EmberI did as he asked, and he talked me through what felt like our ninetieth client for the day. Logically, I knew it hadn’t been quite so many, but it sure felt like it. I scribbled notes in a spiral notebook while Kaden talked, my hand flying across the pages to keep up.The food arrived when we were about halfway through looking over an agreement Kaden had been busy drafting for Mrs. Newton. He got up to get it, but I beat him to my wallet and paid the delivery guy.Kaden sighed, narrowing his eyes before he shrugged. “Fine, but the next dinner is on me.”“You’re eating dinner here because of me. It’s the least I can do.” I didn’t want him feeling like he had to pay to be here to train me. “Consider it a business expense.”He scoffed but nodded approvingly. “You really are learning fast.”“It’s because I have an excellent trainer.” The compliment was out of my mouth before I could stop it.Kaden’s brow arched, his head tilted, and his lips kicked up into a grin. “Excellent, huh?”
KADEN“It’s Friday, kitten,” I told Ember, grabbing her coat from the rack by the door in what was now her office and holding it open for her. “Come on. Time to go home.”She pouted her full lips, her eyes imploring me to stay. “It’s not even six yet. If we stay another hour, we can be home just after it’s gone completely dark.”Shaking my head, I jerked it down at her navy-blue coat. “It’s Friday night. Give yourself a break while you can. There will be many weeks when you can’t get out of here before midnight and have to come back before dawn on Saturday morning.”She huffed out a sigh, a teasing light sneaking into her eyes. “This is why you got demoted. You’re a slacker.”I smirked, rolling my head from side to side. “That’s as good a reason as any. Allow me to lead you over to the dark side. We have cookies.”“Chocolate chip?” she asked jokingly, her brow furrowed as if she was really considering it.Nodding, I held up her coat again. “Of course. Put this on, and let’s get out he
KadenLifting my shoulders, I flashed her what I knew was a winning smile. “For your information, we’re not robbing the company. I bought these myself to restock the supply after my last meeting in there.”Smirking, she muttered under her breath. “I should have known.”“Yeah,” I replied. “You should have. Now follow me.”We rode the elevator to the top floor, where I led her to a locked door in the corner. It was a nondescript emergency door with an electronic key reader installed beside the handle. Reaching for my wallet, I extracted a key card I hadn’t used in forever.Ember eyed it curiously, watching without questioning me. The door unlocked with a low beep after I swiped the card, and I used my elbow to push down the handle and open it. “After you.”I gestured into the darkened staircase with the hand carrying the glasses, sighing when Ember shook her head. “No, really. You can go first. Age before beauty, after all.”I had the insane urge to stick my tongue out at her, but inste
EMBER“Coffee?” Gracie asked when she walked into the kitchen on Sunday morning. She was wearing a faded Harvard sweater with pajama pants and her favorite bunny slippers, leaning against the counter while waiting for the kettle to boil.I nodded, sinking into a retro, red-backed stool. “Please. If you could hook it up with an IV, that would be even better.”Gracie smiled, grabbing the biggest mug we had from the cupboard above her head. “That’s the best I can do. Tough week?”“The toughest.” I hadn’t realized how exhausted I was until my head hit the pillow after I got home from the office on Friday night. I hadn’t even stayed awake long enough to have dinner. I spent most of the weekend relaxing in bed.When Kaden told me it was time to leave the office, I really wanted to stay. I felt like we were on a roll, and I didn’t want to lose momentum. However, I was grateful to him in retrospect for making me leave.The week had really taken a toll on me, and he was right about needing a b
Ember“Want some pizza for lunch?” she asked, drawing me out of my thoughts. “It’s almost noon, and we still haven’t even had breakfast.”“Sleeping in was more important than food to me this morning.”Gracie laughed. “While I totally agree, I didn’t think I would ever hear those words coming out of your mouth.”“Don’t expect to hear it again soon,” I warned jokingly, hopping off my stool. “Let’s go get ready and meet at the front door when we’re done.”“I’ll race you to it,” she said, jumping into action faster than I could even agree.The place we went to wasn’t as good as the one Kaden took me to weeks ago, but it was close to our loft and cheap. Once we were settled at a plastic table overlooking the stampede of people out on the sidewalk, we placed our orders and sipped lemonade while we waited.Gracie was lost in thought, not speaking much. She was more reserved than I was, but she wasn’t usually this quiet. Not with me anyway. “What’s on your mind?”She sighed, watching the peop
KADENI wasn’t a fan of wearing much clothes when I was alone at home. I slept naked most nights, and when I wasn’t expecting company or planning on going out, I lounged around in my boxer briefs. But at least I showered before hitting the couch and watching the run up to the game. Ryan joined me sometimes, but he couldn’t make it today. When he did come, of course, I didn’t watch in my underwear, so I was looking forward to no-pants Sunday.It might have sounded immature, but if anyone asked any single guy in their twenties if they wore pants at home alone on Sundays and they said yes, they were lying. Or lived in an igloo.Sipping a beer, I almost thought I was imagining it when there was a soft knock on my door. I stilled because it was universal knowledge that one could hear better when you narrowed your eyes and didn’t move. Then I frowned when I determined that there definitely had been a knock.Glancing down at my current attire, I decided fuck it. I wasn’t expecting anyone. I
KadenBesides, she came here to seek comfort from me. It wasn’t a role I was used to fulfilling for people. If anything, I was usually the person they needed to be comforted about. Whether in my personal or professional life, I tended to be the harsh one. No one had ever accused me of being soft or comforting before, yet I found myself slipping easily into that role for my kitten.Tightening my grip on her shoulders, I pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Have you tried reaching out to Ryan? He did say he was going to try make more time for you.”I felt her head shaking on my shoulder. “I shouldn’t be the one who has to do everything. I took the job here to be close to him. I went to see him. I’ve texted a few times. If he wants to see me, he knows how to get in touch with me.”For the first time since I met him, I wanted to wring Ryan’s goddamn neck. It broke off little pieces of my heart to hear the hurt in her voice when she talked about him. And for a guy whose heart had turned
EMBERKaden did exactly what he promised me he would do, made me come so many times the rest of the day passed in what felt like one long orgasm. If he had been intent on taking my mind off things, he certainly succeeded in his mission. When his eyes devoured me as I shed my clothes, the heat in them burned away my worries, my fears, and my frustrations until all that remained was him.His briefs hit the floor, revealing his thick, long shaft already at attention. It didn’t take long for the tip to glisten, making my mouth water and my sex clench. He stalked toward me in his bathroom, grabbing my hips and walking us to the wall until my back smacked into the warm tiles.Once he had me where he wanted me, he brought his mouth down onto mine in a needy crash of lips and teeth and tongue. He swallowed my moans. Those talented fingers took me from a simmer to boiling in no more than a few minutes, and he teased my nipples until I was panting and arching into his hand. I groaned when he p
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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