Boss On A Leash: A Single Dad Billionaire Romance, Kara Hart [free ebook reader for iphone .TXT] 📗

Clearly, I can see why any girl might hate this Hallmark holiday of high expectations surrounding love. It’s stressful, unnecessary, and if you don’t find someone to share it with, it feels downright evil. Then again, she’s a little young to care about it this much. “Does she hate other holidays?” I ask.

“Queen Samantha?” he asks.

Covering my mouth, I laugh and peer out to the living room to see if she heard.

“Don’t worry. She can’t hear us. She’s in her room, far down the hall,” he says, pausing for a moment to search for two oven gloves.

“She likes the other holidays,” he mutters. “This one is a sore subject.”

I look away, biting my top lip. “Any reason? I was hoping I could start to get to know her.”

Marc eyes me for a moment, considering my question. He goes to one of the cabinets, rummaging for something. “She had a bad experience one time.”

It sounds like he’s avoiding something.

“Should I talk to her?” I ask.

Shoulders bending, he shuts the cabinet. “I’ve got it.”

It’s not forceful, but it doesn’t need to be. I get the point. Whatever Sammy is going through is a little bigger than some crush. Whatever it is, Marc doesn’t seem ready to talk to me about it.

Avoiding conflict, my eyes follow the scent toward the oven, where a timer sits. Five minutes and counting. That gives me time to stand in the exotic room, to close my eyes and breathe in the ancient book smell. As soon as I do, a wave of nostalgia washes over me. When I was a girl, I invested so much time in these stories that I thought I might actually become one of the characters.

Everything changed after I finished my studies and attended University. I was taught to act with practicality. Finding a job was the goal, and to do that, I had to specialize my time. I couldn’t spend my hours fantasizing about stories with unrealistic outcomes.

My own story is changing. As unrealistic as this is, I’m in the house of a billionaire, and I’m pretty sure he’s into me. This is something that might happen in one of his books, not real life.

The kitchen sits like a void in the space behind me. There, in the glowing domain, Marc presents a plate of brittle chocolate. I can see why he uses this as a peace offering.

“Sea salt chocolate with peanut butter filling?”

Am I drooling?

My arms reach for a piece on their own. “There’s always something with you,” I say.

He sets the plate on the counter. As soon as I take a bite, I melt onto the floor.

“That bad?” he asks, taking a bite himself.

“You’re a genius,” I say.

He smiles, clearly happy with himself. “I am a genius, aren’t I?”

Peering up at him, he seems about ten times hotter than I last saw him. It’s like the chocolate and the peanut butter has molded into my attraction towards him, making him feel almost irresistible.

“Why on Earth are you in the magazine business when you could be a chef?” I ask.

A horned smirk reminds me that I’m not supposed to know what he does yet. I haven’t asked him, but Amanda made sure to give me the tip. “Who told you I was in the magazine business?”

It’s better to be honest than to hold information back. “Amanda,” I say. “She told me after Rowdy crashed into you.”

Guess I’m not being totally honest.

He chuckles, stuffing another piece of chocolate in his mouth. The urge to stick my neck out and kiss his lips grows stronger. “Oh, yeah?” he asks.

I gulp and shut my eyes when the sound comes out louder than intended. “Yeah.”

His smirk disappears as soon as he nods toward a section of the house I’ve yet to enter. “You want to see my set up?”

“Sure,” I say, not sure what I’m agreeing to.

A long hallway divides the front room from the open living area. I peek at the second door on the right and see Sammy in bed, sleeping. Marc gives a smile and pushes his forefinger against his lips.

Rustling his fingers inside his pockets, he takes out a single key and unlocks the door. I’m a little weirded out, but after seeing rows of expensive camera equipment, it makes sense why he keeps the room locked.

“Most of these are vintage. Got them in art school in the nineties,” he says.

I was just a little girl in the nineties. The late nineties. “You went to art school?”

I’m a little shocked. Artists aren’t supposed to become billionaires. They’re supposed to rail against the system and live in poverty, drinking absinthe.

“Is that impossible to believe a suit like me was once a wide-eyed photography major with huge dreams?”

A camera resting on a tripod sits in the center of the room, pointed at a yellow backdrop. I walk up to it. The camera looks like it was made in a different generation, and I instantly think of how much it cost.

“A little bit,” I mutter.

Leaned against the back wall are stacks of photographs. As I near them, I see they’re of Sammy. In one, she is just a baby. A woman kisses her. Stepping closer and seeing it in more detail, I have no doubt the woman is her mother. She’s beautiful. I look away before Marc catches me.

He meanders past me, reaching down into a different stack. Searching through the many layers, he finds the one he wants. “Take a gander,” he says, handing me the picture.

At first, I don’t recognize the person in the shot. It’s a young man with long and wavy brown hair. He looks like he might be in his early twenties. Maybe younger. He’s wearing tattered baggy pants with an oversized tank top. A dunce hat rests on his head. The laughter from his friends in the foreground provides the warmth. But it’s really his optimistic eyes that carry the shot. Everyone is looking at him.

I look