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I woke up after hitting the alarm a few times, rising to dress in slacks and a shirt in the quiet house. I added a tie before I went down to make some coffee, greeting Anne as she worked on the day’s meals. Her husband was a long-haul truck driver and she enjoyed keeping busy just like I did. She poured me a travel cup as I nibbled on some toast and asked her what the girls had planned today.
I wasn’t shocked when I found out that Bella would be at school late and Vivian should be home in the afternoon. I told Anne that I might be at the office late tonight and she agreed to stay at the house as I slipped a coat on to leave. I drove into Maryland every day to work and sipped my coffee as I drove, catching up on the latest news. I walked into my building located blocks away from the Inner Harbor and took the elevator to the tenth floor, greeting my staff as I stepped off. I wasn’t an asshole of a boss, but I was tough. I wanted everything to run without a problem and everyone knew that as they smiled and told me the usual morning things. I stopped to make some coffee in the break room and took it to my office as I set my briefcase down. I looked outside, reminding myself that it was a new day and I could make everything normal again.
I took care of some of the new deals since I handled a lot of the clients myself. I had a long background in architecture and was trusted in this industry, taking on a much more active role than just a CEO. I knew that I spent too much time here after losing Nora and that Bella was left with Anne and the nanny. I wasn’t proud of that, but I knew she had Vivian. I knew that she was the one that Bella would talk to, anyway. While I loved my daughter and we were close, she was trying to be strong for me. Bella never acted with me like a little girl that lost her mother, but someone that needed to take care of her remaining parent. That hurt me when I realized that she was working so hard to hide her own pain, so I took to working long hours. I distracted myself. I did everything that I could that wasn’t sabotaging my life to not
think about everything that happened.
In that time, I made a lot of money and put some away for Bella’s college fund. I added to Vivian’s fund as well even though her parents were prepared for their premature death. They set her up well, but I could always do more and with the long hours I was working and the money that was being made, I took care of both of my girls.
They were my girls when Vivian initially moved in with me. When had that changed?
I sat down to get some work done, throwing myself into the emails and phone calls as I always did. I found the email telling me that my amazing assistant would soon be going on her maternity leave for six months, biting my lip as I considered my options. I knew that Bella was far too busy with school and life to help, but Vivian was always so good about helping as needed. She did often in the summer or on school breaks and I knew that she’d be willing to come in on their holiday break in a few weeks. I continued with my clients, ordering delivery for lunch so I could keep working.
Vivian said yes that night as she did for the following years to come. I could see the need to help me in her eyes, her desire to pay me back for something that I had no hesitation about doing. I had a car pick her up when she was younger and even though the girls got cars once they acquired licenses, I still had my driver pick Vivian up. James was trustworthy, and he valued those that I was close to. I watched her grow up even more, taking care to learn everything that she was being taught and do one of the best jobs that I’d seen in my entire life.
However, the older that Vivian got made it that much harder to tame my thoughts about her. I knew that she was dating boys. I saw both girls on their phones a lot, giggling. They got phones in their last year of middle school, mostly for Bella’s sake since she was just getting busier. I saw Vivian leave in her Range Rover often just after dinner and there were times she never came home from school at all. While still being something of a homebody, she was experimenting with her life.
I used my thoughts about that with other women, fucking them hard when I’d bring someone over. I’d taken to using an apartment that I bought in the city for the later nights in the office, and I’d make the women scream my name. They never knew that it was Vivian that I was picturing. They never knew that they were being used in such a way.
CHAPTER 4
Vivian
The years flew by and soon I was entering my third year of high school. Dean was a thing of the past by then and I had taken to dating guys much closer to my own age as I moved past the awkward stage. Not that I suddenly thought I was ready for a career as a supermodel, but I had decent curvy body and hair that was so bright that it was often mistaken as being dyed. It wasn’t. It was the same hair that Mom gifted me with and I was proud of that as well as Dad’s expressive blue eyes. I knew that I was smart and kept my grades up with room to have a little fun as well. Everything seemed to be perfect on the outside as I moved through life, dating this boy or that one. There weren’t several in a row but rather someone every several months or so. Bella was still the bigger flirt of the two of us and with her acting taking off in the higher grades, she received a lot of attention. She was gorgeous like her mom with the pale blonde hair and more on the athletic side, with her father’s alluring light eyes.
I knew that we were causing him stress. I could see it on Boyce’s face during dinner, though Bella wasn’t there a lot for meals. She’d taken on a lot at school but assured us both that she could handle it. She enjoyed keeping busy and she winked at Boyce when she said that, making him chuckle. He couldn’t argue that since he was always one to spend too much time at the office.
I helped him out whenever he was short staffed. I’d go to the office after school, working on homework during the drive in the Escalade. Boyce always had his driver pick me up and I’d go back home with James or sometimes Boyce if we left at the same time. With the commute, I had plenty of time to do the little homework that I had left, and I finished most of my work in class. I was the nerd out of Bella and me. I kept my grades at the very top of the scale while she shone on the stage with average grades. It didn’t matter, and I knew that she’d end up going to Juilliard once we graduated. She’d be on stages and screens the way she wanted to be, while I stayed back and went to some good school and earned some degrees. I’d have a serious job to match my serious life. It suited me, and I considered time at the architecture firm to be experience for that future.
I was having a conversation via text with my latest boyfriend, Trent. He was mad that I worked so much after school despite the times I explained the situation. It didn’t sink in that Boyce did me a huge favor by letting me move into the house and he didn’t get why I wanted to help someone so much when I wasn’t getting paid. I got paid every day in one way or another. Trent was just an ass.
I shoved the phone in my purse as we pulled up to the curb, thanking James for the ride. I brought him coffee sometimes and the food that he loved. I knew that it had to be brutal to just do the driving and errands for Boyce day in and day out. I got out and walked towards the massive entrance to E&M Buildings, strolling through the automatic door as I made my way to the elevator. My phone chimed just as I was getting on and I rolled my eyes as I tucked a loose tendril of hair behind my ear. Dating was a real pain in the ass sometimes.
I pulled the phone back out of my purse as it chimed again, reading Trent’s message before I stepped out and furiously sent back something, I was tired of him whining about stuff after just a month of dating. I told him that I was done as I walked towards Boyce’s office, frowning. I hoped that guys in college were better than high school. I was a Junior and I’d be done in just over a year and a half. “Vivian? Is everything okay?” Boyce asked me as he looked closely at my face. I stared back, my mind blank as I took in his model worthy face with just a little scruff on the chin. His eyes were burning with curiosity and I shoved the phone into my purse before nodding quickly. “What happened?”
“Trent’s an ass.” I widened my eyes as I heard the words and Boyce smirked at me as his eyes darkened. “I’m sorry.”
“I think you’ll find that most boys are at this age,” he said coldly as I pressed my lips together. “You’re better than that, Vivian. You are more mature than that.”
“I remember what happened last time I tried to date an older boy,” I reminded him as heat washed over my body and I felt desire flood my thighs.
Holy shit.
“You were much too young for him. He was also a bad kid and still is.” I had no idea what Dean was up to these days and I nodded as he stared at me for a moment. “You’re like an old soul, Vivian. I wish…” Boyce pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath. “We should get to work. There are some accounts that need to be organized.”
I jumped and went to the desk that I used when I was here. His assistant also came in some days, but she’d been out this week with a sick baby. The laptop was already warmed up and I went into the software that Boyce used to file his client’s information as he sighed and walked to his own desk. He pulled a few sheets of paper from the top and walked over to me, dropping into the chair beside me. “Here are the new clients. Everything you need should be on these sheets.” Boyce was a detail man and he liked all the information on his clients that he could get into the system. We both heard my phone ringing and I stared at the monitor as he glared towards my purse.
Boyce pushed away from the desk and left the office as I blinked for a moment. What the fuck just happened? I swear the man didn’t touch me or barely say a thing, but I was wet with lust right now. He was going to say something to me that he held back, and I wondered if he felt what I did. It was so wrong, and I shouldn’t give it a second thought, but Boyce was in my mind every time I was with one of my boyfriends. I didn’t have sex with all of them but there were a couple that I took that step with just to quench my lust for Boyce. He still had women over and I heard them. I heard them coming for him and got off nearly every time it happened. He was my fantasy now and I w
asn’t sure how to have an orgasm without him being in my head.
Boyce walked through the doorway with two cups, setting one down without coming near me. He walked back over to his desk and sat down, focusing on the screen as I drew the cup closer to me. It was a cinnamon mocha, just like I preferred and inhaled the spicy sweetness slowly as I thanked him in a soft voice. Boyce simply nodded, and I looked back at the screen for a moment before pulling the papers towards me.
We both worked, typing and drinking our coffee as a heavy silence fell over the room. There was something going on and I couldn’t figure it out, but I also wasn’t about to ask. Boyce was my best friend’s father, and older than I was. He was like my father even though he wasn’t blood. There were so many reasons that this was wrong. I read the words and entered the information where it needed to go, almost on autopilot. I could do this for a living and be okay with it. I glanced over at him and he was typing something firmly into the keyboard. Boyce looked pained as I watched him and looked away to keep working.
We got through the afternoon this way and I finished the last file with a sigh of relief. I made sure that everything was saved and looked at Boyce as I heard the other staff leaving the building, talking loudly about their plans tonight. “I’m finished. Is there anything else that you need?”
“Vivian, will you have dinner in the city with me? It’s late and I’d like to talk.” Boyce said as I looked warily at him. “I’ll drive us home after.”
