Billionaire romance @ forbidden pleasure

One.

Brock

Five years later ...

When I finally leave the airport, I'm exhausted.

I was in London for business, and while everything went exactly to plan, the travel always takes it out of me. The lucrative acquisition is worth it, though. The company I just bought on behalf of my own business is a perfect fit for the plans I have for the future, and well, the financial benefit means we'll all get to grow over the next few years as well. Digital security is a booming industry and it's only going to get more profitable from here.

Security isn't my first love, but it pays the bills and more. I got started developing social media algorithms, but security has been a lot more stable, even with the changes in technology. Getting into programming for security is what allowed me to pay for my home, after all. I've got the head and business sense for it, and the industry has rewarded me handsomely for staying ahead of the game.

As exciting as my work can be, I'm glad to be back home. I grew up in this city, fell in love here, raised my kid in the middle of all the hustle and bustle. Even though I was born into comfort, NewYork has a habit of keeping you on your toes. I've had to work my ass off to get where I am and I've relished every single challenge that's come my way. Even though I'm into my early forties, I don't feel the need to slow down at all.

Not that the city would ever let me—that's why I love it here so much.

As I step into the car I had my assistant order for me, I find myself thinking about my legacy. I got married young—which proved to be a mistake, but we can't have it all, I suppose. Fresh out of college, Caroline and I decided to go for it, and soon after, we had Olivia. She's in her first year of college already. Perhaps I should be more worried about her—she does have more than a little bit of her mother's wild side in her—but at heart, she's a good kid.

Uh,person.

She's nineteen now, not really a kid any longer. To me, however, she'll always be my kid. I've done a lot of stupid shit in my life, but I've never regretted having her. Not once. Even when we argued about her post-high school plans, we were both stubborn enough to finally find some common ground. In that regard, she definitely takes after me.

As I enter the code to get into the penthouse, I brace myself for the silence I know will greet me. I'm still not quite used to her being out of the house yet, but such is the life of a new empty-nester. While she's going Columbia and lives in the dorms there, she still comes home when she can, but her spring break just started, so she's probably off partying with her friends or something.

When I open the door, however, I hear laughter instead.

I pause after I step inside, letting the door close behind me with a soft click. I didn't realize how much I missed this, coming home to someone making noise and living where I live.

And then I recognize the other voice laughing. Felicia, my daughter's best friend.

I take a deep breath.

Not only is my own child a grown woman now, so is her best friend. Unlike my own daughter, however, I don't need any reminding that she's an adult. She somehow does that all by herself.

Smart, driven, quietly tenacious—Felicia works harder than most of the people working for me. I was stunned to learn that she'd deferred the scholarship she'd been working towards for her entire high school career. Instead, she decided to take a gap year and started working at a market full time.

At the time, I'd wanted to pull her aside and get to the bottom of her decision, but it felt like an overstep.

Everything has always felt like an overstep of some sort with her. She was so young when she first started tutoring Olivia, running across the city all by herself like she was. It was all I could do not to send her home every time she was here in a cab, instead of letting her fend for herself.