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

by Kelli Walker

  And the second I stepped foot into the kitchen, I unleashed.

  “Enough is enough!”

  My father and Colt both stopped mid-sentence and whipped their heads over to look at me.

  “Just stop. Please. Enough is enough, and I don’t need the two men I love the most ripping and tearing at each other’s throats every time they step into each other’s paths.”

  There was a brief moment of silence before my father cleared his throat.

  “Love?” he asked.

  I panned my eyes over to him and nodded.

  “Yes. Love. I love you, Clay, because you’re my father. You're the only father I’ve ever known. You stepped in when I was five years old and took me in as your own. I’ll always love you for that. And I love Colton. Because he’s always been there for me. For my entire life. I’ve always been able to trust him and go to him and call him up whenever I wanted just to talk. Or vent. Or get angry. Or seek advice.”

  My eyes flickered over to Colt and I found his gaze hard on my face.

  “But right now? I need you guys to set aside your personal issues with one another and try not to make my life anymore of a living nightmare than it has already turned into. You think you guys can do that?” I asked.

  “Have you eaten anything today?” Colt asked.

  “Did you hear what I just said?”

  “Answer his question, Callie,” my father said.

  My eyes darted between the two men before I let out a heavy sigh.

  “No. I haven’t come downstairs to eat today,” I said.

  “Then, I’m taking you out to dinner,” Colt said.

  “The hell you are,” my father said.

  I watched Colt pan his head over to my father. “With all due respect, it’s no longer about you or me. Callie’s right. We’ve been arguing non-stop for the past three days over this issue, and it’s doing her no good.”

  “You are not taking my daughter anywhere,” my father said heatedly.

  “She’s wound too tight and going through too much, Clay. I’m worried about her. She hasn’t eaten all damn day. So, I’m taking her out to dinner to get her mind off things.”

  “Aren’t you going to ask what I want?”

  I watched both men turn their heads towards me before my eyes fell onto Colt’s.

  “If you want to go to dinner with me, that is,” Colt said.

  “I’d love to go to dinner with you. Let me go upstairs and get changed,” I said.

  “Callie, this isn’t--.”

  I held my hand up to my father before my shoulders slumped.

  “Please stop,” I whispered.

  I didn’t have any more energy to speak. My hands trembled with the hunger that coursed through my body. Colt pinned my father with a hard gaze, and I took it as an invitation to backtrack. I walked back upstairs, feeling the weight of my hunger slowly settle onto my shoulders. Dinner. With Colton. I should have been more excited than I was. Everything seemed tainted by Matthew, and it made me sick. I dragged myself into my bathroom and took a shower, allowing the warm water to soothe muscles I didn’t even register were aching.

  My mind was so clouded with nonsense I didn’t even understand the damage being done to it.

  I slipped out of the shower and took my time getting ready. I pulled out a dress I hadn’t worn in months and dug out a pair of heels to match. I curled up my hair, fluffing my onyx locks out around my shoulders. My dress was a pale pink, with navy accents that made the bright fabric pop. Matthew hated the dress on me. He thought it made me look like a little girl. Not the grown woman I had turned into at his side.

  His words, not mine.

  I tossed on a bit of mascara and lip gloss, then settled on some jewelry. I hated makeup. I hated the tedious process of applying it and the constant need to get it symmetrical on both sides. I stick to the basics: mascara, blush, lip gloss. Maybe some undereye concealer if I looked exhausted. But that was it. I enjoyed jewelry much more. Glittering necklaces that held close to my neck and dangling earrings that accenting the length of my neck.

  Tonight, I chose a set of pearls to dangle lightly around my neck with a pair of studded pearl earrings to match. It was the only jewelry I had left after returning the rest to Matthew’s doorstep before heading home for the summer. It was the only real jewelry I owned that Matthew hadn’t purchased for me. They were my mother’s pearls. And I only wore them if the occasion was special enough.

  And to me? Dinner with Colt was as special as it got.

  I grabbed a matching clutch purse and put a few necessary items in it. Then, I made my way for the stairs. I got to the top of them just in time to see my father storm off into his office, and I jumped when he slammed the door shut. I whimpered. Let out an audible sound that only scratched at the surface of how much my heart ached.

  “Don’t worry about him, Callie. Focus on me.”

  My eyes panned away from my father’s closed office door, and the second they landed onto Colt, I was stunned to my spot. My heart stopped in my chest. My empty, growling stomach filled with butterflies that matched the rhythmic pulsing of the blood rushing through my ears. It felt as if every hair on my body stood on end at the sight of him. At the handsome man waiting for me at the bottom of the steps of my childhood home.

  Colt looked up at me with a soft smile on his face, and it lit up his ocean blue eyes. His black hair was slicked back, showcasing the chiseled strength of his face. Shadows bounced off the corners of his features, igniting his skin right before my very eyes.

  And the suit he donned hugged every part of the body I had touched that night in my bedroom.

  His trim shoulders sat snug in the navy suit that fell over the long, languid lines of his body. His lean legs. His strong arms. His broad chest. The navy suit was bold, with a sheen that glistened under the lights of the foyer. His white button-down shirt sat behind a slim navy tie, and the cufflinks in the wrists of his suit jacket shimmered silver with his every movement.

  I felt my legs moving me closer to him. Closer to the handsome man who clasped his hands behind his back and waited patiently for me.

  I couldn't hear anything. It was as if the world came to a grinding halt around me. The second Colton’s oceanic gaze held mine, I felt lighter than air. Comforted, before I even got to the warmth of his body. My heel led me off the last step and my neck craned back to keep his face in view. The kind grin slowly slid from his cheeks, replaced by a gaze I’d only seen one other time before.

  And that was when he pressed my back against the door of my fucking closet.

  “Ready for dinner?” he asked.

  He offered me his arm and I drew in a deep breath. His voice pierced through the haze of my mind. His smooth tone shocked my world back to life. Sounds hit my ears and it became easier to breathe. The butterflies in my stomach quickly dissipated, replaced by a growl that ticked Colt’s cheek in amusement. I slid my arm against his, cloaked in his warmth as he escorted me to the front door. Out to his car we moved, side by side. Arm in arm.

  Until he reached for the car door and slid his hand down to the small of my back.

  “Let’s go put that stomach to rest,” he said.

  I would have giggled, but I was too concentrated on the heat of his hand burning through the curve in my back. I eased myself down into the seat, tucking myself in as Colt closed my car door. I watched him dig his keys out and press a button before the top whirred to life. It rolled down, exposing the inside of the car to the heat of the evening sun.

  My first smile in three days crossed my face as the sun drenched my skin. But the warmth was nothing compared to the heat that seared my knee when Colt’s hand came down onto it.

  “Callie.”

  “Hmm?” I asked.

  I panned my face over to look at him and found him staring sternly back at me.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  A small smile crossed my face before my small hand mig
rated over the one he had dwarfing my knee.

  “I’ll be better once I eat,” I said.

  I’d never seen a man crank a car so fast in all my life.

  Colton

  We came to a stop at a red light and my eyes fell to her legs. Her smooth, tantalizing legs that called to my fingertips. It was all I could do not to move my hand. It took all my strength as a man not to run my palm down the length of her smooth shin. The second my eyes hit her at the top of the steps, it was game over. If there was any doubt in my mind about backtracking from what had happened between the two of us, it wasn’t happening any longer. Her creamy skin against the pale pink dress she had on. The navy accents that just happened to match my suit perfectly. Her barely-there make up that made her amber eyes sparkle and her raven hair glow. The soft curls called to my fingertips. The way her dress fluttered just below her knees made my cock throb. Her calves flexed in her pale pink heels that matched her ensemble perfectly, but it was the pearls around her neck that caught my eye.

  I recognized them instantly, and it tugged at my heart.

  I’d never seen her wear them. Not since her mother passed. I knew Clay had given Callie her mother’s pearls, but I’d never seen her do anything with them. Part of me wondered if she ever kept them. Or if she got rid of them because it hurt too much. The way they laid against her skin so perfectly. The way the studs clung to her ears and somehow still managed to draw my eye to the length of her neck.

  Callie was a vision, and it took all I had to head to the restaurant instead of to my office where I could have her all to myself.

  “The light’s green.”

  Her voice ripped me from my trance and I pressed down onto the gas. I could barely focus with her beautiful presence next to me. I had us reservations at one of the nicest French cuisine restaurants in Los Angeles. It was one of the few food cultures I couldn’t master, so I indulged it whenever I could. I wanted to take Callie to my favorite spot whenever I wasn’t in France myself. It took a pretty penny to book the private room at the back of the restaurant. That place was usually booked months in advance. It took a pretty penny to get it for the two of us tonight, but anything was worth it when it came to Callie.

  Always had been. Always would be.

  We pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant and I rushed around to open up Callie’s car door. The hostess spotted me immediately and led us straight back, not allowing us to stop for anything. I felt Callie’s eyes on me. Her quizzical look as I led her through the dimly-lit restaurant. The hostess opened the door for us and I gazed down into Callie’s eyes. Then, my hand slipped to the small of her back.

  I adored how perfectly my hand sat in that lewd little dip.

  “We can sit at a regular table, Colt. This isn’t necessary.”

  “We’re going to have some privacy while we eat. Some peace,” I said.

  I pressed my hand into her skin, feeling her heat barreling back against me. But instead of fighting me, she moved. Walked into the room with her heels softly clipping against the floor. Callie pulled away from me as I stood there, making sure the hostess put in an urgent order for a bottle of chilled white wine. I didn’t want Callie to worry about anything for a few hours. I wanted her to relax, enjoy herself, and eat her fill. We could talk, or not talk. She could vent, or not vent. We could sit in silence for three hours, for all I cared.

  I wanted her to have what she needed.

  “This is beautiful,” she said.

  Her fingertips ran lovingly along the edge of the table perched in the middle of the room, and I found myself growing jealous of that slab of wood.

  “It feels cozy in here.”

  “It’s why I prefer private back rooms,” I said.

  Callie quirked an eyebrow as she gazed at me from over her shoulder. Her bare shoulder as the fabric of her pale pink dress hung down over her upper arms.

  Holy hell, she was beautiful in the flickering candlelight.

  “Are we going to sit?” she asked.

  “Do you want to sit?”

  “Depends. Will you stop answering my questions with your own questions?”

  “Depends. Does it annoy you?”

  She giggled, and the sound bled a comfort through my veins I had only ever associated with her. The two of us sat at the dinner table illuminated with candlelight and the wine soon followed. We placed our orders before handing off our menus, then I settled back into my chair. I gazed into Callie’s beautiful brown eyes. Watching them focus on the flickering flames as they mesmerized her. I wondered what she was thinking. What was turning around in that mind of hers.

  “You know, I’ve always wanted to open a practice where I could help people overcome massive tragedies like the one I dealt with when Mom died.”

  I nodded my head, then crossed my leg over my knee and buckled in for the story.

  “It was never a question, really. I woke up one morning in high school and simply decided I was going to do it.”

  “And here you are,” I said.

  “Did you ever think I’d be anything else?”

  Her eyes finally fluttered up to mine as my brow ticked in confusion.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “You’ve known me my whole life, Colt. Dad, for a time, thought I was going to be a meteorologist. I went through this time where I--.”

  “Fell asleep at night watching the weather channel.”

  “Yeah,” she said, grinning.

  “I knew you weren’t going to be a meteorologist.”

  “What did you think I was going to grow up and be?”

  Mine.

  “I thought you’d take the teaching route,” I said.

  “Education?”

  “Yep. You always enjoyed sticking it to Clay and making him stammer over his words. I figured a fire like that was bound to find its way into a higher ed classroom,” I chuckled.

  “You’re such a jerk,” she giggled.

  “It’s the truth. You never rebelled as a teenager. Your version of rebellion was putting your father in his place whenever you came back home from college. He’d try to give you advice, and you had arguments, scientific articles, and popular opinion pieces you used to put him in his place. Your arguments were practically doctoral theses in the making.”

  “I wasn’t that bad.”

  “You were the most intelligent brat I’d ever come across.”

  She bit down onto her lower lip and giggled again, and I felt my world come crashing down. It crashed and faded away with her smile as she dragged her teeth across her lower lip. It drew my eye. Everything about her drew my gaze. The way her lips curled when she grinned. The way her raven hair lit up with the dancing of the candle’s flames. The way her head fell back when laughter overtook her body.

  All of it, wrapped up in a beautiful package I never wanted to let go.

  “Do you think you’ll ever get your Doctorate?” I asked.

  I watched her grab her wine glass as she contemplated my question.

  “I think it’s in my future. But not in my immediate future. I’d need one if I wanted to write prescriptions in my practice, but I’m not sure that’s the angle I want to take with it. I didn’t need medication to deal with my mother’s death. I needed an unbiased ear to work out my anger with.”

  “You could get a doctorate in something else.”

  “Like what?”

  “There’s more in the Psychology world than clinical work, I’m sure.”

  “But clinical work is what I want to do.”

  “I meant more along the lines of getting published. I’m sure there’s a research route in the doctoral world. And I know doctoral programs are usually the easiest ways to get published because that’s where the bulk of the connections are,” I said.

  “That’s… actually not a bad idea.”

  “You could branch out into giving conferences that way. Build on that momentum. During the weeks, you could spend your time in your practice with patients one-on-one
. On the weekends, you could be out there giving seminars and helping even more people. Or, you could hire someone to work at your practice with you and do all of that during the week, and still get weekends off.”

  Callie narrowed her eyes at me as our food set down in front of us.

  “It sounds like you’ve been thinking about my career more than I’ve been thinking about it,” she said.

  “I knew you’d stop thinking about it once all this shit with Matthew cropped up, and it’s not good to drop the ball. That’s why Clay and I have succeeded in our years as a team. If I have a point in my life where I’ve dropped the ball, I know he picks up the slack. The opposite works as well. Like when Clay married your mother. I stepped up at the CEO for almost three months while the wedding was finalized and they took their honeymoon. Right now, you’ve got bigger things to think about. So, I’m keeping the ball on the road for you.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  One simple question. One simple word. And yet, the answer held everything I felt. Callie’s fork was poised in her hand, but she wasn’t eating. I knew she wouldn't until I gave her an answer that suited her.

  But the real answer was too much for this evening. A muted response would have to do until other things could get sorted out.

  “Because I care about you, Callie.”

  The two of us ate dinner in relative silence after that. Even though I figured my response was muted, at best, I could tell it still hit her hard. The silence wasn’t uncomfortable, but I wished it hadn’t existed. Talking with her was easy, and having her open up that dialogue in the first place lightened the load on my heart. But when we finished up dinner and the check was paid, I saw something flash behind Callie’s eyes.

  Something a little… sad.

  “Ready to head back?” I asked.

  I offered her my arm and she took it effortlessly, but she didn’t respond. I escorted her back to the car in silence, and slowly the weight of it grew heavier and heavier. Dinner might not have been awkward, but this silence was different. It was fraught with tension and stitched together with bloated stitches of unspoken words. I helped Callie sit down into her seat before closing her car door, then I walked around to mine and slid in beside her. I closed my door and drew in a deep breath, stifled by the tension that had poured itself slowly over our bodies.