Full Disclosure (Homefront: The Sheridans Book 2) (9 page)

~ KIM ~

Connor chases a soccer ball in my
basement, laughing as he fights off his friend to keep the ball in his own
control. Even at four, he has an exuberance I never showed in sports. Landon blocks
him, toppling over him and into the carpet. He’s six months older than Connor
and about three inches taller.

“Hey, foul play,” Bridget yells at her
son. “You push him again, and they won’t invite us back for a playdate,
Landon.”

As I set my phone back onto the stairs
where Bridget and I are perched watching the boys, I make a mental note to
research soccer camp for next summer. He’ll be five then, and maybe old enough
for some team somewhere.

“Don’t worry about it. Connor doesn’t
break easily.”

The rain outside has forced our playdate
out of the backyard and into our basement, and I’m glad that I don’t have the
money to fill this room with furniture. Empty like this, it makes a great
miniature soccer field.

“Was that a
male
voice I heard on
the other end of that call?” Bridget bats her eyelashes at me.

Lord, she is nosy, with ears sharper than
a rabbit’s. I like Bridget a lot, and that’s lucky because our sons are friends.
But she really does need to reel it in sometimes.

“Yes, Bridget. Male voice. But nothing
you need to be curious about.”

“Who was it?”

“Just one of the dads who is on the
silent auction committee with me.”

“A
dad
? On a committee? At Orchard
Acres?”

Our school definitely falls into the sad stereotype
in which all the moms are on the committees and the dads are generally
uninvolved, unless it’s something to do with sports.

“Yeah.”

“Who is he?”

“Hmm?”

“The dad on the committee.”

Oh, brother. Here we go. “Ryan Sheridan.”

“Ryan Sheridan? As in your
boss
,
Ryan Sheridan? As in the hot billionaire in the carpool line, Ryan Sheridan?” Her
face lights up like a Vegas billboard.

“Yeah, that’s the one.”

“And you were going out with him
tonight?”

Okay, time to shut this down. “We’ve been
getting some auction items donated.” I stretch the truth, conveniently leaving
out the part about his wandering hand and my glorious field trip to the Land of
the Big O. “God, Bridget, don’t go starting some rumors about my boss and me.”

“I don’t start rumors about anything,”
she objects. “I just participate in their lifespan.”

“Well, however you want to put it. It’s
my job on the line, so don’t do it. We’re not dating. We’re simply on the same committee.”
And we’re not dating, I think bitterly, with his last-minute cancellation
bothering me more than it should.

“Okay, okay.”

Blessedly, I see her glance at her watch.

“God, we really better get going,” she
tells me, starting to rise from the stair.

“You sure you want to drive in the storm?
You’re welcome to stay.”

“Oh, please. This is nothing. Besides,
Rick and I are going to the movies tonight. We got a babysitter.”

She says it with a reverent sigh. Babysitters
are the holy grail of parenthood.

“Heather,” she continues. “She’s
fabulous. We just found her a couple weeks ago and have put her on a regular
Saturday night schedule, so don’t think about poaching her.”

“I won’t. Don’t worry.” Even if I could
afford a babysitter other than my mom or my friends, I can’t imagine actually
trying to have a date with a man again. I was foolish to even make the date
with Ryan tonight, drunk on hormones like I clearly was. And now, hearing his
disturbingly sexy voice cancel on me, I can only feel a wellspring of relief.

Or at least I can
tell
myself
that’s what I’m feeling.

I don’t know what the hell happened to me
last night, or why I kissed him. Several times, actually. And I certainly can’t
make any excuse for the way I grabbed his cock as best I could while he was
fully clothed and urged his hands to venture where no man has gone… in a damn
long time.

I blame the adrenaline rush, the
desperate need to smack my past back into submission and live in the present,
the rush of estrogen making me higher than a kite.

But all day today the memory of what
happened last night seemed to cause a wave of questions to come crashing into
me again—questions I thought I had finally accepted would have no answers—and
ugly feelings that I know too well. Guilt. Shame. Fury. And something new to
add to the mix—a feeling of anguish having now been tempted by something
I simply can’t let myself experience again.

I feel like I’m losing my grip, piece by
piece, and the last thing I need to do is go on a date with a seriously great
guy, who also happens to be my boss, and reveal that I’m a complete and total basket
case.

I had hoped the playdate today would snap
me out of it, but it’s not working. And as Landon gathers his things to leave
and Bridget chatters a mile a minute about how she’ll text me in the carpool
line Monday, my head throbs, migraine-style.

We bid our farewells to Bridget and
Landon and I go to the kitchen to grab a juice box for Connor from the fridge.

Exhausted, Connor stretches out on the
sofa with our new foster, Macaroni. I laugh at his name because I know that
anytime Allie shows up at the dog pound hungry, the dog ends up with a food
name. She says it’s because of his wavy fur on his ears and belly. But that’s
not the truth, even if she hasn’t figured it out for herself.

Dialing Cass’s number, I watch them resting
together as I sit at the kitchen counter.

“Hey, Kim,” she answers, recognizing my
number.

“Hi, Cass. I won’t be needing you to
babysit, after all. Ryan had to cancel.”

“He did? Son of a bitch. Why?”

“He said he’s stuck in New York because
of the storm.”

“That lowlife scumbag. Are you telling me
that a plane actually got delayed in this? It’s just a little rain. I’ve flown in
worse.”

I shrug. “I’m not sure, but I’m betting
he flew himself there.”

“He has a plane?”

“Yeah, a Cess-somethin’-rather.”

“A Cessna. Sweet. Nice to be rich, huh?”

“Well, I’m just glad to not be going out.
I’m not up for it, Cass. I don’t know what got into me last night, but I really
regret it.”

I had told Cass about what happened when
I called to ask her to babysit. I hadn’t wanted to admit that I had practically
attacked my boss, or that I’d had a raging climax under just the touch of his
hand, even with a likely rabid bat dive-bombing us. But she kind of forced it
out of me. She’s good at that. And I regretted opening my mouth even more when
I received a text from Allie ten minutes after hanging up with Cass that read,
“Holy shit. You owe me details. NOW.”

Cass never was one to keep her mouth shut
around Allie or me. And while the triangle of trust among us endears me to my
two friends, right now I just find it damn aggravating.

“Who
wouldn’t
maul Ryan Sheridan
on a moonlight night in the middle of the woods?” Cass says, always ready to
come to my defense, even if I’ve acted like a complete harlot. “I sure as hell
would. And I don’t even want to give myself a reason to stick around Ohio.”

“What’s done is done, I guess. But I just
hope I can avoid him for a while.”

“Why? Because he cancelled on you last minute?
Seriously, that’s probably totally legit. I’ve only talked to him once and I
was on princess duty at the time, but he doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy
to blow you off with a fake excuse.”

“No, I don’t think he would.” My eyelids
droop. I barely slept last night and am longing to crawl into bed two hours
earlier than usual. “But I’m just not interested in starting something with my
boss. Cass, I need this job. I have a kid I have to raise. I have bills to
pay.”

“And wouldn’t you pay them a lot easier
if you hooked up with a rich guy like Allie did?”

I bristle. “Allie didn’t hook up with
Logan to pay her bills,” I retort, lowering my voice so Connor can’t hear.

“I know, I know. But it sure helps, is
all I’m saying. And here you’ve got a billionaire CEO actually interested in you,
and you’re running away. Why?”

“Because it wouldn’t work.”

“Who says?”

I say. But I don’t tell her that. She
can’t possibly understand why I barely ever date and haven’t made it past a
first date since I got pregnant with Connor.

I’m not relationship material. I’m not
even date material. Which means anything with Ryan would inevitably end with me
freaking out in some kind of embarrassing panic attack or worse. And then I’d
have to still walk into his company every weekday and pretend that nothing
happened.

That’s not something I can do.

“It just wouldn’t,” I mumble.

“Okay, so why didn’t you think of that
last night when you were copping a feel?”

“I don’t know. I was just caught up in
the moment.” That’s all it was. And that connection I felt with him every time
he took my hand was only because I haven’t touched a man like that in so many
years.

Depravation. I blame depravation. I
should be humiliated that I took advantage of my boss like that.

I hear Cass sigh on the other end. “Still
want me to come over tonight? You sound a little down. I can bring cheap wine
and you can get drunk while I keep an eye on Connor.”

The words of a true friend. I feel a
smile on my cheeks. God, I’ll miss Cass when she moves back to New York. “No. I’m
all right, really. Just tired. I’ll go to bed two minutes after I tuck Connor
in. I swear.”

But would I sleep this time? Or would I
lie there, exhausted, reliving those moments with Ryan in the woods? The jury is
still out on that.

We close our conversation and I watch
Connor wrestling with Macaroni. He’s bounced back completely from giving up
Lollipop, and I like this dog just as much. Connor stretches out like a cat on
the carpet and giggles, just like I used to.

Just like I used to
. He’s got more of me in him than anyone
else. I have to remind myself that.

And I lock the truth up tight in me
again. I don’t have a choice.

- RYAN -

I’m not used to being blown off by a
woman. In fact—except for that time in sixth grade when a girl in
Geometry class told me she preferred Logan over me, and the moment decades
later when I was served with divorce papers from Adriana—I’ve never felt
the sting of female rejection.

Until Kim Marshall came along.

I should be annoyed by the way she’s
completely avoiding me, seeing as I’m pretty certain she made the first move in
the woods, or at least I hope to God she did.

Granted, her going up on her toes and
telescoping her neck so that she could reach my lips would have been futile had
I not bent over to meet her halfway. The woman is about a foot shorter than me.

But I know with certainty that she’d
wanted that kiss as much as I had.

I can’t feel annoyed with her, though.
Not in the slightest. In fact, all I’m feeling is remorse. Not for the
off-the-charts kiss, but for what happened afterward.

I should have been able to rein in my
desire that night, taken things slow. After all, she’s a mom at my daughter’s
school and an employee on top of that. I should have taken more time to make
sure that advancing things between us was a good idea, a logical idea.

But I seem to lose all logic around that
woman. When she touched me, pressing that warm hand of hers against my cock
while she looked at me with those expectant eyes, I was lost to her, and all my
usual control drowned in the river beside us.

Feeling my temperature rise at the
thought of her again, I stand up, heading toward the thermostat in my office. I
lower the number on the display from 74 to 70—always even numbers for me
on thermostats. The odd ones just set me curiously on edge, making me
completely OCD, according to Logan and Dylan. When we were kids, they’d always
grab the remote control of the TV and turn up the volume to an odd number, just
to bug me. And the battle for the remote that ensued would usually end with an
all-out brawl on the floor and possibly a broken lamp.

Returning to my desk, I drum my fingers
on my desk as I look at today’s schedule of meetings. I’ve got back-to-back
teleconference meetings this morning, meaning I’ll be trapped behind my desk
for an ungodly sum of hours without even a spare moment to pound on the heavy
bag I keep stashed in the back room of my office.

My cell rings and I glance at my watch,
taking note that I only have a few minutes to talk, when I see the call is from
my dad. “Morning, Dad.”

“Ryan, glad to see you’re in the office. I’ll
be on the teleconference with you. Thought I should let you know.”

“Good. I was hoping you could make it.” At
this stage in the game, I really don’t need my dad on the line for these
meetings, but I always feel glad when there’s something he can take part in. He
does all his work from home now because Mom won’t let him out of her sight
unless he is with his nurse. And the day he shows up at JLS with a nurse
tailing him is the day hell freezes over.

“You’re not thinking anymore about going
public, are you?” he asks.

I cringe. Anderson must have gotten to
him. “Not unless you are.”

There’s a pause in our conversation that
I wasn’t expecting. “No,” he finally says. “Not if you can handle it with Logan
on board now.”

I’m actually surprised that he seems to
be giving me something of an option here. “I think you’ve always been right,
Dad. JLS Heartland is our family’s heritage. I want to keep it intact for
Hannah.”

“We’d be lucky to get her on board one
day,” my dad replies, and I can hear the smile in his voice. “The kid’s as
smart as a whip,” he adds.

Grinning, I reach for the pen on my desk.
“She is that.” Spinning the pen unconsciously over my knuckles, I can’t help
the gratitude in my heart for the words he’s just said. Dad and Mom recognize
the brilliance in my daughter, even if she does struggle in school. They never
make her feel like there is anything lacking in her.

Unlike her mother did.

“So, have you seen more of that woman
Hannah mentioned?”

My breath catches in my throat. This is
definitely not a conversation I’d anticipated with my father, especially not
minutes before an important teleconference.

“No,” I say cautiously. “No, it’s
probably for the best. She works for JLS, remember? And personal life and work
life don’t—”

“—mix well,” he finishes for me.

“Right. They don’t,” I agree with him,
and I’m certain he must feel elated for being proven right once again.

“About that, Ryan. There’s… always exceptions
to rules like those, Son.”

My eyebrows rise two inches on my face.
“Exceptions?”

“Your mother… she’s been on my case to
share something with you since she heard about you and that Kim woman Hannah
seems to like so much.”

The woman
I
seem to like so much,
I want to add. But instead, I remain silent, curious as to where this
conversation is headed.

“I never told you about how I met your
mother.”

I frown, wondering if he’s having one of
his spells. “Um, Dad, you have told me. Lots of times. She worked for a
competing company.”

“Yes, I told you that part. I know. And she
did. But I never told you that I’m the one who got her that job at the other
company.”

“What?” I drop the pen, confused.

“It was just after I took over JLS from
your grandfather. We were still small then, and didn’t have an HR department. So
she was hired by our office manager to answer phones, do some filing.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No. Not kidding at all. But when I met
her, damn, I knew she was mine. There was no mistaking it. A Goddamn lightning
bolt hit me. And so I fired her.”

“You
fired
Mom?”

“Yep. Got her a job at our biggest
competition, but she still hated me for it. I can’t say I blame her. She was a
good worker.”

“Geez, Dad, you’d get sued off your ass
for doing that now.”

“Well, yeah, but it was a different era
then. So anyway, I kept asking her out, and begging her forgiveness, pretty
much alternately, until finally about a year later, she agreed to go out for
coffee with me.”

“She rejected you for a year, but you
kept asking?” I’ve always known that my father is persistent—it’s half
the reason JLS has grown to its present size. But I never thought of that
persistence as leaking into his personal life.

“Waste of a year, if you ask me. Hell, if
I had just asked her out while she was on the payroll, you might have a fourth
brother right now,” he tells me with a chuckle.

“Holy shit,” I mutter, not even sure
whether I said it aloud.

“You can understand why I told you to
never date employees. It’s messy business to say the least, and with three
sons, I thought it safest to make it an unwritten rule with you boys. But
you’re a grown man now, with a kid of your own, a kid who would probably do
well with a mother influence, especially down the road. I can’t imagine you
dealing with a teenage girl on your own in a few years. This woman—this
Kim woman and her son—”

“Connor,” I tell him.

“Right. Connor. Hannah really took a
shine to both of them. If you did too, well, then you’d be a damn fool not to
see if it’s something that might last.”

“Thanks, Dad,” I tell him, closing the
conversation a few minutes later, still dumbfounded by the revelations of the
last five minutes.

It’s not just the fact that apparently,
my mom worked for JLS, or that Dad fired her, or that he had pursued her for an
entire year before she forgave him enough to date him.

It’s more from the fact that my dad
described falling for my mom like a “Goddamn lightning bolt.”

I’d always taken him as more of a logical
type of man. Practical. Methodical. Like the man I always try to be as I sit
behind this desk. I never imagined him feeling that level of intensity for a
woman—the intensity I felt from the moment I first laid eyes on Kim.

Maybe I’m more like my dad than I
thought.