Wildest Dreams (Forbidden Love #2)

Chapter One

DYLAN

T here were worse ways to be greeted in your own home than by catching your mother spread-eagle, plastered against the glass backyard door, getting mauled by her fiancé. But I couldn’t think of any of them as I stood at the entrance tightening my fist around the door handle, fighting—and losing—a war against my gag reflex.

“Yes, Marty! Yes. Right there, dio mio—don’t stop.” Her muffled cries, blurred by his palm as he tried to make sure they wouldn’t wake the toddler upstairs, trickled into my brain, burning themselves into my core memory.

My knee-jerk reaction was to scream, “MY EYES, MY EYES!” à la Phoebe Buffay and charge out of the house, town, state, and planet with my arms flailing in the air. Unfortunately, I couldn’t do that. First, because my three-year-old was asleep upstairs and I wasn’t going to leave her behind. Second, because at the age of twenty-six, I still lived with my mama, albeit in the gorgeous mini mansion my brother had built for her. She had more right to this house than I did.

Third? Get it, Mama. Props to you for living your best life.

Throwing up a little in my mouth, I shut the door with a soft click and flung myself back into my red 1999 GMC Jimmy, giving them their privacy. I slammed the ancient driver’s door behind me. In retaliation, it tore off its hinges, collapsing onto the muddy ground with an angry thud.

Closing my eyes, I choked the steering wheel, inhaling deeply.

Everything is okay. More than okay. Great, really. You have a roof over your head. A steady job. A kid you worship…

My phone danced inside the flimsy front pocket of my diner uniform. The outfit consisted of a pale pink minidress short enough to moonlight as a napkin and a checked apron with an array of indistinguishable stains, from tomato sauce to coffee, vomit, and grease.

What can I say? It was a life of luxurious extravagance, but someone had to live it.

My eyes tapered to the image of my best friend Cal’s face on my screen. It was a photo of her with her head tossed back, laughing carelessly, my brother’s demonic face buried in her neck as he kissed her, with the Eiffel Tower as their backdrop. I chose this as her contact picture to remind myself of the one and only flaw in her otherwise sunny character: she was screwing Lucifer’s doppelg?nger, a.k.a. my overbearing, controlling older brother.

I mean, they were married. And hella cute together. Maybe I was just annoyed because everyone around me was paired up, cocooned in their own loved-up universes. My only boyfriends in the past four years had been battery-operated and made of silicone.

I glided my finger across the screen but didn’t speak. I was afraid I’d throw up if I opened my mouth.

“Dyl,” Cal laughed breathlessly on the other end of the line. Row growled in the background in that grizzly-bear way he always used whenever he was kissing her.

I wasn’t jealous Cal was living her happily ever after. She’d earned it through taming my half-civilized sibling.

“You won’t believe who we just ran into in Cannes!” she shrieked.

Closing my eyes again, I talked myself out of a spontaneous mental breakdown.

Ed Sheeran? Taylor Swift? King Charles? God?

Their life was full of celebrity parties and Pinterest-worthy vacations and food too picture-perfect to eat.

It wasn’t Cal’s fault I’d just finished a twelve-hour shift at my dead-end job in Dahlia’s Diner. It wasn’t Cal’s fault I was a single mom. It wasn’t Cal’s fault I was still living with my mother. It wasn’t her fault my life felt like the middle section of a painstakingly boring book, the pages stuck together, a never-ending chain of to-do lists and chores.

“Dylan? You there?” Cal moaned after a few seconds of silence.

Unfortunately.

I thought I heard Row grunt the words “stand still and just take it.” Seriously, who’d I kill in my previous life to deserve tonight?

The wind shrieked and swirled in a violent dance, slipping into the car like a thief, burrowing into my bones.

“Row,” Cal chided, “I’m trying to eat here.”

“So am I.”

Oh god. Would Child Protective Services intervene for a twenty-six-year-old?

“I just caught Mama and Marty boning each other against the backyard door,” I blurted out.

This is why you’re bussing tables and not keeping government secrets, Dylan.

“Holy shit,” Cal—or Dot, because of the cluster of freckles on her nose and cheeks, proof God had sprinkled her with magic dust—said. “I mean, go Zeta. She deserves some action, but also…sorry for your loss.” Cal snort-laughed. “You know, of appetite, libido, et cetera.”

“It gets worse.” I mustered a smile, mainly so she could hear it in my voice. “They’re also going to leave a mark, and you know I’m the one who cleans the windows around here.”

Jokes aside, my mom had endured a terrible marriage with my father. When he passed away six years ago, I never thought she’d take a chance on love again. I was glad one of us had. Hell knew I wasn’t touching another man, ever, with a ten-foot pole.

“Are you ready for a sibling?” Cal teased. From the silence echoing around her, I gathered Row was done trying to molest his wife and was actually paying attention to the conversation.

“Thanks. I already vomited in my mouth.”

“I’d say you might be pregnant, but I’ve met nuns who get more action than you.” Cal laughed. “Didn’t she know you were coming?”

“I was supposed to do a double shift, but it was a slow night, so Dahlia sent me home early.”

“Where are you now?” Cal asked.

“Seeking refuge in the comfort of Jimmy.” I reached to wipe a thick layer of dust from the dashboard. “But the driver’s door just fell off, so I’m not even cozy and warm.”

“This is definitely not your day,” my bestie said sympathetically. “I’m sending cake.” Pause. “And a charger for your Magic Wand, because I know you keep losing yours.”

Row gagged in protest in the background. Good. I’d had to see and hear him defiling my childhood best friend on a monthly basis ever since they got together. The least I could do was inflict my own damage back.

“Chargers have legs,” I protested, forcing out a laugh that felt metallic and rusty in my throat. “There’s no other explanation as to why they keep disappearing. So are you in Cannes now?”

Row and Cal split their time between New York and London. Row had Michelin-starred restaurants in both cities, but they liked to travel all over.

“Yup. We’re going back to London tomorrow morning, probably for a good stretch of time. Row is opening a new restaurant in Edinburgh. He’d like me and Serafina close by.”

Serafina was my niece. She’d just turned two and had her mom’s huge blue eyes, her dad’s wild onyx curls, and the neighboring opera singer’s lungs. The girl could scream her way to a catastrophic earthquake.

“Dylan…” Cal hesitated. “I have an idea.”

She and Row always had ideas. All of them revolved around trying to fix my fucked-up life. Not that I blamed them. My existence was the kind of pitiful that demanded intervention.

“No,” I sighed, using the bases of my palms to rub my eye sockets. “All I have left is my pride.”

“You sure you still have that?” Row drawled sarcastically.

“Ha-ha. Fuck you.”

“No thanks, Dyl. And for the record, your standards have plummeted in the past few years. Incest is not a cute kink.”

“Shuddup, shuddup, shuddup.” I kicked my gas pedal, wanting to kill someone.

“We’re going to need someone to house-sit our New York apartment,” Cal plunged on, ignoring our antics. “Why don’t you do it? You’ve always wanted to live in New York.”

Yes, but that was before.

Before I realized I’d never go to college.

Before I got knocked up and had a kid at twenty-three.

Before the baby daddy left me publicly for the town’s crooked mayor, with whom he had an affair.

“Dude, what are you talking about? I can’t afford life in New York.” I barked out a laugh.

“What’s to afford?” Row butted into the conversation, his voice dark, gruff, and perpetually sneering. “We’re going to hire someone anyway. You won’t pay rent, because you’ll live in our apartment. Groceries are taken care of—they’ll arrive at your door twice a week. You just need to clean up the fridge and the pantry. Utilities are also included. I’ll throw in some admin work for you and put you on the company’s payro—”

“No.” A panicky squeak wrestled its way out of my throat. “I don’t want to be another nepo hire of yours.”

Ambrose “Row” Casablancas loathed most people, so when he stumbled across someone he didn’t completely hate, he tended to hire them on the spot. That was how he’d ended up working with his childhood friend, Rhyland, for half a decade before they parted ways. It was why he became good friends with his business partner, Tate. Why he let Mama work for him as a “social media influencer” for the crazy sum of $250K a year, even though he didn’t have any Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, or X accounts.

“I don’t know how to break it to you, Dyl, but your life circumstances don’t allow you to have this kind of ego,” Row quipped dispassionately. “Take the job.”

Cal gasped, and I heard her swat him. “Row, what an asshole.”

“Promise I’ll get to say that later tonight, and I’ll buy her a new car to go with the apartment,” Row murmured.

Yup. I am never recovering from this conversation.

“I don’t want your New York apartment,” I ground out. “I wouldn’t be able to afford childcare, and I’m not working an imaginary job and living a kept woman’s life at twenty-six.” I was no sugar baby. I was carving my own path in life, even if I was doing a messy job of it.

“You’re being stubborn and unreasonable,” Row accused.

“You’re being cocky and rude.”

Row snorted. “That can’t be news.”

“Your love is suffocating me,” I said.

“Your attitude is exasperating us all,” he shot back.

“Please,” Cal interjected. “Just…think about it, okay? You can apply for jobs there. Maybe something in marketing?” she suggested brightly, and I heard my brother kissing his way along her skin again, making my stomach roil with a mixture of anger, annoyance, and exasperation. “We’ll figure out childcare for Grav. There are plenty of options. You need to get out of there, Dylan,” Cal said softly. “Your job there is done. Your mom no longer needs you. She’s engaged, for crying out loud. Time to take care of yourself.”

Easier said than done. I didn’t know how to do that. I’d never taken care of just myself. I’d always devoted my life to someone, be it Mama or Gravity.

“No.” I bit down on my lower lip, calculating in my head how much it’d cost to fix Jimmy’s damn door. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s been over ten minutes. They should be done by now. I must retire to my fainting couch.”

“If you’re referring to the sofa in the conservatory…don’t. Row and I christened it last time we stayed over.”

“Cal,” I barked out.

“Also, the entire kitchen, guest room, and every shower in the house,” Row informed me lazily. “Really, stay away from the whole fucking house if the idea of people porking on its surfaces annoys you.”

I hung up on them and screamed into the ether for two minutes straight.

By the time I got home, Mama and Marty were no longer reenacting Fifty Shades of Grey Hair in the living room. Thank the Lord for small mercies. The place was dark and quiet, save for the humming of the fridge. I filled myself a cup of water, rinsed the dishes in the sink, and took the stairs up to Gravity’s room. It was precious, with flowery pastel wallpaper, a toddler bed Marty had assembled himself and painted in her favorite shade of purple, and white shelves laden with Grav’s favorite books. It was a messy room, with science kits and LEGO strewn across the shaggy carpet and her little desk, coloring books and traceable letters everywhere. I put my everything into Gravity. I wanted her to know she could be anything she wanted.

I strode over to her bed, my heart clogging my throat. Every shift I finished, every tip I pocketed, I always thought of her. She elevated my mundane, dull, unsatisfying existence to a higher purpose.

Gravity was the thing that kept me anchored. The steady ground beneath my feet.

Staring down at my beautiful girl, I tucked a tight hickory curl behind her ear. Even her ear shells were perfect. A laugh bubbled in the pit of my stomach, twisting up before I swallowed it down. When Gravity was born, she looked like an angry old man. Now, she was breathtaking—and the exact copy of her runaway father.

The same sooty, curled lashes framed the most striking pair of eyes: green-yellow irises bracketed by dark blue circles. I ran the tip of my finger over the slope of her elegant, upturned nose, watching as her cherry-red lips twitched in a tiny smile. What was she dreaming about? What would she be when she grew up? In my dreams—the few I allowed myself to have these days—I imagined kicking down door after door for her, helping her reach every height and goal her heart desired.

Could I really give her all that here, in the small town of Staindrop, Maine? The same Staindrop that had one school, one daycare, zero prospects, and barely any residents? Even the new mall and flashy hotel they built a couple years ago hadn’t made the quaint beach town any more habitable than it was.

What if Grav ended up like me, stuck in a place she wasn’t happy in, settling for what was present instead of what was possible?

Leaning down, I dropped a feathery kiss on her cheek, barely breathing so as not to wake her up.

Sleep tight, my sweet girl, my heart sang. Mommy loves you.

It was ridiculous, but the final straw that broke my back was when I shoved my panties down twenty minutes later to pee for the first time in eight hours. I was sitting on the toilet staring down at my frumpy cotton panties and I realized I didn’t own a pair in any color other than beige. And that I had no real lingerie. No fun clothes anymore. No heels I could wear out. No friends to go out with.

My cheap, tattered underwear was a perfect metaphor of my entire life. Pale, insignificant, an afterthought—something uninspiring and sad and practical.

With a pang, I realized I wanted…well, more.

Life wasn’t black and white. Either dazzling Cannes fantasy escapades or dowdy, never-ending diner shifts and household chores. I didn’t have to live the life my luck arranged for me.

The last time I made an error of judgment, it was in the form of a broken condom while propped against the arm of the couch, cheek pressed into the top of a cushion. It had resulted in my daughter. Even though I loved Gravity more than life itself and would never change the outcome of that so-called mistake, the trajectory of my life had changed completely because of it. I’d become a coward, too afraid of making mistakes.

But this was a mistake. This town. This job. This aimless life.

I deserved more, and so did Grav. I could always come back here. But something wild and rebellious and newly alive in me told me I wouldn’t. That once I broke free, I wouldn’t stop running. I felt like I’d just woken up from a years-long coma. Like I’d just come up for air after sitting at the bottom of a muddy pool.

I hastily grabbed my phone from the edge of the sink and called Cal before I even flushed.

“Dot?”

“Please tell me you’re accepting our offer.”

“I’m accepting your offer.”

“Attagirl.”