Page 117 of Never In My Wildest Dreams

Bottom line, there was only one way to win her heart and her trust.

One way to become part of this little family.

He reached for his phone and powered it up. Then, he tapped out a text message.

Booker: Need to carve out some time to talk to you tomorrow.

Before he could check his other messages, the phone vibrated. When he saw the name on the screen, he answered. “Hey. What’re you doing up?” It had to be one in the morning in New York.

George sighed. “The Banger’s wife called. He hasn’t been home in three days.”

“Ah, shit. You going to get Daryl on it?” Their concierge would hire a PI if necessary.

“There’s no point. When he’s gone like this, there’s no way to track him down, and his wife knows that. I’m just trying to talk her off the ledge before she jumps on social media and destroys his reputation.”

“I’ll never understand why people love drama.” And yet, his career was filled with it. “I don’t know why she doesn’t divorce his ass.”

“Who are we to get into other people’s business, though, right?” George asked. “She has her reasons. Anyhow, aren’t the guests showing up tomorrow?”

“Yeah.”

“Right, you won’t have time to talk to me. I’m up now, so, talk. What’s going on?”

When he signed his contract with his partners, he’d thought about George getting married and having a kid. He’d thought about Caleb’s parents needing his care in Florida. He’d thought about Andreas’s baby mama following through on her threat to move back to New Hampshire, where her family could help raise her son since he couldn’t be around as much as she needed.

He’d believed he was the only one who’d have no reason to breach the contract.

And now, here I am.“I need to make some changes.”

“This is about the kid, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. My daughter.” The word felt strange in his mouth.

“Can’t say I haven’t been expecting this.”

He sat up, setting his feet on the plush carpet. “Look, about the contract?—”

“Dammit, Booker. I knew this was going to happen. Look, we all agreed to seven years, and it hasn’t even been three. It’s too soon. They won’t go for it.”

“But you will?”

“I don’t even know your plan.”

He drew in a breath. “I want to work remotely.”

“Not going to happen. And you want to know why? Because Caleb will move to Tampa, Andreas will move to New Hampshire, you’ll go to Wyoming, and where will that leave our agency?”

“I hear you. I get it. But it doesn’t have to unravel us.” He got up and paced across the room.

“You sure about that? If you were an athlete, would you sign with a new agency that’s all over the place? Why would you choose the dude who lives in Calamity, Wyoming over Marcus’s Park Avenue, billion-dollar firm?”

George wasn’t telling him anything he hadn’t told himself. But he had to make this happen. He had no choice. “New York can still be the base. That’s where we’ll have our meetings. I’ll open an office here—at my expense—and I’ll be in New York for our weekly meetings. That’s something Caleb and Andreas might agree to.” In any event, he had to give it a try. He had to convince them. “I’m out of the office most of the time anyway. All of us are. That’s the nature of our jobs.”

“You know I’ll do whatever’s best for you, but don’t lose sight of the reason we worded the contract the way we did. We knew this kind of stuff would come up, and the point of the clause was to keep everyone focused on building the agency. It’s nearly impossible to compete against Elite, and we knew we didn’t stand a chance if we allowed ourselves to get sidetracked by life.”

“I agreed because I never thought I’d have kids, but here I am.”

“Is it kids or is it Lorelei?”

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