Only One Touch (Only One Series 4) Read online

  ONLY ONE TOUCH

  Natasha Madison

  Copyright © 2021 Natasha Madison. E-Book and Print Edition

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used factiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons or living or dead, events or locals are entirely coincidental.

  The author acknowledges the trademark status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/ Use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owner.

  All rights reserved

  * * *

  Cover Design: Jay Aheer https://www.simplydefinedart.com/

  Editing done by Jenny Sims Editing4Indies

  Proofing Julie Deaton by Deaton Author Services https://www.facebook.com/jdproofs/

  * * *

  The Only One

  Only One Kiss

  Only One Chance

  Only One Night

  Only One Touch

  * * *

  Southern Series

  Southern Chance

  Southern Comfort

  Southern Storm

  Southern Sunrise

  Southern Heart

  Southern Heat

  Southern Secret

  Southern Sunshine

  * * *

  Only One

  Only One Kiss

  Only One Touch

  Only One Night

  Only One Chance

  * * *

  This Is

  This is Crazy

  This Is Wild

  This Is Love

  This Is Forever

  * * *

  Hollywood Royalty

  Hollywood Playboy

  Hollywood Princess

  Hollywood Prince

  * * *

  Something So Series

  Something So Right

  Something So Perfect

  Something So Irresistible

  Something So Unscripted

  * * *

  Tempt Series

  Tempt The Boss

  Tempt The Playboy

  Tempt The Ex

  Tempt The Hookup

  * * *

  Heaven & Hell Series

  Hell And Back

  Pieces Of Heaven

  * * *

  Love Series

  Perfect Love Story

  Unexpected Love Story

  Broken Love Story

  * * *

  Faux Pas

  Mixed Up Love

  Until Brandon

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  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

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Epilogue One

  Epilogue Two

  FREE BOOK!

  Books By Natasha Madison

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Becca

  “Becca,” the male caller says when he answers the phone.

  “Mr. Grant,” I say, tapping my Mont Blanc pen on my desk. I lean back in my office chair, looking out the window at the bright sun.

  “You know shit is real when you call me Mr. Grant,” Matthew says, and I laugh.

  Sitting up straight in my chair, I say, “I’m wearing a different hat today. Usually when I call you, it’s about making you pay more money.” Matthew is the general manager for the New York Stingers, and as a sports agent, I have a couple of clients on his team. He comes from hockey royalty, so it’s no surprise his son is following in his footsteps.

  “How many hats do you wear?” he asks, and I have to smile. When it comes to my clients, I’ll wear any hat I have to in order to earn them as much money and make them as successful as I can.

  “I can’t give away all my secrets.” I remain my cool, calm, and collected self. “Today, my hat is that of an agent requesting a sit-down with the future NHL leading top scorer.” Matthew listens without interrupting me because his son is the reason I’m calling. “I know Cooper will be drafted this year. He’ll probably be number one if everything stays the same.”

  “Fingers crossed,” Matthew says, and I can only imagine what he’s going through as a parent not wanting his son to be compared to him. If anyone compared me to my mother, I think I would want the earth to swallow me up whole. “So what can I do for you, Becca?”

  “I’m calling to see if you had time to meet with me. I’ll be in New York at the end of next week,” I say, looking at my calendar. I’ll be in New York for four days.

  “Should I be worried?” he asks, chuckling. “Every time you come to town, my salary cap goes up.”

  It’s my turn to chuckle. “Come on, Matthew. We’ve known each other a long time. I’ve never been unfair to you.”

  “We can agree to disagree on this one,” he says, and I can hear he’s walking.

  “Fair enough,” I say, “but with that said, I’d love to sit down with Cooper and go over things to see if we are a good fit.” He isn’t going to get better than me. I also don’t give him a chance to answer me. “I know that you want the best for Cooper, and bottom line, you have to admit”—I tap my perfectly manicured nail on the desk—“I’m the best.”

  I’m not going to beat around the bush anymore with him. I’m the best sports agent out there. Sure, people will try to argue how good I am, but I have the facts, and I have the numbers. I represent the top twenty leading players on the ice, not counting the other thirty scattered around. I’ve been hustling since day one to become the top female sports agent in the game, and now I’ll fight to stay there.

  He finally gives in. “I’ll check our schedule and let you know when we’re free.” I’m about to push for something more definite when he adds, “I’ll talk to Cooper tonight and see when is good for him and send you something.”

  “Sounds like a plan. I look forward to meeting with you two,” I say, and we both hang up. I smile, knowing that the first step is getting them to the table to discuss what I can do for them. One thing I know how to do is sell myself.

  Pulling my schedule out, I add him to the top of the list with a star to remind myself to reach out and give him a nudge if I don’t hear back soon.

  My phone pings, reminding me of our weekly meeting in the conference room in five minutes. I start to collect my papers and walk out of my corner office. “Erika,” I say to my assistant, “you can leave early. Both of us don’t have to suffer by staying.”

  “I just forwarded you the two emails we got this morning,” she says. “I’ll have my phone with me all weekend if something comes up.” I nod, knowing she’ll be ready to go regardless of what time I call her. She also has no idea I’m grooming her to become an agent. I know she has what it takes, and if she plays her cards right, she’ll kill it.

  Nothing screams good mood like Friday at four o’clock. “Have a nice weekend,” I tell everyone who looks up at me as I walk toward the conference room.

  I pass the receptionist, Tammy, who looks over at me and smiles. “Do you need anything, Becca?” she asks, and a smile fills my face.

  “I would kill for a latte from Starbucks,” I say, and she nods. I’m sure she has it ordered even before I walk into the conference room with the TRI Star Sports Agency logo decorating the wall.

  Sitting in an empty seat, I’m about to page my two partners when they come walking into the room dressed almost identical. “Glad you two could join me,” I say with a smirk. Francis winks at me, and I groan.

  “She’s your sister, asshole,” Trevor says, sitting in the chair in front of me.

  “Stepsister,” Francis says, sitting down and grabbing a bottle of water from the middle of the table. “She’s our stepsister, which makes her—” I sit back and cross my arms over my chest, looking at them.

  “Off-limits,” Trevor interrupts. “Bottom line, our father was married to her mother.”

  If you had told me when I was younger that these two would end up not only my best friends but also my business partners, I would have bet money against it. They came into my life when I was ten, and they were thirteen and fourteen, respectively.

  My mother divorced my father when he had an affair with my nanny and my after-school tutor. To this day, I don’t know if it was together or at different times. Don’t feel too badly for my mother, though, because it took her less than a month to wrangle Ernest up, and they married in grand socialite style. She was the talk of the town, which she loved more than anything. She was the one woman to finally get Ernest to settle down after he lost his wife to breast cancer. He was raising his boys with the help of a nanny, a chef, a chauffeur, tutors, and anyone else he needed to hire to keep from spending time with them.

  The three of us formed a bond like no other when the brothers were stuck dragging this annoying ten-year-old girl around with them. Our parents wed, and then they disappeared for a good six months. We had each other, and for seven years, it was what we thought our family would be. Our Christmases was spent skiing in Switzerland while our summers were on a yacht somewhere in Europe.

  Everyone was living their best life until Ernest woke up one night with chest pains, and two hours later, he was pronounced dead, leaving my mother the grieving widow.

  We each mourned differently. Francis went headfirst into sports. He was expected to be drafted first in the MLB until he tore his tendon in his knee the last game of the year.

  Trevor buried his head in school and graduated with a master's degree in communication. I graduated with honors and went on to graduate with a master's degree in marketing.

  On the other hand, my mother grieved by marrying another man, and this one had three kids. Luckily, we were all old enough not to have to be in each other’s lives. It made it less messy when the divorce came. It’s because of my mother that I don’t think I will ever get married. I just don’t want a man to have that kind of control over me.

  “Okay,” I say. “As much fun as it is watching you two go at it, I’d really love to get home before the sun goes down.”

  “I told Angelica that I would be home in time for dinner,” Trevor says of his longtime girlfriend.

  “I don’t know how you do it.” Francis looks at Trevor. “To be with the same one day in and day out.” His face forms a grimace. When I graduated from the university, these two were the only ones cheering me on. Over beer and chicken wings, the three of us joked about starting a company with the chunk of change we inherited when Ernest died. No matter how many times I fought with them about giving it back, they refused to take it.

  Francis got us our first client. It was someone he went to school with. His agent had just dropped him because of another DUI, and we decided that if we could turn his image around, it would look great for us. He then introduced us to other athletes, and slowly, but surely, we built our portfolio.

  Francis takes care of baseball and golf. Trevor takes care of football. I take care of hockey, and we all split the basketball players.

  We now have a staff of over one hundred, and we continue to grow every year.

  “Okay, so what do we have going on this week?” I ask. They each fill me in on their prospects, and we finish the meeting in record time.

  I walk back to my office and see that everyone has cleared out for the weekend. Grabbing my purse and laptop bag, I walk out just as the sun dips below the horizon.

  I don’t think I’ve left the office early in five years, I think as I’m unlocking my white Range Rover. I climb in and start it. My phone rings right away, and I look down to see Manning’s name.

  “It’s Friday, and it’s almost time for you to be at a dinner.” Manning is the captain of the Dallas Oilers. The sponsors are all eating out of his hand because he stays out of drama. He refuses to be on social media other than his Facebook, where he pushes said sponsors.

  “I’m on my way there now,” he says.

  “Good.” I pull out of the parking lot. “I arranged for you to have a room downtown tonight in case you wanted to get a night away from the wicked witch of the east.” I mention his wife that he refuses to leave.

  He laughs. “I might take you up on that offer.”

  “Good,” I say. “Call me tomorrow to let me know how the meeting went. Two other sponsors called me today. I’ll research the companies and let you know.”

  “Sounds good,” he says. “Have a great night.” I disconnect at the exact time I pull up to my parking spot. I’m getting out when I get a text that makes my night.

  Matthew Grant: Pencil us in for Friday afternoon. My office.

  Chapter 2

  Nico

  “We have a meeting in ten minutes with Frank,” my assistant, Elizabeth, says from the doorway of my office. I look up and see her usual attire of a business suit with her hair in a high bun, and she’s holding a leather folder in her hand. “If you leave now, you have seven minutes to eat before the meeting starts.” Getting up, I look around the office at the sun shining in the sky and wonder what it would feel like to take a day off. But then I shake my head, reminding myself there is no time for that.

  I walk out of the office and make my way down to the conference room. “Your mother called you,” she says, opening her folder. “You have a meeting tonight at seven with the foundation chair,” she says, going over my schedule.

  When I inherited this team, the first thing I did was hire Elizabeth to be my right-hand person. We grew up together, and she’s the only one I trust. As my nanny’s daughter, the two of us were brought up almost like siblings. Only, she wasn’t exploited because of who her parents were. “What’s my weekend look like?”

  “You have Candace’s birthday party tomorrow,” she tells me. “Gift is bought and already wrapped.” I look over at her, and she smirks. “I got myself a matching one.” We stop walking when we get to the doors of the conference room, and she smiles. “Your lunch is already in there. I have seven minutes, so I’m going to go outside and see if my skin glistens in the sun like a vampire.” I shake my head, laughing at her. “I have my phone.”

  “I’m sure I can handle a meal without you, Lizzie.” I use her nickname, and she rolls her eyes. Walking into the room, I see my brown paper bag at the head of the table right in front of the stack of papers we are going to go through. Slipping off my suit jacket, I put it over the back of the leather chair, then sit down and take out my sandwich. I grab my phone and get on my social media right away. I scroll through, seeing pictures of people on vacation. A couple of my old friends are partying in Vegas. I shake my head, taking another bite of th e sandwich while trying not to remember what my life was like before.

  I was the only son of oil tycoon John Earl Harrison the third and Daniella, an Italian model. They met at a fashion show in Milan. My mother got swept up with living the life in America. It was a whirlwind romance, and they wed at a venue with over one thousand guests just five months after they met. I can’t even imagine the spectacle that was. They lived lavishly as jet-setters around the world, but always came back to Dallas, where the tabloids would be on full baby bump alerts. My mother knew she never really wanted children, but she had to give my father an heir. It was her duty as a wife to make sure his name lived on.

  Thankfully, they got it right the first time and didn’t have to go through it again. Every chance she got, she told me how I changed her body as she pointed out every stretch mark I gave her. The best thing they did for me was to hire Fernanda because she treated me like her own. It was usually just the two of us while my parents went away, which was most of the time. It’s because of Fernanda I had a little bit of a normal upbringing. I was in every sport she could drive me to. My parents never attended any of the games because their schedules just didn’t allow it.