Mine to Keep, page 1
mine to keep
natasha madison
copyright
Copyright © 2023 Natasha Madison. E-Book, Audio & 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.
Cover Design: Jay Aheer
Editing done by Jenny Sims Editing4Indies
Editing done by Karen Hrdicka Barren Acres Editing
Proofing Julie Deaton by Deaton Author Services
Proofing by Judy’s Proofreading
Proofing by Becky at Bookcase Media
Cover Picture by: TGTRN Photo
contents
FAMILY TREE’s for: Southern Wedding, the Southern, SOMETHING SO, THIS IS, ONLY ONE & MADE FOR
About Mine To Keep
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
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Epilogue One
Acknowledgments
About Natasha Madison
Also by Natasha Madison
family tree’s for: southern wedding, the southern, something so, this is, only one & made for
Southern Wedding Family Tree
Mine To Have
Harlow & Travis
Charlotte
Theo
Mine To Hold
Shelby & Ace
Arya
Mine To Cherish
Clarabella & Luke
Benjamin
Mine to Love
Presley & Bennett
Violet
Sebastian
Mine To Take
Sofia Barnes & Matthew Petrov
Mine To Promise
Stefano Dimitris & Addison
Avery
Mine To Honor
Levi & Eva
Selena ‘Cici’
Mine To Keep
Grace Barnes & Caine Griffin
Meadow
Southern Family Tree
Billy and Charlotte
(Mother and father to Kallie and Casey)
Southern Chance
Kallie & Jacob McIntyre
Ethan McIntyre (Savannah’s Son)
Amelia (Southern Secrets)
Travis
Southern Comfort
Olivia & Casey Barnes
Quinn (Southern Heat)
Reed (Southern Sunshine)
Harlow (Mine to Have)
Southern Storm
Savannah & Beau Huntington
Ethan McIntyre (Jacob’s son)
Chelsea (Southern Heart)
Toby
Keith
Southern Sunrise
Emily & Ethan McIntyre
Gabriel
Aubrey
Southern Heart
Chelsea Huntington & Mayson Carey
Tucker
Southern Heat
Willow & Quinn Barnes
Grace (Mine To Keep)
Charlie
Southern Secrets
Amelia McIntyre & Asher
JB Normand
Southern Sunshine
Hazel & Reed Barnes
Sofia (Mine To Take)
Kaine
Denver
SOMETHING SO, THIS IS ONLY ONE & MADE FOR FAMILY TREE!
Hockey Series
SOMETHING SO SERIES
Something So Right
Parker & Cooper Stone
Matthew Grant (Something So Perfect)
Allison Grant (Something So Irresistible)
Zara Stone (This Is Crazy)
Zoe Stone (This Is Wild)
Justin Stone (This Is Forever)
Something So Perfect
Matthew Grant & Karrie
Cooper (Only One Regret)
Frances (Only One Love)
Vivienne (Made For You)
Chase (Made For Me)
Something So Irresistible
Allison Grant & Max Horton
Michael (Only One Mistake)
Alexandria (Only One Forever)
Something So Unscripted
Denise Horton & Zack Morrow
Jack
Joshua
Elizabeth
THIS IS SERIES
This Is Crazy
Zara Stone & Evan Richards
Zoey
Stone (Made for Stone)
This Is Wild
Zoe Stone & Viktor Petrov
Matthew (Mine To Take)
Zara
Lexi
This Is Love
Vivienne Paradis & Mark Dimitris
Karrie
Stefano (Mine To Promise)
Angelica
This Is Forever
Caroline Woods & Justin Stone
Dylan Stone (Formally Woods) (Only One Forever)
Christopher
Abigail (Made For Us)
Gabriella (Made For Romeo)
ONLY ONE SERIES
Only One Kiss
Candace Richards & Ralph Weber
Ariella
Brookes
Only One Chance
Layla Paterson & Miller Adams
Clarke
Only One Night
Evelyn & Manning Stevenson
Jaxon
Victoria
Only One Touch
Becca & Nico Harrison
Phoenix
Dallas
Only One Regret
Erika & Cooper Grant
Emma
Mia
Parker
Matthew
Leo
Felicia
Only One Mistake
Jillian & Michael Horton
Jamieson
Bianca
Bailey
Only One Love
Frances Grant & Brad Wilson
Stella
Only One Forever
Dylan Stone & Alex Horton
Maddox
Maya
Maverick
James
Made For Me
Julia & Chase Grant
Made For You
Vivienne Grant & Xavier Montgomery
Made For Us
Abigail Stone & Tristan Weise
Penelope
Payton
Made For Romeo
Romeo Beckett & Gabriella Stone
about mine to keep
Grace
It wasn’t hard for me to walk away from my family without looking back—the time had come for me to live for myself.
New city. New job.
My new boss? He’s gorgeous.
It’s too bad that handsome face is wasted on such a condescending prick.
He hates me, and the feeling is mutual.
The only reason he may not be the literal devil is because he’s a devoted single dad, making it clear Caine is, in fact, capable of human emotion.
Caine
I’m good at two things:
1. Raising my daughter to be strong and independent.
2. My job.
When my new assistant walks into the office, I become good at ignoring her. She’s sassy. Smart. Beautiful.
Much younger and off-limits for more reasons than I can count.
That doesn’t mean I want her any less.
She hates me—but as each day goes by, it’s harder and harder to remember why I hate her too.
prologue
Dearest Love,
Boy, has love been busy.
Every single time I turn around, I see two people falling in love.
It’s amazing and magnificent.
Unless you are Grace and Caine, who think their time for love has come and gone.
He’s a divorced father.
She’s just starting to live her life.
And they just found out they will be working together.
Can they survive without killing each other?
Only time will tell.
XOXO
Love NM
one
Grace
“This is it,” I tell myself as I press the button to turn the car off before grabbing my keys and pulling the handle to open the door. The hot, humid air hits me right away as I put one foot down on the gravel and dust on t he side of the road.
I slip my phone into the back pocket of my jean shorts as I turn to look at the house where I spent so much of my childhood. Scratch that, it’s the house where all of us spent most of our childhoods. It was like the foundation of our lives. The thought makes my heart squeeze just a touch, but I push it away. I smile when I look toward the back of the house, where I see the big fields. The sound of kids running and screaming fills the air. People stand around in groups talking to each other. The smell of the barbecue hits my nose as I make my way from the front of my house to the back.
As soon as I round the corner, I see there might be over a hundred people here today, which is the normal every Sunday lunch at my great-grandparents’ farm. It started with just the family, and then the workers were invited, which then led to anyone who was in town and had nothing to do could come on over and have a place to be.
I spot my cousins sitting around a white plastic table, laughing at something that one of them said. I quickly do a scan of the yard, knowing the first people I have to go say hello to are my great-grandparents, who sit at another round table talking to a couple of friends of theirs. My great-grandmother Charlotte sits beside my great-grandfather Billy, who always has his arm draped around her chair. I even know his thumb caresses her shoulder. His cowboy hat sits on his head. In all my twenty-four years, I’ve seen him without his hat maybe two times, three at most.
I zigzag through the people, smiling as I make my way toward the table. “Hi,” I greet them when I get close enough. My great-grandmother looks up at me, her light-green eyes lighting up even more when she sees me.
She puts her hands together before holding them up for me to bend and give her a kiss. “Sweetheart.” She calls me by my nickname, but truth be told, all the girls are called sweetheart. My cousin Audrey says it’s because there are so many of us, and she can’t keep up anymore. “You came.”
“Of course, I came.” I lean down to hug her and kiss her on the cheek. “Wouldn’t miss this on my last day.” I smile at her as I see the tears form in her eyes. “No crying.” My voice is tight as I blink away the tears starting to form.
“Come here, girl,” my great-grandfather says, and I walk around to his side of the chair. He holds out his hand to me, and I grab it. This same hand held mine when I said I was ready to ride the horse by myself, but shocking, I was wrong. He knew even then, and instead of just leaving me, he held it like a vise. “You going to ride Daisy Bean before you leave?” He asks me about my horse.
“Yup,” I answer, looking around for my dad. “I promised Dad I would go on one more ride before I leave town and ship out to war.” I wink at him as he laughs.
“I’ll see you in a bit, then.” He releases my hand, not looking at me, but I can see the tears forming in his eyes.
I don’t know why I thought leaving would be easy, but I did. I never expected it to hit me like this. I was sitting in the barn one day, looking around, and all I kept thinking was is this it? Is this where I’m meant to be? I had just graduated with a bachelor’s degree in business, but I still had no idea what I wanted to do. So, after college I came back home, and for the past year, I’ve been running my father’s companies. He has ten equine therapy farms. He started when he was twenty with two horses, and it took off. The busiest one of all is the military rehab facility he has. I help run the schedule and take care of the books. It’s when I started taking care of the books that I got more and more interested in accounting. So, while I go off on my own, I’ll be taking online classes to earn my accounting degree to become a certified public accountant. I haven’t even told my family about it. The minute I got accepted into the program, I told my parents I was thinking about moving. It shocked them, but then again, it didn’t shock them if that makes any sense. I wasn’t happy. I was literally just living day by day. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I was content, but they knew I was getting bored.
After I told them I was leaving, I put the second plan into motion. I sent my CV to a friend who works at a recruitment agency. I got a couple of offers but accepted one because she told me it was a family-run company. Something just pulled me toward it, so I accepted being a personal assistant to the vice president. All they know is I got a job working for a company in the city. I kept the rest to myself because everyone can get in your business when you have a family like mine.
“There she is,” I hear from beside me and look over to see my mother walking toward me, her black hair blowing in the wind. “Your father was wondering when you would be getting here.” My parents met when he found my mother unconscious after being left for dead. He pulled her out of the house and never let her go. “Did you finish packing?”
“I did,” I tell her, smiling. “It’s all done. No turning back now.” I try to make a joke of it as my heart spasms in my chest.
“I hope not,” she says as we turn and walk toward the barn. “I don’t want you to freak out,” she says, and I stop walking.
“You know, just because someone says I don’t want you to freak out doesn’t mean someone isn’t going to freak out,” I inform her, putting my hands on my hips, trying not to freak out.
“Okay, so I was talking to Olivia.” She mentions my grandmother who used to be a model, loves to decorate houses, and goes above and beyond for everyone. I must get about forty packages a month with stuff she buys for me because she thought about me. “Well, she asked to see the apartment you’re renting.” I close my eyes because I can only imagine where this is going. “And well, she might have…” I put my hands on my face, and my head falls back. “Perhaps called Levi and set up to have it arranged and ready for you.”
“Mom,” I moan, “I’m supposed to be moving into the apartment tonight. Like leaving here…” I point down at the grass. “And flying there and moving in.”
“Um, about that.” She holds up her hand, and I can only shake my head.
“No,” I say, not liking her expression right now.
“Your grandfather—” I hold up my hand. My grandfather is, well, there are no words for my grandfather. He is a tech guru. He owns one of the highest-rated security companies in the world, and, bottom line, he’s the biggest badass I’ve ever met in my life. He’s also overly protective of us all.
“Stop right there.” I point at her. “Don’t you dare say one more word.”
“Okay.” She rolls her lips. “He sort of had someone go out there to, I don’t know what you call it. He had a couple of alarms put in for your protection.”
“What? Why?” I swear I’m at the point where I’m pouting.
“You have to pick your battles, Grace,” my mother warns. “You already aren’t moving into a place he bought for you. Instead, living in a two-bedroom condo.”
“Because I’m one person, so having a five-bedroom penthouse is just plain dumb. And then people wonder why I never tell them anything,” I hiss. “And by people, I mean Grandma and Grandpa.”
