by P. Dangelico
Sledgehammer
Hard To Love Series Book 2
P. Dangelico
Contents
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
Epilogue
About the Author
Sledgehammer (Hard To Love #2)
Copyright © 2017 by P. Dangelico
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover Design: Sarah Hansen, Okay Creations
Proofreading: Fiona Dreaming
www.pdangelico.com
Mailing List– new releases and promotional deals only.
ISBN: 978-1-5323-3289-0
Chapter One
You know how they say never to go to the supermarket when you’re hungry because you’ll make some seriously ill-advised choices if you let your baser instincts rule your intellect? Yeah, the same logic applies to agreeing to see your ex-fiancée when you’ve had a soul-sucking week. I call it a perfect storm of awful circumstances. The State of New York called it arson.
“Deputy Dipshit!” I rake the bottom of a very nice Jimmy Choo high-heeled sandal, purchased on clearance at the Saks On Fifth Outlet, against the bars of the tiny holding cell. Which only serves to remind me that its sole mate was lost somewhere at the scene of the alleged crime. Go ahead and add that to the heap of reasons I wish a stray asteroid would destroy the planet tonight.
“Deputy Dipshit! I’ll have you know I’ve been watching Law and Order since I was ten! I know my rights and I demand my phone call!”
“Ain’t no one gonna come if you keep at it like that,” a deep voice announces.
I look over my shoulder, at my one and only cellmate. Her long body is half hanging off of the metal bench, arm thrown over her eyes, wig askew.
“Sorry to interrupt your beauty sleep, princess, but it’s been ages since anyone’s been back here.”
“Name’s Cassandra. And they always come at the top of the hour.” Cassandra lifts her arm off her face and eyeballs the clock on the gray-green wall. “It’s almost two. Someone will be around soon.”
My inquisitive gaze glides over her expensive clothes and flawless make up. Interesting riddle, this Cassandra. She sits up and crams her feet back into what looks like size fourteen red patent heels. I’m momentarily shocked to discover that Louboutin makes pumps that size.
“Amber.” My eyes cut from her feet to her face. “Nice shoes.”
“Thanks.” While she adjusts the long, straight hair of her wig, her dark doe eyes sweep up and down my person. “Girl, you look like a broken down Cinderella. How’d you wind up in here anyways?”
“Bad company,” I mutter while fiddling with the ripped edge of the vintage Badgely Mishka dress I found in a consignment shop.
Cassandra exhales tiredly. “Let me guess––you stalkin’ yo ex, and show up at his house, and he married with five kids.”
“Not even close,” I reply dejectedly.
“Come on, Cinder. We probably here for another couple of hours. Might as well tell ol’ Cassandra the story.” From what I can tell, ol’ Cassandra doesn’t seem much older than me.
Under her gaze, I feel naked, her sharp eyes performing a thorough examination of my mind and finding every dangerous turn and polluted crevice. “You first.”
“Stalkin’ my ex. I showed up at his house, and he married with five kids.”
“Really?” I can’t keep the doubt out of my voice.
“No, not really. He has two kids.”
My eyes widen. “So…trespassing, or breaking and entering?”
Cassandra arches a well-groomed brow. “Nothing that exciting. Jaywalking. Also known as walking while fabulous,” she replies with elocution that would’ve made linguistics expert Henry Higgins proud.
“You got arrested for walking?”
“If you must know, I was leaving my boyfriend’s––” Her eyes narrow, lips press tight. “Ex-boyfriend’s house.” The dramatic pause is underscored with a sideways glance. “And on my way to the train station, the friendly neighborhood East Hamptons’ officer came along. We got into it when he decided to write me a ticket for jaywalking. Which turned into public indecency. Which turned into resisting arrest.”
“I burned down my ex’s parents’ house,” I blurt out. That confession felt better than it should.
Cassandra sifts her perfectly manicured fingers through her long hair. “Good for you, Cinder.”
“Not all of it. Just a small part––and it wasn’t on purpose.”
“Right. That’s what I said when my boyfriend’s wife found me on my knees.”
I snort. “No, really. It was an accident.”
Less than twenty minutes later, Cassandra has given me the Cliff Notes to her life story, how Christopher Hart was reborn Cassandra Hart, and I’m knee deep in my latest tale of woe.
“Who puts drapes in the kitchen?! And how is it my fault that someone spilled an entire bottle of booze on the floor?” Her serene eyes follow me as I wear out the concrete of the holding cell. “He watched them arrest me and said nothing!” Words are flying around as fast and loud as live ammunition.
“Jones? Amber Jones,” a male voice yells. I rush to the edge of the cell and shove my face as close to the bars as I can without actually touching them.
“In here!”
Deputy Dipshit walks up with his eyes glued to the clipboard he’s holding. “Time for your phone call.”
“I can’t wait to tell my lawyer how many different ways my civil rights have been violated this evening.” At my fit of pique, Deputy D looks bored. “And hers,” I say, pointing at Cassandra.
Reality: I don’t have a lawyer, nor do I have the money to pay for one. And if I give myself time to consider this unfortunate fact I will unravel into hysterics.
I glance over my shoulder at Cassandra who gives me a thumbs up. “Give ‘em hell, Cinder.”
“Let’s go, Jones.” He unlocks the door and guides me out. “Way to usher in 2017,” Deputy D drawls in a thick New York accent.
Yeah, it’s shaping up to be real winner.
Five minutes later, I’m dialing Cam’s number. Camilla Shaw: formally DeSantis, formally Blake, formally DeSantis. Camilla’s the Lavern to my Shirley, the Robin to my Batman. My best friend since the fifth grade when an enamored Jimmy Murphy decided that slamming Cam in the face with a dodge ball was a good way to get her attention. He almost broke her nose, therefore, I almost broke his dick with a karate chop to the junk.
She spent the rest of the day following me around like a stray dog, thanking me over and over. When I figured she wasn’t about to go away any time soon, I decided to adopt her. We’ve been best friends ever since. And thank God for that because I don’t have many people in my life I can count on, and C
am’s firmly entrenched at the top of that list…come to think of it, that’s the entire list.
Someone picks up on the third ring and a loud grunt blows up the phone. “Is that beast mounting you again?” I say, holding the receiver away from my ear.
“Are you referring to my husband?” Camilla croaks, barely awake.
“Who else would be mounting you?” a super deep male voice grumbles in the background.
Camilla recently married Calvin Shaw, starting quarterback of the NY Titans. Long, boring story. They’re expecting a baby sometime in spring.
Her soft chuckle is muffled by a hand over the receiver. Then I hear a whispered, “Sorry, Boo. Go back to sleep.”
More grunting follows. “That’s the sounds of me trying to sit up. The spare tire around my waist keeps getting in the way.”
“We’ll have to discuss the joys of pregnancy some other time. I have a more pressing issue to deal with right now.” For the first time all night a pang of shame hits me. I nervously flip the spiral chord of the desk phone in circles.
“Time’s almost up, Jones,” Deputy D shouts.
“Why are you calling? I thought you had a party to go to,” Camilla slowly queries, only half awake.
“Funny you should say…umm…”
“Ambs––what is it?” I don’t fail to note that humor is conspicuously absent in her voice. The subtle hint of dread, however, isn’t. She knows me too well.
“How do you feel about busting me out of jail?”
I get a solid two minutes of silence, followed by a deep sigh. “Where are you?” she snaps, the fog of sleep gone all at once. I pinch the bridge of my nose where a tenacious ache has taken up residence.
“Southampton county jail.”
“Give me an hour.
“What now?” I say, stepping back inside the holding cell.
Twenty-nine, staring down the double barrel of thirty, and what have I learned? By the looks of my current circumstances, I’d have to say nothing.
“Now you wait for your lawyer, or if you can’t afford one, a public defender will be appointed to you,” Deputy D answers as he turns the lock.
Two and half years ago, I hit a wall and made a vow to myself. It was time to start making better choices, choices that didn’t remotely resemble the ones I’d made up until then. The kind of choices that look a lot like the one that just kicked in my front teeth and is making nonconsensual love to my mouth.
These choices almost exclusively involve one subject––Love. No shame in my game. The first step in recovery is admitting you have a problem. I’ve been chasing after it all my life. And what has Love done for me in return? Nothing. Other than leave me bruised and abused, and a little more hopeless each time.
Swearing off relationships is the most adult thing I’d ever done. No more emotional ties that hold the power to compromise the one thing that had been steadfast and true in my life since I was six, my desire for a career on the big screen––or little one. Either one will do.
Which brings me to what happened at Parker’s parents’ New Year’s Eve party. Parker Ulysses Gregory (truth), was at one time my fiancée and the man I was going to spend my entire life loving. We met in an acting class. I was the aspiring actress. He was the aspiring filmmaker slash director that wanted a better understanding of the acting process. He was also quiet, endearingly self-deprecating, and obsessed with his art––the very definition of right up my alley. It had all the makings of an epic romance. That is, when I still believed in fantasies like romance, affordable rent in Manhattan, and the Tooth Fairy.
Public service announcement, ladies. Those are the ones you have to watch out for. The cocky devils you see coming a mile away. You know why they say ‘the meek shall inherit the Earth’? ‘Cause no one sees those fuckers coming. Now back to our regularly scheduled program.
Our love burned hot and fast, full of lust and butterflies and pawing each other in corner booths of dark and tragically hip downtown lounges. After years of bad first dates, Parker forced me to believe in Love again.
“See,” my hopelessly romantic soul said, “fairytales do come true.” Clearly my romantic soul has the I.Q. of an earthworm. Actually, scratch that, an earthworm has some capacity for self-preservation.
When he proposed three months later, it didn’t seem too fast. It seemed just right. Until it didn’t. Until the small, subtle jabs started, picking away at not only the fabric of my love for him, but worse yet, my self-esteem.
Ex-douchebag: “Can you not wear the ripped jeans to lunch with my parents?”
Fine. I could accommodate the man I loved. Even if I thought his parents were wannabe, pseudointellectual pompous a–holes. Successful art dealers, you say? That specialize in contemporary artists such as Koons, Hirst, and Richter, you say? Wooptyfreakingdo, I say.
Ex-douchebag: “Why can’t you wear a bra like every other woman?”
Umm, ‘cause unlike other women I barely have any boobage. Forget that he was intimately acquainted with this fact. No bigs, I bought some bras.
Ex-douchebag: “Can you lower your voice when we’re in public?”
I was using my quiet voice. Fine, I’ll whisper.
Ex-douchebag: “Can you watch the swearing? It’s unladylike.”
What I wanted to say was fuck you. But I didn’t. I tried. For him, I tried. I really did. It didn’t work. It did not work. Profanity so often peppers my every day conversations that trying to stop it gave me a speech impediment. This went on until the jabs were no longer subtle and veiled, until they were downright mean.
Then came the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. He asked me to turn down the part of the century, a regular spot on an acclaimed cable series because it required quite a bit of nudity. Somehow along the way the genius had forgotten I was an actress.
Was I stoked about the nudity? Hell no. However, it is part of the job description nowadays. You’d have to be either grossly naïve or stupid to not expect it to happen at some point. Worst part––I did it. I turned it down for him. The depth of self-loathing I still experience whenever I think of it is unquantifiable.
By the time we broke up, I was a mere shell of myself. Someone I didn’t recognize. Someone I didn’t like. It took a full year for me to be able to look in the mirror and not feel shame, to not hate myself for being a willing participant in my own deconstruction. In hindsight, that’s what it was. I was systematically taken apart one word at a time.
Before you go judging me, let me say that there was also a lot of good, too much good for me to simply kick him to the curb. He was great at taking care of me in his own way. He did all the cooking and food shopping and always made sure I had one healthy meal a day. He was very supportive when I was auditioning and did everything to help me prepare. And most importantly, he was great to my grandmother.
My grandmother who during the time Parker and I were together had to be moved into assisted living because her Alzheimer’s was progressing to the point that she could no longer be left alone, not even for a little while.
I am loyal to a fault. I’m talking organized crime, go-ahead-and-waterboard-me-it-won’t-work style loyal when it comes to the people that stand by me. Which is why I put up with him for as long as I did.
In the two years since the demise of our relationship, I’ve slowly put myself back together. Cue the Rocky music. I worked on my craft. I booked two national commercials. I starred in two plays that got decent reviews. I read all the Law of Attraction books. The verdict is still out on whether those did any good. Though by the look of the cell I currently find myself in, I’m inclined to say no.
This was going to be my year. I felt like I was on the precipice of something big. Something important. Something life-altering. Ever get that charge, that restless feeling and you know, just know you have to pay close attention to what happens next? I had that feeling all week.
“Jones, your lawyer is here,” Deputy D bellows. This is not what I meant when I said life-
altering.
I lift my chin off my knees, unfurl my tired body off the metal bench of the holding cell, and before stepping out, take a long last look at Cassandra. “Hey––are you going to be okay?”
Her eyes tell me she’s seen worse and survived. One side of her full lips tilts up. “I’m always okay, Cinder.”
Sure wish I could say the same.
“Come visit me at the store?” she adds.
“I will.”
Chapter Two
Deputy D leads me down a long corridor to a metal door with a tiny glass window. He said lawyer. Camilla couldn’t pull off that act if her life depended on it––too honest and transparent. Which means she found someone on short notice. On New Year’s Eve, no less. My best friend is a holy freaking rainmaker.
I’m bouncing on the balls of my bare feet, craning my neck to look through the small window. All I want to do is go home, crawl under the covers, and not come out for a week while I nurse my battered ego back to health and the promise of freedom is making me antsy. For the first time tonight, I feel marginally better. Until Dipshit unlocks the door. Until I get a super clear view of whom is on the other side of it and then I don’t feel better. No. As a matter of fact I feel worse. Just like that the shred of optimism I was fostering a minute ago circles the drain.
Camilla’s husband’s best friend. He’s standing with one hand shoved in the pocket of his perfectly tailored tux. The top of his shirt is draped open, bowtie ends hanging down, eyes glued to the screen of his cell phone.
No, no. God, don’t do this to me. I’ll be good. I swear I will.
I blink and blink, hoping and praying, but no, I’m not imagining it. This nightmare is real. I start to back out, and Deputy D slams the door shut behind me, the sound grating on my already raw nerves.
“What are you doing here?” My voice sounds strangely high and sharp.
He glances up. His thickly lashed brown eyes skim my face, take note of the black eye makeup which is undoubtedly half way down my face, work their way lower to the ripped edge of my silver mini dress, then descend all the way to my bare feet. My toes curl in reflex, hiding from his scrutiny.
