CALLIE (The Naughty Ones Book 1) (33 page)

“You…don’t deserve…never wanted to hurt…so sorry.”

Strong arms pull me away when his eyes go blank, letting me know that Robert, my enemy, my savior in those last seconds, is dead, truly dead.

“He saved me.”

It’s all I get out before Cameron is kissing me and holding me so tightly that I feel every shudder and tremor that wracks his body.

“I love you, Cameron.”

“And I you, Shaw Stone. I love you, too.”

With his arms holding me up, I finally let the last tear fall and allow him to drag me from the room, my hand securely fitted in his larger one. It’s funny. This all started with Robert, my life changed by his one careless act. Now it’s ending with him finally doing the right thing, giving me back to the man I was destined to love.

“Ducky?”

I lift my head from the toilet seat and glare at Cameron, my mouth sour as I take another long look at him before turning back and hurling my guts out into the freaking toilet. After what feels like the loss of a few necessary organs and part of my throat lining, I rise shakily from my knees and lean against the counter.

He brings me a glass of water and a washcloth, tenderly wiping at my tear-stained cheeks and whatever is left on my mouth.

“I swear to God; this is the last one, Cameron Stone,” I mutter, swallowing another round of bile and hoping that I don’t start up again.

He smiles, as he does every time he’s found me this way and realized he’s knocked me up. Again.

This is the third and hopefully last since my nursery is full with Angelica, Robbie, and Victoria.

“This is so not funny! How do I always get knocked up three months to the freaking day after giving birth?”

Seriously, is his sperm on a freaking schedule!

My surly moping only makes the ass laugh harder before he pulls me in for a kiss that rocks me to my toes, swiftly making me forget everything but the feel of his strong body and his oh so skillful tongue.

“Ew, Cam. I haven’t brushed my pukey teeth yet,” I mutter, trying to push away.

“Don’t care, Ducky. Need to love on you,” he says with a purr, kissing me even harder.

By the time I’ve regained my hussy senses, I’m on my back with Mr. Super-Sperm looming over me, his blue eyes gleaming wetly as he gazes into my eyes.

“I love you so much, baby.”

“Yeah, and everyone freaking knows it since you keep knocking me up.”

I’m smiling though because despite the terrible time I have of it at first, I still love knowing how happy he gets with every kid. Doesn’t hurt that he goes nuts the bigger I get.

The guy really has a thing for my swollen pregnant belly.

“You’re irresistible.”

“Huh! You’re so lucky I’m easy for flattery, mister.”

“Yeah, I really am,” he whispers, kissing me again, this time slowly, showing me his appreciation, his utter joy that he and only he can do this to me.

I never got my memory back, and these days I’m not stressing about it anymore. I got my fairytale story to tell the kids. After Robert’s funeral—don’t get me started on the field day the press had with that story—Cameron had surprised me with a fairytale wedding complete with my Big Ben cake, my carriage, and every other insane thing my mind could dream up.

Tackiest, coolest wedding ever! He’d stood at the altar, smiling brightly as I waddled toward him that I’d literally cried like sap by the time I said, “I do” and accepted his ring.

We’d discussed hypnotherapy, something that could maybe get me some of those missing months back, but I’d declined. I have all the memories I need—and I’d said so.

Now I’m completely content to spend my days waddling around with one in the oven while Cameron’s other terrors do their utmost to run poor Marge and Vic ragged.

I visit Molly and coo over her baby, Libby, and tease the cousins mercilessly about Fanny and her eagle eyes.

Now mostly I spend my days loving Cameron and thanking God for the disaster that brought us together.

That’s two things I have to thank Robert for—so I guess I can forgive him. Maybe.

“Love you, Ducky,” he whispers again, his eyes so bright I feel myself tearing up.
Damned hormones.

“Love you too, Stone.”

Chase

I’ve finally done it. I’ve acquired the last company I set my sights on eight years ago. And now that I have it, I’ve added one of the last—not quite
the
last, but one of the last—pieces to my plan.

“You must be very proud of yourself, Marshall, stealing an old man’s company right out from under him.”

I smile, lift an eyebrow and wait for Gareth Knox to wind down and stop embarrassing himself. When he finally stops talking, I turn to the board members who are anxiously waiting, and I sigh deeply, letting them see my rueful expression.

“Knox Communications has been a well-established leader in the field for years. However, and I say this with the utmost respect to Mr. Knox Sr., the company has lost half its total earnings the last five years and with the way the economy is going at the moment, the decline will only get worse unless some drastic steps are taken. Knox Jr. doesn’t agree—mores the pity—or I rather suspect something would have been done before a company of such high standing hit so close to bankruptcy.”

I take a deep breath and take my time meeting all ten sets of eyes. I want them to know I mean business, my only interest here is the bottom line and I will not tolerate outbursts like the one Gareth Knox couldn’t withhold.

“I haven’t, nor have I ever, stolen a thing in my life. This ship is sinking, and without the buy-out I closed on with Sr. this morning, half of your workforce would have been jobless a month from now. Now, that aside, I will not tolerate mutiny on one of my ships. If you don’t want to work for Knox as a subsidiary of Marshall Holdings, please, leave now and save us all any further unpleasantness.”

“You son of a bitch!”

“And on that note, I am accepting your resignation as CEO—effective immediately.”

I walk out to the sounds of cursing and Gareth’s yelling, my step light as that penultimate piece—before the most important one—falls into place.

I love my job: the wheeling and dealing and the thrill of intense and intricate negotiations. I have since I walked away from college on the dream that I could take the ten grand my great-uncle left me and make something big happen.

It hadn’t been easy, not one step of the way, but I’d taken that ten grand, sunk it into a derelict shell in downtown Washington, D.C. and worked like a dog to get the thing up to code and looking like a million bucks.

Then I flipped it, and more than doubled my money. I’d kept the ten aside, taken the profit and bought two more houses, and then the same thing again. Soon, I’d had enough cash to invest in apartment buildings, which again I totally overhauled.

I didn’t sell those, choosing instead to keep them as a profit-making investment that is still, to this day, putting so much money in the bank that I’m so far over the black that everything I touch immediately turns green and starts spitting more money at me.

I’ve diversified so much that my portfolio is a smorgasbord of options. Real estate, banking and investment, clothing, shipping—you name it, Marshall’s got it.

I am obscenely rich—in the worst way. So rich that last year I dropped five-hundred million building a specialized facility for the study and research of Lou Gehrig’s disease, and I didn’t even dent my bank account.

The only thing I enjoy more than making money is using it to do better for those who can’t afford it.

And now that I have achieved not only my goals for financial freedom, but to take from those who tried to ruin me when I was a child, I can focus on the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, my ultimate prize.

“Everything is on track. All we need to do now is slide Chris in as the acting VP and get rid of any pro-Knox board members.”

I keep walking as Gabe, my right hand man, falls into step beside me. He easily keeps up with me as we make it to the bank of elevators and get on, ready to leave and tackle the next hurdle.

“I want Knox and those three board members, Tyrone, Miller and Grahams, out by close of business today. Get Chris on that now before he proceeds with the restructure, and for God’s sake, do something about the fucking décor in this place. People can’t work properly in a place that looks like a prison.”

Gabe chuckles and starts flipping through emails and messages, which are many for a man as busy as I am. I get at least forty emails a day, and if not for my PA Barb and Gabe, I’d never get through it all.

“What’s happening with that Give Back Housing project?”

We reach the lobby, and I stride out of the building as he gives me an on-the-fly report about one of the new housing projects I'm involved in.

If things run on schedule, I should be cutting the ribbon on a three-block property that will house retirees and single mothers from low-income families.

This has been my passion since the day I walked into one of the poorest neighborhoods in the District and witnessed the suffering of the children, mothers and the elderly living there.

Those lives are ruled by poverty and fear of the gangs that run the place. It is appalling to think that a mother with three kids and no help is forced to support them all working seventy hours or more a week, just to get shaken down by some little punk who wields a gun.

I’m not altogether altruistic though—never think that. I’d come to that neighborhood following Remy Harrow, a woman I have wanted since I was seventeen and invisible; a woman who probably doesn’t even remember me or even know I still exist.

As a social worker, she travels all over the District, doing what she can for families in need. I understand that; I lived that life not too long ago myself, but I find it unacceptable to have my woman traipsing around in that shithole.

So I’d bought the neighborhood bit by bit, greasing palms and calling in favors to get it, every last mile.

And I’ve spent the last year and a half working my crews to the brink, rebuilding and turning the place into a gated community. All that’s left now is for the people to move from the cramped apartment building I’d moved them into, and ensure that the community gets adequate policing to keeps the gangs at bay.

Now that that is done, and I can be somewhat assured of Remy’s safety while she does her job, I can move on to the real issue at hand, my Holy Grail. The one goal I’d set higher than all others and have done all of this for.

I can move ahead with ruining Remy’s life so that the only option—the only person—she has to turn to is me.

I’ve wanted her for years; I have worked tirelessly to get here, and now that I have, I have no intention of stopping. By this time next year, Remy will be mine.

My lover.

My wife.

My slave.

Remy

God, what a freaking day!

“Did you see that place Rem! It is freaking awesome. Mrs. Childers gave me a tour of the three-bedroom that was built on her old property, and I swear it’s bigger than my apartment.”

I smile and listen to Liv as she starts rhapsodizing about a gated community that was sponsored by a billionaire mogul who’d seen the place and gone nuts about the elderly and single mothers having to live in unhealthy and dangerous conditions.

I’d agreed wholeheartedly with his assessment since it was my job to go into that shit-pile everyday to check up on the families and report on the living conditions and welfare of all the kids under my care.

I’d even bought a bottle of cheap wine and gotten drunk to celebrate when they’d temporarily moved them all to an apartment building and started bulldozing things to the ground.

Having never lived in such circumstances, I’d been shocked—and remain so—at the lack of basic amenities that many people actually live with on a daily basis: things like hot water, a yard to play in, and above all else, safe streets.

Just a week before, my husband, Brian, had asked me to quit after a gang member threatened me when he thought I’d report him for using little kids to run drugs.

And then Mr. Chase Alexander Marshall had announced his intentions. It still boggles my mind to think that a man can be so rich that he bought three blocks of run-down and neglected real estate in Washington, and then tore it to the ground with the intention of not only rebuilding and giving the families quality homes, but that he’d struck a deal and started a campaign with the MPDC to add additional patrols to safeguard those who will live there.

The anti-crime and drug campaign is a solid one that went all the way to the council and came out the other end victorious.

Not only didn’t I have to quit my job, but the news had given me a new lease on life. So much so that I’d finally told my husband that I wanted a divorce.

He’d refused, of course, and gone straight to my parents with the scandal. So my new lease had been short lived and unsuccessful but for that one brief second I’d felt good enough to conquer the world.

Now, I’m going home to a man I loathe; a man who thinks nothing of taking his mistress to the very same country club I’m forced to attend on weekends for the ritual Sunday brunch with our parents.

Every Sunday, I am forced to choke down my breakfast and my gall when Brian loves up on me and puts on a show for them all, pretending to give a shit about me.

The bane of my existence, and the one thing I don’t care about. Well, I suppose I care enough to hate it, but there you have it.

That’s all my life is.

I’m the wife of an up-and-comer—the next big thing in politics. I’m the arm candy from a good background and a father who sees nothing wrong with that.

Stupid: that’s what I am since I did this to myself. I’d spent senior year of high school and all of college mooning over my boyfriend, putting on this image so that he could get where he wanted to be and use my wholesomeness as a cover.

The ex-QB and golden boy, soon to run for senate and still too immature to realize that there’s more to life than parties, prestige and bragging about his last game.

As if it didn’t happen years ago.

“What’s up hon? I thought you’d be happy about today’s move.”Liv asks, pulling me back to the present.

I sigh and lean back in my chair, looking over the small office Liv and I share, and wish for the millionth time that some schmuck hadn’t decided that light gray and mustard was a color combo made in heaven.

“Oh, I am Liv, really I am. I just hope this whole project is a success and that the powers that be don’t lose interest and let it turn into a crime hub again. I saw the place Polly Bates moved into, and it was great—a little two-bedroom with a yard and a small porch out back. It was nothing fancy, but a lot better than what they had.”

Liv starts talking about every house she’s seen, again, and I tune her out to focus on the issues plaguing me lately: Brian and his mistress, my folks and their cold refusal to help me, the endless lectures I get from them all, and the misery that is slowly starting to eat me alive.

“He’s so hot though!” Liv gushes and I zone back in, raising a brow.

“That Marshall guy. You remember, I told you I got to meet him at the ribbon cutting ceremony Well, he is HOT with capitals and freaking glitter too. Dirty blond, not exactly my thing, but that face of his more than makes up for it. And his eyes!” She goes all dreamy and I roll my eyes.

I’ve never understood why women get so dramatic about the color of a man’s eyes. They’re just eyes, and most of the time they’re nothing special. I, myself, have a set of aqua orbs that others seem to go mad for, and yet when I look in the mirror, it’s all just blah.

“That’s nice.”

“Rem! You don’t understand, hon, his eyes are two different colors! One is this really dreamy golden color—like maple syrup—and the other one is a mix of gray/blue that made my knees weak. So freaking—”

“Hot. Yeah I know.” I snort and catch the peanut she throws at my head between my teeth with a snap and a grin of victory.

“God. You’re getting really mean the longer I know you. Is that ass still making you miserable? Go ahead and divorce him already.” She mutters, throwing a dart at the photo of Brian that hangs on the board on the right wall.

His face and shit-eating grin are a pincushion of tiny holes, proving not only her accuracy but how much she detests my husband.

“You know I can’t. My parents would disown me. About the only way I can get them to see things the way they really are is if I have proof that Brian is cheating. And even then, I don’t think they’d care. Apparently a Harrow always stays the course.”

“Bastards.”

I agree, and then dig a box of peanut butter cups out of my drawer, taking great delight in the first bite when I remember them all commenting at dinner the other night that I need to start watching my figure.

“Yup. So—”

My words die when the phone on my desk starts ringing and I hold up a finger, answering with a smile.

“Remy.”

Instead of getting Sylvie, the receptionist from hell, I hear a masculine cough and what sounds like a sigh.

“Miss Harrow?”

A shiver races down my spine at the sound of that voice and I pause, pretending for just a split second that I am free to hear the husky sensuality there, before I clear my throat and start breathing again.

“Yes. What can I do for you?” I ask, rolling my eyes when another dart sails by, pegging Brian square in the left eye.

“This is Chase Marshall.”

“Oh, Mr. Marshall, Hi. Er, sorry. I was actually about to call you and offer our appreciation for the great—”

“Your supervisor gave me your number. We should get together to discuss the programs your department will be working on for the families who live on the property. I’d also like to get your opinion on a youth center I’m considering.”

At that, I feel a smile bloom and this time when Liv lobs her next dart, I don’t frown. I’m getting a chance to meet the great Chase Marshall, a man I’ve recently idolized to the point of obsession. Rock on!

“Uh, okay. I have appointments till late tomorrow afternoon, but I can meet you for a quick lunch.”

I’m reshuffling as I speak because I’m pretty sure forty-five or fewer minutes is not going to cut it with all the ideas I have stored in my brain. The youth center is actually something I’ve been thinking about, and then there’s the park and—

“Sorry, but it will have to be tonight. I’m inundated with meetings all through tomorrow and the next day. I’ll set up a dinner for, say, seven?”

“Dinner? Er—”

“Good then. I’ll email you my address and send a driver.”

“Driver? No, I have my—”

The line goes dead without so much as a goodbye, and I’m left staring at the dead phone as the next dart hits Brian’s crotch—deeply.

“Please tell me you’re having dinner with that hunk of burning love.”

“I am.”

Gosh, I am. Now I just need to find a way to explain why I’m missing my anniversary dinner.

Oh well
.