Irresistible (Underneath it All Series: Book One) (An Alpha Billionaire Romance) (8 page)

I got so caught up in escaping where I grew up that I forgot the things that would always be home. The ‘Curl up and Dye’ just off of Main Street with the worn, neon-colored chairs and Miss Betty, an older stylist who gave me and Rose a discount because she knew things were tight at home. The movie theater that had been around since the town was founded and still had all the original seats and fixtures that looked grand, cobwebs and all. The convenience store across the street from the high school with the yellowed sign taped to the door that decreed that no more than two schoolchildren were allowed in the store at one time.

And then there was Falcon High. Those memories were filled with projects and papers and teachers who saw something in me that I didn't see in myself. A principal who went to school with my mother and loved to reminisce about the girl my mother used to be: gorgeous, popular, prom queen, the polar opposite of me, with zero coordination and very few social skills. The stories, and Principal Mason's eyes, always held a note of sadness. The force to be reckoned with, who glowed in old yearbooks and trophy cases for her sports achievements, was a bleary-eyed hot mess now. My mother didn't come out to support me, no matter how many times I looked out into the audience for her face. She only showed up at graduation because Grandma begged her to, and she came up with an excuse that had her shuffling toward the exit before I even gave the valedictorian speech.

For such a smart girl, I should have gone farther than the city to get away. I should have put a body of water between us.

Before I could daydream about the life I could have lived, an ache in my chest reminded me of something. Someone that needed me, more than I needed to run.

Rose.

The ache grew into a hole when I pulled into the broken driveway, the rental car jolting from the craters where the weeds tried to reclaim their territory. The shudders didn't dull my view of the porch. Rose was sitting on the bottom stoop. Her strawberry blonde hair hung like a hood over her face.

Something was wrong.

Something was very wrong.

~

I
usually kept my nose glued to the pages of a book on my walk home from school. Falcon Elementary was precisely 1.3 miles from our house and I knew every crack, turn, and crosswalk like the back of my hand. It was a walk I'd done every day since I realized that when Mom came to pick me up, she smelled more like her 'special juice' than perfume. She laughed more, which felt good, but I knew she wasn't herself and I spent those 1.3 miles on alert. Reminding her about the stop signs. Telling her the color of the lights so she'd stop and go when she was supposed to.

I was only ten, but I knew that something wasn't right. I knew she was breaking some sort of rule because when we passed other adults and people she knew, she'd press her fingers to her lips. I preferred the company of my books, where everything and everyone were exactly where they should be. Safe, words in black and white, my friends who never disappointed me.

When I hit the halfway mark, making a sharp right on our street, I paused at the corner. I usually lost myself in the pages, letting the story carry me the rest of the way home, but there was a smell that made me bookmark my spot with my finger and turn my nose into the wind. It was smoke, faint yet thick and when I looked up at the sky, it turned the clouds an angry gray.

I dropped my book, and the rest of the world seemed to collapse around me as I followed the sirens. Over the two dips in the cement that I'd tripped on dozens of times. Past Ms. Mcallister's garden with her rainbow-colored tulips. I didn't stop to smell her flowers today and she wasn't knee deep in the dirt, her smile as bright as the sun above us. She was an obstacle I wasn't prepared for, smack dab in the middle of the sidewalk. She tried to hug me, tell me there'd been a fire, but I wrestled free and started running. Panic blared as loudly as the fire trucks that barreled past me.

Mom...

Rose...

Our house, with its peeling white paint and chipping green shutters was still standing, but thick, black smoke was billowing out the front window.

The fireman wouldn't let me past the broken gate, no matter how I pounded his chest, screaming my little sister's name over and over again.

"Say-dee?"

The tiny voice somehow reached through my wails and I whirled toward the sound. I thought I was hallucinating. The house was on fire and that voice was an angel.

My sister stood on the sidewalk beside me, covered in a blanket, her grungy Dora the Explorer t-shirt peeking out. I had to be hard, strong, and she was the soft one. The doll with her big eyelashes and her round cheeks, her hair more blonde than red. Not like mine. Not like Mom's. I didn't even look for Mom, I just clasped Rose to my chest, tears streaming down my face until she wriggled free.

She gawked at me, her ash stained forehead scrunching. "Are you crying, Say-dee?"

Before I could answer, a paramedic had jerked her head from the ambulance, waving the two of us over. She claimed our mother wanted to see us, but I knew that was for her benefit more than ours. I'd never get the truth from her. A truth that I hoped to God wasn't true at all.

There was only one way to find out.

I gripped Rose by her scrawny little shoulders and forced a smile on my face. "What happened?"

Rose scrubbed her tiny blue-green eyes with her fists. "Mommy was watching her stories and fell asleep. Her cigarette fell on the magazine and-" Rose mimed an explosion. “I ran over to the neighbors for help, just like you told me to.”

I pulled my sister back to my chest, squeezing her tight as the sobs shook my body. She shouldn't have had to go to a neighbor for help. She shouldn't have to parent and watch our mother.

"Sissy, don't cry," Rose murmured against my chest. "Mommy is okay."

My tears were liquid on my cheeks, but my heart was as hard as the ground beneath us. "I'm not worried about-" 'Mom,' 'Mommy,' they seemed too good for that woman, so I called her nothing at all. "From now on, it's just me and you, Rose." I cradled her face in my hands and I made a promise. "Day or night, if you need me, ever, I'll be there."

*

"H
ey there, kid."

Any other teenager would have rolled their eyes and pointedly reminded whomever had forgotten that they were far from 'kid' territory. Rose just pushed her pale hair from her brilliant green eyes and gave me a gap tooth grin that almost threw me off the scent. Almost made me not worry. The fact that she remained glued to the steps instead of throwing her arms around me, nearly knocking me over like usual, was all the confirmation I needed. I'd been right to drop everything and come home.

Anxiety twisted my gut, urging me to get to the root of why Rose was out on the porch, without her phone in her hand, a textbook on her lap, or surrounded by all the friends that buzzed around her like gnats. I peered at her out of the corner of my eye. We both had inherited our mother's beauty: striking features and eyes that almost looked Photoshopped because they shined so brightly. We both bit our lips when we were nervous or excited, and unfortunately, we were also stuck with our mother's propensity for not talking about our feelings. For women with skin so fair that we didn't tan, we burned, and even thought we had lanky frames that made Grandma insist we put on some weight or we'd get blown away, we had spines of steel. Our hurts, as heavy and burdensome as they were, were ours to bear. And we'd carry that cross to the grave.

I watched Rose burrow her toes in a worn groove in the wooden steps. When our mother had almost burned down the house, she'd laughed off my sister's story instead of admitting she was at fault. The lie had been good enough for the insurance company, but she didn't spend a penny of the check fixing the broken bones of our home. There were still faded scorch marks near the window, and the house was in such disrepair that I'd seen delivery trucks eye the property warily like it was abandoned, or well on its way to being condemned.

I'd spent my teenage years complaining, promising my mother that as soon as I got my diploma, I was never coming back. Rose was gentler and just accepted our reality as the way things were. I wanted to take her by the shoulders and tell her that she didn't have to protect our mother. It was backwards and unfair and she’d already grown up way too fast. I wanted to know what fresh catastrophe the woman who brought us into this world had wrought.

Instead, I just listened to the wind whistle through the old, rotted trees and made small talk.

"How's school?"

Rose stopped burrowing for a moment and shrugged her shoulders. "Same ole, same ole."

I scooted closer to her. "Rose, what's-"

"How's work?" she butted in, her smile a little more mischievous, a little more Rose than the first.

The 'wink wink' behind her question wasn't lost on me. She was the only soul that knew that waitressing wasn't my only gig. Well, technically Jackson too, since he was also a member of the club.

His name alone was enough to make a flutter dance through me, the wings settling between my thighs. I missed him more than I was willing to admit. I missed the potential.

I forced him from my mind and threw Rose’s cagey answer right back at her. "Same ole, same ole."

There were only a few inches between us and she closed the gap in a single move. She inspected my face with the thoroughness of a doctor conducting an exam. When she leaned in, turning her sea glass eyes into tiny slits of color, I half expected her to tell me to open my mouth and say, "ahh."

"You met someone."

I had no energy to pretend she hadn't hit the nail right on the head, but knowing I was so transparent made me want to sink into the ground. I settled for turning my head toward the street. This wasn't a gushing, happy kinda story. “Yeah, I met someone.”

"And?!" She nudged me with her shoulder. "Details! How did you guys meet? When do I get to meet him?"

I dropped my chin to the chest. Even with my shades hiding all telltale signs that I was bothered with how things ended, I still wasn't ready to look at my sister and give it to her straight. "None of that matters. It's over."

"Well, we both know that ain't true," Rose scoffed. She popped her gum a few times, a sound that simultaneously drove me crazy and comforted me. "I've never heard you own up to liking a guy. Like, ever. So clearly, he matters."

"Words like 'never' don't pack quite the punch you think when you're seventeen years old," I teased. Anything to detract from the heat that was currently baking my face. It was a heat that had nothing to do with the sun at all. If I was the kind of woman that believed in fairy tales, I couldn't have picked a better one than ‘The Billionaire and The Escort.’ Two people who were so much more than what they showed the world. A man and a woman with such passion that they could set said world on fire.

It was too soon, too raw, and once again, Rose was deflecting.

Before I could segue our uncomfortable conversation topic to the real reason I was there, the screen door creaked and the inescapable reek of booze punched me in the nose. I didn't even turn to look at the woman who wore Eau de Drunk morning, noon, and night. The smoker's cough that followed the old porch beams moaning against the weight made my blood run cold. By some stroke of luck, my mother had scaled back on her pack a day philosophy years ago and now only smoked occasionally. The cough that scratched over my body like nails on a chalkboard was that of someone that smoked a pack a day at least. And the tenor in the cough was too deep for my mother. Too deep for a woman at all.

I wanted to pretend she wasn't back to her old tricks, moving in her one-night stands and playing house until they took what little money she had and moved on to the next weak woman, but this was my mother we were talking about. And from Rose's suddenly rigid stature, she was all too familiar with the new boyfriend.

"Beautiful day, huh, Rosie?"

I still hadn't calmed down enough to turn my head and see what prize my mother had landed this time, but when I saw a hairy hand, complete with jagged, dirty fingers pat my sister's shoulder, I lost it.

I leapt to my feet, not thinking about the real chance that I'd plunge through the termite-infested wood. "Who the fuck are you?"

I hadn't gotten farther than his bloodshot eyes and I wasn't too enthused about seeing the rest of him, but I wanted him to know I wasn't afraid. Even as a ghost of her former self, my mother could do better. It wasn't that he was ugly, hell, I bet twenty years ago he could walk into a bar and women would have gladly met him in the bathroom for a romp. Now, his balding hair hung in salt and pepper clumps around a pudgy face. Beady blue eyes dropped to my breasts and stayed there. His oversized nose leaned in close like he wanted to sniff me and when he licked his thin lips, a wave of nausea washed over me.

"I'm Stevie."

Stevie. I couldn’t stand looking at his face any longer, so my eyes fell to his chest. At least he wasn’t a liar. It was the name affixed to his dirty work shirt.

He extended both arms like he was going to hug me, but that wasn't the most egregious offense. My gaze shot to needle marks that bruised his skin. He was using, and from the color of some of those marks, he’d used recently.

"Man, oh man, you look like your mama." He dropped his arms slowly when he realized there was no hug in his future. "Your mama's attitude too, I see," he chuckled. Since he struck out with me, he turned his attention back to my sister. "Nothing like my sweet little Rosie."

I grabbed his arm before he could touch her again. "First off, her name is Rose. Second, if you put your hand on her again, you'll lose it."

He put both hands in the air. "Hey, I'm just being friendly!" He pulled his lips away from his teeth. Well, the teeth he had left. "Me and Rosi-Rose," he corrected quickly. "Have become like best friends since I moved in. Practically father and daughter, ain't that right?"

The screen door swung open a second time, and the woman of the hour shuffled out on the porch behind her man. It had only been a month since we'd last seen each other, but she looked like she'd aged ten years in my absence. It used to be easy for me to see the memory of the woman she was before. The high cheek bones, the big lashes, the glow that lit up her entire face when she spared a smile. She looked worn down and weary now, and it wasn't because she was in a grubby housecoat and from the state of her hair, trying to make dreadlocks happen. She looked like she had given up altogether.