Beach Reads Box Set

by Madden-Mills, Ilsa

  “I’m surprised you don’t know. Your mother hired him at the same bus stop she hired me. You know, after you got me fired.”

  “You got yourself fired.” I peered out the window at cold, wet Manhattan and wished I were somewhere hot and tropical. Far away from everything else.

  “Here’s a thought. Since we’re trapped working together,” Ally began, “why don’t we try this thing where we just agree to disagree.”

  I shook my head. “That never works.”

  “Okay. Fine. How about instead of mortal enemies, we make an effort to not be horrible to each other?”

  “I don’t feel comfortable making promises I can’t keep.”

  Her lips quirked. It wasn’t the full-on Buddy Beam. But I still liked it.

  “How long of a drive is this?” she asked with a sigh.

  “About thirty minutes, miss,” Nelson said from the front seat.

  “It’s Ally,” she told him.

  “Nice to meet you, Ally. I’m Nelson.”

  “Thirty minutes seems like a long time to be trapped in a car with a guy like Dom,” she mused to my driver.

  His eyes crinkled at the corners. “One gets used to it.”

  “So we can’t pretend to be friends, and you can’t promise not to be an ass,” she recapped to me. “How about we clear the air? We can tell each other all the things we don’t like about each other. I’ll go first.”

  She was joking. But the idea had merit. I didn’t like her. I couldn’t like her. We both needed to remember that.

  “Your attitude,” I said, launching into my own list. “Your shoes. Your eyes are too big for your face. You have issues remembering that you’re an employee and should act accordingly. And your hair constantly looks like you just rolled out of bed.” With a man.

  She blinked. Twice. And then her laugh filled the car. “You’ve put a lot of thought into that list for it to just roll off your tongue like that.”

  “I was just stating the obvious. I don’t sit around thinking about you, Maleficent.”

  Lies.

  She sent a cocky look in my direction. “Sure you don’t, Dom.”

  “Not only are you not my type. You’re so far in the opposite direction of my type you rank next to my great-aunt Rose.” More lies.

  I did, however, have a great-aunt Rose on my father’s side. She, too, was a horrible human being. There was something profoundly wrong with the DNA on that side of the family.

  Ally laughed. “Don’t start being funny, Charming. I like a man with a sense of humor,” she warned.

  “You’ll need to fight your baser instincts and resist me,” I grumbled.

  She reached out and actually patted my hand where it rested on my thigh. “Don’t worry, Dom. You’re not my type either.”

  I snorted to let her know I knew she was bluffing.

  She turned in the seat to look at me straight on. The movement made that stupid swingy skirt she had on slip a little higher on her thigh.

  “You’re callous, disrespectful, generally in a bad mood, and I’d guess that you have trouble taking anyone else’s feelings into consideration over your own.”

  Look at her hitting the nail on the head.

  “You’re a workaholic, which is fine. Work ethic is a good thing in my book. But you don’t like your job, so that makes you either too stubborn or too scared to make a change. And I’m not a fan of either.”

  My eyes narrowed, and I could feel my nostrils flaring. “You don’t know me.”

  “I know you’re not my type,” she said saucily.

  She wished I wasn’t her type.

  “You’re the type that waltzes into pizza shops and gets servers fired.”

  “I’d like to amend my list to add the fact that you’re incapable of letting anything go,” I said, pretending to be fascinated by the website traffic email that just came through.

  “I was depending on that job, Dominic.”

  “And now you have a better one. You’re welcome.”

  Ally growled. Actually physically growled. “There are consequences to our actions, Dominic Russo. And I’m going to make sure that one of your consequences is that you regret the day your mother hired me.”

  “Mission accomplished already. Why don’t you quit and go ruin someone else’s day?”

  “Please,” she scoffed. “I’m a tiny, little fish in your very big pond. You don’t even know I’m in the building.”

  Now she was the delusional one.

  We sat in silence for a few minutes. I gave up on pretending to read emails and stared out the window at dreary, frozen Manhattan.

  “Tell me what got you to shut up for five full minutes upstairs,” I said finally.

  The abrupt question threw her off balance, and I noticed she skimmed her gaze over me again.

  Then her slow smile had my cold, dead heart doing something odd in my chest.

  She leaned in a little closer so Nelson wouldn’t overhear her. I knew many things in that moment. I didn’t like her. I didn’t want to like her. I had no intention of treating her as anything but an annoyance. Yet none of that quelled my desire to be near her.

  “I have this thing,” she began tentatively.

  My breath stopped. I didn’t want the hammering of my heart to drown out her next words. When she didn’t continue, I merely stared at her.

  “For vests,” she said, eyeing mine.

  “But I’m not your type,” I shot back.

  She smirked. “You’re only slightly less not my type in a vest. But don’t worry, Dom. I promise to resist you.”

  We hoped you enjoyed The Worst Best Man and the excerpt of By a Thread by Lucy Score. If you want to read the rest of By a Thread, please click the following link

  By a Thread

  Also by Lucy Score

  Standalone Titles

  Undercover Love

  Pretend You’re Mine

  Finally Mine

  Protecting What’s Mine

  Mr. Fixer Upper

  The Christmas Fix

  Heart of Hope

  The Worst Best Man

  Rock Bottom Girl

  The Price of Scandal

  By a Thread

  Riley Thorn and the Dead Guy Next Door

  The Blue Moon Small Town Romance Series

  No More Secrets

  Fall into Temptation

  The Last Second Chance

  Not Part of the Plan

  Holding on to Chaos

  The Fine Art of Faking It

  Where It All Began

  Bootleg Springs Series

  Whiskey Chaser

  Sidecar Crush

  Moonshine Kiss

  Bourbon Bliss

  Gin Fling

  Highball Rush

  Sinner and Saint

  Crossing the Line

  Breaking the Rules

  Someone Else’s Ocean

  Kate Stewart

  Copyright © 2018 by Kate Stewart

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked 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 owners.

  Editing by Christine Estevez

  Cover by Amy Queau of Qdesign

  Formatting by Champagne Book Design

  Dedication

  For my dear friend Donna Cooksley Sanderson. Thank you for setting your coffee down to becom
e responsible for me.

  For my ASL teacher Billy, thank you for showing me the beauty of a soundless language.

  And for the people of St. Thomas.

  Note to reader

  For the purpose of being mindful about the nature of American Sign Language and the perception of the deaf culture, I’m writing my personal experience with personalities of those I’ve known, while incorporating my own knowledge of the language. While I do have a formal education in ASL, in the way of interpreter training, I do not claim to be an expert on the language nor the culture. Please keep in mind that the ASL communication in this book is between two individuals with years of experience interacting with the other, therefore leaving a broad avenue for interpretation.

  Thank you, and I hope you enjoy it.

  Kate

  Prologue

  Ian

  “Ian.”

  I turned to face my ex-wife as she moved toward me at warp speed. “Where is she?”

  “In X-ray. She’s got stitches from a large gash in her arm and suffered a nasty break in her right leg.”

  Her shoulders slumped as she exhaled a stressed breath. “Are the other girls okay?”

  I slipped my hands in my slacks. “Just bumps and scratches. Ella got the worst of it.”

  Tara looked at me accusingly. “You couldn’t go with her to X-ray?”

  “She didn’t want me to. She’s still in the midst of claiming her independence.”

  She pursed her lips. “You’re the parent.”

  “Right, so you keep reminding me. Yet I was here first.”

  “I was working,” she hissed, a ready defense on her tongue.

  I raised a brow. “So that’s what you call it these days?” Tara was an assistant to her new boyfriend, or rather, an old boyfriend that she’d taken up with after our divorce. He was a commercial builder based in Houston.

  “I’m sure the boss will have no issue giving you time off considering your duties last long past the five o’clock whistle.”

  She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, her sundress lifting enough to see the six-hundred-dollar cowgirl boots I bought for our last anniversary. “If I didn’t know better, I would think you were jealous.”

  “But you know better,” I said, sounding as bitter as I felt about the situation which had nothing to do with who she was with. It had everything to do with our custody agreement and the fact that I was expecting her to dispute it any day to suit her new ‘professional’ situation. And if the law saw fit, that meant my daughter would leave Dallas because of a man her mother was crazy about.

  She gave me a wary glance. “Can we not do this now?”

  “Fine. That was petty. I apologize. Ella lost some blood, and they had to give her a transfusion.”

  Tara’s face went pale.

  “She’s fine,” I assured her. “Thankfully she had been keeping up with her meds, so that helped. I didn’t know her blood type. I felt horrible. How could I not know that? She’s anemic for God’s sake.”

  “We only just discovered it when she got her period a few months ago. Don’t be so hard on yourself.” Tara swallowed and stared at me with wide eyes. “By the way it’s—”

  “Type B, I know now of course.” I moved to sit next to her as she studied me carefully. She was looking for anger. I knew it from years of being with her. What would I be angry about? She flinched as I took the cracked blue plastic seat next to her. The hospital’s bones were dinosaur, but the healthcare was top-notch. It was the only reason I wasn’t crawling out of my skin with worry.

  “So, they did a blood test?” she asked quietly, her eyes cast down.

  “Actually, I asked for a few tests just in case something like this arose again. The doctor said it’s a good precaution with her condition.”

  Tara began shaking next to me, her fearful eyes meeting mine briefly before they flit away.

  “What is it, Tara?”

  “Ian, I—”

  “Mr. and Mrs. Kemp?” The doctor interrupted and we both stood. “She’s going to be fine. We’ve ruled out surgery, managed to set her leg and have given her something mild for the pain.”

  I blew out a long breath of relief. “Thank you.”

  Tara spoke up. “We were supposed to leave for vacation tomorrow. We’re driving to my parents’ house in Houston. Will she be able to travel?”

  “She’s going to have some discomfort no matter what, but it’s a short trip and as long as you’re equipped to care for her there, it should be fine.”

  “She can stay with me—”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Tara scoffed. “The whole point is for us to spend time together.”

  “I thought the whole point was to spend time with Daniel?” I challenged.

  Tara glanced away briefly in an attempt to hide her agitation before producing a fake smile for the doctor. “We’ll be fine. Can we see her?”

  I was being a dick, but I rather enjoyed it at her expense. Tara had a way of getting under my skin by her presence alone.

  The doctor’s eyes bounced between us. “They’re finishing up now, but you can go back.”

  The walk down the stark white corridor was hell on earth. I was thankful the injuries weren’t severe and said a little prayer of gratitude. No feeling in the world had ever been worse than that phone call from the paramedics.

  Ella perked up when I walked into the room behind her mother. Her eyes wide and lingering on her bright purple cast before she gave me a weak smile. She lifted her hands as I leaned in and kissed her forehead. I beat her to the punch, signing to her.

  Had to go and break a leg, brat?

  She grinned. You’re such an asshole, Daddy.

  Does it hurt much?

  Not too bad.

  Who was driving?

  She lifted her hands reluctantly. Jessica.

  It was my worst fear as a parent. Most kids don’t pay much attention in driving school—I know I didn’t—and did the bare minimum just to get their driving freedom. Unfortunately, all you needed as a sixteen-year-old to get a license was decent eyesight and a little confidence to obtain that independence. With her friend Jessica being deaf and a new driver in a car full of deaf friends, she was already at a disadvantage. Sirens from speeding ambulances, warning sounds from car horns, and skidding brakes were forever silenced. Add youth and the fact that the girls relied solely on their hands for communication and it was a recipe for this father’s worst nightmare. There were plenty of deaf and hard of hearing drivers on the road. I knew Ella would be a responsible and defensive driver when she got her license, but it did little to ease my nerves. She was still a year away from driving on her own and I was selfishly thankful for that blessing. My relief was cut short when I found out Ella had plenty of friends already behind the wheel. I had all but begged her mother to keep her away from the shitty clique of impressionable girls who were too old for her to hang out with. Tara hadn’t taken my pleas under consideration. It was another reason for my irritation with her that day. Ignoring the surfacing anger toward her mother, I spoke to my daughter to keep the peace. Still, I couldn’t help my hands.

  You’re fourteen. You don’t need to be hanging out with sixteen-year-old girls.

  Ella guffawed audibly and rolled her eyes.

  I’m not that much younger. I turn fifteen next week. And I don’t need a lecture. It was an accident.

  Don’t roll your eyes at me. And you’ll get lectures until I’m dead. What happened?

  I could see in Ella’s hesitance to answer that the accident was Jessica’s fault. And though it might not have anything to do with her disadvantage, her slow hands reluctant to respond told me different. Reading my face, Ella stiffened, her anger simmering. She was a lot like me and hated to admit when she was wrong.

  I don’t want to talk about it. I’m hurt and sleepy. Go back to work, Daddy.

  Okay. I’ll let you get to sleep. FaceTime me every day while you’re in Houston. I’ll miss you. Be good for your mother. Wi
th the sign of a P, I rubbed my hand over my chest. Promise?

  Promise. Love you.

  Love you, brat.

  I looked over at Tara and signed while I spoke. “Stay safe and have a good trip.”

  Tara nodded, a distant look in her eyes, her porcelain skin tinted red in anger or embarrassment from our earlier exchange. I’d broken free from the responsibility of figuring her out when I left her a year ago. Her behavior was strange, but then again, we’d been strangers for years. Tara was good at reinventing herself every new moon, and I’d spent enough of my life figuring out who she’d decided to be with each moon that passed. I blew her bullshit off as a reaction to Ella being hurt. Taking my leave, I moved a few steps toward the door when Tara’s earlier question began to gnaw at me.

  “So, they did a blood test?”

  A new sort of awareness plucked at my spine as I opened the door and froze. Sweat gathered at my temple as I turned to see my ex-wife had been staring at my retreating back. I stood statue-still as my daughter read my posture.

  Daddy? What’s wrong?

  My gaze drifted over Ella—she had pale skin to my olive complexion, light hair to my dark, and deep-sea blue eyes to my gray.

  In an attempt to mask the fear racing through me, I forced a smile worthy of an Oscar as my gaze drifted to Tara. If it was guilt etched all over her face, if I was reading her right—which I’d become a pro at over the years—every-fucking-thing was wrong.

  Ella raised her hands, a frightened look on her face. What’s wrong?