Authors: Elle Saint James
“I lost my job, then they took my rental car a day earlier than expected, then my landlady gave me a thirty-day notice that she’s selling my apartment building, and the new owners are leveling it to rebuild.”
Dominick had approached her quickly as she spoke. He had his arms around her squeezing her tight before she finished.
“And all that wasn’t even the worst part.”
“There’s more?” He pulled away.
“I had a loan to repay. It was coming out of my checks. I had three years left on the balance of the loan. But along with my pink slip came the bill due in just thirty days.”
Dominick, incredulous that she wasn’t comatose from all the bad news, started to say that he’d pay the bill. However she spoke first.
“Don’t even say you’ll pay it, either.”
“Stella, we can help you.”
“I know you can, but I’m so battered and beaten down. Please, you have to at least leave me with my pride. I’ll figure out a way to pay it.”
“I have no doubt. But in the face of jail, I hope you’ll at least let me front you some bail money.”
“If the time ever comes, I may take you up on it. In the meantime, Tyler graciously ordered me to move here, because he said you’d kick his ass if he didn’t.”
“That’s exactly right.”
Tyler entered at that moment. “Hey, you’re back.” He took a closer look. “And you look pretty relaxed for dropping your precious cell phone in a puddle.”
“How did you know that?”
“I called the foreman at the ranch. Ben was pretty forthcoming about your antics there.”
“Ben should mind his manners.”
“Probably, but I hadn’t heard from you for several days, so I wanted to converse.”
“Sounds like you had lots to tell me,” Dominick said.
“So she told you about her suck-fest of a day?”
“Yep. Job, car, and home all gone.”
“And I broke up with her, too.”
Stella huffed. “I didn’t tell him that. You didn’t mean it anyway.”
“You broke up with her? What’s wrong with you?” Dominick hugged her and sent a look over her shoulder at Tyler.
Tyler raised his arms. “I was trying to be an adult. Didn’t work out. I’ll think long and hard before ever doing it again.”
A beeper went off on the stove, distracting them all. Stella put the envelope down, hopped off the island counter with the oversized shirt flapping open, and pulled something from the oven.
Stella broke in between them. “Let’s have dinner in the formal dining room tonight, okay?”
Tyler looked down at her half-dressed state and smiled. “Looks like you’ve been cooking all right, but not necessarily all food.”
“Dominick was happy to see me.”
“I’ll bet.”
They both followed her into the formal dining room already set for dinner, and with a large plate of cornbread waiting in the center of the table.
The casserole dish she’d pulled from the oven was placed alongside the cornbread.
“What’s for dinner?”
“Roast beef with potatoes and carrots, and some cornbread.”
“I’ve really missed you being away from the ranch. I hope you won’t leave here too quickly. We really love your cooking.”
“I’ll have to find a job, eventually.”
“I wish you’d let us hire you as a cook.”
“You’ve already done enough by letting me live here temporarily. I’ll be fine.”
Stella dished up the food and the three of them had a nice meal. Afterward, she brought out a peach and blackberry cobbler, apologizing that it was only made with canned peaches and frozen blackberries.
“Seriously, we’re guys. We don’t care where it came from as long as it’s food.”
“Oh I forgot a spoon to dish it out. Be right back.”
When she returned, she had a spoon in one hand, and the manila envelope in the other.
“You distracted me from this earlier.”
“I just wanted sex and food. You lured me in by lying naked on the island.”
Tyler laughed. “I knew you were too relaxed to have just come in from your trip.”
Stella pulled the papers out and began reading as they helped themselves to the cobbler.
“What!” Stella stood from the table, papers clutched in her hands, screeching her chair out behind her as if in a fury. “How could you two do this to me?”
* * * *
Stella backed away from the table clutching the papers from work in one hand, absolutely furious that she’d trusted these men.
“What is wrong, Stella?” Dominick and Tyler both stood from the table. “What do the papers in there say?”
She lifted the vile, crunched papers in her hand up above her head. “This. My loan has been paid off. These are the papers saying that I don’t owe on it anymore.”
Tyler’s mouth dropped open, but no sound was forthcoming. He shook his head back and forth, and then looked at Dominick.
Dominick, on the other hand, looked mildly confused.
Stella backed away from them. “You two conspired to pay it off and then didn’t tell me. Why would you do this? I told you it was my debt. I told you that
I
would pay it.”
“Stella.” Dominick finally spoke. “I didn’t pay it off.”
“Neither did I.” Tyler found his voice.
“I don’t believe you.” Stella turned around, stalked through the hall past the kitchen, and headed to the bedroom they’d given her. She slammed the door and tried to get her anger under control.
She paced and cursed under her breath, and tried to breathe and calm herself.
A few minutes later, a tap came at the door. She didn’t want to answer it. Didn’t want to face them. She was so pathetic that she needed a man to take care of her problems. Her mother would be so proud. She’d finally landed not one, but two sugar daddies to take care of her and pay her way.
“Stella, please come out. I promise we didn’t pay anything for you.”
They were denying it? Stella scooped up the now hopelessly crumpled papers and flung the door open wide.
She stomped out into the kitchen between them. “How do you explain this then?” She waved the receipt for payment in full on her sizable loan in front of them. “Who else would pay it? No one else knows about it.”
“Your boss, Mr. Fuller—”
“Wouldn’t piss on me if I was on fire,” she finished for him.
Dominick put a hand on her shoulder. “I swear to you that neither of us paid this bill for you. I didn’t even know about the loan you had until just now.”
She turned to Tyler. He shook his head. “Sorry, honey. If I could have figured out a way, I would have paid it, but I couldn’t even get anyone to talk to me at your place of business. Lawyers are pretty closed mouthed.”
“Who else knew about the loan?” Dominick asked. “Would your supervisor have paid it?”
“Claudia?” Stella laughed out loud. “No way. She hasn’t even tried to contact me since I left the firm. I figured she’d at least call and gloat.”
“But the cell service out here is iffy. Maybe she’s tried, but the calls haven’t gone through.”
Stella looked at Dominick and Tyler carefully again. They truly seemed as surprised as she was.
“Was there a note in the envelope besides the receipt to explain?”
Stella sifted through the pages several times. “No. Nothing.”
Dominick had started rifling through the rest of the mail. “Perhaps there is more of your mail in here. Something to explain. Ah ha.” He pulled a letter from the pile. “This is also addressed to you.”
Stella grabbed it and read the return address, but didn’t recognize it. She then ripped the envelope open and pulled out a letter. A small piece of paper fell to the floor from the pages. Dominick scooped it up and handed a personal check to her.
Dearest Stella,
I’m sorry I didn’t learn of your job troubles sooner.
Stella scanned to the bottom of the page. It was signed Mr. Baker. He was one of the named partners at the firm where she worked.
“Holy shit. This is from one of the partners.” Stella kept reading.
Enclosed please find a check in the amount of the money you’ve paid toward the loan for this past year. I’ve also added in a bit more for severance. It was unfair for you to be fired in the manner you were let go. Please accept this money and the payment in full of your loan as equal compensation for the work you did at our firm. I promised your mother I’d look in on you now and again. I’m sorry I wasn’t there to head off this travesty. If you’d like your job back, I’ll see what I can find for you elsewhere, since I’d expect you do not wish to return to Baker, Fuller and Howe at this time. Please contact me at your earliest convenience, and I’ll see that you get a job with comparable pay.
Sincerely,
Jay Baker
Stella handed the letter over to Dominick. She then hung her head and cried.
She cried for many reasons. But mostly for her erroneous rush to judgment over Dominick and Tyler paying for her loan. She should have believed them when they told her they didn’t pay it.
“I’m so sorry,” she began, but both of them surrounded her and sandwiched her between them.
“No worries, honey. We were the logical choice.” Tyler hugged her and kissed the back of her neck.
Dominick kissed her forehead. “Looks like you’re rich now. You probably don’t even want us anymore.”
“Not true. I’m not leaving you. Who else would put up with my crap?”
“Please. My first thought was that Tyler had actually done it. He doesn’t think.”
“I do, too. And I think we should get in there and eat that cobbler.”
“Oh right, I forgot, he thinks with his belly.”
“Nothing wrong with that when we have the best cook in the state of Colorado.”
They retired to the dining room once more as Stella thought about how lucky she was. After a hellacious roller-coaster ride and then an even more surprising recovery, they’d stood by her good or bad, and even when she was a bitch to them.
She decided she was lucky to have these men. She already loved them, and had for quite awhile. Her future was certainly looking up. “Thank you for understanding.”
Tyler brushed hair from her shoulder. “I love it that you go all wild and crazy when you think we’ve done something for you.”
“I just never wanted a sugar daddy.”
Tyler stopped. “Is that what you think? Woman, you’ll be working for your room and board here. First as a cook, and then our private love slave.”
“Love slave, really?”
Tyler gave her a sheepish look. “Well at least until we can convince you to marry us.”
“Marry you?” She glanced at each of them in turn. “You want to marry me?”