Table of Contents
Epilogue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Also by Chloe Lynn Ellis
About the Author
If you enjoyed this book…
Mine
MMF Bisexual Menage Romance
Chloe Lynn Ellis
Mine
Mine © Chloe Lynn Ellis 2017
Amazon Kindle Edition
Edited by Elizabeth Peters
Cover design by Resplendent Media
All rights reserved. No part of this story may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the copyright holder, except in the case of brief quotations embodied within critical reviews and articles.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
The author has asserted his/her rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book.
This book contains sexually explicit content which is suitable only for mature readers.
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Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Epilogue
Also by Chloe Lynn Ellis
About the Author
If you enjoyed this book…
1
Cate
I’m here. I’m back. It’s all I can think as I look out the window and take in the Boston cityscape. The cab driver has been chatting wildly this whole time, and I’m doing my best to keep up with him and be polite, but there’s just so much to take in. The hustle, the noise, the oddly winding streets. There’s no place like it in the world. I can’t help but roll down my window and bask in it a little.
The cab driver deftly navigates the Chinatown and Theater District streets, surrounded by impossibly tall buildings and thick with the morning smell of cars, commuters, and all that coffee. The breeze is still chilly for April, and it kisses my skin in a way that brings a smile to my face. It’s all so overwhelming at first, but it only takes a moment for me to realize that my smile has turned into a full-on, ear-to-ear grin.
We finally emerge onto the Boston Common, and it feels like the one place where the entire city opens itself wide. Whereas everywhere else in Boston is almost fortress-like with its tall buildings, the Common is just a huge expanse of green. Paths snake through the gentle hills and valleys of the park, full of people walking their pets, heading to work, or just enjoying the sights as they sit on the green.
The scene is hypnotic to all my senses. I’ve been here a hundred times, a thousand times, but it has never felt quite as alive as it does now.
“All set, doll,” the cabbie tells me as he slides into a narrow spot on the shoulder. I can’t help but beam at him as I pull the fare out of my purse, along with a generous tip. I’m here, I think again. I’m back.
I step out of the cab and stretch my legs for the first time since boarding the train in New York. The vigor continues to course through every part of me, furious and uncontrollable. This is what it feels like to be free.
It’s the first time I’ve felt like this in my entire life.
I spend another moment just enjoying the scene, then I grab my bag from the trunk and find myself casually slipping in with the rest of the pedestrians filing dutifully along to their jobs. Moments later, I spot Aw, Beans!, my favorite local coffee shop. It isn’t long before I’m holding my first cup of hot Boston coffee, sinking into a well-loved leather armchair while the aroma winds around me like a promise. I close my eyes for what feels like the first time in forever and gradually let my heartbeat slow down.
In the last couple of weeks, I had dealt with losing my client, losing my boyfriend, and losing my grandfather. The client, a staple of the culinary reality show circuit, is a very exacting man with no tolerance for failure. Even knowing his reputation, though, I hadn’t been afraid of working with him. In fact, he’d been so completely open about who he was and what he wanted that I’d developed an extremely good idea of what he’d love to see in his new penthouse. I had spent countless hours working up the designs, specifications, color swatches, motifs—the works. It had been exciting to try and match his wants with my designs, and I’d known deep in my bones that I was on the right track.
Of course, all of it went right out the window the moment my mother, Julianne MacMillan, got her hands on it.
My mother carries herself like a queen around everyone in her life, and most especially anyone working at MacMillan Design, her own personal Queendom. It didn’t matter that I was her daughter; that day—the day scheduled for my final presentation to the client—I was just another employee to her. I’d watched with a sick, resigned feeling in my gut as she’d almost gleefully torn apart all of my work and replaced it with her own ideas.
A feeling that was all too familiar after a lifetime of being Julianne MacMillan’s daughter.
Mother takes pride in her forceful personality, and there’s no denying that it has won her many clients in the past, all of whom are utterly convinced that she’s God’s gift to the apartments of the New York elite. This time, though—between my mother and the client, two huge personalities who were both equally adamant that their opinion was the right one—I’d known that trying to steamroll him was a bad call for her to make.
I hadn’t been able to stop her from making it, though.
The fallout had been spectacular. We’d lost him, of course, and according to her, I was to blame; had I just gotten it right the first time and sold the client on her vision, neither the blow to MacMillan Design’s bottom line nor to its reputation would ever have happened. I’d taken the scolding like I took everything else in my life: eyes down, head nodding.<
br />
Always easier than standing up for myself.
That same night, I had asked my boyfriend if we could cancel our fancy dinner reservations and just have a night in. An hour later, I was still listening to him drone on and on about his needs and how I wasn’t meeting them.
Again, I took it with my eyes down and head nodding as he finished listing all my shortcomings as a girlfriend and walked out the door. And while I was still crying over yet another relationship failure, the day’s losses became a hat trick.
I got the phone call telling me that Hendricks “Sully” Sullivan, my grandfather—my rock—had finally passed.
Everything after that had gone by in a blur. The wake, the funeral, everything. I’d come to Boston to say my goodbyes and pay my respects, but hadn’t stuck around for the reading of his will. Yes, Grandpa Sully’s life had ensured that the Sullivan name meant money, but that didn’t interest me. Much to my mother’s bewilderment, it never had.
The only thing I’d wanted was my grandfather back, and since none of the provisions of his will could have given me that, I just wasn’t interested. I’d gone back to New York and gone on with my life, numb and a little worse for wear, but what else was I supposed to do?
Mother hadn’t understood, of course.
Yesterday, my day had been spent dealing with her nitpicking from dawn to dusk—just like every other day before it—and by the time it was over, all I’d wanted to do was relax with a glass of wine and have a little time without my heels on. I was soaking my feet in my (well, my mother’s, according to the deed) New York apartment when I’d gotten the call. I admit, after another day of dealing with her relentlessly overbearing treatment, I’d been stewing a little bit about that when the phone rang. I suppose I should be grateful for the fact that my apartment was rent-free, but at the time, all I’d been able to think about was how it served my mother as yet another way to keep me in her pocket.
Just like my job at her firm.
Just like my entire life in New York, under her thumb.
I’d just started to relax, but wasn’t all that surprised when the phone interrupted. After all, nothing else in my life felt like it was truly mine; why shouldn’t my one sliver of time alone be interrupted? I seriously considered just letting it go to voicemail, but I finally picked it up right before it could.
Ignoring it would be rude, and don’t I always do what I should?
“Ms. MacMillan?” the voice on the other end of the line had asked placidly.
A quick glance at caller ID confirmed why it sounded familiar. Gary Davidson, the family lawyer.
“Gary,” I’d started, a smile tugging at my lips despite the exhaustion and numbness I hadn’t been able to shake. “We’ve known each other for years. You know you can call me Cate now, right?”
“Of course, Ms. MacMillan.”
I’d shaken my head at his predictability, stifling a laugh. But then I’d sighed, the moment of humor replaced by the realization of what the reason for his call must be. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to think of Grandpa Sully—remembering him was important, and he’d always be a part of me—but I had no interest in talking about the aftermath of his passing.
I wanted to remember him in life, not face the fact that he was really gone.
That there was no one in my life who really got me anymore.
That, despite my extensive social circle, his loss left me adrift.
Alone.
“What is it, Gary?” I’d asked, swallowing past the lump in my throat. “Because if you’re calling about Sully’s will, I already told you I don’t want anything. None of it will bring him back, so if he’s left anything to me, please give it all to a charity that you trust. It’s what he would have done, and it’s the best possible way I can think of to send him off.”
“With all due respect, Ms. MacMillan, if that’s what he would have done, he would have done it. And he certainly wouldn’t have offered you the townhouse.”
“Of course he wouldn’t offer me the…” I’d paused, trying to process the words. “Gary, did you say the townhouse?”
“Yes.”
Everything around me had gone still, and something that might have been excitement had started to bubble up inside me.
“Grandpa Sully left me the townhouse?” I’d repeated, needing to make sure I’d understood.
Gary’s answer had come after an affectionate laugh. “Well, yes, in a manner of speaking. There are some details that we’ll have to work out. You know your grandfather; he always did things differently from everyone else.”
Gary had continued talking—something about notarized details and meeting in person—but my elation at hearing “yes” had made it hard to follow whatever else he’d been trying to tell me.
I’d been wrong when I’d said I didn’t want anything. I wanted this. It didn’t bring Sully back, but yes, yes, yes. It was something of his that he’d wanted to be mine, and the thought of it—of being back in the one place I’d always felt so safe—felt like a blessing. Like safety. Like a warm hug from the man I knew I’d miss forever.
“If you’re serious about relinquishing your rights to the townhouse, Ms. MacMillan, I can send you the paperwork necessary to authorize preparations for a sale.”
“I’m sorry, Gary,” I’d interrupted, still swimming at the possibility of living permanently in Grandpa Sully’s townhouse but definitely feeling like I’d missed something.
Sell my dream? The one place I had ever been happy?
“Sale?” I’d prompted. “What sort of preparations are you talking about?”
“I’d assumed your mother would have talked to you about it after the reading of the will,” Gary had begun, an added note of restraint in his voice. “After the reading of the will, she made it clear that, given your life in New York, you’d be relinquishing your portion and that I should begin preparations to sell. With all due respect, I informed her that the decision was not hers to make and that I’d need to hear it from you directly.”
I’d blinked back the hot sting of tears.
My mother… interfering in my life again. She’d stayed in Boston for the reading of the will, of course, but no, she hadn’t bothered to mention this to me. She had, in fact, steamrolled right over any thought of what I might want and assumed she could dictate my decisions here as she had in every other part of my life.
No.
In that moment, it had felt as though a dam had burst inside me. All the hopes, dreams, happiness—everything I had been keeping locked inside for my entire life—had flooded through me like a palpable force. I’d taken a deep breath, squaring my shoulders as a warm resolve settled over me.
Sully’s arms around me? That was too fanciful, but it still felt true.
“Gary, are you free to meet me tomorrow morning?”
“Of course,” Gary had responded instantly, a bit startled. “You’re in New York right now, though, are you not?”
I’d smiled. Yes, but I didn’t want to be. Not now.
“Not for long, no,” I’d told him, my grin stretching even wider. “Can you meet me at the townhouse tomorrow at ten?”
There’d been a long pause. Gary knew me well, and he must have been just as stunned as I should have been feeling. This wasn’t like me, but somehow, this uncharacteristically spontaneous decision had felt right. For once, I hadn’t been racked by doubts. In fact, I’d felt more like myself than I ever had before in my life.
“Okay, Cate, er, Ms. MacMillan, I mean,” Gary had answered cautiously. I’d known the man for years, and it was the first time I’d ever heard him stumble or call me by my first name. “Ten tomorrow morning, at the townhouse. I’ll see you there?”
I’d almost laughed out loud as I’d agreed and ended the call. I’d felt slightly giddy. Free.
I hadn’t even bothered letting my mother know. Why should I? After all, she hadn’t bothered to let me know that the townhouse was in my name. Not giving myself time to second-guess the decision, I
’d written a quick letter of resignation and printed it out, leaving it on the table by the door where I knew she’d find it when she inevitably came by the apartment looking for me. With that done, I’d packed a bag as quickly as I could manage, booked a seat on the early train, and left from Grand Central in New York to South Station in Boston while the sun was barely starting to glow beneath the horizon.
And now I’m here, I think to myself. And even though I’ve technically lived in New York my entire life: I’m home.
I look at my watch. Ten o’clock is rapidly approaching, so I finish my coffee and head out into the light chill once again, walking up to the east edge of the Common where the opposite side of the street is lined with homes. I know it intimately, could walk it with my eyes closed.
Home.
It really is.
And when I finally find myself standing in front of Sully’s townhouse, it’s almost more than I can handle. It’s beautiful. Three stories of classic brownstone with a prime view over the Common, all wonderfully kept up over the decades with love and care.
I feel the hot tears of happiness and relief start to well up in my eyes, and I do my best to push them back. Don’t let ’em see you sweat, Wildcat, he’d always told me. I walk up the steps and take a deep breath as I slip my old key into the door, and find myself relieved that the locks haven’t been changed.
This is it, I think to myself, a frisson of excitement moving through me.
I turn the key, grab the handle, and walk inside. The first thing I notice is the smell of old books, the result of years upon years of Grandpa Sully collecting legal volumes and filling his bookshelves. He was a sharp man who had always prided himself on staying current. He’d known his way around the internet surprisingly well for a man of his years, but he’d still insisted on keeping physical books around.
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