Page 6 of Mafia Boss' Surprise Baby

“Right. I’m just not sure the robotics program needs this much money. They have all new equipment. The teams will go to competition with their travel expenses paid already.”

“Then give it to the libraries.”

“Okay, will do. You know, you and your old man couldn’t be more different,” he says.

I know it’s a compliment.

“Thanks,” I say. I want to be a better leader and a better man than my father, but it’s awkward having Ben Ragucci mention it to my face. “Save the compliments for my eulogy, okay?”

“You got years ahead of you, boss,” he says and nods to me as he leaves.

I know he’s right. I have years of this job ahead of me, of guiding this organization and building my legacy as long as no one else gets the crazy idea to try to challenge me or take it from me. Frankly, I get a little tired just thinking about it.

I like what I do, and I like being in charge, but there’s never peace for very long and another forty years of this doesn’t sound like heaven right now. It feels good to give to charities and know I’m changing the face of the city little by little, but all I have to look forward to is going home dead tired at night and doing it all again the next day. It’s no wonder my dad was such an asshole—the grind is unforgiving and it never stops.

I open up my laptop and look over the email from Kate’s boss. She does great work, and all reports indicate she gets along fine with everybody there. The only downside to her re-entrance into my life, is the nonstop hard-on I seem to have whenever her name is brought up.

I’ve got a case of lust that I can’t seem to slake. She’s not even a possibility for me. An employee at the very least, but the little sister of my best friend. Nothing about that situation lends itself to what I want, which is to pluck her, ripe and wanting, and get a taste.

Being the object of my fantasies wasn’t in the job description. I have no business thinking about her that way. Hell, I don’t need to think of her at all.

Concentrating on work is impossible now. All I can think of is getting home where I can relieve some of the tension in my body that’s all for her.

6

KATE

Everybody in the back office at The Oyster is nice to me. I got the hang of their software program pretty quickly and the work is easy. I had to do twice as much for less money out in California every day, but in LA I wasn’t hired through the back door by my brother’s best friend.

Speaking of Rory, he’s frustrating me now. I see him about ten minutes every day. The guy’s never home. He’s always working or going out. Part of me wants to ask if I can go out with him and his friends sometime, but that makes me feel like a tag-along, like when I was a kid and he didn’t want me around. Maybe I just wish he wanted to ask me along sometime, get to know me better as an adult. He’s the only family I have left, and it makes me sad that we keep missing each other.

I’m in the employee lounge getting coffee when I get an alert on the group chat for the accounting team.Boss in building.

I turn to Martha who’s right behind me for coffee and raise my eyebrows. “Do I need to run back to my desk before he gets here?”

“Nah, he never comes to accounting. He’ll go to the executive floor. It’s just nice to have a heads up in case you have to go up there for anything.”

“Is he that scary?”

“He can be. But he’s also hot as hell.” She giggles nervously. I nod, because I get it. I also stare at my coffee for a second, dejected, because it might have been nice to say hi and see a familiar face since it’s not like my brother makes time to see me. I feel childish and irritated with myself as I go back to my desk.

I’m reading an email about an office potluck the next week when I sense him.

He steps off the elevator and a combination of expensive peppery cologne and pure sex hits me. My heart kicks up reflexively in response. I shut my eyes for a second and breathe deeply for the sheer pleasure of it. I glance at Martha and notice she’s holding a manila envelope in both hands. I know for damn sure it’s empty. We don’t use interoffice mail—we email or text. It’s stage business, something to do with her hands while she ogles him. She’s a genius, I decide.

He breaks off from the two suits walking with him and heads for me.

“Mr. O’Halloran,” I say.

He gives me a wry half-smile. “I came to see if you’re settling in okay.”

“I am, thank you.”

“You’re liking the job?”

“It’s great. It’s easy, everyone’s nice to me. I appreciate it. But you don’t have to check up on me.”

“I want to,” he says. “It’s a big shift from LA to back home I bet.”

---