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Temporary Distraction
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2024-10-29 19:42:56Related chapters
Getting Lucky The B-Word
Ember“A temporary distraction, huh?” It didn’t take a rocket scientist to hear she didn’t believe me. “You can be a career-driven, young, professional woman and have a boyfriend, you know?”“Don’t say the B-word.” I groaned, bringing my cooling mug to my forehead. “He’s not that, or anything but the other B-word, really.”“What’s the other B-word?” she asked.“Boss,” I replied immediately. “Or bastard because even though he’s been nice to me the last few weeks, I’ve seen him be the worst kind of bastard there is.”“Don’t hold what he did as a kid against him,” Gracie reasoned, but I waved her off.“Enough about him,” I said. “Okay, one last thing about him. He took me sightseeing the other night. I thought we could do some of those things together today. You in?”“Always.” She actually looked excited, bouncing on couch. “I think I’m starting to come around to New York after your lesson the other night. I’d like to see more of it. The trip between here and work is becoming tedious alr
Getting Lucky Hooky
KADEN“Do you have any plans for this weekend?” Ember asked me as we headed to work together on Friday morning, a week after the first time we made the trek together.I shrugged, shifting in the seat of the cab we were sharing. My pride and joy was my brand-new Bugatti, but Ember refused to drive to work in it with me. She claimed people seeing us getting out of a cab together could easily be explained away, but getting out of my car was too suspicious.“People share cabs all the time,” she had argued when I led her to the parking garage of my building one morning. “We could live close to one another, or we could be coming back from an early meeting, but getting out of your car says we were together wherever we were coming from.”“That makes no sense,” I’d told her, grabbing her hand and pulling her to my side. “We could have been together at the early morning meeting we shared the cab from, too.”“Yeah, but it just looks suspicious,” she had said, promptly bypassing my car and walkin
Getting Lucky Why is She Here?
Kaden“You’ve done more work in the time you’ve been there than all the other recruits combined,” I countered. “You could take the next month off and still be ahead.”“Not if I want to stay ahead,” she said firmly, green eyes blazing. “I’m sorry, Marx. If you’re looking for a play date today, you’re going to have to go elsewhere.”I mock pouted, winking. “I don’t want to play with anyone else. I only want to play with you.”Sighing, she curled her lips into a soft smile. “That’s good to know, but I still can’t take the day off. You should, though.”I thought about it. Asking her to take the day off with me was done on the fly. I hadn’t actually been planning on taking it, but now that the idea was in my head, it was an attractive one. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with my dad, I had no meetings scheduled, and my team would be fine without me.“I might.” I played around with the idea for a little while longer before making up my mind. The cab stopped in front of our building, and since
Getting Lucky What Did He Want?
EMBERThank god I didn’t take the day off with Kaden. I hadn’t been at the office an hour when Craig told me Mr. Marx wanted to see me. If I hadn’t been at the office when that came through, I probably would’ve been receiving a call about now, telling me to come pack my cardboard box with my stuff and never come back again. Mentally, I breathed a sigh of relief.I had been tempted when Kaden asked me to spend the day with him. We were spending more and more time together after work, but the thought of spending an entire day with him was tantalizing.What was he like when he wasn’t tired from work or half-distracted by it? When we were together, he never made me feel like he was distracted, but I knew he had to be. He had a high-pressure job, and he could say what he wanted, but I knew he got stressed out by it at times.A full day with only the two of us, away from work and everything that came along with that, sounded heavenly. I hoped we would be able to carve out some time to do it
Getting Lucky Both of Us?
EmberKaden hadn’t come up once, nor had the fact that I had the same last name as his best friend. Although I couldn’t even be sure Mr. Marx knew who Ryan was. Kaden and his dad certainly didn’t appear to have the kind of relationship where they shared about their lives over a beer.“What did he talk to you about?” Kaden asked, drawing me back to the present. Everything about him seemed harder and more edged than ever. I battled with whether to throw up my defenses because of his tone or to be sympathetic.Eventually, I realized my defenses could stay put for now. I doubted his sudden attitude change was because of me. His dad seemed to be a sore spot, and it was quite clear he was worried about what he’d said to me. Why he was worried, I didn’t know.“Nothing really,” I said. “Just work. He told me he’s been keeping an eye on what I’ve been doing since the Morrison thing. Apparently, he’s read a few more of my proposals and looked over some credit agreements I drafted.”“Okay.” Kade
Getting Lucky In Due Time
KADENWalking to my dad’s office, I knew something was about to go down. I had no idea what, but I could tell something was about to happen, all the way down to my bones.When Dad called me to his office, it was usually me alone. Sometimes, other senior members of staff would join. Other times, it was clients. The Morrison thing had been an example of that.In the five years I’d worked for Marx Inc. though, I’d never been called in at the same time as a recruit. The fact that he was calling both me and Ember to his office immediately and at the same time made me think this might be personal.Whatever he might have to say about Ember and me about what we were doing, I wasn’t fucking stopping. It had nothing to do with him. We both worked our asses off for him and got our jobs done.We didn’t flaunt our relationship at work, and we didn’t hookup in storage closets or conference rooms, though the thought had crossed my mind more than once. Okay, so we fucked in the office that first time
Getting Lucky The New CFO
KadenThe reality, however, was that all roads would always lead me back to Marx Inc. It would be mine once Dad decided to retire, and it seemed stupid to leave when I knew I would eventually have to come back.And what would it look like to the employees then? I started here, had a fight with my dad, and then fucked off until he retired and moved to Florida. They would never respect me. So I stayed and toughed it out.When Ember had asked why I took the job with my dad, I had told her it was because it was a fast track to money. While that had been true, it simply hadn’t been the whole truth.Dad offered me a lot of money as a signing bonus and for a first-year salary to lure me into starting with him right away. If I’d had a brother or a sister, if there were any other possible heir to his empire, I doubted he would have been so generous.But he was stuck with only me, just like I was stuck with him now. One of the other big firms in the city even countered his offer to me, but they
Getting Lucky Demoted
KADENI blinked, and my chin dropped to my chest. Blood pounded in my ears, making me wonder if I’d just heard my dad correctly. Surely, I couldn’t have.“Are you serious?” I asked. “You’re demoting me and appointing a recruit who has been here less than a quarter as the Chief Financial Officer of one of the biggest investment banking firms in the city?”Saying it all out loud convinced me. I’d definitely misheard him. There was just no fucking way he could have said he was appointing Ember Jordan to my position as CFO. It wasn’t that I didn’t think Ember could it—I had complete faith in her ability to do anything she set her mind to—but she’d only been at the company a few months.We had people working for us who had dedicated their entire lives to this company. People who were more than qualified in both education and, more importantly, experience to take on the role of CFO. If we needed a new CFO, that was, which we didn’t because I was sitting right fucking here.Ember—gorgeous, s
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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
