If You Could Only Believe (Buchanan Brothers Series Book 4) Read online

  If You Could Only Believe

  Copyright 2018 Monica Clayton

  Published by M.E. Clayton

  All Rights Reserved

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This book is a work of fiction. The entire content is a product of the author’s imagination and all names, places, businesses and incidences are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), places or occurrences, is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any manner whatsoever without the express written consent from the author, except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Formatting: Smashwords

  Cover: Adobe Stock

  Warning: This book contains sexual situations and other adult themes. Recommended for 18 years of age and over.

  Table of Contents

  Acknowledgements

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter_1

  Chapter_2

  Chapter_3

  Chapter_4

  Chapter_5

  Chapter_6

  Chapter_7

  Chapter_8

  Chapter_9

  Chapter_10

  Chapter_11

  Chapter_12

  Chapter_13

  Chapter_14

  Chapter_15

  Chapter_16

  Chapter_17

  Chapter_18

  Chapter_19

  Chapter_20

  Chapter_21

  Chapter_22

  Chapter_23

  Chapter_24

  Chapter_25

  Epilogue

  Playlist

  About_the_Author

  Other_Books

  Contact_Me

  Acknowledgements

  The first acknowledgement will always be my husband (unless we ever divorce, then probably not so much after that), but seeing as how I can’t imagine that day ever coming, I can’t ever put myself out there without thanking him for all his love, support and belief in me.

  Second, there’s my family; my daughter, my son, my grandchildren, my sister and my mother. They are the people who love me the most, and know me the best, and love me dearly, despite, of all they know…LOL!

  And, of course, there’s Kamala. She insists that I don’t have to thank her in every book, but my love for her and gratitude for all her support and enthusiasm, claims otherwise. She’s the first person (outside my family) that I shared this dream with, and she’s been by my side every step of the way. Kam, you really are the best kind of friend!

  And, finally, I’d like to thank everyone who’s purchased, read, reviewed, shared and supported me and my writing. Thank you so much for helping make this dream a reality and a happy, fun one at that! There are not enough ‘Thank You’s in the world….

  Dedication

  For my grandsons –

  May you, each, find that one girl who makes you feel strong, loved and like you’re more than enough.

  For my granddaughter –

  May you find that one man who makes you feel beautiful and precious even on the days you feel like you might not be enough.

  Prologue

  Things like this don’t happen to people like me.

  I mean, there’s a reason I don’t have friends, have never had a boyfriend and my mother and sister hate me.

  I’m plain.

  I’m fat.

  I’m weird.

  And, worst of all, I have no sense of tact.

  I just say whatever is in my head; that’s why I have no friends.

  It’s not that I’m cruel, but I have no pride or self-measure, so I don’t pretend to not be upset if I’m upset. I don’t pretend to be happy if I’m not happy.

  I don’t pretend with my thoughts or emotions, and I’ve learned growing up that that makes people very uncomfortable.

  Hence, again, why I have no friends.

  I wish I could say it was the same reason why I’ve never had a boyfriend, but if you go back and see the ‘I’m plain’, ‘I’m fat’ and ‘I’m weird’, you’ll see why no guy has ever been interested in me.

  There’s also the question of my intelligence. I’ve been tested at genius level, and for someone that’s weird, that level of intellect just makes you weirder.

  But that’s okay.

  I’ve had 22 years to learn how to live with myself as I am. And I was getting along just fine being ignored and quietly going to work and earning a living where I could distance myself from my family as much as possible.

  Until Michael Buchanan, that is.

  Michael Buchanan was not ever supposed to notice me.

  He should never have ever known that I existed.

  Michael Buchanan should have been taking over the world with his brothers and meeting people who mattered.

  He should be rolling around naked with super models and socialites.

  He should be running Buchanan Industries with his brothers as he wined and dined heiresses.

  But, instead, he’s here with me.

  He’s in my apartment, closing in on me like a predator that has spotted its prey.

  First, he forced me to go to that company party.

  Next, he forced me to have to work with him tomorrow.

  Then, he forced me to mingle with his family.

  And now he was forcing me to give myself to him.

  Well…not exactly forcing, but what else did you call it when you felt like you didn’t have the power to resist or make another choice for yourself?

  What do you call it when you continuously tell the gorgeous man in front of you that he needs to scoot along to someone who belongs with his kind, but he doesn’t listen?

  Instead of sleeping with models and wooing heiresses, he’s smiling at you with those devil designed dimples. He’s finding ways to touch you, to brush against you.

  And what else do you call it when you want him to force you?

  Does that make me sick?

  Does that make me a pervert?

  It is a sign of mental instability to fantasize having a man, twice your size, hold you down and make you take him?

  Because that’s the only way I can see giving myself to Michael Buchanan. If he left it up to me to decide, I’d run. I turned from him and run as fast as my overweight body would let me.

  And I told him so.

  I told him I didn’t belong with him. I told him that there was no way I’d be able to get out of my head long enough to enjoy his attentions.

  But here we were, in my bedroom, with Michael Buchanan walking towards me with all the promises I didn’t believe in.

  Like I said, things like this didn’t happen to people like me.

  Chapter 1

  Sophia~

  I stared at the computer screen and I could feel my anxiety rise with each breath.

  Picture that ascent up the first slope of that monstrously huge rollercoaster you got onto only because your best friend bullied you into discarding all common sense. You know the one I’m talking about-the rollercoaster, not the friend.

  Those annoyingly, anxiety increasing ticks that remind you that you’re not an engineer, and therefore, have n o idea what actually keeps the car wheels attached to the structure.

  Tick.

  Tick.

  Tick.

  Tick.

  Then, you finally reach that first top arch, and because theme park engineers are sadists, you’re given that one split second to wonder if you’re going to be a laughing theme park goer or a crying lunatic when it’s all over.

  It’s Monday morning and reading the company wide email I just clicked open has me feeling like I’m in line to ride that invention of fright. Tuesday will be a tick. Wednesday will be a tick. Thursday will be a tick. And Friday…Friday morning will be that second of pause at the top, while Friday night looks like it’s going to be the fall.

  I blinked and blinked again, willing it to disappear, but it wasn’t.

  Monday, September 3rd, 2018 10:07:15 am

  To: Buchanan Industries (All)

  Subject: New Management Development Team

  To All Buchanan Industries Employees:

  Good Morning Everyone,

  In light, of the arrivals of Gabriel Buchanan (Marketing & Clientele) and Michael Buchanan, (Human Resources) Mason Buchanan, CEO & President of Buchanan Industries, has organized a company wide mandatory employee and management event to take place Friday, September 7th, 2018.

  The catered event will take place at The Fitzmill Hotel on Lexington Avenue and will begin at approximately 7:00 pm.

  All employees are allowed a Plus One for the event and we strongly encourage your attendance.

  Anyone unable to attend can contact H.R. with their questions and/or concerns before Friday.

  We look forward to everyone’s attendance and we look forward to impressing the vision of a familial work environment.

  Thank You!

  Marcy Lorrel

  Buchanan Industries Human Resources Manager

  [email protected]

  A mandatory company party?

  Okay, maybe in some aspects of the world, it was a good idea, or even a nice gesture to throw a party to introduce all of us to the new heads of Buchanan Industries. Some people might even think it was awesome for management to dish out that kind of money just on the desire to meet all their employees. Hell, if I was anyone else, I might even agree.

  But I wasn’t anyone else.

  I was Sophia Martella-weird, plain, fat, loner girl.

  I mean, it wasn’t my legal name or anything, but you get the idea.

  I wasn’t self-loathing, either. I was just stating facts.

  I had brown hair, that even with the length reaching to the middle of my back, it still possessed an unruly curl to it. I had brows that matched the color of my hair but didn’t match each other. One brow was a nice curved, fluid arch, while the other one was shaped with a little bit of a more severe pointed arch.

  It was retarded. How is someone’s eyebrows not going to match?

  My eyes were brown. Not a golden honey hue. Not a dark melted chocolate reminder. Not a tan, coffee, russet or any of those other beautiful shades of brown. They were just brown. I did have long lashes though, so that was something.

  The nose that sat on my face was unremarkable, but it got the job done. I could breathe, therefore sustaining life. My cheeks were full, but that was due to my body being nowhere near a size six. My mouth was a pale pink, and both lips were soft and full.

  I was a whopping 5’2” and a size 12. I’ll give you time to do the math. But in case math isn’t your strong suit, I weighed 160 pounds when I should, ideally, weight 115 to 120, and the weight didn’t discriminate, either. It made itself a home in my boobs, stomach, hips, ass and thighs. My excess loved me everywhere.

  And if it wasn’t enough to be weird, plain and overweight, I was also socially impossible. I had no friends, and I didn’t know how to make them. I spoke my mind with no filter to which my childhood therapist claimed it was just a simple side effect of my genius level I.Q; another thing that casts me further into weirdom.

  The only interaction I had with other people was work related or when I was forced to endure a lunch or dinner with my family. And now I was expected to go to a freakin’ party?

  With people.

  With lots of people (goddamn mandatory clause).

  And all for what? To shake hands with four men who I will never see or talk to again? I mean, to be fair, I might pass them in the lobby one day in the future or get caught in an elevator group with one of them, but aside that, no Buchanan would need to speak to me or even want to. They were so high up the ladder of success, there would never be a need for them to even be around me.

  My eyes latched onto the paragraph that instructed us to contact HR if we couldn’t make it, and for a few minutes or so, I was tempted to try to scam my way out of going. But I was such a horrible liar, I wasn’t sure if I could pull it off.

  Hell, the truth of the matter was, I didn’t lie, period. Another unfortunate side effect of my intellect according to Dr. Quack. Well, at least to me, he had sounded like a quack. I’m sure his credentials were very impressive to someone; just not me.

  Now, when I say I don’t lie, it’s not to say I’ve never partaken in the occasional little white lie, I’ve just never lied to lie or fabricated stories or falsehoods to prevent awkwardness. I’ve learned to say as little as possible or say nothing at all when someone asked me for my direct opinion on something.

  I inwardly cringed at the idea of one of the Buchanans approaching me at the party and asking me if I was having a good time. How do you tell your boss you’d rather poke hot needles in your eyes than attend a work function that was designed to create a more relaxed, happy and family-like atmosphere?

  My inability to bullshit was the very reason family luncheons and dinners were torturous. My mother and sister were everything I wasn’t. They were perfectly well-mannered, perfectly put together, perfectly educated, perfectly everything, and they never missed the opportunity to let me know how vastly different I was from them. And my father…well, like most men, he wisely stayed out of the on-goings between the women in his family.

  I let out a deep breath and tried to resign myself to my Friday night fate. Jesus, what did a person even wear to something like that? Would it be casual, office attire, formal? And Lord knows I didn’t know a thing about makeup. I wore tinted lip balm, but that was about the extent of it.

  This was going to suck.

  And the irony of it all? I was a goddamn genius with an I.Q. of 160+ and I couldn’t find a way to get out of a company party. I mean, really, smarts are worthless if you couldn’t tie your own goddamn shoes.

  Or your dancing shoes, as is with this case.

  I closed out the offending email and did my best to focus on the other, more pressing emails that actually had to do with my job. But all the while, I couldn’t shake the faint tick, tick, tick, tick reverberating in the back of my head.

  Mondays sucked.

  Chapter 2

  Michael~

  I sat in a chair that cost more than it was worth as I looked around my perfectly decorated office, with its dark oak book shelves and matching standing bar. The same dark oak that the desk and the small conference table were carved out of.

  The table sat on the left side of the room while the bookshelves and bar were on the right. In front of the desk sat two armchairs that had been carefully selected to match the array of browns and tans that colored the room. The chairs surrounding the conference table were the same taupe shade as the carpet, but the two armchairs had been chosen to match the desk chair.

  The floor to ceiling window bathed the conference table with the rare Indiana sun, but it was equipped with frosting capabilities if I needed to keep that brightness out. There were also blinds to close it off completely, if need be.

  This isn’t the first time I’ve been in this office, but it is the first time I have occupied it in the capacity of being fully immersed in my role at Buchanan Industries.

  Gabriel and I officially started in our roles at BI a month ago, but we had spent that month familiarizing ourselves with our departments and our direct employees. Now we were finally in full boss mode and it felt liberating. Like I could finally take a breath and start the rest of my life.

  Buchanan Industries was founded by my father’s father’s father or something like that, and while historically BI had been headed up by only one Buchanan, our father was the first Buchanan to go against the grain and get himself four sons instead of the traditional one.

  Mason was the oldest and the true leader and controller of Buchanan Industries. He let my father pretend to still be involved, but he really wasn’t. My father was-is a real sonofabitch, and even though Mason’s kept him in his place these past four or five years, it didn’t erase the first 18 years of his abuse and my mother’s cold neglect, even if Mom is a way better person these days.

  Mason was also a genius with a photographic memory and the ability to handle whatever issue or trouble that might be thrown his way. However, with that genius and photographic memory came the true makings of a sociopath. If it didn’t involve our brothers or their wives, Mason was hard pressed to feel connected to people. He had no empathy for humans in general. The only assurance we had that he wasn’t truly a full-blown psychopath was you could see his emotions plain as day whenever he was around his wife, Shane.

  My other brothers, Aiden and Gabriel, loved their wives, but Mason…Mason adored Shane on a whole other level. It was staggering to witness. Of course, Shane was special…so there was that.

  Aiden was the second oldest, and head of Finance at BI. Aiden wasn’t at Mason’s level of genius, but he was smart as all fuck and he could do math in his head. His brain was like a computer that could calculate odd, situations, outcomes and anything else that required a solution.

  While Aiden’s specialty was his computer brain, his weakness when we were growing up had been women. Aiden loved women and thought men should spend their lives cherishing everything about them. While he still appreciated the female species, his wife, Denise, was now the only woman in his atmosphere. She had a security with Aiden most women would never have. If Aiden loved women, then he lived for his wife.