Equity (Balance Sheet #3)

by Shannon Dermott

  I kissed away her tears. “And I you, mo ghràdh. You give me reasons to draw breath. Corrine and Jeremy give me reasons to live. And the three of you give me hope for the future.”

  “Mo ghràdh?” she questioned, actually doing a good job with the pronunciation even through the hitch in her voice.

  “It means, my love,” I said. “There’s no reason to cry.”

  “As if…” she said while I wiped away her tears.

  “I tell you these things so you will know, for as long as I live there won’t ever be another woman. I’ll never stray. I’m yours.”

  She began to cry in earnest. With the pads of my thumbs, I tried my best to dry them. After kissing them and her mouth, I said, “And one more thing.”

  That caught her attention. I didn’t wait. I hoped she was still in a favorable mood. She hated my money and didn’t like to spend it. She complained that she wanted our kids not to be spoiled and think that they could have anything without working for it. “I thought maybe we could buy a house outside the city.” I saw her stubborn chin begin to jut up. “We could stay in the city during the week and spend the weekends in a place where the kids can run and play outside. I could teach them football.”

  She frowned. “What do you know about football?”

  I kissed her forehead because there wasn’t a way I couldn’t touch her. “I’m not talking about American football.” She knew I was referring to soccer. I loved to tease her about the absurdity of the American name for their game of football. I’d come to know how much she’d been teased about it in Dublin. So I continued on with the tradition.

  “Okay.” She gave in, waving off the discussion of football. “On the house,” she clarified. “Only if—,”

  “Anything,” I offered.

  “That we buy a house in Scotland too.”

  My grin couldn’t have gotten any broader. This woman got me, had me. She held my heart and could utterly destroy me. Still, I trusted her unreservedly. The scales were balanced. Or as was said in her accounting world, our balance sheet was perfect. We had far more assets than we would ever have liabilities. The difference of the two was our unshakable partnership based on rock solid equity that would last until the end of our time.

  BONUS CHAPTER – LIZZY TO FOLLOW

  BONUS CHAPTER – LIZZY

  Just call me a jealous bitch. I didn’t want to be. Not of Bailey, my best friend in all the world who deserved winning the jackpot when it came to men. Her man was rich, gorgeous and a sex god judging by the noises that came from her room before she moved out. Who wouldn’t be envious, and I’d told her as much many times.

  Still listening, I tried not to turn green with envy as she gave us more good news about their impending bundle of joy. Her sister Violet hung on her every word like her situation wasn’t worse than mine. Violet’s old man turned out to be some convict who’d broken out of jail. I liked my men rough around the edges, but even that was pushing it for me.

  I twirled the ring on my finger and wondered again what I’d done.

  My current squeeze, Hans, was a model that turned into an overnight sensation. People’s magazine had named him this year’s sexiest man. He did a shoot for this hot new cologne and took the world by storm. Tall, beautiful in a Roman gladiator kind of way with Swedish blonde hair that curled at his nape, he was every woman and some men’s dream. And he was mine.

  So why was I fretting over the huge rock that hung on my finger like a paperweight?

  “My love,” he’d said. “I don’t want to spend my life without you. Please accept to be my wife.”

  My first instinct had been to say no. Or even, let me think about it. But with a room filled with witnesses, I hadn’t wanted to be the bitch on the tabloids the next day who’d embarrassed him.

  The next thing I knew, like a little Tasmanian devil, Bailey wasn’t talking, she was trying to seize the hand I was now trying to hide. It had been no hope for me overpowering her. She was pregnant and unless I wanted the Highland warrior to come out of Bailey’s Scottish main squeeze, I had to let her win this round.

  Words like engagement ring after a round of gasps were uttered. I had no choice but to fill them in on how I’d been suckered into saying yes, not that I wanted to relive that moment.

  My plan was to tell him after a respectable amount of time the truth unless I somehow decided I could overcome that Hans had a penis the size of an averagely endowed Oompa Loompa, the little people in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. The man ate pussy like a small child with an ice cream cone—wet, sticky and loving every second of it. Still I wasn’t sure it was enough.

  I felt like a spoiled child. I’d been born with a silver spoon in my mouth. You’d think finding a man who met all my needs would be easy. Not so true. In my experience, the sons of people who mingled with my parents were either overly boring or entirely too arrogant.

  Guys like my brother didn’t grow on trees. He’d all but forsaken the family money, opting against my parents’ wishes to become a cop, a lifelong dream of his. In fact, it was his fault I’d started dating guys who were the opposite of all things money. He’d unsuspectingly brought his friends around and I’d learned just how the other half lived.

  “Let’s go to the lounge,” I interjected. Why not have a little fun?

  Eventually, they’d agreed. I’d dressed in black leather pants and a cream silk asymmetrical top. The look accentuated my best assets, my long legs. My mom liked to say I was willowy. I’d been called skinny as a kid. I liked to think of myself as athletic.

  Once the girls were ready to go, we headed off in the night, snagging a cab as it let off patrons near our door.

  I hadn’t been to my haunt in months. I hadn’t liked to go alone after Bailey had moved in. When she’d moved, I didn’t think Violet was quite ready. So there I was, stepping into the familiar bar as if I’d been their yesterday. It was Friday so the crowd was thinner. This was a good thing. I didn’t want Violet’s first introduction to a city bar to be too scary.

  The sisters walked towards stools at the bar when I spotted the asshole I’d seen the last time I’d been there.

  Yeah, he was a tall glass of water on a hot day with tattoos like badges of honor on his arm and one around the collar of his neck. His dark hair contrasted sharply with my ash blonde. His manly face was almost pretty but not quite beautiful turned in my direction.

  “Look who it is, boys. I think you have the wrong place, princess. You don’t look like the type that goes slumming.”

  His voice was like a caress around me. My body jerked and I had to smooth out my reaction so I didn’t look like I had ticks. “You don’t know what my type is, now put up or shut up. I want in.”

  “Awe chicka, we don’t want to take your money,” a Latino not-bad-looking guy said next to my target.

  “Sure we do,” the silken voice said. He moved to stand more in the light. His black don’t fuck with me shirt and jeans stood in contrast to the white shirt and dark jeans the Latino guy wore. “The problem is, the princess won’t feel it if she loses it. I bet her trust fund is the size of the Mega Millions jackpot.”

  It shouldn’t have, but it stung. I hated being assessed by my bank account. I never found value in that. I didn’t want others to look at me that way.

  Never backing down from a challenge, I said, “And what is it you want to play for?”

  A round of cheers, hand slaps and leers came from the peanut gallery who’d been watching a game that had ended before I made my way over.

  “Lizzy, are you crazy. Come on, let’s go,” Bailey said, tugging on my arm. I’d been so focused on the guy before me I hadn’t noticed her approach.

  “It’s okay,” I said softly. The other thing my brother had been good at were things like pool and he’d taught me. I could hold my own.

  “Well?” I said when he hadn’t answered my question.

  He glanced over me. I shouldn’t say that. His eyes did a slow perusal of my body. I felt as much a
s saw his eyes take me in. “You aren’t my type, too boney. I like women with curves like her.” He pointed at Bailey, who flushed.

  “Too bad she’s taken,” I said, feeling the burn of rejection again because this wasn’t the first time he’d blown me off. Apparently, I liked being spurned. “And her man is like a mix between a blood hound and a pit bull. I suggest if you like your balls, keep your hands off her because there is nowhere you could hide from him.”

  Bailey shrugged when all eyes went to her.

  “The other one looks too frightened. So I guess you’d have to do.”

  “It’s not like I was betting using my friends as a wager anyway. I don’t whore out other people,” I said, holding my chin high.

  “Fine. If I win, you’ll entertain my boys and me at a place and time of my choosing.”

  The guys around him started high fiving one another and making more cat calls.

  “No you will not,” Bailey said, stepping up in front of me like she was taller than her five foot something shorter height.

  “Bails, I’ve got this,” I said, moving to stand next to her, getting closer to the pool table and guy that had my panties in a damp wad. “And what do I get if I win?”

  “Sweetheart, that ain’t likely.”

  I huffed, shifting a hand to my hip. “There isn’t anything sweet or heartfelt about me.”

  He chuckled and I ignored all the words that were coming from his friends. I even ignored Bailey who was speaking and tugging on my arm. For the span of moments, it was just the two of us in a battle of wills. It was my new mission to screw this guy until he was begging for my number. And I didn’t care what people thought. I had to conquer him after he suggested I wasn’t good enough for him. Something in the back of my brain nagged at me that maybe that was his goal all along. Some kind of backwards psychology. I quickly dismissed it. He didn’t look like he was deeper than how far he could sink his balls.

  Licking his lips, he said, “So what do you want if you win?”

  “Same deal. You can entertain my friends and me and a time and place of my choosing.”

  A chorus of hoots and more wisecracks followed. “Don’t sound like a hardship, princess. Or should I call you trust fund? If you’d asked nicely, I would have entertained you three for free.”

  “Um, no,” I said, shattering his smile. “As I told you before, she’s off limits, especially private parties. I was thinking more about a couple of boys I know who’d love to top you.”

  One was my new assistant who I’d mistaken for a heterosexual man. There was nothing about him that screamed gay. However, he’d made it clear to a woman at my gallery who had grabby hands that he played solely for the other team.

  My challenger’s smile turned frosty while his friends’ banter quieted in anticipation of his next move. I feigned boredom by yawning and patting my mouth so my molars wouldn’t be on display. Something made his eyes widen and a grin stir back to life on his face.

  “I changed my mind,” he declared.

  “Oh, you’re a pansy ass now, Striker,” I jested, using the name I’d been told he was called the first time I saw him.

  He twitched but didn’t confirm or deny the name. “Not at all, trust fund.” He glared at me. “If I win, I want that rock on your finger.”

  Bailey, who’d apparently been eating her Wheaties, tugged me to the side. With Violet, we formed a huddle, me hunched over to reach their shorter selves.

  “Lizzy, you are so not going to do this. That ring isn’t yours to give.”

  Frowning, I said, “It is mine.”

  She quickly retorted. “So, you are going to marry Hans?”

  I couldn’t answer that, not truthfully at least. I still didn’t know. “Then you’ll need to give that ring back to him when you tell him the truth. You cannot wager it in a pool game just because this guy is a major bawbag.”

  Bailey’s man is Scottish and she’s been cursing using words from his country. I think she thought it wasn’t actual cursing if it wasn’t in English. Bawbag was like calling a guy a dick, even though the word technically meant balls, as in a guy’s ball sack.

  “Lizzy,” Bailey admonished.

  It was too late. I was already committed. It might have been insane, but something told me I could win.

  Breaking from the huddle, I said to Striker, “Fine. Let’s do this. If you win, you get the ring. If I win, you play private entertainer for me and my friends.”

  He nodded apparently overconfident. My whole plan rode on luck and his underestimation of me. Bailey and Violet took one corner while his friends another. When we were down to two shots each, I was up. I easily sank my ball in the left corner pocket. The problem was the eight ball. It was so close to the right corner pocket it should have been an easy win. Unfortunately, it touched his final ball, which was behind it on the edge of tipping in. If I hit the eight ball pushing his final ball in first, he’d win. I had no choice but to waste a shot hitting the eight ball away. If I hit it too hard, I’d still sink his ball even if the eighth didn’t follow.

  After a perusal around the table looking at all the angles, he snickered, “Are you ready to give up?”

  It seemed like the music had stopped and the whole bar had come to watch. If I wasn’t chilled to the bone thinking I might have bitten off more than I could chew, I might have dripped with sweat.

  I lined up my decided shot. I took a moment to breathe before I hit the cue ball just the way I wanted it.

  DEDICATION & ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  This book is dedicated to all the reader, fans, bloggers and everyone who helped make this series a success.

  Without you, I couldn’t have done it. Without all of you => readers, this book wouldn’t be possible.

  If you love this book or even if you hate it. Please take the time to write a review on whichever site, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo, where you obtained it. Reviews are like gold good or bad. Thanks in advance, it means the world to me.

  Shannon

  xo

  Shannon’s first love is reading, diving into other realities to explore and brave new worlds. To share her writing is the best experience of all. She writes books about teen romance whether paranormal or contemporary. She also has a steamy adult series. When Shannon isn't writing she loves to shop and watch horror movies that make turning out the lights seem like a stupid idea. You can explore more about her at her website www.shannondermott.com, on facebook,

  goodreads and twitter.

  Shannon Dermott can be found around the web at

  Website www.shannondermott.com

  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Shannon-Dermott/237824696261512

  Twitter: @shannondermott

  Goodreads: www.goodreads.com/author/show/5121644.Shannon_Dermott

  Bonus chapter and other extra information can be found on her blog.

  Other Books by Shannon Dermott

  YA Paranormal Romance

  Beg for Mercy

  Waiting for Mercy

  No Mercy

  Angel of Mercy

  Without Mercy (Releases 2014)

  Have No Mercy (Releases 2014)

  YA Contemporary Romance

  Through The Lens

  Broken Lens (Releases 2014)

  Adult Contemporary Romance

  Mini Series

  Assets

  Liabilities

  Equity (Releases 2014)