CHAPTER FOUR
Summer
The warm water feels like heaven on my muscles as I lower myself into the hot tub. Sitting behind a desk all day doesn’t do my back any good. I’m used to moving around, which has been hard since they confined me into that small office.
But this...
This, I could get used to.
“I’m saving up for one of these, babies,” I breathe out, leaning back to close my eyes.
“Or you could keep coming to use this one,” a deep voice purrs.
My eyelids fly open, my back straightening at the sound of his voice.
Years ago, I went to a pub with my boyfriend after a long week of work.
We hadn’t been there long before he broke up with me.
Lost for words, I didn’t bother to argue with him about why he was breaking up with me since he had already left me there alone.
He just walked out. At the time, I found it weird and childish.
I swore off men all together after that, though since I’ve never been one to turn down a night out, I used my break-up as a reason to get sloshed alone.
If there was any excuse to drink alone, being dumped would be it.
Then in walked Reid Hayes, all cockiness and swagger. I had heard of him and his brothers. They each had a reputation. Aside from the Carters, they were legends around our end.
An old friend had hooked up with Reid once, and afterwards, she became obsessed with him. I would spend time flipping through my phone whilst she banged on about him. I never understood how a man could enthral someone that much—until he sat down on the stool next to me.
A day’s growth shadowed his jaw. He had a bit of dirt on his cheek and had clearly been grafting hard at work because he still had sweat beading at his temples and work attire on.
But I didn’t care. Because when he shot that smirk in my direction, I became the blithering idiot my friend had been after he returned one of her calls.
If I believed in love at first sight, I would have called it that.
He was a work of art. Literally. He was covered in tattoos, and I wanted to trace every single one of them.
Then he leaned over the bar to get the bartender’s attention, and seeing the veins bulge on the inside of his arms, I became hot and bothered. I’m pretty sure I moaned.
We talked.
We flirted.
And then...
I close my eyes, not wanting to go back there. Going through it once nearly made me die of embarrassment.
“Get lost, Reid,” I snap.
“You know him?” Liza questions as they move around the hot tub to get a better look at me.
“You know me?” he asks, his eyes squinting down at me.
“Unfortunately,” I mutter, ignoring Freya’s gaze on the side of my face.
She doesn’t know what happened either, and I trust her with everything. And I know not knowing is killing her, especially right now.
He cocks his leg up on the step used to get in the hot tub and leans in, his muscles flexing.
I will not look.
Fuck, I looked.
His grin is cocky, sure, when he glances down at me. “I’m pretty sure I’d remember a pretty face like yours.”
I die inside with embarrassment. “Yeah, you would think that,” I retort, tilting my head. “Now go away. You’re killing the energy.”
He chuckles. “Nobody says energy anymore.”
I hold my breath. That’s what he said the first time I met him too. I had told him I didn’t care that my ex had broken up with me publicly because I wasn’t feeling the energy with him anyway. He had laughed and teased me over my choice of words.
I arch an eyebrow. “Clearly they do,” I respond, repeating the same line I said to him years ago.
His eyebrows pucker together before he shakes himself out of it. “No, seriously though, where do I know you from?”
I shrug. “Does it matter?”
His mum, clearly used to this reaction, sighs. “Reid, why don’t you go and find some food.”
“I’m good right where I am,” he replies, but his eyes never leave mine. Or they don’t until they wander down to my chest, where my cleavage floats above the water. “Damn shame it’s warm in there.”
“Reid,” Liza hisses. “Behave!”
“I will when she tells me where she knows me from,” he taunts.
I groan, knowing he won’t go until I tell him or someone forcefully removes him. “How much will it take to get you to leave?” I ask.
“How much will it take for you to tell me how we know each other?” he asks, and begins to pat down his jeans. His eyebrows scrunch together, and for a moment, he loses his attention on me. “Where the fuck is my wallet? I know I had it. I dropped a twenty in the tip jar for the cook on my way in.”
“Maybe you left it in there,” Liza guesses.
Movement near the back steps to the bed and breakfast catches my eye, and I fight back a laugh when I see Milly handing over a wallet to Paisley.
I glance back at Reid. “My, my, my... Guess you forget about a lot of things.”
“What?” he grumbles distractedly.
“Hey, Reid, you lost something?” Paisley asks, holding up the wallet in triumph.
His shoulders relax. “I left it in the kitchen, didn’t I?” he asks, taking it from her. He pulls it open, his lips tightening. “Someone has stolen my money.”
Paisley laughs, holding up a wad of cash. “I hope you don’t mind, but I took back the money you owe me, plus interest.”
“There was more in there than that. I haven’t had chance to deposit it yet,” he grits out.
She places her hand on Milly’s head. “Oh, but my accomplice needed paying. You understand,” she tells him sweetly, then walks away, fanning herself with the money she took.
I laugh, only stopping when he glares my way for a second, then down at Milly. “Kid, give me my money back.”
Her lower lip trembles. “B-but... but I really wanted to buy an outfit for my doll. My mummy and daddy got it for me before they died. It was the last thing they ever bought me.”
He rubs the back of his neck, his eyes widening. “Fuck!”
“Reid,” Liza hisses once more, slapping his arm.
“Sorry. Sorry, kid. I, um... You can keep it. I have more,” he states, then glances around at the group of us women glaring at him. “I, um... I’m going to go.”
“I’m so sorry about my son,” Liza grumbles. “I’ll let you soak in peace.”
Water sloshes over the side as Malia moves over to the edge to where Milly waits. “You don’t play with dolls. And I’m pretty sure the last thing Mum and Dad bought you was a family bucket from KFC.”
Milly shrugs. “It got him to back off. Plus, now I can renew my Disney subscription.”
“How old are you again?” Freya asks, laughing her head off.
Milly puffs out her chest. “Six. I’m the best six-year-old ever.”
A yawn slips past her lips. “A tired one too,” Malia notes.
“No, I’m not,” Milly protests.
“Yes, you are,” Malia argues.
“I’m tired of you,” Milly sasses.
“I don’t need your attitude right now,” Malia sighs.
“Then let me know when you need it,” Milly orders before another yawn escapes.
I place my hand on Malia’s arm when she goes to get up. “I’ll take her back. I’m not feeling the energy now.”
“Are you ever going to tell me what happened between you two? He looked like a lost puppy,” Freya teases as I step out of the hot tub.
“Whose side are you on?” I question with a glare, before grabbing a dressing gown from the hook and wrapping it around me.
Her lips twitch as she throws her hands up. “Yours. Always yours.”
*** *** ***
Gravel crunches under my feet as I head toward my car. I tilt my head, wondering why it looks so uneven. When my gaze goes to the front tyre, I groan.
A flat. And not just a flat where I can put air in and it will be fixed. Something is sticking out of the tyre.
I used my spare on the back-left side wheel a month ago.
Due to the move and the hours I’ve had to do at work, I haven’t had the time to get it replaced.
If my dad didn’t make me carry one when I first passed my test, I’d be screwed.
For some reason, I seem to constantly drive over something sharp.
Either that or I have shit luck when it comes to cars.
“Crap!”
Milly lifts her head from my shoulder. “Want me to help you change it?”
“You know how to change a tyre?” I question.
She nods. I shouldn’t be surprised; Malia has always done everything by herself, and she taught her siblings to do the same. It’s why I was so surprised she agreed to get the work done by a contractor instead of doing it herself.
I sigh. “Unless you have a spare tyre I don’t know about, there would be no point.”
“Hey,” Reid greets, startling me. He glances down at my tyre, his thick eyebrows rising. “Shit. How did that happen?”
I narrow my gaze on him. “Did you do this?”
He kneels down next to the tyre, pulling out his phone to shine the light on it. “Unless I took up throwing stars whilst blind drunk, and randomly started throwing them at car tyres, the answer is no,” he mutters.
“A what?” I ask, moving closer. I lift Milly up higher on my hip and watch as he pulls out a silver star-shaped blade thing.
“How did that happen?” Milly asks sleepily. “Can I keep it?”
“Not sure this and a kid is a good combination,” he mutters, distracted. He glances at me. “You pissed anyone off lately?”
“No,” I cry, offended. I’ve never even got into a fight with anyone—unless you count me and Freya tackling each other to the floor.
“Come on, I’ll take you back,” he offers and turns toward the van, but then I notice his head drop. I peek around him, my eyes widening when I see the same star-shaped blade sticking out of his tyre.
“Did you piss someone off?” I question, then pull out my phone and shine the torch on the other cars in the parking lot. “They are all like it.”
He presses the screen on his phone a few times before lifting it to his ear.
“Jax, have you left yet? Good. I need you to bring the car up—if it hasn’t been tampered with.
Someone has stabbed a tyre on each car here with a star blade.
I need to take the neighbour back with her kid and check if Tommy is around to grab the correct tyres off him. ”
“She’s not my kid. She’s my cousin,” I whisper.
Not that I would be ashamed to have Milly as a daughter.
I just thought I should clear that up since it would look like I was a teenage mum—again, not that I would be ashamed, but it would have been hard since I was still a virgin when she was conceived.
He arches an eyebrow at me but says nothing else as he listens to who I’m assuming is Jaxon on the other end of the phone. “So they didn’t venture that far down the lane,” he states. “See you in a minute.”
Once he’s off the phone, I clear my throat. “You don’t need to take us back. I can call a taxi and get my dad to come and change the tyre tomorrow for me.”
“What’s the point in waiting God knows how long for a taxi when I’m right here? Besides, the kid is tired and you look like you’re about to drop her,” he argues and then takes her from me. Instead of putting up a fight, Milly willingly goes, snuggling into his shoulder.
He shouldn’t look this hot holding a kid.
Or this at ease.
“Are you mad at me?” Milly whispers.
I sigh at the sight of the grin that spreads across his mouth. “That you played me like a fiddle and I fell for it? Nah. It’s character building, kid.”
My eyes bug out. “I can hold her you know,” I remark once the shock of him taking her and looking hot holding her disappears.
He eyes me like he knows me, or is trying to place me, and I try not to fidget under his scrutiny.
He also can’t know how badly it burns that he doesn’t remember.
That night was unforgettable for me, and not just because of how it ended.
It meant something. To know he doesn’t remember me just adds salt to the wound.
“Are you going to tell me how you know me and why you look so familiar?”
I glance at Milly, who is asleep, and bite my lower lip. “No. If you don’t remember, then it’s probably for the best.”
“We fuck?” he asks casually, like he’s asking if we are leaving.
“Do you always forget the women you fuck?” I ask, tilting my head to the side.
He shrugs carelessly. “A time or two. I was once young and stupid.”
“And you aren’t now?”
He stares at me unnervingly, and I feel a shiver race up my spine. “No.”
He says it so surely, with so much confidence, I almost believe him. But I’ve seen him with a parade of women. Granted, I’ve turned back around or hidden when we’ve been near, but even that feels ridiculous now since he doesn’t even remember who I am.
Car tyres crunch on the stones, and seconds later, we are engulfed in light. A man steps out of the vehicle at the same time the door behind us opens. Paisley comes rushing toward us, not picking up on the tension in the air coming from both males.
“Reid, why didn’t you tell me someone has made a sexual harassment report against you?”
I laugh, thinking it’s a joke, and his eyes snap toward me. If I’m not mistaken, hurt flashes in them, but before I can apologise, Paisley gets there first. “It isn’t true,” she remarks.
I hold my hands up, my heart racing because I know I’ve upset her. “I know. That’s why I laughed. Reid making a report is believable. I’ve seen girls throw themselves at him even when he isn’t interested. I’m sorry for laughing.”
And I really just said that. In front of him.
Kill me.
His eyebrows rise. “You really think that?”
I shrug, feeling a little uncomfortable under his intense gaze. “Anyone who knows you and your reputation would think that. It’s not like you need to try and get the girl when you have so many willing. And that isn’t a compliment. It’s the truth.”
Paisley suddenly realises Jaxon has joined us. “Oh, Jaxon, why are you back? I thought you were leaving?”
He nods to the car. “All the tyres have been slashed,” he explains. “Reid is using my car to take them back.”
“What?” she yells, glancing around. “When did this happen?”
“Here, take them back,” Jaxon orders, handing Reid a set of keys. “I’ve already called Tommy. He wants the make and models of each vehicle and tyre, then he’ll be over.”
I reach into my bag. “Let me give you some money,” I offer.
He waves me off. “We’ll cover it. This happened because of us,” he explains. His gaze holds mine, and I know what he isn’t saying.
This is because of my boss.
I nod. “Thank you.”
“Come on then,” Reid orders. “Paisley, I’ll talk to you later about it.”
“You’d better,” she demands.
I hold my breath for a minute before heading to my car to grab Milly’s booster seat. With only a tired six-year-old with us, I don’t know how I feel about being alone with him. There will be no one else to carry the conversation or to stop me from making a fool of myself.
It’s a ten-minute drive.
A lot can happen in ten minutes.
I just have to make sure it doesn’t.