Page 44 of Sweetest Sin (Tempting Love #1)
Peyton
He was being serious. He brought me to work with him, but not to his office downtown. No, we’re standing in the beautiful lobby of Hotel Blu, a resort that—according to Dominick—has three pools, a state-of-the-art gym, a luxury spa, a private golf course, and many other amenities.
“I can’t believe you own this,” I say in awe.
He told me before he owned a few hotels, but I never pictured them to look like this.
Actually … now that I’m thinking about it, this place screams Dominick. It’s luxurious yet understated. It screams wealth, but isn’t ostentatious—similar to his home.
“And when we get married, you’ll own it as well,” he says nonchalantly, like he didn’t just mention us getting married and sharing his assets with me in one breath. “Which is why I thought you’d like to work here.”
“You want me to work here?” I breathe out, scanning the place with new eyes.
It’s my dream job. What I worked through school for. But …
“I don’t want to be given a job just because I’m sleeping with you. I mean, I know the sex is good, but …” I smirk, half joking, but Dominick doesn’t laugh.
“There are two things I don’t mess around with: my family and my businesses. If I didn’t think you were capable, I wouldn’t have brought you here.”
He takes my hand and saunters through the hall and into a room marked PRIVATE . It’s an office, just as luxurious as the hotel, with a sleek mahogany desk and a comfy brown leather couch.
He slides one of the visitor seats back for me and then rounds the desk, sitting on the other side. He reaches into his briefcase and pulls out a file, which he pushes across the desk, opening it for me to see.
I eye what he’s showing me for several seconds, and then I glance up at him in shock.
“That’s my résumé.” I flip through the pages. “And my grades and internships. You have my letters of recommendations.”
And then it hits me. When I submitted applications to local hotels on a job finder site, I applied to this one.
“Based on your degree and experience, I’d like to offer you a paid internship position.
Vaughn, the hotel manager, has been asking to be considered for a position at the new hotel when it’s complete.
Since it’s going to be a little bit before that happens, I told him he could start training his replacement. ”
“And there’s no one else in-house who wants to move up?”
“Nobody that has the glowing résumé you have.” He leans back and steeples his fingers over his torso. “You said your dream was to work in hospitality at a hotel. Now, you can have it.”
“Why are you doing this?” I ask curiously. “I thought you wanted me pregnant. Won’t it be pointless to go through the trouble of training me, only to have me take maternity leave?”
“You’re not pregnant yet,” Dominick says.
“And maternity leave is allowed. If you decided to stay home with our baby, then we’d hire a replacement, and when you were ready to go back to work, you’d already know what you were doing.
But who says you can’t do both? Men have kids and jobs all the time. Why can’t women?”
“Are you saying you’ll be a stay-at-home dad while I focus on my career?” I smirk, expecting him to laugh me off.
Instead, he simply shrugs. “We’ll cross that road when we come to it. If it means we hire a nanny, then that’s what we do. But wanting to expand our family doesn’t mean you can’t follow your dreams.”
He gets up and comes over to me, sitting in the seat next to me and turning it to face me. “I want a life with you, Peyton, and I don’t want to follow in Andrey’s footsteps. My mother felt trapped and oppressed, and I never want you to feel like that.”
He reaches out and cups the side of my face, and instinctively, I sigh into his touch.
“If you genuinely don’t want another baby with me right now, get on birth control. I’ll hope it doesn’t work …”
He grins devilishly, and I swear my panties dampen. The man wanting to breed me shouldn’t be so hot, but it totally is.
“But I’ll support whatever you decide. I thought about you for years, our short time together staying in my head on replay, and now that I have you, I’ll take you however I can get you.”
“You’re making it hard to think clearly,” I choke out, overcome by his sweet words.
“Then, take some time to think about it,” he says, leaning in closer and placing a chaste kiss on my lips.
“The job is yours. I’ll introduce you to Vaughn, and he’ll show you around today.
If you want to train with him, then you can do so.
If you want to work at another one of my hotels, you can do that. If you want to stay home, go for it.”
“You’re being very accommodating,” I joke. “And the job sounds like something I’d want, but I don’t want to be given it because you love me.”
He rests his hand on my hip, and I smile to myself, loving that Dominick craves my touch. The man always has to be touching me in some way. Even at night, if I roll away from him in my sleep, he finds me and drags me back into his arms.
“I know moving here wasn’t in your plans,” he says. “But I’m going to make sure you never regret it. And if hiring you to work at one of my hotels makes you happy, then it’s a win-win because any of them would be lucky to have you as an employee.”
“You flatter me.” I wrap my arms around his neck and lean on my tiptoes to give him a kiss. “Keep it up, Mr. Antonov, and you’ll be rewarded tonight when we get home from work.”
I waggle my brows, and he chuckles.
“Oh, really? That’s all it takes?” He glides his hands around to my ass and gives my cheeks a squeeze. “Putting your ass to work was the key to your pretty pussy all along?”
“You know what they say,” I tell him with a laugh. “Happy wife, happy life.”
Today was, without a doubt, one of the best and most exhausting days I’d had in a long time.
I’d forgotten how much work went into running a hotel, and I’d never worked in one with this much extravagance.
But Vaughn was amazing and didn’t treat me with kid gloves, despite Dominick’s threat for him to be good to me before he left to go to his office downtown.
I shadowed Vaughn all day, taking notes on my phone and learning more from him in one day than half my classes had ever taught me.
Before I knew it, it was lunchtime, and Dominick texted that he would pick up Damien from school and that when I was ready to go home, a car would be waiting for me.
I teared up at his text—because I hadn’t experienced having a partner before—and then got back to work.
Now, it’s almost six o’clock, and I’m on my way home, excited to come back tomorrow.
I’ve never minded working—it’s all I’ve ever known—but doing what you love makes it that much better.
And I already love working at Hotel Blu.
It’s clear Dominick only hires efficient, knowledgeable employees, and a sense of pride runs through me when I remember him showing me my file.
He might love me and want me to be happy, but he wouldn’t have hired me if he didn’t feel I was capable.
When I get home, the living room is empty, so I follow the voices into the kitchen, stopping in the doorway to take in the sight in front of me.
Dominick is at the stove with Damien standing on a chair next to him. He’s explaining to Damien how to know when the pancakes are ready to be flipped, and Damien is watching intently.
“Bubbles!” Damien yells loud enough to make me flinch, but Dominick just laughs and nods, not the least bit annoyed by our son’s overenthusiasm.
“That’s right,” he says. “You ready to flip?”
When our son nods, Dominick takes Damien’s hand around the spatula, and the two of them flip the pancake together.
“Yay!” Damien cheers. “I did it!”
“You did,” Dominick agrees, pride in his eyes for something so inconsequential as flipping a pancake. “You ready to do the next one?”
I watch for a few minutes as Dominick and Damien make breakfast for dinner.
My heart is so full of love and happiness, and I know there’s no going back.
This is our life now. In Harbor Point, with the man I never thought I’d have a future with, but who has quickly become a vital part of my world.
But not just my world. Damien’s too. He’s already fallen in love with his dad and become attached, and I could never take that away from him.
“Mmm, it smells delicious,” I say, walking into the kitchen and making my presence known.
“We’re making pancakes!” Damien says, lifting one up to show me.
“Hey, baby.” Dominick leans over without leaving Damien and gives me a quick kiss, causing butterflies to attack my chest. Dominick might be ruthless in other aspects of his life, but in our home, he’s soft and romantic. “How was your day?”
I tell him about everything I learned today while they finish cooking.
Then, as we sit down to eat, the garage door opens and closes, and Matteo and Lorenzo come sauntering in.
I only have eyes for Dominick, but I would be blind if I didn’t notice how good-looking all of them are.
I can’t even imagine the heads they must turn when they go out together.
“What’s up, little man?” Matteo fluffs Damien’s hair and then has a seat at the six-person table next to him.
Matteo is dressed in his usual jeans and T-shirt, making him look more gangster than billionaire with his dozens of tattoos running up and down his arms and across his hands and knuckles.
If Dominick hadn’t told me they were business partners and Matteo was worth as much as Dominick, I never would’ve believed the man had money.
Dominick says he dresses like that because he handles the streets, and if he walked around in a suit, he’d lose the respect of the men they employ.