The Holidays with Dr. Mitchell (Billionaires’ Club Holiday #1)
Chapter 1
Jake
Anyone who knows me, knows I’m the best cardiovascular surgeon (and hottest piece of ass) at world-renowned Saint John’s Hospital, and I love every aspect of my job, but that’s not even the best part about my life.
The best part is that aside from having the career of my dreams, I have the most fantastic wife in the galaxy and the two coolest kids.
My beautiful brunette beauty of a wife is a talented painter and successful gallery owner, and she forever changed my life from the first moment I laid eyes on her.
Of course, I didn’t realize it at the time, but I’d met my soulmate that fateful day when she spilled her fucking green Matcha Frappuccino all over me.
That fiasco led to a dozen decisions that would spell out our amazing future and the dream of a life I’d been living with her since we first met.
Meeting her and unexpectedly falling insanely in love forced my ass to grow up in more ways than one. And now, here I was, one happy-ass mother fucker on his way home, daydreaming about her and the beautiful family we shared.
I wanted for absolutely nothing in life. I was content. I was happy. I was fulfilled.
Ring! Ring!
“Sup?” I answered my best friend’s call.
“What are you doing?” Collin asked.
“I just left the hospital fifteen minutes ago, as you well know, since I beat you out of the parking lot. What do you think I’m doing?”
“Sitting in traffic.”
“Bingo,” I said, crawling on the freeway at a snail’s pace during rush hour traffic. “I was also daydreaming about how perfect my life is until you called and interrupted me.”
“Well, you’re not going to think your life is perfect once you hear what our lovely women have planned for our holidays this year.”
“It’s still October. I know we’re not talking about Christmas yet.”
“That’s what I told Elena when she called me as soon as I left the—Fucking Shitbird! Get the fuck out of the way, then!”
I smirked, listening to Collin yell at another commuter who’d sent him to a road rage fit.
“Did you miss your exit?” I laughed.
“Dumb fucking idiot came into my lane where there is no room, slammed on the brakes, and—”
“It’s called traffic, dipfucker. That’s happened to me about fifteen times since you called, but I’ve kept my mood calm and collected.”
“That’s only because your wife hasn’t yet called you to tell you that you’re taking the kids trick-or-treating this year in Aster’s cute little suburban neighborhood.”
“And she won’t call me to tell me that because she knows I would say no,” I said, changing lanes, trying to get out of this lock-up, and wishing I had a passenger with me to hit the carpool lane to get my ass home.
“You’re so fucked if you think you’re getting out of this.”
“I don’t think, Collin, I know.”
“Yeah, well, I just want to know if you’d like to get drunk before or after the Halloween block party we’ll be attending a week from Thursday?”
“From the bitch fit you’re throwing, I’d advise you to drink before and after.”
“Pointless talking to you,” he said, annoyed because he couldn’t weasel out of these things like I could.
“Yeah, probably so. Ash knows I won’t be walking around in some rando neighborhood. I’d rather buy the kids candy, put on a cute Halloween flick, and call it a holiday.”
“Let me know what you’re dressing up as,” Collin said, ignoring my self-assuredness.
“Dressing up as? Collin, I’m not doing this shit. If anything, I’ll be at work. Trick-or-treating is for the moms, not the dads.”
“Is that so?” I heard my wife’s voice hauntingly chime through my car’s intercom, leading me to glance around for sight of her.
“Ash?”
“Yes, my love. It’s me…the mom.”
“When did you jump on the call?” I asked.
“I added you to my call with Ash after I called her to tell her to convince Elena to change the plans,” Collin chuckled, knowing the words I’d confidently stated were overheard by the woman who would make sure I was humbled by them.
“Goddamn you, Col,” I said, rolling my eyes.
“This is how it’s going to go down, Jacob,” my wife continued, using the name my older brother loved to call me by when he was chomping into my ass for not doing things in his proper, CEO way.
“We moms will be hosting a haunted house in John and Mickie’s garage, handing out candy and entertaining the trick-or-treaters who come to the house.
While we’re enjoying ourselves, kicking back with a bottle or three of wine, you dads will walk the kids through the neighborhood, going house-to-house and enjoying all the fun memories that come with trick-or-treating. ”
Nice guilt trip.
“Ash, why are we making a big deal out of this holiday?” I asked, kind of shocked that we were even having this conversation. “Your spirit guides must be very disappointed.”
I smiled, knowing I could use my wife’s hippie mentality to tease her.
I heard Collin chuckling on the other end of the line and decided right then that I would probably kick his ass tomorrow for this shit.
“We aren’t doing seances, lover. I’m sure they’ll be just fine,” she teased.
“If you say so,” I answered her. “Okay, fine. I won’t fight you on this, but only if you make Collin—”
“Collin is going, Jake,” Ash interrupted. “Elena has sworn he will face a year-long dry spell if he doesn’t.”
“A year-long dry spell for missing out on Halloween?” I answered, baffled about why the gals were coming in so hot on this, as if it was a plan for Christmas morning festivities.
“Yes. You dads always find excuses to work or be out of town every year on these holidays because you think they aren’t as important as Christmas or your birthdays. This year, all that changes. You’ll all be doing the heavy lifting with smiles on your faces.”
“You have your boy to thank for this, you know?” Collin said. “It was little John who insisted we dads help out the moms every once in a while.”
“That boy is too smart for his own good sometimes,” I rolled my eyes. “All right, I’m down for doing this, but we all have to go one hundred percent,” I said, excited to punish Collin for this shit show that made the traffic I was stuck in seem like paradise. “We all dress up in costumes.”
“Done,” Collin said too happily and quickly.
“But you can’t be your profession, bitch,” I reacted to his smug excitement. “No doctors.”
“I’m not going to a fucking costume store, no. I have no idea what I’d even do?”
“Come up with something. I mean, you acted like a dick by privately having my wife listen to this call and busting my balls as you did, so why don’t you get a fuck-ton of rubber and dress up like the dildo we all know you are.”
“You think it’s going down like this, eh?” Collin said, and now my wife was laughing on the line.
“You two children figure out what you’re dressing up as. I need to get Kaley out of her bath and ready for bed.”
“Love you, baby. I’ll be home in about thirty if I ever get out of this traffic,” I said.
“Love you too,” she hung up after she said goodbye.
“And Collin? Shit just got real.”
“Oh, you want to be a dick to me like this is all my idea?” he said.
“No, honey,” I teased. “You’re about to find out why you don’t fuck with me when it comes down to trick-or-treating all night with a bunch of crazy little candy addicts.”
“We’ll see about that.”
We ended the call, and the challenge to make everyone’s life interesting on Halloween had begun to excite me.
Collin thought he was being cute, but he must’ve forgotten that I thrive in conditions where I get to retaliate against those I love most. This situation would easily afford me that opportunity.