Page 31 of Vegas Daddies (Forbidden Fantasies #17)

GAVIN

“ S ir, with all due respect, this would be much easier to accomplish, logistically, if you were back in LA.”

This was roughly the eighth time this had been said, in so many words, since I’d gotten on this video call with some of my subordinates at Ratliff Records.

It wasn’t an urgent meeting, nothing was on fire, but my employees clearly wanted me back in the office.

Wanted my little side quest in Allie’s town to wrap up sooner rather than later.

It was nice to know they liked me enough to actively want the boss to come back from vacation.

Not that I’d been vacationing, really. Everything I could do out of the office had been getting itself done on my phone or my smart watch or my laptop, all of which I’d had pretty much attached to me constantly at the beach rental.

I’d never really known how to take a vacation, having learned at my workaholic father’s feet from a young age.

Dad always made time for me, for my two younger siblings before and after they’d each moved out of California to pursue their own non-business-related dreams, but that didn’t mean we didn’t sometimes feel jealous of the record company taking up the majority of his valuable time.

Mom certainly had a hard time with it, especially when we were younger.

I was certainly repeating the pattern. And yet here I was, making time for my almost-wife and maybe-child while working. Dear old Dad would be proud of my efficiency, I figured.

“I’ll be back in town soon,” I reassured my Ratliff Records crew, keeping my ETA to myself, in part because I didn’t want to admit to myself that I’d just realized that I had no more reason to stay here now that we’d figured out who Allie was married to.

Sure, we were still waiting for the verdict regarding Daphne, but there was no reason I couldn’t get that news back in the city.

Back into the rhythm of my regular life.

Then why did I still feel like I wanted to be here, in this small, unassuming town that was nothing like the big city I called home?

Like I had some kind of unfinished business?

Was I haunting Allie now like some kind of horny poltergeist?

Jesus, I’d never been this way with any of the women I’d slept with in the past. Not even close.

What was so goddamn special about Allie Tate?

Her perfect body? Her adorable face with a smile that was tailor-made to charm the masses?

The fiery personality that matched her fiery hair?

And of course, then there was her voice.

Stop this immediately, Gavin. You’re acting like a lovesick fool.

I was rattled by that thought as I made an excuse to get off my business call, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

Sure, there was plenty about the Allie situation that was pretty unique in the broader context of my love life.

The marriage scare, for one. The potential added complication of Daphne, who kept coming back to mind even when I tried hard not to think of her.

The way my friends and I had fucked Allie together in Vegas all those years ago, our group efforts to get her off heightening the experience for all of us by driving her completely wild.

And now Cade and I had shared her again, the whole experience just as erotic and twice as intimate as it had been back then. Or at least it seemed that way with the feeling of her clenching around me still fresh in my memory, not faded by years of separation and distorted fantasies.

But no matter how much logic tried to tell me that Allie Tate was just another woman, that I was as detached from her as I was to everyone I’d slept with since my father died and my ability to care had died with him, there was a heavy feeling in my gut at the thought of leaving town. Never seeing her again.

That did it. No more hemming and hawing like a little bitch, even just inside my own head.

I’d stay a while longer in Allie’s town with its subpar restaurants and lack of nightlife and nothing special in it besides the Tate women—but only until we knew if the younger of them was my kid.

Then, it was back to LA. No matter how unpleasant it sounded, having a deadline for when I’d leave Allie behind for good was the way to go.

I had a life—and more importantly, a business—to get back to.