Bastard Boss (Tyler & Bella Book 1)

TYLER

By the time I’ve turned back around, the only sign of Bella is her purse and the bag of ice cream sitting on the coffee table.

The sound of rifling about draws my attention toward the archway to my right, which is also my kitchen. Apparently, Bella has made herself right at home, when the only time she was here before was the day after my father died and that was with her brother for all of fifteen minutes.

I follow the sweet scent of her perfume and step into the doorway, bringing her into view as she shuts the silverware drawer. Clearly aware of my presence, she rotates to face me, holding up two spoons. Already I’m thinking of her on the counter, her skirt to her waist, and my cock buried inside her.

Which really does make me my father’s son, and I don’t like it any more than Bella would me if she knew where my head was at right now.

I catch my hands on the curved archway on either side of me and will my blood to cool.

“Bingo,” she announces, waving the spoons around. “I found what I was looking for. You’re very organized, which doesn’t surprise me. You’re ridiculously anal. This kind of perfection would drive me crazy. I need a little disorder to feel at home. Good thing I just work for you.” She walks toward me and stops in front of me. “Please tell me you don’t have a problem eating right out of the pint, because somehow that feels like something someone this anal would not do.”

“I’m not anal. I hire a housekeeper who is.”

“Of course, you do,” she replies, a smirk on her pretty lips before she ducks under my arm.

I fight the urge to reach for her and pull her to me, and that one-second beat that I lose to that internal battle is enough to allow her to escape. In her absence I am left with her words, of course, you do. I’m not sure if that is her way of saying the maid explains nothing, or perhaps, a jab at me for not cleaning my own house. It shouldn’t matter. It wouldn’t with anyone else.

I am not in the right state of mind for her to be here right now.

With a grimace, I push off the archway and rotate, already in pursuit of Bella with every intention of sending her on her way. She’s by the fireplace, and with a flip of a switch, it flashes, flames licking at the glass before they settle into a warm, steady burn. “Perfect,” she approves, kicking off her high heels, then claiming the leather chair to the left of the couch. “Now we’re ready.”

I pause at the line just outside the living room as she removes the first pint of ice cream from the bag, followed by three more, and the damn journal manages to end up in the center of the buffet she’s created. With a silent curse, I move further into the room and sit down on the couch, in front of the table. I consider ignoring the journal, but Bella is not an average guest who would be polite and ignore what is in front of her. She’s the adult version of the curious kid with the ability to be nosey and still come off as charming.

I reach for the journal and shove it between the cushions to my right, while Bella remains on my left. If she notices my actions, she blows it off, her sole focus on convincing me to eat ice cream.

“Okay,” she says. “I have four flavors, all my favorites.” She indicates pints with the touch of her hand. “Milk chocolate peanut butter. Cookies and cream. Key lime pie. And finally.” She taps the final pint. “Cookie dough. I think chocolate peanut butter fits you. It’s rich and complicated.”

My brows shoot up. “I’m not sure if that’s an insult or a compliment.”

“Depends on the day and if you’ve pissed me off that day, which is fairly often, by your own decision to do so, of course.”

She’s not wrong. I push my employees to be all they can be, even when it’s uncomfortable. I don’t play the game of pretending otherwise. “And yet, here you sit,” I point out, “in my living room.”

“I’m crazy like that,” she concurs. “And you have done a lot for my brother, so I owe you.”

She’s talking about Dash’s obsession with underground fighting that he couldn’t control even if the scandal it equaled might have halted the development of his books into Hollywood films. Fighting was a drug, and just as Dash once forced me to let go of the booze as a crutch, I did the same for him with fighting. I forced him to walk away.

“I protected my interests,” I say, dismissing a personal side to this that creates an obligation to me she does not possess.

“And mine,” she replies glibly. “He’s my client, too.”

“He’s your brother.”

“And your friend.”

My cellphone chooses that moment to ring, and the idea that this might be the detective working on Allison’s case has me tuning out Bella’s relentless attempt to humanize me and reaching for my phone. I grimace as I find my mother’s number on the caller ID, clamping down on the emotional spike that declares me human after all, I push to my feet. “I need to take this.” I don’t look at Bella.

I walk a few feet to the patio door and step outside again, the rain pitter-pattering, with no sign of easing. “Mother,” I greet, at this point using my earbuds.

“You aren’t going to show up, are you?”

“I cannot, in good conscience, go to an event meant to honor that man.”

She’s silent a beat that stretches into two. “Good. Because I’m not going, either. You were right. The memorial was foolish. It only serves to paint me as stupid all over again.” There’s a hitch to her voice that bloodies my heart all over again.

I lean on the table as if it might just hold the burden of life beating down on me and her right now, and offer some form of relief. “You aren’t stupid, Mother. You were a wife who loved her husband.”

“I was a wife who stayed too long. Stop trying to give me an excuse for being foolish. It serves no purpose.”

No good purpose, I think, before I say, “A friend brought me ice cream and lots of it. Apparently, it’s supposed to lift one’s spirits. Why don’t you come over?”

“Thank you, son, but I’m actually headed to the airport. A client of mine has been hitting on me for years. I turned him down, of course, but I was flattered. I called him before I called you. He offered to take me to Europe to escape the press. I said yes.”

Two years ago, my mother left the firm to start an investment firm, in which many of our clients are now involved. The idea that I know this man isn’t hard to assume. Protectiveness bristles. “Who’s this client?”

“No one you know,” she says. “And he can’t be worse than your father. I’ll call you tomorrow once I’m settled in. Take care of yourself, Tyler. And forget living in your father’s shadow.”

“Easier said than done,” I remind her, not that she needs to be reminded. The press is doing a beautiful job of that for us all.

“That’s why I left the firm to start my own business,” she replies. “To step out from under his dominant presence. But now he’s gone. And I’ve moved on. You’re acting CEO but the ‘acting’ title is a mere formality. I have no idea why your father delayed the reading of his will for sixty days, but it doesn’t matter. That firm is yours. Act like it and you will not fail.” She disconnects.

I let the phone disconnect and stand there, watching the rain pitter-patter and bounce off the concrete of the patio wall. If only the impact of my father’s actions were as easy to deflect.

“Tyler.”

At the sound of Bella’s voice, I rotate to face her. She’s standing there in her hosed feet, the light casting her in a glow, her hair messed up, and I didn’t even help get the job done.

“Everything okay?” she asks, tentatively.

I stand there, mentally planting my feet in the ground when they want to move toward her, aware of her in ways that are not safe for her or me. The curve of her breasts against her fitted bodice. The curve of her hips in the slender cut of the dress.

“It was my mother,” I say. “She called off the memorial. She’s going to Europe with another man. I think she’s looking for an escape.”

Her lips part and then press together before she says, “Yes. I can see how an escape might feel necessary.”

Despite logic and good sense, I step toward her, and as I draw nearer, she doesn’t back away.