The CEO's Contracted Mistress

Kids are Assholes

She was tired. Bobbie knew her hair was disheveled and the minute amount of make-up she’d put on before taking the kids out for the day was long gone. Her shirt had a mustard stain on it from Ollie and her sneakers, though she had tried to clean them, had Max’s and Lark’s puke on them from when they were car sick on the way to the Space Center.

They had left the hotel at seven thirty in the morning and hit the local IHOP for breakfast. Max had eaten a grown-up stack of blueberry pancakes and then gotten car sick. Lark, not to be outdone, hadn’t tolerated the smell of the vomit and she started puking. Ollie had laughed hysterically.

While it had been a rocky start to the day, the Space Center had been a great morning and early afternoon activity for the kids and then they’d located a park nearby for the kids to burn off more energy. For almost three hours they’d stayed at the park. The kids had climbed monkey bars, ran, played tag, and took turns seeing who could go highest on the swings. They’d played touch football, which accounted for the grass stains on Bobbie’s knees and another person at the park had two exceptionally large bully-type dogs had let the kids pat the dogs and Bobbie ended up covered in dog slobber.

She was still trying to figure out how she had gotten the worst of it all, but Everly and Prue appeared as pristine as they had before they’d even set out. She needed a drink. Grady, Everly and Prue had taken the kids to a fast-food chain walking distance to the hotel and Bobbie, at their instruction and with their blessings, was going to go take a hot shower, poor a large glass of whiskey and have an early night. The kids were having a sleepover in the Hoffman room. They felt she needed the night to get her thoughts and plans in order about Olivier and they were going to keep the kids occupied so she could.

As she approached the front of the hotel, she felt unease settling back in her bones. She had been able to push thoughts of Olivier from her head for much of the day. The only time she’d heard from him was when she’d sent him a text to say they were taking the kids out for the day, and she would connect with him later. She told him her plan was to tell the kids on Sunday morning after they spent one last day before their lives were thrown for a loop and his response was, they would talk later. She couldn’t help but wonder if maybe he hadn’t changed his mind but deep down, she knew it was wishful thinking on her part.

The odd times he’d poked up in her thoughts, she’d shoved him to the far recesses to deal with later but considering how much he liked to lounge in the hotel lobby, there was no way she could avoid him if he were there. She prayed he wasn’t. Stepping into the lobby she offered a silent prayer of gratitude to not see him sitting in the chair he normally occupied, and she made her way to the elevator.

She quickly jammed her finger on the button and sighed thinking of a hot shower.

“You look like hell,” the warm voice over the top of her head made her spine stiffen.

“Thanks.”

“Did you have fun at least?”

“There’s puke on my sneakers. It’s always a good indication of a great time.” She stepped into the elevator and questioned her traitorous body for immediately responding to his scent and his strength. She dared not look at him. The elevator doors started to close, and she leaned forward to touch the button to her floor, and he pushed her hand away, swiped his key and hit the penthouse button.

“Olivier, I need to shower. I can’t do this right now.”

“What a coincidence,” he blocked the buttons on the elevator from her, “I too need a shower. We should conserve water.”

“Not happening. Are you mentally ill?” she finally looked up at him and then immediately wished she hadn’t. Clearly, he had just finished in the gym, and he was sweaty, and glistening and his eyes were furiously focused on her. “f**k,” she whispered under her breath. The kids swear jar was going to be full by the time they left Houston.

“We could if you wish,” he lifted a sandy eyebrow onto his forehead.

“No.” She made a face at him. “Don’t be disgusting. Can I please go back to my room?”

“Not until we talk. Where are my children?”

“My children,” she corrected, “are finishing family day by eating nasty-ass chicken and taters and will be spending the night watching Disney movies with their aunt and uncle.”

“Do you usually just pass them off to others?”

She wanted to smack the judgemental look off his face, but the doors opened with a ding, and he was pushing her into his suite of rooms. She looked around grimacing. The suite was palatial and sexy, and she immediately found herself wondering the women he dated got f****d on every piece of furniture in here. She knew he was insatiable. She’d have to avoid sitting on any of it.

“I asked a question,” his voice was cold.

“It doesn’t warrant an answer.”

“I want to know if my children are frequently left with others.”

“If you’re asking if they are frequently left with their family, then yes. Just like their daughter is frequently left in my care. I was in the room when Lark was born. Everly and Grady were there when I delivered the twins. They have been there every step of the way. It takes a village Olivier, and my village is my family.”

“They aren’t your family.”

“Blood doesn’t make family, Olivier,” she pushed the patio doors opened and moved to the concrete slab overlooking the city. It was a hell of a view. She looked up and down the street wondering if she could see the restaurant where the kids were. She leaned over the balcony.

“It’s not worth jumping over.”

“Pfft, I’m not Ollie.” She laughed under her breath.

“You named her after me.”

“Sue me.”

“Why? Why did you name them after me?”

“It was a mistake in a moment of weakness. They put her in my arms, and she looked like you and I was emotional, and I stupidly said your name. Grady jumped on it and asked me who Oliver was, he misheard, and I corrected him and said Olivia and it was how she got named. Under a minute later they put Max in my arms, and damned if it hadn’t looked like I spawned your clone. I named him Max after my mom, her name was Maxine, and I gave him your name as a second name.”

“Was it a difficult delivery?”

“C-section,” she shrugged. “They were huge and Ollie being Ollie was jumping into this world feet first.”

“She is a bit of a daredevil,” he observed quietly.

“She’s a reincarnation of my big sister, I’m sure of it. When we were kids, we frequented a swimming hole and Rosamunde would jump off the old train bridge.”

“You weren’t like her?”

She shrugged, “I did whatever she wanted me to do. She led, I followed. If she jumped, I jumped too. She had a zest for life that was contagious and captivating. She could coax me into anything and every day I see her in my daughter.” She looked down at her feet feeling suddenly emotional. She exhaled slowly and shook her head. “Based on my calculations from back then, it’s likely the twins were conceived the day she slipped into a coma, about ten days before she died.”

“The shower,” he said quietly. “I was up half the night last night remembering how careful we were every single time except the day when we took the shower when we’d both already taken a shower.”

“Yup.” She turned around again and looked back over the city.

His hand rested on her shoulders, and she flinched against his touch. “Roberta,” she shook her head, “Bobbie,” he corrected himself, “I need you to tell me you believe me when I say I did not trade your contract. I promise I did not. I would never have done such a thing to you. I am infinitely sorry you were put in the position you were in.”

His words, against her better judgement, soothed her battered soul. “I want to believe you Olivier, but he had the contract in his hand. Everywhere your name was on the papers was crossed off and marked with both of your initials.” His palms burned through her t-shirt. “He knew I was your whore.”

“I hate that word and his information was not from my lips.” He gently turned her around and lifted her chin to look at him, “When I had my,” he paused looking for the term he wanted to use, “discussion with Bernard this week, he told me he had been sitting at the desk in the room and looking for a pen. He was going to leave me a note to tell me he’d stopped by. He found the contract in the desk and then did what Bernard does best, caused chaos.”

“Why would he do it? What was his goal?”

“There are reasons for his and Cleo’s behaviour and I am still working out the finer details, but I assure you, he will regret everything he and Cleo did that day. He denied striking you,” he continued speaking.

“I didn’t lie,” she felt her jaw clench.

“I know.” He smiled softly, “I know you did not lie. I knew you were telling me the truth when you said you kicked him. He ended up having to have surgery for a ruptured testicle.”

She grinned at his words, her eyes lighting up “really?”

He chuckled at her grin, “Yes, really. I had returned from my trip to New Orleans to find the hotel room trashed, but like I said before, I’d found his lighter there. I immediately went round to his house and found him with a bag of peas on him. He gave me the story about finding you and Darian in bed and throwing you both out. He embellished saying Darian threw a punch at him and it was how he lost his lighter. He never once mentioned Cleo being there. He told me he had a viral infection which had caused swelling in his testicles and made it rupture. He confirmed this week he lied about it too. I know you had bony knees,” he winked playfully.

“I’m glad I made it count. Asshole,” she muttered angrily.

“Me too.” He took her by the hands and pulled her to the seating of the patio and had her sit. “I did not ever intend to put you in the path of Bernard or Cleo. They were not then, nor are they now, friends of mine. When I grew up, Bernard was around, but he was never my friend. After this week he has become an enemy and he is learning I am not an enemy anyone wants to have.” His voice grew cold. “He will be punished for putting his hands on you.”

She shivered against his icy rage, “Olivier,” she began to protest.

“It is not anything you ever need to worry about again.” He took a breath. “Now, we have the ugliness of this out of the way, we have many other things we need to discuss.”

“The twins.”

“Yes, the twins,” he admitted quietly. “Bobbie, you should have come to me.”

“Really?” she met his eyes angrily. “Put yourself in my shoes Olivier. For all intents and purposes, I understood you had hired me to be your w***e. You left in the morning telling me it was good I knew the drill and we would discuss the end of the contract when you were back. Your friend,” at his words she held her hand up defensively at his scowl, “he identified himself as your friend and had made himself at home in your rooms. He was prepared. He had the contract. He said he had spoken to you in the morning, and it was decided it was the best course of action. He had a witness who was not even remotely put out by what he was suggesting. It seemed like a situation they had both been in before which led me to believe this was a routine practice for the three of you. You brought me in with the contract, Bernard transferred the end of the contract and threatened to withhold the p*****t. Any other hooker would have jumped at the option to get the high-priced contract extended but I wasn’t just any hooker. I was a barista and I wondered how many unexperienced girls got pulled into this trafficking ring. I wanted as far away from you and the prostitution ring as I could get. There was no way in hell I would put my kids around danger. I’d have rather raise them the way my mother raised me and Rosamunde working two jobs and latchkey kids before letting them anywhere near you, Bernard the Bastard or Cleo the Cu—"

“Okay,” he cut her off before she could finish the word she was going to use. “I get it. I understand.” He rubbed his hands together, “I know what they did. I know how they presented it to you, but I must ask you again how you could believe after spending almost two months with me, I could do such a thing?”

“Are you kidding?”

“No. We spent two amazing months together. We essentially lived together Bobbie. We slept together almost every night. Yet, the minute a stranger accused me of something as disgusting and horrific as s*x trafficking, you bought it hook line and sinker.”

She felt chastised by his words, “the contract was ending.”

“So?”

“After the first three weeks, you renewed the contract. You didn’t renew it a week ahead of time like you had the first time. I knew my time with you was coming to an end. I knew deep down you were not going to renew the contract. I considered you were tired of me, and it meant I was being passed off to the next person since you were done,” she almost whispered the words, hating how much, after all this time it still hurt. “Combined with the information they provided me, it made sense.”

“It made zero sense if you knew me at all, which apparently you did not, regardless of how much I thought you had.” He leaned backwards, “we need to move past this and figure out next steps. I want to be in their lives. No isn’t an answer I’ll accept.”

“I understand.” She nodded.

“Tell me about their current living arrangements, schooling and activities.”

It wasn’t the question she was expecting but she went with it. “They are going to start in grade three at a private school. I drive the three kids to school every morning and Everly picks them up every day. They are on summer break right now. They do swimming on Saturday mornings and Ollie does diving classes as well after their swim lesson. Max does Boy Scouts. They both play soccer in the summer but it’s a fun league and not super competitive. They also are currently studying Spanish and French with a tutor.”

“They are learning French?” he was immediately impressed.

She shrugged, “like I said, you spoke French a lot on the phone in my presence and I never knew what you were saying. I started learning when I was pregnant and I continued my lessons after they were born, and the kids picked it up. My tutor recommended we add Spanish when they were four. Our last trip to Cancun, they challenged themselves not to speak a word of English and they did it.”

“My father will be excited to know they speak our family’s language.”

She took a breath, “I never even considered your family.”

“I have already called my parents and my sisters. For the record, the calls where you heard me speaking French back then would have always been with my father. I talk to him multiple times a day.”

“Oh,” she looked away.

“What else do they like?”

“Max loves sci-fi. They both love doing experiments as I told you last night. Max won the science fair in his division this year. Where Max is highly organized and meticulous and has near perfect grades, Ollie is sloppier and rushed. Max takes his time and strives for perfection. Ollie wants the thrill of satisfaction fast and she frequently needs to be told to slow down and focus. They are yin and yang. They fight constantly but they are also each other’s greatest cheerleaders.” She could talk endlessly about her kids.

“During the summer who watches them?”

“I do,” she met his eyes directly. “I work from home a lot. I have an office overlooking the back yard. They spend a lot of time in their treehouse. On the days I do need to go to the office Nana Prue watches them.”

“The lady who told you to get laid,” he said quietly.

“Grady’s mom. When Lark was born, Prue retired and moved in with Everly and Grady. The three kids play together every single day. We live side by side in a gated community and our backyards connect and the treehouse I mentioned is duplicated in the Hoffman yard and they are joined by a bridge.”

“The first time I saw the kids, I questioned if they were triplets. They are remarkably close.”

“They’re roughly six weeks apart. They do everything together. Lark has as many clothes at my house as my kids have at theirs. Their lives are intermingled.”

“I see,” he whispered quietly.

“The little buggers constantly hide in each other houses to avoid trouble. When they blew up my microwave last week, I left them to clean it and went to finish some work. Next thing I knew Everly was video calling me to show me the destruction of Lark’s playroom. Apparently, they thought it would be fun to have a paint fight. Since then, Max has been obsessed with having green hair.”

“They don’t stop,” he chuckled.

“Kids are assholes, Olivier. The whole role of being a parent is to try to teach the assholes to be less of assholes but somehow the three we are raising take it to a whole new level. Max is a planner and a plotter. He comes up with schemes and ideas for crazy ass things to do. Lark is the one who convinces them to do everything they shouldn’t. I swear she could persuade the devil to sell her his soul. Ollie is the fighter.” She groaned, “I usually get a call a semester she’s jumped another kid. Another student makes a smartass comment and she’s throwing fists. Someone picks on Max or Lark and she’s throwing fists. Three weeks ago, during a soccer match one of the kids on the other team was pushing kids down. He was using two hands, shoving, and pushing, and the ref wasn’t doing anything. She was getting mad but controlled it pretty well until he pushed Max down and scraped his knees. It took two of the coaches to pull her off the kid and she had rubbed his face into the dirt and grass and bloodied his nose. The other kid’s parent was losing their mind until the parents all cornered him and told him how much of a d**k his kid was.”

He started laughing at her words, “she did not.”

She pulled her phone out and found the video and played it for him. He covered his mouth as laughter spilled at the way she had leapt several feet before landing on the larger boy’s back and knocking him to the ground her fists flailing and her hands pulling his hair and shoving his face into the dirt.

“Who do I hear in the background screaming kick his ass?”

“Lark and Everly” she chuckled.

“They egged her on!” he was incredulous.

“He pushed our boy.” She took a breath, “Everly and I have the mama bear thing down pat. Mess with our babies and we’ll f**k you up. The father of the kid was yelling at the ref when the kids both got benched so Everly and I found a grass snake in the field and put it in the open window of his truck.”

He passed her back her phone after replaying the video one more time and watching it through. “Thank you for sharing this with me. I want to meet them, Bobbie. I want to be part of their lives.”

“How does it work?” she said seriously. “Their lives are in Dallas.”

“Then I move to Dallas.”

“You’ll just up and move to Dallas?”

“Yes. I missed eight years, Bobbie. I’m not missing another day. Today was your last day as a single parent.”

As she stared at him incredulously, she realized he was serious. “Well f**k me.”