Tempting: A Cinderella Billionaire Story

by Sophie Brooks

  “I know. You just don’t seem the type.”

  “Yet I’m managing today.”

  “Yep, you are,” Penny said. I took an orange and rolled it to Zoe who seemed fascinated by the round object. Since she made no move to grasp it, I picked it up and made it dance around her head. Her giggles made me smile, but then I froze. She’d toppled over and was now moving toward me. I’d seen before that she could crawl—sort of. Her arms wavered in the air before she put each palm down, but she could do it. And now she was doing it in my direction.

  A tiny hand touched my ribs. Playing with her was one thing, but what was I supposed to do now that she was so close? Zoe pulled on my tee shirt until she was sitting up. Cautiously, I rolled onto my side so that she was leaning against my stomach. She seemed perfectly content to use me as a backrest. I let out a long breath and then inhaled, smelling a mixture of baby powder and a sweet, clean scent. Maybe New Baby Smell was kind of like the female version of New Car Smell?

  “That’s so cute,” Penny said, smiling at her daughter. And hopefully smiling at me. Tentatively, I rested a finger on Zoe’s little arm. Her skin was so soft. So delicate. I put my hand back on my hip. I’d managed to touch Zoe without somehow breaking her—that was enough for now. Baby steps—haha.

  “Did you go on picnics as a kid?”

  Penny folded her legs up in front of her, resting her arms on top of her knees. It was a defensive posture, and I was almost sorry I asked. But at some point, we had to get past the “Could you come in here and take notes” stage.

  “When I was little, yeah. After my mom died, my dad did a lot of things with me. To make up for being the only parent, I guess.” She glanced at Zoe as she said this, and I wondered if she felt inadequate being the baby’s sole parent. But to my mind, she was doing a wonderful job. “Once I started junior high, though, he got busier. And by high school, he started seeing another woman and he didn’t have a lot of time for me.”

  That sucked. My dad had been just the opposite—paying absolutely zero attention to me when I was little, only giving me the time of day when I hit ten or eleven and started showing some interested in the family corporation. “I can’t imagine anyone ignoring you.”

  Penny gave a crooked little smile. “And yet there’s been a long list.”

  “Morons,” I said, tempering my word usage in light of the baby who was tugging on my tee shirt.

  “That mostly sums it up,” Penny said, but she didn’t seem to want to talk about it. “So if your dad didn’t take you on picnics, who did?”

  “Mostly nannies. If you think I’m not the outdoorsy type, you should meet my mother.” I winced as soon as I said it—that was not the direction I wanted this conversation to go in.

  “Tell me about her.”

  Shit.

  “She’s just your typical mother. Kind of a socialite. Did all things the wife of a wealthy man is supposed to do. Charity events. Being on the board of various organizations. Hosting teas and whatnot.”

  “I can’t even imagine,” Penny said, running her palms up and down her shins. The pink polish on her toes peaked through the bottom of her long jeans.

  “It’s a pretty different life from a single mom,” I agreed. “But at least you know your baby.”

  “I’m sure she knew you,” Penny said, likely because she couldn’t imagine a mother behaving any differently.

  “The nannies did.”

  Fortunately, Penny let the subject drop. Much like Zoe’s head was starting to drop, too. She was leaning against me, her little hat drooping down her slumped head. “Is she asleep?”

  Penny squinted in the sunlight. “Getting there.” She crawled forward and picked up her daughter, one hand resting on my hip as she pushed herself up. Heat radiated from her touch, even through my khakis. It made me want more—so much more.

  Instead, I watched as Penny expertly arranged Zoe in the little car seat. It was like a little cradle, and it had an awning of sorts that Penny pulled over the baby’s head. I sat up to help hold down the cheap little tarp so that Penny could sit back down again. “Did I mention my old picnic blanket was a lot sturdier than this one?”

  “Yes, you did. Could it leap tall buildings in a single bound, too?” Penny grinned at me when she said it.

  “Absolutely.”

  “Where is it now?”

  I thought about it for a minute. “Probably at the house.”

  “The house you grew up in?”

  “Yeah. My mother still lives there.”

  “Here in town?”

  “Not too far away,” I said, uncomfortable now. Why did getting to know someone better require telling them stuff?

  “How often do you… I mean, do you ever… visit her?”

  “Sometimes,” I said. I think the last time had been three months ago. “I go over there and we have tea. We’re both trying, but, well, she was never a very good mother, and I know I was a crappy son.”

  “Why do you think that?” Penny said, scooting closer. Talk about mixed feelings. On the one hand, anything that got her closer was good. On the other, this was definitely not what I wanted to be talking about.

  A gust of wind made the red checkered plastic blow up, smacking the side of the car seat where Zoe slept. With a roll of my eyes, I stretched out on my side again, flattening the flimsy plastic as I went. Then I took a chance and patted the area in front of me, looking up at Penny. “If you lay on your side, too, we can whip this so-called picnic blanket into shape.”

  She stared down at me for a minute, as if weighing several options. Finally, she nodded and lowered herself in front of me. After a moment of scooting, she was on her side, her head propped up by her hand. We were eye-to-eye. We were horizontal. This was definitely a step in the right direction.

  Her hair draped over her hand, and I longed to reach out and smooth it away from her face. But her deep brown eyes were vivid on mine, and I knew she hadn’t forgotten what we’d been talking about before the tarp tried to take flight. “Why do you think you were a bad son?”

  “I just was,” I said, displaying none of the verbosity that I usually possessed as CEO of a large company. “Both my parents were distant when I was a child. My mom was busy being a society wife. My dad was always at work, or on business trips. Neither one paid me a bit of attention. Then, when I got a little older, things… changed with my mother. She changed. And then she started to try to build a relationship with me, but it was too late.”

  “Because she’d ignored you so much before?”

  “Yeah. They both had, but I kind of… chose my father. I was good in school, especially with math, and I got interested in the corporation. I used to beg my father to take me to Hollister Holdings when I’d see him—which wasn’t often. My mother got her life together at about the same time I chose my father over her. He was never very parental, but he seemed glad I was interested in the family business, in carrying on the family tradition.”

  Penny reached to and touched my hand. Then without conscious thought, we were holding hands. I was surprised she’d initiated this. Surprised, but pleased. Warmth shimmered up my arm and I couldn’t help it. I wanted to touch her more. All over. Sometime when we weren’t in public though I didn’t know when that could be.

  Instead, we held hands as we talked about my least favorite subject in the world.

  “Are you and your mom okay now?”

  “Not really,” I said honestly. How could we be after what I’d done to her? “My mother tried to make up for her distance when I was a kid, but I never really gave her a second chance.” My dad had been just as distant, yet him—the ruthless business man, the philanderer, the world’s least involved father—I’d forgiven. But my mother? I’d let down when she needed me most.

  I sighed. “We try. We talk every so often. We pretend to have a normal mother/son relationship. Maybe someday, all that pretending will become the real thing.”

  “I hope so,” Penny said. Behind her, Zoe gurgled in her s
leep, and Penny tugged her hand free and flipped onto her other side so she could check on her baby. “Are you okay, little Myshka?”

  “What’s that?” I asked, distractedly. My eyes were instantly drawn to the back of her tight jeans.

  “Just something my father used to call me when I was young. It means Little Mouse, I think, in his native Russian.”

  “I didn’t know your dad was from Russia.” Her shirt had ridden up, and I could see the way the jeans molded to her sweet ass. God, I wanted her. All of her. That gorgeous body, yes, but the rest of her, too. There was just something about her that drew me to her.

  After a brief, internal battle, I let myself be drawn in, scooting over so that I was behind her.

  “He came to the U.S. as a boy,” she said, and then froze as she felt my presence at behind her. Tentatively, I put my hand on her hip, and she moved back against me, nestling against me. I was sure if it was a conscious or reflective action, but hey, I’d take it.

  Lightly, I stroked my hand over her hip, feeling the warmth of her press against me. Penny’s head was resting on her outstretched arm, and I lowered my nose to her tawny blonde hair and inhaled deeply. She also smelled like baby powder, but something else, as well. Something a little spicy and exciting.

  Penny’s only respond was to tilt her head back, and suddenly I had access to her bare throat. I kissed her there lightly, the feel of her smooth skin against my lips shooting a jolt of electricity through my body. Straight to my loins.

  “Is this okay?” I spoke in her ear and then tugged at her earlobe with my teeth.

  “I don’t know,” Penny whispered back.

  “Does it feel okay?”

  “Yes.”

  Snaking my hand down across her stomach, I pulled her closer to me. “It feels more than just okay to me.”

  “Me too.”

  Her voice was so quiet it was hard to hear. So I abandoned that sense and just enjoyed the feel for her body nestled against mine. The scent of her hair under my nose. The taste of the skin of her neck and earlobe. This afternoon that had started as an innocent picnic was fast becoming something far different. I should’ve held back, but there was no way. I was too far gone. I’d been too far gone when it came to Penny for a long damn time now.

  She squirmed slightly, and I eased back, feeling my cock grow, hoping she hadn’t noticed. But her mind was on other things. “It’s just that you’re my—“

  “I know I’m your boss. But does that have to mean this could never work?”

  “And I have a baby,” she said, her voice as soft as a sigh.

  “I know. I can see her.”

  “It just… it’s complicated.” Her stomach tightened under my palm, and I enjoyed the feeling of my body surrounding hers. Cuddling and spooning after sex had never really been my thing, but I could see the appeal now. Even fully clothed, the feeling of her body pressed against mine was amazing.

  Nuzzling her hair aside with my nose, I rested my cheek lightly on top of hers. “Couldn’t we try, though? I know it’s complicated, but can’t we at least give it a shot?”

  She was silent, so I continued on. “I think about you all the time. Do you ever think about me?”

  If she said she didn’t, I was going to strangle myself with that flimsy ass picnic blanket. But instead, she breathed out a small sigh, and said, “Yes.”

  Thank god. I still wasn’t sure how hung up she was on her ex-husband. A couple of times over the past few weeks, I’d gotten the feeling she’d been looking at me and thinking of someone else. Maybe comparing us. But I wanted her to see only me. To feel only me.

  I pressed against her stomach as I leaned back, pulling her onto her back next to me. My arm was under her head as she looked up at me. “But how can we—?”

  “We’ll take things slow. Figure it out. But I know what the first step is.”

  “What—“ she said, and then my lips met hers, pressing firmly against them. I stroked her side with my free hand as I swallowed her questions.

  It was every bit as good as I’d imagined. Her mouth parted as she relaxed into the kiss, and I stroked my tongue over her upper lip then her lower one. The heat from her body seared me as she flicked her tongue inside my mouth, too. I lowered my hand, caressing her hip, sliding underneath her ass, and she bent her leg, drawing her knee up, letting me cup her more fully.

  Penny moaned, the vibrations tickling my lips, and I answered by deepening the kiss, claiming her mouth. The fact that we were in a public park surrounded by other picnickers didn’t matter at all. The fact that we had a tiny chaperone didn’t matter either—until a cry washed over us.

  Penny was out from under me and attending to her baby in a heartbeat. I groaned at the abrupt end to the kiss, but she was a mom. It was instinctual—in most mothers, anyway. Besides, I was pretty damn sure, from the way she’d responded, that she’d been enjoying herself. Thoroughly.

  “She lost her binky.”

  “Her what?” It was difficult to refocus on normal, everyday things.

  “Her pacifier.”

  After a short search made more difficult by the flapping plastic blanket, I found it and jogged over to a water fountain to wash it off. When I got back, Penny was packing up the rest of the food, and the flimsy plastic cloth was trying to take flight again. Suddenly pissed, I yanked it off the ground and wadded it up, throwing it in a nearby trash can. “I’ll buy you a new one.”

  Penny grinned up at me as she fixed Zoe’s sock. She was still in a good mood. “I somehow doubt that the CEO of Hollister Holdings is going to waste time tracking down a decent picnic blanket.”

  “Well you’re wrong, because he is.” I carried Zoe’s car seat as we headed back toward my SUV. “We’ll go right now,” I said, even though I had no idea what kind of store sold picnic blankets. Vera would know, and she was on speed dial.

  “Why get a new one?”

  “Penny, that thing had the thickness of one-ply toilet paper.”

  “No, I mean, why not get your old one? You said your house wasn’t too far from here.”

  “Former house,” I said, stalling for time. It was only a few miles from here, but it was the last direction I wanted to head in.

  “So you should get it. It seems like it was one of your few good associations from childhood.”

  “I’ll just buy a new one.”

  “Where?”

  Shit. I still had no fucking clue.

  Penny finally got Zoe’s car seat buckled in the back and climbed into the passenger seat. “Whatever you want to do,” she said, shooting me in a challenging grin. “But I enjoyed that picnic. Especially the end of it. Seems if we had a nice sturdy blanket we could do that more often.”

  Her grin was playful. Teasing. And a playful, teasing Penny was not something I got to see often enough.

  “Let’s go get the blanket,” I said.

  Penny

  Oh my god.

  Blake’s childhood home was a mansion. A freaking mansion. I hadn’t even begun to get over the shock of his kiss when he sprung this new one on me. Because we’d pulled up in the circular drive of an honest-to-god palace. It looked like the multimillion dollar home a Hollywood A-lister would have. Or a former president. And his mother really lived here alone?

  “I’ll just be a minute,” Blake said.

  I didn’t mind. He obviously didn’t have the best of relationships with his mother, and it was far too early for him to introduce me to her. Just the thought of that made me slightly queasy. Were we… dating now? That night he’d taken me to the Italian restaurant had felt like a date. That made this picnic a second date. And a first kiss.

  Shivers of pleasure ran through my body as I remembered his kiss. I still didn’t see how the hell this could work out. He was my boss. And more importantly, he wasn’t my baby’s father. But his kiss had been magic. I’d forgotten everything else. I hadn’t wanted it to ever end.

  I shouldn’t have done it. What did it say about me that I let m
y boss kiss me? But he was right, I had been thinking about him. A lot. Almost as much as Zorro.

  Was Jana right? Was it time to let go of old dreams and move on? I wasn’t sure, but I’d better figure it out quickly. Blake seemed very clear on what he wanted. Me.

  That part didn’t make much sense to me, either. Okay, I wasn’t ugly, but could have had to have his pick of beautiful women. I wasn’t sure why he wanted one that came with so much baggage.

  And speaking of baggage, I needed to get at the stuff in the back seat because Zoe was fussing. I picked her up and reached into the freezer bag I’d brought the food in until I found a small bottle of juice. I’d only given her that a couple of times since she’d hit the six-month mark, but I didn’t want to nurse her right now. Blake would be back out in a minute, and he might be uncomfortable if I were doing that in the front seat next to him. Though he’d come along way. His face no longer turned beet red when he mentioned pumping or nursing.

  Balancing my sleepy little girl on my hip, I held the sippy cup up to her. Her little hands struggled to hold the cup while I supported its base. This was still new for her. Together, we managed to tilt the cup enough for her to get her first sip. Her eyes widened. It was strawberry lemonade, a new flavor for her.

  Zoe looked at me, her mouth a little “O” of shock. She was so cute that I giggled. That made her giggle, too, and she threw her hands up, catching me of guard. The lid of the sippy cup hit me in the chin and instinctively, I jerked my head back. That’s when the lid came off and the pink liquid cascaded down my pale blue tee shirt.

  I was drenched.

  And sticky.

  And fresh out of options. I knew I wasn’t ready to meet Blake’s mother—if she was even home—but I couldn’t climb back into his gleaming SUV. It had probably cost more than I’d ever made in my entire life.

  It was intimidating, knocking on the humongous double doors of the most palatial home I’d ever seen. And also difficult because Zoe was being squirmy, and I was trying to keep her from the sticky mess on my shirt.

  After my third knock, Blake was there, filling the doorway with his body. Not looking too pleased to see us. I wondered if he and his mother had been talking and it put him in a bad mood. I didn’t have to wonder for long, because Zoe let out a squeal of excitement at the site of him, and then I saw him glance over his shoulder.