Coldhearted Boss(86)

“I’ll be working as a project manager at Lockwood Construction.”

Everyone already knows this. It’s been the plan all along, ever since Robert took me under his wing and started showing me the ropes all those years ago.

“And tell us, are you nervous about taking on your new role? Knowing you might have to deal with stubborn men who don’t like the idea of a woman running the show on a jobsite?”

My eyes find Ethan and he’s visibly amused, knowing where my thoughts are headed before I even have to open my mouth.

“You know what? I like to think I’ve had some pretty good practice dealing with stubborn men.”





Later that night, after the chaos of the day, Ethan and I are in the kitchen, tidying up. Well, he’s tidying up and I’m sitting on a barstool, eating another piece of the cake McKenna and Isla made for my graduation party. There are layers of fresh fruit and homemade buttercream frosting and I’ve made it my life’s mission to ensure that not a single crumb goes to waste. No crumbs left behind is my new motto.

“How are you doing over there, Mrs. Stone?” Ethan asks, smirking at me over his shoulder.

I give him a wide smile as I bring another forkful of cake to my mouth. “Just making sure the baby is well fed, that’s all.”

He arches a brow and shakes his head before turning back to rinse off the last dish.

He’s absolutely delectable—maybe even more so than the cake.

His suit jacket and tie are long gone. His shirtsleeves are pushed up to his elbows, and his suit pants fit him to a T. I’m looking at his butt, filling my head with wicked ideas when my mom walks out of the hallway and interrupts my stream of thought.

“Okay, Andrew’s officially asleep,” she says, grabbing her purse off the kitchen counter and slinging it over her shoulder.

“Took you a while,” I tease.

“Well, how am I supposed to say no when he asks for ‘just one more book’? Before I realized it, we’d read a dozen, just like always. It’s that charm of his—he has too much of it.”

I smirk. “Blame his father.”

“It’s all Taylor,” Ethan refutes.

My mom shakes her head and walks toward me, dropping a kiss on my forehead. “I’m proud of you, kiddo.”

My throat squeezes tight with emotion as I offer up a little smile.

“Still need me to watch Andrew next Saturday?” she asks, heading for the door.

“If you can. We’ve got that fundraiser for his school.”

“All right. I’ll have Simone close the salon for me that day. I should be able to get here around dinner time.”

For the one-thousandth time, I think of how grateful I am that my mom moved to Austin once McKenna started at UT. I love that we’re all in the same city now.

“Thanks, that’d be great.”

“Thanks again, Anne. Here, I’ll walk you out,” Ethan says, drying his hands on a towel so he can see her to her car.

When he walks back into the kitchen and meets my gaze, my dirty thoughts from a few moments ago come roaring back hotter than ever. It makes no sense. We’ve been married for years. We sleep in the same bed every night. The man has seen me give birth and breastfeed and cry and bleed, and yet he looks at me with the same level of need he did all those years ago, like I’m still the most seductive woman he’s ever laid eyes on.

“All finished?” he taunts, swooping in to steal my plate and finish off the last bite.

“Hey!” I protest, reaching up to try to take it back.

He holds it over my head and then leans down, kissing me.

He steps closer, forcing me to lean back in my barstool so the countertop hits my lower back. He reigns over me, slanting his mouth and deepening the kiss. I fist his shirt, wrinkling it in my palm, and then his hands find the spaghetti straps on my dress so he can slide his fingers underneath them and push the silky material down my shoulders.

A shiver racks through me.

Our kiss is sinful, yet sweet thanks to the buttercream frosting.

If I wasn’t already pregnant, we’d be fixing that tonight.

“Mommy?” a tired little voice says from down the hall. “Dad? Can I have some water?”

We break apart, half groaning, half laughing. It’s part of the territory. There’s very rarely a lazy session of lovemaking for us these days. More often than not, we’re throwing on a TV show and running to the bedroom for an afternoon quickie, or we’re locking the bathroom door and laughing as we collide against the tiled wall in the shower, hungry and rushed to have each other before parent duty calls again.

Ethan leans down and whispers a promise against the shell of my ear: “Later.”

And then he’s stepping back, walking over to the cabinet to get one of Andrew’s cups for water.

I walk over to find our little boy standing in the door of his room, looking guilty for being out of bed. His brown hair is in disarray and he has his scruffy teddy bear tucked under one arm. I scoop him up, secretly happy to have another moment to squeeze him close today.

“Is Dad coming too?”

“I’m right here, bud,” Ethan says, passing him the water cup over my shoulder.

“Will you guys tell me a story?”

“Didn’t Nana read to you already?” I ask, smiling.