Kissing the Tycoon Read Online Free PDF

when I told you about the woman who put the restraining order out on my dad.”
    “There wasn’t a restraining order?”
    “Oh no, there was. It’s just that…”
    This time she did look up and was shocked by the pain she saw etched into his face. She scooted off him and to her side so she could face him. She grabbed his hand, embedding into him the support he seemed to need. “Tell me please.”
    “The woman wasn’t just some woman. She was my mother.”
    Too shocked to say anything, Riley brought his hand to her lips kissing each knuckle. She waited, letting him get his thoughts together, steel himself for what he was about to tell her.
    “She’d left to get some milk, and when she didn’t return, Dad was frantic. He’d called every ER and had just reported her missing when she walked through the door three days later—believe it or not with a gallon of milk. They fought, nothing new. They always fought, but this was different. This time, as I sat on the top step, I knew things were about to change. She walked over me in her haste to get to her bedroom. When she came out a few minutes later, she had a bag in her hand and she left without a word to my brother or me. Dad looked for her and finally found her a week later. Late at night, he piled Chandler and me into the car in our pajamas. I think he thought when we arrived at his destination that both of us were asleep. Chandler was.”
    “You weren’t.” She shivered, partially from the chill in the air but mainly for the confused little boy she could hear in the man beside her.
    He slid out of bed, paced for a second before covering her with a blanket with such care it brought tears to her eyes. He pulled on his jeans and sat in the corner chair. She wanted to go to him, wanted the intimacy back, but she understood. This was hard for him, perhaps harder than anything he had ever done. She doubted he had ever told anyone what he saw that night. She wondered if Chandler knew.
    When he failed to say anything, she finally spoke. “I always assumed your mother had died.”
    He shook his head. “I knew you would make that assumption, and I didn’t want to correct it, to be honest. She is, as far as I am concerned, dead.”
    Edging her body to the side of the bed, Riley got as close to him as she could without falling off the edge. “Tell me what happened that night.”
    Leaning back into the chair, he ran a hand through his gloriously messed hair. “There isn’t much to tell. Dad banged on the door. Some other guy came out and told him something about a restraining order. I found out later she had signed away her all her rights as a parent in exchange for him leaving her alone. She wanted out of her marriage, out of motherhood, just out. Dad was served the next day at the docks in front of all his coworkers. And both of us grew up being told never to go after a woman who left. If she left, let her stay gone.”
    This time she did get out of the bed. She wrapped the blanket around herself and sat on the floor between his legs. “I am so sorry she wasn’t the mother you deserved.”
    “She came to see me a year ago.”
    “How did that go?”
    “I was shocked, but not really as surprised as I should have been.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “It was the same week our company made the all-important top 500 list. We made it, Chandler and I. I took the article to my father, offered to buy him a new house, a new boat, anything the man wanted. He might not have been a loving or even understanding father, but he did his best with what he had. He turned us down. Said he was proud of us, and he had all a man like him could want for. But he added that we needed to take care. Piranhas would descend, wanting what we bled for.”
    “Your mother showed up.”
    He nodded. “She came to the office and made the mistake of meeting me over Chandler. Had she seen him, her payout might have been bigger.”
    “You never told your brother, did you?”
    “How could I? He