Claiming Her_A Romance Collection

by R. R. Banks

  “Are you still here?” Aidan finally asked.

  “No,” I said. “I’ve been gone for hours.”

  “You have meetings right up until you are going to have to come home to get ready for the party tonight. I’ve been in contact with the vendors and they are doing final preparations.”

  I sighed, cutting him off, and looked at him.

  “Do I really have to do this? There’s no way that I can cancel or get a stand-in?”

  “Are you serious?” Aidan asked, his voice slightly higher and more fragile as though it were going to shatter.

  “Alright, alright,” I said.

  I held up my hands in surrender and got up from the table. Ten minutes later I walked out of the apartment, reaching out as I always did to run my fingers along the silver frame sitting on a table in the foyer.

  Chapter Two

  Ella

  “I can’t believe that you volunteered me without even asking me first.”

  I finished scrubbing the last of the breakfast dishes and rinsed it, tucking it away in the drainer positioned beside the sink. Resting forward on my hands for a moment, I watched as the soap bubbles and water swirled down the drain. The sink would look fresh and perfectly clean, giving a sense of order to the house, for all of about an hour before it started filling again with dishes from snacks, lunch, more snacks, and supper. I did my best to keep them in submission, and these moments of soapy perfection were among my favorite in the day.

  “I didn’t volunteer you,” Molly said from where she sat at the kitchen table sipping coffee from the first of the new wave of dishes that would fill the sink. “I told them that you were my partner.”

  “Your partner in a company that doesn’t exist.”

  “It does exist!” she protested.

  “Having one rich old man hire you to do his bidding doesn’t make you into a professional assistant, and making sure that one afternoon tea with his mother went through without her judging the china doesn’t make you an event coordinator.”

  “Thank you for your words of support and love.”

  I turned toward her and took the now-empty mug from her hand, deciding I would wash it before she had a chance to add it to the sink.

  “I’m sorry. I love and support you and am very happy for you that you have fulfilled your life’s dream of being a professional assistant and event coordinator even though two weeks ago your life’s dream was to join the rodeo circuit.”

  “I’m still holding out on that one.”

  “I’m sure you are.”

  “Look, Ella,” she said imploringly, joining me at the counter. “I’m sorry I’m kind of blindsiding you with this, but I didn’t really have a choice. He asked me if I had someone else to help me because he wanted to recommend me to his friend for an event that he’s hosting, and I didn’t even think. I just said yes.”

  “That’s the problem. You didn’t think.”

  “What would you have wanted me to do? Say no? Admit that I’m flying by the seat of my pants as it is and let him just find someone else? It’s not like either of us can really turn up our noses at the money.”

  I sighed. I didn’t really know how to answer that. The truth was, I couldn’t even begin to think about turning up my nose at any money. The savings I’d had when I lost my job a few months before had been meager as it was, but even living with Molly to cut down on expenses hadn’t been enough to keep it from dwindling away to near-nothingness. Soon I was going to be without any money and while there was a time in my life when that wouldn’t have bothered me so much and I would have known that I would have found a way to pull through. But then again Branden would have been by my side. He had died before he even got to see Edmond born. Now I was alone, and I wasn’t just worried about myself. I was thinking about my son and he deserved more than the struggles that I had been putting him through since his father died.

  “So, what is it that you’ve signed me up to do as your apparent partner?”

  Molly’s face brightened a little as she saw my resistance starting to fade.

  “Mason Dupree is hosting a party tonight.”

  “Mason Dupree?” I asked, shocked. “The Mason Dupree who owns the Manhattan Showstoppers basketball team? The Mason Dupree who invented the app that essentially runs society, sold it, invested the absurd cash he got from it, and now has more money than God? The Mason Dupree who is single-handedly working toward bringing clean energy into all of the cities throughout the country, quite literally changing the modern landscape and transforming the nation’s carbon footprint? That Mason Dupree?”

  Molly stared at me blankly for a few seconds.

  “Did you go to a briefing or something before I got up?” she asked.

  “I read the newspaper,” I told her. “You should really try it some time.”

  “Well, did whatever form of outdated information transmission you chose today tell you that Mason Dupree of the Everything in the World is having a party to celebrate a new player who just signed? And that that party is going to be held in his apartment in The Avalon?”

  She sounded almost breathless with excitement at the idea, but I only felt like a rock had taken up residence in the pit of my stomach.

  “The Avalon?” I asked. “That ridiculous apartment building by Central Park?”

  “It’s not ridiculous,” Molly said. “It’s opulent. It’s also home to the wealthiest men in the city. There’s a lot of opportunity there, Ella. This could be our chance.”

  “I just don’t know what it is that I’m supposed to do,” I said. “It’s not like I’ve ever done something like this before.”

  “You’re making it sound like I’m asking you to be his personal exotic dancer.”

  I reached up into the cabinet above my head and grabbed the cookie jar that I had taken to keeping there rather than on the counter because Edmond’s four-year-old hands were becoming more and more adventurous and I didn’t want to see what would happen if the century-old jar decided to slip off the edge of the counter toward my son’s head.

  “Are you sure that’s not another specialty that you’re going to add to your list of services?”

  There was a hint of teasing in my voice, but a part of me was a bit worried that she was going to get inspired by my statement. I pulled out a cookie and bit into it, reveling in the simple deliciousness of the chocolate chips.

  “Are you eating cookies for breakfast?” Molly asked.

  I narrowed my eyes at her.

  “I’m an adult,” I said through the crumbs that were falling between my lips.

  “Elegant.”

  “See?” I said, sighing as I wiped my mouth and sagged back against the counter. “I can’t possibly do this.”

  “Because you think being an adult justifies you eating chocolate chip cookies for breakfast while standing over your kitchen sink?”

  “No,” I said, “because I’m just not the type of adult who can fit in in a place filled with exorbitantly wealthy men.”

  “That’s the thing. You don’t have to fit in. You aren’t going to the party. You are doing preparations for the party. You aren’t going to have to interact with anyone. Mason isn’t even going to be there.”

  “Mason?” I asked, shooting her a sideways glance. “You’re on a first-name basis with this man?”

  “I’d like to think that if he met me that we would be.”

  “I’m sure you do,” I said.

  Mason Dupree’s face showed up in the newspaper on a frequent-enough basis that I knew why even without his billions he would be considered one of the most eligible bachelors in the city. He was gorgeous in a dark, smoky way, with eyes that seemed to cut out of the page and into me.

  “It’s just decorating,” Molly said, going back into her appeal. “We’ll just go to the apartment, decorate it, and leave. He’ll be at work and we’ll be gone well before any of the guests get there. You probably won’t even have to talk to anybody but the doorman, and he’s a sweetheart. That
’s all. Just think of the money.”

  “How much money?”

  “Enough to not have to worry about finding a job for a few more months.”

  “How did you pull off something like that?”

  “I told my client that as a boutique company our services come at a premium.”

  I gave a deep sigh and looked back at the sink. Those last lingering bubbles wouldn’t be putting food on the table or paying for clothes for a child that was growing faster than I could keep up with. I looked back at Molly and nodded.

  “Alright,” I said. “I’ll do it.”

  Molly squealed happily and wrapped her arms around me in a tight hug, nearly crushing me in the process.

  “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you. Thank you. You’re not going to regret it. I promise. By this time tomorrow you’ll be counting your cash and getting a pedicure.”

  “Probably not on the pedicure front, but I might be trying to find a tiny T-shirt with a talking dog super hero on it.”

  Molly gave me a quizzical look and I shook my head dismissively.

  “Never mind.”

  At that moment Edmond came wandering into the kitchen, his little eyes still sleepy as he gripped his blanket to his face.

  “I just need to find Edmond a babysitter.”

  Chapter Three

  Mason

  There are few things I hate more in life than corporate meetings. Stuffy men twice my age in suits just slightly too retro for my taste droning on and on about things that I already knew as they tried to convince me of the way that they thought that I should bring my own company. Yet, there I was. Sitting in a meeting listening to several members of the board argue about an issue that I had already resolved and was only waiting for them to quiet down to explain, staring out of the window at the day beyond.

  The morning looked innocuous enough. Now that the sun was completely up it was revealing one of those days that looked as cold as it felt. Even though the sun was shining brightly, it seemed to be shimmering, as if bouncing off of the cold itself. I was dreading the party that night even more now than I was when I was talking to Aidan. As my personal assistant it was his job to handle all of the details of events like this, but he had a tendency to try to run things by me “just to make sure”. While I appreciated his thoroughness, the more that I heard about the party, the less I wanted to deal with it. Unfortunately, it was just one of the things that I learned was expected of me when I bought the Showstoppers. It wasn’t just about the game itself or even making decisions about players and the stadium. Instead, it was about wooing players, schmoosing investors, and being the face of the franchise hosting apparently important people in my private box and having parties to celebrate everything from new corporate partnerships to new players, as was the case with the party that was looming that evening. There were times when I felt like as the owner of the team I should be the one making the decisions about how things were going to go and what I was going to do, and yet I found myself getting tumbled along, doing what was expected of me for the good of the team and my investment.

  “Don’t you agree, Mr. Dupree?”

  I looked at the two men who were now staring at me from where they stood beside a presentation board and tried to find the place in my subconscious that I hoped would have been paying attention and chronicled what they said for future review. I glanced at the presentation board, scanning the notes and figures on it. None of it had anything to do with the solutions that I had come up with, which meant that I really didn’t need to comment on it at all.

  “As I told you gentlemen at the beginning of this meeting, this situation has already been resolved. I have done my own research and come to the conclusions that I believe are the best for this project. You will have full reports on your desks by the end of the day.”

  “But Mr. Dupree,” one of the men protested, obviously perturbed that I wasn’t impressed by whatever half of the presentation for which he was responsible.

  I stood and held up a hand to stop him.

  “I appreciate the efforts that both of you went to, but I assure you, you will find the plans that I have made the ideal solution and will be ready to cooperate with me in implementing them as soon as possible.”

  I purposely kept my tone and the words that I chose a careful balance between encouraging them and making sure that they knew that they didn’t really have a choice when it came to going along with what I had decided. They would either cooperate with me and do as I expected of them, or they were welcome to try to find another position in one of the companies that wasn’t even close to as advanced and progressive as mine. It was completely up to them. Frankly, they were both dispensable and replaceable with little concern from me.

  “Can we schedule a meeting to discuss the reports after we have had a chance to read them?” the other man asked.

  I started around the long conference table toward the door to the room, buttoning my suit jacket as I went.

  “You’ll have to discuss that with my secretary and personal assistant. They will see if there is a convenient time in the near future. Now if you gentlemen will excuse me, I have several other meetings to prepare for and need to be on my way.”

  I left the room before either of the men, or any of the others who had been sitting silently at the table listening could say anything. The truth was I did have several other meetings set up for me that afternoon, but I had already made the decision to have my secretary, Lindsay, reschedule them for me. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with any of them. It would be better to reschedule them for a time when my mind was clear and I had the fuss of the party over with so that I could give the issues being discussed at the meetings the full attention that they deserved.

  I approached my office at the same time that what looked like a large funeral spray was coming down the hallway toward me. The skinny legs sticking out from beneath it were swerving slightly as if the delivery person carrying it was having a hard time seeing around the dense assortment of carnations and lilies of the valley.

  What in the living hell was going on?

  “Oh, gracious,” I heard Lindsay say from her desk across from my door. “Just put it inside with the other one.”

  “The other one?” I asked as the flowers pushed past me and entered my office.

  I followed them and found a teenaged boy trying very hard to put down the massive arrangement without knocking it over. He was positioning it carefully next to the desk where another, albeit smaller and less death-related, arrangement sat. When he noticed me he flashed me a toothy smile.

  “There you go, Mr. Dupree,” he said.

  I nodded.

  “Thank you.”

  I wasn’t entirely sure what it was that I was thanking him for, but I figured that if he had managed to wrangle those flowers into the building and up to my office, he deserved some recognition. I reached into my pocket for my bill fold and handed him a generous tip. He stared down at it, babbling a thank you as he headed out of the office. When he was gone, I walked over to my desk and looked at the two flower arrangements. They each had cards and I took them out, holding them next to each other so that I could compare them.

  “Thanks for the other night. I hope to see you again soon,” I read on one of them. “Last night was amazing. Think about me today,” I muttered, reading the other one.

  “Did someone die?” Lindsay asked, coming in the room.

  “I don’t think so,” I said, holding the card that the smaller arrangement had come with back up to the flowers. “Thanks for the other night.” I held the other card toward the large spray. “Last night was amazing.” I looked over at my secretary, who was obviously trying hard not to smile. “Do those sound like they came from the same person?”

  Lindsay shook her head.

  “One says, ‘the other night’ and one says, ‘last night’. It seems to me like one is from somebody who is still hoping for round two even after you have stayed true to your routine and not called after a week,
and the other is from someone far more recent and with far less understanding of floral arrangements.”

  She laughed as I let out a sigh and tossed the cards into the trashcan beside my desk. I picked up the funeral spray and carried it over to her.

  “Find a memorial for a nice war vet to put this on,” I told her.

  “And the other one?”

  “Bring it to your mother in the hospital. Tell her that I hope she’s feeling better.”

  I grabbed my coat and started out of the office.

  “Where are you going?” Lindsay called after me.

  “I’m taking the rest of the afternoon off,” I told her. “Reschedule all of my appointments and meetings for me.”

  “Will do.”

  I shrugged into my coat and stepped out into an afternoon that somehow felt even colder than the morning. Despite the biting chill as it ran down my throat, the air was invigorating, and I decided to walk to my favorite restaurant nearby for an early lunch before going back to my apartment to check on the progress of the party. Maybe once I saw the preparations underway I would feel less resistant and be willing to actually enjoy myself that night.

  Chapter Four

  Ella

  “No, you can’t do that…. I understand, but….no, I understand your exams are…but I can’t…alright. Fine.”

  I ended the call and tossed my phone angrily onto the couch, pacing across the living room floor for a few seconds before Molly came into the room.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Flora just punked out on me,” I said. “She said that she can’t babysit today because she’s studying for exams.”

  “Well, she is in college. I’m sure she’s starting to feel the pressure.”

  “That doesn’t help me,” I said. “While she’s off being one with the library, I have no one to take care of Edmond this afternoon.”

  “I can’t do it because I’ll be there with you.”