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A Machine
Last Updated:
2024-10-29 19:42:56
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Getting Lucky Did She Hear?
KADEN“Thank fuck it’s almost the weekend,” a guy whose name I couldn’t remember said, dragging his hands down his pale face and over his patchy attempt at a beard. “This has been the longest week, and there’s still a day and a half to go.” I was standing in the bullpen outside my old office, a loose circle of younger investment bankers around me. Some of them, I knew better than others. They had all reported to me until a couple of weeks ago, except for the pale guy talking. I didn’t know when he started.It was a strange feeling, not having my finger on the pulse anymore. Strange and freeing. A rush of exhilaration that felt a hell of a lot like another tie to this place snapping hit me.I grinned at the new guy, happy to be just one of the guys now. I didn’t have to play by any rules but my own anymore. I didn’t have to keep any professional distance between employers versus employee. I could shoot the shit with them like I was doing now and not have to worry about a thing.“It’s
Getting Lucky Respect My Authority
Kaden“What the fuck was that?” she asked in a scathing tone, planting her hands on her hips. It was so unexpected, it took me a few seconds to reel my mind back from where it had already gone: lifting that tight-ass pencil skirt, bending her over her desk, and fucking her from behind.Christ, being inside her with nothing between us? My dick started hardening behind my zipper, straining for a repeat. I came so hard, I— “Wait, what?”“Why would you badmouth the company like that?” she asked, indignant fire raging in her eyes.“You’re asking me what the fuck that was?” I retorted, all thoughts about fucking her flying from my mind. “What about you?”“What about me?” Her eyes became slits, her mouth pressed into a hard line. “I didn’t do anything. You, on the other hand, were talking smack about a company you no longer work for.”“Exactly,” I said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Which it was to me anyway.She tilted her head and surveyed me as though she was waiting fo
Getting Lucky The Boss
EMBERMr. Marx’s office door was open a crack. A terrible wracking, retching sound was coming from inside. I peered through the open sliver, knocking softly.He was sitting behind his desk, his hand clutching his chest as the other covered his mouth. The sound was coming from him, his coughing worse than before.“Can I come in?” I asked, not wanting to interrupt him. Sure, he had asked to see me, but it looked like now might not be a good time.He nodded through the coughs, lifting the hand from his chest to motion me in before reaching for a glass of water and draining it. He cleared his throat once he set the glass down, the coughing finally over. “Sit down, Ms. Jordan. I apologize about that. Some water went down the wrong way.”“I hate when that happens,” I said, taking the seat he offered and folding my hands primly in my lap. “You wanted to see me?”“Yes.” He sat back in his chair, transforming back into the all-powerful CEO he was from the sputtering man I walked in on. “I want
Getting Lucky He Wants to See Me
EmberWhich was where Kaden came in. Despite what Mr. Marx thought and his obvious bad mood when it came to his son, I had to stand up for myself. And for Kaden. “With all due respect, sir, I’m not moving forward until Kaden teaches me everything I need to know in order to be properly equipped to take the reins from him. We haven’t yet reached that point. I’m going to keep working with him, or not at all.”Mr. Marx raised a salt-and-pepper eyebrow, silenced by my words. I was taken aback by them myself. Had I really just given Hank Marx an ultimatum?I had. Oh my god. I wanted to bury my head in my hands or run around to find a remote and rewind to a couple of minutes ago when he told me how well I was doing. Fuck. What was I thinking?My words hit me with force of a freight train. I’m not going to keep working at all?Of course I was going to keep working! Even if I had to call Kaden behind Mr. Marx’s back every five minutes for help, I wasn’t walking away from this. No way. “I’m so
Getting Lucky Bored
KADENWaking up on a Friday morning without having to go to work was going to take some getting used to. The same went for any other day of the week, for that matter. While I took a day off here and there, it wasn’t something I was in the habit of doing.Life had always been busy for me. From high school, I went straight to college. After graduating from Harvard, I had all of three days to move before I started working.No gap years, no time off, no nothing.Hanging around the penthouse during the working week just wasn’t something I did. Staring down the barrel of taking an indefinite amount of time off work, I didn’t know what to do with myself. Sure, I promised Ember I would keep helping her, which meant I technically had work to do. I just didn’t have to go into the office to do it.I had no interest in being there when my dad was such a dick about it. My home office was fully outfitted with state-of-the-art electronics, software that alerted me to any movement in the finance worl
Getting Lucky Empathy
KadenThere was an uncharacteristic desperation in her voice I couldn’t ignore. It was faint, but it was definitely there. And it was the only thing in the world that could convince me to drag my ass through a shower and to that place today.“You need me.” It wasn’t a question. “I’ll agree to come in if you admit that you need me.”I would have preferred if she needed me right now in other ways, but I couldn’t say no to her outside of the bedroom, either. Apparently.Ember paused for a second, only the sound of shallow breathing coming through the receiver. “Fine. Okay, you win this round. I need you. I need to get some documents from his office, and I have no idea where to start looking, but I don’t want to ask just anyone because it feels like I should know this. There’s a meeting scheduled later with a potential new client, and I...”She trailed off, but I didn’t need to hear the rest. I already knew what she was feeling. I also knew she would be absolutely fine without me there. S
Getting Lucky Stood Up
EMBERMy mother always told us to respect other people by being on time. As flaky as I could be, I always tried to heed that advice. Glancing down at my rose-gold knockoff watch for the fifth time in as many minutes, I realized I was the only one of my mother’s children who had paid attention during that particular lesson.I was sitting at a small round table in the center of the bistro Ryan and I had agreed to meet at. It smelled like melted cheese and pastries, vegetable soup and a hundred other mouthwatering aromas I couldn’t quite put my finger on.My stomach growled, and I took another sip of my water, utterly dissatisfied with the taste given how delicious everything else in the room looked and smelled. When the server came by earlier, I told her I would wait before placing my order.She kept giving me sympathetic looks now, almost thirty minutes after I had told her I was waiting for someone to arrive. Obviously, she thought I had been stood up and that I was still holding out
Getting Lucky Protecting You
EmberIt stung to hear him say it out loud, but it wasn’t like it came as much of a surprise that he felt that way about me. Ryan’s eyes dropped to the soda when the server delivered it. He stuck a straw into it and sucked some of the fizzy orange liquid down before continuing.He looked so much like the boy I once knew that it made my heart ache with longing to change our past so I could’ve grown up close to that boy. But since we couldn’t, I hoped the conversation we were having would pave the way for a better relationship in the future.Ryan lifted his gaze back to mine, carrying on once he swallowed down the pop. “Kaden and I were older. We were always getting up to stuff I knew you wouldn’t approve of. Nothing major, but I was afraid you would tattle to Mom and Dad, and I’d get in trouble.”I considered what he said. Before I started becoming who I was now, there was every chance I would have done exactly what he said. “Fair enough.”“Maybe, but it’s not an excuse. Anyway, I was
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Getting Lucky Gender Reveal
KadenAs an adult, I’d always been too busy to spend too much time on hypotheticals like if I wanted to settle down and have a family someday. I used protection religiously to avoid conceiving a child with a woman I didn’t really know in my younger days, and after that, I kind of gave up on ever finding a woman I could imagine myself spending the rest of my life and having kids with.Until Ember.Everything I used to want, worry about, think, or believe changed the day she walked back into my life. She still teased me some about my previous life of being a jerk as a kid or a player, but I could hardly remember what that was like either. Just like with my apartment, those were vague memories I didn’t care to recall.All my life, I’d heard people say you couldn’t change. I was living proof those people were wrong. To be fair, I’d started making changes before I even met Ember, but the guy I used to be wouldn’t have taken the whole day off work to go to the doctor and then to stock up on
Getting Lucky Ultrasound
KADEN“Everything is looking good so far,” Doctor Kruger told us, holding the ultrasound wand still on Ember’s growing stomach. She was really starting to show now and thought she looked more and more like a whale every day. I couldn’t disagree with her more. “The baby is growing well, and everything looks the way it should at around twenty-four weeks.”Doctor Kruger was the gynecologist Ember chose. She came highly recommended by the girls at the office. She looked a little bit like Gollum from Lord of the Rings, with hair so thin you could see most of her scalp, but there was a whole wall of awards in her office speaking to her ability.Ember smiled up at her, squeezing my hand tightly. Her eyes were glued to the screen beside her though, as were mine. It was hard to believe the black and white smudges we saw was an actual baby growing in Ember, but now and then, we could make out a hand or a foot or something that drove the point home.The doctor moved the wand higher, squeezing ou
Getting Lucky A Dozen
Ember“Have you felt it move yet?” Kaden asked, dragging his chair around to my side of the table so he would be next to me instead of across from me. “And should we be eating Mexican? Isn’t it too spicy?”“I ordered it mild,” I reminded him. “But I don’t think eating Mexican is a problem. Sushi is probably a no-no for me until the baby comes, though.”He nodded, and I could practically see him adding the information to some kind of mental checklist. “So, you didn’t tell me if you’d felt it move yet.”“Not yet,” I said honestly. “I would have told you immediately if I had.”That much was true. Despite my misgivings about his reaction, I wouldn’t have kept him from anything involving his child. Something as major as feeling it move for the first time especially.“When do you think you’ll feel it?” he asked, cocking his head and shifting back on his chair to make space for him to get his phone out of his pocket.I lifted my shoulders, shaking my head. “No idea, but it will probably be s
Getting Lucky Four Months
EMBERFor four weeks, I had been waiting to find the right time to talk to Kaden about this. There just never seemed to be enough time. Though we were practically living together and had adjoining offices now, we were also busy and running around for work.My heart hammered against my ribcage so hard it was almost painful as I leaned forward, forcing myself to look into Kaden’s eyes. I had no idea how he was going to take this news. We had so much on our plates as it was, and we’d never even come close to talking about anything like this.Every word I knew suddenly disappeared from my brain as I looked into his gorgeous eyes, questions darkening them while he waited for me to tell him what I’d been waiting for the right time to talk to him about.Grasping for words, any words at this point, I ended up just blurting it out. “I’m four months pregnant.”Kaden paled, his eyes going huge. His jaw loosened, and his throat worked. Oh crap.This was exactly the reaction I’d been afraid of. Me
Getting Lucky Home
KadenA faint line appeared between Carol’s eyebrows before she schooled her expression, shaking my free hand again. “We’ll be in touch soon, I assume? If you could email the paperwork to my assistant, the same one who set up this meeting, I’ll have the lawyers look it over and send it right back.”“It will be in your inbox before the end of the day tomorrow,” Ember promised. If I knew her, she was already planning on firing off a text to Scotty as soon as we were out of Carol’s sight.Ember and I were sharing Scotty as our main assistant now. We each had a second assistant working under Scotty, but he was our go-to guy and the one who organized our respective second assistants. It was a system that was working really well for us.Once we were settled in my car, I glanced at her before putting my hand on her headrest and backing out of the parking space. “Did you ask Scotty to send her the documents yet?”She smiled, holding up her phone to show me the text she was typing. “Just about
Getting Lucky How Far Along?
KADEN“If you consider we only started putting this together for you last week, I think you’ll appreciate the growth you would already have seen if we’d started making these moves only a few days ago.” I was speaking to our new potential client, an older woman with her dyed black hair pulled back in a severe bun.She was the CEO of a hotel group that was starting to pop up everywhere. The company was only a few years old, but they were expanding at an impressive rate, and Ember and I both really wanted to sign her.“We can do great things together, Carol,” Ember added, clicking a button on the remote in her hand to move onto the next slide we had prepared for her. “Both our companies have shown exponential growth over the last six months, and together, I think we can keep that trajectory going.”I could feel Ember’s excitement coming off her in waves from where she was sitting next to me at a mahogany conference table at one of Carol’s group’s hotels. The group had two new boutique ho
Getting Lucky Together Again
EMBERWhen Kaden’s lips crashed into mine, it was with such passion and fervor that a fresh wave of tears welled up behind my eyes. Different tears this time, happy tears. I couldn’t believe he was here, that he was in my arms and kissing me the way he was.An hour ago, I was convinced our relationship was toast. When I didn’t hear from Ryan, I thought the worst. I thought Kaden was so mad at me, he’d convinced Ryan he was right, and I was wrong. I thought Ryan wasn’t going to speak to me ever again either.I thought so many things, all of which were apparently wrong. It was hard to have faith in people when you felt as guilty and as badly as I did, though. In my defense, those weren’t feelings I had much experience with, and now that I’d felt them in their fullest glory, I had no intention of ever finding myself in a position like that ever again.From now on, I was going back to honesty. I still regretted the way I handled things with Mr. Marx, but I’d also learned from it. With Kad
Getting Lucky Big Brother Talk
KadenShit. I even made her promise to stop avoiding me. I shoved her even deeper into the impossible corner she was already in. I made her look me in the eyes and sleep in my bed, even when she couldn’t do it, and now I was pissed at her for doing exactly that?I groaned out loud, bringing my forehead to my desk.As if Ryan could tell what I was thinking, he said, “She loves you, Kaden. She loves you more than anything in the world. You’re everything to her. Trust me when I tell you she never meant to hurt you. She was stuck in purgatory about this for weeks.”Lifting my head only enough to catch a glimpse of his eyes, I frowned. “Is this a big brother talk? Because I don’t think I can stomach one of those right now.”I really couldn’t bear to hear him tell me how much she loved me after the way I acted. Sure, I was shocked, and she shouldn’t have done what she did, but I honestly didn’t know what else I could have expected her to do under the circumstances.Even if she did, would sh
Getting Lucky You Don't Listen
KADENMy head was spinning. I felt nauseous, my stomach twisting and turning as I tried to focus on the screen in front of me. I was trying to get everything with Ember out of my head and get some work done, but it was proving to be harder than I thought it would be.Despite everything, I still didn’t want to let my dad down. Sure, he told my girl he was dying and not me, but—“Fuck,” I muttered, dragging my hands through my hair. Again. I shuddered to think what I looked like by now. At least no one was bothering me.Scotty was keeping his distance, and most people would probably be leaving soon. They were giving me the day to get settled in, which was a fucking blessing since I had no idea how I would be able to handle meetings or making any big decisions today.I’d been so damn optimistic just this morning, determined to make this work no matter what. I was so damn sure I had this under control, that I was going to walk in as CEO and things would just fall in place.I was prepared
