Page 144 of Daddy, Sir

Daddy’s Commands

Rayanna Jamison and Allysa Hart

Prologue

Archer

“So that’s it? Rent-A-Daddy is just… over?” Theo frowned, looking down at the press release Nyla had drafted up, canceling any and all existing contracts with full refunds. “But?—”

“But what?” Bas interjected. “Theo, you just got married. You have a baby on the way. The rest of us are married now, or getting married, thinking about having babies of our own. Lennon moved out of the building, and so did Bain. Nyla and I are looking at houses.”

“It was such a good idea. There was so much potential. It had a purpose!”

Theo’s new wife Erin patted his arm. “It was a great idea with lots of potential, and it did serve a purpose. Just not the one you thought it would.”

“It served a great purpose,” Lennon said from across the room, his words echoing my thoughts. I looked at my long-time friend and shook my head in disbelief. Out of all of us, Lennon had probably changed the most. Rent-A-Daddy had certainly served a purpose in his life. In all our lives. I looked around theroom at my friends, who all had the loves of their lives by their side, and thought about what each of them had gained.

Bas and Nyla, constantly stuck in friends-with-benefits mode, had finally cut the crap and admitted how much they meant to each other after Nyla left her asshole husband and came home to Philly where she belonged. With us. With Bastian, once and for all.

Bain, the silver-spoon elitist who’d gotten even richer when the five of us had won the lottery together in our last week of college, had been brought barreling down to earth when he’d fallen for Jasmine, one of Nyla’s friends, after the struggling, grieving, single mom of three had drained her savings to hire Rent-A-Daddy to help her get her life in order. Now Bain spent most of his day playing Mr. Mom. Honestly, I’d never seen him happier, and I was pretty sure they would announce soon that they were expecting a little one of their own. Our kids would grow up together.

Lennon, the forever frat boy who’d taken the party-animal lifestyle to an artform, had settled down, and spent most of his evenings painting or watching movies, attending gallery openings and theater shows all over the city with Zoe, the professor he’d been in love with since our college days. Now he only drank once a week at our Friday meetings, and he’d shown all of us a side of him we’d never expected to see.

Theo, a recovered asthmatic nerd-turned-hopeless-playboy who’d only felt fulfilled by having an endless stream of submissive ladies in and out of his bed, had finally settled down. Erin had made him see that there was nothing left to prove. Theo was comfortable in his own skin, and didn’t seem to need to have all eyes on him all the time. And he would be a father soon, a plot twist none of us had seen coming.

And then there was me, our resident workaholic shark of a lawyer. I'd finally realized I couldn’t do it all, and that was okay.For the first time ever, my life had balance. I was learning to prioritize what was important, and I had Audrey to help me organize the rest.

Our lives were good. Still, Theo had believed in Rent-A-Daddy, and wasn’t ready to let it go. I had mixed feelings about it. My Rent-A-Daddy experience had been the most unique and the most exhausting, but in the end, I’d gotten Audrey out of it, and my life felt complete.

“It can’t just be… over,” Theo whispered in disbelief, staring down at the press release again.

“Get over it, buddy. It’s over.” Lennon clapped him on the back. “You know what they say… Here for a good time, not for a long time.”

“And with that,” I decreed loudly, “I think it’s time for a toast.”

I raised a glass of scotch in the air, and my friends did the same. Erin raised her lemon water, which matched Zoe’s drink of choice. Jasmine had a glass of white wine, but she hadn’t touched it.

Dropping the paper with a resigned sigh, Theo joined the circle and lifted his glass. Good enough for me.

“To Rent-A-Daddy, and all the unexpected goodness it brought into our lives,” Bas said.

Our glasses clinked together and everyone sipped from their respective drinks. There was a finality in the moment, but it didn’t feel like an ending. Instead, it felt like our lives were just beginning. At least, that’s how it felt to me.

“I had plans,” Theo whispered, setting his glass down on the bar and motioning to Lennon to refill it. “I wanted to expand, bring in more Daddies, move the venture to other cities, contract with other kink clubs to offer our services…”

“Those are all great ideas, Theo,” Bas said, coming up behind Theo and leaning over the bar to grab the bottle of scotch outof Lennon’s hands. “And who knows? Maybe one day we’ll circle back around and implement them. But for now, let’s just step back, take a breath, and enjoy all the abundance that has been brought into our lives.”

I took in his words and turned around to face my friends, leaning my back against the bar as I sipped my scotch. As I looked around the room, at my friends, their significant others, and the love of my life, the tightness in my chest eased.

And then there was a knock on the door to our private lounge, and our bouncer Zeke, a strong, silent, buff, ex-military man poked his head in.

I instantly went on alert as the energy in the room seemed to shift. Zeke had been with us since the beginning, but he rarely said much, and he never interrupted our private meetings unless something was wrong.

“What’s up, Zeke?” Bas asked, stepping forward, ready to go take care of whatever the problem turned out to be.

I set down my glass, prepared to back him up if need be.

“Well, Sirs, um…” Zeke frowned, his mouth a hard line as he pursed his lips and furrowed his brows. “Lola Dawson is here.”

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