The Maybe Series Read online

“Lucky for you, a heart attack changes an old man like me.”

  My face lifts as I try to decide if he is serious or not.

  His face looks sad. “I didn’t listen to your father when he pleaded with me to let him choose his own wife. I thought I knew better.” He rubs his neck. “I’m not sure if the company benefited greatly from their union. I know he was never happy in his marriage.”

  He sighs. “I can’t change your dad’s fate, but I can give you a chance. I know you have been trying to prove that you are worthy of running the company.”

  I nod.

  “You’ve failed horribly.”

  I frown but don’t deny it. It’s true. I’m not the right person to run the company.

  “I am willing to give you a chance though.”

  My eyes brighten just a little.

  “Since I promoted Killian to CEO, there is a spot open in the company. We will need a new VP of Operations. I’ve been looking around, but I haven’t found anyone worthwhile yet. Tony obviously isn’t a good choice.”

  I nod, willing him to say the words that I want him to say.

  “I’ll give you the job.”

  My hands go around him, tightly holding him, before he even has a chance to say the rest. He pushes me back up after I’ve finished smothering him.

  “Now, the job comes with some conditions. You will attend business classes.”

  I nod. I already planned on doing that.

  “You will run every decision by either Killian or me.”

  I nod, not liking that as much, but I’ll accept it—for now.

  “Lastly, this is a trial run. If you last a year, it can be a permanent position, but Killian or I can fire you for any reason at any time.”

  I take a deep breath and nod. His terms seem fair, considering I have never run a company like this before.

  “If you last a year, I’ll give you all of my equity.”

  I raise an eyebrow at him. “That would be…”

  He nods. “You would have controlling power over the company. You would have fifty-one percent. Killian will only have forty-nine.”

  I take a deep breath, trying to calm my nerves. I can’t believe what he is offering me. I don’t understand what changed since the heart attack, but whatever it is, I’ll take it.

  “Do we have an agreement?”

  I smile. “Yes.”

  I extend my hand, and we shake on it.

  “Now that, that is taken care of, what is that boy still doing here?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I figured, since you aren’t wearing a ring and you finally got the balls to tell me that you weren’t marrying him, no matter what, that it meant you told him no.”

  I nervously twist my strands of hair in front of my body.

  “Kinsley?”

  “I haven’t answered him yet. I tried to earlier, but he wouldn’t let me.”

  “Then, answer me this. How do you feel about that boy?”

  “What do you mean?”

  He rolls his eyes at me. “Do you love him? And don’t you dare lie to me. I’ve been through enough these last few days. You wouldn’t want to give me another heart attack because you lied to me.”

  I shake my head at his dramatics. I don’t know how to answer him because I’m not sure how I feel.

  “Maybe. I don’t know,” I say, getting up from the bed and pacing the room.

  He doesn’t rush me or ask me any further questions. He just watches me pace and encourages me with his patience to tell him.

  “He makes me feel warm when he’s around me. I ache when he’s gone.”

  I walk to the other side of the room.

  “He charming, intelligent, strong. He’s taken care of me more than he should.”

  I pace again.

  “He was willing to marry me for no other reason than because he felt he made a promise to my father.”

  I pace again.

  “He’s decisive and opinionated and so controlling that it pisses me off.”

  I pace.

  “He’s serious. He hardly ever laughs. It’s annoying really.”

  I pace.

  “He sucks at blackjack and poker. He sucks at all card games really.”

  I stop.

  “You love him,” he says.

  I shrug as tears well in my eyes. “It doesn’t matter if I love him. It only matters if he loves me.”

  And I already know the answer. He doesn’t.

  Granddad holds his arms out to me. I walk over to his bedside and curl up like a child would in her mother’s lap. I let the tears fall as he gently rubs my back until no more tears can fall.

  “I’m going to tell you a story that I promised I never would.”

  I hiccup.

  He smiles and kisses the top of my head. “It was three years ago. Your father had fallen ill.”

  I sit up before turning to look at him. “What do you mean, my father was ill?”

  He sighs. “You were in school. It was stage one colon cancer.”

  “What?”

  “Calm down. They were able to easily cure it because they’d caught it so soon. We didn’t want to worry you since there was nothing to worry about. He wouldn’t have died from the cancer.”

  I nod although it doesn’t make me feel any better that they kept secrets from me.

  “Anyway, the cancer scare was enough for your father to rethink his life plans. He loved his work. He loved running the company. It’s all he’d ever dreamed about, but it made him realize that he wanted more. He wanted to retire, to travel, to find out what living was like, outside of the daily grind of work.”

  I nod.

  “At the time, Killian was aware of what we wanted him to do. He had worked for a few months in the VP position and was doing better than any of us had expected.” He pauses. “So, your dad offered him the CEO position with no strings attached.”

  “You mean, he could have had the position without marrying me?”

  He nods. “Yes. He told Killian to think about it, but he wanted an answer soon. Killian went to see you shortly after that.”

  “I remember. He broke me and Eli up just to spite us, just because he could.”

  “Is that what he told you?”

  “He didn’t have to. I understood.”

  Granddad shakes his head. “He needed to see you. He realized he would be making a decision not only for himself, but also for you, too. He saw how unhappy you were with Eli. Well, I don’t really know what else he saw when he went to see you. All I know is, when he came back, he told your father he wasn’t ready to take the CEO job yet. He said he wanted to keep the condition that he would have to marry you in order to get it.”

  I suck in a breath. That can’t be true. He wouldn’t have come up with a plan so that we wouldn’t have to marry—except that he did…to give me a choice about my own future.

  “Your father realized shortly afterward that he wasn’t ready to retire yet. And they never spoke of it again.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “Oh, sweetie. Isn’t it obvious?”

  I think for a minute before nodding because it is obvious. There is only one explanation for it.

  “You’re still here,” I say when I exit my grandfather’s hospital room.

  Killian is sitting in a plastic chair in the waiting room. He’s still wearing a tux. He must not have found any gift shop clothes that fit him.

  “I told you I would stay,” he says, standing and putting his phone back into his pocket. “How’s he doing?” He nods toward my grandfather’s room.

  “He’s doing well. He’s a pretty tough old man…although his heart might have just grown a little softer.”

  He raises his eyebrows but doesn’t ask about it, and I don’t say anything else about my grandfather.

  Instead, I walk to Killian until my lips are just a breath from his, until my body is trembling again, just like it was the last time our bodies were this close to each other. I close my e
yes and try to calm my body, but it doesn’t work. I open them again and am faced with his intense dark eyes transfixed on mine.

  “Ask me,” I breathe onto his lips.

  I watch him suck in a breath, but he doesn’t say anything.

  “Ask me,” I say again.

  “Princess, will you marry me?” he asks while still standing.

  He doesn’t get down on one knee. He doesn’t pull the ring box that is still tucked in his pocket back out. That means, he’s already decided that he knows the answer.

  I smile because he’s mostly right. “No,” I say.

  His eyes close, immediately blocking me off. His breathing returns. His head drops.

  “Now, answer a question for me.”

  He takes a deep breath before opening his eyes. “Yes, princess?”

  “You have to promise to be completely honest.”

  “I will,” he says.

  My heart is racing much too fast. My shaking has increased instead of slowed. My eyes try to close, but I force them to stay open, to stay on him to read his reaction.

  I let one more beat of my heartbeat before I ask, “Do you love me?”

  A smug grin forms on his face as he takes a couple of seconds longer to answer me than I anticipated. I was wrong. Him deciding to marry me, no matter what, didn’t mean what I thought it did. It’s part of some other master plan that I don’t know about.

  “Maybe,” he says the word as innocently as I have countless times to him before. His smug smile grows larger.

  I can’t help the smile that forms on my own lips. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  I launch my lips onto his. It’s been too long since I tasted him, too long since he wrapped his arms around me, like he is doing now, too long since I felt truly loved by someone since my father died.

  The kiss is more than a kiss. It’s a declaration of love, a promise of what could be. It’s a chance, a chance to be together because of our choices and no one else’s.

  He tries to break away from the kiss when my hands start tugging at the hem of his shirt. “Princess, I love your enthusiasm, but we can’t do that here. There are people watching.”

  I smile larger though as I grab ahold of his hand and pull him down the hallway. An old episode of Friends pops into my head as we make our way through the hospital. It’s the one where Chandler and Monica sneak off to an empty hospital room to do it while Rachel is in labor.

  I pass a room that looks dark. There are no nurses hovering around this room. I peek through the cracked door. It’s empty.

  I tug on Killian’s arm, and he follows me into the room. I shut the door behind us, and my lips attack his again as my hand pulls at the hem of his shirt. It’s then I realize that I don’t need his shirt off. It’s his pants I should be working on.

  I grab at the button. It unbuttons quickly, and then I’m unzipping his pants.

  He smiles against my lips. “God, if I had known what kind of crazy woman you would turn into when I told you that maybe I loved you, I would have told you sooner.”

  “Shut up, and help me get these pants off of you.”

  He laughs but complies, and his pants fall to the floor. He grabs my ass and pushes me against the wall.

  I moan as his lips touch my neck, and his hand finds my breast.

  “This is going to be quick,” he says into my neck.

  I nod. “Yes, quick,” I say. I’m barely able to speak.

  I feel him smiling again as he reaches his hand into the front of my pants, cupping my pussy.

  “Fuck, Killian!” I scream.

  He clamps his hand over my mouth, silencing me. “You can’t scream. You can’t moan. You have to be silent.”

  I nod my head, agreeing.

  He tugs my pants down, and I feel them fall to the floor.

  He rubs his hard cock at my entrance. “God, you’re so wet already, baby.”

  “Please, I need you now,” I whisper.

  He rubs his cock one more time over my clit before he lifts my legs and thrusts inside me in one motion. I bite my lip to keep from screaming out his name. When I look at him, I can tell he is doing the same. He doesn’t hesitate though. He thrusts quickly in and out of me.

  God, I want to moan. I want to scream. I want to have him fuck me like this over and over again.

  But something does escape his lips when his cock is buried deep inside me with his beautiful eyes locked on mine. “I love you, princess.”

  He thrusts again, keeping me from responding the way I want to. He thrusts again, building us closer.

  “I love you, too,” I moan a little louder than I should.

  It’s then that I realize I forgot one little part of that Friends episode. They get caught.

  The door opens, and the lights flash on. I glance up, and we both laugh as a young nurse stares at Killian’s bare ass. We both laugh as she closes the door and runs away in embarrassment.

  Killian starts thrusting again.

  “What are you doing?”

  He shrugs. “Might as well finish.”

  I try to catch my breath as I pull my pants back up. I watch as Killian buttons his pants back up. The nurse has yet to come back, but that’s probably because she has called security by now.

  Killian doesn’t seem to care about security though. He walks to me, putting his hands at my waist. “I love you, Kinsley,” he says before softly kissing me on the lips. “I know you’re not ready to marry me yet. And that’s okay. But can we at least date?”

  I laugh. “Maybe.”

  “Yes,” he says sternly, making me laugh again.

  “Yes,” I say.

  He lifts me and spins me around as he kisses me again.

  But the spin is ended abruptly. I look to the door, thinking that maybe the nurse has come back, but no one’s there.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “Why aren’t you marrying me? I thought that was the only way you could be a part of the company.”

  I smile. “I told Granddad that I didn’t care about being a part of the company. I told him that I didn’t care about the money. I told him I refused to marry such an arrogant ass.”

  He frowns, making me smile larger.

  “I told him I was tired of living my life for other people. I told him that I’d be making all the decisions in my life now.”

  He hugs me again. “That’s great. I’m so proud of you, princess.” He lets me go. “What are you going to do now?”

  “Other than be your girlfriend?”

  He nods.

  “I’m going to be your new VP of Operations.”

  He grabs me and lifts me, spinning me around again.

  We kiss. We laugh. We fall further in love.

  When he puts me down, I know I have made the right decision.

  The door swings open again, startling us. Two men in black suits walk through the door. They are not security guards.

  “Are you Kinsley Felton?” the man says.

  “Yes,” I whisper.

  Killian wraps his arms around me tighter.

  The man walks toward us. He grabs ahold of my arm. “Kinsley Felton, you are under arrest.”

  I expect him to say, for having sex in a spare hospital bed. But that doesn’t make sense.

  He finishes his sentence, “For money laundering and fraud.”

  I stare at him, wide-eyed. I have no idea what he is talking about.

  Killian is still holding on to my waist, refusing to let me go.

  “I’m going to have to ask you to let her go.”

  Killian does, and the man puts the cuffs on me. He begins walking me out of the room. I hear Killian running next to us.

  “Excellent job, Agent Byrne,” the man who has me in cuffs says.

  I turn to my right to face the direction where the man is talking, but I have no idea who he is talking to. All I see is Killian. Killian Browne.

  His eyes grow heavy, sad, as he looks from me and then to the man who has me in cuffs. “Thank
you, Agent Phillips,” he says weakly.

  My mouth drops. Killian isn’t Killian. He’s not a CEO. He’s a cop or with the FBI or CIA or whatever the hell agents work with.

  I force myself to keep my eyes off of Killian or whatever the hell his name is as the man leads me out of the hospital and into the back of a blacked-out Suburban.

  I was wrong. I’m always wrong. Killian doesn’t love me. He doesn’t care about being a CEO. He was just doing his job.

  I try to push him out of my head. I try to focus on whatever I’m facing as the car speeds off, leaving the hospital behind. I can’t help it though. I glance back at him. He’s standing on the street, staring at me with an intense stare on his face.

  I hate him, I think.

  But I don’t. The lingering love is still there. I still feel his warm cum pooling between my thighs. I still feel his love even if it didn’t exist.

  I turn away from him.

  Any normal woman would be afraid. Being arrested is most people’s worst nightmare. It should be mine, except this isn’t the first time I’ve made a mistake. It feels just like the last time. The pain from being betrayed by a man I thought loved me is the same.

  The only difference is, last time I knew what the mistake was. But, this time, I have no clue.

  Maybe Never

  Book Two in Maybe Series

  I pace back and forth in the holding cell, unable to sit patiently like the rest of my cellmates. One woman lies back on one of the benches, seemingly asleep, while another sits across from her, picking the nail polish off her fingers.

  Not me though. I can’t sit. Not when I have no idea why I’m here. So, instead, I pace back and forth in the small cell, hoping that, soon, someone will come tell me what the hell is going on. I also have to pee, which is keeping me from sitting down, but I’m not going to go in the toilet in the corner of the room—at least not until I can’t hold it any longer.

  I think back to the last time I was here. It was the same jail and the same holding cell with the same disgusting yellow walls. Last time, I was calmer, much calmer, because I had accepted that I deserved to be in prison. I had confessed.

  I stop pacing when the woman lying on the bench snores, startling me. I just don’t know why I’m back in jail now. What did I do? The agent mentioned something about fraud and money laundering. I didn’t do either of those things. It must be a mistake.