Doin' a Dime

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  When she took me in at the age of fifteen, I’d done my level best to be the ‘good girl’ that she wanted me to be.

  Only, she’d hated me on sight.

  Why? Because I was the spitting image of my mother, whom she hated with all her heart.

  Why did she hate my mother so much? I had no clue. But I knew the hate my mother experienced every time that she was around Stella, because I had experienced the same damn thing every time I came close to her.

  At sixteen, I’d stopped coming home from boarding school during the holidays—something in which she was none too happy about paying for because, and I quote, I was ‘too damn expensive to keep alive.’

  I’d always held my tongue instead of telling her that she was lucking out on me being in boarding school, because if I was home with her I’d cost her more money.

  At least that way, I’d been in a school uniform all day, she didn’t have to buy me food, and she could pretend that I didn’t exist.

  That had all changed when I’d graduated high school and had moved back home with Six, my childhood friend.

  Then, not only had my life gotten harder, but my aunt had gotten wayyyy meaner.

  So the animosity present this day had been compiling for years.

  The last straw had been when she’d informed me that my father’s estate wasn’t meant to pay for petty things like advanced educations. Yet, it could pay for her to get her nails done, and her hair highlighted.

  Needless to say, I was really fucking excited about presenting her with this paperwork.

  “You may live here until six months after my birthday, which is when it’ll be going on the market to sell,” I said. “And, though this is all in the paperwork, I’ll give you the highlights version. If you wish to buy it, that’s fine, but not a penny of my parents’ estate will be touched. You have been removed from all accounts except one, in which a monthly stipend of a thousand dollars will be transferred. After six months, you will no longer get that. All furniture, knick-knacks, and every item down to every single spoon, has been accounted for. It is listed, item by item. Even the belongings in your room. You may take everything that is yours that my parents didn’t buy. And I’ll be generous and allow you to have your clothes. At six months, you’re either out of here on your own, or I call the cops and you’re out of here not on your own. Your choice.”

  My aunt’s face was purple.

  Literally purple.

  She was so fucking mad.

  I stood up and walked to the door. “I’ll be seeing you around. Don’t do anything stupid.”

  With that, I left the house that I hated almost as much as my aunt and headed to my beat-up car.

  A car that I’d had to purchase on my own.

  A car that, sadly, needed a new… something. Probably everything.

  However, instead of buying something new, I’d left it the way it was. Maybe I should have bought a newer car, because I knew that shit was about to get ugly.

  My aunt was about to use all the money that she’d squirreled away from me, anticipating this day, and she was going to go at me with everything she had.

  My accounts would be frozen, and anything that I’d bought with my parents’ accounts would be red-flagged as well.

  Meaning that anything that wasn’t mine before this mess started likely would be put in limbo as well—at least that was what my lawyer had explained to me.

  Something crinkled under my butt as I plopped down into my seat, and I licked my lips nervously.

  Pulling out the paper I’d printed at the library, I stared at it with excitement thrumming in my veins.

  Live-in property & pet caretaker needed. Four-year minimum. Background check required. Generous compensation. Marriage of convenience required.

  I wasn’t exactly sure why this entire thing looked so… exciting to me. But the thought of having someone at my back, someone that may or may not protect me in the event that my aunt screwed me like I knew she was going to do, made me flitter with anticipation.

  I had these feelings. These feelings of the wrongness or rightness of a situation.

  I’d had them my entire life.

  That was how I knew that the lawyer that I’d chosen—one of three—had been the right one, and the other two had been the wrong ones.

  That was how I’d began to trust Six, my best friend.

  That was how I’d avoided my aunt’s first and second attempted ‘hit’ on me, too.

  Yes, you heard that correctly.

  My aunt tried to have me murdered.

  I didn’t have proof, no. But I knew, deep down in my heart, that she had.

  I wasn’t dumb. Brand new brake lines didn’t just ‘go out.’

  And people didn’t just ‘accidentally’ almost-stab you with a knife when you just so happen to turn twenty-five that day and your accounts are officially released to you.

  Anyway, the feeling that I had when I read that ad? It hit me in a way that nothing ever had before.

  That sense of rightness had only been associated with four people in my life.

  My mom, my dad, my uncle Deighton, and my best friend, Six.

  Nothing had ever felt ‘right’ like this in a long time.

  And that was why I was meeting the man in an hour and a half.

  That was why I’d agreed to his terms already.

  That was why, in the matter of an hour, I would be getting married and making this official as could be.

  A practical stranger to me.

  We’d already worked it out.

  He’d be leaving within hours of our nuptials to places unknown.

  All would be explained to me as soon as I met him at the courthouse.

  We’d exchanged all of two emails back and forth.

  One from me saying I was interested in the ad. One from him saying the ad had a time limit that was quickly approaching. One back from me saying ‘I was in.’ And one to me saying where to meet him and he’d explain in more detail.

  That was it.

  I was marrying the man based on zero information.

  CHAPTER 2

  If Beauty and the Beast taught us anything, it’s that looks don’t matter as long as you keep her locked up long enough.

  -Hunt to Wyett

  HUNT

  I was nervous.

  I wasn’t sure why I was nervous.

  I wasn’t nervous about going to prison for at least four years in just a few short hours.

  But I was nervous about meeting my eyelash girl.

  It’d taken far longer for her to respond than I ever thought it would take, and the length of time in which she’d thought about it made me happy.

  Happy that she wasn’t jumping into something without first thinking it through.

  It showed me that she had a good head on her shoulders as well as a pretty one.

  “Thanks for the ride,” I said to my neighbor.

  My neighbor that lived two warehouses down from mine grinned. “No problem.”

  Then he drove away, leaving me outside the courthouse looking up.

  Our courthouse wasn’t anything special.

  A plain brick building that had seen better days.

  It didn’t even look all that fantastical like most old courthouses did.

  No big clock tower. No beautiful brick walls. No large pillars out front.

  Just a dank, ugly white brick building with mildew on it that needed to be power-washed off two years ago.

  But what made it beautiful was the woman that I could see at the front doors, waiting for me.

  She looked serene standing there in a pale blue dress that reached to just below her knees.

  She reminded me of a princess. Beautiful, regal, but refined.

  I found that the enticement of seeing her long legs covered up by that gently waving dress was more of a turn on than seeing her actual legs would be.

  And I would know. I’d seen enough of her photos—I was a grade A stalker at this point—to know what she look
ed like with less on.

  Her friend, Six, posted a shit ton of pictures.

  I’m talking so many that it wasn’t even funny.

  I had enough spank bank material with Wyett looking directly at the camera to last me a lifetime.

  Though, one day I hoped to experience her in real life.

  The moment I breached the steps, her mouth all but fell open.

  “I remember you! Eyelash puller!” she cried, pointing at me accusingly.

  I laughed. “I call you eyelash girl.”

  “I can’t… how… what are you doing here?” she all of a sudden blurted.

  “I’m here to get married.” I paused. “Why?”

  I had to play the game after all.

  Her eyes widened even more.

  “To, uh, someone you know?” she asked hopefully.

  I shrugged. “I was actually meeting her here. Her name’s Wyett… do you know her?”

  Her eyes closed briefly before she pried them open again, her spine straightening almost imperceptibly. “I’m Wyett.”

  Fuck, she was cute.

  “Ahh,” I said. “Well that’s good news then. I was about to ask you to marry me instead.”

  At that, she burst out laughing. “Do you normally ask women you barely know to marry you?”

  I know you very, very well. Almost as much as I know myself.

  “No,” I admitted. “Not unless it’s necessary.”

  She tilted her head. “Necessary? Why is it necessary?”

  “I’ll tell you after we’re done.” I gestured to the door and then moved to pull it open for her. My chest brushed across her back, and she shivered. “The judge has us in about two minutes. And his day is full with other things. If we don’t go now, we might miss our chance.”

  Fifteen minutes later, we were back in the same spot with a marriage certificate in my hands.

  She blinked at me in surprise. “That was fast.”

  I looked at my watch.

  “I have a deadline,” I admitted. “I have to be somewhere at eight tonight.”

  She shook her head, trying to clear it.

  “I didn’t even get a kiss,” she said.

  I wasn’t sure that she meant to say that out loud.

  But she had, and that meant that now I had to kiss her.

  I couldn’t not.

  I leaned forward and captured her lips with my own.

  Our marriage certificate was squished in between our bodies.

  She gasped into my mouth in surprise, hesitating for a full ten seconds—I counted—before she returned the kiss.

  When I pulled back it was to say, “I didn’t want the judge to witness that.”

  She blinked owlishly at me. “I… okay.”

  “I’m a very private person,” I said. “I don’t like people knowing my business.”

  She licked her lips. “Okay.”

  “Let’s go,” I urged. “We’re running out of time, and I have a lot to show you.”

  • • •

  “This is my place,” I said as I pushed open the front door.

  She went to step over the threshold, but I stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. “Wait.”

  She looked back at me with a frown.

  “Tradition,” I said as I picked her up and carried her over the threshold.

  She grinned at me then, patting me on the chest.

  When I set her back on her feet, I could have almost sworn a look of disappointment crossed her face.

  “Now,” she said, turning around and ignoring the massive space behind her. “Start talking. I want to hear everything. What’s the rush?”

  I licked my lips, not wanting to tell her and ruin this moment.

  But the moment would be ruined.

  There was no other way around it.

  “I’m a computer hacker,” I said.

  She blinked in surprise.

  “Okay…” She waited for me to continue.

  “Two years ago, someone thought it would be funny to ruin an elderly lady’s life. One that I was very fond of. They swindled her out of her entire life savings. Three hundred and forty thousand dollars. When I investigated, I found out that it was a rather large corporation that ‘helped’ the elderly manage their money. Only, they didn’t manage her money at all. They fucked her over, time after time, and did it in a way that wasn’t exactly illegal. The lady needed access to cash for cancer treatment, and they wouldn’t give it to her. They made her jump through so many hoops that she gave up.” I pointed to the building next to mine where she’d lived. “I found her. We used to go on walks every single day. She told me everything about it the night before our usual walk. When I went up to her place because she hadn’t met me for our regular scheduled walk, I found her dead. She’d slit her wrists. The note explained it all—how she didn’t want to die in pain—so she chose her own way out.”

  Wyett’s shoulders slumped. “That’s an awful story.”

  “I took it as a personal attack against me,” I explained. “I hacked into their businesses and took everything that they had. I wasn’t even careful about it. I gave every single penny owed back to every single person. I even went all the way back into the nineties—that’s just how long they’d been swindling these people out of cash. Then, I sent all this information to the attorneys of the people that were filing against the company. The only problem with doing it was, I did it in a way that wasn’t safe for me, cyberly speaking. People were able to find that I’d done it. And so I confessed to it all. Now I’m spending the next ten years in prison for it.”

  Her mouth dropped open. “You have to go to prison for that?”

  I nodded. “I do.”

  “Why?” she cried.

  “Because of the way I chose to do it. I wanted to send a message. I wanted those bastards to know who’d done it to them. I wanted them to know why. I ruined them. From the foundation up. They will never again spend another dime of another human being that doesn’t willingly enter into the agreement,” I explained. “I exposed them everywhere and anywhere that I could. They’ll have a really, really hard time doing that again.”

  She shook her head. “That really sucks.”

  I shrugged. “I think it was worth it.”

  She looked away from my intense eyes. “What now? When do you have to go?”

  I looked at my watch.

  “One hour and ten minutes,” I explained. “I’m to meet them at the police station.”

  Her mouth fell open.

  “Which is why” —I led her through the house— “I need to go over a few things.”

  She nodded mutely. “Okay.”

  “This is my place,” I said. “It has an alarm. The code is coded to you now. You have your own access numbers to get in.” I pointed at the alarm panel that was by my bedroom door. “That’s my room right next to the panel.”

  “Where are the dogs?” she asked curiously.

  I gestured for her to follow me and led them to the back of the house where my dogs usually stayed.

  They were lazy bastards and didn’t get up when I got home.

  Hell, they barely got up to go outside.

  “This is where they stay,” I answered her.

  The light system that I had installed came on automatically when I entered the room, and her breath exited her lungs in a rush. “Those are big dogs.”

  They were.

  “Silo, Bones, come,” I called.

  Both Dobermans lazily got to their feet and came.

  The woman at my side didn’t flinch, though.

  No, she moved forward almost as if she knew that the two dogs wouldn’t hurt her.

  They wouldn’t.

  Not since I was the one to introduce them to her. Had she entered this place without me? That might’ve been a different story.

  The only other person that had ever tried to enter my domain without my first introducing them had been my brother. My brother who’d immediately regretted his decision to come over an
d ‘hang’ without me present.

  Silo and Bones had chased him out of my place so fast that he’d gotten a little wind burn.

  Bones’ butt wagged as he came directly to Wyett. Silo, on the other hand, came to me and looked at Wyett warily. As if she wasn’t quite sure about her just yet.

  Then the damn woman reached into her purse and pulled out two dog bones.

  When my brows rose, and she saw the look on my face, her cheeks flooded with the most beautiful color I’d ever seen.

  God, I wanted to kiss the hell out of her.

  “I, uh, knew that I was going to get to see them. I wanted them to like me,” she admitted. “I don’t usually carry any dog treats around with me.” Her cheeks heated more. “Okay, that’s kind of a lie. There’s this dog that I see on my morning walk that I carry a bone around for. He’s a Mastiff, and he has all these big jowls, and I love him. I’ve always wanted a Mastiff.”

  My lips quirked. “You should get one.”

  She shook her head, her eyes wide. “I’ve, uh, never had a dog before. I’ll take really good care of yours, I swear! But yeah, I don’t think I need to add a puppy to the mix right now.”

  My head tilted. “I’m going to be in there for at least four years, honey. That’s a long time not to have what you want.”

  Her shoulders slumped. “Four whole years?”

  I shrugged. “I pleaded for ten. Parole at possibly four. We’ll see.”

  She sighed. “That just… sucks.”

  It did suck.

  Because I really fuckin’ liked Wyett. A lot.

  I wished that she’d agreed sooner, actually.

  At least then we would’ve had a bit of time together before I had to leave.

  I patted her shoulder, and my fingers brushed the bare skin of her shoulder.

  “It’s sweet that you care,” I admitted. “Now, for the rest of what I need to show you.” I jerked my chin in the direction of the rest of the house. “Follow me.”

  CHAPTER 3

  I need a job that isn’t too ‘jobby.’ Where I can do work that’s not too ‘worky.’

  -Wyett to Six

  WYETT

  It was like being in a different universe.

  Hunt’s house was massive. If it could be called a house.