by Sadie Black
Contents
Indebted Part 1
The Note
The Dress
The Fundraiser
The Apology
The Date
The Betrayal
The Entire Series is Available!
Between Her Bosses Series
A Note From Sadie Black
About the Author
INDEBTED
Part One
The Virgin & The Bad-Boy Billionaire
(A BWWM Romance Serial)
First edition. March 29, 2015.
Copyright © 2015 Sadie Black.
Written by Sadie Black.
The right of Sadie Black to be identified as author of this Work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This book was published by Sadie Black. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author.
This work of fiction is intended for mature audiences only. All characters represented within are eighteen years of age or older and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. This work is property of Sadie Black, please do not reproduce illegally.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people.
Thank you for supporting the hard work of indie authors.
Please note that this is a work of adult fiction and contains graphic descriptions of sexual activity, graphic language, and violence. It is intended for mature readers aged 18 over only. All characters depicted as engaging in sexual activity in this work of fiction are consenting adults, eighteen years of age or older. Blood relatives never engage in sexual activity of any kind.
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Chapter 1: The Note
Ding, ding, ding, Ding, DING! The orgy of hand slapping on the diner’s bell is like someone rubbing shards of glass and hot sauce into my brain.
“Order’s up Brianna, get in gear!”
She isn’t going to take this well. Sure enough, Brianna nonchalantly strolls over to the window where her plates of double deep fried dollars and burgers wait for her and picks up the bell, hitting Harvey square in the chest with it.
“I swear to god, Harvey, if you don’t lay off that thing, it’s gonna be so far up your ass it’ll ding when you walk,” she hisses before picking up her plates for table 6 and heading over with a huge smile.
“Oooohhh.” The peanut gallery of prep cooks and dishwashers egg him on.
“Oh please, that girl is dying for a piece.”
“Sure Harv, man, whatever you say.”
“Excuse me, miss? I asked for a Coke, and I think you gave me diet.” The man sweating all over his plate complains to me while his hanging stomach tries to wrestle the table further away from the booth.
“Sure thing, sir. I’ll change it for you right now.” I try so hard to smile, but I’m so tired and damned annoyed right now I can’t bother. After being in school all day I came straight to the diner to work another double shift since our manager can’t stop hiring girls that flake out every Friday night after they collect their first paycheck. I throw his glass upon the tray of matching empties I just collected from a table where they left me a $1.14 tip for a $24 meal and make my way back into the kitchen. The sizzle of the hot grill and the crackle of the deep fryers make it all but impossible to hear anything back here.
CRASH!
Except that. I’m pretty sure, everyone heard that.
The kitchen staff, of course, start clapping and cheering as shards of glass and water race across the worn floor.
“Fuck!”
“Kendra, language, please. The customers!” Mr. Taylor cocks his shiny bald head at me.
I try to kill the sarcastic cooks with my death stare, “I’m sorry sir, it was an accident.” I swear, on days like this I can just see my future dental bills skyrocketing from how hard I’ve got my teeth jammed together.
“I know you must be awfully tired, you pulling this double saved my keister today. Tell ya what, don’t even worry about this.” He waved his hand in circles over the shimmering glass splinters. “The busboy will take care of it, won’t ya William? Table 14 needs a pair of hands, okay?”
“Sure thing, Mr. Taylor.” I smirk at William and head into the dining area. Serves him right for whooping and hollering about a bunch of broken glass.
Ugh, I still have my research paper to finish when I get home. Time can’t go fast enough to get to the end of this semester. Then I’ll finally finish my masters and get a real career. Waiting tables hasn’t been terrible, but it goes without saying that this isn’t my dream job. Six years of busting my ass working full-time and going to school will finally pay off, hopefully in the form of an office of my own and a fat paycheck. I just wish mama could see me graduate.
My heart squeezes tight every time I think of her. It’s been just about five years since she passed, but the gaping hole she left in my life never managed to get plugged up. I miss her every single day. Mama was the strongest woman I’ve ever known, I’m only twenty-six but I know I’ll never meet her match. Until the day she left us, she worked three jobs so she could make a better life for my three brothers and me. She wanted to give us everything, but as a single mother her jobs brought in just enough to keep us fed and clothed.
Every night before she headed out for her night shift she used to kiss me goodnight and say, “Kendra, baby, you are a gift in this world. Don’t you ever forget that and don’t let anyone else forget it either. You’re smart as a whip, honey, and I know you’ll get educated and do better than me. I’m so proud of you.”
Sure, I might make more money, but there’s no way I’ll be more driven or determined than her. I doubt there’s anyone in this world who can even come close.
Wiping my face leaves a slick sheen of oil on my hand. Everything in this place has a slight film of fryer grease coating it, after twelve hours of slinging fast food, my cheeks are no exception. It’s not that the restaurant is dirty, as far as diners go, I’ve definitely seen worse. It’s just the nature of the beast to leave your shift smelling like a fry. No matter how many times I wash my uniform, the faint scent never fully goes away.
I step up beside table 14 and stop short. Surely this guy has taken a wrong turn or something. I’ve never seen anyone come into eat at the diner in a swank, form-fitting suit and silk tie. He looks like he stepped off the cover of GQ, like his tan skin has been photo-shopped into flawless perfection. My gaze is drawn to his rose petal lips. They look so soft and are a shade of natural pink that I would be overjoyed to find in any lipstick tube.
He’s so gorgeous I can’t help but reach in and grab his tie, wrapping it around my hand and yank him into me. Hovering my fleshy lips over his for a moment I boldly kiss him, enjoying his soft lips against mine. Just as soft as I expected. I blink, giving my head a visible shake as I rattle the fantasy out of my mind. Man, I need some sleep! I’m starting to hallucinate.
“What can I get you?” My pen hovers over my notepad, ready to jot down whatever future triple bypass he’s looking to order, but he doesn’t say a word.
His intense stare turns my stomach into a million fluttering butterfly wings, he has the most beautiful blue eyes I’ve ever seen. They’re so unusu
al, with little flecks of gold and green woven through the aqua, they remind me of the pictures I’ve seen of Hawaiian beaches glittering against the white sands. Really, his whole face is sublime even if it is too serious for his own good. I can tell he takes great care in his appearance from his meticulous chestnut hair and his thick, but neatly trimmed eyebrows. I notice that his left eyebrow has a scar slivered across it, it adds a little character to his otherwise symmetrical features.
“Sir? Did you want something to eat?”
His mouth purses for a second, and I watch his eyes drift over my body. Something about the way he looks at me makes me want to cross my arms and turn away. Not quite like he’s checking me out, but like he’s reading my secrets.
“Well let’s see, I don’t know about any of this.” He nods at the laminated page of burger photos. “But you sure look good. How does a girl as pretty as you get stuck working in a place like this?”
Seriously? My fantasy shatters around me like the tray of glasses I dropped on the floor. I hate when guys talk to me like that.
“School doesn’t pay for itself, I suppose. Now did you need some more time with the menu?” Yep, I’m gonna need a really good dentist.
“I can’t imagine it’ll make much difference.” He scrunches his nose. “How about you just bring me whatever is good here, sweetheart.” He smiles like he expects me to start fanning myself and giggling, instead of grabbing my pen like it’s a weapon that I’m ready to jab in his neck.
“Look, I’m your waitress, not your sweetheart. It’s not like it’s a hard decision. It’s all burgers and fries, spoiler alert, they’re all the same! Let me know when you’re ready to order. I don’t have time for this.”
I turn on my heel and bee-line straight into the kitchen. My blood whooshes in my ears as I stomp past the fryers and out the back door. As the large metal door clicks shut behind me, I close out the world for a moment and take some deep breaths. I know I overreacted. That guy didn’t really deserve my tirade, but I’m just so sick of people making assumptions about me.
Men see a young waitress and assume she’s some kind of easy target, like we’re all just dying to go home with whoever tips us the best. In school, I’ve had more than one classmate assume that it couldn’t have possibly been the constant studying, research, and hard work that has gotten me into the masters program. Nope, it must be because I’m filling some kind of diversity quota. Even as a child, I was dragged down by people’s ignorance. Everyone assumed my father was just another deadbeat. They saw a black woman raising four young kids and figured he must have fucked off. The fact that he was killed by a drunk driver in a car crash would never even enter their minds. Until the day he left this earth, my dad was a great father. He did everything for us. Even though he was killed when I was only seven, I had so many great memories of him.
“Whoa, Kendra, Mr. Taylor is flipping right now. What happened with that guy?”
I didn’t even hear Brianna come out the back door. She already has a cigarette dangling from her fuchsia lips. She takes a quick look over her shoulder and then lights it up, taking a long drag.
“Eww, seriously? When are you going to quit?” I wave the smoke away from my face.
Brianna shrugs at me, I know she’s tired of me harping on her about this, I’ve tried talking to her about quitting smoking for years now. She looks at me out of the corner of her eye and blows the smoke away from me. She sucks back on her cigarette like it’s the very oxygen mask I worry she’s going to need in the future.
“Are you gonna tell me what that guy said?”
“He called me sweetheart.” As soon as my flat voice echoes his word, I realized just how silly it sounded that I had made such a scene about it.
“Seriously?”
“Yeah.”
“Wow, how does that animal live with himself?” She smiles. “What a monster!” she adds theatrically.
“I know, I’m just tired and pissy. I’m just a walking raw nerve at this point.”
“Well, that much is clear. Jeez, I’d love that guy to call me sweetheart or baby, or dirty little slut… he’s hot as fuck!”
“Oh yeah? I didn’t really notice,” I lie.
“Well, I only saw him from the back, but just those shoulders alone. Mmmm. Give me a break, Kendra, don’t gimme that blank stare. I know you have eyes for god’s sake, you can see he’s gorgeous. What is it with you? Do you, like, hate hotties? You need to cut loose and get laid for once!”
Easy for her to say. Brianna never bothered with college. She told me she was too young to get bogged down with a desk job when all she wanted was to have some fun while she was still young. I often tell her that she should aim higher and get back into school, but she has too many guys lined up and too many parties to go to. When you look like Brianna, with flawless mocha skin and gorgeous golden brown eyes, it’s probably a lot easier to be confident around all those sexy men.
“You know I don’t have time for that right now! I have a degree to finish and then I need to find work and get a new apartment and…”
“I know, I know.” She waves her hand at me like she’s shooing away the case I’m building like an annoying mosquito. “I just think you deserve some fun every once in a while. It wouldn’t kill ya to go out and act your age.”
Crushing the cigarette under her black shoe, Brianna smooths her hands over her long, shiny waves. God, I wish I had her hair. I swear she must have Beyonce’s stylist locked in her closet. I touch my fingertips to my own frizzy, short hair wistfully. With my feeble attempt at pinning it back, it just looks like a dark cloud puffing out around my head.
“Look, I’ll go cover your tables. You just smooth things over with Mr. Taylor before he has a fit. I will gladly go serve Mr. Sweetheart too.” She smirks. “I don’t know what it is about that guy, but he looks kinda familiar.”
“Maybe you already did serve Mr. Sweetheart,” I laugh.
Brianna gives a little snort. “Maybe, I wouldn’t rule it out.”
She goes back in the restaurant leaving me in an evaporating cloud of her smoky perfume. I should probably go apologize to that guy, and then maybe Taylor will calm down. I walk back out to the dining room, but I can see that Mr. Sweetheart already left. Shit. Well, hopefully, I can smooth this over with the boss.
I start heading back to Mr. Taylor’s office when Brianna runs over, waving a napkin in the air like she’s surrendering a war.
“Kendra, wait!” She grabs my arm, “Ohmygod! Do you know who that was?” She’s jumping up and down so much I can’t see what’s on the napkin. I’m searching my mind for actors or politicians when Brianna stops jumping and gives me the side-eye. “Seriously? Do you, like, ever get out at all? That was Matthew Blackwell.”
I’m familiar with the name. You can’t be pursuing a masters in business in Manhattan and not know about the Blackwells. They own a ton of communications and media outlets across the United States, and yet somehow, Matthew Blackwell still manages to have news stories about his bad-boy, lady killer antics every second week.
“Oh.”
“Are you fucking kidding me? Oh? I said Matthew Blackwell. The billionaire. And he left his number, look!”
I pluck the napkin out of her hand and read the blue scrawl across it:
Let me make it up to you.
I’ll treat you to dinner, something without fries.
My cell: 555-2928.
Matthew Blackwell
“Uh, no thanks.” I crumple the sheet in my hand and stuff it in my apron pocket, scrunching my nose up.
“You can’t be serious? There’s no way you’re not gonna call?” Brianna looks like she’s going to hyperventilate. “Matthew fucking Blackwell wants to take you on a date, are you insane? That guy is, like, a kajillionaire! And, he’s a bachelor too.”
“Good for him, so why is he asking out a waitress in this dump? Nothing about this sounds strange to you?”
“You’re always so suspicious! Just enjoy the fact that
a super hot, super goddamned rich, guy wants to take you out. Are you actually saying you’re not going call? Are you kidding?” She sounds like she’s going to either cry or throttle me. Probably both.
I consider it for a moment, just for a fleeting second, what it would be like dating someone so impossibly handsome, someone who seems to be able to see all of the secrets hidden in my soul in just one gaze. I remember his eyes, so incredible and yet, so unsettling. The way his custom designed suit hugged every muscle in his shoulders and strong arms… which brings me back reality and my original thought: why is he interested in me? I’m not a breathtaking beauty, and I certainly didn’t win him over with my charm by freaking out at him about calling me sweetheart.
“I’m not kidding and I’m not calling. At best, this guy just wants a date because he feels bad, at worst, he wants something else. Either way, I don’t have time for these games.”
“Kendra, come on, can’t you get over yourself for one night and go have some fun? How many times in your life do you think you’ll be going on a date with a smokin’ hot CEO? Seriously, what’s the worst that’s going to come out of it?”