“This…” I stammer, covering my mouth. “This is for me?” I ask.
“All of it,” he says. “It’s paid off so you can just focus on the lessons. This is your dream, Cammy. Make it what it you want it to be. You want financial help, just ask. If that ruins the fun, then I’ll keep my nose out of it. It’s completely yours. However you want to handle it.”
“Dean,” I say, still gawking at everything. “No one has ever done something like this for me.” My voice is thick, and my mind goes to all the times in the past that I’ve been passed over or unappreciated--the forgotten birthdays, the canceled plans, the rude comments. All my life I’ve been conditioned to believe that was my stock, it was just what my life was like. Now this. This is the kind of thing I read about happening to people or watch in movies. It’s not the kind of thing that happens to someone like me. “I don’t deserve this, Dean. I can’t.” My hands shake over my mouth and I fight against the tears and fail.
“You deserve every fucking brick, Camille. You deserve the world, and if you want it, I’ll give it to you.”
“I just want you and Jen,” I say, rushing toward him and hugging him tightly, letting him wrap his powerful arms around me and letting him breathe his protective energy into me, making me feel so secure and safe I know no one will ever touch me again if I don’t want it. “This surprise might have topped the first one,” I say, laughing.
“This wasn’t even the second surprise,” he says, pulling back and smirking. “That’s waiting for you in the office.” He grabs what remains of his shirt and throws it on as we head to the back.
“The office?” I ask, following him as he leads me toward a door behind the register. He pulls it open and takes me down a short hallway before opening a large wooden door.
I do a double take when I see Jen sitting on top of the large, granite desk strumming a peaceful, almost romantic tune on her guitar and grinning at us. Murph, Tanner, and Selene are in the room too, all dressed to impress and smiling at us too.
“What’s going on?” I ask, smiling even though I have no clue what is happening.
When I turn to face Dean, he’s on one knee, looking up at me with those forest green eyes I could get lost in for hours. “Will you marry me?”
The question paralyses me, making my mouth and legs numb, making me unable to speak. I look quickly to Murph and Tanner, who I thought were still in the dark about the whole fake engagement thing. This can’t be real. I must’ve fallen asleep and dreamed this all up to escape from my shitty life, because there’s no way this is all happening. Not for real.
“I told them last night,” says Dean.
“So everyone knows?” I ask.
“I’m kind of waiting for an answer here, Camille,” he says.
I look down, seeing the ring in his hand for the first time. It’s gorgeous. It’s an oval diamond almost as big as my knuckle, and the band is made of three, delicately intertwined strips of silver. “I do,” I say, then I laugh, covering my mouth. “I mean yes. Yes, of course.”
Dean flashes me a half smile as he slides the engagement ring over my finger and stands to kiss me. I notice Selene nudging Tanner aggressively from the corner of my eye, but Tanner is just glaring at his brother, likely wondering what kind of expectations Dean just set for Selene.
Jen starts to strum something more upbeat, something almost playful enough to dance to.
Dean quirks an eyebrow, leaning forward and reaching to take my hand. “Care to dance?” he asks, and then he leans even closer, lowering his voice to a whisper only I can hear. “Kitten.”
The pet name makes my skin tingle. He has only called me that in the bedroom before now, and hearing it in front of so many people feels dirty in all the right ways. “I’m a terrible dancer,” I say.
“Me too.”
It turns out Dean’s idea of terrible is far from the truth. Either that, or the way I can’t seem to take my eyes from his face as he laughs and moves with me blinds me to everything else. It should probably be awkward to dance while everyone watches, but everyone here feels like family now. Come to think of it, after the wedding, almost everyone will be. Although when I look at the way Selene and Tanner are dancing together, I’m not so sure Selene won’t end up being my sister-in-law, too.
Three months later
Barry Conway stabs at something gray and shapeless with a plastic fork. He looks around him for the thousandth time, trying to come to terms with how a man with so much could have fallen so far. Men in police uniforms with batons patrol the edges of the cafeteria, and Barry is just one of hundreds of inmates, all wearing the same orange jumpers.
He recalls how women used to look at him when they saw him get out of one of his expensive cars. They used to try to discreetly check their makeup and sometimes they would fight over who got to approach him.
He had it all, didn’t he?
No. Not everything. He never had the company. Dean Sharp made sure of that. Had he known Dean would be both the means to his fortune and the cause of his undoing, he would’ve put a bullet in the man’s head when they first met all those years ago.
When Dean’s lawyers presented the case and shared the recorded conversation, there was little that could be done. Forty years without parole, and for Barry, it might as well be life. Hell, he’s already forty-five, and the idea of living out forty years in this depressing, mind-numbing shithole is too much.
Dean won, didn’t he? But why should that be a surprise. Dean won at everything.
Pictures of a little girl with blonde hair and an angelic face line the shelves in a ranch-style suburban home. Of the nearly forty pictures displaying the little girl, only one also shows a slightly older girl who looks similar enough to related. The man and woman sitting at the long dining table scrape knives and forks across their plates, eating their meals without enthusiasm.
“Camille called the other day,” says the man.
“Fred,” says the woman with a tone of exasperation. “We’ve talked about this.”
“No, Janice. You’ve talked about this.”
She sets her fork and knife down, glaring across the table at her husband. “I don’t want to talk about Camille. Frankly, I don’t give a shit what she said.”
“Janice. Maybe it’s time we take a step back and look at ourselves here. Think of how we’ve treated her.”
“Is that why she called? She wants an apology?” asks the woman.
“No. She apologized to us. She wanted us to know she understood how we felt, but that she wasn’t going to be coming to see us again. Not ever.”
“Good riddance,” says the woman, but her eyes move uncertainly across the table.
“Really?” asks the man. “Is this what we wanted, Janice? One of our daughters lost her life, and what did we do?”
“We did what any parent would do. We protected her memory.”
“By pushing away our daughter who was still alive?” asks Fred. “Did we ever stop to think what Vanessa would’ve wanted?” Fred’s voice falters and he slams his fist down on the table. “She loved Camille. She loved her so fucking much, and we ostracized Camille. We did the last thing Vanessa would’ve wanted out of our own weakness, and we hid behind the idea that we were protecting her memory.”
“That’s not true,” says Janice quietly.
“It’s probably the only true thing I’ve said in years. And I’m ashamed of myself for letting it go this long.”
Janice’s lip quivers. She looks off toward the ceiling as if searching for the words she wants. “Did she say anything else?”
“She said she wasn’t coming to see us, but that we could come see her, if we ever changed our mind about things.”
A tear slips down Janice’s cheek, landing on her half-eaten steak. “Maybe we could have handled things differently. But I don’t know…”
“I want to go see her. I want to see her new life. I want to apologize,” says Fred.
Janice watches him for a long time before no
dding her head and looking toward the solitary picture in the house of both Vanessa and Camille.
Tanner Sharp sits in a hollowed out cargo plane beside Selene, who holds tightly onto him even though her parachute is fastened to the ceiling of the plane for safety. The bay doors are wide open and air rushes through the plane, making it almost impossible to hear anything but the wind in their ears.
Selene looks at Tanner, who has a habit of asking her on extravagant dates like this where they do incredible things and have the times of their lives. The only problem is she keeps thinking they are a set up for the proposal of a lifetime, so she finds herself waiting and watching for the moment he will finally propose, but it still hasn’t come.
After dozens of let downs, she has finally decided to just enjoy the moment for once and stop obsessing about the ring. If he loves her like he says, he’ll realize sooner or later he should make a move.
So when Tanner gets down on one knee and holds out the ring, it takes Selene a few seconds to realize what she’s looking at.
“Is that…” she says, but her words are drowned out by the roar of wind.
Tanner’s mouth moves and he’s grinning, but Selene can’t make out the words. All she knows is she’s not about to jump out of this plane--she isn’t sure she was ever going to be able to do that. She may be a little on the crazy side, but jumping out of a plane was pushing it for her. Tanner promised she’d want to do it once she got up here, but she doubted it, especially now.
She reaches for the ring, but he pulls back, grinning in a way she has come to fear. He hooks a little string through the ring, ties it off, and then she realizes the string is attached to a tiny backpack--no, a tiny parachute.
He moves to the open bay door, holding the ring and the tiny backpack out. Selene tries to run to stop him but he yanks a small cord and sends the backpack out into the open sky. The parachute deploys and the ring starts its slow descent toward the ground. Tanner is nearly knocked to his feet by the small woman who explodes out of the plane, speeding toward the ring without a moment’s hesitation.
The door to a small music shop on one of the busiest streets of the city dings. A woman and her little girl walk inside. The little girl has dark red hair and freckles spotting the bridge of her nose. She hums melodically while her mom leads her to the back of the shop. Dean Sharp stands behind the counter, flashing a smile and nodding his head as they pass.
He looks to be in his mid thirties with deep, green eyes like a forest just before sunset. They are arresting eyes, and were it not for the sharp jawline and masculine features of his face, they would be the only thing most people noticed. But the mom notices all of it, including the way his collared shirt hugs the lean and toned body beneath.
“Hi Mr. Dean,” says the little girl to the man.
“Hey there, May. Did you practice this time?” he asks.
“On the car ride over,” admits the mom.
He laughs. It’s a good laugh. A laugh that makes the woman think Mr. Dean must be a very happy man, and why shouldn’t he be? She imagines women must line up for him, at least they would, if he wasn’t happily engaged to Camille.
The pair passes the racks of guitars and heads to the back of the shop where the lessons are held. Camille comes out of her office and absolutely beams when she sees the little girl.
“Miss Camille!” cries the little girl, rushing forward to hug Camille.
Camille’s blonde hair falls around her shoulders in springy locks. Her smile is radiant and her skin has a rosy, youthful glow to it as she kneels down to hug May. “I heard you haven’t been a good practicer again,” scolds Camille, but her tone is playful.
“I’ll practice next week,” promises the little girl.
“Camille,” says the mother, “Is that a baby bump I see?”
Camille places a hand on her lower stomach, making it clear how her normally flat belly curves out slightly. She waggles her eyebrows playfully. “That’s exactly what you see.”
Bonus Content
Thank you so much for reading Single Dad’s Hostage! As my way of saying thank you, I’ve included a copy of Single Dad Next Door, which was a top fifteen Amazon Bestselling Novel. I know you’ll enjoy it!
xx
Penelope
Prologue
“No one can know,” she says, breaking the kiss just long enough to gasp out the words. “They can’t know the truth about us.”
I find special pleasure in running my calloused, dirty hands across her smooth and flawless skin. Women like her are supposed to be off limits for guys like me. Her family is old money rich. Just imagining the look on their faces if they found out she was sleeping with a mechanic never fails to put a grin on my face.
I kiss her while I guide her to the back of my truck.
“In the truck, sweetheart.”
She hops up, not taking her hungry eyes off me. I jump up beside her, sliding her back so I can lay her out like the prize she is in the bed of my truck. Long legs, long lashes, and an even longer list of reasons why I shouldn’t even be thinking of touching her. I strip her clothes unceremoniously, yanking her panties off in a single, hard jerk.
She quivers, completely naked. She’s already wet for me.
She has brown, curly hair that catches the moonlight through the open garage door. When I think about how much she must look down on me for being a lowly mechanic, I just want to give it to her that much harder, that much rougher. I want her to have to scream my name in this filthy garage and know it would enrage her parents. She should’ve known it would come to this when she moved in next door. She should’ve known she wouldn’t be able to stay away for long.
I slide my calloused hand along her smooth leg, up the inside of her thigh. I trace the soft curves of her body with my eyes, from her full lips all the way down her slender neck and to the sweet swell of her breasts. She stretches out luxuriously, arching her back and biting her lip while squeezing her eyes shut tight.
“Open your eyes,” I growl. “I want you to see who you’re fucking.”
She obeys. I grip her chin and kiss her hard--relentlessly. Whether she knows it or not, and even if her rich parents would never approve, Sandra Williams is mine. She may think she’s too good for me, but I know exactly how to keep her coming back for more. And if she thinks we’re going to keep the truth about us a secret forever, she’s wrong. There’s only going to be one secret between us. There’s only one thing that she can never find out, that no one can ever find out about.
If she knew… Fuck. I kiss her even harder, using my fingers against her pussy to make her squirm against me and gasp. Just thinking about what would happen if she found out makes me want to take her like it’s the last time. Because hell, if she finds out about the terms of my grandfather’s will, this will be the last time.
20
Reid
Two Weeks Earlier
I clutch the letter from my grandfather in my fist. The paper is soft and wrinkled from years of being handled. I know every word in it by heart. Every single fucking syllable is burned into my brain like a cancer. But the last line is the worst. It’s the one that haunts me. It taunts me every morning when I look in the mirror. It’s the line of text that hangs over me like a fucking time bomb, waiting to explode and tear everything in my life to pieces.
I leave my shop and property to Reid William Riggins under the condition that he is married with children by the time he is thirty-five years of age.
There it is in plain black ink. Children and a wife. I have one child and no wife. So that puts me in a very shitty place--one child, one ex-wife, and no prospects of that changing anytime soon. My grandfather went and threw me the shittiest curveball he could with his will. I shouldn’t even be surprised. My younger brother practically exiled himself from the family after college, and my grandfather was obsessed with the idea of the Riggins family name carrying on to a new generation. I’m thirty-three years old now, which doesn’t leave me much more time to satis
fy the conditions. Either I marry someone and knock them up this year, or I lose my shop. I lose my house. Everything.
I shove the letter back in the drawer and slam it shut.
Tyler sticks his head in the small office at the back of my shop. “‘Ey, Reid. You’ll want to see this.”
I’m not in the mood for Tyler’s bullshit right now, but if I stay in this office any longer, I’ll just keep getting more pissed. I push out of my chair and cross the distance toward him in two long strides. The shop isn’t much, but it’s mine. For now. I’ve run the place since grandpa died six years ago. We have two bays for cars, one of which I built myself on the weekends. It took close to a year, but it’s good, solid work. Everything is to code and sturdy.
When I see my little guy kneeling to watch Garry work on an old Acura’s brake lines, the hot anger in me cools a little. Roman is the only good thing that came out of the two years I spent married to Tara. His brown hair is a tangled mess of brown and he has a thick streak of black on his cheek. I smirk, spitting on a rag then cupping his cheek to clean the grease from his cheek. He scrunches his face and tries to escape, but I manage to get the spot before he can slip away.
“You learning about brakes, bud?”
Roman is turning five next month, but he probably knows more about cars than most adults already.
“Yep!” he says cheerily.
I ruffle his hair and move to follow Tyler. As soon as Roman is out of my sight, the heat of my anger rises up again. I see what Tyler was calling me out of the office to see now. The shop sits directly in front of my house. The house next door has been abandoned for years, but there’s a moving truck parked outside in the shade of two big oaks. I tuck the rag in my jeans and cross my arms. I have to squint against the sun to see, but there are three guys from the moving company bringing box after box inside while a woman with long legs and short shorts follows them around, fussing over everything they move.
Single Dad's Hostage: A Fake Marriage Romance Page 16
