by B. B. Hamel
Back then, back in the airport, I never thought I’d see him again. But I could still remember the way he said he loved me a week later, the chills that ran down my body when I knew I loved him back.
I smiled to myself and looked up at the sky. It was a beautiful, clear day.
Just like every day was with Nash.
1
Emily
“I’m going to be your new father.”
I stared at him, eyes wide, not sure whether I wanted to run away, slap him, or scream. Probably a combination of all three. His face was so familiar and I almost felt like I knew him, even though I’d only ever seen him mentioned in articles and pictures online. He was handsome, with rugged scruff and deep, piercing green eyes. I could only guess how many women had fallen for that incredibly handsome face, and apparently my mother was now one of them.
“You can call me daddy if you want.” That sly grin made me want to stay and slap him after all.
“I’m definitely not going to call you daddy,” I said.
“We’ll see.”
My mom gave Carter a look. “Don’t tease her, Carter,” she said and turned back to me. “I know this is a surprise, honey.”
“Surprise?” I said, barely controlling my annoyance. “A surprise is when you come home with a tattoo. Or that time you bought a cat without telling me.”
“I wonder where Whiskers is,” Mom said, looking around.
“Mom. This isn’t a surprise.” I glanced at Carter and his gorgeous grinning face, then back at her. “This is a nightmare.”
Carter burst out laughing and Mom gave me an exasperated look. “Come on, honey. You have to understand this situation. You know me.”
“I thought I did.”
“You still do. Mr. Green and I are only getting married for business reasons.”
“That’s right,” Carter cut in. “You and your mother are getting a big, fat check, and I’m getting some much needed respectability.”
I shook my head, glaring at him. Carter Green was one of the richest men under forty and a notorious playboy. He was in his mid-thirties but looked no older than late-twenties with his ripped, cut body and his boyish charm. He wore expensive suits like he was born in them, and the man was known to date multiple women at the same time.
Or, in his most recent scandal, multiple married women at the same time. He claimed that he had no clue, but I wasn’t so sure.
“I don’t think marrying my mom can possibly save your reputation,” I said to him.
“Your mother is a lovely and respected woman.”
“She was your secretary.”
“Men like me have a long and proud tradition of falling for their secretaries,” he said, winking at Mom.
She smiled. “Don’t be an ass, Carter.”
“Sorry, Evie, dear.”
“Evie,” I said, practically gagging. “Her name is Evelyn. Nobody calls her that.”
“I do. I figured I should think up some cute nicknames for the press,” he said.
“Oh, great idea,” Mom said, nodding. “We’ll have to come up with something for you.”
“I still like daddy,” he said, glancing at me.
I wanted to vomit right then and there.
I couldn’t believe this was happening. It just made no sense.
I looked at my mom, practically pleading. “Come on, Mom. You can’t be serious with this. I know that you’re—“
“Enough, Emily,” Mom cut in, glancing at Carter. “The past doesn’t matter. All that matters is that this is happening and I need you to accept it.”
I knew that tone. It meant that as far as my mother was concerned, the discussion was over.
Except that it wasn’t. My mother was under the impression that I was still a little girl, which was very far from the truth. Really, if they were going to pull off this absurd and stupid idea, they were going to need my help.
And so far, I had no interest in helping them.
“This has to be illegal,” I said to her. “You guys are lying to the world.”
Carter looked thoughtful for a second. “Not illegal,” he said, clearly musing. “Maybe immoral, but I can’t think of any laws we’re breaking.”
“Enough, honey. The money Mr. Green is offering will pay for your student loans.”
“And then some,” he said with a smile.
“I don’t care about the money.”
“You should,” Mom said, sighing.
“We can get money some other way.” Carter was smirking at me again, and to my total horror I found that I couldn’t look away from him.
“Is this really so bad?” he asked me. “It’s a temporary arrangement. You and your mother will come live with me—“
“Live with you?” I cut in, staring at Mom wild-eyed. “You didn’t say anything about that.”
“We’re married now,” she said, sighing.
“No way. I’m not living in his house.”
“Mansion,” he corrected. “And you can have a whole wing, if you want.”
“I don’t care if you give me the whole place, I’m not interested.”
“Sweetie.” Mom stared at me hard and I fell silent. “This is happening. You can keep resisting and fighting this and make things very hard for Mr. Green and me, or you can play along and help out. I can’t force you, but please, for my sake and for your own, help us.”
I frowned at her, silent for a second, and almost wanted to give in. I opened my mouth to speak, to tell her that I’d do absolutely anything for her no matter what because she was my mother and I loved her, but then I felt something under the table that stopped me.
It was Carter’s foot sliding up my calf.
I nearly jumped out of my chair. The triumphant grin on his face drove me totally crazy as Mom cocked her head at me, wondering what the hell I was doing. I quickly stood up, not interested in getting foot-stroked by that rich asshole again, no matter how excited it made me.
“I can’t do this,” I said and quickly walked away from the table. My head was spinning and I didn’t know where else to go, so I went out the back door and headed into the yard, looking around at the familiar place.
I couldn’t believe my mom was doing this. She complained about Carter all the time, said he was a spoiled playboy. She’d been working for him for years, and I had no clue why she stuck by him all that time if she thought he wasn’t any good, but clearly there was something between them that I didn’t understand. They were almost friends, or at least as close to friends as a boss and his secretary can get.
As I headed out to the stump in the back of our yard, I heard the door open and shut behind me. I turned to see Carter following me out into the sunlight.
He was so handsome it was hard to stomach. His cocky grin made me want to either smack him or kiss him and I couldn’t decide which. He was technically my stepfather, or going to be soon enough anyway, and yet all I wanted to do was feel the muscles beneath his impeccable suit.
“Hey,” he said.
“I’m not interested.” I turned and headed to the stump. He followed as I sat down and crossed my legs, looking away from him.
“Look, I get it, you’re pissed. You don’t want some rich asshole coming into your life and fucking shit up. Right?”
I raised an eyebrow at him. “More or less.”
“This wasn’t totally my idea,” he said. “Your mother thought of it. She’s doing it for you.”
“How?”
“I pay her pretty well, but college is expensive. She’s a single mom trying to do her best.”
I sighed, shaking my head. “I don’t want to hear this from you.”
“No kidding.” Carter stepped closer to me. “But do it for your mother.”
“What was with you back there, anyway?” I asked, changing the subject.
He grinned. “Just messing with my new daughter.”
“Stop. Don’t ever call me that again. It makes me feel . . . unclean.”
“Good.
I want to make you dirty.” His grin got bigger.
I rolled my eyes. “Real clever.”
He shrugged. “I can’t help it around you.”
“What, can’t help making bad jokes?”
“No,” he said, getting serious. “I can’t help wanting to tear those tight jeans off your perfect legs and taste that dripping pussy.”
I stared at him, totally taken by surprise. His serious look softened as he turned to leave.
“Do it for your mother,” he said then waved and headed back inside.
I stared after him, heart hammering in my chest. I couldn’t believe he said that to me. He was supposed to be convincing me to play along with their game, not saying such filthy things. And yet . . .
I shook my head. I couldn’t entertain any thoughts of what I wanted that cocky asshole to do to me. He loved that he was going to become my stepdad, and he was going to rub it in my face. He just liked teasing me, that was all, and I wasn’t going to give in to that teasing.
Still, there was something in the way he looked at me when he said it that was different from before. There wasn’t any of that playfulness, it was just intense lust and desire clear in his expression.
I didn’t know what I was going to do. I wanted to fight this and didn’t want anything to do with Carter Green, but my mother clearly needed my help if this was going to work. She was taking a huge personal risk, and I didn’t want to see her embarrassed. My reasons for not helping were mostly selfish, and I was totally aware of that fact, but that didn’t change anything.
I took a deep breath, looking at the home of my childhood. It was all I ever knew and now my mother wanted me to move into some rich asshole’s mansion for the summer.
Well, that didn’t sound so bad, actually. There was probably a pool and the place was sure to be really gorgeous. Maybe if it was big enough, I could avoid seeing Carter entirely. This would hopefully be a short-lived experiment and they’d be divorced by the time I left to return to school.
I groaned, leaning back on my elbows. I was going to help my mother, even though I really didn’t want to, because it was the right thing to do and she’d do it for me.
This was going to be a really, really weird summer.
2
Carter
I sat outside of the boardroom, staring blankly at my phone, waiting for them to call me inside. I wasn’t used to waiting, but the board was pretty pissed and I wasn’t in a position to complain at the moment.
I leaned back in my chair, putting my hands behind my head and staring up at the ceiling. How the fuck had it come to this?
That was a stupid question. I knew exactly how it came to this.
I founded Valor Tech when I was eighteen years old and writing code in my mom’s basement. I went on to design websites on the side, saving up money until I had enough cash to launch my real product: a real-time optical recognition algorithm. It started out with that, at least, but Valor quickly grew into an enormous tech conglomerate.
I wasn’t the sole leader of the company anymore, and hadn’t been for years. That wasn’t uncommon in the tech world. Founders weren’t usually the best businessmen, and that certainly described me. I hired some great CEOs to help run the company while I got to do whatever the fuck I wanted to do. I still owned a majority share, but that was shrinking every year as the board slowly tried to muscle me out.
Then came the scandals. Stupid shit at first, like partying too much, but the floodgates broke open when the media realized that people loved hearing bullshit stories about me. A lot of the stuff they “reported” was a total fabrication, but that didn’t matter to them. The media only cared about viewer numbers and sponsorships.
The last straw happened when I met this lovely woman at a charity function. She spoke very eloquently about my work in artificial intelligence and robotics, which of course got my cock hard as fuck, and I ended up letting her suck my cock in my car. What I didn’t know was that she was married, because she wasn’t wearing a fucking ring at the time. Turned out her husband was an engineer for our own fucking company, which was a real big goddamn scandal, and cost me a shitload of money. Naturally, the board used that HR nightmare to muscle me out a tiny bit more and threatened to get rid of me completely if I didn’t change my image.
Fuck my image and fuck the board. I did what I wanted to do because I made good things. Who cares if I liked to smoke weed, drink nice whisky, and get my dick sucked from time to time? I like pussy and I’m not going to apologize for that. I built Valor Tech from a basement, and turned it into an enormous and successful company. Now they wanted to muscle me out over some bullshit scandals?
It was such a stupid mess, but I wasn’t going to give in to their demands. I wasn’t going to change my life just because a bunch of old stuffed suits wanted me to be a good boy. Then there was that asshole Bruce Walker, the head of the board. He hated my guts and wanted to see me bleeding on the goddamn floor.
After all that, the solution appeared right in front of me. Evelyn came in and offered to get married, which surprised the hell out of me until she explained why.
The plan was simple. We’d wait a month or two, then elope and explain to the board and the press that we fell in love on a business trip. I’d tell everyone that I settled down and found the love that I really needed. We’d do some interviews, get the buzz out there, and I’d lay low for a little while until shit blew over. Then I’d wrestle back control of my company and go back to doing whatever the fuck I wanted to do, and Evelyn would get a big, fat check.
The plan seemed simple. At least it did until I met her daughter.
Emily was fucking gorgeous. There was no other way of saying it. She had big, pouty lips, round, gorgeous green eyes, and thick brown hair down to the center of her back. Her body was incredible, thick in the right places, and I wanted to strip her down so badly and feel that ass under the palm of my hand. The fact that she was appalled about this arrangement, and seemed to totally despise me, only made me want to break her even more.
“Mr. Green?” I looked up at Sheila, Bruce’s secretary. “They’re ready for you.”
“Thanks, Sheila.”
She walked off as I stood. I took a deep breath then opened the boardroom door and stepped inside.
The board was made up of twelve individuals, some from inside the company and some from outside. They were all-important shareholders and were tasked with steering the company’s big picture. For the most part, it was split down the middle, with half of the board supporting me and my vision, and the other half supporting the head of the board, Bruce Walker. Since we were deadlocked, nothing changed, but Bruce lately had been chipping away at my solid base, watering down my shares, changing the structure of the company.
That was going to end and end soon.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” I said, walking to the front of the room.
“Why did you request this meeting, Carter?”
I glared at Bruce. He was an older man in his fifties with squinting blue eyes, wrinkles around his eyes, and thinning white hair. He was tall and gaunt, like the survivor of some horrible plague, and he always made me uncomfortable.
“I have an announcement to make. It will affect the future of this company.”
There was a general murmur around the table. I caught the eye of my biggest supporter, Nelson Pitts, and nodded to him. He nodded back.
“Get on with it, Carter. Our time is important,” Bruce said. His cronies snickered and I ignored him.
“Yesterday, I got married.”
There were more than a few surprised faces around that table. I grinned at them, enjoying the moment.
“Is this some kind of joke?” Bruce asked.
“Not at all. You’ve been begging me for years to clean up my image, and I decided to finally listen. As of yesterday, my secretary Evelyn is now my wife.”
There were more murmurs and some people looked genuinely angry.
“Is this a stunt?” Bruce asked.
“We fell in love a couple months back when she was consoling me over my latest media scandal. I know there’s a slight age difference, but we’re very much in love.”
Bruce shook his head, looking totally shocked. “This is insane, Carter, even for you.”
“Nothing insane about it. I’m sure more than a few of you in here have fallen for your secretary at some point. Well, ladies and gentlemen, I am the victim of love.”
I was laying it on a little thick, but that was okay. These people didn’t care about subtlety, only about what was best for the company.
“How do you think this is going to help? The media will go crazy with this story,” Bruce said, shaking his head. “You’ve signed your own death warrant.”
“No, Bruce, I haven’t. The media is going to see a new version of me, a calm and professional version.” I smiled at him and I could tell he understood what that smile meant.
It meant that the professional version of me was going to slit his throat.
“This is more impulsive foolishness from you, Carter,” he said. “I hoped for more from you. This will never work.”
“You’re very wrong, Bruce. Evelyn and I are going to do a lot for this company, and the scandals are all behind me. This is the new era of Valor Tech.”
There was more murmuring and discussion of how to deal with the media fallout, but I didn’t stay for any of that. I said what I wanted to say, dropped the bomb I’d been so excited to drop, and so I left. I headed back toward my office, smiling to myself the whole way.
The look on Bruce’s face had been incredible. I wanted to bury that smug bastard, and couldn’t wait to begin putting the nails in his coffin.
The only problem that kept nagging at me was my new stepdaughter, Emily. I shouldn’t think of her as a stepdaughter, since she was barely ten years younger than me and gorgeous as hell. I knew I was going to have to exercise some serious self-restraint with her, but I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to.
