Single Dad CEO: A Billionaire Boss Romance

by Lara Swann

  All the things we shouldn’t have done…all the risks we took…

  “Fucking stupid. You’ve been so fucking stupid, Kenneth…”

  My mouth settles into a grim line and I press the intercom button with a reluctant firmness. I don’t want Jessica to have to be involved in this - I wish I could pretend these didn’t exist, or discuss them with Patrick without her ever knowing, but I know she wouldn’t want that. It wouldn’t work, either.

  “Could you come in here for a moment, please?”

  “Sure.”

  Jessica walks in a moment later and as soon as she takes a look at me, she frowns, concern flashing across her expression.

  “What is it?”

  “Come take a look at these.” I gesture toward the pictures spread across my desk, still feeling disgusted by them.

  She comes to stand beside me - and I hear the gasp as she works out what they are.

  “Oh god…”

  “I know.” I say, turning to face her. I stand up and pull her into my arms. “I’m sorry, Jessica. I’m sorry - and pissed off beyond belief - that they’ve dragged you into all this.”

  She looks up at me, her eyes wide.

  “Am I going to get called into the trial? Am I going to have to say something? Is this going to screw you over, Kenneth? Are you going to be okay?” The questions rush out of her, almost a whisper as she holds onto my arms. “Oh god, what are we going to do?”

  “I don’t know yet, but I’m going to sort this. I never thought this was something that could affect you - and I’m not going to let it.” I can feel how fierce my gaze is, unable to keep it out of my expression as I look at her. I lean down and kiss her, swept up in the passion and wild emotion of the moment, not caring that we’re not doing that at work anymore - it’s not like we’re going to be able to keep this a secret for much longer, anyway.

  She kisses me back, her hands rising to tangle in my hair and we have one breathless moment together before she pulls back, still looking shocked.

  “What are we going to do?”

  My mouth hardens into a firm line as I start thinking about it, as I start trying to work out what the hell I can do after something like that - how I’m going to make any of this work.

  “I think…I think I might need to ask you to set up an emergency meeting. And this time, I’m afraid you might need to be a part of it too, my love.” I lean down and kiss her again, brushing my lips with hers. “I want to work out what the best thing to do for you would be - just how we’re going to protect you.”

  Right now, that’s all I’m thinking about.

  Whatever this means for my lawsuit can wait.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Jessica

  “We need to figure out the best way to frame this—”

  “What do you mean ‘frame this’?” Kenneth turns to look at Kelly, his head of PR, with a scowl. “We’re dating. There is no framing—”

  “Yes, but—”

  “And just how are we going to explain that to the court?” Patrick interjects, his normally neutral face set into a serious frown.

  “There’s no law against dating an employee.” Hamish, the additional legal counsel Patrick brought in, points out.

  “That’s not the point. This whole case is an infuriating mix of he-said-she-said - and you know how this is going to look. We need to work out the best defense—what we’re going to say in court—”

  He says the last with another glance in Kenneth’s direction. I wasn’t there for the semi-furious discussion they had when Kenneth revealed just what had been going on between us - Kenneth shielded me from that much at least - but I’ve got a good idea what he thinks about not being informed.

  “I’m going to say we’re dating—”

  “Why not ask her to give testimony—” Hamish suggests, to a withering glance from Kenneth.

  “Absolutely not—”

  “I don’t mind—” I try to put in, but my quiet voice gets lost in the chaos.

  “You don’t know that the other side won’t try to get her into court anyway.” Patrick says, looking over at Kenneth. “We need to prepare her for that—”

  “It’s late for that.” Hamish says, frowning. “The court date is in two weeks. They’d have to petition the judge—”

  “Doesn’t mean they won’t—”

  “But for an unfriendly witness?” He shakes his head. “Seems unlikely. They’ll just bring it out in Kenneth’s testimony instead.”

  “You know, half of this would go away if we just settled the case.” Kelly interrupts. “Not all of it, but it would be much easier to deal with ‘CEO dating his secretary’ than ‘CEO wrapped up in sexual harassment lawsuit is dating his secretary’.”

  “Any deal they give us now is going to be hard to swallow—”

  “It’s not all about the money, you know. We’re not going to have anything to pay with if this goes the wrong way for us. Just what is the chance we actually win this thing?”

  The lawyers don’t quite meet her gaze and my stomach clenches as it continues, everyone talking over each other as they try to sort through everything we need to deal with now. They’ve been at this for half an hour, talking in circles and seemingly no closer to an answer.

  My face has been flushed with embarrassment this whole time and even Kenneth’s attempts to squeeze my hand in reassurance can’t change how awkward I feel about having caused all this.

  What all the people in this room must think.

  I haven’t even been able to even look at Tyler Adams - the head of HR who recommended me for this position in the first place. It’s stupid, but it feels like I betrayed him in some way, even with Kenneth sitting here defending me in every possible way.

  “What do we do until then, anyway?” Kelly asks.

  “About what?”

  “About…this.” She gestures toward us and my cheeks burn again. “You can’t be working together anymore. We need to minimize the exposure on this—”

  “You mean a transfer?” Tyler frowns, tapping his pen against the table. “Or…a leave of absence?”

  That unpleasant sinking feeling in my gut intensifies. I know the only reason he’s saying leave of absence instead of something more like fire her is because I’m sitting right here - with Kenneth next to me.

  “Surely changing things would be admitting something is wrong?” Felix, her PR deputy, asks. So far he’s been pretty quiet, looking a little overwhelmed by all the strong personalities in the room.

  “Well now that we know, we have to be seen to doing something about it—”

  “It would be against our HR policies to allow that to continue.” Tyler nods, with a slightly apologetic glance in Kenneth’s direction.

  “I’ve started looking for other jobs.” I say, finally finding a small lull to speak up in and saying the only thing I can to defend myself. I’m pretty sure it won’t change what they think of me right now, but at least I know that I’ve tried my best to do the right thing here. I glance over at Kenneth. “Once we got together, we knew we couldn’t continue—”

  “You can’t do that!” Kelly exclaims and I blink at her sudden fervor. “If you get another job, it will look like we pushed you out - that we’ve fired you—”

  Which is sort of what you’re talking about doing.

  I think it, but I don’t even try to say it out loud - and I wouldn’t have a chance as Patrick speaks up too.

  “That’s true.” Patrick agrees slowly, his deep voice covering her own. “It would look exactly like what Danielle is accusing us of - firing someone after inappropriate sexual advances.”

  “They’re not sexual advances.” Kenneth growls. “We’re dating.”

  “Whatever you want to call it.” Kelly says, obviously irritated. “And however it happened - it’s still not appropriate workplace behavior. Especially as the CEO—”

  The arguing peaks again as everyone starts speaking and I feel myself sinking slowly into my seat, my head buzzin
g and churning with all the thoughts and ideas and opinions. It becomes a storm of noise and I stop trying to pick any one individual voice out of it or follow what they’re saying.

  Whatever they’re debating about what I should do, I already know some of the answers.

  I can’t work here anymore.

  I’ll do whatever they ask to help with the lawsuit - testify, not testify, whatever they want - but there’s no way Kenneth and I can keep working together. Not now that our secret relationship isn’t so secret anymore.

  After a few minutes of sitting there, my ears ringing and everything feeling totally overwhelming - I push back my chair and slip outside the room. I’m not sure anyone notices, all caught up in arguing with each other about anything and everything.

  The moment I get outside, it’s like a breath of fresh air as blissful quiet washes over my ears. I walk back to my desk - my former desk, I guess - and lean against it, my hands palm down and fingers splayed as I bend over and take several deep breaths.

  I can’t shake the sinking feeling inside me. Whatever else comes of this, I’m pretty sure the damage to my career is already done. Kenneth is powerful and important enough that he might be able to get away with it - a year from now, everyone will have forgotten as other scandals wash this one away and he returns to the work everyone wants him to do.

  But me?

  The secretary who slept with her boss?

  I close my eyes tightly, the anxiety twisting through my stomach - then jump when an arm comes around my shoulders.

  “Are you okay?” Kenneth asks from beside me, his deep voice reaching all the way into me. “I’m sorry about all that, back there.”

  I sigh and turn toward him, letting him tuck me up into his arms and burying my head against his neck. I breathe him in deeply as he strokes my back. The back of my mind questions whether we should be doing this right here in the open, after everything, but I ignore it. Everyone already knows - this can’t make it any worse, can it?

  So I might as well take the comfort.

  “You shouldn’t be caught up in this whole mess at all.” He says, his voice obviously pained.

  I shrug as I look up at him, sighing softly. “I got involved with you just as much as you got involved with me.”

  I might be the secretary and he might be the big impressive CEO, but I can at least claim my own choices in all this.

  “It’s not your fault anymore than mine, I don’t want you thinking that.” I add.

  “All this lawsuit stuff is on me.”

  My mouth twists at that and I press against his chest just enough to make my point. “No, that’s on Danielle. You didn’t cause all this, she did.”

  He sighs too, his hands trailing down my back and settling on my hips, fingers playing there almost idly. I like it even if it isn’t conscious - just being in his embrace helps, no matter how screwed everything else is right now.

  We stand like that for a few minutes and then I finally say it.

  “I’m going to quit, Kenneth. I don’t see any other option - I can’t keep working here after all this.”

  “I know.” He nods. “Don’t listen to anything they said, though. You look for whatever job you like - it doesn’t matter how that affects things here, we’ll deal with it. That’s not something for you to worry about.”

  “Yeah, because anyone really needs to worry about me walking into a job after this.” I can’t help the slightly bitter response and when he frowns at me, I sigh again, letting my head fall back to his shoulder. “Who’s going to employ me after all this? A girl who left her last job because she slept with the boss…yeah…that’s going to go down really well.”

  “Shit.” He mutters, his hold tightening on me. “Jessica…”

  “It’s okay.” I say, before he can start feeling bad. “I brought it on myself—”

  “Everything that happened, we did together.” He says, his voice firm. “So we’ll deal with it together. We’ll figure this out, Jessica. I promise you.”

  I close my eyes again, not really wanting to think about it. Maybe he’s right, but it’s hard to feel like anything will be easy right now.

  “This whole thing will blow over.” He continues, his tone softening as he tries to reassure me.

  “Maybe.” I say. “I don’t know. But either way, I don’t think I’m going to have a job fast enough for any of you to worry about.”

  “Maybe that’s not such a bad thing, you know. You weren’t quite sure what you wanted to do next anyway - this could give you some time to think about it.”

  “Yeah, maybe.” I say, feeling bad that I sound so negative about it all when he’s only trying to reassure and support me. It’s not like it’s just me affected by all this. We have no idea how this lawsuit is going to end or what it will do to his job either.

  I look up, trying to give him a small smile.

  “It’s okay.” I say, putting a little more certainty into it than I probably feel. “We’ll work it out, Kenneth. It’ll be okay.”

  He smiles back, leaning in to kiss me. I get that slight-panic-appropriateness thought again, but what the hell. I meet him with all the passion he puts into it and by the time we part, we’re both breathless and little bit dazed.

  “So long as I have you, I don’t really care about the rest of it.” He says softly. “None of that matters when I think about you.”

  I flush slightly, but he’s not done, raising a hand to stroke my cheek.

  “Move in with me, Jessica.”

  I blink, the suggestion coming out of nowhere.

  “What?”

  “Move in with me.” He repeats, brushing his lips across mine. “I’m not going to get to see you everyday at the office anymore…so at least let me see you everyday somehow—”

  “But—”

  “I’ll talk to Abbie. We’ll work it out, I promise.” He says, sounding like he’s already thought about this a lot more than I have, before he continues with a murmur. “I don’t want to think of you sitting alone at home, Jessie. Suddenly not working…that can be tough if you’re all alone.”

  Shit.

  I hadn’t thought about that. Another tremor of anxiety goes through me and I wonder whether he might have a point.

  “Okay…I’ll…think about it.” I finally say, unable to look away from the intensity in his eyes.

  His mouth curves up into a half-smile. “I’ll take that.”

  I can’t help but smile slightly too, his own expression infectious. And even though I don’t know what’s going to happen and I’m worried about not working - and not being able to work - it warms something inside me that he’s already thinking about it, already coming up with ways to make me feel better about problems I haven’t even thought of yet.

  “I love you, Kenneth.”

  His smile lights up even further. “I love you too, Jessica. And I’ll make this right - we’ll figure it out.”

  I nod, then frown slightly, my eyes drifting to the clock on the wall behind him as I wonder how long he’s been out here with me.

  “Don’t you have to go back to the meeting? They might not notice if I disappear, but…”

  He shakes his head. “We weren’t getting anywhere. We agreed on the most important issues we need to address and everyone has gone away to come up with potential solutions and the pros and cons of them. Hopefully when we’ve at least worked out individually what the right course of action is, tomorrow’s discussion will be a little less…”

  “Chaotic?” I suggest and he smiles slightly.

  “Yeah, that.”

  “Okay.” I say, nodding, then I glance at my desk. “I should probably pack my desk up this afternoon, right?”

  He nods slowly. “I guess so.”

  I don’t miss the look of disappointment on his face.

  “Damn, I’m going to miss having you around.”

  “Yeah…”

  I don’t really want to think about it, but I’m going to miss the job too. Even apart
from being around Kenneth all the time, being this close to someone at the center of the business was just so much more interesting than any other secretary job I’ve had.

  I sigh, leaning back to perch on the desk, and raise a hand to rub my forehead.

  “I might go and get coffee first. And probably something sugary and bad for me. I think I’ve got a headache from that meeting.”

  “I know that feeling. Do you want me to come with you?”

  I shake my head. “Thanks, but…I think I could use a little bit of air, a chance to think. Do you want me to pick you anything up?”

  “No, thanks. I’ve…got a lot to work out right now.”

  I nod, rising to give him another hug before grabbing my bag and coat.

  That makes two of us.

  At least, I guess, we’ve got each other while we do it.

  * * *

  “Hey, are you..Jessica? Jessica Reynolds?”

  Hearing my name pulls me out of the reverie I was in and I turn toward the voice, my bear claw pastry in my hands as I wait for the extra-shot latte I ordered.

  The woman I come face-to-face with looks like she’s a little bit older than me - maybe in her thirties - with dirty-blond hair cut into a bob and blue eyes that look a little bit earnest, a little bit uncertain as they look over at me. I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen her before in my life, but the friendly smile on her face that makes me want to at least question that - that, and the way she seems to know me.

  “Um, yes.”

  “Could I…talk to you for a moment?”

  I glance back at the chaotic noise and bustle of over-stretched staff making drinks and figure I’m going to be waiting for a little while anyway.

  “Err, sure…” I step back from the counter and crowd of people around it, keeping it within sight but moving out of the way and toward the other woman. I look at her again. “I’m sorry, do I know you?”