Chapter 2
Colton
I had to keep reminding myself that nobody knew me here, that this was a fresh start. No one from my past knew that I was here. They couldn’t hurt me or Shannon again.
Shannon.
My girlfriend of four years had dropped a fucking bomb on her parents and me last night. I still couldn’t get it through my head that she hadn’t told me. We lived together, and yet, she had kept something as big as this a secret from me for weeks.
She had cancer – stage two breast cancer and it had already spread to her lymph nodes. Her father and I just sat there dumbfounded.
We drove home in silence. I didn’t know what to say to her. What did you say to someone who had been hiding cancer from you for months?
And then, this morning I had to start a new job. I had to recreate my identity and arrive at a foreign place and act like my life hadn’t just fallen apart the night before, like my girlfriend – who I had planned to propose to in the next few weeks – hadn’t just told me she might die within the next year, like my whole future hadn’t just changed.
I hosed the car down. The excess spray rolled down my legs and seeped into my socks. I groaned. There was nothing worse than wet socks.
The boss had introduced himself to me a few minutes ago when he pulled into the lot in a brand new Ford Bronco. He was a nice guy. He hadn’t asked a lot of questions – just welcomed me to the team. I lived to be on a team, to have that family connection with a bunch of guys.
It had started when I was five and played soccer for the club team in my hometown in North Carolina. And then, when I was in high school, I was the quarterback for my football team. Those guys were my family.
Growing up in a foster home taught me that just because someone was blood-related didn’t mean they were your family, and when I graduated, I enlisted in the Navy. I needed structure, needed to find my people, and I had done exactly that by eventually earning and fighting my way into the Navy SEALs.
Growing up in that godforsaken foster home taught me a lot at a young age. If you wanted something, you had to do it yourself because no one would do it for you. If you overslept and were late for school, you faced the consequences alone. If you didn’t take care of your things, someone else would take them, and if you didn’t stand up for yourself, then the other kids would walk all over you. But the one thing it didn’t teach me was how to cope with loss.
When I lost my first brother in arms, I had tried to take my own life due to pure survivor’s guilt. The saying ‘it should have been me’ had never been truer. We had switched patrol duties, and on my morning patrol where I should have been, he was shot and killed while I was sleeping like a baby in my bunk.
I shook the thoughts from my head and soaped up the car, washing away the dirt and bird shit for a customer who would be here later this morning.
Washing cars had to be the lowest rung on the ladder in this building because not only did you have to wash cars, but you had to sweep up after the mechanics while they mocked and laughed at you. But I would show them – I would show everyone in this building that I was good enough. I was a fucking Navy SEAL. I’d fought and survived. Nothing scared me.
I was pulled from my thoughts when a bright red M3 rushed into the parking lot. I couldn’t see the driver through the heavily tinted windows, and I instantly scoff at the tramp stamp on the back window.
Catch me if you can.
Definitely a girl, and a stupid one at that.
She parked, and the smell of burnt rubber assaulted my nose, I shook my head when I saw a heeled foot emerge from the open door. And then, she stepped out. Her long, toned legs from hours at the gym were wrapped in tight, black pants. My eyes trailed up her body, landing on the pink shirt that clung to her flat stomach and dipped just enough to show off her big breasts.
Shit.
I weakly remind myself of Shannon as I shamelessly took in the beauty in front of me. Her blonde hair fell down her back and over her shoulders in perfect ringlets that I knew she had to have spent at least an hour styling. Then, I saw those soul-sucking eyes.
She wasn’t looking at me, her attention on the ground and the bag she was trying to ease onto her shoulder all with her phone pressed to her ear. She strutted past me, not even sparing me a glance as she continued her conversation.
Her sweet voice reached my ears, and instantly, I was mesmerized.
This was no fucking good.
She entered the building, the spicy smell of her perfume lingering in the air as a reminder that I had just seen the most beautiful woman in the world walk right past me like I was nobody.
Nobody.
She hadn’t even spared me a glance, and usually, women always did a double-take when they saw my inked skin. My last foster dad had been a tattoo artist, and at eighteen, his gift to me had been my first tattoo and to kick me out of the house the next morning since I was no longer bringing in money for him.
I had needed to feel the pain to be reminded that I was only human, and weirdly, it soothed a piece of my soul. Then, when I joined the SEALs, my brothers and I went and got tattoos together. My second one was for a fallen brother, and the third was the crest for the brotherhood. From there, I couldn’t get enough.
Getting inked had become my drug. I frequented tattoo parlors, creating elaborate designs until I had little skin showing. My biceps and shoulders were covered along with my chest. I had one blank spot left there. A few scattered designs littered my forearms and my legs, but my back and stomach were covered in everything that was important to me.
I squinted through the glass doors of the shop, watching her purposeful strides, her hips swaying with the movements, and I groaned.
She was too good for me.
The pretty ones always were.
And I was spoken for, and surely a woman as pretty and confident as that would be, too.
The boss’s daughter.
I had a fucking crush like a fourteen-year-old boy on the boss’s daughter.
Like I had been trained, I kept my head down, got through my work, kept my station clean, and did more than they asked.
I knew better than to start anything between us. Not only did I have a girlfriend at home, but everyone knew she was off-limits, and from the way her father and uncle practically hovered around her, I knew she was their little princess.
And she knew that too with the way she pranced around, showing up late to work every single day, taking longer lunch breaks, and always sneaking around on her phone. She was no role model to the rest of us as she should have been.
The few guys in the back made snide comments about her body whenever she walked past. Their remarks were from foul mouths and dirty minds, and often, it made my skin crawl that they could smile at her and speak so badly about her behind her back.
At the end of my first week, she finally noticed me.
She walked up to me, wearing hot-red leggings that hugged the shape of her toned legs and emphasized the swell of her perfect, plump behind. Her breasts bounced through the thin fabric of her t-shirt, and her blonde hair swished back and forth in her high ponytail.
I shouldn’t have been admiring her body or taking in every detail of her face, but I was. Like a lovesick puppy, I watched her walk over to me, and I wished she were mine.
“Hey, you’re the new detailer, right?” Her sweet voice reached my ears, and I instantly knew I was going to die and go to hell for the thoughts swirling around my mind.
I didn’t say anything, trying to think of something to say. Nothing comes to mind, so I stared blankly at her.
“Did you hear me?” she spoke to me again and took another step closer. I noticed the caution in her big, blue eyes as they swept over me.
“Uh, yea, I’m the new detailer,” I mumbled and went back to washing my last car of the day. In an hour, I would go home to my girlfriend.
Remember that you have a girlfriend.
“Right. I figured as much since you’re, you know, washing cars and all.” I looked up and saw her flaming cheeks. “I just wanted to welcome you to the team and let you know that next week, we will be having a mandatory staff lunch after work on Friday.” She smoothed her rumpled shirt and looked at the ground.
“Thanks. I didn’t catch your name?” Her eyes shot up to mine, wide with curiosity.
“Can’t say I got yours either?” She smiled coyly at me.
I was in so much trouble with this woman.
This cat and mouse game wasn’t going to be a thing between us.
“Colton, but the girls call me Colt.” She rolled those big, blue eyes and frowned.
“Noted. Summer, but my boyfriend calls me Sunshine,” she emphasized the word boyfriend like I wouldn’t hear it if she didn’t.
If only she knew.
“Sounds like a douchebag. He couldn’t come up with something original?” Surprised and a bit peeved, she took a step back. I knew I had overstepped. My mouth always got me into some sort of trouble.
“Good thing it doesn’t concern you.” She turned and strutted to the front door, that firm ass capturing all my attention as it swayed with her steps. Then, she slipped through the front door, leaving me to all my dirty thoughts.
An hour later, I was packing up my cleaning equipment when a white Cadillac rolled onto the lot and out popped a short, blonde woman. She smiled kindly at me, nodding her head in greeting.
I didn’t think much of her as I continued to pack away my things and then headed into the showroom to double-check everything.
“Celine, I told you she’s not ready for any of this. She’s still a kid with her head in the clouds,” my boss, Ace, said to the woman. They were leaning against the wall near the door, their tones soft in the big room.
“You don’t give that child nearly enough credit for everything she does. I didn’t ask you to hand over the company, Asshole. I asked you to give her a raise and a better job title. You know this company has become her dream just as much as it is yours.” Ace nodded as I busied myself with cleaning the front of the showroom and making it respectable for the next week.
“She’s going to inherit this company one day, but she needs to earn it, and she needs a decent man to help her, not that dick she’s dating now. I won’t allow him anywhere near my company.”
Putting two and two together, I now saw the resemblances in the woman as Summer’s mother. I kept my head down and pretended that I wasn’t listening to their conversation.
“She will pick the right man to stand beside her when the time comes, but it’s your job to show her who that man is and groom her into the perfect boss. She’s going to be a woman running a big company in a man’s world.” The woman put her hand on Ace’s chest, and I ducked down, pretending to wipe something off the car I had been detailing.
“I know. You’re right. You always are, princess.” I didn’t have to look up to know that in the silence, he was kissing his wife.
Looking at my reflection in the car’s fender, I formulated a plan – a plan to ensure that I wouldn’t be a nobody foster kid like they all assumed.
No. I would be the owner of a big car company.
I just had to trick the girl into signing over all the decision-making power so that my girlfriend - and soon-to-be fiancée -and I would be taken care of with no worries of medical bills.
I had to make Summer fall in love with me.