Chapter 2
Holland
Only a monster would kick an elderly woman to the curb. But that’s exactly what my father is trying to do.
My grandmother used her home as collateral to borrow money with a sky-high interest rate. After a few months she couldn’t make the payments.
When I learned she’d fallen behind, I tried to handle it, but the lender isn’t interested in a repayment plan. He wants the entire amount at once though he knows my grandmother can’t afford that.
There’s a slap-them-up-quick housing developer interested in the property who will pay more than market value and that’s the lender’s goal.
That’s bad enough. But worse? The lender promised my gambling-addicted con man father that he’d give him a small cut of the deal if he convinced my grandmother to give up without a court fight. My father’s the type of man who’ll do that.
He’s been arrested more times than I can count. Having his name and mug shot splashed everywhere during my first year of high school made my life hell.
He’s the reason my late mother helped me legally change my last name to her maiden one.
Anyway, I’m not surprised dear old dad is still doing the same tricks. I can’t let him screw over my grandmother but right now, I’m caught between a rock and a broke place.
The attorney we consulted said it would be a “protracted” case. Which is just a way of saying he would like to spend a lot of time reaching into my almost empty bank account.
Hoping to get enough to pay off the loan, I sold everything I had including my car, but it’s not enough and the deadline is looming.
“It’s your birthday,” Heidi gently chides as she lifts her wine glass. “So just for today, let the worries be.”
“I can’t help it,” I say while raising my own glass. “If I don’t come up with the money before Monday…” My voice trails into silence.
“You can pick up worrying again once we’re done eating, but for now, just enjoy this place.”
We’re sitting at a table in The Royal Crown and Garden, the most luxurious restaurant in Laketon Heights, Texas, where the rich and powerful dine.
Laketon Heights is an old money city, a place known for being home to the super wealthy. It’s filled with historic homes on tree-lined streets and is home to an elite prep school where the one percent educate their future heirs.
Old money names claim their legacies on buildings like museums and hospitals. Connections are everything. I don’t have any.
Heidi and I live in a tiny section of the city no one likes to talk about or visit after dark.
We’re in the restaurant only because Heidi won a drawing for a meal for two where she works. Like me, she can’t afford this place either.
Also like me, she’s a Cinderella wearing a borrowed designer dress and heels we have to return before the stroke of midnight.
What’s waiting for us afterward won’t be a handsome prince. It’s a maxed-out credit card bill and a drunk-ass landlord with a serious case of butt crack flash whenever he attempts to fix our perpetually leaky kitchen sink pipe.
Heidi frowns down at her plate. “For the price this restaurant charges, you’d think they’d give us portions bigger than a quarter.”
“It’s good, though,” I lie, taking a small bite of a seafood dish. I’m barely able to taste anything lately. I’ve lost weight living on caffeine and insomnia.
I start running numbers in my head, wondering where I can shake another few dollars out.
Heidi sighs like she knows what I’m thinking. “What about Eric? Can you get him to pay you back?”
I shake my head. He needed the money for his car repair he’d said several months ago. My lazy-as-fuck brother slid that money into a thong at a strip club somewhere in nearby Ft. Worth, and both are gone now. He blows as much money on women as my father does on gambling.
“There has to be something we can do,” Heidi says. “I know you just started a second job. I’m willing to work one too but I wouldn’t get paid right away so I’m afraid it wouldn’t help quickly enough.”
She’s been my best friend since high school and has always been there for me.
I get up to give her a hug. “Thank you,” I whisper.
She knows all the other reasons why I’m grateful for her support. I wouldn’t have survived that hellish night courtesy of my brother’s skeezy friends if not for her.
“There’s got to be something…” her voice trails off.
“I’ve thought of dozens of ways, but nothing has worked out. I’m so desperate now I’d be willing to do something crazy.”
“Like what?” Heidi grins.
I return to my seat. “Whatever it takes. You know those guys who always have a story about a psycho ex-girlfriend? I’d even be willing to provide that service. If the money is good.”
We laugh.
A shadow falls across the table. I look up and…wow. The sky opened and one of the gods has fallen. Everything about him screams dark and doable. He’s a fantasy romance dark lord minus the black wings.
He’s tall. Muscled. His black hair is expertly styled.
I’m guessing his suit is custom made. It’s tailored to fit every inch. And I do mean every. God, I hope I’m not drooling while staring at his crotch.
Confidence oozes from him like he knows the full effect of his presence and power. His dark eyes study me. Arrogant. Calculating. I feel measured from head to toe.
Beneath his unrelenting gaze, my skin burns. I want his hands on me, exploring my body, touching and stroking and demanding until I am a puddle of need begging to have an earth-rocking orgasm.
His lips curve slightly. Like he knows I’d rather have an orgasm than what’s on my plate. His attention drifts to my chest then down where I’m squeezing my legs tightly.
I’m embarrassed my panties soaked just by the way he looks at me.
Then the fallen god turns his attention away and the men with him move beyond our table. I suck in oxygen like I’m starving for it and put a hand over my chest where my heart is racing.
“I know, right?” Heidi fans herself. “I thought for sure he was going to say something.”
“About what?”
She bites her lower lip then shakes her head and reaches for her wine glass. “Drink up. It’s not every day that we can afford this twenty-thousand-dollar bottle of wine.”
“How much?” I gape at her and she repeats herself. “How did you know that? I thought it was your first time here, too.”
“I overheard some of my coworkers talking about the drawing before I found out I won.”
Heidi keeps looking over her shoulder, her expression growing more apprehensive with each turn of her head.
“What’s going on?”
She winces. “That man who walked by? The one you were mentally stripping naked? He’s sort of my boss.”
“What?” I lower my voice when the couple next to us glance over to see why I screeched.
“I mean he sort of owns the company though he doesn’t like own-own it. He’s the ruling grandson.”
“One of the Montclairs,” I say slowly. Everyone in Texas has heard about that family. Or at least knows about the grandsons’ love lives thanks to the gossip magazines regularly splashing their business on the front page.
And it clicks in my brain. That’s why he looks familiar.
The fuzzy photos with the headline claiming HE DID HER ON A YACHT didn’t do him justice. The her being a model slash heiress slash who-the-fuck-knows.
“He’s not the one who hired me,” Heidi says and thinks for a moment. “Theo. That’s his name.”
Ah. Him. The man is a legend in the business world and from the gossip I’ve heard, in the bedroom as well. Not that I’ll ever know about either of those. Our paths crossing today is a fluke.
I have no business to conduct with Theo, the fallen god, the doer on the yacht.
That’s a real pity. I would love to have him nestled between my legs with his tongue running laps around my clit. A hungry ache stirs in my core.
I know before the night is over, I’ll be spending time with my vibrator. Happy orgasm to me.