Only One Kiss
Natasha Madison
Copyright © 2020 Natasha Madison. E-Book and Print Edition
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used factiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons or living or dead, events or locals are entirely coincidental.
The author acknowledges the trademark status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/ Use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owner.
All rights reserved
Cover Design: Jay Aheer https://www.simplydefinedart.com/
Editing done by Jenny Sims Editing4Indies
Proofing Julie Deaton by Deaton Author Services https://www.facebook.com/jdproofs/
Created with Vellum
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Epilogue One
Epilogue Two
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Acknowledgments
Dedication
To my family who supported me through this journey every step of the way.
Chapter 1
Candace
“Aaron, please explain to me how you ended up ‘balls deep’ in the Stanley Cup?” You fucking idiot, I say in my head instead of out loud, pinching the bridge of my nose as I lean back in my chair.
I close my eyes as I listen to him. “Can.” He groans my nickname. “It was a private party. I’m allowed to be naked at my house. Fuck, I just won the Stanley Cup,” he snaps.
“There were over one hundred people there. Did you know all one hundred?” I ask but then don’t wait for an answer before I continue. “I wake up this morning to phone notifications through the roof, and then I open it, and there you are. Swinging your dick like you’re fucking Tarzan.”
“You looked at my dick?” He chuckles, and now it’s my turn to groan. “I always thought you liked me. But now that you see I’m a shower and a grower…?”
“Can you for one second shut up?” I ask, trying to stay professional by not telling him that I wouldn’t touch him with a ten-foot pole. “How do you want me to spin this?”
“How about you say that I was celebrating on my own private property, and that being said, I was having fun.” He almost groans out. “It’s not that big of a deal.”
“Actually,” I start. “It’s a huge deal, considering we spent the past year pushing you as a family man.”
“How do you think I got the family?” He laughs at his stupid joke, and I know that this conversation isn’t going nowhere.
“Auntie Can!” Hearing my name, I look up from my laptop toward the doorway and see my three-year-old niece, Zoey, running toward me. She climbs onto my lap, and I kiss her head as she leans forward to grab the pen next to my agenda. I reach for her book and open it so she can doodle on it.
I hang up with Aaron and look at my niece. “Don’t ever date hockey players,” I say and then hear my brother, Evan.
“Don’t ever date anyone,” he says, and I look over at him as he leans against the doorframe watching us. He and his wife, Zara, are in town from New York, visiting for the week. I’m in Dallas because Evan got drafted here when he was eighteen. When he turned twenty, his career really started to take off, so he began to work on his image and his branding, and that is where I as his little sister came into the picture. I took over his social media accounts, posting things each day, and the bigger he got on Twitter and Facebook, the more his jersey flew off the shelves. He brought me out to visit him, and the visit lasted longer than anyone expected. It started with him telling one person, and then the other person told another one, and I now manage the social media accounts of over fifty NHL players. I speak with each of them or their assistants once a month, and we go over everything they need. I also have a waitlist for the ones I can’t take on right now.
“What are you complaining about now?” Zara asks, hugging his waist. The story of the two of them is rather funny. She tweeted him, and before I had a chance to answer her, he agreed to be her plus one to crash her ex’s wedding. Well, I wasn’t the nicest person to her when she first came into the picture. To be completely honest with you, I was a bitch. I hated her before I’d even met her, but then I slowly got to know her. When he got traded to New York, he tried to get me to go with him, but my home was here in Dallas now. This is where I wanted to be.
“He’s complaining that Zoey can’t date,” I say, and she just shakes her head as I hug Zoey close to me. I kiss her head, and she looks up at me with big eyes and a huge smile.
“Did everything work out okay?” Zara asks, coming into my home office and sitting on my new loveseat. I smile when I look around because it’s decorated in my favorite color pink and everything I love from the throw pillows on the cream-colored couch to the furry pink leopard blanket that Zoey usually uses as a cape.
“I mean, define okay?” I say and then look down at Zoey who squirms in my lap to get down. Grabbing her pen and book, she walks over to the loveseat and climbs up next to Zara.
“I saw the video,” Zara says, looking down to make sure that Zoey doesn’t color on the cushion.
“You saw the video?” Evan asks in shock, coming in and scooting Zara over so he can sit next to her and pull her closer to him. “Why would you look at the video?”
“I didn’t mean to,” she says, laughing, “but it’s trending on Twitter.”
I close my eyes. “Of course it is,” I say and then look over to see that Zoey has laid down and asked for Zara to cover her.
Evan leans over and kisses Zara’s neck. “Sweetness,” he says softly, using her nickname and then burying his face in her neck.
“Barf,” I say, getting up. “Go to your room,” I say. “And cover Zoey’s eyes before you scar her.”
“She’s used to me loving on my wife,” he says, “so nothing will scar her, but I do have some news for you.” He looks over at me. “Everyone is coming here tomorrow for a pool party.” My mouth opens and then closes, and he just continues to talk as my eyes bulge out of my head. “What else was I supposed to do? You have the pool.”
“Who is everyone?” I ask, folding my hands over my chest. I know exactly who everyone is, but I want to see him squirm.
“Well, my in-laws,” he says and then puts his hand up to stop me from talking. “It’s not my fault no one can travel without each other. This is Zara’s fault.” He looks at Zara, who glares at him. �
��No one can be alone.”
“Your in-laws are a hundred people.” I look at Zara. “No offense but they can be a bit . . .” I try to be as polite as I can.
“Overwhelming,” she finishes the sentence for me. “And I get it, but I promise it’s not a hundred people. It’s actually only Justin and his family who are down this time.” I don’t listen to anything else she says, thankful we’re only talking about a couple of people and not the whole family.
I don’t have a chance to say anything before my phone rings, and I see that it’s another client of mine. “What is with today?” I mumble to myself, picking up the phone. “Hello?”
“Hey, Candace, it’s Jeremy.”
“Hey, Jeremy,” I say, grabbing my calendar and flipping it to his page. “How are you?”
“I’m okay,” he says, and I hear the waves crashing in the background. “Sitting out on the patio in Malibu.”
“Sounds divine,” I say, smiling. “Are you enjoying summer so far?”
“Yeah,” he says. “I’m still in the middle of training.” I nod my head. What people don’t realize is that the summer break isn’t really a break for the athlete; it’s when they actually get ready for the next year. Their training is sometimes even more intense during the off-season than when they play during the year. “I was actually calling to schedule a couple of things to promote.”
“I can definitely get those on the calendar,” I say.
“I wonder if you can add me to your calendar,” he says, laughing, and I ignore it.
“What were you planning on doing?” I ask.
“My foundation is having their annual celebration,” he says. “You should come down.”
“Oh, I think you told me that,” I say, looking at my calendar and see the notes that he gave me yesterday. “Yup, I have it down. I’m going to start posting about it tomorrow. I even set up a special link for people to follow via your website.”
“That is perfect, just like you,” he says, and I remain quiet, not sure what to say. “I might be in Dallas in a couple of weeks.”
“Are you coming here for business?” I ask. Looking at my notes, I don’t have anything about him coming to Dallas.
“Just coming down to check things out, and I was wondering if you’d like to get dinner while I’m there,” he says, and I stop, looking at the paper. “Maybe we can have dinner and then who knows . . .”
“Um . . .” I start. “I would have to check. Evan is in town, so I’m spending some much-needed family time with them.” When I look over at Evan, he’s looking at me, almost glaring.
“Oh, yeah?” he says. “Then why don’t we meet for lunch? Or what if I flew you out here, and you can stay at the beach house?”
“Jeremy,” I say, my voice going low. “That sounds amazing but . . .” I say, and he laughs.
“That but gets me every time,” he says. “One of these days, Candace, I’m going to fire you, and then you will have no other excuse.”
I laugh. “Good to know. Now, are we still okay with everything we discussed earlier?”
“Yeah,” he says. “Talk soon.”
I put the phone down after I end the call and shake my head. “Was that Wagner?” Evan asks, and I nod. “What did he want?”
“That’s confidential.” I look at him and wink, and Zara laughs.
“That’s code for he wanted to take your sister out,” she says, and Evan whips his head to look at me.
I put up my hand before he can open his mouth. “I said no.” Evan lets out a deep sigh of relief. “Besides, you know my rule,” I say. “I never get involved with a client.”
“That’s interesting,” Zara says. “I used to say the same thing and look at what happened to me.”
I laugh when they start to fight about how and when they got together.
“I don’t know about you,” I say, getting up from my chair, “but I can say that I will never ever get involved with one of my clients.” Little did I know, the universe had other plans for me!
Chapter 2
Ralph
The sound of ringing startles me, and I sit up in bed because I’m not sure where the sound is coming from. Picking up the baby monitor from the side of the bed, I put it to my ear and say hello. I blink two more times, then snatch the phone off the side table to stop the ringing by swiping right.
“Hello?” I say, trying to sound awake, but my voice comes out groggy.
“Shit,” Becca says, her voice almost a whisper. “Did I wake you?”
“Why are you whispering?” I chuckle. When I got the contract and was traded from Edmonton to Dallas, I hired Becca as my agent. She came highly recommended and is cutthroat with her deals. She always has her clients’ best interest at heart and hasn’t let me down once. She helped tremendously after everything went down with Cassie.
“I’m whispering because I thought you were sleeping, but I have no idea why. It’s a reflex thing,” she says, sounding a touch out of breath.
“Where are you?” I ask, and she huffs out a bit harder now.
“I’m on the treadmill,” she says. I lie back down in bed and look over at the video monitor on the nightstand. Ariella sleeps in the middle of her crib without a care in the world. “Is Ari up?”
Ariella Cassandra Weber. We call her Ari or Princess, and we baptized her the same day we buried Cassie, but it’s all a blur for me. Being in the delivery room, then Cassie being rushed to the operating room, and then in the blink of an eye what was supposed to be the best day of our lives turned out to be one of the worst days. Yet I couldn’t just break down and drown my sorrows. No, I had a little girl to take care of. I was all that she had.
Becca begged me to hire someone to help with Ari, but I refused. I went through two months of almost zero sleep, but I was there every second of every day. I went back on the ice a week after Ariella was born. Becca stayed with her in one of the rooms while I played. I was so out of it on the ice, wondering if Ari was okay, that I didn’t see the hit coming my way. Before I knew it, my ass was on the ice, and I’d banged my head hard enough that I suffered a concussion.
Watching every game with her lying on my chest, I would tell her all about hockey. After a month, the doctor still hadn’t cleared me, and when we didn’t make it to the playoffs, I took the time to heal.
To say raising her was hard is the understatement of the year. I asked Siri everything. Sometimes, I called her pediatrician four times a day. With her first diaper blowout, I stripped her naked and took a shower with her. I would spend my days talking to Cassie about Ari. I would crave the dreams when I saw her hold Ari in her arms and sing to her. But then Ari would wake, and the crying would start. I’d be up again, and the nightmare would be real.
“Not yet,” I say into the phone, “but she will be soon. What’s up?” I get up now and walk slowly to the kitchen to start my coffee.
“I was wondering if you had time to talk about some sponsorships.” She blows out a breath. “I know I’m going to sound like a broken record, but you need to get on social media.”
I groan. “Seriously, Becca, I don’t have any time for that.” Grabbing my cup of coffee, I walk to the bottle maker and press the button, then wait for it to spit out a heated bottle.
“You haven’t updated your Facebook page in three months,” she says. “And I was the one who did it. These sponsors look for a presence on social media.”
“I hate it,” I say. Taking a sip of the hot coffee, I lean against the counter and look out into the backyard.
“So you need to hire someone to do it for you,” she says, and I put my head back.
“I’m already trying to hire someone who I’m comfortable with to stay with Ari. That has taken me four months now, and I’ve gone through seven people.”
“You need Candace Richards.” She mentions a name that sounds familiar. “She’s the one you want. I know her, but I also know she has a waiting list.”
“That name sounds familiar,” I say, trying to
think.
“Her brother is Evan Richards,” she says, panting faster. “She started doing his social media, and she has the best client list out there. She has people begging her to take them on.”
“That’s why,” I say. “Evan is one of my best friend’s brother-in-law.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t tell you this,” she says, her voice going low, and I hear Ari starting to babble in her crib. Looking over at the hand monitor, I see the little red lines jumping, indicating she’s getting restless in her bed.
“Ari is waking up,” I say, knowing that I have about a minute or two before her patience runs out, and she screams bloody murder. She’s the perfect baby if she’s in your arms or she sees you, but the minute she doesn’t, well, let’s just say she can shake the house down.
“Okay, I’ll make it fast. Call in a favor if you have to and get Candace to take you on as a client. I can’t believe I’m going to say this,” she says, “but do whatever you need to do.”
“Jesus, Becca,” I say, laughing and putting down my coffee. “I’m sure she’s not the only one out there.”
“Nope,” she says, and I hear the beep of her machine. “But if you want to be the best, you need the best.” I close my eyes. “I’ll call you later with backup choices, but . . .” I know what she’s going to say.
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