Work Wife by Dee Ellis

Chapter Nine

Kolt  

Falling in love with my wife has been the best time of my life.

Last night, I broke every stupid rule I made up to keep us both safe. Neither of us want safe. We want what has sparked between us since day one. From the moment she showed up at my office it was not an assistant I wanted. I just wanted her—and now I have her.

Once I felt her need burn as hot for me as mine rages for her, I knew pretending was over. I am not just her boss and there is nothing business about our relationship. I own her body, her soul, and she owns mine. I took her every way she would let me last night just to prove it. To both of us. A little sated after barely leaving her body last night, I figured I could do some business today.

“Why refuse my meetings for weeks?” I ask around a puff of cigar that cost more than some cars.

“Cocky little shit, you reminded me of myself. Did it to piss you off. See if you worked for it. You did. Got my business before we even met,” he taunts because he knows he can, blowing a huge cloud of smoke in my face.

Just like that, we agree to deal. We talk about how he can benefit from working with my firm and with my cousins’ firm and how we can benefit from his engineering firm. It is a win-win for everyone involved. I ought to be thrilled, and I am, but not for the reasons I expected to be.

Until last night making a deal with him was all I cared about.

“You get one too,” Holden chuckles when I check my phone for the second time—not that either of us talked much business.

Glancing over, I feel my face go hot. Yeah, I got one. He grins down at his phone and lets out another laugh, puffing at his cigar as he finishes off his whisky. If he got what I got, I know our meeting is over.

My wife is playing in the pool with his wife, Fallon, and a few other ladies. Besides loving how she is fitting with these ladies because they will be around us often, I love how happy she seems to be. What I know about her past tells me she never had good friends and I want her to have that with my cousins’ wife and even with my new partner’s wife.

Clearly, they are a bad influence on her—but I don’t mind one bit.

Because on my phone is a stunning photo of my wife. My abso-fucking-lutely soon-to-be wife. Because I am locking that shit down. Keeping that ring on her finger and keeping her. Chances are she is already growing my child—I made sure she got plenty of my baby batter last night. And today I'll give her another dose. Just thinking of it and seeing her big tits and plump ass in her stunning little bathing suit is enough to make me ready to go.

“Think it might be time to go see to my wife. You see to yours,” he laughs heartily when I jump to my feet.

Damn right I need to see to my wife. Her first photo is sexy with her against the skies in that tiny little suit. Skin glowing in the sun and freckles on her face, she is a goddamn goddess. My goddess. A second photo of her sitting on a raft, after I teased her about sexting, flashes her pretty pink pussy, her hand clutching her bare breast. Hard and heavy in my jeans, I remember how that sweet pussy tastes and how perfect it fits my cock.

“Wife,” I shout when I find her floating on the raft, laughing with the other ladies.

My cousin Jase plucks his wife right out of the water, throwing her over his shoulder. And I laugh when I see Emrie playfully trying to paddle away from Holden. Rian Thorne is laughing loud as her husband Roman curses her in another language and Aria Holmes watches us all in amusement before her husband jumps into the water to chase her.

“Yes, husband,” my sweet angel purrs as she floats in the middle of the huge pool.

Her tits bounce in the tiny top barely holding them back and her thighs shimmer in the sun. I can see my marks from claiming her, and I want to lick them to remind us how good it was. Crouching by the pool, I wiggle my finger at her and laugh when she flushes and sits up, kicking her feet in the water to inch closer.

“You look amazing. And you look like mine with my marks on your skin and my ring on your finger,” I hum, reaching out to take her hand, kissing her ring finger.

“Kind of feel like yours,” she murmurs back, and I can tell she has been drinking. I like how soft her eyes look and how big her smile is when she grins up at me.

“Come, love,” I whisper just for her ears, “let me remind you how it feels to be mine.”

Tugging her out of the water, I hold her against me, kissing her softly as she clings to me. I don’t care that she soaks me. I hope she’s soaked between her thighs because I need inside her right now. I don’t bother going in the house. Instead, still kissing her as she winds her little body around me, I head out towards the gardens.

“I am having the best time of my life,” she whispers against my neck, her lips nipping and her teeth biting.

“Do you like being my wife, sweetheart?” I murmur against her throat as I mirror her teases, licking at her sweet skin.

“Mmm, I do. I like being here with you. They like me and no one ever likes me. My parents never even liked me,” she hiccups as she says it, it’s so cute that I want to laugh, but I don’t.

“Your parents adore you I am sure,” I counter, walking through a grassy path to duck under a flower trellis. It hides us from view and the blooms frame her beautiful body.

“No,” she whispers, and I stop because I hear sadness in her voice, “they don’t at all. I never told you. My father claimed I was not his. Said mother slept with the help. They never wanted me. He disowned me so she did too.”

Data is one of my favorite things. Not just figures and code but random trivia. I know that my woman went to college for liberal arts, she was in a sorority, she likes three creamers but no sugar in her coffee, and she grew up in Crystal Cove, not Harmony Hollow. I missed important data about her. Like who and where her parents are—so I can find them so I can hurt them the same way they hurt her.

“Who are they, sweetheart?” I ask gently, brushing her dark hair back from her face, growling when I see tears staining her cheeks.

“Why? They don’t want me. Never did. Josef and Anya. I hate them because I don’t know how to love right because they never showed me. Maybe you will show me?” her voice breaks, and I want to crush her to me and promise her I will.

But I don’t hold her, and I don’t say a word. Because I cannot believe what I am hearing. I run checks and balances on whoever I work with, and I ran it on her. Still somehow, I missed that she is the daughter of Josef Sparks. My direct competition. Hell, he is no real competition to me—and especially not after my deal with Holden Hill—but he damn sure thinks he is. 

Josef Sparks is a brutal bastard who has tried to steal designers, deals, and dollars out from underneath me. I stare down at Karina and wonder how I never knew. How I missed it. Why she never told me who her father was, knowing what we do is in direct conflict with what he does. And a sick feeling of betrayal starts to seep through me, washing away everything else.

“How do I not know who your family is? How is it the one thing you never told me before? Hell, Karina. He is my biggest rival,” I grit the words out and drop my hands from her hips, pushing away from her.

Slowly she blinks up at me and I realize she is not lying or hiding something. I think back to all the questions she asks, and all the stumbles she makes at the office. At first, she drove me crazy with it. My girl always recovers because she never makes a mistake twice. And neither do I.

“Did you come to work for me because of who your father is?”

“No. I barely know my father,” she mumbles, shaking her head as she pushes away from me.

“Wait,” I panic as I call after her, “how can I know that?”

“Because I just told you that. I told you a dozen times since we met that I don’t speak to my parents, they cut me out of their lives years ago and I stayed out. I am not here for them. I was here for you,” her voice breaks off on a sob and I know I fucked up.

But I don’t say that. I don’t go after her when she rushes away from me, back towards the house. I need to let my brain work through this. How can I trust someone who could cost me everything? Someone who kept this from me knowing it could affect my business and my life. I don’t know if I can.

I walk the gardens, wishing I had her beside me so I could tell her how much I love this place. It was the first place we ever owned, our first real home, and we come back here as often as we can, not just for business weekends. I wanted to bring her here to show her where we really became the men we are now.

My firm is all I have. I built it from the ground up—with lots of help from Jase and Milo, of course—and I am proud that I never did dirty deals or worked with people who do. When I reach the fountain I hoped to bring her to tonight, to propose for real, the ring in my pocket—her real ring—feels so heavy it weighs me down. It represents the first dirty deal of my life—me asking her to pretend for me when it was always real for both of us. 

I am in love with her, but I fear I just ruined everything.