The Malone Brothers Boxed Set

by S. L. Sterling

“You told him to tell her what?”

  “Felice is his ex-girlfriend, if you could even call her that. She’s married now to Mike, the man who used to own the bar we hung out at when we were in school. They are looking to adopt a baby, and they needed a lawyer to look over the paperwork. Mike originally contacted the firm. Since Carter is the family law specialist, the case was handed to him.”

  “Oh my God. So, it’s all a misunderstanding?”

  “Yes, but so was most of the issues with their relationship from early on.”

  “What should I do, Hunter? She’s really upset.”

  “Listen, keep her there. Get her talking about something, and I’ll try to get a hold of my brother.”

  “Okay, I’ll do my best,” I sighed into the phone. “I can’t wait to see you.”

  “Me too, baby, me too. I’ll be there before you know it—probably before you wake up Sunday morning. My flight is scheduled for late tomorrow night. Make sure Kaylee isn’t in our bed, and make sure you are naked.” I giggled.

  “I love you,” I whispered into the phone.

  “Love you too, beautiful.” I hung up the phone and headed back out into the living room. “Is everything okay?” she asked through tears.

  “Yes, she’s been really fussy today. She was stirring when I went in, but she’s now sound asleep. Why don’t I make us some popcorn?”

  “That would be great. Let me help, I’ll get the tea.” Hope got up, bringing over my now cold tea to the counter, and together we made tea and popcorn. I got Hope a pair of my pajama pants and one of Hunters T-shirts, and once she was changed, we settled onto the floor of the living room with blankets and pillows and put on HGTV.

  “Why don’t you tell me the story of how you guys met?” I asked. I needed to get her talking, and if she shared that with me, I hoped maybe she would see how silly she was being.

  She looked at me and smiled. “You have all night?” she asked, shoving a couple pieces of popcorn into her mouth.

  “Well, Hunter won’t be back until early Sunday morning, and I’ve had nothing but conversations with a two-year-old lately, so yes, I have as much time as it takes.” We both started to laugh.

  “All right, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. It started the night things ended between Trent and me...three years after Carter had left for university.”

  6

  Hope — Thirteen Years Earlier

  The movie droned on in the background as Trent’s tongue danced over mine. His hands reached up my shirt, his fingers running over my breasts. I could feel his hardened ridge as he ground into me. His lips left mine and he continued kissing down my neck. As soon as his hand reached the button on my jeans, a funny feeling rose in the pit of my stomach.

  “Trent, no, please,” I cried out, reaching down and placing my hand on his, stopping him from going any further.

  He blew out a frustrated breath and raised himself off me, running his free hand through his hair.

  “For fuck’s sake, Hope. We’ve been dating for almost three years and our engagement is going to be announced in two weeks. Are you ever going to let me in there? You’re tighter than Fort Knox.”

  I couldn’t help it. Something didn’t feel right; I wasn’t ready. My mother always told me to wait and make sure I was with “the one.” I wished she had never instilled that in me; somehow, I felt it would have been easier. “I’m sorry, Trent, it’s just your roommates are right down the hall,” I whispered.

  “Ah, so it would be better if we were in my room. You’re afraid of someone catching us?” He stood, adjusted himself, and held out his hand for me to take. He was a good-looking guy, with brown hair, brown eyes, and deeply tanned skin from spending the winter with his parents down south. He was set to take over his father’s multibillion-dollar company. Daddy said I would be silly to walk away from Trent, that I would be set for life, but to be honest, I wasn’t sure if being with Trent was a life I truly wanted for myself.

  I looked at him, unsure of what to say. “It’s not that. I would just prefer that my first time, be, well, not in a shared apartment with three other guys.”

  “Fuck, honestly, what are you so afraid of?”

  I was a shy girl; I didn’t want anyone to hear us. I looked down to the floor, away from his piercing eyes.

  “Seriously, Hope, just shove your face into a damn pillow.”

  I felt like I could cry. I stood up from the couch, grabbed my purse, and walked over to the door. “Trent, please take me home.”

  My father originally suggested that I give Trent a chance. Trent’s parents, the Kings, were good friends with my parents. After Carter, my ex, had left a message on our answering machine and broken up with me, I had been crushed. To this day, I had never actually heard the message he had left. My father had gotten to the message first and had deleted it before I had gotten home, and Carter had never called or come around again. It wasn’t long afterward that my father became tired of seeing me so depressed, and within a couple of weeks, he arranged for me to meet Trent. So, after a few meetings with the Kings and Trent, Trent and I went on our first date. In the beginning, we had fun, and soon we had been dating for a couple of years. It was just in the last year I had started to learn things about Trent that I didn’t like. First, Trent was a guy who very rarely, if ever, heard the word no in anything he did, and because of that, he was very controlling.

  He sat there looking me in the eye, stunned that I would turn him down.

  “Come on, Hope, don’t be like that. Just come over here. I promise, I’ll be as gentle as I can.”

  “No, Trent. Please take me home.”

  He stood up from the couch and whipped the remote across the room. “Take yourself home, Hope. The night’s over. I’m done with being teased to the point that I’m at now. We’re through, so take your cock-teasing ass home.”

  “What do you mean ‘we’re through’?” I questioned.

  He turned and glared at me. “I’m tired of trying to get my girlfriend of almost three years to sleep with me. I’ve been as patient as I can be, but as soon as I go to touch you, you stop me. I can’t take it anymore. We are over, done. I can’t be married to someone who won’t spread their legs for me, Hope. My parents expect grandchildren and I’ll be dammed if I don’t give them what they want. If I can’t with you then, well, I would just have to find someone else, and that is frowned upon in my family. So instead, I am breaking up with you. I want to keep my options open for now. If you change your mind, we will talk.” I sat there furious as hell as I watched him get up from the couch and stride down the hall like the cock-swinging asshole he really was. This was the side of Trent King that my parents had never seen.

  I looked down at my watch; it was already close to eleven, which meant I would miss my curfew, and I’d already been told if I were late one more time, I would have to find another place to live. To have a curfew at twenty years old was a bit ridiculous, in my opinion, but my parents were very strict, and I still lived under their roof.

  I grabbed my jacket from the back of the chair, swung my purse over my shoulder, and left his apartment. Once I was out in the street, I reached into my purse and pulled out my wallet. Only two dollars—that would never get me a cab ride home; I was thirty minutes away. I grabbed my cell and thought of whom I could call. Mom was out of town. The only person left to call was Dad or my friend Carly.

  I quickly dialed Carly. On the fifth ring, she picked up. “Hello?” she said, clearing her sleepy voice.

  “Carly, it’s me. Are you able to come pick me up and take me home? I’m stuck outside of Trent’s.”

  “Really, Hope? You need to get a car. Why can’t he drive you home?”

  “We’re over. We had a fight, Carly, please. I don’t want to have to call my dad. He’s angry enough with me for not getting into school, and now I’m going to miss my curfew.”

  I could hear whispering through the phone and knew right away she wasn’t alone. I rolled my eyes and then I heard her vo
ice. “Fine. But you owe me.”

  I hung up the phone and sat down on the steps of Trent’s apartment building. Carly finally pulled up an hour later with Josh in tow. Figures. I had probably interrupted their “awesome sex”—as she put it—and they had to finish before they came to get me. I didn’t care, and as long as Dad was in bed when I got home, he probably wouldn’t even know I was late. I climbed into the back of her car, and she pulled away from the curb.

  My prayers that Dad would be in bed were snuffed out when Carly pulled onto my street. I could see the house from the corner. It was lit up like a Christmas tree, and there were police cars lining the street and in the driveway. “Didn’t you call home?” Carly asked.

  “Nope. I was hoping he would be in bed.”

  “Looks like you might be in a little trouble, Hope,” Josh said, laughing from the front seat. “Looks like every police officer in the city is in your driveway.”

  “Yeah thanks, Josh,” I whispered. Grabbing my purse and jacket, I climbed out of the back of the car and walked slowly up the front steps. I flinched when I heard my dad screaming from inside the house at whatever poor cop he had called.

  I opened the door as quietly as I could and walked toward the kitchen. I stopped just inside the doorway. The room was filled with six officers and my father. My father was barking orders when he took notice of me. “What do you have to say for yourself, young lady?” my father demanded.

  All eyes turned and were on me. “I’m sorry.”

  “You’re sorry? You’re sorry?” my father chuckled, but the enraged look on his face said it all. He glanced to the men who stood in the kitchen; their notebooks sat open in their hands, pens poised ready to take down notes. “I called Trent an hour ago. He said you had some sort of childish fit and you left. I thought you were dead in a ditch somewhere.”

  That was just like Trent, lying to make me look bad. No doubt he would now claim that I no longer wanted to see him and that I was the one who broke it off with him. He would never tell his parents or mine the truth. “Daddy, I’m sorry...”

  “Men, as you can see, my daughter is alive and well. You may return to your duties.” Being a high-powered CEO of one of the largest corporations in the city, he had a lot of pull. I watched as each officer walked from the kitchen, nodding their heads at me. I wanted to scream at them not to leave me alone with him, but I stood there, nodding back, and kept my mouth shut. Once they were gone, I turned toward my father. His angry eyes glared at me.

  Did I dare tell him that the “amazing” man he was making me marry had told me to get out and find my own way home at nearly eleven at night, because I wouldn’t sleep with him yet, or did I just take the blame? “I’m sorry, Daddy.”

  “No. There is going to be no more of this. This is the last time, Hope. Your mother and I, we have tried to get through to you so many times. We have introduced you to one of the most prominent young men in the city, who stands to inherit his father’s multibillion-dollar corporation.”

  “Oh, here we go,” I mumbled, rolling my eyes.

  “You realize that you will be set for life, especially since you don’t care to go to school. I have basically handed you the world, Hope. This is how you thank us? I find myself at almost one in the morning with a kitchen full of officers, thinking the worst, and your mother, well, she is beside herself on her retreat. She is supposed to be relaxing and enjoying herself; instead, she’s spent the last hour in tears worrying about you. Now go to bed. We will talk about everything in the morning.”

  “We broke up.” Tears came to my eyes, and I ran up the stairs to my room and flopped on my bed. It wasn’t long before I heard Dad’s solid footsteps stomping up the stairs and stopping right outside of my room.

  “What do you mean you broke up?” He threw the door open and stood staring at me.

  “Just what I said, Daddy. We broke up. Didn’t Trent say anything?”

  “No, Hope, he didn’t. You realize your engagement announcement is going out in a month, and it will be formally announced at our anniversary party a month after that. You’ve just got cold feet. So, whatever is going on between the two of you, it best be fixed in that time. Your mother and Mrs. King have all the formal invites announcing your engagement ready, and they have already ordered your wedding invitations. They’ve rented Wolfmarsh Country Club for the wedding, and the menu has been decided.”

  When did they do all this, I asked myself. “I didn’t ask you to do that. Besides, how can everything be ordered already? There isn’t even a set date.”

  “Yes there is. Together the Kings and your mother and I set the date for exactly six months after the engagement.”

  My stomach rolled. I didn’t want to marry him. I looked around my room, pondering what to do. Did I tell him the truth? Would it even matter? I could feel him staring at me.

  “Get your shit figured out, Hope. Life isn’t always about getting what you want. It wasn’t for me, and it’s not going to be for you. You have exactly four weeks.” The door slammed shut, and I lay in bed staring up at the ceiling, trying to calm the anger that was growing inside me by the second.

  I heard a car door slam outside and got up to look out the window. I saw him across the street. Dark hair, broad shoulders, six feet of pure bulky muscle. The man who had broken my heart, Carter Malone, got into his car and drove away. I had watched him for years from this window, crushed on him, and dreamt of what it would be like in his arms, for most of my teen years. Finally, he asked me out, and we dated throughout the last summer he was home. It had been an amazing summer. We were in love, or maybe I was in love and had been fooled easily. He had to leave to go to King’s Cove Harbour to visit the university he would be attending, and that trip was the end of us. In one summer, I had fallen in love and had my heart broken, and that is how I found myself in this mess.

  I had been out with my mother shopping, and when I came home, my father told me Carter had left a message for me—he no longer wanted to see me. I had cried for days. My father had deleted the message without letting me hear it. Thinking of that message that had been left three years ago, that I had so desperately wanted to hear, finally made me snap.

  I jumped off my bed and pulled my bedroom door open in time to see my father walk into his bedroom. “I’m not marrying Trent, that is all there is to it. Honestly, I guess I should have just gone after Carter like I wanted to three years ago.” I slammed my bedroom door and flew to my bed, flopping face first onto the mattress. I expected my father to storm into my bedroom and argue with me more, but when I heard his bedroom door slam shut, I just cried into my pillow.

  After the tears had stopped, I lay and look at the ceiling, fighting back more tears, while the anger building inside of me reached explosive levels. It was an anger unlike I had ever felt before. I couldn’t stay here anymore. I got up, went to my closet, pulled out the largest backpack I had, and started packing up the items that I would need. I pulled open my nightstand drawer and reached in the back. I pulled out a small pile of cash I had been saving. I quickly counted—I had about eight hundred dollars and whatever room was left on the Visa my father had gotten me. It wasn’t going to go far, but I shoved that money into my wallet, placing it in my purse.

  After I was packed, I grabbed my laptop and went directly to the bus station, purchasing a one-way ticket to King’s Cove Harbour. I grabbed my bag and snuck down the stairs to wait for the cab. While I waited, I pulled out my phone and went straight to Facebook, right to Carter’s profile. The first picture that popped up caught my attention. There he stood in front of King’s Cove Harbour University, with three other guys—one I recognized as his brother Hunter. I typed out a quick message to him and had just hit send in time for the cab to pull up in front of me. I looked back at the house I had grown up in, then climbed into the back of the cab, praying that by the time I arrived in the city, Carter would respond back to me.

  7

  Carter – Present Day

  I plugged my
phone into the charger and reversed out of the driveway. She was still standing in the doorway, my princess gave me a small wave, and then shut the door, separating my eyes from the view of her.

  I called the office to let them know I was on my way and asked them to hold any and all messages until I got there. Then I shut my phone off and turned up the radio. I needed to think about what had happened tonight.

  I knew Hope had worked so hard to organize this weekend, with little help from me. I had been very busy and I felt terrible about that. Family time with her and the girls meant so much to me, but I had been so preoccupied with work. When the call came in tonight from my clients, they were desperately worried, and even though I should have told them I would have to see them on our scheduled date, Hope also knew it wasn’t like me to abandon my clients when they needed me. But somehow, I knew deep inside that me having to leave wasn’t the reason she was truly upset.

  I played our conversation over in my mind from when we had first gotten back home. I felt so awful about having to leave that I had thought of the perfect solution on the drive home. She rarely turned down a trip with me to New York, but this time she wouldn’t hear of it. When she said, that she was the last thing I would need I felt my heart break a little. For some reason she didn’t realize that I needed her, that I always had. I hadn’t given her any reason for her to doubt that, but why she was thinking differently was beyond me.

  Bothering me the most out of anything wasn’t the fact that I had to leave, or the fact that she thought she would be in the way, it was the way she clung to me when I was walking out the door. It was the same way she clung to me the night I finally won her back all those years ago. I knew that hug all to well—it wasn’t one of happiness, but one of fear. She was afraid she was losing me, and in her mind, I was already walking away. Whatever had caused this fear, I wished she had told me. And after all these years and all we had gone through, it broke my heart knowing she was afraid to bring up what was really bothering her.