BlakeStepping off the elevator onto the floor where Dad, Danny and I had our offices, I pushed Aston and my thoughts from my mind. I had to get my head in the game and give everything I had to the conversation ahead of me now.“Is he in?” I asked Norma. Her face split into a wide smile as she nodded. It made me wonder how much she knew about what was about to happen. One day, I would ask her, but that day wasn’t today.“Thanks, Norma.” I strode past her desk and into Dad’s office where I knew Danny had set up shop. Choosing to work in Dad’s office instead of his own was yet another sign to me that he didn’t respect the chain of command and simply took what he wanted.Danny was sitting behind Dad's desk barking orders into the phone. He had spun the chair to be facing the ocean instead of the door and didn’t notice me walking in right away.I didn’t hesitate or wait for him to see me. Instead, I walked right over to the desk and hung up the phone for him. Danny stopped midsentence and
ASTONIt had been a month since I had gotten back from Florida and today was the first day that I wasn’t quite feeling the sparkle from getting to meet and speak to Wayne McAllen in person. I had powered through this last month and the branch was doing better than ever.But maybe it was time that I started listening to the staff when they told me to slow down, because I was pretty sure I was coming down with something. The long hours had really worn me down.Exhausted, I trudged into my office two hours before my shift was supposed to start. I fired up my computer but nearly fell asleep before I had done so much as log into my emails.Enough, I told myself. A strong cup of coffee and a little bit of blood flowing through my veins was what I needed to get going.Ignoring the kettle in my office, I headed to the staff break room where there was a state-of-the-art coffee machine we had just received last week. It was a gift from Wayne McAllen himself. The card had been addressed to all o
AstonChuckling, I imagined Blake’s reaction if Tiffany called to tell him she thought I was overworked and burning out. Once I imagined his reaction though, I realized he would probably agree with her that I needed to go home and take some time for myself.I stopped laughing immediately. “You wouldn’t. Please don’t. He’s got enough on his mind as is. The last thing he needs is to be worried about me for no reason.”She sighed but agreed. “If you’re not feeling better by tomorrow, stay home or I might actually just call him for real. If you won’t stay home for yourself, stay home for us. If you’re coming down with something, you don’t want to infect the rest of the staff.”“Fair point,” I told her. It would be catastrophic if I ended up being contagious and inadvertently passed it on to the staff. We had tons of events coming up. There was the anniversary party tonight, a birthday and a bar mitzvah this week and a special tasting menu at the restaurant up on the deck on Friday night.
BLAKEMy plane touched down in California late on Friday afternoon. I couldn’t deny that I’d never been happier to be there. It had been a damn long month without Aston and if I had to wait one more day to see her, my dick and my heart were both going to explode or go on strike.Both organs were desperate to see her, and my brain had become obsessed as well. I planned on spending every waking minute with her this weekend, and to sleep next to her when we couldn’t be awake anymore.There were only a few more things I had to take care of before I could shut down for the next few days and just spend time with my girl. One of them was to finish the conversation I was having with my father on my way to the hotel.“We need to clean up in New York, Blake,” he was saying. “The situation there has been going on long enough and it’s high time to end it.”I sighed and resisted the urge to squeeze my eyes shut. Since I was driving, letting them close was probably a bad idea. “I know, Dad. I’ll ge
BlakeI buried myself in work, but there was always a constant ache in my chest. Until I had her in my arms, and only then did everything feel okay again.Our tongues twisted and tangled together. Aston’s hands twined into my hair and gripped it hard, like she was trying to keep me against her.We were like two fires raging, coming closer and closer together to meet and combust in a giant ball of pent-up passion. Our kiss was fierce, hungry, filled with longing that broke me apart before it started putting me back together again.When we finally came up for air, she smiled against my lips. “You sure seem happy to see me.”“Ditto.” I kissed the tip of her nose and then ran mine down its length. “I missed you, too. How are you?”Something in her expression faltered, but it was gone in a flash. “I’m surviving. Doing much better now that you’re here.” “Yeah? That makes two of us,” I told her. When she stepped out of the circle of my arms, I realized that she looked a little tired. Stunni
BLAKELife rarely surprised me. So far, the curve balls it had thrown at me were pretty limited—the day Mom left us, and a couple of weeks ago when my brother called to tell me about my dad having a stroke.But now this? I blinked.Tears glistened in Aston’s eyes, causing the hope in them to shine brightly. She wrung her hands, waiting for my reaction.There were probably a million things I should do, should say. None of them came to mind. I was completely blank. All I could think of was that one word. The word that changed everything.Pregnant.My heart hammered in my chest. Before I could stop myself, I blurted out. “Are you sure?”One tear escaped from each eye as she nodded. “I did three tests. The symptoms are all there. I’m tired, nauseous. My body is achy.”It sounded like the flu to me, but what did I know? This was one area where I was flying blind. What I did know was that the tests could be wrong. They gave false positives all the time. “Have you been to the doctor?”Releas
BlakeApparently, she was carrying my child. Stress was supposed to be bad for expectant mothers, I remembered that from sex-ed class or somewhere. “I can’t imagine bringing a child into all of this. With all that’s going on, even if I had thought about having kids and we had decided to have them, now wouldn’t have been the right time.”“Your family is in turmoil,” she stated. It was a fact, not a question. She didn’t wait for me to answer before she continued. “It would have been preferable for this to happen when everything with your family was sorted out and we were more stable in our own relationship.”There. That was what I was feeling. She just summarized it much more perfectly than I was able to under the circumstances. Fuck, I couldn’t even pinpoint it exactly until she said it. “I’m at odds with my brother. I don’t even know where I stand with him at the moment, but it’s not a good place. I have a mother I don’t even know suddenly back in my life, and I just almost lost my fa
ASTONI woke up lazily, stretching like a cat on my bed. After our talk yesterday, Blake came home with me and spent the night. I knew the news had come as a shock to him and for a moment or two, I thought he was going to deny the baby was his or just take off.A lot of guys would have done that. I didn’t need experience with men to know that many in his situation would have bolted.But not Blake. When I confronted him about his feelings, he was honest. I appreciated that more than he could ever know. It wasn’t like a baby was part of my plan either, but at least my life was slightly more settled right now than his was.I had a home, a job that didn’t require travel, a city I lived in. He had none of those things. Okay, he happened to have billions of dollars and a company, but a baby fit into my life much more smoothly than it did his right now.The maternity benefits at the McAllen Group were decent, as I learned when I did some homework right after I found out I was pregnant. Maybe