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  “Are you asking?” I say, trying to keep my eyes from popping clean out of their sockets.

  “Depends on your answer,” he drawls sexily, moving his hand from my thigh up to caress my face. I want to tell him he’s getting colder, but I refrain out of shock that we’re discussing living together.

  “You don’t think it’s too soon to talk about that?” I ask. Are we really talking about this?

  “If I were younger, maybe, but I’m not. I know what I want, sugar. And it’s you.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” I stutter out.

  “Do you want kids? Because I really do.”

  Have Knox Daniel’s baby? Um, yeah. “I love kids. I guess I just thought if I wasn’t married by now, it probably wouldn’t happen for me.”

  “You’re not even thirty yet.”

  “I know there’s still time. It’s just the baby daddy prospects have been weak. And I don’t want to have a baby without being married.”

  “Old fashioned girl, I like that.” He leans forward and kisses my forehead, causing me to melt.

  “Why did you ask me if I’d move in with you?”

  “Because, sugar lips, I’m pretty sure I’m madly, passionately, deeply in love with you.”

  “Then the answer to your question is yes. I’d love to move in with you.”

  THURSDAY, OCTOBER 23RD

  Captive Films — Santa Monica

  RILEY

  I can’t focus. Shelby keeps texting me, wanting to see me. Ariela sent me a picture of her and Kyle working on her new office. Which pissed me off. Kyle is young and buff and good-looking. And Maggie says he totally is crushing on Ariela. Maybe I should let him have her. I honestly just don’t know what to do about Ariela. We had fun on our nearly forty-eight hour date.

  Until the pier.

  It killed me that she wouldn’t make love to me under it. The night before she told me that she couldn’t sleep with me because it was our first date. Which was cute and I played along, doing nothing but kissing her until we both fell asleep. But it was the pier. I mean, what was the point of reliving all those memories if you aren’t going to recreate the best part? And her reasoning was bullshit. That if we’re starting over, we shouldn’t have sex until we’re ready? That we waited back then. Which made no fucking sense since we’ve done it numerous times since she’s been back in my life. But when I called her on it, she said, Look, Riley, I can’t sleep with you if you’re sleeping with Shelby, too. You know that Collin cheated on me, and I am just not an open relationship kind of girl. I’m willing to wait for you to figure things out, but I’m not willing to do that with you until you do.

  Which really pissed me off, because she put it all on me. And she has no right to do that. She’s still married. Just sleeping with a married woman goes against everything I believe. And she’s said absolutely nothing about her divorce. I don’t even know if or when it will happen! Maybe the spark that Ariela used to have isn’t the same. Maybe being in an unhappy and unfulfilling marriage for so long has sucked some of the life out of her. I know it’s still there, buried deep down. Probably the same place where my heart has been buried. She was right. She is definitely not the same girl I fell in love with. And I can’t decide if that’s a good or bad thing.

  I guess it’s just different. And that’s part of why it’s so hard. Half the time it’s like no time has passed between us. The other half is filled with turmoil and rife. Part of me doesn’t even want to try with her. Between the pier and the way she treated Shelby, I just don’t know how in the world we could ever work.

  Or maybe I’m just telling that to myself because I’m afraid she’ll break my heart. Again. Just her rejection under the pier cut me deep.

  I stand up quickly, knowing I need to do something, but not sure what.

  Captive Films — Santa Monica

  DAWSON

  “Are you okay?” I ask my brother when he barges into my office and sits down in the chair in front of my desk.

  “I don’t know. Everything is so fucking complicated. My head is a mess.” He runs his hand through his hair, looking frustrated. “I just don’t understand why whoever is in charge of running the universe decided to bring Ariela back into my life and have Shelby get pregnant all at the same time.”

  “How much longer until you can find out if you’re the father?”

  “Fuck, I don’t know. A couple weeks, I think. They said we could find out as early as eight weeks. I think she’s six weeks right now. The bitch of it all is I didn’t want the baby. Like not at all. And I maybe secretly hoped it wasn’t true. Or that she’d lose it. But then she called me crying the night of the wedding and was afraid she was having a miscarriage”—he stops and puts his hand to his chest—“it’s weird, but I was upset. I didn’t want her to lose my baby.” He rolls his eyes at himself. “I make no fucking sense.”

  “Well, the pregnancy was a surprise, Riley. You didn’t plan for it to happen. Trust me, I know. That takes some getting used to.”

  “You loved Whitney, though.”

  “And what about Shelby?” I ask, studying him closely.

  “That’s what’s worrying me more than having the baby, to be honest. I have feelings for her.” He stands up and starts pacing. “Why in the fuck do I have feelings for her? It was just sex.”

  “You think you love her?”

  He shakes his head. “I don’t know. She’s confident and bold all the time, but she was so vulnerable and upset the other night. It got to me, emotionally. And it upset her that I let Ariela come with me, which made me feel even worse.”

  “Ariela went with you to see Shelby when she thought she was having a miscarriage? Are you an idiot? You had to know that would never work.”

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t. Ariela told me she loved me and would love the baby. That she was going with me. I thought it might be helpful having another woman around.”

  “But then the claws came out?”

  “Yeah, Ariela’s. And that I did not expect. She was downright rude to Shelby. And it pissed me off. Of course, it probably didn’t help that we were literally mid-fuck when I stopped because Shelby had called three times in a row.”

  “Oh boy. So it was an emotionally charged situation. How did you handle it?” He stops pacing and sits back down.

  “I sent Ariela home. Shelby wanted me to spend the night with her because she was so upset.”

  “Understandable,” I agree. “But I’m sure that didn’t make Ariela too happy.”

  “No. It didn’t.”

  “When you spent the night with Shelby, did anything happen?” I ask, gently.

  “We talked. I held her. She fell asleep in my arms.”

  “And what about when you woke up?”

  “I wasn’t going to have sex with her!” he fumes. “She had been cramping and stuff. Even bleeding a little.”

  “Just asking, bro.” I hold up my hands. “Don’t jump all over me.”

  “See. That’s what Shelby does to me. I freaking care about her. And it’s fucked up.”

  “It’s not fucked up that you would grow to care for the mother of your baby, Riley.”

  “I get why you married Whitney now. I didn’t before. But I do now. I’m sorry for all the shit I gave you about it,” he says, slumping down. “Why is this happening to me?”

  “Are you thinking about marrying Shelby?” I ask, trying not to show my shock. “What about Ariela?”

  “I don’t know,” he says quietly. “I just don’t know.”

  “You don’t have to decide until you know,” I say, hoping it helps him feel less stressed. “If you’re feeling this way, date them both. Figure out which direction you want to go. You know that you and Shelby are sexually compatible, but you need to see if you like her as a person. If you get along in that respect. If you love her. With Ariela, you feel the love, but it’s an old love. You need to get to know the Ariela she is today. The only way you can do that is to date them both.”

 
“I’m not sure Ariela will go for that.”

  “Ariela doesn’t have a fucking choice but to go for it,” I tell him. Now I’m all worked up. “She came back into your life with no warning whatsoever. After ten years! She broke your heart. Broke all our hearts, really, when she broke yours. She has been in California for one month. She can’t expect you to just drop your life because she decided she had a shitty marriage. That’s not fair to you. And she’s still married. We weren’t raised that way,” I say, reminding him of our religious upbringing.

  “I know. I feel that Catholic guilt every time I sleep with her. So what should I do?”

  “You’re Riley Johnson. You do whatever you want. Whoever you want. Ariela has you all fucked up. Until something happens that makes you want to change things, then you should be true to yourself. And if you are, you’ll make the right decision.”

  “Thanks, bro. I needed that,” he says, looking me in the eye and reminding me of when we were young and I was just his big brother. The brother who always looked out for him. He gets up and gives me a hug. “You’re right. That’s exactly what I need to do.”

  He leaves my office looking less stressed than when he came in. Which makes me feel good. Well, sort of good. I’m upset about Vanessa. I haven’t told the girls that we’re not moving in with her. Haven’t been able to tell them there will be no pony adoptions.

  But then I see the envelope I was given when they announced the sale of Captive Films. The one that is supposed to tell me how much my stock options were worth. I’ll be honest. I really didn’t pay attention to it being a benefit, because I never imagined they would sell. Keatyn had asked if I’d like to be CEO of the new company. If I’d like to use the funds to buy into the new Captive. I sort of figured that’s what I’d do with the money. But now I don’t know.

  I hate to call her on her honeymoon, but I pick up the phone anyway. Then I realize I don’t need to talk to her, I need to talk to Dallas. He’s the one who handles the financial side of Captive.

  I walk out into the hall. “Hey, Tyler, is Dallas in today?”

  Tyler looks at his iPad. “Yes, he’ll be here for a few more minutes, then he’s got a round of golf scheduled.”

  “Perfect,” I say then head to his office. I find Dallas sitting behind his desk dressed in a very conservative suit and tie. Not his usual golf attire. “Hey, you got a minute?”

  “Sure,” he says, pointing to the couch. “Take a load off while I finish up this email.”

  A few moments later, he sits in the chair next to the couch, puts his feet up on the coffee table, and says, “So, what’s shaking?”

  “I wanted to ask you about the new Captive Films. Keatyn asked if I wanted to run it. I was wondering about some of the logistics. Like will I continue to office here?”

  “No, as part of the deal, Front Door Films is assuming our lease. It was something I managed to slide in the contract that allows us to get out of this large space without having to buy out the lease, and it had the bonus of allowing all the employees who move with the company to keep their offices. If you take the job as CEO, you and I will decide together where we want the offices to be. It takes me nine minutes to get from my house to the country club. I’d like to have the offices somewhere in between. You’re going to have to move closer anyway or your girls will have an hour and a half commute to and from school. And as it is, it takes me an hour to get from my house to our offices here in Santa Monica.”

  “It would be nice to be close. It’d be a lot easier to attend school events, maybe even pick up the girls from school some days.”

  “You’re going to need a nanny. I’ll have RiAnne call you with the service we use.”

  “That’d be great,” I say, but all I can see are dollar signs adding up. My salary here is good, but I’m going to need to find somewhere else to live. “Look, I’ll just lay it on the line. You know about my financial situation and the sweet deal Keatyn gave me to come here. With the girls moving here . . .”

  “It’s understandable that you’d want to know the package details before you accept an offer.”

  “Yeah, exactly. It wasn’t really an issue when I thought that the girls and I were going to move in with Vanessa, but now . . .”

  “Trouble in paradise?”

  “Yeah, I guess she changed her mind or something. I don’t blame her, though. It’s a big commitment taking on two kids. I’m just glad she decided now before we all moved in, but now I’m not sure what to do.”

  He holds his hand up. “Say no more. I negotiated a month-to-month lease on the Malibu property. I thought if the girls came out, you would want to choose a home yourself. Would you like me to call our realtor and set up some places for you to look at?”

  “So, Captive will continue to lease me a house?”

  Dallas smiles. “Unless you want to buy one yourself. If you don’t want to invest your shares in the new Captive, you certainly could afford to do so.”

  I squint my eyes at him. “What do you mean?”

  “Did you open the envelope?”

  “No. I haven’t been here very long. I figured I’d let myself be surprised with what it is, whenever it comes.”

  Dallas lets out a laugh and slaps his knee. “Dawson. You’re a Johnson. It’s time you got over the fact that your wife left you broke and realize you’re back on top.”

  “I am?”

  He gets up, goes to his laptop, and makes a few clicks. A printer starts up, spitting out a document. He waits for it to finish then hands it to me.

  “Keatyn and I hammered out the details of your compensation as CEO of the new Captive before she left for her honeymoon. I don’t have your contract prepared yet, but these are the highlights. You’re looking at a healthy salary, large bonuses, a piece of the company whether you buy in at the beginning or not, 401K, long-term health and life plans, country club membership, car allowance, and an optional home lease.”

  I stare at the numbers on the page—more than triple what I’m earning now. Which means, I can definitely afford to stay here. “That’s a big bump,” I say, numbly.

  “Keatyn and Riley want to go back to doing what they love, and I’m ready to play more golf, which means we are trusting you to run the company. You cool with that?”

  “Yeah,” I smile. “I am.”

  “Good.” He glances at his watch then grabs his briefcase. “Speaking of that, I’ve got to get to the club. I’ve got a cold beer waiting for me and some brand new PXG clubs that need to be broken in.”

  As we walk by my office on his way out, he says, “Open the envelope, Dawson. Then let me know if you’d like to invest the money in the new company so you’ll have a bigger piece of the pie, or if you want to buy a house or something.”

  “Uh, okay,” I say, my curiosity now piqued. Surely it’s not enough to buy a house. But before I go into my office, I stop at Tyler’s desk again.

  He looks up at me. “Yes?”

  “Can you come in my office for a second?”

  “Why, Mr. Johnson, I thought you’d never ask,” he says, picking up his iPad and sauntering in ahead of me.

  I take a seat at my desk. “I’m assuming Keatyn spoke to you about coming to work for the new company?”

  “She did, but she really didn’t give me many details. Like at all. She’s been holding this all very close to the vest. What do you know? Give me the skinny.”

  “The check that you got, for your shares in Captive, was it much money?”

  “One million seven hundred and fifty-two thousand dollars.”

  I’m a little blown away by that number, but Tyler has been Riley’s assistant since he started working here. “Are you considering retirement?”

  “Are you kidding? I’m spending it! Well, not all of it, but I might be considering a new place to live. I mean real estate in this town is usually a good investment. But I don’t want to do that until I know where the offices will be. I heard Front Door is taking this place over.”

&nb
sp; “They are. And I was asked to be CEO for the new firm. I don’t think I’d be nearly as successful if you weren’t a part of the new company, too. But it would mean you’d be working with me.”

  “I’m already working with you, Dawson. Who do you think gets everything done around here?”

  I can’t help but laugh. “I probably should rephrase that. Will you work with me at the new Captive?”

  Tyler puts his hand on his hip. “I have demands.”

  “Like what?”

  “I get to create my own title.”

  “You don’t want to be called an executive assistant anymore?”

  “No, I was thinking something like Supreme Keeper of the Realm.”

  “I can live with that.” I nod, trying to suppress my smile.

  “And I’d like to help pick out our new offices. I assume Peyton Moran will do the decor, but I’d like a say, for functionality purposes.”

  “Deal.”

  Both my phone and Tyler’s iPad beep with a text. He’s quicker to react. “Oh, lookie here at what Mr. McMahon just sent us. A link to an office space in Beverly Hills. On Wilshire.” He holds up a street view of the building for me to see. “Be still my heart! It’s across the street from Saks!”

  “Where do you live now, Tyler?”

  “Raul and I have an apartment here in Santa Monica. But we’ll definitely need to move now. What about you? You can’t commute all the way from Malibu. Do you want to go house hunting together?”

  “You picked out my place in Malibu, didn’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then, yeah, Tyler. I would love your help. At least to narrow things down.”

  “Dallas said the deal will close in thirty days. We’ll have our checks a week after that.” While he’s talking, he’s on his iPad. “Holy Batman! Will you look at this!”

  “What?”

  He turns his iPad toward me. “Mr. Johnson, we have an important business meeting to attend. Right now. Come on!”

  “Where are we going?”

  “We’re moving on up!” he sings, dragging me out of the office.