His Billion-Dollar Secret:: A Taboo Forbidden Love Romance

by Kelli Walker

  “Oh, at least someone said it,” I said.

  We all toned down our laughter as Clayton slipped his arm around Callie. He pulled her in with a smile on his face and pressed one last kiss against her forehead. I watched the two of them share a moment and I wondered what that was like. Just being able to freely gaze into Callie’s eyes like he could. It didn’t matter, though. It wasn’t as if something like what I was feeling could be reciprocated. Callie was heartbroken, and rightfully so.

  And I knew exactly what meal to cook her to make her feel better.

  “What about my steak and potatoes?” I asked.

  Callie’s eyes lit up as she whipped her head over to me.

  “Looks like we’re having steak and potatoes,” Clayton said, chuckling.

  “I love your steak and potatoes,” she said.

  I wish you loved something else.

  “Then steak and potatoes, it is. Now, I need this bad luck charm out of the kitchen,” I said.

  I shooed the two of them out of my sanctuary and down the hallway.

  “I’m not a bad luck charm. I just don’t follow recipes well,” Clayton said.

  “I don’t need these filet mignons you’ve got in here spontaneously combusting because of close association with you,” I said.

  “You’re bad, Colt,” Callie said, grinning.

  You have no idea.

  I bit down onto the inside of my cheek to keep my mind from spinning out of control.

  “Give it an hour, then come in and set the table,” I said.

  Then, I retreated back to the kitchen and closed all of the doors. Anything to put distance between myself and the woman my mind and body could no longer resist.

  Callie

  I dried myself off from my shower as my made my way into my room. I needed to wash myself down and clean myself off. The last two months needed to be scrubbed from my skin. All of the drama and the tears and the heartache needed to swirl down the drain with my jasmine and honey body wash. I tucked the edge of my towel into the top of it and began digging through my things. There was no use in living out of suitcases for the next couple of months. I sure as hell didn’t plan on going anywhere.

  As my body drip dried and my hair sweat down my face, I slowly put my clothes away. Underwear. Shorts. Socks. Shoes. I hung up the couple of dresses I owned and pushed my suitcases underneath my bed. Then, I pulled out a pair of sweatpants to pull over my legs. The damp towel dropped long enough for me to pull a tank top over my head as well, then I picked it up and began scrunching my hair dry.

  And soon, the smell of dinner was wafting underneath my nostrils.

  My mouth watered instantly. Colton had always been a fantastic cook. I always joked with him about how he could have been a chef if he didn’t want to be a billionaire real estate developer. I walked over to my door and opened it, allowing the smells to trickle in. Salt-and-peppered steaks with garlic and rosemary potatoes. Oh my gosh, my mouth watered in handfuls. I heard the steaks lightly sizzling as plates and dishes clanked.

  My father must’ve already started setting the table.

  Colton’s steak and potatoes was by far the best thing I had ever eaten. And there was no restaurant I’d ever been to that could compare with his dish. I enjoyed it so much I stopped eating it in restaurants. Not after they all fell brazenly short of what he could do. That was something that used to piss Matthew off to no end. He always wanted to take me to steakhouses and show off how much he could spend on one and how he could choose the perfect cut for their particular chef. But, I refused to eat any of their steaks because they were never as good as Uncle Colton’s.

  I closed my eyes and allowed my mind to rip me back to one of our fights about it.

  “Your uncle isn’t a professional chef, Callie. Just order a damn steak.”

  “It doesn’t matter, Matthew. I don’t want the steak. I’d like to try their grilled chicken.”

  “You get chicken everywhere we go. Try something else. I promise you, their filet mignon topped with shrimp is to die for.”

  “And I told you, Matthew, I don’t want that. I want their grilled chicken.”

  “For once, will you stop putting your uncle’s cooking on such a pedestal. I’ve tried it. It’s only okay,” he said.

  “Because you haven't tried his steak and potatoes. Trust me. They’re out of this world,” I said.

  “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you revered the man more than the food.”

  I opened my eyes and looked at myself in the mirror. To this day, I still wasn’t sure why that comment was supposed to be a dig. Of course, I revered Colton. He helped raise me. He had been there for more than I could ever possibly imagine. He became the person I went to whenever I needed my mother to talk to. He filled a hole in my life left by my mother’s tragic passing, and I’d always love and respect him for that. So what if my love for him elevated his food?

  Why was that such a bad thing?

  I grabbed a hair tie and tossed my hair up into a bun. I studied myself for the first time in weeks. And what I saw, I didn’t like. The bags underneath my eyes. The small red lines denoting exhaustion that carved a path to brown of my eyes. The small bald spot at my temple where I had practically ripped my own hair out twirling it around my finger as much as I had due to stress. I smoothed my hand over the spot. I needed to get something for it to help the hair grow back.

  It was getting pretty noticeable.

  “Let’s go to Stromboli’s today,” Matthew said.

  “I don’t know. I’m not really feeling another calzone. Oh! There’s this new Jamaican place that opened up just a few blocks from here. Some classmates and I have wanted to try it. Want to go check it out?”

  “We can do that some other time. Driver? Stromboli’s, please.”

  “But I don’t want to do Stromboli’s,” I said.

  “They’ve got more than calzones. Get a salad or something. I know you like their salads. Plus, I want to share their tiramisu with you. I love watching you enjoy their homemade desserts. You light up whenever you do.”

  I forced my mind away from the memory and shook my head. The kicker? I didn’t like their tiramisu at all. I smiled at him once the first time we ate it, and it suddenly became ‘our thing’. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I didn’t like coffee with my sweets. Hell, I didn’t really like sweets to begin with. I was the type of person that would much rather gorge herself on breads and pastas than set with a bowl of sweets.

  But one smile to cover up my disdain for something and it had become ‘a tradition’.

  The more I looked at myself in the mirror, the more my memories assaulted me. Little things I never put my foot down on that mounted to massive rifts between us. Like when Matthew went shopping for me. I hated it when he did that. He’d always snoop through my clothes to find my sizes, then try to do that romantic thing where he’d purchase me an outfit and tell me when and where to be. It looks good in the movies. We all swoon when it’s Tom Hiddleston doing something like that. But every time I came into my dorm room and found a package sitting on my bed, it made me groan. Panic. It made me want to come up with excuses as to why I couldn't go out that night. And a few times, I had.

  As much as I wanted to be upset at Matthew for the demise of our relationship, it wasn’t solely him.

  He’d buy me all these outfits he wanted to see me in even though I couldn't stand them. The colors would be all wrong or the cut would only be flattering to the part of my body he wanted to see that evening. Like my tits or my ass cheeks. He’d stare at me like I was a piece of meat and instead of saying something, I’d tolerate it. Get over it. Push it off to the side. Matthew was confrontational when angry and I was an avoider when uncomfortable. He wasn’t the only reason why we failed.

  My avoidance tactics and my want to keep things smooth between us led to our failure just as much.

  The thing I would never get over, however, was how he would randomly drop into my school. Step into th
e back of my classes and grin at me. That, I would never forgive him for. Not because he was distracting or surprising me or anything like that. But because I always knew what it signaled. He’d come to campus and surprise me with weekend getaways without even talking to me first. He wouldn't try to figure out if I had an exam to study for or hours to work in the Psychology department or a researching lecture to attend. He wouldn't consult me on any of it. He’d just drop in with plans to go to Bora Bora or France for the weekend, then get frustrated when I told him I had school commitments.

  It was as if the expectation was for me to drop everything in my entire life every time he came swooping in and wanted my attention. It was the act of a petulant child. And it had always been a point of contention between the two of them. From my undergrad all the way up until now, it was something we argued over.

  “Matthew, I have an exam Monday. I can’t go with you to New York City.”

  “We’ll be back in plenty of time for you to cram Sunday night,” he said.

  “I don’t want to cram. I want to study. I want to retain the information. That’s what my education is for. Educating my mind.”

  “It’s just the city. We aren’t even going out of the country. Bring your stuff with you. You can study. I’ll give you some time.”

  “You’ll give me time? Like you can just… bestow it upon me with a wave of your credit card?”

  “Callie, don’t do this. We haven’t taken a trip like this in weeks. You’ve had plenty of time to study and catch up. Come on. I’m only asking for two days.”

  “You’re asking me to throw an exam to spend forty eight hours with you,” I said.

  “You aren’t throwing anything! You ace all of your classes! Can’t you just take a B and come to New York City with me?”

  “Not all of us have the luxury of being a trust fund child, Matthew. Not all of us have the luxury of not going to college in order to make a better life for ourselves.”

  “And you’ll have that with me, Callie. When we get married, none of this is going to matter. I’ll be able to support us. You won’t have to work for a dime!”

  “But I want to, Matthew! Don’t you get that? I want my own practice. I want to help people.”

  “You want to sit for hours on end and listen to people bitch about their shitty problems to you?” he asked.

  “It beats being accused by the man I love of enjoying my degree over him!”

  I closed my eyes and shook my head. The entire relationship, I wrote off the issue. I considered it a ‘couple’s quarrel’ and left it at that. After all, nothing was perfect. No couple was perfect. A relationship took work. Constant, daily work. Even the love I saw between my mother and Clayton wasn’t perfect. They fought sometimes. They had tension between the two of them that wasn’t good. Hell, there were a few moments I could recall where Clayton went to spend the weekend with Colton just to decompress from a stressful situation between the two of them. Things like that didn’t mean you didn’t love someone.

  But, then there were the little things that popped up after that fight.

  Like how he would always be on his phone during dinner instead of talking with me. Or the way he would text message me while I was studying just to see if he could get my attention. Or the way he put his hands all over me in the middle of making flashcards just to see if I would toss them to the side and have sex with him. So many mixed signals, and none of them done at the appropriate times. At dinner, he’d be in his phone and it was like he wanted me to fight for his attention. And whenever I was studying, it was like he wanted me to drop my materials and completely throw myself at him.

  He never did those kinds of things when I wasn’t studying. He never put his hands on me half as much as he did when I didn’t have my nose stuck in a book for something. He tested men whenever he felt insecure about our relationship. Like he wanted to see which I would choose every single time. And if I didn’t choose him, it sparked a fight.

  And those fights chiseled away at the foundation of our relationship.

  I shook my head and scoffed. I couldn't believe I had fallen in love with a man like that. A man so insecure and so immature and so… nerve-grating. With every memory that bombarded my mind, it made me more secure in my decision to break things off. Despite the public fallout and the fact that Matthew could moan and complain to the press until they found something juicier to report on, I knew I had made the right decision for my life.

  But that didn’t mean it had been an easy decision.

  My phone vibrating against my dresser ripped me from my mind. I opened my eyes and peered down at my phone, then bristled when I saw who was calling. Matthew. Again. For the third time that day. I shook my head and ignored his phone call, sending him straight to my voicemail. He could bitch and whine to my mailbox. I didn’t care.

  However, my phone lit up with a text message only seconds later.

  We really need to talk. Did you go home for the summer?

  I picked up my phone and swiped the message away. I didn’t want to see it and I didn’t want to answer it. I slid my phone into the pocket of my sweatpants before I took one last look in the mirror, then the smell of dinner caressed my nose again. I moaned at the smell. At the beautiful scents rushing around the house. I smoothed my hands down my tank top before tucking a strand of wispy hair behind my ear, then I set my sights on the kitchen.

  It was almost dinner time, and my favorite meal would be just the balm I needed to ease my mind.

  My heart, however, was a different story.

  Colton

  “Holy crap, Colt. This is amazing,” Callie said.

  “You outdid yourself this time, brother. And can I say that this parmesan broccoli is awesome. How did you get that crunch on the broccoli trees?” Clay asked.

  “A family secret I’ll pass down to you when you’re older,” I said, winking.

  “For all we know, Dad’ll find a way to set it on fire,” Callie said.

  Clayton groaned as a chuckle fell from my lips.

  “I’m going to kill you for telling her that story,” Clay said.

  “Not a chance,” I said.

  “You know we love you, Dad,” Callie said.

  “I love you too, lightning bug,” Clay said.

  My eyes made their way back to Callie and I watched her take a massive bite of the filet mignon I’d prepared for all of us. But my eyes quickly fell down her body. Damn it. That sorry excuse for a tank top she had on drew my eye every time. I could see the outline of her nipples through the pathetic excuse for a fabric. It was the only thing my mind seemed to latch onto. I forced my gaze down to my plate and began slicing my filet into strips. Then, I diced it up into little squares. After that, I pushed my mashed potatoes into a small mound on the side of my plate before I turned my attention to the broccoli.

  “Creating your masterpiece there, Colt?” Clay asked.

  I ignored the question and kept my gaze focused. I needed something to take my mind off her. Anything to distract myself from the perfect nipples that poked through the fabric of her tank top. What the hell had gotten into me? What was this word coming to? Did Callie really have no idea what the fuck she did to me? Was she really clueless as to how beautiful she was?

  If only she did.

  I stabbed a bit of my steak and tucked it away between my lips. I felt my gaze coming up again. I caught Callie’s breasts in my peripheral. My mind fell blank. My mouth began to salivate. The caged animal within my body rattled its cage and it took all the energy I had to turn my head over to look at my brother.

  And I found him staring at her as well.

  Worry filled his stare as we all ate in silence. He had the concerned look of a father and the defiant look of a man ready to kill the one who broke her heart. He mindlessly ate the dinner I had prepared while holding himself back from bringing up the topic again. I knew what he wanted to ask. He wanted to know if Matthew had called her at all tonight. He wanted to know if she had turned on the new
s in her bedroom and seen what was scrolling across the screen now.

  But he held his tongue, and I was proud of him.

  However, if I were to ever pursue Callie for any reason, he wouldn't hold his tongue. Hell, he wouldn’t hold his fists. That man would beat me into a bloodied pulp before tearing me to shreds. It didn’t matter that we weren’t blood relatives. It didn’t matter that Callie wasn’t really his daughter, or that she wasn’t really my niece. The only thing that mattered was that he raised her. Adopted her. The only thing that mattered was the fact that I had helped raise her. Babysat her. Coached her through her first high school heartbreak and helped her pick out her prom dress.

  There was no excuse for the way I now looked at Callie. No reason for the lust I now felt for her. But as much as I tried to fight it, the feelings grew. What started as a curious glance the summer before her sophomore year of college grew into a fantastic want to be around her. To hear her voice in my ear. To check on her and see how she was doing and intervene whenever I could to keep her student loans at bay. I paid just enough to fly under the radar so she didn’t raise an eyebrow. Not that she wasn’t smart. The girl had scholarships poured over her like rain on a hot summer’s day. But there were moments where I knew she worried about money.

  So, I dipped in without a second thought and never once brought it up.

  “Colt?” Callie asked.

  “Mhm?”

  “How are things going at work?”

  “We don’t have to talk about that right now,” Clay said.

  “What do you want to know?” I asked.

  “I know you guys are about to buy your international headquarters or something, right?” Callie asked.

  “Callie, talking shop has no place at the table right now. Everything’s fine, I promise,” Clay said.

  “But I want to know,” Callie said.

  “Well, if you want to know, then I’ll tell you,” I said.

  I felt Clay’s eyes on me trying to shut me up, but I laid my napkin in my lap and cleared my throat. If she wanted to hear about how work was going, then I would tell her. Even though Clay was the type of man to address things fully as they happened, I quickly came to find that Callie wasn’t that type of person. She needed distraction and time to emotionally digest before she talked about things.