by Naima Simone
She drove the couple of miles to Frank’s place—a modest, affordable one-bedroom apartment—in the Old Fourth Ward. When they arrived, it took everything she had to rouse him from his drunken slumber and get him inside. Luckily, he lived on the first floor and she was able to maneuver him inside the apartment without much fuss. Once there, she settled him on the bed, pulled off his shoes, and covered him with the worn blanket.
When she finally left his building half an hour later, Elyse let out a long heavy sigh. She didn’t know how much longer she could continue to clean up the mess that was her father’s life.
Feeling downtrodden, she walked the few steps to her car and got inside, but she didn’t immediately drive off. Instead, she let the tears she’d been holding flow freely. She couldn’t believe how far her father had fallen from grace. Once upon a time, he’d been a man of big dreams, with a wife and daughter who’d worshipped the ground he’d walked on.
How had it all gone wrong?
Elyse knew how. There was only one person to blame.
Josiah Lockett.
The football tycoon had learned of her father’s gambling habit. Rather than get him in rehab, Josiah swindled her father out of his rightful share of the Atlanta Cougars during a game of poker, leaving them to a life of poverty, living from paycheck to paycheck. Things had only gotten worse when Elyse’s mother, Nadine Harper Robinson, had gotten sick with breast cancer and passed away when Elyse was in her early teens. The medical bills had steadily piled up, overwhelming her father, who’d already been broken from having given up the Cougars and he’d started drinking. Instead of helping his best friend get control of his addictions, Josiah had used their friendship to get control of the franchise so he could have it all for himself and get rich.
And now here they were. On an endless merry-go-round with Frank headfirst in a bottle of whiskey, his solace of choice. It shouldn’t be like this. Her father should have his due. It was time Josiah Lockett got his just deserts.
But how—?
Her phone pinged. She had set alerts for whenever the Lockett name appeared on social media, and the tone cued the latest mention.
This one was interesting.
Julian Lockett spotted on a date with a mystery woman. Could this femme fatale be the key to winning Atlanta’s most eligible playboy?
Elyse closed the app.
From what she knew of the second oldest of the Lockett children, Julian was the love ’em and leave ’em type. Anytime the word commitment was whispered, he ran in the opposition direction. So who could the lucky woman be and how could Elyse use the information to her advantage?
Copyright © 2021 by Yahrah Yisrael
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ISBN-13: 9780369708106
Secrets of a One Night Stand
Copyright © 2021 by Naima Simone
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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