Brazen Bossman: A Hero Club Novel, стр. 54

Our hands clasp together, and the moment I feel him begin to pull me up, I yank with all my might, sending him toppling headfirst into the water beside me.

“Karma!” I shout when he breaks the surface. I take off swimming in the opposite direction because the look on his face tells me I’m in trouble when he gets his hands on me.

I’m not sure how long we spend in that pool, playing like teenagers in the midst of a summer fling, but it’s the most fun I’ve had in a long time.

When he carries me inside afterward and straight into the steamy heat of the very large shower in the master bathroom, he fucks me against the tile slowly, groaning into my ear how good I feel, and how happy he is I’m here with him, until we both come in unison with a cacophony of moans, sighs, and slick hands on wet flesh.

I’m not sure at what moment it really happened, but without a shadow of a doubt, I’ve fallen in love with him.

Nathanial

“I’m not sure what kind of magic you put into the pasta, but it’s incredible.” I fill my mouth with another forkful as we sit at the patio table outside later that night. The sun is just starting to set in the distance, and it has cast a soft orange glow over the entire scene.

“It’s just fettuccine in a cream sauce. It’s so easy even you could do it.” She slurps up a noodle then follows up with a wipe of her mouth with a napkin.

“Oh, I beg to differ, baby.”

“Well, then I’m glad you approve.”

After our shower earlier this afternoon, she changed into a long, royal blue maxi dress that hugs her ample breasts perfectly then falls gently down the rest of her body. Her hair is in loose waves, begging for me to bury my hand in the strands.

“Tell me about your dad. What was he like?” I don’t know what possesses me to ask so bluntly, but I want to know everything about her that I can.

“Wow, you don’t waste any time do you?” She downs her whiskey sour in one large gulp.

“You don’t have to talk about him if you’d rather not.”

“No, no. I will. I just wasn’t expecting that question right now.” She looks out over the pool and begins speaking. “He loved us so much. He would have done anything for us, and he did, but he had demons of his own. Money is a beast that is hard to manage for some people. I refuse to believe he had anything except the best of intentions when he did the things he did. He just didn’t think things through before he did them. He was a very in the moment, worry about now and handle things later type of man, so when he had a heart attack and never came home from the hospital, my mom was left carrying a very large bag with his name on it.”

“Why doesn’t she just sell the restaurant and move forward? If it’s starting to become more of a financial burden than anything that is giving her joy, doesn’t it seem like that’s the right course of action?”

“None of us want that to be the case, though, Nathanial. My father died like that.” She snaps her fingers like a comic book villain. “He was in the kitchen at Kingston’s one day, then completely gone the next.” I watch as her eyes mist with tears. “We didn’t get to say goodbye to him in any meaningful way. Kingston’s is all we have left. All she has left of him. You don’t think it would be easier to sell to one of the five hundred people that offer to buy the building? Of course it would, but then what happens to my father’s dream? Everything he worked for? It would disappear as quickly as he did.”

I reach across the table and use my thumb to wipe the tears from her cheeks.

“I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“I just don’t talk about him much, and now with all of this and you, I’m feeling all types of emotions lately.” She sniffles a bit. “I’m sorry for crying.”

“Don’t apologize to me for that. Not ever.”

“Will you ever talk to me about your dad?” she asks softly.

I lean back in my chair and exhale a steady breath. Talking about him isn’t something I do unless I’m absolutely forced to.

“You don’t have to. I just thought…” she adds but I stop her.

“My father is in the mid stages of Alzheimer’s disease. I wish I could say it came on suddenly, but it didn’t. It was a slow progression at first, forgetting things here and there, but now it’s progressing more quickly. Dementia is of concern now.”

She moves from her seat across from me and kneels at the side of my chair, taking my hands in hers.

“Nathanial, I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine how hard that must be.”

“It’s been a battle in many ways. Especially since my father and I don’t have much of a relationship anymore.” I try my best to sound as unaffected as possible, but she isn’t buying it.

“You say that as if it it’s not a big deal, but it really is. Whatever has caused you to not have anything to do with him couldn’t be bad enough to let this go on forever, could it?”

“What happened with my dad isn’t something I want to talk about, Piper. I know we are talking right now, about everything, but I want to leave all of that shit behind me, and focus on the now. You. Me. Us. That’s what I want to focus on, okay?”

I expect her to push back, in typical Piper fashion, but instead she rests her cheek on my thigh for a moment then rises to her feet.

“Okay. We don’t have to talk about anything we don’t want to.”

“Thank you, and actually, when we finish up dinner, I’d like to take you for a walk