Welcome to Pembrooke: The Complete Pembrooke Series

by Jessica Prince

  Nothing.

  “Please, baby. Just look at me.” I was begging. Christ, I’d never begged a woman for anything in my life. Not even Layla when we were married. But I wasn’t above doing anything and everything in my power to get her to hear me out. “I’m sorry. Look, we need to talk, okay? I need to explain—”

  She cut me off. “I want to go home.”

  “Sunshine, you’re not leaving,” I whispered. I reached up to touch her only to have her head snap up, eyes narrowed as she glared. Her normally gorgeous jade eyes were so full of pain and anger, I felt it all the way down to my bones.

  “Fine!” she snapped. Her little hands hit my chest and she shoved with all her might, rocking me back a foot, just enough clearance for her to make it through the open door.

  “Goddamn it!” I shouted, darting out after her, oblivious to Noah’s wide-eyed stare as his gaze darted between us. “You’re not fucking leaving!” I latched on to her upper arm and tried to pull her against me. Despite her struggle, I was convinced, if I could just touch her, hold her, kiss her, I could calm her down enough to make her see reason. But she wasn’t having any of that.

  “Let. Go.” Luckily her kick went wide, missing my shin by a couple inches. I couldn’t imagine how badly that would have hurt had she actually connected with my leg. I loosened my hand just enough for her to pull free as I tried to keep away from her flailing foot.

  Before I had a chance to grab her again, Noah was in front of me.

  “Just give her time to cool off,” he spoke. But my gaze was riveted to the tiny woman with strawberry blonde curls walking away from me. My lungs felt like they were being squeezed in a vice. I couldn’t get enough air as she closed herself in Noah’s truck.

  “I can’t,” I croaked.

  “Look, just let her sleep it off for a few hours, all right? There’s no reasoning when they get like this. It’s like talking to a brick fucking wall, brother.”

  “I need her to let me explain.

  “Don’t we all.” He patted my shoulder compassionately before adding, “Welcome to the club, you poor son of a bitch.”

  I finally pulled my attention off his truck and looked down at him. “Huh?”

  “You’re sprung my friend. Wrapped around her little finger. In other words, officially fucked. Sucks feeling like you aren’t in control of shit anymore, doesn’t it?”

  All I could do was stand there as he turned and made his way to the truck that was going to take Chloe away from me.

  “I’m screwed, aren’t I?” I asked his retreating back.

  “Absolutely!” he answered far too cheerfully. The bastard.

  Chloe

  For the first time in my life, baking wasn’t helping calm my frayed nerves. From the moment Noah dropped me off at my place, I’d been in the kitchen, mixing, icing, decorating, you name it, and nothing had helped.

  “Uh…” Erin murmured from her place a few feet away as I banged on the espresso machine like it owed me money. “Are you sure you should have come in today?”

  “Yep!” Bang. “I told you, I’m fine.” Bang, bang.

  “But Derrick said—”

  “Derrick’s an idiot!” She took a step back at my banshee-like yell. People sitting at the tables enjoying their breakfast and coffees paused to stare. “Sorry,” I grumbled before sucking in a calming breath. The last thing I needed to do was bite my employees’ heads off when they’d done nothing wrong. “I’m just tired. I didn’t get any sleep and the stupid delivery guy called this morning and informed me the new convection oven isn’t coming in for another two days.”

  She still sounded hesitant as she shuffled toward the kitchen door. “Well, I’ll uh… just let you get to it,” then she made her escape like her ass was on fire.

  “You’re just a regular ray of sunshine this morning, aren’t you?”

  I shot a heated look over my shoulder at Harlow, who’d shown up at Sinful Sweets as soon as the doors unlocked an hour and a half ago. “Don’t you work?”

  “Nope.” She made an annoying popping sound on the “p”. “Maternity leave is in full effect. Now you get to see my smiling face every day until I push this little bundle of joy out of my body Alien style.” She gave her belly an affectionate rub.

  “Lucky me,” I deadpanned.

  “You know, you can’t avoid the subject forever—”

  “Watch me,” I interrupted, refusing to tell her what went down between me and Derrick that warranted a rescue call at the butt crack of dawn.

  “Chloe,” she said in a warning tone just as the bell over the door rang.

  “Oh, sorry,” I fake winced. “Looks like you’ll have to wait, I’ve got a new customer.”

  She crossed her arms with a “hmph” and pouted as I turned to see who had just walked in. “Fletch!” I said in surprise, choosing to ignore the shit-eating grin that suddenly spread across Harlow’s face, as well as her mumbled, “Well this morning just got a lot more interesting.”

  “Chloe,” he smiled sweetly as he took the barstool next to Harlow, turning to offer her a nod. “Harlow. How are you lovely ladies this morning?”

  “Well I’m twenty-months pregnant,” Harlow answered, “so every time I sneeze, I pee myself. And its allergy season. How do you think my morning’s going?”

  “For crying out loud,” I rolled my eyes, “not everyone needs all the gory details of pregnancy, Low-Low.” I gave a startled-looking Fletch an apologetic smile.

  “But if cooking another human being in my belly for months doesn’t give me the right to say whatever the hell I want, then what will?” she asking indignantly. “Surely pregnancy gives you certain perks. Why else would women do it?”

  “Um… for the joys of bringing a baby of their own into the world?” Fletcher asked on a laugh.

  Harlow waved him off. “Oh, what the hell do you know?”

  I turned my attention to Fletch. “Ignore her. Pregnancy makes her cranky. What can I get you?”

  “Well, since I hear you’ve got the best coffee in Pembrooke, why don’t we start there?”

  “On it,” I smiled my first genuine smile of the day. “Black?”

  “That’d be perfect. To go, if you don’t mind.”

  I set about making his coffee, pouring it into a travel cup and snapping a lid on before sliding it his way. “First cup’s on the house. Hopefully you’ll like it enough to come back. Then I’ll start charging you.”

  He smiled again. God, he had a really great smile. “I appreciate it. I’m sure it’s as good as everyone says. But I actually came in here for another reason. Coffee was just a bonus.”

  “Really?” Harlow and I both propped our elbows on the bar, leaning in closer, me because I was curious, her because she was a nosey pain in the ass.

  “Um, yeah.” His cheeks turned just a touch pink as he reached up and scratched his jawline. “I was wondering if maybe you’d like to have dinner with me one evening.”

  I stood straight, caught off guard by his unexpected offer.

  “Oh,” I said.

  “Like on a date?” nosey-ass Harlow asked.

  “Well,” Fletch chuckled, “if she’s interested. If not, we’ll just call it a meal between friends. But for the sake of full disclosure, I’m kind of hoping dinner has more of a first-date vibe to it.”

  My mouth dropped open, but before I had a chance to respond, a low, menacing voice spoke up.

  “She’s not interested.”

  All three pairs of eyes shot to where Derrick was standing, just a few feet away from us. I hadn’t even heard the damn bell of the door!

  “Ooooh.” Harlow practically clapped with glee. Damned woman really needed to get a life.

  “For the love of God!” I snapped, throwing my hands wide. “Does no one work in this freaking town?!”

  Derrick ignored my dramatics and stated, “I need to talk to you.”

  “Well I’m busy, so unless you came in to buy coffee or pastries, I’ve got nothing to say to yo
u.”

  “Um… are you two together or something?” Fletch asked.

  “No!” I answered at the same time Derrick shot, “Yes.”

  “Have you lost your mind?” I shouted at him. “We are not together!”

  Derrick’s eyes stayed firmly rooted on Fletcher as he confided. “We’re just having a little fight, you understand.”

  Fletcher actually nodded in understanding.

  “For Christ’s sake! We are not together!” I cried, drawing the rapt attention of every single person in the bakery.

  “Yes, we are.”

  “No. We. Are. Not!”

  “This is better than Maury,” Harlow breathed, grabbing a cookie from the display case and munching down happily.

  I pointed at her. “You’re paying for that!”

  “You know,” Fletcher started as he stood to his feet, “I should really get going. Thanks for the coffee, Chloe. I’ll see you around.” He turned to Derrick and held out his hands. “Sorry for the misunderstanding, man.”

  “It’s okay.” They shook hands amicably, then Fletch headed for the door, waving over his shoulder as I yelled, again, “We aren’t together!”

  Derrick rounded the bar, heading straight for me. “What are you doing? You can’t be back here!” I yelped as he closed the distance.

  “I said we needed to talk.”

  “Well I don’t want to talk to you!” I argued.

  “I made a mistake last night,” he continued, still on the move. “I let you leave thinking I didn’t want something more with you. That couldn’t be further from the truth.”

  I couldn’t do this. Not again. The man had already shattered me twice before, there was no way I’d survive a third time. “Too late.”

  “It’s not too late,” he declared, desperation flashing in his hazel eyes as he stopped only an inch away.

  “Guys?” Harlow spoke, but I was too consumed with the man before me to pay attention.

  I shook my head, fighting back the tears that threatened to fall. “I can’t be like all your other women,” I whispered. “I can’t.”

  “I don’t want that,” he insisted, reaching up and cupping my cheeks.

  “Uh… guys?” God, she was an annoying pregnant woman.

  “Well what do you want, Derrick? Because I can’t do this with you anymore!”

  “Everything.” That one word was spoken with such reverence that my lungs froze, my heart stuttered in my chest. “Watching you walk away last night was fucking unbearable. I won’t do that again, sunshine. I can’t. I want to give you everything you want.”

  Neither of us spoke or moved for what seemed like an eternity as we stared at each other, me in shock and him in determination.

  That was, until Harlow shouted, “Guys!”

  “What?!” we both snapped at her.

  “No biggie or anything, but either my bladder just exploded or my water broke. And seeing as I just peed five minutes ago, I’m thinking it’s the latter.”

  19

  Chloe

  I couldn’t remember ever being so exhausted in my life.

  The moment Harlow announced her water broke, full chaos ensued. She’d insisted Derrick drive her to the hospital right then, refusing to wait for Noah because, in her words, “He’ll lose his shit the moment you call, and the last thing I need is to deliver this baby in a ditch because he’s driven us off the road!”

  She wasn’t too far off the mark. He had lost his shit, running around the hospital like Harlow was the first woman on the face of the planet to have ever given birth. It was the longest thirteen hours of my life. That was for damned sure. I handled making all the necessary calls to let people know Baby Murphy was on the way, ran to get ice chips, and took Noah’s place at her bedside to hold her hand when she kicked him out for, and I quote, “doing this to her.” And she did that a lot.

  Around hour seven, her friends from New York, Navie and Rowan, had shown up and Rowan helped Derrick keep Noah from completely spiraling out while Navie and I tended to a sometimes murderous Harlow. Poor Ethan looked like he was going to pass out when the doctor came in to check her dilation.

  In all the hours spent at the hospital, Derrick and I hadn’t had a chance to say more than two words to each other about what had gone down at the bakery earlier that day, and even with everything going on around me, I still hadn’t been able to get what he’d said out of my mind. I yo-yoed back and forth between excitement that he’d meant it to dread that he actually hadn’t. That, coupled with the birth of baby Lucy was enough to cause me to crash the moment Derrick loaded me in his truck to drive me home.

  It wasn’t until I felt him lifting me from his truck that I woke up.

  I blinked my eyes open, taking in the dark sky and trees surrounding me. “Where are we?” I asked on a yawn.

  “My house.”

  That woke me up all the way. “What?” I yelped, my spine going stiff as I wriggled in his hold. “Why didn’t you take me home?”

  His arms tightened around me. “Because we need to finish our conversation, and now that Noah’s a little occupied, there’s no chance of you running away again.”

  “Put me down,” I demanded hopelessly. “I’m more than capable of walking all on my own, Derrick.”

  “I would, but you see,” he started with a tone far too casual for my liking, “you have this nasty habit of taking off before I can fix the situation.”

  As we reached the front walk, he hefted my weight like it was nothing, freeing one hand to unlock the front door.

  “Yeah, well, you have a terrible habit of making me cry. Sorry for not wanting to stick around for that.”

  He kicked the door shut behind us, still refusing to release me as he moved through the house, down the hall, and into his bedroom. The moment my feet touched the ground his hands were on my face, palms to my cheeks, fingers tangled in my hair.

  “I hate that I made you cry.” There was so much guilt in his voice that any snarky response I could have made died on my tongue. “I’m sorry that I’ve ever hurt you, Chloe. It’s the last thing I’d ever want to do, because I do care about you. And I respect you more than anyone I’ve ever met.”

  “Th-thank you,” I whispered.

  He wasn’t finished. “I knew I made a mistake last night the moment I walked out of this room.” My heart leapt. Stupid betraying bastard. “I was coming back in here to fix it when Noah showed up. You never even gave me a chance to apologize for what happened.”

  God, I really didn’t want to hear his apology or how he regretted everything that took place in his bed before it went so so bad. I tried to pull away from him only to have his fingers tighten in my hair, making my scalp sting.

  “Look, you don’t have to apologize, okay? We got carried away. It was a mistake. I forgive you, all right. I just…” I clenched my eyes closed and finished softly, “I just don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

  “You think I’m apologizing for kissing you?”

  My eyes popped open to find him looking down at me in confusion. “Well… yeah.”

  “Christ, Chloe!” He barked, his hands falling from me like I’d burned him. “Did you not hear a goddamned word I said this morning?”

  My mouth hung agape like a fish in desperate need of water as I watched him begin to pace. “But… but.”

  “Layla made my life a living hell for years, Chloe. Fucking years.” He seemed to be on a tear so I stood silent and let him vent, hoping that whatever he was getting to on the other side of the story about his bitch of an ex-wife was something good. I was really sick and tired of crying.

  “When I finally managed to get myself out of her twisted bullshit, she decided to use my daughter in order to keep manipulating me. When she couldn’t control me through money or sex, she started using Eliza.”

  I reached out to touch him, whispering, “Derrick,” but he was lost in his own head.

  “Ten years, Chloe. Ten years I’ve been stuck with this bullshit, havi
ng it weigh on me so heavy it’s hard to breathe sometimes. The only thing that made that misery worth it was Eliza. So when the divorce came through, I told myself never again. No way in hell was I ever putting myself or my daughter in the position to be manipulated by some calculating bitch again.”

  He raked his hands through his hair before laughing humorlessly. “She doesn’t even want her. Did you know that? Her own fucking daughter. All Eliza is to her is a pawn in her fucked-up game. She’s destroying my little girl, and I can’t do a goddamned thing about it!”

  At the anguish on his face, I moved. I couldn’t just stand there while he hurt over his daughter. “I’m sorry,” I said, wrapping my arms around his waist and burrowing my face against his chest. “I’m so sorry that you have to deal with such an awful person. And I’m sorry Eliza doesn’t have a better mother. But you’re wrong about her being destroyed. She’s still got you. And as long as you’re there to lead her down the right path, she’s going to be okay. I promise.”

  I closed my eyes when I felt his arms wrap around my body, holding me tightly against him. “Thank you,” he said softly, his lips against the crown of my head.

  I pulled back just enough to look in his eyes. “And I get it, I swear. I understand why you hate the idea of another relationship. It makes sense, knowing what you’ve had to deal with for so long. I can’t fault you for not trusting—”

  “I trust you,” he said, putting a finger over my lips to silence me. “I trust you, sunshine. And you’re the first woman to make me realize it could be worth it.”

  My head jerked back. “What could be worth it?”

  His thumb caressed my bottom lip. “Commitment. I haven’t met a single woman in ten years that’s given me faith in settling down again. Not until you. I’ve felt it since the first moment I saw you with Eliza. How you give my girl something she’s needed for so long, how sweet and caring you are, how she looks at you like you hung the moon, that all means more to me than you’ll ever know. I’m just sorry it took me so long to pull my head out of my ass.”

  My throat felt thick. “W-why do you say that?”