My Best Friend's Uncle....And My Baby Daddy.
Five years ago, Autumn Martin broke the ultimate rule: she fell in love with Eric Kingston-her best friend's uncle and the most powerful man in London.
Their relationship was a beautiful, forbidden secret, but it was doomed from the start.
Fleeing with a secret he was never meant to find out, Autumn left the man she loved behind.
Now, she is back for her best friend's wedding, praying she can survive three days without Eric discovering the truth.
But Eric hasn't forgotten the woman who vanished.
When he catches a glimpse of a child with his own storm-gray eyes, the game changes.
Trapped in the Kingston estate, Autumn must navigate guilt, rekindled passion, and the terrifying reality that Eric Kingston never lets go of what belongs to him.
Chapters
Share
Chapter 8
I asked a passing maid where Eric was, and she directed me toward the sunroom. I walked off, giving my thanks before she could even finish speaking. How dare he treat me in such a manner? I am not a child he can simply restrict from going out; I am a grown woman, and my son's life is currently at risk.
I didn't knock; I just barged in. At that moment, I didn't feel the need for pleasantries, but as the doors swung open and numerous pairs of judgmental eyes stared back at me, I instantly wished I had. The silence lasted for a minute at most before it was shattered by a sharp, familiar voice.
"How dare you, you street trash, walk in on a private family meeting?" a woman spat. I realized now that the room was full of people I assumed were members of the Kingston and Hawthorne families-many of whom I recognized from the dinner the night before.
"You let people like this into your home and they suddenly start acting like they own the place," someone else muttered, their ears turning red with anger at my intrusion. How dare they treat me as something less than human?.
"Honestly, I blame Eric and Chloe," Eleanor remarked, never missing a second to ridicule her brother. I searched Eric's face, looking for any sign that he was affected by their vitriol, but he maintained a bored expression, looking as though he didn't want to be there at all.
"I only came here to speak with Eric-" I tried to speak up, but Eleanor ruthlessly interrupted me again.
"Address him by his proper name. Absolutely no manners; trash like this should be kicked out," she said, waving her hands at me as if I were a waste product. I felt absolutely humiliated, a deep heat rising in my chest. I wanted to crawl away and die. But then, a sudden realization hit me: this was all Eric's fault. He was the one who refused to let me leave, and he was the one who had insisted I call him by his first name.
Before I could respond, Eric walked over to me. I felt a wave of relief; I didn't want to engage in a verbal battle against twenty people alone.
"Let's go," he whispered. I followed him out, hearing someone call after him, but Eric just waved them off, stating his presence wasn't needed anyway.
We walked until we reached the same office a few days ago. My mind recalled every heated second we had shared there as Eric locked the door. Before I could speak, he advanced toward me.
"So, it seems I am not the only one who was unhappy about last night's intrusion," he said, the air between us suddenly thick. "Eager, huh? Don't worry, I won't make you wait long," he added, caressing my hair.
"That's not why I'm here," I said, trying to shake him off.
"Then what did you come for?" he asked, his lips grazing my neck and shoulders.
"I want to leave," I stated firmly. He pulled back instantly to look at me. "I was told I couldn't leave without your permission. That's what the guards said."
"And what is so important that you want to leave so badly?" he asked, returning his touch to me. I knew lying was useless. If I wanted to get out of those gates, I needed his trust-or at least his cooperation.
"I want to see my nephew," I blurted out.
Eric recoiled as if I were made of acid. The sudden distance made me ache. "Your nephew? He is here in London?" Eric asked, surprise tinging his voice.
"Yes, and I think he is in danger," I said, trying to keep my voice steady and honest. He stared at me for what felt like hours before he finally answered.
"No," he said, his tone cooling and devoid of warmth.
"What?" I was floored.
"You heard me. I know this is just an excuse for you to run away again," he accused.
I couldn't take it any longer. Every logical sense of fear or pride was replaced by undiluted desperation for my baby. I dropped to my knees, clutching at his pants leg.
"Please, Eric, I beg of you! I promise I am not seeing anyone else," I sobbed, the tears mixing with snot as I held onto him. "You can send someone with me. I just need to move them to a different hotel. If not for me, then for the times we shared... I would do anything for him to be safe". It was a shameless, disgraceful move, but my son's life mattered more than my pride.
******
After I had cried for what felt like an eternity, Eric finally agreed-on the condition that he came with me. Panic flared; I had to find a way to prevent him from seeing Finlay's face.
We took his helicopter, a journey that sent me spiraling down memory lane, though I forced myself to stay focused on the present. When we reached the hotel, I hurried out, practically barreling past the guards.
Inside, the room was a complete mess. My heart dropped into my stomach, and my feet felt like lead. This couldn't be happening. I collapsed into Eric's arms, sobbing as I pulled out my phone to try the number one last time.
Then, I heard it-a familiar ringing coming from behind the bathroom door. I bolted toward it, but Eric tackled me back.
"Autumn, are you insane? What if it's a trap?" he hissed.
"Sarah! If you're in there, it's me! I'm here! Open up!" I yelled at the top of my lungs.
The door creaked open. Sarah stood there, tears streaming down her face, shielding Finlay in her arms. I found a surge of strength I didn't know I possessed, pushed Eric off me, and ran to hug them both.
****
One thing was certain: they weren't safe. I wanted to fight Eric on where to take them, but I was simply too exhausted from the emotional rollercoaster of the day to resist any longer.
Keep Reading
The story is getting intense! Switch to App to
Unlock All Chapters
You may also like
7.6
She was the heir of a criminal syndicate, bred to command the underworld.
For seven years she loved the wrong man, serving his family and building their fortune. Her payment was betrayal-his affair with her best friend.
During her three-year coma, he hissed, "Don't wake up."
They carried on at her bedside, then plotted her death to steal the company. She woke anyway and shattered them, rattling high society as a mafia heir and lethal fighter who ran the black-market economy.
He begged. She kicked him aside and chose the man who'd waited a decade-the world's top arms dealer. "I'm yours."
8.8
I was the despised adopted daughter of the Sanders family, hiding behind heavy gothic makeup and enduring their daily disgust.
The day my adoptive father died in a severe car crash, my adoptive mother and stepsister didn't even bother to call me.
Instead, while his body was still warm, my mother filed a multi-million dollar life insurance claim.
"I am not feeding a useless freak for another day. Pack your trash and get out."
She kicked me out into the freezing rain, but that wasn't the worst of it.
My stepsister Cornelia stole my greatest secret. Five years ago, I saved the life of Fidel Vaughan, a ruthless billionaire heir, from a burning estate.
Cornelia claimed my identity, accepted a million-dollar reward, and secured a marriage proposal from him, burning my only proof to ashes.
They thought I was just a helpless, pathetic high schooler they could discard and replace.
But when I hacked the police files, I discovered my father's crash wasn't an accident. It was a targeted hit, and the Vaughan Group had hijacked the traffic cameras to cover it up.
I washed off the ugly black makeup, shedding the disguise of a pathetic outcast.
I am Spectre, the world's most elusive hacker and underground doctor.
I intercepted the billionaire heir's heavily armed convoy in the dead of night. They thought they could steal my life and murder my father, but now, I hold the needle that controls Fidel Vaughan's sanity, and I will make them all pay.
7.9
I hid my terminal stomach cancer diagnosis, hoping to spend my last six months with my husband, Gerard.
But the moment I stepped into our penthouse, he threw a divorce agreement at my feet.
"We are ending this marriage. Kena is waiting for me."
He said his first love had returned, and he had no time to play games with me anymore.
Over the next few days, he watched me vomit violently, coldly accusing me of faking a pregnancy to secure a massive payout.
When his own grandfather suffered a massive heart attack upon discovering his public affair, we rushed the old man to the emergency room.
But Gerard didn't stay for the surgery.
Kena showed up in a wheelchair, crying about a mild chest pain, and he immediately turned his back on his dying grandfather and me to comfort her.
I had loved this man in secret for thirteen years.
I even saved him from a rival's drug trap just nights ago, giving my failing body to him in a dark hotel room to protect his reputation.
Yet, to him, I was nothing but a greedy, calculating transaction standing in the way of his true love.
Watching him walk away to hold another woman while the surgery light flashed red, the thirteen years of desperate love inside me finally shattered.
I calmly wiped his grandfather's blood from my hands and turned around.
This time, I will sign the papers and disappear from his life forever.
8.8
My little boy died on the operating table during a minor, routine surgery.
That exact same night, my billionaire husband bought out the Hudson River for a massive, million-dollar fireworks show.
It wasn't to mourn our child. It was to celebrate his first love's son being discharged from the hospital.
When I confronted him with our son's death certificate, he sneered and accused me of hiding the boy to get his attention.
He held his mistress in our home, watched her fake a panic attack, and threatened to bankrupt my family if I didn't get on my knees and apologize to her.
But the most horrifying truth came from a terrified hospital nurse.
My son's anesthesia was deliberately kept low during the procedure to keep his tissue viable to save the mistress's child.
He was awake and in agonizing pain while his own father planned a grand celebration for another man's son.
I couldn't understand how a father could be so completely heartless.
How could he sacrifice his own flesh and blood just to please a woman who constantly manipulated him?
Looking at the ashes on my son's favorite toy, my paralyzing grief evaporated, replaced by a cold, unyielding rage.
I arranged my little boy's funeral alone in the freezing rain, left my wedding ring on the counter, and walked straight into the private hotel suite of my husband's most ruthless business rival.
"Let's take him down," I said.
8.0
I pointed a gun at my husband and made him sign our divorce papers.
He thought I was too soft to survive without him, he had no idea of the rebel he created. I was about to become his worst nightmare.
Dante Caruso taught me two things: how to love a monster, and how to become one. When I discovered he murdered my family for power, I carefully planned my exit and transformation into the heiress I was meant to be. I transformed from an innocent bride to his worst nightmare, I spent two years building an empire on the ashes of the girl he thought he knew.
Now I'm back. Not as Bella Russo, the wife he's been desperately searching for. But as a force shaking the underworld, the enemy that is systematically destroying everything he built.
He wants his wife back.
I want him buried.
Now the real question is what will be his decision, when he discovers the enemy that is destroying his empire and the woman he's lost are the same person.
8.3
I was a ghost in the rafters of Sotheby’s, five floors above the most expensive pavement in New York, clutching a ten-million-dollar ledger hidden inside a drop of blood-red agate. I had the perfect exit planned, but I didn't count on Harding Bishop, a security predator who could track a shadow through a rainstorm.
When the exits were sealed and the tactical teams started swarming, I made a split-second choice to survive. I stepped out of the shadows and looked into the eyes of a billionaire socialite searching for her missing daughter, whispering a single, broken word: "Mom?"
Just like that, I wasn't a thief anymore; I was Cassandra Sterling, the heiress who had been gone for five years. But the homecoming was a nightmare. My new "sister" promised to send me back to the gutter, my "father" held a gold-plated pistol to my knee the moment the limo doors closed, and the family patriarch tried to strike me down with his cane just for breathing his air.
Every second was a high-wire act. I had to play the part of a traumatized victim while a ten-million-dollar stone was literally sewn into the raw, bleeding wound on my shoulder. If I moved wrong, I’d bleed out; if I spoke wrong, I’d be buried in the backyard of the Hamptons estate.
Harding Bishop didn't believe a word of it. He moved into the room next to mine, watching my every breath and checking my hands for gun calluses under the guise of protection. He thinks he’s the warden and I’m his prisoner, but he’s about to find out that a cornered rat is the most dangerous thing in the house.
"Sleep tight, Vesper," he whispered as he locked my door, using my real name for the first time.
He thinks he’s won, but he has no idea that I’m already reaching for the Agate hidden under my pillow, ready to burn his empire to the ground.