We didn’t need to reaffirm how we felt about each other, and we didn’t need to pretend like we were going to cuddle all night long. Our relationship was well beyond that point. Instead, I hopped in the shower quickly and then came back to bed to find Jason sound asleep. He was just as handsome as the first time I had tried to flirt with him. I still remember buying that tiny pink bikini and hoping that Jason would see me in it. I was so naive back then, but then again, things had turned out just as I’d hoped they would. And I was crawling into bed with the man of my dreams.
When our alarms went off in the morning, we hurried and managed to get ourselves to the airport on time. But unfortunately, our direct flight to the Bahamas had been changed by the airline, and we now had a layover in New York.
It wasn’t enough to dampen our moods, though. We took the delay in stride and even had a really fun time exploring the airport while the three of us were in New York. Clyde was having the best time of all of us. He barely fit in the first-class seats and looked so adorable as we got settled into our second flight that would bring us to our final destination.
Originally, we had Clyde sitting between the two of us, but he wanted to watch out the window, so Jason moved to the middle seat. He was so good with Clyde, just like a dream father. It still surprised me just how awesome of a father he was considering he had been raising Clyde by himself for so long.
When Clyde finally fell asleep, I took the opportunity to cuddle up with Jason and take a nap myself. The final week of classes had been crazy hectic, and I’d barely slept a full night at all. I must have been truly exhausted though because I didn’t even wake up a little until the plane came to a quick stop as we landed in the Bahamas.
“The air smells different,” Clyde said as we debarked the plane and waited for our luggage.
“You’re right. I like it, though,” I replied as I held onto his hand while we navigated the busy airport. “What do you think we should do first?” I asked.
Clyde looked at his father before he answered me, and something seemed weird about the look the two of them had given each other. I couldn’t quite figure out what it was, and all I knew was it wasn’t the normal look the two of them had.
“I’d like to go to the beach,” Clyde announced proudly.
“Right now? The sun is setting, and it will get dark soon,” Jason added.
“Yep, right now.”
“Okay, you heard the man,” Jason said as we grabbed our luggage and then loaded into our rental jeep.
The sun was already starting to set as we drove down the small road on our way to the hotel. I hadn’t imagined that Jason would really stop at the beach and instead thought he might have just hoped that Clyde would have forgotten by the time we arrived at the hotel.
But neither Clyde nor Jason had forgotten, and Jason soon pulled into a parking lot that was near a large sand dune. From where we were parked, we couldn’t see the water or the sunset very well though, so we were going to have to climb over the sand dune and get a little closer.
“This is exactly where I wanted to go,” Clyde exclaimed as he looked around at all the sand.
There were a surprising number of cars in the lot as we climbed out of our jeep and started up the path to the water. But I had never been to the Bahamas before, so I really didn’t know how many people liked to hang out at the beach at sunset.
Clyde ran off ahead of us as Jason grabbed my hand and held onto it. The sand was extremely soft, and that made it difficult to move too quickly.
“I can’t wait to see the sunset,” I said and squeezed his hand. “Thanks for bringing me.”
“Yeah, I have a feeling it’s going to be pretty surprising,” Jason said as we got to the top of the sand dune, and I looked down to see a group of people standing in a heart that appeared to have been made with hundreds of roses.
It took me a minute to figure out what was going on, but when Clyde ran up to his grandparents and hugged them, it all started to make sense. I looked around the group of people, and everyone was there, though. My parents, my brothers, their families, my friends, and even Summer was here.
“You all kept this a secret?” I yelled at them as I shook my head in total disbelief.
Jason and I finished walking down the middle of the heart, and he quickly got down on one knee. There was someone taking pictures, and I could hear the clicking of the camera but didn’t want to look away from Jason to see who it was.
“Anna Marie Cook, I have wanted you from the day I laid eyes on you in that teeny tiny pink bikini. You are one of the funniest women I’ve ever met. You’re kind and smart and just a pretty awesome person. I would be so honored if you’d agree to be my wife,” Jason said and opened a light blue Tiffany’s box with a beautiful emerald-cut diamond in it.
“I have one condition,” I said as everyone around us looked on in shock. I hadn’t just said yes, I wasn’t about to just say yes without him knowing my condition.
“Anything,” he said as he held onto my hand and pulled the ring out of the box so he could prepare to put it on my finger.
“We can’t get married until after I get my MBA,” I said with a smile. Getting my MBA and finishing college had become a passion for me and a requirement for the goals I was setting in my own life. No matter how much I loved Jason, I just couldn’t risk putting my own goals on hold to get married right away.
“That’s my girl,” I heard my dad say in the background.
“That is a deal. You drive a hard bargain, Miss Cook,” Jason said and slipped the ring onto my finger. “But I couldn’t imagine negotiating life with anyone else.”
THE END
Thank you so much for reading!
Don’t stop now, I’ve got more exciting stories for you in this book!
I hope you enjoyed “The Deal”. The fun is not over! To show you my appreciation, I’ve included a few extra stories – I’m sure you will love them all! Especially the last one should be a huge surprise for you: It’s an exclusive and brand new story called “The Billionaire’s Date with Destiny” (check the TOC!) – this billionaire romance has never been released anywhere before and is only available through this book! Enjoy!
HUNTING HER
An Alpha Billionaire Romance
Sarah J. Brooks
Copyright © 2017 by Sarah J. Brooks
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is entirely coincidental. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Facebook: Sarah J. Brooks
Chapter 1
ABBY
“No! Get your hands off of my parents,” Bailey screamed.
“I’ll kill you,” my father yelled at the police officer. “I’ll hunt you down and cut your heart out.”
“George, stop threatening him; it’s just going to make it worse. Girls, you take care of yourselves. We’ll be back for you. It’s just a few days. We’ll be back,” my mother sobbed.
“I’ll do whatever the hell I want and this son of a bitch better watch his back,” my father continued.
“I love you, girls. I love you,” our mother said as she was put into the backseat of the police car.
“I’ll die without my mommy,” Samantha cried as she ran toward the police car.
“Mommy … Mommy … Mommy …”
I woke up, sitting bolt upright in bed as the dream settled into my mind. It wasn’t the first time I had dreamed about that horrible day. It had been the moment when my sisters and I lost our parents forever.
No one ever thinks they can survive the loss of their parents. Luckily, most people never have to deal with it. But our parents made some pretty big mistakes, and they paid for them dearly, but so did we.
I remembered that day so vividly, even without dreams it was very clear in my mind. I held onto my sisters Bailey and Samantha a
s they both cried uncontrollably for our parents. They cried for hours and hours. When the social worker came to get us, I couldn’t take it another minute and finally let the tears quietly roll down my cheeks as well. It wasn’t the first time we had seen them taken away by the police. But it was the first time I had felt so much dread.
Mrs. Lynton was our social worker and on that day, she appeared unusually solemn when she arrived. Her normally optimistic attitude was gone, and I didn’t know why. Later, I would learn that she already knew we weren’t going to get to see our parents again. She had been working with them, and they were on probation. But this arrest was their last chance, and the social worker knew that they were going away for a very long time.
“Girls, we have a foster home for all three of you, this time,” she had said to us. “You won’t be separated.”
You would think that would have made me happy, but the truth was, I didn’t care. My emotions were dulled to the situation, and I couldn’t stand to be anywhere that I felt caged up. The Barristers were actually the nicest foster parents we had ever had in our ten years of back and forth between home and our parents. But it didn’t matter to me. If I couldn’t have my parents, I wanted to be on my own. I was seventeen years old, and there was nothing the Barristers could do to convince me I should stay in Wichita, Kansas another second.
When Mrs. Lynton came about a week after our placement to tell us that our parents would not be able to regain custody, this time, I lost it. I lost my teenage mind. The screaming started as an involuntary reaction to the hurt I felt inside. But then I couldn’t stop myself; I didn’t want to stop myself. When I finally ended up locked in my room, I knew I needed to leave. I had to get away from Bailey and Samantha and give them a chance to be happy. They were only 16 and 13 years old. They were still children, and they deserved to try to be happy.
It’s funny to me that I thought of Bailey and Samantha as children but I thought of myself as an adult. I was only a year older than Bailey and certainly could have used the love and understanding of a caring adult. But my heart was in so much pain, I couldn’t stay in that home another moment longer. I honestly thought I was doing what was best for my sisters. I believed that leaving them there was better than me staying there with them.
I was almost 18 when I ran away, so the state didn’t look for me very hard. They figured I was more trouble than I was worth, and it was probably better that I had left instead of causing a bunch of trouble in the foster home. Kids in foster homes were often getting into fights and causing so much chaos that they had to be placed in special units that were run by the state. I felt like I would have ended up in one of those units if I had stayed there.
Our foster parents were kind, but with each nice comment they made toward me, I felt myself lashing out at them. They couldn’t replace our parents, and no matter how nice they were to us, that would never change. It would never bring our parents back.
In retrospect, I was hurting and scared. I thought I was grown up enough to know better than the adults around me. I didn’t. But I couldn’t take back the past and the decisions I had made were what made me who I was in the end. They made me strong enough to deal with absolutely anything that came at me. I didn’t need someone to take care of me, I could take care of myself.
Leaving my sisters was the hardest thing I’d ever done. But I tried to stay in touch, and now that Samantha had just turned 18, both my sisters were living on their own. Bailey had moved into our old family home when she turned 18 with the help of a local church group, and Samantha had just recently moved in with her. It was perfect for them, but I knew they were having a hard time paying the bills. Plus, they had received some notices about owing back taxes as well. I had to make more money so I could help them.
It had been four years since I arrived in New York City with dreams of acting on Broadway. As I lay in the bed of a man I didn’t know, in an apartment I had never been in before, I certainly wasn’t living the dream that I’d had for myself. But whoever really got their dreams when they wanted them? I didn’t expect things to come easily to me, and I was more than willing to work for the life I wanted.
My life wasn’t horrible, though. George was a guy I had met while out at a club with Isabella. He was kind and seemed rather lonely. We talked and danced and had a great night together. When he invited me back to his place, I knew I would say yes. The nice guys were the best ones to spend time with.
“Good morning beautiful,” George said as his naked body rolled over and he kissed my hand.
He had been naked in the hope that I would want to do more than sleep next to him in the bed. But he obviously didn’t know that I was using him for his warm and comfortable apartment. He was a nice guy, and someday I was sure that he would find a decent girl; it just wasn’t going to be me.
Everything about George repulsed me. His pale skin, the zits on his face, they all made me absolutely sick to my stomach. But coming home with him hadn’t been about having sex or being attracted to the guy. I chose George because he was harmless. He was the kind of guy who probably didn’t bring that many women home with him, and he was the sort of guy who wouldn’t force the issue if I didn’t sleep with him. In my world, nice guys were exactly who I was looking for. Not because I wanted to date them, but because I needed a place to sleep.
“Morning,” I said as I put my actress skills to work and flashed him a brilliant smile.
Men liked it when you smiled in the morning; I had learned that over the years. It was hard to find a man to date in New York City. Most of them were so caught up in their jobs that they didn’t want to take the time to get to know someone. But it wasn’t hard to find a guy to go home with when I needed to; the unattached nature of a one-night stand was easier on a man’s brain.
It typically started as one night. But then I was sweet to them, sweeter than any girlfriend they had ever had before. We laughed, made breakfast together, and I left nonchalantly without a care in the world. But I always got their number and always stayed in touch. For weeks, I would flirt and build them up, in the hopes of finding one I could stand to live with for a little bit.
Sometimes, I came across a man that I liked enough to stay with for a week, and sooner or later I would give in and have sex with him. But typically, I didn’t stay long enough to ever have any real emotions about a guy.
“How are you feeling?” George asked me.
His hand traced up and down my arm as he looked at me with genuine concern. I had pretended to be sick in the middle of our passion the previous evening. It was a ploy to keep me from sleeping with him, and it had worked.
I did have to suffer through his naked, hairy body lying next to me all night long, but that was a small price to pay for a comfortable bed in the middle of winter. I had slept in much worse conditions and was grateful to have made a connection with George.
“I’m still a bit fuzzy,” I said as I smiled at him and held his hand. “Maybe some food would help?”
I was starving, not having eaten much at all in the last couple of days. Only a few scraps of food from the restaurant I worked at and some drinks that George had purchased for me the night before. It wasn’t unusual for me to go without eating, but I never got used to it. When your body was hungry, there wasn’t much else you could do but find some food and give yourself the nourishment you needed.
Mostly, I held his hand to prevent him from trying to slide it anywhere that I didn’t want it to go. But it was a nice touch of intimacy as well. There was a balance of intimacy that was needed to hook a guy, and I wanted that balance not to include sex.
Sure, I sometimes slept with a guy when he was extremely handsome and someone I wanted to date in the long run. But those guys were few and far between. I had expertly come up with a plan of seduction that was working for me and it didn’t involve sex at all, just the promise of sex in the future … when I felt better.
Men were predictable creatures, and if you coddled them and
promised them your body, they would almost always give me exactly what I wanted. I wanted to hate my life, but I actually really liked the attention from men. The power that came with seducing them was exhilarating.
“Would it help if I made us some breakfast? Or would you prefer to go out and grab something?” George asked as he got out of bed.
His cock was fully erect, and I tried not to look directly at it as he stood over the bed. He wanted me to see him. He wanted me to see how much his body wanted to be inside of mine, but I didn’t care. I was about to eat breakfast and then leave. I’d put George in my phone book as someone I could call again down the road when I needed an emergency place to stay for the evening.
“Oh, yes. Let’s eat here,” I said as I turned my back to George and got out of bed. “I’m so hungry, I don’t think I will even make it to a restaurant.”
I took an exceptionally long time stretching and pulling my hair into a ponytail hoping that he would finally go put some clothing on before breakfast. But I didn’t say a thing about him exposing himself to me. There was no need to say anything. I wasn’t trying to get George to be someone that he wasn’t. I didn’t really care all that much if he exposed himself to me. All I cared about was the fact of having slept ten solid hours in a nice warm bed.
The situation was unique for him, I was pretty sure. Typically when a guy had convinced a girl to come home with him, there was no doubt that he was going to get lucky. But poor George didn’t know that I had no intention of sleeping with him. I simply wanted to sleep.
As we sat at his dining room table, I took in the rather large New York City apartment that he had. George had said he was a business owner, but I couldn’t remember what he did. His apartment was by far the biggest I had been in for at least the last few months. In New York, that was saying a lot since most apartments were smaller than a typical living room from where I was from.
The Deal Page 22