The Dom: Steamy Boss Romance (Manhattan Records Book 2)

by M. S. Parker

  I laughed with her, and then said, “Well, if there’s a repeat, I’ll make a couple calls, and we can move the dinner to my place.”

  She gave me a sideways glance. “Do you lock your playroom when you have people over for dinner? I imagine you’d have to, or things could get really embarrassing. That’d definitely make for interesting dinner conversation.”

  I agreed, and we continued with general small talk the rest of the way to Roberta’s place. It seemed to help her relax, or maybe that was just my opinion. Either way, she was smiling when we entered the house.

  Ashlee went to greet her mother with a hug while I looked around at the home my girlfriend had grown up in.

  To a lot of the people outside of the city, there wasn’t much difference between Staten Island and the Bronx, but natives understood the nuances between each of the boroughs. It was less this difference than it was the difference between our families that had me wondering what path life would’ve taken if our positions were switched.

  “I’ve got it all under control, Ash,” Roberta assured her daughter. “I’m always glad to spend more time with you, but it doesn’t need to be in the kitchen. Dinner’s in the oven, and everything else is set.”

  “And would that dinner happen to be?” Ashlee asked cautiously. “Nothing…imaginative, I hope.”

  Roberta looked at me over Ashlee’s shoulder. “I don’t even want to know what sorts of stories my daughter has been telling you about my cooking.”

  “Vegan lasagna, Mom,” Ashlee answered. “Vegan. Lasagna. I warned you back then that if it went as bad as I thought it was going to be, I reserved the right to mock you about it for the rest of our lives.”

  “That you did,” she said with a smile. “Tonight, I kept it simple. Baked chicken and baked potatoes, a few rolls. Salad in the fridge. Pie for dessert. Does that meet with your approval, Dinner Nazi?”

  Ashlee laughed and walked back over to me. “I hear you. I’ll stay away from the kitchen.”

  “Why don’t you show that young man of yours around the house where you grew up?” Roberta winked at me. “Nice to see you again, Nate.”

  “Ms. Webb.”

  “I think you can call me Roberta.”

  I smiled. “Roberta, then.”

  “Come on.” Ashlee grabbed my hand and tugged me toward the stairs. “I want to show you my bedroom.”

  I could’ve thought she was just making a general statement about where she was taking me first if it wasn’t for the way she swung her hips as she led me up the stairs. I kept my gaze glued to that firm ass of hers and tried to convince myself that it would be a bad idea to fuck my girlfriend on her childhood bed.

  The first room on the right was hers, and it looked exactly the way I would’ve pictured it. Neat and clean with mismatched furniture that reminded me of the way all of the rooms in my childhood home had been put together. Hand-me-downs and thrift store finds, most of them, but all looking well-cared for.

  Her mirror was covered with pictures, and I crossed to her dresser to take a look. Most of them were mother-daughter, but a couple had been trimmed, as if someone else had been in them. I assumed that would have been the woman who’d left. A few pictures had people her own age, friends, I assumed, but I didn’t see any recent ones.

  Her arms wrapped around my waist from behind, her clasped hands on the waist of my pants. My heart gave a funny thump as she rested her cheek on my back.

  “Tell me what you need.”

  “This.” Her embrace tightened. “Just this for right now. Maybe more later.”

  I liked the sound of that. “Just say the word.”

  “Orgasms?” She laughed, and I enjoyed the feel of it as much as I did the sound. “Is that like the opposite of a safe word? I just say orgasms, and you give them to me. I like that idea.”

  It was my turn to laugh. I couldn’t say I disliked the idea either. At some point, we’d have to try things that way.

  Forty-Four

  Ashlee

  All my anxiety, it seemed, had been for nothing. Mom’s meal was perfect, as per usual. Finley arrived five minutes early, and with both flowers and a bottle of wine. The first minute or so was awkward, but easy humor proved a good way to diffuse things, and both Mom and Finley were good for that.

  Now that I thought about it, I was starting to feel as if I’d been cheated out of a sense of humor since both of my parents seemed to have it. And it wasn’t the only thing they had in common, apparently.

  “That was a hell of a night,” Mom said with a shake of her head. “Dozens of us arrested.”

  “It was the first time for me,” Finley said with a smile. “I usually kept to myself. I wasn’t in the closet, but I wasn’t open about who I was either. That night though, the guy I was dating, he dragged me out, and after a couple drinks, it looked like a good idea.”

  “We were probably in cells across from each other.”

  Nate leaned over, his mouth against my ear, “If they start singing jailhouse songs, make a break for it. I’ll provide a distraction.”

  I laughed, almost as much at the sheer joy of the evening as his comment itself.

  “I must admit, it’s nice to have someone who gets how it was for us just twenty, thirty years ago.” Finley gestured to Nate. “This one here, someone thinks he and I are fuck buddies, and he just laughs about it. He doesn’t get how recent it is that he could do that without being afraid of violence.”

  “You know, sometimes I forget just how much older you are than me,” Nate joked.

  “Well, I have recently become a father.”

  Mom reached over to set her hand on Finley’s. “I can’t tell you how pleased I was to discover that the man who helped me have my daughter was a truly good man.”

  “You raised an amazing woman.” Finley’s smile softened. “I’m privileged to know her.”

  None of this seemed real. Like it was all too good. As shitty as some parts of my life had been, I tried not to be too cynical, but I wouldn’t have dared to hope that things would go this well. Now, I felt like I was waiting for the other shoe to drop, for these two to find something that ended this comradery.

  And then it happened.

  Without a knock, the front door opened, and three people walked in, laughing and talking as they sauntered into the living room. My grandparents stopped talking when they saw us all sitting around the table, but Aunt Janette kept going, caught up in her story.

  “…and that’s when I told her that I didn’t care that she’d gone to chef school. If she thought she could show up at the church potluck with cheesy potatoes when I’d been bringing them for twenty-five years, she was going to find those potatoes and her fancy little container at the bottom of the trashcan. She backed down in a hurry, I’ll tell you.” She laughed, a raucous bark of a sound that effectively silenced everything else in the room. After a beat, she lifted an eyebrow. “What’s all this?”

  “Dinner,” I said stiffly. “We didn’t know you were coming or we would’ve made more.”

  I wasn’t sure that was entirely true, but I wasn’t going to rock the boat. Not when things were going well.

  “We hadn’t realized you’d be having guests over this week,” Granny said, her lips smiling but her eyes cold.

  I swallowed a smartass response about us not realizing we had to plan our lives around a visit we hadn’t known about in the first place. I really wanted Mom to be able to reconcile with her family, and if my keeping silent during some passive-aggressive bullshit helped, I’d gladly do it, but they were beginning to piss me off with the way they talked to Mom.

  Nate stood up and walked over to my grandparents, holding out his hand to Gramps first. “Good evening. I’m Nate Lex–”

  “We know who you are,” Granny interrupted, a glint coming into her eyes. “We saw your picture online, you and our dear little Ashlee.”

  Gramps clasped Nate’s hand and gave him a firm handshake, a stern sort of look on his face as if he was taking Nate
’s measure for some reason. I sincerely hoped Gramps didn’t think he had any say in who I dated. I was willing to give my family the chance to prove they’d changed since Mom had last seen them but playing the protective grandparents would be a shade too far at present.

  “You’re even more handsome in real life.” Granny held out her hand, and Nate shook it. Even though she wasn’t squeezing his hand, she still looked like she was sizing him up.

  “Thank you.” Nate gave her one of his polite smiles. He turned to Aunt Janette and greeted her as well. She didn’t even bother trying to hide the way she was ogling him, and I caught a glimpse of barely disguised disgust on his face. “Did your husband come for a visit as well?”

  How he managed to make the question so innocent sounding when he already knew the answer to that question, I didn’t know.

  Her lips twisted as if she’d eaten something sour. “He’s home with our son, Trenton.”

  “I hope to meet him the next time your family’s visiting.” Nate came back around the table and sat next to me.

  Mom stood, a polite smile in place, which made me think that Nate had purposefully created a distraction to give her time to gather her composure. She’d given me little in the way of details about what had passed between her and her family when they’d disowned her, but considering how rattled they made her, it had to have been bad.

  “Would you like something to drink?” she asked. “We’re having wine, but I have other beverages.”

  “Sweet tea, of course,” Granny said. “And while you’re doing that, perhaps Ashlee can introduce us to your young gentleman friend.”

  Finley nearly choked on his wine, and his face turned red as he coughed. Mom looked torn, but I waved her away. I could handle this.

  “Granny, Gramps, Aunt Janette, this is Finley Kordell. He’s my…” My voice trailed off. Maybe I couldn’t handle it.

  “Father,” Nate supplied the word as he rested his hand on my leg beneath the table. “He’s Ashlee’s father.”

  The near-identical expressions of surprise on their faces almost made me laugh.

  “How did that work?” Aunt Janette asked bluntly. “Did Bobbi finally get over her experimenting stage and you were the first guy she banged? Got her knocked up?”

  Nate’s fingers tightened on my leg as if he knew I was seconds away from getting in my aunt’s face. I didn’t care how much I wanted an extended family. That comment was completely out of line.

  “Mom used IVF.” I bit off each word. “Finley was the donor.”

  “And you two just happened to run into each other?” Granny asked. “I thought there were all sorts of rules in place to keep that from happening.”

  “There are, but I broke some of them,” I admitted.

  “But I’m glad she did.” Finley had finally gotten his breath back. “She’s an amazing young woman.”

  “So, you walked up to a stranger and announced that you were his daughter?” Aunt Janette asked.

  “She met me through work,” Finley answered. “She’s a freelancer who works in our A&R department.”

  “Our?” Gramps echoed. “You work with him?” He gestured toward Nate.

  “I do,” Finley said. “We opened Manhattan Records together.”

  That was when I saw it, the gleam of something in my grandparents’ eyes. My stomach dropped.

  “That’s great that everything worked out for you.” Aunt Janette gave my shoulder a not-so-gentle shove. “You go to find your dad and come back with a rich dad and a rich boyfriend.”

  “That’s not exactly how it happened,” Nate said stiffly.

  Aunt Janette winked at me. “Of course not.”

  “How did you two meet?” Granny asked.

  At first, I thought she wanted to know about Nate and me, which sent me scrambling for a way to tell the story without including any of the embarrassing parts, but then I realized she was talking to Finley about Nate.

  “You don’t look like you’re close enough in age for the two of you to have gone to college together,” she continued. “Did your families know each other?”

  “We didn’t meet until we were adults,” Nate said, his fingers tightening on my leg again. “I was looking to build a record label, and he was interested in being a part of it.”

  It wasn’t until he gave that brief explanation that I realized I didn’t know how the two of them even met. I made a mental note to ask at a later time, when we weren’t fielding questions from family members who were increasingly looking more like the people Mom had described to me my whole life.

  “You didn’t come from money, then?” Gramps asked.

  “Dad!” Mom appeared in the dining room with a tray of drinks.

  “Just making conversation,” he said as he picked up a glass of tea. “You can’t blame me for wanting to know more about the men in my granddaughter’s life.”

  I opened my mouth, ready to ask them where all this sudden interest had come from when Nate butted in, “My father owns a hardware store in the Bronx. He started as an employee, and when the owner decided to retire, Dad bought it. My older brother works with him there.”

  “You didn’t want to go into the family business?” Granny asked.

  “I had other plans for my life.”

  Gramps laughed. “Don’t we all, son. Don’t we all.”

  Granny turned her attention to my father. “What about you, Finley? What does your family do?”

  “My mother was a seamstress,” he said, “and my parents weren’t married.”

  “That’s hardly your fault,” Granny said as if Finley had indicated some sort of shame about his parents. “At least you’re here, trying to do right by your daughter, giving her a job and everything.”

  “Ashlee was hired long before I knew who she was.” His voice was pleasant enough, but one glance at Nate’s face was enough to confirm my suspicions that Finley was getting irritated.

  “Of course,” Granny said, holding up her hands with a smile. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of, though, helping out your own. Speeding up the promotion track. Investing in ideas and business start-ups. Family is everything, after all.”

  When I snorted, Nate squeezed my thigh again, and I coughed to cover the sound. “I haven’t asked for investments,” I said before trying to move the conversation elsewhere. “I’m not a business builder anyway. I enjoy working in A&R, but I don’t know that I’ll always want to work in the music business. Maybe I’ll try on Mom’s world to see if it fits me.”

  Aunt Janette frowned. “You’re gonna be a dyke? Are you stupid? You got a hot, rich man and you want to trade him in for some pussy?”

  Jaws dropped, and we stared at her. Gramps and Granny looked annoyed, but I got the impression it wasn’t that they had a problem with what she’d said as much as how and when she’d said it.

  Mom regained her voice first, and I was surprised to hear it steady despite the fury underneath. “I believe Ashlee was referring to my occupation. As far as I’m aware, she’s straight.”

  Aunt Janette didn’t even have the grace to at least pretend to be embarrassed. She shrugged. “Easy mistake to make, what with her being raised the way she was.”

  “You know,” Finley spoke up, “one thing that I’ve never understood about ignorant straight people like you is how, if a child ‘becomes gay’ because they were raised by gay parents, how were any of us ever ‘made.’”

  A beat of silence fell as they worked out what he’d said.

  “I should’ve known you were one of them too,” Gramps said, shaking his head.

  “It’s an understandable mistake,” Finley said dryly. “My sparkly tutu and rainbow leotard are at the dry cleaners.”

  I wasn’t sure if I should cheer, laugh, or say something.

  Granny muttered a few words that I didn’t catch, but Nate did, and he was on his feet before anyone else could speak.

  “You need to leave. All of you. Now.”

  Forty-Five

  Nate
>
  I tried my damnedest not to take control of the situation despite the fury simmering inside me. This wasn’t my house or even my girlfriend’s house. This was my girlfriend’s mother’s house, and I didn’t want Roberta to feel like I didn’t think she could take care of herself…but even I only had so much self-control.

  I ignored the remarks about money, knowing that if I accused them outright, they’d deny it. Better to catch them saying something that was absolutely clear and deal with it then. I could’ve handled more of that.

  But then came the homophobic shit. Finley’s tutu comment was apparently the last straw for Roberta’s mom, and as soon as I heard her muttering a list of homophobic slurs, I was done. I’d apologize to Roberta after I kicked her family out of the house.

  I got to my feet, towering over all of them, and growled, “You need to leave. All of you. Now.”

  For a second, I thought I would have to physically remove them from the house, and that could’ve gotten ugly, but then Roberta stepped between me and them, fury radiating off her.

  “If you’re not off my property in two minutes, I will call the police and file trespassing charges.”

  “I’m more than happy to pay any legal fees, Roberta,” Finley said mildly.

  “Thank you, Finley.”

  Granny opened her mouth, and I pointed at her. “One word, and I’ll call in favors from every cop, prosecutor, and judge I know to make sure whatever you’re charged with is listed as a hate crime.”

  As soon as the door closed behind them, I went to the window to make sure they left and didn’t damage anything on their way out. They seemed like the sort of petty people who’d key a car or throw a brick in retaliation for anything they didn’t like.

  “I am so sorry about that,” Roberta said behind me. “My parents and I hadn’t spoken for years, and they suddenly showed up here out of the blue, talking about how they wanted to get to know Ashlee, and I thought maybe they really wanted to make things right. I–”