by C. M. Steele
His Dirty Secret
Best Friend Series
C.M. Steele
Copyrighted © 2016
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
without the express written permission of the publisher
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Liam~ My best friend has been looking for his long lost daughter and it's been a waste of time until she strolls into his fiancé's café. The thing is Joe just got her back and well I want to take her away.
Katrina~ I've been waiting for what seems like forever to see my father. Finally gaining the nerve I made my presence known. What I didn't expect was falling for his best friend. What is a girl to do when a handsome rugged Texan touches her in every way?
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
Epilogue
Prologue
Katrina
I squealed and jumped up and down when I learned my dad was planning on taking me to visit his new place in Dallas. My mother and I lived in Michigan where summers were the only time it was warm. It was something I was looking forward to. I started to pack immediately. I pulled out an old suitcase that I have had since I was twelve and started to toss all the clothes I could inside. We hadn’t seen each other in over two months. He had a new job as a lead architect for some company. I didn’t know all the details yet.
My parents divorced a year ago. It was a messy one that caused my dad to make some serious life changes, including moving halfway across the country. Three weeks away sounded so magical. I was hoping that maybe I could live with him after the three weeks. I knew he had to work, but I was old enough to stay home after school by myself. I just wanted to get away from my mother. She had been on a tear since the separation.
According to her, everything had been my fault. My father told me the exact opposite. Their divorce was because my mother was a whore. I hated her for ruining our happy family. My dad had been my hero since I could remember. All his free time was spent with me. When I looked back at the past, I realized that my mother was never around. She was always going somewhere even though she didn’t work. She’d been cheating on my father for a long time, and he caught her at his best friend’s house getting it on. I always hated Ken. His relationship with my mother was too close, but at the time I was too young and sheltered to know that they were carrying on with an affair.
When I was about ten years old, I came home and she wasn’t around. I couldn’t get in the house because I didn’t have the keys. It was pouring outside and I had nowhere to hide. After twenty minutes in the rain the front door opened and Ken walked out. “Hey, squirt. You’re home early. Your mother just got back from the store.” He walked with his umbrella past the driveway and down the street. He was almost out of view when I saw him get in his car. I thought that was odd at the time because we had a driveway and parking in front. After the affair came to light, I understood all those times when Ken was around without my dad.
There was a knock at my bedroom door bringing me back to the present. I popped it open happily thinking it was my dad; instead it was my mother, looking at me with disgust. “Your father just pulled up,” she grumbled before shutting it on me. I didn’t know why she hated him so much; he wasn’t the one who fucked everything up. They were supposed to share custody of me, but since he had to work she had me more often and she made him jump through hoops just to see me.
Hearing the car door slam closed, I smiled brightly. Being away from her for at least three weeks was a blessing. She just had to get a job because she spent more than she earned and my father already gave her more than she deserved. I hurried to the front door and whipped it open. I rushed into his arms. I squeezed him so tight I failed to realize that he wasn’t hugging me like he usually did.
“Where’s your poor excuse for a mother at?” he asked, pushing out of my arms and stepping around me. I felt a coldness from him and got a sick sense that something wasn’t right. He’d never dismissed me like this before.
“I think she’s in the kitchen.” I could hardly get the words out before he passed me by completely and stormed in there to find her. I followed behind, standing in the kitchen doorway.
“I can’t believe you lied to me all these fucking years. She’s fifteen, damn it. You lying bitch!” my dad yelled, slamming a piece of paper down in front of my mother. I’d heard him call her everything under the sun, well deservedly so. To me, it was better than him hitting her. She was something else.
I didn’t know what it was, but I saw part of the heading from here. It said something about testing. I couldn’t make out the rest because my mother’s thumb was covering it. They’d kept the fighting to a minimum lately, but they had epic fights at the beginning. It was my dad’s ego and my mother’s lack of remorse that made the fights escalate. Today it was bigger than that. I could feel it to my core. Shit was about to go down. I wondered if he would take me away or not.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, hoping to diffuse the tension.
“Joey, go into the other room,” my mom hissed.
“Don’t call her that. Call her by her real name,” he demanded
He was right; it wasn’t my real name, but it was what they’d called me since I could remember because I acted just like him and we did everything together. I felt tears well up, so I turned away. Whatever the fight was about, I didn’t want any part of it. I didn’t want to be caught in the middle. I always was and usually because she brought me into it, but not this time. What could be worse than what she had already done to him?
A few minutes passed, then I heard the front door slam. I hoped he was just going out to get some air. That was what he always did when they get into it. I slipped my headphones on and grabbed my latest reading assignment from school, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. I heard it was supposed to be one of the best books ever written. When I looked it up online and watched one of the movies, I fell in love with the story, so the book had to be better.
Two hours in, I was just finishing Mr. Darcy’s shitty proposal and Elizabeth’s snarky reply. It was a hard read for many people, but I’d read and understood Shakespeare. I fell in love with Mr. Darcy during the movie, so now that I was reading it, I felt wretched heartache at her refusal. It was earned, and so was Austen’s acclaim. I ate up the pages, almost forgetting the fight.
Then my mother knocked on the door. She came in with tears on her face. I didn’t know why she was crying—she just used my father for his money. If you loved someone, you wouldn’t carry on an affair with someone else. Whatever was making her break down had to be something big.
“What’s the matter?” I asked, almost afraid of what she had to say. I sat upright and planted my feet on the floor so she could sit on the bed next to me.
She didn’t bother to sit. Why I expected her to was beyond me. “Your father… well, he hasn’t trusted me in a long time and for good reason. He’s had doubts for a while now and decided to do some digging. I’m sorry, but he’s not your father.”
I gasped, too freaked out to say a word. But rather than explain, she tossed the paper at me and just walked out of the ro
om. I threw my body down across my bed, burying my face into the pillow. In my head, I played back his words and actions. He acted like I wasn’t his child. Then he yelled at her for lying about me. It had to be true. I knew she was a cheating whore when she got caught. I just thought it was because my dad worked too many hours and she was lonely.
“Not my dad. Not my dad,” I chanted to myself, hating the reality of it. I wanted to run out there and shout at her. Tell her how much she ruined my life, tell her to make him come back for me, but what good would that do? He treated me like I was no one to him.
Rage replaced the pain, making me jump out of my bed. I started smashing the gifts he bought me, beginning with the Detroit Pistons snow globe he got me. I threw it as hard as I could against the wall; it shattered on impact—just like my heart. The she-devil didn’t come to see what happened because she didn’t care, as usual. Feeling alone and miserable, I cried myself to sleep without even reading the letter.
~~~~~
I woke up feeling pain but managed to get ready for school as though my whole world wasn’t gone. Today, I was supposed to go to school happy and excited, but instead I wanted to crawl in a hole and die. My dad abandoned me. He’d been my only sanity when it came to dealing with her. I hated her and wished that I never had to deal with her again, but I’ve got three years for that. Once I was old enough, I was gone. There was only so much mental abuse a girl could take before she couldn’t be fixed. I won’t be that girl.
“Stay strong,” I said as I looked at my reflection in this bootleg mirror that looked like it’d seen better days in the 1940’s.
Through the mirror, I could see the crumbled up letter on the floor. It was time for confirmation of what the woman said.
I picked it up off the floor. It was the results of a DNA test. Yep, Joseph Bevans was excluded from being my father. The tears started again, but I pushed away the pain, chanting my new mantra.
Taking a deep breath, I walked out of my room. I had to pass the kitchen to get to the front door. The back door looked awfully tempting right about now. But I needed to face my demon.
My mother was sitting at the kitchen table, completely wasted as per her usual. It was so disgusting and made me never want to even pick up a glass of wine when I got older. Gross, she looked like shit. While I stared at her, I felt sorry for her. She was pathetic and hollow. “Joe doesn’t love you and said he never wants to see you again. God, I wish I’d gotten the abortion from the start.”
“Thanks,” I said, skipping breakfast since there isn’t shit to eat anyway. Her barb didn’t have the sting anymore. Her verbal digs and shit didn’t have that old effect of making me cry. I looked at this worthless woman and hoped she drank herself into oblivion. It was a shitty thing to think, but it was terrible being around her day in and day out.
I was stuck. At fifteen, I couldn’t just run away. I had nowhere to go and very little money. I wanted to call him and beg my dad to still love me, but he was no longer a part of my life. He had always been my hero and my friend. Unlike most girls my age, I didn’t have a cell phone, so I couldn’t call him.
I didn’t know what I was going to do. My mother didn’t manage the money he’d been paying in child support well, so her cell was cut off again. I couldn’t call him from that one, but when I got home after school, I could find his number in her phone to plead with him. I would ask the neighbor if I could use their phone. She was a nice old lady and very kind to me.
School was a nightmare, but I made it through. My thoughts were all centered on getting away from my mother, who obviously regretted having me. To her, my life meant nothing. I unlocked the back door and headed straight to my room. I wasn’t hungry, and I didn’t want to speak to her. She could come to me if she had anything to say. After I finished my homework, I decided to head to the kitchen and get a drink of water.
The house was eerily quiet and unsettling. The moment I stepped into the kitchen, I knew why. On the floor lay my mother’s body. I gave a shriek. As much as I hated her, I never expected this. I didn’t see any blood except under her nose, but it was clear that she was dead. Her skin wasn’t living anymore and her eyes were wide open. My body shook as I looked down at her. I don’t know how long I stood there, but I finally woke from my daze and ran for help out the front door. I needed to call someone, but I didn’t know where to turn. Without thinking, I ran to the neighbor down the street and pounded on her door.
Liam
“Come on, Joe. The game starts in an hour,” I called out to my friend. We had tickets to the first Mavs game of the season and he was at it again, chasing tale.
“Sure thing, I just want to get her number.” There was a blonde walking across the street from the job site. She worked at the local bakery across the street from latest construction build. Joe had been working for me for the past two years, and I never saw him take interest in a particular woman like this. We were best friends so he’d tell me about the latest females, but something about the way he was looking at her told me she was going to be more than just a casual thing. We started this job two weeks ago and every day he’d been watching her.
Joe had been married before and it went south after his wife fucked his best friend, so he spent his free time hanging with me and on occasion hooking up with a random woman. I always booked when he’d meet a girl. As the head of my construction company, I didn’t have time to date. I worked eighty plus hours since I took over for my father ten years ago. I stopped dating for a long time when the company struggled, but once I got the company out of the red I tried dating again. It was a big bust. I occasionally met women around, but I never felt any interest to take them to my bed. I wanted what my parents had.
They were happily married for thirty-two years. One day my dad suffered a serious accident on the job. Our company wasn’t that big at the time and he was needed to help on the roof. He fell to the ground, shattering the bones in his legs, and became paralyzed. My mother stayed by his side the whole time, willing him to live. If it wasn’t for her my dad would have given up. He begged me to keep the company running. There was just one problem. He never taught me anything about the construction business. When I was little, yeah, I would tinker with him in the garage, but once I got a certain age and he’d been working to the bone, he wanted more for me. It was crazy because I thought he was successful, but he told me it was all brawn, no brains.
The accident was right after I graduated college, so I took over with the books and scheduling. Something was off about them, so I contacted a different accountant. The company was in the red because someone had been fleecing the company. It took two years to fix the problem and have the two responsible arrested for the crime. Now four more years later, Harrison Construction Company was booming and completely in the black.
I’d loved working with my hands, so on occasion I would work on the job sites even if my mother disapproved. Ever since I took over she feared for my safety. It was a hazardous job, but with precautions in place it was safe. I hadn’t had a major accident on the job sites since I took over. On occasion someone would get a cut or maybe smash a finger with a hammer, but nothing serious.
“Hey, sorry about that. She’s perfect,” Joe said, interrupting my thoughts of the past.
“No problem. I was lost in thought.” We hopped into my truck and headed to the game.
“We’re going to get married. Just wait and see.”
“Okay. We’ll see.”
Chapter 1
Katrina
I couldn’t believe I was here again, waiting for him to "accidentally" see me. I chickened out yesterday, but I needed to find closure. When I walked into the café yesterday, he was right there, standing at the counter. I saw him kissing the woman that works at the café like she was his world. Mentally, I knew I had no right to get upset, but my heart had a different opinion on the matter. My eyes welled up so fast that I had to get out of there before I could embarrass myself. I ran back to my hotel and tried to calm down.
>
Chanting “Stay strong,” to myself, I walked into the café. According to the sign it had just opened two months ago, and they were celebrating every month of the first year with a special discount on the anniversary. It was a small spot but was clean and the walls are eclectic. Each wall had a different theme, all of which had to do with the arts. My favorite were the walls dedicated to literature. The first thing I noticed on them was the Pride and Prejudice quote. I have a pillow with the same phrase. Gosh, I loved Mr. Darcy so much I wanted one of my own one day.
Trying again today, I grabbed a cup of coffee and sat in the seat near the window. This was the perfect spot to be because he worked across the street at Harrison Construction. It was a two story building with a work yard around it. There were several men moseying about and others loading large trucks with materials. My eyes are trained to them. I was hoping that I’d see him. I swear I’d been looking for about ten minutes and nothing.
I was too focused on staring at the building that I didn't notice the man standing behind me. It was when my eyes blinked that I made out the figure standing directly behind me. The reflection was almost completely clear. I could see the stern look on his chiseled jaw. Whoever he was, he was tall and well made. The urge to bite my lip was strong. He had on a pair of jeans that fit him perfectly with a white button up dress shirt and of course the signature cowboy hat. After all, I was in Texas.
"Is there something that's got your interest over there?" I closed my eyes at the sound his mellow but gruff voice. He sounded angry, like I didn’t have the right to look over there. Truthfully, I was staring like a stalker, so guess he had a point to be ticked.
I nervously turned and had to look up quickly because his cock was at my eye level. Shit, should have kept my head down. The man’s piercing eyes were hitting me in places I didn’t know were alive. Feeling like I was on uneven ground, I decided to stand. It didn’t help because he was still towering over me. He was too close for me to handle, so I sat back down.
