Until the Bell Rings: An MMA Fighter Romance
Page 14
“You up to it?” he asked.
“You know,” I said, smiling, “I think I am.”
~***THE END***~
THANK YOU!
Thank you for taking a chance on UNTIL THE BELL RINGS and trusting me to give you a few hours of reading pleasure. I’d be happy if you do me a favor. Many potential readers depend on honest reviews to determine if they should 1-Click a book. Please help them make an informed decision by posting a review of UNTIL THE BELL RINGS. Your review doesn’t have to be long.
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Books by Roxy Wilson
Newest Releases:
A Holly Jolly Christmas (Merry Matrimony, Book 1)
The Gift of Maggie (Merry Matrimony, Book 2)
Wynter Wonderland (Merry Matrimony, Book 3)
Nya’s Wolf: BBW Paranormal Shape Shifter Romance
This Time, Baby (A Bundle of Joy, Book 5)
Fur-ever Yours: A BBW Paranormal Shape Shifter Romance (The Protectors Volume 1)
Fur-Ever Yours: A BBW Paranormal Shape Shifter Romance (The Protectors Book 2)
My Guardian Vampire, Volume 1
Just Gettin’ Started: BWWM Interracial Cowboy/Western Romance (Westbury Ranch, Book 1)
Stay With Me: BWWM Interracial Cowboy/Western Romance (Westbury Ranch Book 2)
I Only Have Eyes For You: BWWM Cowboy/Western Romance (Westbury Ranch Book 3)
Ms. Perfectly Imperfect
Boxed Sets:
Baby Love Volume 1
Baby Love Volume 2
Yuletide Love Volume 1
Yuletide Love Volume 2
Other Books:
Baby Wanted (A Bundle of Joy, Book 1)
The Baby Proposal (A Bundle of Joy, Book 2)
Baby, You’re Mine (A Bundle of Joy, Book 3)
Secret Baby Seduction (A Bundle of Joy, Book 4)
A Christmas Kiss (Holiday Happiness, Book 1)
Second Chance Christmas (Holiday Happiness, Book 2)
The Christmas Cupid (Holiday Happiness, Book 3)
Mistletoe Miracles
Loving St. Nick
Work It Out
Books by Shari Michaels
I Love Me Some Him
Back in the Saddle: BWWM Interracial Romance
Gray Matters: BWWM Interracial Romance
Blindsided: BWWM Interracial Romance
The Judgement Call: BWWM Interracial Romance
More than Friends: BWWM Interracial Romance
Through the Storm: BWWM Interracial Romance
About the Author
Roxy Wilson, a self-professed book junkie, was born and bred in a beautiful island in the Caribbean.
When Roxy isn’t reading or writing, she spends her time trying out recipes with her daughter, designing and dress making, listening to music of the 80’s and 90’s or engaging in her favorite workout routine, which is 1-clicking a new book to read, to her heart’s content.
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As I’d promised, I’ve included bonus content, the first 20K words of Hitman’s Secret Baby, written by new author, McKenzie Lewis. Please note that this is NOT a BWWM Romance…Enjoy!
Hitman’s Secret Baby
By
McKenzie Lewis
Hitman’s Secret Baby
Copyright © 2016 by McKenzie Lewis
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
This is a work of fiction. All characters, places, businesses and incidents are from the author’s imagination or they are used fictitiously and are definitely fictionalized. Any trademarks or pictures herein are not authorized by the trademark owners and do not in any way mean the work is sponsored by or associated with the trademark owners. Any trademarks or pictures used are specifically in a descriptive capacity. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons living or dead, is coincidental.
Cover Design: Kasmit Covers
http://www.kasmitcovers.com/
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To SS
Because you believed in me…
Book Description
Honor means nothing to a dead man.
But love … love makes its own rules.
Mason
I’ve been dead for a decade.
I don’t exist ... and I have no family.
It’s the only way to protect them.
But today, I learned two things.
My sister is marrying the son of the first man I ever killed.
And her maid of honor has a child. My child.
They both deserve better than me.
But now that Taryn's in my arms again, how can I let her go?
Taryn
When the man you love comes back from the dead, that’s a shock.
But then he tells you he’s a contract killer.
And he’s here to do a job.
I wish I could hate him. Or even resist him.
But I can’t.
I’ll do anything to protect my daughter.
But how can I protect my heart?
Prologue
You killed her…
You killed her!
I woke with a gasp, covers tangled around my legs. Must’ve been thrashing, I thought fuzzily, with the acrid taste of bile in my throat. I picked up the glass of water beside my bed and took a few gulps, usually steady hands—the hands of a killer—shaking, the liquid inside rippling.
The nightmares were getting worse recently, and I didn’t know why. Ten years had passed since Mr. Foster, since that night on the ranch, the smoke, the fire, and I’d thought those memories were long-buried. A man in my line of work was supposed to be cold, able to keep his emotions on a short leash. Lately it felt as though that leash was slipping through my fingers.
Every night this week, I’d woken up on damp sheets, the smell of burning in my nose. The knowledge of what that piece of shit did to my mother stinging under my skin like a splinter.
That man had deserved to die.
And yet the nightmares came.
I checked the clock: five-thirty AM. Too late—or early—to get back to sleep.
Better to get started on the next job: a drug dealer deep in the city’s underground. It wasn’t a difficult one, a matter of a new I.D and a few bar brawls to establish myself amongst his friends. Get close enough with a knife and—job done, payment collected.
I walked to the lounge and turned on the TV for background noise, flicking through my phone for my best I.D guy.
Before I could make the call, though, something on the local news caught my attention.
“Ethan Foster, son of millionaire ranch owner William Foster, is soon to be officially off the market. No expense has been spared at the lavish ceremony this weekend, as the young Foster marries long-term girlfriend, and lucky local girl, Anna Baldwin. Sadly, it’ll be without the blessing of his father. Ten years ago, Mr. Foster senior died in a freak ranch fire on one of his properties…”
I froze, my insides going cold.
I hadn’t heard the name Foster outside of my dreams in almos
t a decade, and now my sister was marrying that goddamn son of a monster. The man whose father murdered our mother. God knew how far the apple fell from that tree.
It was all coming back to me, with a suddenness I wasn’t nearly awake enough for. I hadn’t thought about family, about love, in such a long time. They were a man’s weaknesses, and I had no time for weakness. Sentimentality was a fool’s errand.
Did I really fail Anna, my beautiful sister, this much?
Yes, because I disappeared.
“…another casualty of the fire was young Mason Baldwin, older brother of the new bride-to-be. May the future Mr. and Mrs. Foster both find some peace for their loved ones on this happy occasion.”
All it took was a body from the morgue and a pair of pliers and I was dead in the eyes of both the law and the people I loved. They were safe—from me, from the people I’d fallen in with. I was given a new identity and a shiny gun, and trained to kill in exchange for money.
I’d already done it once, after all.
But the Foster family legacy continued to haunt me; Ethan Foster was getting married to my baby sister. If I’d been around, maybe I could’ve stopped it, looked out for her better…
I was a man of action, not sitting around thinking about what ifs.
I grabbed my laptop from the coffee table and did a search. The Foster wedding was the talk of the little old town we grew up in, and Ethan had been dating my sister since I disappeared. Did my death, the death of his father, bring them together in grief? Was this my fault?
I skimmed articles, pictures of him and my baby sister and—
Taryn. Oh, god, it was Taryn in the wedding party. The lovely girl I had left behind all those years ago was now a breathtakingly beautiful woman, my sister’s Maid of Honor. And next to her was a child, a flower girl, several earth-shattering words typed underneath the photo: Anna’s niece, 9-year-old Daisy.
My mind reeled. It’d just been me and Anna growing up, mom’s only two children, and the little girl was standing beside Taryn, holding her hand. Her age, too. All of it could only mean one thing.
I had a child.
I had to go back.
The dealer job would have to wait. Looked like I was going to a wedding.
Chapter One
Taryn
My baby pink bridesmaid dress trailed along the floor and I picked it up, getting ready for the walk down the aisle.
Daisy did the same, just copying her mommy, and I chuckled. With her dark curls all tucked up with flowers and her baby pink dress that matched mine, she looked like an angel.
“You ready?” I asked Anna, as we stood in the arch at the front of the church. Flowers and ribbons rustled in the spring breeze, decorating the sweep of stone; no expense spared from Ethan.
Anna visibly fortified herself with a deep breath. “I think so.”
“That’s hardly the spirit,” I said dryly.
Anna smiled. She glowed, today, and I had never been more proud of her. We’d been through so much together, her and I, and I was honored to spend this day by her side.
“I’m ready.”
I touched her arm encouragingly, nudging her towards the huge double doors of the church. Two men stood at either side, waiting to pull them open; security, another expense Ethan had insisted on.
“Are you ready, Daisy?” I asked my daughter, shuffling her into place right behind Anna. I handed her the little white basket of pink petals. “You’re to throw these as we walk down the aisle, okay?”
She smiled. “Okay, Mommy.”
We were ready.
As we passed by the beaming faces of friends and family, I was hit, suddenly, with a pang of grief that I hadn’t felt for a long time.
There was nobody giving Anna away today; all the expenses in the world couldn’t buy that. But that was how she wanted it, because it should have been Mason, and that opportunity was robbed from him, just like his short life.
If he couldn’t be there to do it, then nobody else was good enough.
Over ten years had passed, but I still missed him something fierce. Every time I looked into my daughter’s forest green eyes, the shape of her too-smart mouth, Mason was there.
I took Anna’s bouquet at the altar and watched the ceremony with tears in my eyes, clutching my little girl’s hand. If her father hadn’t been taken from us so young, I knew in my heart we’d have had this, too.
As it ended, as Ethan and Anna walked the aisle hand-in-hand, Daisy following with her little flower basket, I startled as someone touched my back, leaned in close, and whispered in my ear.
“We need to talk.”
I shivered, turning, but the man grabbed my wrist and tugged me gently towards a small storage room along the side of the church.
He looked like security, wearing a finely tailored black suit and an official looking name badge. He was six-four at the very least and he held himself like someone not to be trifled with, a swift grace to his movements.
“What’s happened?” I asked urgently, fearing some threat against Anna or Ethan.
Suddenly, I was looking up into two shockingly familiar eyes. Forest green eyes.
“Hey, Taryn,” the man said softly.
“Who—who are you?” I asked, but I knew—I knew. I’d been thinking of him just moments ago, his image so clear in my mind.
He said nothing. He didn’t need to.
“It can’t be.” I stepped back, repelled by the impossibility of it. His hair was dark and Mason’s used to be much fairer, but there was no denying those eyes, that rich voice, that tall and lean body. I couldn’t reconcile it; this man was a ghost.
“You know it is, though.”
“Your hair,” I tried, lamely and to no avail.
“Hair can be dyed, Taryn.”
He even said my name the same way. My stomach squirmed, I could hardly breathe, and out of me burst a sudden snap of violence as my hand connected sharply with his cheek.
“You fucking asshole,” I choked, palm stinging. I could barely see what I was seeing but I knew it was real, and I knew it meant the ultimate betrayal. “How—how could you? How dare you?”
“I’m sorry,” he breathed, holding the side of his face. “I deserved that, I did.”
“You deserve that and more!”
I folded my arms across my body, feeling completely exposed and chilled to the bone. I wanted to hide from him, I wanted to slap him again, I wanted to kiss him—so many blinding emotions.
“I had to do it, Taryn,” he went on, far too stoic for a man who had just come back from the dead. “You don’t know what I did.”
I shook my head. I had so many questions and I wasn’t sure the answers to any of them would make me feel better. But I had to start somewhere and, weakly, I asked him, “Why are you here?”
“It’s Anna. She’s marrying a man who I think could be dangerous.”
“Ethan?” I frowned. “Ethan’s a great guy.”
“His father was a murderer.”
“What?” This man just strolled back into town a decade late, dragged me away from the happiest day of my best friend’s life, to spin tales about death and murder. I couldn’t stand there another second listening to it. “This is ridiculous, I’m leaving—”
I turned towards the door but he grabbed me again, his hand circling my wrist. He pulled me into his arms in one smooth motion and I didn’t struggle, letting myself arch against him, letting him kiss me with that familiar heat that ten years hadn’t quelled.
His new black hair felt soft between my fingers as I tugged on it, his body bowing to my sudden need; to be close to him, to hurt him, to slick my tongue into his mouth and claim him again—
No.
I pulled away quickly, coming back to myself with an angry jolt and putting a few feet of space between us.
“Stop!”
His stoicism, though, had crumbled at the press of our mouths. “God, Taryn, I am so sorry.”
I felt my throat close around a lump,
hardly able to speak. “You said that already.”
“You have to let me explain,” he pleaded—with his eyes, his voice, even his outstretched hands. “William Foster, that asshole in a tuxedo out there’s father, killed my mother.”
My mouth fell open.
“It sounds crazy, I know,” Mason went on, as if he could read my thoughts. “But I found out and confronted him and he admitted it, said awful things about my mother, that she was leading him on, that she was a whore. I thought about going to the police but who would’ve believed me?” he asked desperately. “A rich local success story like William Foster or a seventeen-year-old ranch hand with no parents and barely two pennies to rub together.”
“He—he really did it?” I asked softly, some of my anger melting away, replaced by fear of what Mason would say next.
“Yes. He did it and he blamed her for it, just a spoiled old man pissed that she rejected him.”
“Oh my God.” I stepped forward helplessly, raising a hand to touch his chest where his heartbeat pounded. “What did you do, Mason?”
“I learned how to kill him and make it look like an accident.”