I’m raising someone else’s kid. My sister’s daughter, and where I thought I’d never make it as a single father bachelor, I was wrong. This little girl has my heart. And only her. Until a stray dog happens upon my place and we’re forced to call a vet. And a beautiful woman showed up. I didn’t believe in fate. But it seems to believe in me. The beautiful woman who helped us out with the dog shows up again later on a blind date across the table from me. And I’m sold out for her before I realize what’s happening. Pulling back is my only hope for survival. After losing my sister, I’m far more protective of me and her little one. But it’s a losing battle. No way I’m going anywhere, until I’m forced to. It would seem I have a kid of my own in the world. Maybe this is the breaking point where I can walk away from the all-consuming passion of my new romance. Because I’m good with giving my time, my body, and all of my money. But to her? I’ve accidentally given all of me.
View MoreI checked my watch for the dozenth time that morning. If we didn’t get moving soon, we were going to be late. Yet again.
“Winnie, come on!” I called to the girl who I was acting as a father to. “We have to get out of here, or else we’re going to be late!”
“I need a minute!” she called back, and I practically hopped from foot to foot on the spot with my impatience. I didn’t have time to wait a minute. I needed her out here now. Then maybe I would have time to grab something for breakfast before I—
Breakfast. Shit! That reminded me.
I hurried to the kitchen to grab the bagged lunch the housekeeper had left for Winnie on the kitchen counter, and I thanked God that I had thought to hire her way back when all of this had started.
“Okay, I’m going to leave without you!” I shouted up the stairs, and sure enough, a couple of seconds later, I heard little footsteps thundering down the stairs toward me as Winnie finally decided that she was ready for school.
I handed her the paper bag, she took it from me, and the two of us hurried out to the car as I patted down my sides for keys to make sure I had everything I needed.
“You never forget anything,” she reminded me, smiling in my direction as she saw me panicking. “Remember?”
“Well, I obviously forget that I never forget, or else I wouldn’t need you to remind me,” I told her, and I opened the car door for her and helped her hop in.
“Did you remember your lunch?” she asked as we pulled away.
“No meetings on a Monday,” I said. “I’m going to go out for something to eat instead.”
“Can I come with you?”
“I’m not sure I would be able to get all the way across town and back in time,” I replied apologetically. “But when you get into high school and start having free periods, we can do that.”
“I want to,” she said happily, leaning up on the window and smiling as she looked outside. There were times when she looked so much like my sister, her mother, that I found myself caught off guard. It was like there was a reflection of her right in front of me, even though I knew she had been gone for a long time now.
“You doing anything fun today at school?” I asked, trying to draw my mind from my late sister. The last thing I wanted was to kick this morning off with another wave of the grief that had ruled me for so long. I was just getting to the stage now where I didn’t suffer every time she passed through my mind, but thinking about her was still a shock to the system.
“We’re making birthday cards for our teacher,” she said. “I’m going to do one with a frog on the front. She likes frogs. She always wears a necklace with a silver frog on it.”
I listened to her as she chattered away, and I couldn’t help but smile. She had such a passion for life, and it made me so happy to see my sister’s spirit living on in her sweet little daughter.
I dropped her off outside the school gates and leaned through the window to give her a kiss goodbye.
“I’ll be here to pick you up after school, all right?” I told her.
“Not Yara?”
“Not Yara,” I replied. “You cool with that?”
“As long as we get ice cream,” she said hopefully.
I laughed. She always seemed to know just how to press my buttons to get me to do whatever it was she wanted, even though I knew I should have been harsher on her. I didn’t have it in me. Not after what had happened.
“We’ll see,” I replied, though I already knew that she had me just where she wanted me. She gave me a quick hug and darted off inside the school to escape the impending Portland rain.
I drove up to the office in record time. I was going so fast, I was actually a little surprised that nobody tried to pull me over. I guessed they could see how serious I was about this. I wanted to get there, settle in, and actually get some work done. I had been so distracted last week, struggling to keep my shit together. The good days and the bad days sometimes piled up very suddenly, and I just had to accept that the hard days were going to control me when they came along.
“Morning,” Yara called to me as soon as I entered my office. We were on the third floor of a beautiful office building—well, the main part of the company was, anyway. This was where all the heads of department hung out, where we worked to make sure the pieces below us were running smoothly. There were dozens of our offices all over the country, but this was where it had all started.
Actually, that wasn’t true. It had started with my grandfather, the same man who had started this business all those years ago. He had gotten in on the tech bubble before it had even really swollen to the all-consuming state it was in now, and he had set our family up for life with some amazing investments and by working with some talented up-and-comers. I had taken over as CEO as soon as I was old enough, as soon as my father had stepped down from the role. And the first thing I had done as head of Neo was hire Yara as my publicist.
“Morning,” I said, greeting her right back. Hiring her had been one of the best decisions I’d ever made as part of my time here. I knew from the moment that I met her that I wanted her working alongside me as much as I possibly could. She was passionate, dedicated, and intelligent—everything that I wanted from the people I worked with. Her mind was sharp, and her tongue was sharper, and she knew just how to get what we needed from the people around us.
HarryI hadn’t known until I’d met Raina how much I was hiding from, but now that I could see it, it made my heart ache to think about everything that I had been missing. I thought I had been protecting myself, but in reality, it had just been isolation.Yara had seen that. I was pretty sure, in fact, that she had seen that before I had. I had been ducking and diving from the truth, and she had seen through me, seen me for what I was, seen all the pain I had been carrying with me all this time. And that was why she had set me up on a date.It was crazy, really, thinking that all of this had started with something that I had been so averse to in the first place. I had pushed back against the very idea of going on that date, sure that it was just going to end with me making a fool of myself and looking like an idiot in the process.Of course, if I had known where all of this was going to lead me, I would have gone back in time and told myself to go with it, that it was going to be bette
Harry“All right, all right, if I could borrow your attention for a moment.” I stood up from the chair I had been sitting on and waved a hand in the air so that I could draw the attention of my staff and friends around me.Yara had done a hell of a job putting all of this together. It had only been a couple of weeks ago that I had brought up the idea of the party to her, and she had sprung into full-force action at once, running off this way and that to make sure everything got dealt with as best she could manage it.She told me she was just happy to finally have some kind of party she could organize—and said I could do with throwing a few more like it, actually, though I decided it was for the best that I ignored that little comment. I had been so busy these last few months, I couldn’t imagine finding any more time in my packed-out schedule for fun little gatherings like this.It had helped, of course, that George had been willing to put up his house and grounds to hold the party. We
RainaHe wrapped his arms around me and pushed into me deep, filling me all the way up to the hilt, taking me like there was nothing in the world he would rather have been doing in that moment. I sank my nails into his back and let my body sink into the sheets below me, the softness absorbing me, at odds with his hardness.He didn’t hold back. He didn’t seem to see a need to, and I was grateful for it. After everything that had been happening lately, I felt like I needed this connection with him to remind myself where this all came from.Not that he was so good in bed that I would have gone through anything for him—though, that was a part of it—but it was a raw thing that existed between just us. Nobody could take it away from us, no matter how much they might have wanted to. This was ours and only ours, and we had made it together, and that meant nothing could change it.I could already feel myself getting close. It was the feel of his breath on my neck that did it for me, his essent
RainaI had no idea why he was so eager for me to cancel on Reed that morning, but as soon as I had heard the tone in his voice, I’d known that it wasn’t up for debate. Harry had a damn good reason to want to see me, and I certainly wasn’t going to argue with it.As soon as he opened the door to his place, I knew what was running through his head. I grinned as he pulled me into his arms and kissed me deeply, like he was making the very most of the fact that I was here.“Thanks for coming,” he murmured, and he pushed the door shut behind me.“You going to make it worth my while?” I replied playfully.He scooped me off the ground and into his arms. I burst out laughing and hung on to him as he carried me up the stairs and toward the bedroom.He tossed me down on the bed, and it didn’t take long before our clothes went flying. I was wearing the scrubs that I would have to take into the office soon enough, so hardly my sexiest look, but he didn’t seem to care much.He stripped me off like
Harry“I was thinking more along the lines of a party than a bonus,” I replied to Yara. “Dogs allowed, of course.”“Well, when you put it like that…” She laughed. “Where were you thinking?”I scanned my brain for a moment and then landed on the perfect place.“Let me get in touch with George,” I replied. “I bet he’d love to have an excuse to do up his mansion.”“You really think he’d be willing to hand all that over for a company party?” she asked.I nodded. “You’d be surprised at how mellow he can be,” I replied. “Besides, think of all the women he’ll get to flirt with. It’ll be a dream come true for him.”“I guess so,” she agreed, shaking her head fondly at the thought. “You give him a call, and I’ll see what else I can pull in, all right? But I’m sure everyone would appreciate the chance to have some fun. Especially if our dogs are allowed to be there too.”I texted George as soon as she was gone, and he replied with an almost instant affirmation that promised me use of the house w
HarryI reached under the table and patted Tink where he was asleep at my feet. He might not have known it, but he was the reason that all of this weekend had been such a huge success.Without him, I would never have come across the shelter, and without that, I wouldn’t have been able to put together the awesome event that we had thrown the day before. It had been hectic as hell, but totally worth it, and I was proud to say that we had helped find homes for more than seventy animals over the course of the day.By the time it was over, Winnie was dead asleep in the back of the car with Tink, and George had to be dragged away from Nico, who he just couldn’t get enough of. But the day had been a wild success, and I knew that it wouldn’t be the only one that we had with the shelter.But for now, I was back at work, and I had to focus on catching up on everything that I had missed the last few weeks. Fuck, it had been so busy, I had hardly had time to remember that I so much as had a job.
Welcome to GoodNovel world of fiction. If you like this novel, or you are an idealist hoping to explore a perfect world, and also want to become an original novel author online to increase income, you can join our family to read or create various types of books, such as romance novel, epic reading, werewolf novel, fantasy novel, history novel and so on. If you are a reader, high quality novels can be selected here. If you are an author, you can obtain more inspiration from others to create more brilliant works, what's more, your works on our platform will catch more attention and win more admiration from readers.
Comments