Epilogue
Everly
2 Years Later
I felt a lot lighter when I woke in the morning, despite having Maddox’s arm wrapped tightly around me. He was sleeping soundly, as he always did on the weekends, and I couldn’t remember the last time he had woken before me. All You Can Eat had its best numbers in years, and we were opening a specialty fish restaurant on the pier in just a few weeks. That project had been all mine, and I don’t think Maddox realized how special of a gift it had been.
I ran my finger down his strong arms, skin hard with muscle from working out with me nearly every day. It had taken a while to fall into a routine, but now it was impossible to break. He was constantly looking for ways to make our lives exciting, despite me constantly assuring him that our life was as perfect as it could ever be. But that’s what I loved about Maddox; he was always planning and looking toward the future. We complemented one another that way, as I was always reminding him to enjoy the present.
I still wasn’t sure how I had managed to find a man like him. I could leave it to luck, but it felt like something deeper. We were meant to be, and he was meant to be mine. I cuddled up against his chest, enjoying the heat radiating from his body that always seemed to be warmer than mine. His body was beginning to react to mine, and I wondered how much longer we had until Abby’s eventual interruption.
“Daddy! Everly!” her voice yelled through the door before she flung it open. Maddox’s arm tightened around me as Abby jumped onto the bed and pounced on us. I laughed as Maddox groaned in my ear. What perfect timing.
“It’s time to get up!” she said. Her blonde curls were past her shoulders now, and as a 5-year-old, she was talking nonstop. “We need to eat breakfast and then go to the park and then maybe the animal shelter because I heard that they do free adoptions on weekends and I was thinking that what we needed was a dog.”
“Oh, is that right?” Maddox said. I smirked as Abby continued planning our day. She had a love for planning things, a trait she definitely took from her father.
“A dog?” I asked. “Are you sure you don’t want another cat?”
Both Abby and Maddox shook their heads.
“Nope. One cat is enough,” Abby said.
“How about no dogs and we get rid of the cat we have?” Maddox suggested. He crawled out of bed and slipped a T-shirt on. “I’ll start breakfast.”
“How do we convince him to get a dog and leave my kitty alone?” Abby asked me as I leaned back against the bed.
“How about this?” I said, and attacked her with tickles. She giggled and tried squirming out of my grasp, but I held her body against mine.
“That’s not going to help!” she yelled. Maddox crossed the room and watched with a smile as I tickled her. He had a pensive expression, eyebrows drawn up and the side of his smile tilted upwards, but he didn’t say any words.
Abby and I joined him for breakfast, an omelet full of vegetables with a side of fruit. We’ve been eating healthy for a little over a year now, but every now and then, I’ve snuck Abby and Nick muffins.
“So, there’s a special event tonight,” Maddox said as we ate.
“Oh?” I didn’t know of anything.
“Nick’s art show had the most purchases of any art show this year. It’s been his most successful one to date,” Maddox said.
“And mine was in it!” Abby yelled.
“I remember, I was there,” I told her and turned to Maddox. “I didn’t know it was such a big deal, though.”
“I guess in the art world it is. So, they’re having a special dinner at one of the newest upscale restaurants downtown,” Maddox said. “He wanted to know if we’ll be there for him.”
“Of course we’ll be there,” I said. “Should I invite Lacey?” Lacey and Nick had been in a constant will-they-won’t-they battle for two years.
“I already extended the offer,” Maddox said. “She said they’ll meet us there.”
“So we can go to the park and the animal shelter and then get ready for this special dinner?” Abby asked.
“We can go to the park,” Maddox said. Abby groaned and finished her omelet. I snuck out a muffin from one of the pantries and handed it to her behind Maddox’s back.
We spent the afternoon with a picnic at the park, and I managed to convince Maddox to take us to the animal shelter for 10 minutes. He had planned on staying in the car, but Abby and I begged him to come inside with us.
We found a small shepherd mix puppy in the corner of one of the cages, and surprisingly enough, Maddox was the one who fell in love.
“We can make him shepherd pies!” Abby said. “Oh, please Daddy?”
“No puppies,” he said, but he eyed the puppy on our way out and asked a worker for an adoption application. “We’ll talk about it later,” he said to me, and we returned home to get ready for the dinner. I followed Abby into her room and helped her pick out a dress.
“What’s your favorite one?” Abby asked. I picked a red dress with gold lace and held it against her.
“This is perfect,” I said. “Now, what about me?” We took her dress and went into my closet, flipping through way too many dresses.
“What about this one?” she asked. It was a tight black dress with a soft brown layer across the chest and half sleeves. “It makes your eyes greener.”
I remembered what Maddox had once said about my eyes and nodded. We helped each other zip up our dresses, and I clasped a pearl necklace around Abby’s neck. I stared a moment at the special child, and my heart warmed that I had her in my life. Even though I’d not wanted children in my life, I’d never trade her for anything in the world. She’d shown me that life didn’t always give us what we thought was best, but rather what was best for us. I remembered the words of that silly song my mother had teased me about. Que será, será, indeed. Life had shown me what would be and I was grateful for how it had turned out.
“We’re going to be late,” Maddox called from the living room, pulling me out of my daze. I held Abby’s hand as we walked down the stairs. Her shoes had slight wedges to them, and I was teaching her how to walk without an awkward wobble in her step. She was getting the hang of it better than I had at her age.
“Wow,” Maddox said as he saw us. I self-consciously played with the strands that curled around my ears. “You both look beautiful.”
“We picked out each other’s dresses,” Abby said. “We’re ready!”
We all climbed into Maddox’s new family car, a sleek black Jaguar, and Abby and I took turns singing as Maddox pulled onto the highway.
It wasn’t long until I realized we were passing by downtown, and heading toward the pier.
“I thought you said we were going to be late?” I asked.
“I just have to check out something first,” Maddox said as we pulled into the parking lot for the restaurant’s newest location on the pier.
“This couldn’t wait until afterward?” He left the car, and Abby hopped out. “Should we wait?”
“No, it might take a while. Just come in. Apparently they finished the second floor earlier today,” Maddox said. I gasped; the second floor of the restaurant was my pride and glory, an upscale, fine dining experience on top of a casual fish restaurant with the best views of the ocean in all of Seattle. Forgetting all about Nick’s dinner, I gleefully joined Abby and followed Maddox into the restaurant and up the stairs.
What I found made me trip over my feet.
An empty room with a single table in the middle greeted me, with three chairs and a single rose in the middle. The room was lined with beautiful candles that were shaped like giant statues inside metal basins, and the windows were pushed wide open and looked out over giant, powerful waves of a high tide. I realized the door to the kitchen was half opened, and that the kitchen itself was lit with at least a dozen chefs preparing food.
“What’s going on, Maddox?” I asked. “Is the celebration here?”
“No,” he said. ‘There is no celebration; I just wanted a night to ourselves.” He gestured at the three of us and pulled me toward the window. The fresh sea breeze danced around my hair and covered my skin in faint goosebumps.
“Just us?” I asked.
“Just us, my family,” he said. “Everly, my whole life I thought I had everything figured out, and each time something unexpected happened, I always had a plan. I planned for everything, but I never planned to fall in love.”
I blinked away tears.
“And the moment I saw you at that auction, I knew I was going to fall in love with you. But for the first time ever, I didn’t have a plan for that. I didn’t know what I was going to do. So for a while, I just let myself fall in love and prayed that you would fall in love with me. We’re already a family, you, Abby, and I. And now, I want to make it official.”
Abby held something behind her back and moved in front of Maddox. She held out a box with a giant golden bow around it and opened it. A diamond ring sat on a bed of flowers, silver on top of silver, and sparkled beneath the night sky.
“Will you marry me, Everly?” Maddox asked. “Or, should I say us?”
“Please?” Abby asked. I fell on my knees and pulled her into a hug.
“Yes,” I said and kissed Abby’s cheek. Tears were on both of our faces as Abby handed me the ring. It slid on perfectly.
Maddox grabbed my hand and helped me stand.
“Think you could say yes to me as well?” he asked, and I laughed.
“Yes,” I said again, and he pulled me into a kiss as Abby held my hand. In that moment, I knew what true happiness was.
That’s the end of the Billionaire Daddy. Below I included 4 of my previous books to read as a free bonus.
THE BOSS
By Claire Adams
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2017 Claire Adams
THE BOSS #1
Chapter One
ARIA
I wasn’t quite sure what to do with the heartfelt and endlessly awkward confession of romantic allegiance that one of my customers was currently delivering. Would he notice if I stealthily put my headphones on?
On a normal day, I let men down easy. An 8-hour shift at the bank immediately following 48 hours of no sleep and two very difficult midterms does not constitute a normal day. I squinted at the gentleman in front of me, who seemed mesmerized by the palms of his hands based on the way he was staring at them. Mitch? Mark?
“And, you know, I come here, like, every day at the same time because, you know, like, that’s when your shift is,” he was mumbling, eyes firmly on his palm. “Sometimes I, like, just come and deposit some cash only to withdraw it the very next day for no other reason than to see you.”
Really? I could have never guessed. It’s pretty normal for people around here to make daily deposits and withdrawals of exactly $200 without fail for a whole month. Moron.
“Listen,” I said finally. He looked up and made eye contact just for a split second—long enough for me to notice the droplets on his horn-rimmed glasses. Sweat? Oh God. “I am really flattered but-”
“But girls like you don’t go out with guys like me.” I could almost hear the whimper in his voice now. “I get it.”
Shit.
“No, no, no, no! I’m engaged,” I blurted without thinking. “To – to…” Surveying the room frantically, I pointed at the only logical direction, cringing with fear and embarrassment at the thought that this interaction might have an audience. “To him. My boss. He is very possessive, so you should be careful. He owns the bank and he is well-connected. If he learns of this, he has the power to ruin your credit, and believe me, he will do it. You should find a different branch to go to from now on to be safe – switch banks if you have to! It’s in your best interest.”
The man I was pointing at flashed a crooked smile, his eyes firmly rested on his computer, and I felt my chest fall. Don’t be silly Aria, there is no way he can hear you. He was at least 50 feet across the hall, inside his office,
behind a solid glass door. He would have to have superhuman hearing abilities to be able to hear this conversation. Although, it would hardly surprise me if he did possess such a skill; almost everything about Zayden Sinclair was a notch above the average human.
At 32, he was the owner and CEO of the Southern National Bank empire, but you didn’t need to know about his economic stature to feel the power that he exuded through sheer physical presence. He had the tendency to command the attention of anybody within a 5-mile radius without so much as saying a word. Women of all ages gravitated towards him, and his dashing looks and defined physique were only partially responsible for the effect. In fact, dashing did not begin to accurately describe his rare combination of piercing blue eyes, perfectly chiseled jawline, and dark, wavy hair straight out of a men’s shampoo commercial. Sometimes I could swear I saw his six-pack defined through his shirt, or even his sweater. Maybe my imagination interfered at that point.
And my imagination is where Zayden’s shirtless body should remain. I had seen too many girls fall prey to his charms and had no interest in losing the job that kept me in college just because I couldn’t control the desire to touch whatever was underneath that shirt. This branch went through tellers faster than the days of the week, and I wasn’t going to become a number in the statistical chart of Zayden’s conquests.
***
Half an hour later, I was thankful for the clock to indicate it was my lunch break. After my admiring customer left holding back tears, there was a sudden stream of traffic in the teller’s booth, and I had to deal with an old woman who accused the bank of stealing from her. It shouldn’t be that difficult to convince somebody that a multimillion-dollar corporation would gain nothing from robbing an old lady of 50 bucks.
I was relieved to find that the pantry in the back end of the bank was empty. Normally, I enjoy some commotion, but today I was just really tired, mentally and physically. And hungry. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was. I sat down on the first table looking away from the door and removed the box of leftover sushi from my bag. Before I could open it, however, I heard a very familiar voice.
“So, when’s our wedding?”
Shit. I could hear the thudding sound of my chest as though it were adjacent to my ears. It must have been a whole minute before I gathered the courage to slowly turn around, ignoring the chills in my fingers.
“You heard that?” I laughed. Thank you, Acting 101 Gen-Ed requirements. “Spying on your tellers now? The NSA would be so proud.”
Zayden’s lips crooked very slightly. Was that a smile? Was he amused? Angry? Oh God, I really couldn’t tell.
“We keep a microphone at the teller’s booth in every branch for surveillance, in case there is any suspicious activity from a customer. Handling money is serious business.”
I actually knew that. How could I have been so stupid?
“Which is why I made up that little story about us, so that guys like that don’t continue to distract me from my very serious job of handling your money.”
I was quite surprised by the confidence in my own voice.
He laughed. Phew. It was an adorable laugh, and I wouldn’t mind kissing him while he did it. No wonder the other tellers couldn’t keep their hands off of him, with his dashing looks. Men this powerful are hard to turn down.
He was fumbling with a button on his coat and I tried hard not to wish that my nipples were his buttons. I should have been embarrassed; he had heard me claim I was engaged to him, and imply he was connected to the mob. If embarrassment was the socially acceptable reaction to such a situation, then why the hell was I so aroused? He was coming closer and I momentarily forgot how to breathe.
“Let me make you a proposition,” he said as he sat down across from me. “We will never have to speak about of your encounter with that bespectacled guy if you let me take you out to lunch tomorrow.”
“I have to work,” I said automatically.
Was I even breathing? I couldn’t be sure.
“I’ll pay you to take the whole day off. And maybe after lunch we can spend the whole day in my apartment being, you know, ‘married’ for the day.”
He winked. I felt my pulse rising. Right now I couldn’t think of a single reason to turn his offer down, but I had to get ahold of myself. This was what Zayden did, and I was smarter than the women who fell for it.
“Sure, we can meet each other’s parents and raise some children after,” I laughed. It wasn’t convincing laughter. I got up before things could get out of hand. “I’ll eat this later. Have a nice day, Mr. Sinclair,” I said and walked away without looking back.
This must have been what a tornado felt like.
Chapter Two
ZAYDEN
I looked at the girl lying next to me with a mixture of confusion and amusement. I was pretty sure she was faking sleep. Just like last night, she had pretended to be too intoxicated to go home, even when I suggested I would have my chauffeur drive her in one of the limos. Girls like this got on my nerves, and I was starting to regret taking her back to my place.
Not that I wasn’t used to girls clinging on like this; usually, however, after a good fuck I would just tell them that I was “emotionally unavailable.” There would be some crying, but eventually those words would drive women to flee without much egging on my part. I let out an involuntary snort. Women. All I knew was it worked. Anything worked. Everything worked.
Most of the time, anyway. Very rarely did women deny my advances, and Aria Roberts had been the first in countless years to so casually turn me down. It excited me to maddening degrees; it had gotten far too easy for me to get women and I needed a good challenge. But last night, I was so frustrated that I picked up the first pair of sexy boobs that flashed in my face at the Tavern. Boring personality, if she had one at all, and an even more boring lay. I had half the mind to finish myself off in the middle of it, but felt sorry for the poor soul. Another reason it pissed me off that she was still lying comfortably in my king-sized bed.
“Wake up!” I tapped her shoulders. “Quick! It’s time to go home.”
She opened her eyes slowly and got out of the covers, still naked. She did have nice breasts; maybe it wasn’t the worst pick-up ever after all.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, ruffling her hair. Trying to be cute. Women. “I didn’t realize I overslept. I was…”
Yeah, the breasts were really something. She was rambling on but I didn’t catch a single word, or care to. I felt myself get harder watching her nipples and just threw her back into the bed. She seemed way too excited about it; I’d have to deal with it later, but for now, I just grabbed her and closed my eyes.
I thrust myself deep inside her, picturing Aria Roberts’ tiny body and perfect little ass in my mind. Fuck.
***
“Mrs. Sinclair asked me about your whereabouts this morning,” my driver Ned said.
I grunted. My mother had a way of getting on my nerves.
“Tell her I’m in Bali for the rest of the month.”
“I think she plans to surprise you with a visit,” he said apologetically.
Ned was one of the only people in the world I would trust with my life. He had been with our family for over two decades, and helped me keep it together when my dad passed away, six years ago today. It was the day of my MBA graduation, and I was supposed to leave for a vacation to Spain that night; I had no real plans, no rush to hurry into a career. He had a stroke, and all of a sudden I was left without a father and without my youth, and with the South National Bank empire as compensation for my loss. Every single day of my life since that day six years ago has been dedicated to growing what my dad had built, to honor his legacy, to take his company further than his wildest imagination.
This left no room for friends or any kind of social life outside of what the business demanded, and I couldn’t be happier about it. There would be parties and overseas cruises and models in penthouses, but all for the business, all to convince shareholders and investors that I made them happy and that their money was best suited in my expert hands. The models in penthouses were the only mildly pleasurable part. Generally, though, any social situation was an arena for manipulation and cunning, and just another way to build on my dad’s empire. People tended to hold me back and there was no room in my life for a pause.
Ned was, in some ways, my only friend.
“It’s okay. I’ll take care of it, Ned.” I sighed. “You don’t worry about it.”
When I got to my desk, I was welcomed by a slew of emails. The union in the Nashville branch was organizing a third strike this year and had closed up for business. What a bunch of fucking babies. I was all for fair wages and benefits; so much so that I had been invited to a local TED talk to address the importance of solidarity and understanding between company executives and the lowest level employees. I turned down the invite – only people who don’t practice have time to preach – but was subsequently featured in ZEN magazine for running the only set of banks in the nation that paid even the cleaning staff over twice the minimum wage. The first union strike hadn’t phased me—it would have almost moved me if I were capable of such a thing—and I had raised companywide salary. The second time and onwards it had just started to look like they were testing how far they could push me. I felt a tremor of anger as I dialed Tom, the Nashville VP.
“Shut it down,” I said sharply.
Tom huffed and puffed some words that faintly resembled coherence, but my attention drifted away from the problem at hand as I saw Aria Roberts walk into the building and towards the teller’s booth. She had a fascinating body. Not stunning in any traditional sense. I had fucked far too many supermodels to be excited by infinite legs and plastic breasts. Aria was what could only be defined as cute. Cute in the sexiest way possible. She had a petite figure and couldn’t be much taller than 5 foot 3, if that, and it suited her heart-shaped face and bright, brown eyes. Her long red hair covered half of her tiny body, ending slightly above her lower back. Her breasts were on the smaller side, but all I needed was a mouthful. There was a mouthful there for sure, and plenty to spare. What really stood out was her perfectly round ass. It was bigger than most of her and I wasn’t sure how she could fit that curve in her small body and still walk with a stride. I was getting hard just looking at her through my glass door.
“Zay? You there?”
I snapped out of it. “What? Uh… I don’t wanna hear it Tom, I don’t wanna hear any of it. Just shut it down, alright?”
My eyes drifted towards Aria again. When would I get the opportunity to throw that little body into the air and fuck her brains out? Would I ever? The fact that I had to ask myself that question surprised me. Never before had it been a question of if but when, with any woman: actresses, models, athletes—they all gave in eventually. But I couldn’t seduce a teller in my own bank! They usually begged me to take them any way I liked, anywhere I liked. Some just gave in right after their first interview here – they never actually made it to work afterwards, though. I didn’t do repeats and I didn’t like the idea of employing girls that would be too distracted fantasizing about me to get their jobs done. I usually sent them to work for a business partner or another shareholder with the highest recommendations, so I wasn’t exactly making them suffer. That would be Aria’s fate too, and perhaps the knowledge of that made her shy away from me.
Or maybe she really, truly, genuinely had no interest in sleeping with me. The way she shrugged off all my advances with confident scorn and polite laughter surely suggested that was the case. That fascinated me endlessly. She had told me she was single, yet she seemed to turn men down right and left. I knew she was a junior in college. Perhaps between the coursework and working almost full-time hours at the bank she simply did not have time for some fun. Maybe if I gave her the right kind of incentive and somehow assured her that she will be compensated for her company more generously than she was for her job…
But I realized I had already tried that, and she was still not interested. I was back at square one, at a complete loss. I had unions to deal with, people to fire, emails to respond to, but all I could focus on was a 20-year-old girl’s ass. All I cared about was finding a way to get her into my bed.
I was hovering on dangerous territory, but I loved a good challenge. I picked up the phone again and watched her answer from the teller’s booth.
“South National Bank, how may I help you?”
She was looking towards me. She knew.
“I can think of so many ways.” I grinned. “None that would require your clothes, though.”
She chuckled, flashing her dimples. It was a nervous laugh. I made everyone around me nervous; it was the natural reaction I had come to expect from people over the years. The reaction coming from her was a source of thrill because she hadn’t given into me yet.
“Did you need something, Mr. Sinclair?”
“Well, first of all, I need you to call me Zayden. Zay is fine too. Can you do that for me?”
“Okay, Zayden,” she sighed heavily. “You’re watching, so you know that took everything out of me. I like to be professional.”
Mrs. Brian, the other teller on duty, looked at Aria disapprovingly. She had worked for this bank for many years, and had seen my shenanigans with many different women.
“I could take so many things out of you, Aria.” My face was serious now. Wanting. “Just give me a chance to show you. I’ll make you feel things you never thought you were capable of feeling.”
She looked away. I was beginning to get irritated that I couldn’t get through to her.
“Thank you for the very generous offer, Mr. Sinclair, but I think I’ll pass for now. Please let me know if you need anything.” She paused for a second. “Anything else, I mean.”
She hung up, leaving me more ridden with desire than before.