King Me (King Me Duet Book 1) Read online

  I rubbed at my temple where guilt furrowed my brow. “I do call. But I’ll text her more often. Is Grant around? All my calls go to voicemail,” I said, abruptly changing the subject.

  “He’s wallowing.”

  “She left?” I asked, referring to the woman I’d seen at his cabin.

  “She did and if he didn’t already, he now knows what a broken heart feels like.”

  “Grant in love,” I scoff. “He barely knew her.”

  Though I wasn’t exactly sure of the timing. They certainly hadn’t been together for months on end.

  “When the one walks through your door, you know. It slams into you when you least expect it.”

  When my thoughts should have switched to Carrie, they didn’t. It was Natalie’s face I saw. The way she looked at me. The way she smiled. All her ways that made me want to mark her as mine. I pushed that away.

  “You too have to decide who’s the one. It sounds like your relationship with your ex is more complicated than Mom thinks. Mom’s in love with you, which I’m sure you know. If she isn’t your one, you need to let her know,” I said.

  “Liam—”

  That was the first time I verbally acknowledged what was going on between my mom and him. Yet I wasn’t ready to take that conversation further. Especially when he had some thinking to do. “I have to go. Tell Mom I’ll call her in a few days.”

  I ended the call.

  Twenty-Five

  Natalie

  My words come sputtering out my mouth like a baby bird taking its first flight. “What are you doing here?”

  The man grinned like I should be happy to see him. “It’s time, Natalia.”

  No one called me that. Mom had officially changed my name to Natalie when we moved. As I child I didn’t really know, as she’d called me Natalie from the beginning. Natalia had been my father’s nod to his family.

  “It’s Natalie,” I said stubbornly. I felt like my life as I knew it was ending even though he hadn’t yet told me what sword of his he wanted me to lie on.

  “Your mother had no right to change it,” he declared.

  “Yet she did. So let’s move on from that, and you just tell me what it is you want me to do for you.”

  He chuckled. “Remember, my dearest.” There was no love in his use of that endearment. “You came to me. Now you must pay up.”

  “I know the bargain I struck.”

  He held a hand out toward a limo. It was so out of place in this neighborhood, and I couldn’t remember the last time I saw one. “Let’s take a ride and talk.”

  “Just say what you have to say.” I held my ground.

  “You can either take a ride or we can have this chat inside Ms. Allen’s house, the woman you’re renting from.”

  His pronouncement chilled my bones. There was no way I was involving her. I marched toward the car like I could put out fire with the soles of my shoes. A man, dressed in black with a chauffeur hat on, jumped out of the car in time to open the back door for me.

  I slid in, feeling petulant, having no one to blame for my predicament but myself. My father coolly got in like he did this every day and he probably did. It wasn’t until the divider went up and the car was underway that he spoke.

  “You know it almost feels like the apocalypse happened here. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the city so dead even in the middle of the night.”

  It was daylight, I wasn’t sure why he needed to share that detail. I wanted to get this conversation over. “Let’s not pretend we’ve ever had a father daughter relationship and get to your point.”

  I should have been afraid from what I knew of the man that sat next to me. He ran the underworld with an iron fist or so I was told. He was so ruthless, the only thing the cops and the Feds got on him all those years ago had to do with tax evasion, which he quickly complied with after blaming it on the high-priced accounting firm he used.

  “Give your mother a prize. She didn’t raise a pussy cat. You, Daughter, have bite.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Time is precious and some of us have a job to go to.”

  “Good thing I caught you. You won’t be needing that job.”

  I turned and glared at him. “Why is that?”

  “Because you’re getting married.”

  Bubbles would have flown out of my mouth if I was underwater as I fumbled to replay his sentence in my head. “What did you say?”

  “I should have said I hope for your sake you’re still pure. I’ve made promises.”

  Apparently, he didn’t know everything about my life as I was far from driven snow as the saying went. Just in the last weeks with Liam, I’d proven that.

  Yet I was certain my eyes popped out my head, like we’d been in some crazy accident and I was hallucinating.

  “I can’t get married,” I said when I regained speech.

  “Ah, but you can. Otherwise, your mother will find herself homeless. And no hospital in this country will hire you.”

  “What the fuck!?” I bellowed.

  “Language. It’s unbecoming of a woman who will marry one of the richest men in the world. Or he will be when his father passes on.”

  “I-I-I’m not marrying anyone. You can’t do this.”

  If he could have sprouted devils’ horns and turned red, he would have, given the glare he sent my way.

  “No, you don’t understand me. You will marry who I say you’ll marry. You’re damn lucky I found a man I’m sure will please you in every way.”

  “I won’t. You could have married off your son if you hadn’t gotten him killed.”

  Okay, the last look was deadly. The one he gave me now was as if he wanted to peel the skin off me one layer at a time.

  “This is your last warning. I came here to be civil and have a conversation with my daughter who begged me to save her mother’s life at any price. I find a suitable match, a man of means and if the headlines are true, a catch. Yet you mock me. I could always give you to an undesirable man as there are plenty with the means to suit my purposes.”

  I swallowed. Though my brain told me to jump out to the limo no matter the speed it was going, he would find me. How had he found me at Ms. Allen’s? He all but confirmed my suspicions he’d been pulling the strings of my life the day we moved from Chicago.

  “And if I don’t?”

  “I believe I explained that to you. Besides your mother’s homelessness, which you won’t be able to save her from. Poor Ms. Allen will die horribly at the hands of her renter.”

  Fear was a tangible thing. I felt it all the way in the palms of my hands as I fisted them. I was certain he could pull it off. Even if I could manage to convince a jury of my innocence, in the meantime, my mother would be alone and would likely die as my reputation would be ripped to shreds.

  “Are you going to tell me who I’m marrying?” I spluttered.

  “I will after we leave New York.”

  In other words, once I’d capitulated and put myself under his control. “When do we leave?” Though I was speaking the words, I wanted to know how much time I had left to figure out alternative plans.

  “Tonight,” he said with no room for argument.

  That didn’t mean I’d rolled over. “I can’t leave tonight. I have a shift. The hospital is short-staffed as it is. I have two days off after today and it will give them time to find a replacement or someone to cover me until they do.”

  “Don’t say I never did anything for you. I’ll agree. After your shift, I will meet you here. Be packed and ready to go. You will not be returning.”

  Because I was in the back of the limo, I hadn’t really known where we were going. Yet somehow before the silence could get awkward or him giving me another do what I say speech, we came to a stop. The driver was there opening the door.

  A cold hand caught my forearm as I exited the car. “Let me remind you, Daughter, don’t cross me. It will only make things worse for you and anyone you care about. And tell the good doctor you have to cancel your date thi
s weekend.”

  I snapped my arm away my father and escaped, finding it hard to breath. How could he possibly know so much? Was my phone or room bugged? Did he pay someone like Nurse Christy for information?

  Christy. It was a funny time to think about her. She, however, was only a stone step to the real object of my thoughts. Liam.

  Why had I thought about him? I didn’t know. The truth was where I’d fallen. I wasn’t exactly in love, but I fallen into his piercing eyes with no looking back.

  Any fantasy I had about him and me one day had ended in that life ending conversation with the man that had given me life and now decided to take it. Or sell it as I wasn’t sure what he meant when he’d said has the means to suit my purpose.

  How could things go tits up so fast? I walked into my room in a daze. As I folded my clothes and packed up my things, I fought off the self-pity I felt. My father was right. I’d done this to myself. And selflessly, I would do it again.

  This farce of a marriage would have rules. There was nothing to say I had to stay married to this phantom man for the rest of my life. I could negotiate my way out of this or at least to suit my interest as best I could.

  When I zipped my bag, I did still have some options. I could run for it. Get a flight back home and to my mother before my father realized. We could start again somewhere new. She’d done it before. We would be smarter this time and not tell anyone what we were doing.

  There was also another option.

  Twenty-Six

  Liam

  While drying off my hair with a towel, I did my best not to think about Natalie. She was more and more in my thoughts.

  I tugged at my cock, willing it not to harden further at the thought of her wet and underneath me.

  Though I’d felt justified in telling her to give Christy my number, I hadn’t gotten a call. As thirsty as Christy had acted, I guessed Natalie hadn’t given up my number. I couldn’t say I was disappointed.

  With the towel wrapped around my hips, I picked up my phone several times to text Natalie but didn’t. I should leave well enough alone. Instead, I dialed a different number.

  A groggy Grant answered with a barely uttered “Hello.”

  “What the fuck, cousin?”

  “Liam?” he spoke as if he didn’t recognize my voice.

  “Are you up?” I asked.

  “Barely, what’s up?”

  He sounded disconnected, which wasn’t like him. “Is everything okay?”

  “If you mean if I’m alive, then yes. Everything else… shit.”

  My uncle had been right. “This girl really did a number on you.” He was quiet. “Grant. Dude, I thought you would never fall.”

  “Never say never, isn’t that what they say? Here today and gone tomorrow. For the life of me, I don’t know why. If I knew what I did wrong…”

  “Is it worth it?”

  “What?”

  “Falling in love?” He sure didn’t sound like it.

  “Yeah,” he said. “The shit of it is, yes. She was everything I wasn’t looking for, but everything I needed.”

  “Have you called her?”

  His laugh was a bitter pill I swallowed. “Yeah. She isn’t returning my calls though.”

  “And you still think it’s worth it?” I wouldn’t ask him about the other woman that had left him much like his mom, without a word.

  “There is that other saying. When you love someone let them go. If they come back, they love you too. I’m done chasing anyone.”

  “Maybe you should,” I suggested.

  “Tell me that when it happens to you.”

  Grant was the only one in the world I’d ever been completely honest about everything. “I let her go.”

  This time his laugh had lost its edge. Instead, it was a mocking one. “Carrie?”

  “No, Carrie is in a no-fly zone. She hooked up with Connor.”

  “Shit. Sorry, cuz.”

  “I didn’t fight for her,” I admitted.

  “What?” he asked.

  “When she ended things. I let her go.”

  “Not so in love.”

  “Yeah. Not so much. I loved her. But I wasn’t fully in love with her.”

  “But you would have married her?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Like you and what’s-her-name.” I finally mentioned the girlfriend he’d almost married. She’d cheated with his best friend.

  “I wasn’t in love with her.”

  “And Jo?” Jo was the nickname he’d called the woman I met at his cabin. The one I was sure had him in the dumps.

  “I told you, she’s gone.”

  “Is she worth fighting for?”

  He didn’t answer. I let it go and asked if he’d check on my mom. Sounded like he needed something to do to get his mind off the woman he’d lost. That was how we ended the call.

  I grabbed a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, then put them on before I made the biggest mistake of my life. I was halfway there when a knock came, surprising me.

  There were only a few people on the list that could come up without a call from the doorman. Most of that list was my dad’s family. Hell, it was their place. The only other person in town that could show up was Natalie.

  I slowed my pace and took my time answering the door.

  When I opened it, I wasn’t sure which of us was more shocked to see the other. Then again, she was the person I’d been about to go see.

  Twenty-Seven

  Natalie

  Snow fell like it was Christmas, but it wasn’t, was it? It was more a nightmare than anything else.

  Damn the consequences. If I was giving up my entire life, I would have one thing for myself. One choice that was all mine.

  I dug into my purse, grabbed my ID, a credit card, phone, and one other thing that would fit in my pocket. I snuck out the back for fear my father had someone watching the house. By tomorrow, one way or the other I would be gone. No way I would bring trouble to Ms. Allen. But I needed today.

  The entire subway ride I fretted with my decision, waffling. But by the time I made it to the door, I was steadfast in my decision.

  I gave my name to the doorman and was immediately given the okay to go up. “You’re on the list,” he announced.

  That statement by the doorman might have shocked me more than seeing my father earlier. Yet standing there in front of his door, I hesitated a second before finally lifting my hand and knocking.

  When he opened it, it felt like I won the lottery. Sexy scruff dusted his face as his eyes burned on mine. A weaker woman would have turned and tucked tail out of there. I reached in my pocket with shaky hands but managed to pull out the box while I worked to control my breathing. Panic held me in its grip as I held up the prize. Would he deny me yet again?

  He only glanced at it before I stepped forward, clasped his cheeks and pulled him down to me. It was his mouth that captured mine. “I thought you’d never show.”

  We devoured each other as we two-stepped inside. My best guess was that he’d kicked the door shut because his hand moved up the side of my ribcage until his palm rested on my breast.

  “Take it off,” he commanded.

  I nabbed the hem of my shirt and whipped it over my head. Then, we were kissing again. His hands slid behind my back and expertly unhooked the clasp of my bra. Freedom never felt so good as when he slid the damnable thing off my shoulders to drop on the floor.

  He pinned me to the door and bent down. His mouth was hot on my breast, sucking the nipple until it was hard before he did the same to the other. I was wet and ready for him as he feasted on me. Then he was kneeling and peeling off my leggings. I stepped out of them with no preamble.

  This man had a tongue that would have won a gold medal in the Olympics if oral sex was a sport. But that wasn’t what I wanted and desperately needed. Yet, I stood there for a second with my eyes closed as his tongue did things only he had been able to achieve for me.

  “No,” I said, as I ran my fingers through his hair.
I repeated the word louder.

  He sat back, his eyes hooded with the faint hint of resignation and betrayal.

  Quickly, I clarified. “I want this. But right now, I need your dick.”

  That brought his cocky grin to the surface. I held out my hand, not caring that I was all but naked. He hadn’t removed my panties yet. I helped him to his feet and led him back to his bedroom.

  “Your turn,” I said, once we were inside. I let my eyes trace down the long line of him.

  The man was fit. His biceps bunched as he worked his shirt off. I stared at his perfect abs until he freed the top button on his jeans. It was likely I’d licked my lips as he drew the zipper down his jeans. He wore nothing underneath. His hard cock was happy to be let out or it was happy to see me. After he kicked his pants away, I put my hands on his pecs and pushed him back toward the bed.

  As he fell back, he drew me with him. We tumbled onto the bed laughing a second before we were caught in the tangled web of our interlocked gaze.

  It felt like I was waking up for the first time in my life. I reached for his cock and he nodded in understanding as if he could read the need from my silent lips.

  He held up the box. I couldn’t remember when I’d given it to him. But it didn’t matter. He knew what to do. The cardboard didn’t hold up against our combined desire. A square foil that caught the light from the hall and dazzled my eyes, made its way between his parted lips. I watched in fascination. It was happening. How long had I dreamed of this moment?

  He fisted his dick in one hand, sliding it up to hold the head as he used his other hand to get the condom on. He pinched the top as he rolled it down. It took longer than I expected. When that was done, he didn’t immediately roll me on my back.

  Instead, we seemed to say so much without uttering words. I fought against the urge to let my eyes roll in the back of my head as his hands worked magic between my legs.