Destined To Fall (Reluctant lovers #1)

Prologue

Ten years earlier.

I pull a fifty-dollar bill out of the thousands I have stuffed in my black clutch and hand it to the cab driver before getting out, telling him to keep the fifteen-odd in change. Who does that? Me now, apparently.

I ’ ve had a stupid grin plastered on my face since I woke up in a rock god ’ s hotel suite this morning, but the thought of having to drag my deliciously aching body up the three flights of stairs to my apartment has it slipping.

Moaning and groaning my way up, memories of last night and early this morning play on repeat, making it all the harder to climb the stairs in my six-inch heels without tripping and falling to my untimely death. Man, what a way to go out, though.

Marcus freaking Vein!

Finally making it to my apartment door, I burst through it a little winded and scream for my roommate and best friend.

“ Laura! Oh my gawd, you won ’ t believe the night I ’ ve had. Best. Birthday. Gift. Ever.” I continue talking to empty air as I kick off my shoes, slamming the door closed behind me, and collapse on our worn-out, overly-loved couch. “ I swear, if you ’ re in the shower, I ’ m busting in and telling you all the juice whether you ’ re naked or not, because I cannot wait! Just as soon as I can drag my ass up. Lord, I hurt everywhere.” Laughing to myself, I frown when I ’ m met with only silence. “ Laura? ”

I ’ m pulling my phone out to text her when I hear the creak of the floorboards. My head swivels toward the sound, the grin plastering back on my face falls before it even sticks.

It ’ s not Laura who walks out of my bedroom to greet me, it ’ s my mother. Ever the predictable snooty Boston housewife, she ’ s dressed to kill in Dolce & Gabbana. The ivory formfitting pantsuit accentuates the copper tones in her honey-red hair, the carbon copy to my own, immaculately arranged in her staple chignon.

My head spins, and I seriously question if I ’ m having a bad trip. God, is this a dream? No, a nightmare. But it started so well.

“ Yet another walk of shame, I see. Some things will never change.”

“ What the hell are you doing here? Wait. How are you even here? I never told you where I live.”

“ No. You didn ’ t.” Her tone is sharp, and the sound stirs the long forgotten memories I ’ d been suppressing these past sixteen odd months. “ I had to find out from Jessica ’ s mother, of all things, Vivienne.”

My ex-best friend?

“ That insufferable woman had the audacity to gloat. My daughter, living in…” She trails off, her gray -green eyes the mirror to mine take in the tiny space I call home . Her nose actually turns up with distaste at what she sees.

The cracked, sagging, brown leather couch I ’ m still sprawled on. The chipped coffee table littered with schoolbooks and mismatched coffee mugs, and the threadbare blue rug that ’ s seen better decades.

Her left eye twitches, and I can practically see the need to pull out the disinfectant I know she carries in the four thousand dollar clutch she ’ s death-gripping like a life raft. The entire contents of this apartment cost less than that bag, and I still wouldn ’ t change my choices.

Do I miss the designer brands I ’ d been lavished with since birth instead of shopping at Walmart and Goodwill? I ’ d be lying if I said I didn ’ t. It wasn ’ t so much the label and the class of it all. I couldn ’ t care less about that bullshit, but I miss the way they feel on bare skin, how they last longer if cared for and fit all the better. I think of the money burning a hole in my clutch and beam internally.

I will always have expensive tastes, developed and cultivated from infancy. It ’ s a hard curse to break, but I refuse to have her look down on our meager possessions. We scrimped and saved and scrounged every single thing in this apartment ourselves, and I love it, if for no other reason than she had nothing to do with it. I ’ m surviving without my parents ’ guilt-laden, strings-attached money.

“ In order for me to tell you, Mother, we would have to be talking. And last time I checked, we haven ’ t said or texted a single syllable since I refused to do your bidding and left that house you call home. So no, you didn ’ t know where I live, and that ’ s how it was meant to stay.” Her cheeks pinch, and her lips thin. “ I ’ d like you to leave.”

I struggle to my feet and take the few steps to the door, opening it wide, ready to kick my mother out, only to find Laura standing on the other side, coffees in hand. The sheepish grin overtaking her mouth makes me want to slam the door shut in her face.

I ’ m sorry, she mouths quickly before barging past, like she can read my intentions, and shoves a coffee in my hand. I begrudgingly take a sip and mutter a thanks, finding she splurged and got me a double caramel macchiato. Oh, she knows she ’ s in the doghouse.

“ Mrs. Carmichael, your no fat, no foam, double shot, flat white.” She hands the offensive drink to my mother and then addresses the room. “ I ’ ll be in my room with headphones on…” then attempts to make a quick getaway before I stop her in her tracks.

“ Sit. Staaay. Good bitch. ” She glares at me for that. “ We have words to exchange, you and I. Mother and I, on the other hand, do not. She ’ s leaving. There ’ s the door. Don ’ t let it hit you on the way out. I wouldn ’ t want the stain of my poverty to ruin your Dolce pants.” I point to the still-open door and stare her down.

“ How dare you dismiss me. I am your mother. Do you have any idea of the effort I went to by coming here, of all places?”

“ Here, of all places, is my home, and you stopped being my mother a long time ago. You are not welcome, regardless of whatever effort you think you put in. I don ’ t even care why you bothered. Get. Out.”

She turns up her nose and stomps to the door, as only someone as elegant and refined as Clarissa Carmichael can. Pausing in the doorway, she turns to glare at me.

“ I refuse to watch any daughter of mine live like this. You are wasting all that we ’ ve given you, all that we ’ ve sacrificed. ” Sacrificed! The woman hasn ’ t gone without a day in her life! “ Your father insisted you ’ d use that brain he was determined to cultivate and see sense and come home. I, however, knew you ’ d get bored with living in squalor and come crawling back with your tail between your legs.” I ’ m about to blow when I feel Laura ’ s hand brush against the back of mine. “ Though I admit, I thought it would have been sooner than this, but when the day comes, and mark my words, child, it will come, do not come knocking on our door. That window has well and truly closed.”

And with those lovely parting words, she walks out the door, and out of my life for good. I ’ m not sure how long I stand there staring at the door, but by the time I remember I have a coffee in my hands, it ’ s stone cold. I turn to find Laura, still standing behind me, waiting, watching, being.

“ So, big night, huh?”

I could question her about why she ’ d let my mother in, knowing all she knows, or I could take the out she ’ s offering. With the reminder of Marcus, all thoughts of my mother crumble to ash, and my grin returns.

For the next thirty minutes I tell her every glorious detail. Before I even finish the last of the juicy bits, she ’ s blushing like a schoolgirl and fanning her face.

“ How did you manage walking up all those stairs after all that pounding?” She laughs at her own joke, and I shake my head, smirking.

Saving the icing on the sex cake, I take my clutch and dump the contents all over her lap.

“ Oh my farking fuck. Did you rob a bank this morning? What the hell?”

“ Nope, I ’ m not that clever.”

“ You are, but that ’ s beside the point. Vi, this is what, thousands?”

“ Five , to be exact. Well, minus the fifty I gave the cabby.”

“ Holy fuck. Marcus paid you? For having sex with him? I knew you were a hot piece of ass, Vi, but fuck me. Five grand! I can ’ t…wait, I thought you said he knew you weren ’ t a pro…” She trails off, still dumbfounded.

“ I ’ m going to make all our problems disappear.” I ’ m grinning so wide I ’ m about to split my face open.

“ Oh yeah, how? By knocking yourself up and marrying the rock god?”

“ God, no. I ’ m going to do what I do best and get paid a fucking fortune for it.”

Laura raises an eyebrow, not following.

“ I ’ m going to be a high-class escort.”