Fool Me Once: A Bad Girl Romance

by Samantha Westlake

  "I guess each time still feels as exciting as the first time," Ruby admitted. Her smile deepened as she gazed up at me, not letting go. "A bit like being with you, I guess."

  If that wasn't a signal for me to deeply kiss her, I don't know what is. I pulled her to me, not caring about what anyone else walking past us might think.

  The diamond and twin rubies on Ruby's left ring finger sparkled as she finally released me. I'd gone with a central diamond for the sake of tradition, but added the two namesake stones as an individual touch. Ruby loved it from the moment I unveiled it, practically screaming "Yes!" at me before I could even finish my meticulously prepared speech.

  Just for that, I made her sit back down at the table, and started over on my speech, forcing her to listen to it all again before I finally agreed to slide the ring onto her finger and make the engagement official. She'd pouted a little, but the other diners in the fancy restaurant found it quite amusing – and she had already appropriated the story for herself when she spilled it to Marcus and Kelsey later that evening (who had, by the way, moved into a shared apartment together and seemed quite happy on their own).

  "So," I said, letting her down – but not letting her hand slip away from my own. "How should we celebrate getting our next consulting gig? Maybe go for a drink-"

  I stopped, but the words were already out of my mouth. Ruby sighed, shaking her head sadly at me.

  "You need to stop taunting me with that," she groaned. Her hand strayed towards her stomach. "Because if we do go to a bar, I'm going to make sure that you handle all the drinking for both of us. And that won't be fun for either of us."

  "Well, perhaps we could go grab a bite to eat," I suggested instead, making a quick recovery. I still hadn't quite managed to wrap my head around this fact, make it seem like real life. I was going to be a father. Ruby and I weren't just going to get married; we were soon going to be a family, with a child. All of this was real, happening quickly.

  But somehow, despite the speed with which everything seemed to be moving forward, I didn't feel scared in the slightest. Whenever I looked at Ruby, I saw my own love shining back from her eyes, reflected and magnified as it burned so brightly between us. We could handle this kid, marriage – everything that our lives threw at us.

  We could do it together.

  I held my hand out to Ruby once again, not taking, merely offering it to her. She didn't hesitate, intertwining her fingers with my own and holding me close. "I love you, Dane," she whispered as she moved in beside me.

  "And I love you too, Ruby, you little con artist," I answered her, squeezing her hand tightly. "Even if you are a thief."

  "A thief?" Her eyes flared with indignation. "And what exactly did I steal?"

  "My heart," I answered immediately, feeling the very organ in question surge with love for her. "Now, come on. Let's go celebrate."

  And together, we walked along the busy downtown street, the happiest people in the world.

  The End!

  Still want a little more of Ruby and Dane?

  There are a few chapters that didn't make it into this book! Specifically, I left off a few chapters of the epilogue. For most of her life, Ruby's been running away from stability - she hates the idea of a house in the suburbs, settling down as a wife, having a child.

  But maybe, just maybe, she'll find that motherhood suits her perfectly...

  Instead of throwing that whole section out, however, I've converted it into a bonus story, available for free! All you need to do is sign up for my mailing list at the following link, and you can get more of Ruby and Dane.

  https://www.instafreebie.com/free/hF2h8

  Password: Ruby

  If you're already a subscriber, just re-enter your information and you'll get the story as well, for free.

  Don't stop just yet!

  I've included several chapters of another one of my favorite books: Tomcat!

  "Dark, handsome, and angry, he glared down at me like he wanted to eat me alive - and not in a good way..."

  She's the quiet good girl, living peacefully in her cottage and content with just her cat, Whiskers, for company - until he moves into the mansion next door. A bad boy since high school, he's back in town with his newfound wealth, hiding away in his fortress. She's the mouse to his catlike machinations - but she won't play his games forever...

  Elaine Dean wakes up one morning to find that Whiskers, her fat orange tabby, has escaped and is sunning himself behind her neighbor's house, so she climbs over the fence to reclaim her pet. She's not prepared to come face to face with Sanford Welles, her new, wealthy, reclusive neighbor. Sanford's bought himself a veneer of respectability in the years since high school, but he's still the same hot-tempered, hungry bad boy just beneath the surface.

  When Sanford hires Elaine to appraise the antiques left by previous owners of his new house, she soon learns that his true intentions are more carnal than monetary. As Elaine and Sanford find their lives - and hearts - entangled, they draw closer. But when an uncovered secret from Sanford's bad boy past changes everything, Elaine has to decide: does this new tomcat truly have a place in her life?

  Tomcat

  Chapter One

  *

  "Admiral" Theodore Whiskers was missing.

  Although I didn't want to even consider the possibility, I felt my blood pressure rising as I moved from room to room in my little house. I knew all of his usual hiding spots, but with each place that turned up empty, my heart rate ratcheted up by another ten beats per minute.

  "Whiskers!" I called out, trying to keep my voice from cracking. "Come on out, buddy! Where are you hiding?"

  Nothing. Not even a meow.

  In desperation, I turned to the big guns - the wet food. I grabbed one of his cans of cat food from the cupboard, holding it out in the middle of the kitchen as I pulled on the metal tab to pop off the top. The sound of the seal breaking resonated throughout my little cottage, but I still saw no sign of the large orange tabby.

  Dammit, I cursed, trying to use anger to control my rising panic. Now, just when I had so many other problems that I should be addressing in my life, my cat had to vanish.

  I set the open can of cat food down on the counter, vaguely hoping that maybe Whiskers would come out and approach it on his own. He wasn't what anyone could call slender or svelte, after all, and he'd grown used to getting his can of wet food in the morning, chowing down while I dosed myself with caffeine. I picked up my still-steaming cup of coffee, taking a sip and hoping that the jolt of energy would bring inspiration with it.

  Should I call the police? The Truckee Firefighting Department? I knew that they (firefighters) were the ones to call about cats stuck in trees, at least according to popular myth, but I didn't know what they could do about missing cats. Thank goodness that I didn't have any children, I thought grimly to myself. I couldn't even keep a damn cat without losing him - and then panicking.

  Okay, Elaine. You can handle this. Just stay calm.

  What would a calm, normal, rational person do in this situation?

  I took another sip of my coffee, focusing very hard on keeping my hand from trembling. There we go, I told myself. Just relax. Everything is under control. No need to panic.

  A normal person wouldn't bother calling out Whiskers' name, because he never responded to his name. I didn't even know if he knew his name - how could I tell?

  So, running around the neighborhood frantically shouting out "Admiral Theodore Whiskers!" was out.

  A normal person would first search her house, looking for where her damn cat might be hiding. Check. I'd already checked all of his usual nooks and crannies, with no luck.

  Next, a normal person would look for possible escape routes. How could he have gotten out? I normally kept the house on tight lockdown, since he'd previously shown that he was willing to claw through a screen door-

  My eyes drifted up, above the sink full of dirty dishes that I'd been meaning to roll up my sleeves and wash for the last
few days. They settled on the open window above the sink, my curtains flapping gently in the slight spring breeze that blew into my little cottage from the outdoor world.

  Dammit.

  Okay, my cat has managed to get outside. But he can't have gotten far, I'm sure. He's a big, fat, lazy orange lump, and he's not especially inquisitive. I bring home cat treats and toys for him all the time, and he usually only prods them for a minute or two before giving up on them and pretending that they don't exist. He wouldn't be tempted to run away.

  Sure, because cats are totally logical creatures. Right.

  I took a deep breath, downed one more gulp of my coffee, and then headed outside. "Here, Admiral Whiskers," I called out softly, just in case anyone I knew happened to be out for a morning jog and passed by my house. Didn't want to give the impression that I'd gone totally around the bend. "Here, kitty kitty. Where are you?"

  There weren't many places in my sparse backyard for my cat to hide, at least. The grass was fairly short, most of it slowly turning brown from lack of water and attention. I most definitely did not possess a green thumb. A couple scraggly bushes stood around the edges, up against the wooden fence that separated my backyard from the Winterhearst mansion on the property next door. At least that fence would surely prevent my cat from getting out of the yard - it stood a little over five feet high, made of wooden slats bolted onto beams running the length of my yard-

  -and as I looked up at the fence, I saw a fat orange blob sitting on top, looking very satisfied with himself.

  "Whiskers!" I burst out, glaring at my fat, rude asshole of a cat as he perched on top of a fence that he shouldn't have been able to climb, casually staring back at me. "Get down from there right now!"

  A little voice inside my head pointed out that I was talking to my cat, trying to give him orders. Maybe I really had finally snapped and lost it, that voice suggested. Poor Elaine Dean, not even thirty-five, already going crazy. It's all that time without a boyfriend, with no one around but her cat. She's lost it, started acting like her cat is a real person. She'll probably end up as a recluse, dying alone inside her house and only being found after her cat's managed to eat most of her face.

  I told that little voice inside my head to hush. I wasn't crazy. I might not have a boyfriend, or even any potential male suitors on the horizon, but I wasn't about to lock myself in my house and give up all contact with the outside world.

  At the very least, thanks to the wonders of Amazon and free two-day shipping, I'd be able to get my hands on plenty of cat food.

  I shook my head, blinking in the chill of the early morning as I stood in the warm sunlight. First things first. I needed to retrieve my cat.

  I slowly crept across my backyard towards the fence where Whiskers perched, trying to appear innocuous and unthreatening. "That's a good kitty, just sit there," I muttered to him as he regarded me balefully out of the corner of one eye. "Just relax, and let me get within arm's reach so that I can snatch you up and put you back in your prison..."

  My soft words seemed to be working. Whiskers shuffled his bulk a little bit as he perched on the top bar of the fence, but he didn't seem inclined to move. I reached the edge of my yard, slowly stretching out a hand towards the cat. Just a few more inches, and I'd be able to grab him by the chubby scruff of his neck...

  And then, just as my fingers brushed against his fur, the cat jumped down from the fence.

  On the other side.

  Into the backyard of the Winterhearst mansion, the building next door to my cottage.

  Double dammit.

  For a moment, I stood there frozen in place, my hand still outstretched as if hoping that I could summon my cat back up onto the fence. I lowered it after another couple of seconds and instead stepped forward, rising up on my tiptoes to give myself just enough height to peer over the wooden slats of the fence.

  Sure enough, Admiral Theodore Whiskers sat on the other side. The backyard of the Winterhearst mansion next door to me was overgrown and needed a good mowing, but Whiskers had moved through the long grass up to sit on the wooden deck of the central patio, right in the middle of a sunbeam. He'd already closed his eyes and flopped down on his side, and I could practically hear his loud, not-quite-even purring from the fence.

  After giving him a very rude gesture, I stepped back from the fence and considered my options.

  I could go around to the front of the Winterhearst mansion, heading down the sidewalk in front of my little cottage to the much larger, imposing, foreboding mansion next door, and see if anyone answered the bell. I didn't have much faith in this approach.

  I frowned, my gaze panning from where Whiskers sat and sunned himself up to the house itself. It was the biggest house in Truckee, and had stood on this corner for nearly a hundred years. At some point in its history, one of the former owners of Winterheast mansion painted the entire building a dark navy blue, very nearly black. The color had faded over time, lightening to more of a dull, heavy gray, but it still looked gloomy, even in the morning sunlight.

  For many years, I knew that the mansion had stood empty, that I hadn't had any neighbors. But I remembered my best friend, Della, mentioning something a couple weeks ago about someone new moving in. I tried to think back to recall exactly what she'd told me, but I drew a blank on any details. Maybe there was someone living there, maybe not.

  Given that this newcomer hadn't chosen to greet his neighbor, me, I decided that he probably wasn't the friendly sort. He likely wouldn't be happy, then, if I woke him up this morning by knocking on his front door and asking for permission to go into his backyard and retrieve my jerk of a fatass cat.

  What else could I try?

  My gaze moved back down to the fence itself, and I frowned in consideration. It was a fairly sturdy looking fence, and although the sides were sheer, thanks to the vertical boards that formed tight slats, it didn't look impossible to scale...

  A little part of my brain yelled at me that this was crazy, that I was acting like an impulsive, crazy person, but I told that voice in my head to shut up, and advanced towards the fence. I grabbed an old lawn chair that had been mouldering in my backyard and pulled it up against the fence, bracing it and then using it as a step. There, halfway over already. Now, I just needed to lift up one leg and swing it up and over...

  Success! I managed to get one leg swung over the top of the fence between me and my neighbor's yard, and sat triumphantly on top of the fence. I didn't stay there for long, however, because although the boards had been worn a bit by weather, they were still somewhat sharp and splintery, poking into all sorts of uncomfortable places between my legs.

  I tried not to think about the fact that I couldn't remember the last time I'd had someone else poking into those regions. When straddling a five foot tall fence, Elaine, it's not the time to lament your lack of a love life, I admonished myself.

  Focus on climbing. Now that I'd gotten one leg over, I just had to very carefully lift up my other leg and swing it over next to its partner. That way, I'd be sitting on top of the fence with both of my legs dangling down into the Winterhearst backyard. Five feet wasn't that high, after all. I could just sort of lean forward, once I'd pulled myself into this sitting position, and drop down easily into the yard on the other side.

  I just had to get my other leg up and over. For some reason, that leg didn't want to release its stance on top of the lawn chair. I wavered, torn between my leg's reluctance to move, and the growing pain of getting poked by the tops of these weathered, splintery boards.

  No more time. Move and drop, one smooth motion. Just pull the leg up, lean a little too the side to bring it over but whatever I do, I can't overbalance-

  "Whoop!"

  Ouch. That didn't go as I planned.

  Before I landed, I caught a split-second glimpse of Whiskers looking up at me, his eyes slitted, as if wondering why his human was so stupid.

  Chapter Two

  *

  "Who are you?"

  I ope
ned one eye, and immediately regretted it.

  Most of what I could see was green, and most of what I could feel was pain. I was pretty sure that I'd heard a voice speaking out loud, but I ignored it for the moment as I took stock of my situation, replaying the last couple seconds of my life with a grimace.

  I'd swung my other leg over the fence, overbalanced, and gone toppling down on the other side. I remembered the overgrown grass rushing up to meet me. Where this annoyed voice had come from, I couldn't say.

  I let my mind reach out along the different nerve endings in my body, checking for damage. One of my legs hurt - I must have twisted it underneath me when I landed - and my forearm felt like it had scraped against something, but nothing seemed permanently broken or otherwise disabled.

  With a grunt of pain, I pulled myself up, getting up first to my hands and knees before rising all the way back up to a standing position. I opened my other eye, and now saw a pair of legs standing in front of me, clad in dark jeans.

  These legs must belong to the owner of the voice I'd heard earlier. "Seriously, who are you?" the voice asked again, and sure enough, the sound came from above the pair of legs. "How did you get in here?"

  "I'm just here for my cat," I muttered back, taking a deep breath and pushing myself up to my feet. I'd definitely landed badly on one leg, and it wobbled dangerously beneath me for a moment, but I managed to keep from losing my balance as I stood. "I just hopped over the fence because he made it look so easy-"

  Now standing, my eyes finally traveled up from the pair of legs to the body on top of them, and I froze.

  A tall, imposing man stood in front of me, glaring down at me from his considerable height. He had to be at least six feet tall, I saw, with a chiseled face and hard body, topped with a stormy scowl. He wore a white button-up shirt that looked tailored to his body, showing off a flat stomach and strong arms, and his dark, nearly-black hair looked perfect as it lay back against his head, with not a single strand out of place.