by Sierra Hill
Stuck-Up Big Shot
A Hero Club Novel
Sierra Hill
Contents
Introduction
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
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Epilogue
Afterword
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright © 2020
by Sierra Hill and Cocky Hero Club, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations, and incidents are products of the authors’ imaginations. Any resemblance to actual persons, things, living or dead, locales, or events is entirely coincidental.
Editor: Missy Boruki
Proofreading by: Piece by Piece Proofreading
Cover Design: Steamy Reads Design
Created with Vellum
Introduction
Stuck-Up Big Shot is a standalone story inspired by Vi Keeland and Penelope Ward’s Stuck-Up Suit. It's published as part of the Cocky Hero Club world, a series of original works, written by various authors, and inspired by Keeland and Ward's New York Times bestselling series.
Dedication
To Vi Keeland and Penelope Ward—you two are incredible. Thank you for this opportunity to be part of your Cocky Hero Club shared world. I loved Stuck-Up Suit so much and am honored to share my story to include Graham and Soraya, and Blackie, too.
1
Sutton
The loud blare of a fire alarm wakes me from a dead sleep.
Jolting upright in an unfamiliar bed, my senses shift to overdrive from the sound of the nonstop alarm, along with the incessant barking of a dog. All I want to do is bury my head under this pillow and howl.
Speaking of howl, why do I hear a dog?
Flipping off my sleep mask, I stare sleepy-eyed and confused around the room, blinking several times to clear the cobwebs and fog as I slowly return from dreamy disorientation to wide awake panic.
“Oh my God! Blackie. Blackie, where are you?”
That’s right—there is a dog! And he’s not mine. Nor is the comfortable bed or cushy apartment, which is apparently on fire at the moment.
I jump out of the enormous bed, my bare feet landing on the plush carpeting, searching in vain for something to cover myself with. It’s early July in New York City, and I’m wearing only a tank and booty shorts I picked up at TJ Maxx at the end of last summer.
Code words: on sale and cheap.
I see a short robe hanging in the guestroom closet. After yanking it from the hook and draping it over my arm, I scan the floor for some slippers. Geesh, I’m very under-prepared for this type of event in the middle of the night.
Finding a pair of slip-ons, I shove my feet in one at a time as Blackie, the sweet old West Highland terrier I’m dog sitting for the next month—who is ironically all white—comes skittering from around the bed, looking up at me with anxious, petrified brown eyes.
“It’s okay, Blackie. We’ll be fine. But we need to find our way out of here quick.”
I bend down to lift the shaking fluff ball as he whimpers helplessly and trembles in my arms. Soothing him with a stroke of my hand over his fur, I jerk upright. As I do, the soft back of my head connects hard against the corner of the dresser, which has spike-like edges, and I yelp in pain. My hand instinctively touches the area, as I rub away the ache that emanates from the spot.
“Ouch! Damn it, that hurts.”
Holding the little-bigger-than-a-football sized dog in one arm and the robe draped over the other, I slowly regain my balance and begin maneuvering around in the dark hallway toward the front door. Good grief, can tonight get any worse?
When I accepted this dog-sitting job—a month-long, live-in gig in Graham and Soraya Morgan’s Upper West Side home—it seemed like an easy gig. A fire alarm and building evacuation on the second night on duty isn’t what I had anticipated in the slightest.
As I fumble with the security alarm and door locks, I realize I’m not sure where the fire exits are on this floor. Since arriving, I haven’t had time to explore the building much outside of their apartment. I haven’t used an exit other than the artfully-ornate elevator to get to and from this seventh-floor apartment through the main lobby.
Shaking off the concern, I will just follow the other apartment dwellers in search of the exit stairwells. I continue unlatching the locks when a loud knock on the outside of the door scares both me and Blackie. He yips as I let out a startled scream.
“Graham. Soraya. You still in there?” A booming male voice resonates through the wood-paneled door.
I’m not sure who it is, and perhaps under normal circumstances and if I weren’t half asleep, I wouldn’t open it, but considering the situation, I have no choice but to get out of this apartment. And in doing so, I’ll take my chances with the man outside this door.
I quickly punch in the security code to disable the alarm, unlock the final deadbolt, and with my hand poised on the handle, I turn the knob and swing the door open.
The man in the hallway pulls back sharply, taking an uneven step backward when I come into view. His gaze travels over me from head to toe, stopping ever-so-briefly at my breasts, before returning to my face. The bewildered look in his dark midnight blue eyes belies the question of why I’m standing here in front of him and not Graham or Soraya Morgan, who he clearly expected to see.
There is no spark of recognition or inkling of who I am.
I am apparently a complete stranger to him.
But I sure recognize him.
Oh, boy, do I ever.
It’s Miles Thatcher.
My childhood friend, Melodie’s older brother.
The very same man who kissed me in Melodie’s room the day of her funeral seven years ago.
A kiss he seems to have forgotten. And I’m a woman he doesn’t even remember.
Even with this weird and unexpected reunion, my heart strums wildly in my chest and out of control at the sight of Miles in the doorway.
Holy smokes.
Did I hit my head harder than I thought? Because why else would Miles have materialized in front of me out of the blue, as if I’ve just conjured him out of my dreams?
What in the world is he doing here?
Although his appearance doesn’t suggest it, maybe he’s with t
he fire department sent to rescue me. Like the way he rescued me from that tree so many years earlier.
“Button, how in the hell did you get that far up there?” Miles’s tone is a mixture of amusement, disapproval, and maybe even a little pride, considering the height of which I’ve climbed the big oak tree on the Crispin’s front yard.
I grasp tightly to the limb, afraid to look down, but also not wanting Miles to know I’m a scaredy-cat. He would tease me mercilessly for days, maybe weeks to come. As do boys his age to little girls nearly six years their junior. It’s the way of the world. As a skinny, brace-faced, skinned-knee twelve-year-old, I’m just an invisible pest to the hometown hero, Miles Thatcher.
Everyone in town worships him, as do I, which makes this an impossibly embarrassing predicament to be stuck in a tree while Miles and his sister, Mel, look on from ten feet below.
“Are you stuck up there, Button? Need my help?”
His loud bark breaks through my teenage memories, splintering them to pieces like broken glass. “Who the hell are you?”
2
Sutton
Blackie chooses this moment to bark, and it draws my attention down to the hysterical white fur ball in my arms. Or maybe I’m the one that’s hysterical. I mean, I’m standing in front of my teenage crush in my summer pajamas as an alarm sounds in an unfamiliar apartment hallway.
Or perhaps it’s just the alarm bells I hear in my own head at the sight of Miles.
I stand in silent awe, confusion etched in my brows and a gaping mouth, about to respond to his question. But he doesn’t seem to have time for my idiotic behavior.
“Never mind,” Miles grunts impatiently, peering around me to check to see if anyone else is in the apartment. “We need to get out of here. Are Graham and Soraya here with you?”
I stare blankly back at him until he extends an arm and grabs me, clasping his warm hand around my wrist where the robe loops over, precariously dangling there. I catch it just as it slips, and he tugs me forward, my feet tripping over themselves to keep up. The door swings shut behind us as I follow Miles, his strides long and purposeful, hellbent on getting out of here and to safety.
A few other occupants emerge from their apartments, Miles nodding after them, but remaining quiet and singularly focused. If he notices that his hand is still glued to my arm and I’m having to take three steps for every one of his, he doesn’t show it. He just continues down the corridor and around the corner to the stairwell marked Exit.
Aha—so that’s where it is! A coat of relief settles over the panic that’s been pushing through my bloodstream for the last five minutes.
Miles bursts through the heavy door into the stairwell, now crowded with bodies, most dressed in their bedtime attire, as we descend the seven flights of stairs before pushing through to the exterior street-level exit at the back of the building.
We exit into a very crowded alleyway, where people of all age groups congregate and mill about, some chatting or in frantic tears, some on their phones, and others looking just plain exhausted. I get corralled to the left, while Miles heads toward the opposite side of the building.
I lose track of him in the crowd and work my way through the maze of people while still holding Blackie in my arms. After rounding the corner, Blackie and I stand in front of the building and take in the scene. The street is now littered with bystanders and gawkers, fire engines sit parked along at the sidewalk, and the fire crew works to assess the situation.
I shiver out of shock, not chill, and crane my neck to see if I can spot Miles again, but he seems to have disappeared entirely. I look down at my appearance and then realize how exposed I am and no longer have the robe I brought with me.
“Miss?” A man’s voice startles me, as I turn to find a large, strapping fireman at my side. “Why don’t you wrap this around you? It’ll help regulate your temperature, which is probably low because of the shock you’re in.”
He hands a blanket to me, which I gratefully accept. In my daze, I try to figure out how I’ll cover myself while still holding Blackie, since I didn’t grab one of the leashes hanging in the hall closet before rushing out. Then I remember that the dog obeys the basic commands of sit, stay, come, fetch, etc., according to the quick description from Graham before he left on vacation. I take a chance and set Blackie down on the ground for a moment, then I crouch down and say, “Sit, Blackie. Stay.”
Pleasantly surprised and relieved that he does what he’s told, I tug the blanket around my shoulders. While still crouched down, I look around the sidewalk, peering through a sea of legs to see if I can find the robe I brought with me. It must’ve slipped off my arm as we moved through the crowd.
Not spotting it anywhere within visual distance, I’m about to pick Blackie back up in my arms, when a red NYFD truck with lights flashing and an earsplitting emergency siren blasting, barrels to a stop on the street next to the sidewalk. The screech of the brakes is loud and spooks my scared little buddy. Blackie slips through my hands and tears off down the sidewalk, through the throng of people milling about.
Just like that, he’s gone in a flash, and I can’t see him anywhere.
“Blackie!” I yell, pushing to a stand and swiveling to search the area. “Blackie, come back!”
A feeling of panic surges from the depths of my stomach, filling me with more fear than I have ever felt in my entire life.
Oh my God, I’ve just lost the Morgan’s dog.
I am the worst dog sitter in the world.
And I am so going to be fired.
3
Miles
What a clusterfuck. I’m tired, stressed, and now I’m dealing with this crazy shit in the middle of the night.
I’ve barely slept yet tonight, and now this?
The minute we get outside, I’m swallowed up within the crowd, and the girl and the dog that were in Graham’s apartment are nowhere to be found. Just as well. I don’t need to babysit anyone tonight. But I am curious as to who she is. She seems vaguely familiar to me.
Standing in an alleyway in the back of the building, safe for the time being, I type out a message to Graham to find out who the young woman is in his apartment.
Me: Strange night. Who the hell is in your apartment?
I know he said he’d be out of the office for a while, something about a family vacation. But, aside from the additional workload he gave me, I didn’t pay it much attention or ask him questions about where he was going. At the time, I was in the middle of a curating a lucrative investment deal and had just given Graham and the board members the pitch, which was unanimously approved, by the way.
It’s one of my bigger accomplishments in my fourth year with the firm, and the most lucrative so far this year, and I am pretty damn proud of that.
In fact, Graham, being the head of Morgan Financial Holdings, where I am a senior investment advisor, asked me to fill in for him during his absence. Not only do he and I work together, but we’re also good friends, former college classmates from Wharton, and now neighbors. I initially worked for a different firm after graduation and a brief overseas trip out of the country to clear my head, but was soon recruited by Graham, where I’ve been the past four years. Graham’s the real deal, a great guy and a good friend.
That’s why I’m doing my due diligence out of loyalty and friendship to find out who the hot chick is that opened their front door. She is most definitely not their usual house and dog sitter. Far from it. The lady that typically manages things in their absence scares the shit out of me. I think she might be a fire-breathing dragon and enjoys cutting the balls off men.
I was more than a bit surprised to find such a sexy creature in their doorway tonight. In the heat of the moment—all right, yes, I took a quick perusal of her appearance and skimpy attire— I didn’t care who she was, only that I wanted to get her out of the building in the event it was burning to the ground.
However, the minute we got outside, I lost sight of the pretty young thing as we wound up get
ting separated in the crowd. And since then, I’ve been busy helping some of my elderly neighbors and trying to get in touch with Graham. She seemed to have gone the opposite direction, and I haven’t tracked her down yet.
My phone pings with a response from Graham.
G: She’s Ben Schilling’s cousin. Watching things while we’re gone.
And then a moment later. . .
G: Wait, why? She didn’t burn the place down, did she? Or are you looking to get in her pants?
I clear my throat and wince. I may have a reputation, especially with Graham, who has known me for years, for sleeping around. Call it a hobby of mine. Lately, I’ve been too invested in building my career and portfolio to want anything serious from a woman. I’ve had a friends-with-benefits situation going on over the past six-months with Margo, a former colleague, but after tonight, I’m not sure it’s worth pursuing any further.
As I glance around and then up at the building, I ponder his other question. While I know the FDNY is on the premises investigating the cause of the alarm, I will not aid in his suspicions about his house sitter or make any assumptions she’s to blame. But it is a weird coincidence, right?
