Lost In Between: Finding Me Duet #1
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Lost In Between
Finding Me Duet #1
K.L. Kreig
Contents
Copyright
Preface
Prologue
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
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Also by K.L. Kreig
GRIP from Kennedy Ryan
Musical Inspiration
Babbles…
About the Author
Lost In Between
Copyright © 2017 by K. L. Kreig
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Published by K. L. Kreig
ePub: ISBN-13: 978-1-943443-21-5 ISBN-10: 1-943443-21-1
mobi: ISBN-13: 978-1-943443-22-2 ISBN-10: 1-943443-22-X
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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the author.
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This book is a work of fiction. The characters, events, and places portrayed in this book are products of the author’s imagination and are either fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
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Cover Art by Kellie Dennis of Book Cover By Design
Editing by Nikki Busch Editing
Proofreading by Candy Royer
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Published in the United States of America.
Created with Vellum
Preface
Lost.
Sometimes getting lost is how we find ourselves. ~ Robert Tew
Prologue
4 years earlier
I glance at the Dear John letter crumpled slightly in my hand, my messy handwriting scrawled across the plain white paper.
My words are simple but ruthless. Said with purpose. They are intended to wound. Cut ties.
It’s wrong, what I’m doing, but grief is an all-consuming net of self-destruction, and I am twisted up so tight in its unforgiving, barbed rope it’s cutting off my circulation.
And it’s not fair to him to have to deal with that anymore.
It’s my fault, really. I let this go too far. I let him think he could have parts of me that were unavailable. Hell, I fooled myself into thinking the same thing. I knew it would catch up with us at some point, and apparently, tonight is that night.
I don’t know who I am anymore. Maybe I never did.
I grab the duffel I’d stuffed in the corner of the closet earlier and take one last look around the dark room. I swallow the hard lump of emotion sticking in my throat when my eyes land on my fiancé, asleep and completely unaware of what’s about to hit him. But when he wakes and finds me gone, somehow I don’t think he’ll be too surprised either.
I replay his harsh words from our argument earlier, the ones I can’t forget. “People can’t love you if you don’t let them, Willow.”
Yeah. He’s right. They can’t hurt me, either.
I lay my good-bye out on the dresser and smooth the wrinkles with my hands. I twist the band of promises and forever from my left ring finger and gently set it beside the note.
With one last glance at my callous, heartless words…
I don’t love you anymore.
I’m sorry.
…I walk through his house and out the front door. Outside I drag in a mouthful of cool night air, feeling strangely lighter with each lungful. A moment ago, the weight of the world was pressing me down until I thought I would suffocate. Now I just feel weightless.
Empty.
Alone.
And so damn lost I’m not sure it’s possible for anyone to find me, including me.
1
Present Day
My gown sells false truths. Makeup covers the lies. Fake smiles and soft words divert and deceive. Three carats on my left hand blind all, except me.
I know the truth.
I take myself in, from the perfectly coifed hair to the French manicured toes peeking out from my sling-back shoes. I stare at myself in the full-length mirror, not recognizing the superficial woman staring back.
A frown turns down the corner of her mouth. Condemnation clouds her unusual green eyes. Sorrow plays in the thin lines on her face and in the slight slump of her bare shoulders.
She’s judging me.
She should.
I’m a horrible, awful person.
In less than ten minutes, I will let my father walk me down an aisle lined with fresh flowers and silk bows tacked onto the corners of every other pew.
I will reach the end, let Daddy kiss my cheek with tears blurring his vision, and give me away to another man.
I will take my fiancé’s hand in mine, gaze into his puppy dog eyes overflowing with joy, and betroth myself for life to someone who is noble and loyal and kind.
I will promise to love, honor, and cherish him all the days of my life.
I will exchange in-sickness-and-in-health-forever vows in front of God, our family, and friends to a great man out of spite and revenge. A ploy. As a giant fuck-you to the man I really love but can’t have.
I will marry a man I genuinely respect the hell out of and love… but just as my very best friend.
Who does that?
A destructive, selfish bitch. That’s who.
I let my gaze fall down the length—
“Hey, babe!” my roommate, Sierra, yells as she walks down the hall. The sound penetrates the room I’ve closed myself in. I shake my head in disgust, my recording ruined. No matter how many times I ask her to be quiet when she comes home, it doesn’t sink in.
I need a bigger place with privacy and a separate, soundproofed space where I can work in peace and quiet. Not this makeshift area I’ve constructed in the corner of my bedroom.
Sadly, my bank account disagrees.
“Dammit, Sierra. I have asked you repeatedly not to yell when you come in. Now I have to start over,” I whine when she throws open my door.
“Oh, my bad. Were you in the middle of a recording?”
A withering look is my only reply.
“I’m sorry.” Her tone is contrite. I know she means it. That won’t keep her from doing it again. And again. And again.
“It’s just an audition. It’s fine.” I tear off my headphones and switch off my mic, glancing one more time at the prologue of the romance I was just narrating. This one starts out more dramatic than others, no doubt to draw readers in, but it will end the way they all do. With a happily ever after.
I try to avoid these types of reads. The poignant stories of hope and love and second chances. Two soul mates finding each other against all odds
, living happily ever after. But with the popularity of audiobooks on the rise, and the fact my Master of Fine Arts degree doesn’t pay my mountain of bills, I put my acting skills to use in a way that would.
I prefer mysteries or historical pieces myself. Hell, give me a good manual to narrate any day. Unfortunately, I’ve had to expand my knowledge to all genres, including romance. A necessary evil, but I’ve found that my sultry voice is in quite the demand, and that fits within the erotica and romance arena better than science fiction or children’s stories.
“Do you work tonight?” Sierra asks as I swipe my empty Pepsi bottle from my desk and head past her, making my way down the stairs to the kitchen.
“Yeah. I wasn’t supposed to, but Holly caught a bad case of the flu so I’m filling in.” I don’t mind, though. I can always use the extra cash.
A quick glance at the clock above the stove shows it’s only four. I still have four hours before I have to leave. Plenty of time for a workout, a quick bite, another take, and a shower. In that order.
While I love my day job and it’s starting to gain momentum, I’m still relatively new in this industry, and I work for a smaller publisher. Pay is commensurate with experience and size, and since I’m on the smaller end of both, so are the biweekly deposits into my bank account. It’s not remotely sufficient to pay the monthly expenses that keep my stomach in a constant ball of knots.
“This one under fifty?”
“Ser,” I chastise, pulling out my insulated water bottle from the cupboard.
Her dainty eyebrows rise along with one corner of her mouth. “Well?”
I sigh, unscrewing the top so I can fill it with ice. I’m not ashamed of my part-time job. I have nothing to be ashamed of. Would I do it out of choice? Absolutely not. But it’s a necessity, plain and simple.
“I don’t know,” I hedge.
Actually, I’m lying through my teeth. Paul Graber is a fifty-five-year-old hotelier from Boston with three bloodthirsty ex-wives, four grown children, and five grandchildren. He owns over thirty high-end boutique hotels and three full-service resorts. He’s in town for a political fundraiser, to which I understand he’s a generous donor.
Or so I’ve been told by Randi, my boss. Randi can be a hard-ass, but she watches our backs and gives us everything we need to know to do our jobs and do them well.
“Liar.” She calls me out. Plucking a red grape from the fruit bowl, she pops it in her mouth, asking between chews, “Been with this guy before?”
Sierra is one of only two people who know what I do on the side. She doesn’t judge, but she worries on my behalf. She needn’t. The men I’m with are vetted thoroughly and completely, and if they are out of line, they are banned.
“No, but he told Randi he’d be in town several times over the next few months, so if tonight goes well, he could become a regular.”
I hate to say it, but the only thing I think of when I look at men like Paul Graber, who will pay his hard-earned money for a night with me, is cash cow.
That may sound cold and calloused, but I’m a realist. I’ve learned life is hard, unforgiving. No one takes care of you but you. So, if men like Paul Graber want to use me for their own selfish reasons, why shouldn’t I do the same? Besides, I know exactly where I stand with my clients, and deep down, that’s an oddly comforting feeling.
Okay. Subject change.
“So, how’s Raul?” I ask while filling my bottle with water from the tap.
“A cheating rat, dick-sucking bastard,” she replies tersely. I hear the slight wobble in her voice and suddenly feel like a heel. Had I been paying attention when she flung open my bedroom door, I probably would have noticed her red-rimmed eyes before five minutes into our conversation.
“Oh, Ser, no. What happened?” I reach across the kitchen island and grab her hand. She’s not the touchy-feely type, so the fact that she doesn’t pull away tells me an awful lot.
She’s hurting.
Bad.
I love my best friend, Sierra, more than anyone in the world, but her taste in men sucks rocks. At five eleven, she’s striking in a goth sort of way. She’s the rare type who has natural, enviable curves—34-28-32—can eat anything she wants, anytime she wants, and hasn’t worked out a day in her life. She walks among the one percent of women the other ninety-nine percent hate on principle alone.
She’s brash and unapologetic. She also has the biggest heart of anyone I know. But the bigger the heart, the bigger the bull’s-eye, my mother always used to say. And the easier it is to hit.
“My postcoital glow was pissed out when he got a phone call from a chick named Barbi. Fucking Barbi, Lowenbrau.” I smile at her childhood nickname for me, her grandfather’s favorite beer. “Who names their fucking kid Barbi?”
“Someone with a fairy-tale complex?” I shrug my shoulder.
Her voice drops when she continues. “He was in the shower when his phone lit up. I told myself not to look, but it was the fifth time in an hour.”
“Did you answer?”
“When I saw a pair of pierced double Ds as the caller ID, bet your ass I did.”
And this is why I’m not out searching for my Prince Charming, a fictional character made up by Walt Disney.
“Ouch.” I actually wince.
“Yeah. Ouch.” Her eyes fall, but not before I see a wayward tear trickling down her face. “I think he wanted me to find out. Otherwise he would have taken the phone with him in the bathroom, right?”
My head is already absently nodding in agreement. It’s been so long since I’ve had a real relationship, or a real date for that matter, that I’m severely short on good advice. I give her hand a big squeeze, saying the only thing I can. “He’s undeserving of you.”
“Why does this always happen to me? I’m sweet enough, aren’t I?”
My eyebrows kiss my hairline.
“Maybe that’s my problem. Maybe I need to change.”
I grab both hands in mine, making her look at me. “Don’t you dare. Be who you are, Sierra, not who someone wants you to be.” Now this I know something about. It’s exhausting being what others want instead of being yourself. At least I can use that to my benefit now.
“So, said a better way: go fuck yourself, Raul, right?”
“Right. Let white-trash Barbi have his cheating ass.”
“I bet she has a mullet.”
“And her broken-down single-wide’s not even pink.” I laugh.
“She probably ran Walgreen’s out of blue eye shadow,” she says, looking more upbeat with each catty dig.
“Yeah. With two brats attached to her hips and a Kool menthol dangling from her bony hot-pink fingernails.”
We laugh at the image we’re conjuring of Miss Pierced Double Ds until water runs freely down Sierra’s face. Then she stops, sniffles, and discreetly wipes her tears.
This is it. The end of our conversation. I won’t mention the tears—she’ll just excuse them away anyway—and she won’t ever mention her philandering ex again. But that’s what we do. We both hold a lot of toxicity inside. Sometimes I think the EPA should slap a warning label on both of us.
“Want an omelet?”
“You and your ‘breakfast for dinner’ shit. It’s really weird in case I haven’t already mentioned that a hundred times before.”
She loves it. It grew on her the second time I made her my mouthwatering fluffy eggs stuffed to the brim with veggies and crispy pancetta.
“I’m unconventional, what can I say?” And it reminds me of my family. The way things used to be back when I was happy and life had limitless potential. “We’re out of eggs, so I’ll stop by the store and pick some up on my way back from the gym. Wanna come?” I ask, knowing full well what the answer will be, but hoping she’ll say yes just this once anyway.
“Please. The only time I work up a sweat is in the bedroom, girl. You know that.”
“There’s a kickboxing class in half an hour. Could be a good stress reliever,” I add excitedly, ho
ping to entice her. It would be nice to have a buddy at the gym, but it would be far more entertaining to watch her uncoordinated and poorly timed kicks and punches.
“That’s what Melvin is for, chicky.” She stands and grabs the People magazine from the countertop before heading out of the room.
“New man in your life you haven’t told me about yet?” I tease, knowing full well who Melvin is. Or what he is, I should say.
“Yep. He came yesterday.” She spins back around. “The best qualities about Melvin are he’s one hundred percent faithful and he’s supposed to get me off in under thirty seconds. Impossible qualities in real dick. Oh, pick up some double-A batteries at the store, will you? Get the super pack. Call me when dinner’s ready.”
I nod and watch sad Sierra disappear down the hall. When I hear her bedroom door close softly and Chris Cornell’s “Nearly Forgot My Broken Heart” drifting through the thin walls, I know she’ll get a little high and cry in private, but once she steps foot back out of that space, her fuck-the-world mask will slip back into place until the next asshole cracks it apart again and the cycle repeats.
We are so alike, she and I. Always have been. We show the world what they want to see and keep the brokenness inside, marinating in our own secluded well of sadness and bitter tears. I think that’s why we gravitated toward each other in the third grade when Sierra’s family moved to Seattle.
Sierra’s been by my side for every pain, every wound, every bruise, every mistake, every horrific event that’s plagued my life as I have for hers. We’ve held each other’s hair out of the toilet when our sorrows ran too deep, we’ve twined our fingers in heartbreak, and with arms around the other, we’ve literally held each other’s pieces together in mourning. There’s no better person put on the face of planet Earth than Sierra Wiseman.
A fit last name, I always thought. She’s taught me more about life than nearly anyone else. I only wish she could teach me how to actually live it.