Smug Bastard: A Hero Club Novel

by Stacey Marie Brown

  “Kas, you didn’t know him. Not anymore. Believe me, the guy you envisioned was an illusion.”

  Pain struck her features again. “I know.”

  “Can I ask why? What’s made you hold on to him after so long?”

  With a loud exhale, she sat on her bed, not looking at me. I moved in next to her, my arms bumping hers. It took me a moment to realize she was crying. She quickly wiped away the evidence.

  “I’m supposed to have it all together. I have a beautiful house, a great career, friends…”

  “Yeah? All that sounds great.”

  “But I feel I’m living this lie. On the outside my life looks perfect. But there is nothing inside. No one waiting for me.” She swiped at her cheeks again. “Most of my friends are married, having kids, or at least have a serious boyfriend… and here I was—the prom queen—and I’m completely, utterly alone.”

  “What about Peter?”

  “I lied.” She sniffed, her voice small. “He ended it with me to be with that woman. I was too embarrassed, so I told everyone I was the one who dumped him. I feel stupid, but I was afraid of being alone.”

  “Kasey, it’s fine to be alone. The only person judging you is you.”

  “Please.” She rolled her eyes. “Everyone here is judging me. I get comments all the time, Why are you still single, Kasey? I can’t believe you haven’t met anyone yet. You were so popular, so many boys loved you in school, I can’t believe you’re still single.” Her voice mocked the people’s comments. “And Kyle’s wedding, seeing him and Amie so happy all the time… I felt so alone.”

  “You’re not.”

  Her shoulders shrugged. “I’m not like you, Kins. You are good on your own. You like it. I mean, I would never have traveled across country by myself. Never.”

  “But I ended up not.”

  “You were going to, and you are heading back alone. Not a bit of hesitation. You’ve always been like that. So strong and independent.”

  But I still kept it safe. Boxed. Smith pushed me, and there was no denying he had changed me.

  “Smith was this fantasy in my head I built up over the years. The fact I never really had him made me want him more… and when Kyle mentioned him coming to the wedding… I just…”

  “Let your fantasy run wild.”

  “I’ve never had a guy turn me down.” She gulped. “Even when we had sex in his car, I knew deep down he didn’t feel anything for me. He tried to stop me, but I was on a mission, believing I could change his mind.” She curled forward, dabbing at her eyes. “And I think I thought the same thing now.”

  “Kasey, you are beyond a catch. You’re beautiful, smart, and the most determined person I’ve ever met. You will meet him. Just breathe, enjoy your life now, stop caring what people think or say. Care about what you really think. And you do not need a man to complete you. You are perfect the way you are. And when you meet this amazing, rich, handsome man who adores you beyond reason, you’ll love him as much as he loves you.”

  “Can he have a yacht too?”

  “Uh. Sure.”

  “And a house on the Amalfi Coast?” She threw in.

  “Okay, that is specific, but sure. The point is, he will add to you, not complete you.”

  She exhaled a breath, her head falling on my shoulder.

  “Thank you, Kins.”

  “I love you, Kas. And I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sorry too.” She peered up at me. “You never did tell me what happened between you two.”

  “It’s in the past. I’m focusing on my future.”

  She lifted her head, nodding.

  We went quiet for a moment, my eyes going around her room, landing on pictures of her in high school, the image of her and Smith at prom stabbing my heart.

  “Is it weird we slept with the same man?” Kasey stared at the same picture.

  I let out a long breath.

  “We didn’t sleep.”

  Chapter 21

  Smith

  (1 month later)

  “Get the hell up.” The blinds in my room were yanked open, splintering light into my eyes. Groaning, I rolled over, tucking myself deeper into my pillows. “Seriously, mate. Get up, take a shower… You’re helping me in the yard.”

  “Fuck off,” I growled into my pillow. “How the hell did you even get in here?” I squinted back at my neighbor, friend, and old prison mate, Chance Bateman. He had been a few cells down from mine, but we ended up friends, having each other’s backs in there. His stint was shorter. I had another year of hell before my lawyer got me out.

  “Come on.” He snorted, giving me a look. “You know working out and peeling potatoes weren’t the only things we got good at in there.”

  True. You could pick up a lot of skills in the slammer, like picking locks, little B&E, gambling, and embezzling. Though going by my rap sheet, I didn’t need any help on the last one.

  “Go away.” I flopped down face-first, pulling my comforter over my head, the air conditioner keeping the room cold.

  “No. You’ve had your time of being a hermit. Time to get your arse up.” He kicked my bed. “You’re lucky it’s me. Aubrey voted to send Pixie.”

  Flipping over on my back, I glared at him, which made him grin.

  I was secure enough to recognize Chance was a good-looking guy. I mean, the guy barely had a career in soccer, but still they used him for posters and products years later because of his pretty face and physique. We bonded during our time in prison. Like me, many, many men and groups wanted to claim their dominance over the new toy. Put the “pretty boys” in their place.

  Right away I had to show them I wasn’t anyone’s bitch. I spent the first few nights in the hole after sending one of those asshole leaders into intensive care. It was life inside—eat or be eaten.

  “Get the hell out, man.” I rubbed my hands over my face.

  “Not until you get your arse up.” His Aussie accent thickened with his frustration.

  “Why?”

  “Because you have been back for almost a month and either have been a bloody bastard or a recluse.” He hit my leg. “Get up and come outside. That little bugger gnawed through the fence again.”

  A groan and laugh came up my throat. Chance and Aubrey didn’t have a normal pet like a dog, cat, or bird… No, they had a goat. One that fainted.

  Goat.

  A sharp pain wiggled in my chest. Funny, Chance had a real goat, and I wanted nothing more than to see a dog named Goat. Floppy ears, white soft fur, sweet brown eyes. Damn, I missed the fluff ball.

  “I’ll have a beer waiting outside,” he yelled back as he exited.

  “Kind of early, isn’t it?” Not that it would stop me.

  “It’s two in the afternoon, wanker.” The door downstairs slammed.

  Sighing, I glanced over at my phone on the nightstand; 2:12 p.m. glowed up at me. Sitting up, I grabbed it, seeing a dozen missed calls from my lawyer, but it was the last ones that coiled my blood.

  “Fuck,” I moaned, my fingers scouring my head again.

  Becca.

  She still was texting and calling me, going around the lawyers.

  From the moment she showed up in New Orleans, she once again flipped my life upside down, ripping everything good I had out from under me. She promised me if I gave her one week to see if anything was there, she’d sign the papers.

  Reluctantly, I agreed.

  I couldn’t say the whole week up to the wedding was horrendous, though most was, there were fleeting moments I remembered why I fell in love with her, but then I’d recall it had all been fake. Her betrayal was beyond anything we could mend. She tried so hard to get me to sleep with her, probably thinking it would rekindle my feelings, but no matter how hard she tried to seduce me, to get me drunk, the thought of being with her again made me sick.

  My cock seemed to crave just one. One I couldn’t get out of my head. Kinsley was all I thought about it. In New Orleans I called her endlessly, searching the city when the lady
at the hotel told me she checked out, even running to Angie’s.

  When I drove up, Angie stood on her porch, her arms folded, head tilted in attitude. “You’re too late.”

  “When was she here?” I knew she had to get Goat, and I was hoping to get there before she did.

  “This morning.” Annoyance weeded Angie’s tone.

  “Do you know where she went?” I could hear the desperation in my voice.

  “Doesn’t matter. She left… because you are an idiot.”

  My hands went to my hips, my head down like a bad puppy. “I know.”

  “My beautiful boy, I warned you.” Angie shook her head, treading down the steps. “This is not something I would normally say about a woman when it comes to you, but that one was special. You fucked up.”

  I exhaled, my head bobbing. Didn’t I know it.

  “She told me you have a wife.”

  I blew out, feeling exhausted. I hadn’t slept any, my emotions strung out like untuned violin.

  “I can see it clear now; she will only bring you more misery. Be careful. She is your weakness.”

  “You could say that about Kinsley,” I muttered.

  “No, that girl is your strength; you need to change your view of what weakness and strength are.”

  Ugh. Damn, Angie. “You know I hate when you’re right.” I rubbed a hand through my hair, the heat of the day sweating my brow.

  She chuckled, dropping her irritation with me. “Love, I am always right.”

  I snorted, leaning in for a hug. “Thanks, Angie. It was really good seeing you again.”

  “Don’t make yourself a stranger.” She rubbed my back, kissing me lightly before stepping back.

  “I won’t.”

  “Now stop wasting your time on my doorstep and go get her. Fix it.” She waved me off, heading back into her house full of dogs, love, and warmth.

  The only way I knew how to fix this mess was to divorce Becca, but she was set on me giving us a chance first, demanding I take her to the wedding as well, to make me remember what we used to have.

  It did the opposite.

  I stayed away from the rehearsal dinner and the actual wedding, showing up to the reception with Becca to at least be there for my old friend. Becca clung to my arm, constantly fiddling with her diamond ring she still wore like a red flag to any woman who approached.

  But all I saw was Kinsley.

  Seeing her was like a bolt of lightning and the sensation of being hit by a semi combined. If I thought I might feel different once I saw her, I was wrong.

  I wanted to take her. Claim her up against the wall again. Show the prick touching her that she was mine. But everything went to shit. She wanted nothing to do with me, pretty much kicking me out of the wedding, the Maxwell family, and her life.

  Becca thought that made the path clear for us, but when I put her on a plane, telling her if she didn’t sign the papers, I’d be contacting my lawyer, she flipped out.

  With my past and her pushing me at every turn, our lawyers were having a difficult time negotiating. I didn’t care if she wanted every penny of mine. I just wanted out.

  “Hey? Are you coming?” Chance bellowed through my house.

  “Yeah, yeah, keep your panties on,” I yelled down, rising from my bed, dragging myself to the shower.

  Once outside in the hot southern California heat, beer in one hand, hammer in the other, my shirtless torso sucking up the rays, I felt better.

  “So?” Chance ripped the half-eaten wood strip from the base. The goat, with so many names I picked the one I’d remember the best, Mutton, pranced around us, wanting to see what we were up too. “You gonna tell me?”

  “Tell you what?” I hauled up a fence post, sweat dripping down my back. Damn, this felt good. Outside, building again.

  “Mate, I know what it looks like when a girl gets under your skin. Levels you.” His last words froze my blood in the summer heat. He moved out of my way as I positioned the fence plank in place. “Aubrey wanted nothing to do with me either when I first returned.”

  “You fucking disappeared on her for two years.” Chance thought it had been better to walk away, not telling he was going to prison, thinking it was better to let her go. Totally backfired on him. He couldn’t forget her, but she had moved on to someone else. In the end, it all worked out.

  “Yeah, but I didn’t give up.” Chance tipped his beer back, taking a sip. “Took me a long time to regain her trust again, but I did, and I have the woman of my dreams now.”

  “And a goat.” I smirked, rubbing the head of Mutton as it tried to eat the label off my beer.

  “You said her dog was named, Goat, right?”

  I took a drink, bobbing my head.

  “What are the odds, mate?” He shrugged a shoulder. “Just sayin’ I don’t think you should give up.”

  “I don’t even know where she is. She’s blocked my calls and her social media from me.”

  “You know her family, right?”

  “Yeah, believe me, her sister doesn’t want to hear from me either.” I finished off my beer. I didn’t want to bother Kyle right now, but Kay might talk to me. She was my one shot.

  “If we’re done braiding each other’s hair, let’s finish the fence so Mutton here has fresh wood to nibble on,” I grunted.

  Chance laughed, knowing soon we’d probably be fixing something else the goat ate.

  My gaze wandered around his yard as we worked, appreciating what he had done.

  “Ever think about doing landscaping?” I pounded in a nail, the next one pinched between my lips.

  “As a job?”

  I shrugged. “I’ve been thinking about starting up my own construction company.” The logo Kinsley came up with wouldn’t budge from my mind. It felt like it was meant to be mine. My company. “Be good to have someone I trust to call on for landscaping. You do a decent job.”

  Chance glanced around his yard. “I don’t know. Never thought about it.”

  “Well, just an idea to have in the back of your head if you decide you want to.”

  He nodded, returning to the project, working in silence for a few moments.

  “Smith?” A woman’s voice came from behind me, locking me up.

  Fuck. No. Curving around, my gaze landed on the last person I ever wanted to see again.

  Becca stood at the entrance of Chance’s backyard, most likely following my voice. Dressed in a fitted expensive dress and heels, she looked pale and anxious.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” I spit out, a snarl hitching my mouth.

  “I need to talk to you. You weren’t answering any of my calls or texts.” Anxiety twanged her voice. There was a wildness in her eyes as she wobbled across the gravel and dirt in her heels.

  “For a reason,” I replied, my voice cold. “Talk to my lawyer, Becca. I want nothing to do with you.”

  “Smith, please.” Desperation and fear coiled her words. Becca was never either.

  I gave Chance a look; his head dipped in understanding. I tossed down my tools, striding to Becca, grabbing her arm, marching us to the front to the sidewalk.

  “Speak,” I demanded.

  “I’m not a dog,” she spat back, but tears filled her eyes.

  It wasn’t going to work on me this time. “Get it out now. This is the last time I do this for you. I’m done with your shit.”

  “I came to talk to, to plead with you, to remember at one time you loved me. We could still have a future. A family together.”

  “What the hell you talking about?”

  “You haven’t spoken to your lawyer?”

  “Not today. Why?”

  Her red lips pinched together.

  “Tell me,” I growled, making her jump back. “Now!”

  “Bryan…” she whispered.

  I blinked, not expecting his name to come up now.

  “What about Bryan?” His name flushed up pure hate for the person I used to think of not only as a business partner, but as a
brother. The one who conned and stole my life from me while getting off scot-free.

  “He was arrested.” She gulped, panic filling her eyes.

  I scoffed, a smile coming to my face. “Good.”

  “No.” Her hand shook against her throat. “He and I…” She gulped.

  Becca was an exceptional actress; she had me fooled for years, but this felt different.

  “What?”

  A tear slid down her face. “He coerced me into doing it again… He totally tricked and blackmailed me into it. I swear. We kind of became partners…”

  I stepped back, my chest rising, feeling the ground slip under my feet again.

  “What do you mean partners?”

  “In business…”

  “And in bed?” I already knew the answer. I had suspected it back then, my gut telling me the truth, while my heart tried to make reasons why they were together so much. Like when I walked into the office and Becca claimed she had been waiting there for me.

  I was such a fool. They were fucking each other while fucking up my life, taking everything from me.

  “Sometimes, but I never loved him, not like I loved you.” She tried to touch me, but I jolted away, my jaw gritting in fury. “Smith, please, you can tell them he’s lying, that I knew nothing.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Because deep down I know you still love me. You still care. I can’t go to jail. I will do anything. Please, you are a good man. Someone I want to spend my life with. Have a family with. We can have that, you and I.”

  “You never wanted to have kids before.” Something deep down curdled in my stomach. “I wanted to build us a house to raise a family in… .and you said no. You didn’t want kids; you said your job was your focus. Loved living right in the middle of the scene.”

  “I want it with you now. Please, help me. We can have that home, a family.”

  My teeth clamped together, my intuition screeching in alarm. She had been dead set against kids or even having a pet. She liked clean, expensive things and being prominent in her social Hollywood circle, with no responsibilities coming outside work and being the next top interior designer. This wouldn’t flip overnight.