His Secret Virgin

1. Christopher

1

CHRISTOPHER

Not long ago, the laughter of my children always managed to stir my heart in a way nothing else ever had. Even as adults, the sound of their laughter riding the wind made me smile. When they were young, I lived my life for my girls. But time passed, life happened, and somehow that all changed.

My role as the doting father seemed like eons ago; now I had nothing, no one. And I couldn’t be happier about it.

“Dad?” I heard my oldest, Lauren, call out. “We know you’re home. Don’t bother hiding from us. Ashley and I want to know all about how your forty-sixth birthday went yesterday.”

My forty-sixth birthday. f**k, I’m old!

Sitting on the back deck watching the sun as it dropped out of the sky, I didn’t particularly want to hear anything my darling daughters had to say. They’d just come back from a weekend shopping spree with their b***h of a mother. I didn’t want to hear a thing about my ex-wife.

Five blissful years of being happily divorced had gone by, and I looked forward to many more years of paradise without that banshee in my life.

“Dad?” Ashley called out in her sing-song voice. “Where are you? Come out, come out, wherever you are.”

“On the deck, my loves.” I figured I might as well let them say their piece and get it over with. The glass of Scotch I held in my hand would help steady me for their jabs, I hoped.

High heels clicked over the wooden floor as my always fashionable daughters made their way out to me. Lauren at twenty-five, had done little with her life thus far. It seemed she planned on majoring in purchasing all the clothing possible at the college of Daddy’s Credit Card.

“There you are.” Shuffling through her enormous purse, she fished out a yellow envelope. “From me, Daddy. Happy forty-sixth birthday.” She punctuated her sentence with a kiss on my cheek.

“Thank you, my dear.” Opening the envelope, I found a blue card inside. Fireworks covered the front of the card and exclaimed that I should have a happy one. Inside there was a signature, Lauren Taylor, and nothing more than that. “Well, it’s only a day late.” And a dollar and sentiment short. “Thank you, darling.”

Ashley took a seat across from me then smoothed her hand over new denim jeans that fit her like a glove. “I didn’t have a chance to get you a card.” Her narrow shoulders moved with a shrug. “But you already have everything money can buy, so that makes it pretty hard to buy gifts for you.”

“Sorry about that.” I found it odd that my youngest daughter would try to make me feel guilty for not needing anything.

Ashley, at twenty-three, wasn’t exactly a scholar either. Unfortunately, Lisa, their mother, never taught them much in terms of ambition. My ex’s master plan was for our girls to do what she did: find a man, train him right, help him become a success, and then ride his coattails.

Lisa had done that for twenty-one years before I found out she’d been cheating on me throughout most of our marriage. I had been unhappy with our marriage for at least five years before I found her in our bed with another man.

Whether it was wrong of me or not, I was happy to have a legitimate reason to divorce the woman who’d made my life hell for what felt like an eternity.

Lauren took a seat at the table, grinning like the Cheshire Cat. “Mom said we should get you a cane for your birthday, old man.”

I didn’t find that so funny.

“I suppose it must be all the surgeries that made her forget she’s a week older than me. But when you have to go in once a year to get your face lifted and every couple of years to get your fake boobs pulled up, I guess you forget how old you really are.” I knew it was a shitty thing to say, but I didn’t care.

“Put your claws away, Dad!” Ashley said with a smirk as she raked her hand in the air. “She told us to tell you happy birthday from her and that she would like nothing more than to join us some weekend, here at the lake.”

It would be a cold day in Hell before I invited that woman to my home.

“Um, no.” I took a sip of the Scotch to stop me from saying anything else.

I prided myself on keeping most of my unkind remarks to myself, trying not to vent to our daughters about their shitty mother. Today felt extra challenging.

When I left Lisa, I left her with the home we’d raised our children in. She could have that place. As far as I knew, she’d screwed men on every surface of that mansion. I wanted nothing to do with it.

Rushing to find a place of my own, I’d bought myself a small four-bedroom, five-bath home in Manchester. I had to stay in New Hampshire; my company demanded too much of my attention not to.

After the divorce was finalized and I was no longer afraid that Lisa would get half of everything I owned, I bought a large, stately mansion on the shores of Massabesic Lake, just outside of Manchester. Settling down in my own house, I was finally able to feel like myself again. It was my very own mansion, which I could furnish and decorate as I saw fit for once, and not how my wife dictated.

I wasn’t in the new lake house long before Lauren came to me, asking if she could move in. Watching the unending parade of men through her mother’s bedroom was getting old, even for her.

Not long after she moved in, Ashley showed up with her driver struggling to unload all of her things. “I’m moving in, Dad.”

“I see that.” With a nod, I’d let her move in; life returned to a bit of the routine I’d left behind when I moved out of our family home.

Having them in the house wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been with their mother around to stir things up. The girls didn’t bicker with each other as much as they had when we all lived under the same massive roof. They got along quite well, as a matter of fact. We all did.

Of course, I didn’t try to make them do much of anything. They came and went as they pleased. Each had their own credit card that I would pay off each month.

They weren’t completely spoiled. I did set limits on their cards. Only fifty thousand a month. If they met their limit, then they had nothing more to spend until the next month came around.

I thought it fair enough.

Somewhere deep inside I knew I should point my girls in some kind of direction. I wasn’t getting any younger, and I wanted to make sure my girls could take care of themselves if anything should ever happen to me.

“I think you two should start thinking about college or a career or something.”

“Why?” Ashley asked as she rolled her blue eyes. “We’re just kidding about your age. You’ve got tons more time. No reason for us to get all worried about money right now.”

Lauren smiled at me as she batted her long, dark, fake lashes. “Yeah, Daddy, why start worrying now?”

Taking another sip of Scotch, I wondered how I could possibly explain something as profound as doing a job, because you should be skilled in at least one thing in life. But nothing came to mind. “Okay, forget it.”

“Even when you do kick it, we’re set.” Ashley reached out, taking the glass out of my hand. “You should stop drinking and maybe take up yoga so you’ll live longer.”

I took my glass back. “I don’t need yoga when there’s alcohol to help me relax after a tough day at work.” Inspiration struck. “See, that’s what I’m talking about. You girls should know how it feels to do a good day’s work, to reap the rewards from doing that. It feels great to accomplish something. To set goals and to be able to see them through—it’s more than satisfying.”

“Um, no,” Lauren spouted. “Mom says that we don’t need to work. She says we’re always going to have money. She made sure that you made tons of money, so she would never have to worry about it. And that money will continue to make more money until the day you die, and then it will still keep growing because of the investments you’ve made.”

My God, these girls are spoiled rotten!

Pinching the bridge of my nose, I had to remind myself that I’d married their mother at the tender age of twenty. I’d been a dumb kid who’d fallen for the first female willing to suck my c**k. Granted, she’d only done that while we dated. That s**t went out the window as soon as my ring was on her finger.

So many things went out the window once I said ‘I Do.’

The sweet way she’d say my name in her quiet, shy voice, “Christopher, come here, baby.” That all changed. I was no longer her beloved Christopher; she’d started calling me Chris after our vows were said. Sweet names were no longer part of the marital package. And I didn’t understand why.

After our graduation, Lisa began the daunting task of finding just the right job for me. I’d never thought about working in the food industry until she found an opening at a wholesale food company. I came in as a manager, and after I’d climbed the ladder to the top, she came to me with a new idea.

“Why not start your own company and take this one out of business?” she’d asked me one day. “I’ve made sure our credit is excellent. You could get a business loan and start building up our company as soon as you want to, Chris. What do you say?”

I’d said yes. I did it all, just like she told me to. But I didn’t make her my partner in any of it. Thank God!

She might’ve had the idea, but her involvement and interest in the company ended there. As long as I was bringing in money, she didn’t care about anything else.

My divorce lawyer had been damn proud of me for leaving her out when I’d asked him to help me keep as much as I could with the divorce. Lisa had wanted half, and she wasn’t budging on that.

Thanks to her infidelities, she got way less than half. I gave her our home, and she got to keep the three cars I’d paid for. In the end, all I had to provide her with was one billion dollars from my company, Global Distributing.

I counted myself lucky to have gotten away only losing that much. But I had to admit, she took much more than money from me. My ability to trust—to love—had crumbled along with my marriage. My desire to have a woman in my life was gone too. All I really wanted was to live happily ever after—alone.

Well, my girls could be around. But no romance was required, or even desired, in my life. Too many years of living with a self-serving narcissist had taken its toll on me. Love, l**t, and even attraction were lost to me.

“Daddy, did you hear me?” Lauren asked.

I hadn’t heard a word as I’d drifted off in my own thoughts. “No.”

“I said that you should think about letting Mom come over for at least a cookout or something. You know how much she’s always loved this lake. We could take her out on the boat. She’d love that. And she really wants to be your friend, Dad. She talked about you all weekend.” She patted my hand. “Please.”

I always had a hard time saying no to my girls—except when it came to their mother.

“No way in Hell, precious. I don’t want your mother to come here. This is my place. One day, when you fall in love, you’ll understand better. I don’t hold any grudges or hate in my heart. That said, I don’t want your mother involved in my life in any way.”

Ashley swiped blonde locks so similar to her mother’s out of her face. “See, I told you, Lauren. He can’t get over what she did to him.”

“Oh, I’m over it.” I got up to go inside, needing to leave the whole conversation behind me. “And I want to stay over it. Night night, girls.”

Aside from my daughters, women weren’t something I wanted in my life, friend-wise or romance-wise.

I’m done!