Page 16 of Fair Trade (New York Monarchs #2)

fourteen

It’s another lonely night, and I’m bored out of my mind in my new home that feels more like a TV show set.

I purchased this lovely brownstone when I realized a move to New York City would no longer be avoidable.

I was hoping an actual home in the Upper West Side instead of a downtown apartment in a skyscraper would help bring in some warmth into my surroundings, given that the spaces I usually reside in tend to feel cold and sterile.

Maybe I overcorrected by buying a home clearly meant for a family that decorates for the holidays and share meals with their parents instead of communicating via their attorneys.

But there was something about this space that made me feel like I had some semblance of control of my future, even as my dead grandfather pulled the strings from beyond the grave.

This was not supposed to happen.

I was not supposed to lose.

And yet, the look in my father’s eyes when he realized he had once again managed to break through my fortified armor and hurt me in the only way he knew how, proved how stupid I had been to make a bet with something that was not solely mine to risk in the first place.

And now I’m paying the price.

Alone in some sitcom house that’s only missing the chorus of laughter and applause from the hidden audience.

At this point in the night, I’ve given up on trying to watch TV or read a book. My mind seems much too loud to allow it.

So I resign myself to taking up residence in my office instead. It’s well after midnight in the UK, but if I fire off a few emails now, my team abroad can tackle their tasks while I’m sleeping here on the East Coast.

I’m usually most comfortable in a tailored suit while tending to business, but here in my home office, you will never catch me in one. Instead, I opt for dark sweatpants and don’t even bother with a shirt.

I pour myself a glass of red wine from my bar cart, a cheap Cabernet Sauvignon that used to be my mother’s favorite, and settle into my chair.

A few emails in, I start to grow frustrated with my lack of focus. I can usually run my media company in my sleep. That’s exactly how it goes since moving back to the states, yet I find myself growing bored with the same song and dance.

I created Stonehaven Media with my bare hands. Many think that I got help from my father, who comes from old money, but quite frankly, those people would be dead wrong.

In order to ask for help from your father, you would first have to know he existed.

Which would be hard to do, since I grew up thinking my dad was either a deadbeat or dead.

My mother raised me on her own, struggled with every dirty penny to make sure I was well taken care of as she climbed her way toward being a respected barrister.

I knew my mother was brilliant. I could see it with my own two eyes as she studied cases at the dinner table while I worked on my schoolwork. Her work ethic was only matched by her devotion to being an amazing parent to me.

After asking about the whereabouts of my father as a young boy and my mother giving vague, roundabout answers, I learned not to ask anymore. And honestly? It didn’t matter, because she was more than enough to fulfill every role in my life.

My mother and I were a team. A well-oiled machine when it came to our routines. Until she dropped a bombshell on me.

She was pregnant.

The kicker?

My dad, the man who was a ghost for all I knew, was the father of the baby girl on the way.

Things were never truly the same after that conversation.

I was angry and confused. Understandable for anyone to be, but for a ten-year-old boy whose mother was the sun he orbited? It was downright devastating.

To know that she lied, even if by omission by keeping details about my father a secret, cut deeply.

That she would dare go back, even for a night, to a man who had no qualms about abandoning his family and would continue to live his life in luxury while we were always on the fringes of financial ruin.

A man who had the gall to walk into my life with a stuffed animal and a balloon as if I were a toddler and not a preadolescent, brimming with rage at the unfairness of it all.

“Things will be different. We’re finally going to be a family now, mijo.” My mother would say, sometimes, I believe, more for herself than for me.

Because as my mother’s belly grew rounder, we saw less and less of my father.

Calls went unanswered and visits became nonexistent.

He never even bothered to visit my mother in the hospital when she gave birth to Daisy.

The baby I was also angry with for infiltrating my life and forcing me to share my mother, my only family.

But the second they placed my little sister in my arms, wailing softly moments after she was born, I knew I had it all wrong.

Because my little sister was not the enemy; she was our saving grace.

It feels foolish to say, but the longer I held her, the more I could feel my anger quickly leaving my body. No longer furious with my mother and her choice of procreation partner, but grateful that she had given me another person I could now call my family.

After my mother passed, the most my father did for us was pay for boarding school here in the States.

Mostly because the cat was out of the bag that he had two illegitimate children, and apparently that’s what cold-blooded rich people do when they want a problem solved.

They make it go away. Daisy was only a year old, but I begged for him to keep us together. She was the only family I had left.

It was me and her from there on out. She was the last piece of my mother here on this earth, and I vowed from a young age that I would always protect her, that no harm would ever come to her.

Yet here I am, tangled in a clusterfuck with my sperm donor because I dared to gamble something that rightfully belonged to both Daisy and me, and he had managed to beat me at my own game.

And my grandfather, in a pitiful attempt to make amends with me for turning a blind eye when he knew damn well of my existence, offered to play peacemaker for my father and me.

He was legally in possession of what I needed to get back.

I was hoping his will would state that he was gracefully returning it to me in one piece, but in true Arthur Stonehaven fashion, everything seemed to be a game for him.

There were two ways for me to resolve this matter according to his will.

One I’m currently taking seriously by actually putting in the work as owner of a damn baseball team.

The other option would be much quicker, but I’d much sooner flush my billions down the toilet than entertain the preposterous idea.

With that in mind, I pull up my New York Monarchs inbox and skip over every email Marla has flagged for me until I land on an unread email from Luisa.

Ah, Luisa. Just what I needed.

I don’t think. I let my fingers fly as I respond to her email.

As I press Send, I feel the faintest bit of a smile on my face and realize it’s probably the closest I’ve come to that expression since I last saw her.

I roll my eyes at my absurd thought as I gleefully reread my response.

Childish? Perhaps.

Entertaining? Absolutely.

Especially since Luisa has been out of the office for a string of away games in Miami and I’ve been left with nothing but actual work to do.

I’ve drained the rest of my glass, pathetically ready to call it a night, when my laptop pings with a notification.

From Luisa.

Thank God there was no wine left in my glass, because the embarrassing speed at which I clicked on my keyboard would have left my desk looking like a crime scene.

I right the glass, then set it at a safe distance from myself and open her response.

It takes me five solid minutes to stop laughing and get my breathing under control. I know based on the time I received the email.

I should stop.

I’ve indulged for the night and gotten my fix. I really shouldn’t push the boundary, but then again…

There. Not so bad. Still cheeky while reeling it in at the end.

I can go ahead and call it a—

Ding .

Surely not.

This quickly? Was she waiting by her phone for my response?

The thought pleases me more than it should.

I quickly open her email and can see that all the niceties are long gone. I smile widely before I can even read the first word.

My skin feels electrified as I reread her snarky message over and over again. I love that she dropped all the pretenses and spoke to me like she did the night we met. The thought makes me wish she was here so I could bend her over my desk and give her the spanking she’s asking for.

She even slipped in that fungus reference I wasn’t too keen on before. But now I’m feeling like it’s one of our things.

No.

We don’t have things . We had one passionate night of sex and are now forced to play nice at work.

But then again, I am the boss, so how nice do I actually have to be when it comes to my naughty angel?

I respond like I have nothing to lose.

After I hit Send, the part that sticks out to me the most is how I signed off on the email.

Yours .

I’ve never done that before and don’t know what possessed me to do it now.

Must be the cheap, sentimental wine.

I send a quick message to Marla and tell her to make sure any email correspondences between Luisa and I remain confidential and are not screened by a third party.

I usually do this with my company when I’m sending encrypted emails containing sensitive information, so it’s not an uncommon request coming from me.

I close the laptop and force myself out of my office.

She isn’t going to respond to that tonight. Or at all. Knowing Luisa, she’s cursing me out as she stares at her screen.

Would love to see the look on her face, though.

I enter my room and go straight to my ensuite bathroom. I drop my sweatpants, along with my underwear, and stand in the shower, turning it on with high pressure before the cascading water has a second to warm. I’m telling myself it’s not a cold shower. Just a quick refresh before bed.

I don’t let my hands linger. I wash and rinse and am out of there before I allow my thoughts to drift back to my smart and snarky employee.

God, I try hard not to think about the forbidden aspect of it all, because surely that would be my undoing.

I put on a fresh pair of boxers and slip into bed without incident.

I grab my phone from the nightstand and go to plug it in when a thought occurs to me.

I never set up my Monarchs email to my push notifications.

It didn’t seem necessary before, but now I wonder.

Before I can give it too much thought, I log into it and turn on my notifications.

Must be divine intervention. Or the universe’s cruel joke.

Because staring back at me is Luisa’s response.

Short and to the point.

I smile as I shut off the screen and rest the phone against my chest.

Jokes on her, though. Because in my dreams is exactly where I’ll find her tonight.