by Holley Trent
Clean
Slate
Holley Trent
The Natural Beauty Series
Shake Well
Accounting for Cole
Polished Slick
Clean Slate
Clean Slate
Daisy Mooring is queen of the boondocks dorks. Just ask her ex-husband. Married at eighteen and divorced by twenty-two, the Carolina girl is all washed up at quarter-life. She’s the resident wallflower at Natural by Nicolette, and spends her days at the cosmetics company going mostly unnoticed, quietly observing and leaving the talking to her loud-mouthed mother. But when she accidentally blurts out during the staff retreat that she’d marry a sexy foreigner so he could stay in the country, all that attention she’d been shunning for so long catches up to her at once.
Ben Thys actually doesn’t need any help staying in the US, but now that the pretty redheaded soap maker is on his radar, he can’t stop thinking of the possibilities. The Belgian national could have the life his American big brother has: the home, the friends, the job. A sweet little wife would just be icing on the cake.
But Daisy’s been burned before by a man who claimed to love her. It doesn’t matter if Ben could be the beginning of her fresh start if she can’t clean her slate of the past.
***This book contains scenes of explicit sensuality and adult language.***
Special thanks to “lastnerve” Val, whose winning comment during my All Shook Up blog tour back in August 2012 allowed her to name a character in this series.
I introduce Elizabeth in chapter five. Maybe we’ll see her again in the future.
-HT
CHAPTER ONE
“If you think it would help, we could get married.”
The entire congregation of Natural by Nicolette staff members clustered in the middle rows of the chartered bus laughed and laughed. At least, that’s what it seemed like to soap maker Daisy Mooring. She couldn’t tell precisely which of her coworkers were howling at her expense.
She couldn’t tell shit.
Her pulse pounded in her ears, and her vision had gone all spotty from mortification. At that moment, her body was an immovable shell—not much more than a house for a brain that seemed to have lost its reins to her usually leaden tongue.
There was a reason she was known as the quiet one. If she didn’t talk, she couldn’t make an ass of herself.
She slipped over to the window, pulled her knees up to her chest, and pressed her face against her legs with a groan. Her heart rate slowed, and the blood flow to her head diminished just enough for her to focus on the sounds around her. The laughter had died down, but the niggling hyperawareness remained. The fine hairs on the back of her neck and arms stood on end. She knew for certain she was being stared at.
They were right to stare.
The sound of cloth abrading bus upholstery beside her prompted her to open her right eye.
Her coworker—well, boss, in a way—Trinity, had slipped into the adjacent seat. The little blonde rested a hand on top of Daisy’s right knee.
Daisy straightened up.
Trinity cringed. “Daisy, we’re sorry. We didn’t mean to laugh.”
Daisy exhaled a shuddering breath and braced herself for further insult.
“You rarely say more than two or three words at a time, so we never really know what you’re thinking. For you to be thinking that… Well, that wasn’t something any of us could have predicted would come out of your mouth.”
“Yeah.” Daisy rubbed her eyes with the heels of her palms. She put her head against the questionably clean headrest just in time to see the bus zip past a green mileage sign on the right-hand side of the road. Twenty minutes to Williamsburg. Twenty minutes until she could scamper away like the cowering invertebrate she was and disappear into the theme park’s brewery. She wanted to drown her sorrows with dozens of little sample cups of beer and maybe, if she were lucky, fall into one of the brewing tanks to meet her boozy death. Death by beer inhalation seemed a far more pleasant way to go than dying of self-inflicted humiliation.
She didn’t even like beer.
Trinity gripped Daisy’s shoulder and gave it what was probably meant to be a reassuring press. Trinity leaned in a little closer and dropped her voice to a whisper. “He didn’t laugh. I think he was too stunned that you said something. You never say anything. He probably didn’t know you could talk.”
Daisy cringed. Dumb and mute. Exactly the reputation she wanted.
Trinity gave her one more squeeze and retreated to her row. She sat in front of Daisy and beside her boyfriend Jerry, whom happened to be the elder brother of the Belgian man Daisy had inadvertently propositioned.
Ben had been in the US for about sixty-five days. This trip, anyway. She’d been counting. This was his third trip, and the longest so far. He’d taken a leave of absence from his job as a swim coach and was supposed to remain in The States until after Trinity and Jerry’s wedding. Ben had become sort of an unofficial staff member at the Natural by Nicolette headquarters, so it seemed appropriate the team drag him along on their yearly retreat.
The entire staff and their sweeties were on the bus, with the exception of Daisy’s mother—Francine. Momma had some business to tend to, or at least that’s what she’d claimed. Daisy knew the truth. Amongst other things, Momma had an irrational fear of heights, things that went fast, and things that went both high and fast. A theme park wasn’t her idea of a good time.
Daisy had tried to bow out, too, thinking such a trip would be a wonderful way to show off the magnificent bounty that was her social ineptitude, but the lady in charge, Nicolette, called “Bullshit” at her headache excuse and manhandled her onto the bus.
Nikki was strong to be such a scrawny thing.
“Thanks, Nikki,” Daisy muttered to her knees as she flattened her face against them once more.
* * *
“Are you coming with us, Ben, or are we boring you?”
Ben pulled his gaze away from the blushing redhead who studied the theme park map display twenty feet from his seat.
She had her brow furrowed in deep concentration and moved her lips as she read the map, tracing some pathways with her index finger in search of…well, he didn’t know. Curious woman. She hadn’t said much more than “Hello” and “See you later” to him in ten weeks, so of course her proposition had taken him by surprise. She’d sounded so serious. Perhaps she didn’t know how visas worked. She’d probably never left the country.
She tapped some dot on the map and set off toward the rightmost path at a brisk pace, those long pale legs a blur in tan shorts. She was a woman on a mission.
He couldn’t help but to grin. She wouldn’t be all that bad to be married to, if he had been thinking about entering the state of matrimony at all. He hadn’t been, and still wasn’t, really, but now she was on his radar.
In the ten or so weeks he’d been haunting the N-by-N production barn, he hadn’t really made a study of her. She was a woman who worked hard, kept her head down, and nose to the grindstone. She’d seemed oblivious to him, and he wasn’t the kind of man whose ego was easily bruised by women who didn’t smile and stare, and he suspected she wasn’t just playing hard-to-get. So, when she’d called up the bus aisle with her offer, and he’d turned back to see that instantaneous blush blooming over her cheeks, he’d frozen in a temporary stupor. Not just because there was no good response for what she’d said, but because he’d noticed for the first time that the face, shadowed by that hat she always wore, was pretty.
No, not pretty.
Teenaged girls in pink lipgloss who wore ribbons in their hair were pretty. Daisy, hiding herself under that god-awful scuffed-up baseball cap with all that curly red hair framing her face, was beautiful. And there’d been some
touchingly timid quality about her faltering voice that had made his heart break a bit.
Jerry snapped his fingers near Ben’s ear, and Ben cleared his throat.
He turned his attention back to the occupants of the wrought-iron bench, and eased a smile onto his face. “I’ll hang out with you guys, of course, unless you don’t want to babysit all day.”
His elder brother shook his head and scrunched his face into that You are so lame expression he’d mastered in only a year of being in Ben’s acquaintance. Ben couldn’t really be offended by it, because half the time Jerry was right.
“We’re not going into the tunnel of love, bro. We’re going to ride roller coasters and consume a lot of empty calories. Tag along and Trin and I will show you the best PG-rated debauchery America has to offer.” Jerry wrapped one arm around his fiancée’s shoulders, and the other around Ben’s. “Maybe the three of us can pose for one of those photo T-shirts—you know, the ones with the fake graffiti and purple and pink hearts? Clara would love that shit.”
Ben laughed. It was true. Their mother adored kitsch. The kitschier the better. Knowing her, she’d stuff a throw pillow into the shirt and sew up the edges to create a new objet d’art for her sofa.
Ben put up his hands, conceding. “All right. Roller coasters, shitty food, and awful T-shirts. Let’s do it. Let’s take a look at that map first, ja?”
“Why, wanna know where the kiddie rides are?”
They started an uncoordinated three-person hobble toward the three-sided display.
“Funny. I thought I was supposed to be the joker of the two of us.” Ben squatted and squinted at the green dot on the map Daisy had been studying.
The brewery.
He grunted his surprise. He would have guessed she were more of a cola girl. Maybe he had the redhead pegged wrong. Usually he was pretty good about sussing out the wild ones…and avoiding them. For once, curiosity trumped his sense of self-preservation.
“I have an idea.” He stood and pointed down the avenue toward the intersection where the gardens gave way to shops and restaurants. “Let’s get some lunch, then get sloshed.”
Trinity blew out a ragged exhale and rolled her eyes. “That might take a while with the little cups they use. We might have to upgrade to mugs. You two seem to have iron livers.”
Jerry gave her an indecorous goosing that set the serious chemist off into a torrent of giggles. She swatted him away, and Jerry winked at Ben.
Ben was used to the interplay by now. His first visit, nearly a year ago, his brother’s relationship had been new, and the couple had been much more private with their affections. By the next visit, several months later, Trinity would kiss Jerry with people around, though her blush gave away her discomfort at having the audience. Now, she seemed to enjoy the attention for the most part, though there was the occasional grumble regarding Jerry’s public groping. “Kids could see,” she’d hiss.
And Jerry would make some response like, “If the worst thing a kid sees is a man being so enamored by his woman that he wants to touch her, then the world has gone to shit.”
“The iron liver only applies to beer, pixie,” Jerry said. Hard liquor I don’t filter so well. Remember that one Christmas? Anyhow, let’s do the damn thing. You think that café has wiener schnitzel? I think that’s just the right amount of grease to play nice with the gallon of beer I’m going to drink.”
“You eat that and you’re going to barf. I’m not sitting in front of you or beside you on any rides,” Trinity griped.
“Spoilsport.”
“One of us has to be a grown-up. Might as well be me.”
As the trio sat in the courtyard of theme park’s Bavarian café eating overpriced turkey sandwiches, Ben tuned out the gentle banter of his brother and future sister-in-law and watched the crowds filling the cobblestone avenues around them.
Children raced through clumps of slower-moving adults, shouting their excitement. Parents squinted at and deliberated over the order of rides they escorted their charges to. Young couples strolled arm-in-arm in no particular hurry.
These people—visitors at the park, just like him—belonged in a way he didn’t. A way that pained him. They belonged in this world, just like Jerry did.
The brothers had been unfortunate pawns in a love affair gone wrong. One had been raised with their father in the US, the other with their mother in Belgium. Jerry hadn’t known Ben existed until they were both over thirty. Ben had always known about his brother, but held no hope they’d cross paths. Jerry had his own life, and a full one, and so Ben thought there wouldn’t be room in it for these Belgian strangers.
But, then Ben learned what kind of man his brother was.
Ben was just a hanger-on in his brother’s American world, but a part of him wondered if there was a place for him in it, too. Not that he had an aversion to his home country at all. It’d never been about that. He liked Belgium. Belgium liked him. He loved his job coaching Olympic swimmers. He’d never managed to earn a medal himself, but one of those kids—they might do what he hadn’t been able to. Still, he’d leave that job in a second if to meant he had a chance to stay in the US for this next season of his life.
That’s why Daisy’s outburst had stunned him. And, yeah, sitting there on that bus seat he’d actually considered the proposition for a moment. No more flying back and forth just to skirt around the visa regulations? He could actually settle down somewhere besides Jerry’s garage apartment. Maybe have a love affair with an American woman of his own.
“Isn’t that right, Ben?”
Ben startled at his brother’s voice, and turned to meet Jerry’s dark blue gaze. “Um, ik hoorde je niet.”
“Hold on.” Jerry closed his eyes and mouthed Ben’s words repeatedly.
Ben groaned and tamped his sandwich parts into a tidy triangle. Bad habit of his, speaking the language in his mind and not the one the people around him understood. He gave his brother a moment to work it out before interjecting. Jerry had been learning Dutch so his conversations with their mother would be less stilted.
“Hoorde? Is that hear?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.” Jerry put down his sandwich and wiped his hands on his napkin. “Trin and I were talking about Clara’s insistence on staying in a hotel when she visits.”
“That, huh?” Ben shrugged. “She hates feeling like she’s causing inconvenience.”
“It’s not an inconvenience, though,” Trinity picked up. “We’ve got a big house, and besides, we’d like to see more of her when she’s here. She’s a mystery to us.”
“Perhaps she still feels you won’t want to see her, Jerry. She’s afraid you’ll push her away.”
Jerry forced a breath through his lips. “For fuck’s sake. Can you talk to her? I know she wouldn’t say anything to me about it or even initiate a conversation, but if it comes from you maybe she’ll believe it. We want her to stay at the house and we want her to promise to attend the rehearsal dinner. I know that shit’s going to be awkward, but I’ll do my best to keep her and Kate separated.”
Ben cringed at the mention of their stepmother—also Jerry’s adopted mother—whom his laidback brother was perpetually at odds with. Ben understood why. Hell, he was at odds with the witch himself, and he’d only known her a year.
“I’ll tell her,” he conceded.
“And tell her she doesn’t have to rush home. She can stay as long as she wants, just like you do when you come.”
“She won’t believe me, probably. She’s such a damned incurable pessimist, but I’ll tell her.”
“And…” Jerry worried his paper napkin into microscopic specks. “Dad said he’d pay for her plane ticket. I think he already has, although I told him I’d take care of it.”
Ben closed his eyes and pressed his forehead against the tabletop. “Verrek.”
“Why would Louis do that? He knows Kate’s going to find out,” Trinity added. “Does he have some kind of death wish? As it is, since finding out a
bout Ben, she won’t let him leave the country on business if she doesn’t tag along. You guys are both over thirty. It’s not exactly a fresh wound. Does she think there are a bunch of Rouse spawn all over the globe and that she’s going to prevent any further humiliation by cutting him off?”
“I don’t know, pixie. Everything’s fucked up. Haven’t you noticed how off-kilter Dad’s been of late?”
“I’ve noticed.”
“I don’t know what to make of it. He stopped by the barn last week when you were out at that fine chemicals conference with Nikki. Spent an hour following me and Ben around.”
Ben picked up his head in time to witness Trinity’s look of incredulity. He didn’t blame her. Louis Rouse was definitely not the broody type. “To answer your question, Trinity, Louis claims he has only two children…unless Moeder is holding out on him.”
Trinity cocked up a skeptical eyebrow.
Ben shook his head. “No. Either Jerry or I would have to have a twin for that to be possible, and as far as I know, we don’t.”
The little blonde his brother called “pixie” because of the haircut she used to have leaned back in her hard plastic seat and crossed her arms over her chest. “So, they really haven’t seen or talked to each other since Louis took Jerry, and Clara was pregnant with you?”
“They have not.”
“Shit. And Kate probably thinks otherwise.”
Ben put his hands up in a beats me gesture. “Regardless, we’ll have to be very careful about keeping a bumper between those two women, or Moeder is going to bolt. She hates feeling like the whore.”
Jerry stopped tearing paper. “Is that what she’s calling herself?” His low tenor voice held a bit of an edge.
“Not that word, precisely, but the meaning was implied.”
“But she didn’t know about Kate,” Trinity said.
Ben shrugged again. “She blames herself for a lot of things. Wouldn’t you, even if it wasn’t deserved? She had a boy. She signed some papers without having them looked over, then the boy was gone and she couldn’t get him back.”
