr. Skye.”

  I sighed. I’d been trying to get her to call me James since day one, but she refused. Apparently, it “simply isn’t the way things are done.”

  Mrs. Watson had been trying to teach Harper to stay seated until she’d finished her meal, but whenever she heard the Rover, she bounced off her seat and half-ran to the garage. Just as she had that day.

  “How’s my girl doing?” I cooed as I took a seat next to her, accepting my own lunch from Mrs. Watson. One of the perks of having a full-time nanny who had three children and six grandchildren of her own was that she cooked like a real mom and loved cooking for us.

  Of course, when I’d first started shopping for a nanny, I had been inundated with girls in their 20s with big tits and fine asses throwing themselves at me. Ryder and I had some fun during the process, but I quickly realized it would never work, hiring one of them.

  Enter Mrs. W. She was perfect in every way. She loved Harper like she was her own, and at 55
, she had zero interest in fucking me. If anything, despite her formality, she treated me like a son and called me out when I was full of shit.

  Needless to say, she’d had to call me out often. Especially in the early days. I’d barely been 22 when a girl who had looked vaguely familiar had rocked up on my doorstep with a ratty car seat and a baby with my hazel eyes peering up at me.

  “Her name is Harper,” the girl had said. “She’s yours.”

  A ton of bricks dropped on my head out of nowhere while a freight train crashed into me and cartoon birds circled my head.

  One look at those hazel eyes though, flecked with gold just like mine, and I knew that she was telling the truth.

  “I, uh, I guess you’d better come in then.” I’d said stupidly after eternity had passed, and my voice box had started functioning again.

  The girl stepped into my bachelor pad, a modern penthouse overlooking the ocean that I’d been renting at the time. She thrust the handle of the car seat into my hands and proceeded to tell me exactly what had happened on my 21st birthday.

  Ryder had hosted one of his epic parties for my birthday, and I’d woken up the next morning with hazy memories of a brunette with a rocking body and an eager tongue. She had been gone by the time I hauled my ass out of bed after noon the next day, and I’d never heard from her again.

  Until that day.

  As it turned out, I’d conceived myself a life-altering little gift for my 21st birthday. The girl’s name was Ashley. She had calmly sipped some water as she spun the tale that had my whole life come crashing down around me.

  She told me she’d always been opposed to abortion on principle, so when she discovered her pregnancy, it was never an option for her. She said she wanted to raise the baby by herself and couldn’t bring herself to give her up for adoption.

  Having had Harper though, she realized that babies didn’t come cheap, took up a lot of your time, and didn’t stick to your schedule. And also, that she didn’t have a maternal bone in her whole damn body.

  After saying her piece, she had smoothed her skirt, pushed a thick brown envelope across my coffee table, and told me she’d taken the liberty of having some papers drawn up by a lawyer friend. Harper was all mine.

  With that little golden nugget, she’d swept from my apartment, never to be seen or heard from again.

  The next couple of days were next-level chaos. I was an only child who’d never even held a baby. I mean, fuck, I didn’t even know how to get her out of the ratty old car seat when her mother slammed the door behind her and Harper started crying.

  I briefly considered giving her up for adoption, fully believing that it would be best for her, but paging through portfolios of prospective parents and trying to imagine my Harper living with those strangers was impossible.

  A couple of blackout drunken nights and more than a few tantrums and rants later, I realized that I had to step up. So, I did. With a lot of help from Ryder and the guys.

  I’ve come a long way since then, I realized as I sat eating my lunch next to my baby. My heart swelled with pride as I listened to her babble about her morning.

  Chapter Four

  Gabrielle

  I hated going to my father’s office. Everything about it annoyed me. Nothing more so than his receptionist peering at me over rimless fashion glasses and asking me to take a seat.

  “I’ll let him know that you’re here, Gabrielle,” she said.

  I sighed and flopped onto one of the ridiculously uncomfortable couches in his waiting room and did what was required. I waited for my appointment with my own damn father.

  The halls around me bustled with people laughing and talking while others barked into their Bluetooth headsets. No one took any notice of me, so I took my time studying my father’s little worker ants. I couldn’t imagine working for him, but they looked happy enough. They probably all shared his borderline obsessive love for watching a bunch of grown men chasing a ball around for a couple of hours every Friday.

  Don’t get me wrong; I grew up around football. I knew there was a lot more to it than that. I’m not stupid. Or blind. I just had a deep-seated resentment for the game and everything about it.

  I twiddled my fingers, growing increasingly impatient. The receptionist must have noticed because she came over and offered me coffee.

  A steaming mug appeared on the small table next to my couch seconds later. I heaped my sugar into it and breathed the heavenly smell deep into my lungs, already feeling calmer.

  Coffee did that to me. I loved the stuff. I consumed an unnatural amount of it. Although, given the hours I’d been keeping as a student, it probably wasn’t that unnatural. I let the warm liquid roll down my throat and immediately felt invigorated by it. Even if I was still feeling impatient.

  “Is he going to be long?” I asked the receptionist, who had taken to filing her long red nails into points. It was downright scary. I had noticed the trend, but I couldn’t say that I understood why anyone would follow it. Why would you want your fingers to look like claws?

  “Your appointment is at 8 a.m.,” she informed me briskly and sighed, as if it was obvious how long he would be. Then she snapped up a ringing phone.

  I glanced at my rose gold watch, a graduation present from myself to myself. 7:55 a.m.

  Seriously? He was going to make me wait until 8 on the dot? I rolled my eyes. I should’ve expected it. Anger and irritation rolled around in my stomach.

  The intercom on the reception desk buzzed precisely as the clock struck 8 a.m. “You can send her in, Olivia.”

  As if I hadn’t been able to hear him, Olivia dutifully fixed me with a smile and simpered, “You may see him now.”

  Oh gee, thanks. May I really see my own father now? I stomped past Olivia without a backward glance and threw open the door to my father’s office, trying my very best to push down the anger that bubbled inside me.

  “Gabrielle,” my father said as he rose from his desk. He pulled me in for a quick, cool hug. “How are you?”

  Richard Ralls was an imposing man. In his heyday, he had played for the NFL himself. He retired at the top of his game to take over the family business from my ailing grandfather. As I was sure he would remind me somewhere in the conversation we were about to have.

  His blond hair grayed at the temples, and the crow’s feet around his bright blue eyes had gotten deeper since I’d last seen him. He wasn’t a man who laughed often, but his wide grin had to come out and play whenever he was schmoozing. And that was something that he did very often.

  “I’m okay.” I pulled my lower lip between my teeth. A nervous habit that I’d been trying to kick since I’d seen Fifty Shades of Grey. I released it as soon as I realized I was doing it. “You seem busy, as always.”

  He motioned to one of the client’s chairs in front of his desk and lowered himself into his handmade leather monstrosity.

  Of course, that was what I always felt like when I went to his office. Just another client.

  “I am,” he said. “I just got in this morning, actually. I have a lot of work to catch up on.” There it was, the familiar implication that I was wasting his time. His eyes bored into mine as if challenging me to something.

  I squared my shoulders and took a deep breath to calm myself. I was this close to snapping at him, but that wouldn’t do either of us any good. “Yeah, I can imagine.”

  He looked slightly surprised by my response; then his surprise turned to amusement. Amusement that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Can you now, honey?”

  I gripped the armrest so hard my knuckles turned white. My fingertips numbed. The anger I’d felt minutes before turned quickly to rage. It threatened to rise as I absorbed his tone.

  “Yes, I can,” I managed to grit out.

  I must not cause a scene. I must not snap. I repeated the mantra to myself over and over again.

  If I wanted even a minuscule chance of him actually taking me seriously about not taking the bar, I had to keep a level head. Anyth
ing that could be construed as even slightly immature had to stay on lockdown.

  “I’m actually really busy myself, but I have something that I need to discuss with you. I thought it would be best to have this discussion in person.” There, I congratulated myself. That sounded perfect. Very levelheaded.

  My father didn’t seem to give a shit about my perfect delivery. “I hope that it’s studying for the bar exam that’s keeping you so busy and not the partying or the boys.”

  I groaned. He was never going to let that go. I got busted once while I was in high school. Once. Yet that was the yardstick by which I was always measured.

  It didn’t escape me that he hadn’t mentioned my graduating from law school once. Or that he was proud of me for graduating, with honors.

  “Well, actually, Dad, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  He cut me off. “Honestly, Gabrielle, it’s time for you to grow up and take some responsibility for your life.”

  I nearly gagged out loud. Responsibility? I was 24, I had graduated with honors from one of the top law schools in the country, and as far as he knew, I was about to take the damn bar exam. Something most people don’t do until 27. Yet, here he was, lecturing me about taking responsibility?

  He didn’t seem to notice that I was seconds away from going nuclear. He continued. “I mean, when I was your age, I was well into my career with the NFL. I was breaking records every season, and during the off season, I spent every spare second of my time with your grandfather being groomed to take over a multinational corporation.”

  I nearly laughed with derision, but I held on to the explosion brewing inside me so tightly, I couldn’t move a muscle.

  If I so much as tried to lift one side of my lips, I would lose control. If that happened, he would hold my “immature outburst” over me for the next decade or so, and he’d dictate my life movements for my lack of maturity to make my own decisions.

  The muscles in my jaw twitched, but still, he droned on. “I was only a year older than you are now when I had you. Then I had to take care of you on top of everything else.”