by Briner, Rose
Book Description:
My name is Mireya Morehouse. I live in a big fancy house and have everything that money could ever buy. But what if I told you that everything about my life here is a lie?
I married a rich and powerful businessman who I barely knew. He took me away from my previous life life and gave me a new one with no questions asked.
But I have a secret. I only married him so I could find my sister. He doesn’t know that part.
But as with most things, nothing is ever as it appears, and things never work out the way you expect them to. I wasn’t supposed to love him. Hell, I wasn’t even supposed to like him, but here we are and now I’m screwed.
This book is dedicated to the people who said that one day I would write a novel.
Copyright
©2015 Rose Briner
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Prologue
My name is Mireya Morehouse. I have a life that most people would kill for. I still can’t believe the life I now live. If someone told me six months ago I would be married to a handsome, rich and powerful businessman, I would’ve laughed in their face. Men like him don’t notice women like me. They like tall, model thin blondes, not short brunettes like myself.
I don’t know what Jayden Leopold saw in me when I crashed into him on that busy street corner late one afternoon, but whatever he saw was enough for me to capture his attention. Our courtship was fast, only lasting about four weeks before he whisked me away to Cancun to elope and then he moved into his mansion in Cove Neck, New York. Cove Neck is just about an hour outside of New York City, where Jayden runs his own investment firm. Like I said, this man has money coming out of his ass.
This life is a far cry from my life in Seattle and even further from the one I’d been living since moving to New York. I’m happy to be out of there and start a new life, I just wish that my life started under better circumstances. You see, what my handsome and rich new husband doesn’t know is that I only married him so I could find my younger sister, Katrina.
Katrina was always so much more of a free spirit than I ever was and loved to meet guys. For as long as I can remember she’s been into boys and I’ve always had my nose buried in whatever novel I could find at the library at the moment.
About a week before she disappeared, she was going on and on about some handsome older man she met at a new club in New York City called Orchid Boiler and told me that the man wanted to take her on a magical weekend getaway. The second she told me all about it, I knew something was off and the whole thing. But when I tried to voice my opinion all I got from her was her usual response.
“You worry too much, Mireya. You need to let loose a little bit and just live life one day at a time. That crap you always have your faced buried in isn’t going to land you a guy or a future of any sort. Besides, he’s rich and wants to spoil me, who am I to say no?”
Typical younger sister. She’s five years younger than me and just turned twenty-one. I feel old compared to her now, even though I just turned twenty-six. She always made me feel like I was her mother. Believe me, I’m not trying to be her mother. Our real mom died a few years back and while I did step into the mother role for a while, I could never replace our mother, nor do I have any desire to do so.
My mother reminded me so much of the way Katrina is now. They both jumped from man to man and the second they found a handsome man promising to buy them expensive things that sparkled, they swooned.
For me, when I finally do fall in love, I want it to be with a man that I love for his personality. Sure, having good looks is a plus, but I wouldn’t chase a man just because he’s rich. That right there is gold digger status.
So you might be asking yourself how we ended up living in New York City. Well, like I said, my mother had a thing for rich men. Her death was right on the heels of her marrying such a man. She died mysteriously on their honeymoon. We didn’t stick around long after that. Just long enough for the funeral and for the Will to be read. The second I discovered she left us a decent size sum of money, I used it so we could run away.
Katrina didn’t want to go, but she had little choice at the time since she was only sixteen. I didn’t want to stick around to find out what would happen to us with our new stepfather. The moment he mentioned, no excuse me, ordered us to move in with him, that was the second I decided it was time to go. I suspect he had something to do with her death.
Do I have proof? No, but my gut is telling me something wasn’t right, so I didn’t think, I just did it. The issue is, Katrina became harder and harder to control as she got older and now she’s completely out of control, and I’m afraid that history is going to repeat itself. Especially since Katrina has been missing for three months now.
So you are probably wondering who this man was and how I ended up married to Jayden. Well, in order to give you that answer, I must travel back three months to the time of her disappearance. Jayden is not the man who my sister ran off with, however, he is on their side. You have to be when Hayden is your older brother.
Chapter One
Three months ago…
I’ve already had a craptastic day by the time I get home. The money my mother left us is quickly disappearing with the way Katrina has been behaving and with her constantly going out. On top of everything else going on in my life, I just got fired from my job at the coffee shop. The owner thinks I’m in love with her boy toy, so she let me go, too bad she doesn’t realize he’s sleeping with everyone except for me. I’m still a virgin.
The day gets a hell of a lot worse when I get home.
Slamming the door shut behind me, I’m ready to just grab a tub of ice cream and watch sappy romance movies for the remainder of the weekend. I’ll figure out what to do for money when Monday rolls around.
I bang my head against the closed door a couple of times before I finally turn to look at the room behind me.
I sigh when I look around the space before me. The space is small enough as it is having only a small kitchen with one table and a living room that only consists of a couch and a small television. The space looks even smaller with all the clothing strewn all over the place.
Damn Katrina.
I glare at her door as I walk past her room and over to mine. I take my clothes off, throwing them in the garbage in the corner. I don’t want any reminder of today. I pull out my most comfortable pair of pajamas, throw my hair up into a ponytail, and walk back out of my room.
I make it about five steps past her door before I’m backpedaling to her door once more.
“You look nice tonight,” I tell her as I walk past her and sit on her bed uninvited. Normally, she would’ve slammed the door in my face, but not tonight. Tonight, I want to know where she got the money for that dress. There’s no way she was able to afford that dress on her salary. She’s only working part time at the grocery store. She doesn’t take being an adult very seriously.
“I’m going out to the Orchid Boiler again tonight, want to come?” she asks, meeting my eyes in the mirror. Her dark brown eyes glimmer back at me, challenging me.
I know what she’s doing, she’s mockin
g me because she already knows I’m going to refuse to go out with her.
“Where did you get that dress, Katrina? You know we can’t afford it,” I remind her, ignoring her asking me to go out with her.
“Has anyone ever told you that you worry too much?” she asks me all the while puckering her lips as she fluffs her long, dark brown hair. The sad thing is that she really doesn’t look worried about the amount of money that dress cost.
“Someone around here has to worry about how we are going to survive,” I mumble while rolling my eyes at her.
“You really do worry too much, Reya. You sound like mom when you do that.”
I can’t take anymore of this conversation. Any time I tell her we need to watch how much we spend, she brings up mom. It still hurts to think about her. Some wounds never do fully heal. That’s something she doesn’t seem to comprehend even after all this time.
“Besides, I didn’t buy this dress, Hayden did.”
Well that has my attention and has me returning to sit down on her bed.
“And who is Hayden?” I ask her when she fails to elaborate.
“He’s the man that will make all of our worries go away. He wants to take me away for the weekend. I really like him a lot. He says he has a brother who would love to meet you.”
“When were you planning on telling me about him? How long have you even known this guy?” It can’t have been for very long. She was just at that club last weekend and she never mentioned meeting anyone before now.
She drops her lipstick down on her vanity before turning fully to face me. Here we go, I know she’s about to start shit.
“You worry too much, Mireya. You need to let loose a little bit and just live life one day at a time. That crap you always have your face buried in, isn’t going to land you a guy or a future of any sort. Besides, he’s rich and wants to spoil me, who am I to say no?”
“I’ll be ready in twenty minutes, don’t leave without me,” I tell her as I storm past her and over to my room to get ready.
I know I’m probably going to regret this decision, but this has trouble written all over it and I have to make sure this guy isn’t some sort of serial killer.
This is going to be a long night.
Chapter Two
I hate this place already and we haven’t even gotten out of the car yet.
This guy must really like my sister for him to send a town car to pick us and her friends up.
I already have a headache listening to my sister and her little posse squeal and swoon about how handsome this man is and how lucky Katrina is. If you ask me, he’s just looking to get laid and my sister is blind to see beyond the flashy things and the money he’s throwing in front of her face.
When we pull up out front and I get my first look at this hip new place my sister seems hell bent on spending all of our money at, I groan. Not like the girls can hear me anyways, they’re too busy bouncing in their seats and shrieking like a pack of wild banshees.
They step out of the car first and stand on the sidewalk tapping their heels at me like I’m somehow slowing their night down.
I get out of the car and shut the door behind me as I turn to look up at the flashing neon green sign and snort at it. This earns me a glare from the girls. I swallow and motion for the girls to proceed towards the line.
The line is so long, it wraps around the corner and out of my line of sight. I look down at feet and smile to myself since I seem to be the only one who wore sensible shoes tonight. I just don’t see the point in wearing shoes that you can barely walk in.
My smile falters as I really look at the people in the line and then back over at my sister and her friends. I’m severely underdressed with my blue jeans and pink blouse. I didn’t even bother to do my hair since I’m not really looking to impress anyone, choosing instead to just leave it up in the simple ponytail I already had it in before we left.
I see now that was a mistake. The three bouncers guarding the door will never let me through looking the way I do right now.
“Come on, Reya,” Katrina whines, tugging on my arm to regain my attention.
She’s desperate, so I just allow her to pull me behind her and towards the front of the line. I just know he’s going to turn us away.
“Good evening, Miss Morehouse, Hayden said to head straight up to the VIP,” greets the biggest bouncer as he pushes the door open and allows the girls to pass through. When my turn arrives, he suddenly stops me by closing the door so I can’t enter.
“I’m with Katrina,” I tell the man when he blocks my access to the door.
“Oh, I know that, but I need to check your ID before I allow you to go inside. Club policy. Since we’ve never seen you here before, we have to check it.”
“Okay, no problem,” I smile up at him as I dig out my ID and hand it to him.
He looks it over for far longer than it should take to look at someone’s ID to determine their age before he readjusts his earpiece.
“Yes, Sir,” he responds to whomever he’s speaking to. He then hands me back my ID and pushes the door open for me.
Just like I thought, my sister and her friends aren’t waiting for me inside. I doubt they would’ve noticed if the bouncer sent me away and never let me in.
“Excuse me,” I get the attention of the bouncer standing just inside the door of the club. “Do you know where the VIP section is?”
He gives me a look as if to say, ‘no shit’, and says something to me that I can’t hear over the dance music pumping through the place. Lucky he points in the direction of the rear of the club so I don’t have to stand there and look like a complete idiot.
The journey to the back of the club is a long and hard one. Between the loud music, low lights, and people dancing in nearly every available corner, it’s nearly impossible to walk through the place. I feel like the fire marshal is going to show up at any moment and shut the place down.
I finally spot the roped off area with a man standing guard with another clipboard.
Just great, another person I have to get through. Their security here is pretty tight. I look above the man and spot several security cameras. I bet the only place you can get some actual privacy around here is in the bathroom and even then, I wonder if they watch the inside of there as well.
I step up to the man, even though I know there is a strong possibility he’s going to tell me to get lost.
“Hi, I’m looking for my-”
“Name?” grunts the bouncer.
“I’m probably no-” I start to tell him when he cuts me off again.
“Name?” he grunts again.
I sigh loudly and roll my eyes. “Mireya,” I finally respond when it becomes apparent he has no intention of listening to anything else I have to say.
I’m surprised when he lets me through the rope and points where there’s a set of stairs.
“Take the stairs to the top, your table is the largest one in the very left corner,” he says pointing behind him.
I step away from him and in the direction of the stairs, but when I get to the base of the stairs, I stop and turn to look back in the direction of the main club. The bouncer has his back to me again, almost like he never noticed I was here to begin with.
I turn back to the stairs and make my way up to the top. When I get there, the same music is playing, but the volume isn’t as loud up here. There are people up here, but it is far less crowded than the downstairs level is.
This section is far more elegant and everything looks clean and brand new. There are about a dozen tables, a few booths, a couch, and a full bar at the back of the room right next to the small dance floor.
The dance floor is full of people, most of which consist of my party and a few men keeping them company.
I sigh and walk over to the place where the bouncer told me to go, but instead of a table, all I find is a booth with some drinks on it. I know have the right table when I spot my sister’s signature drink, the champagne cocktail. To her, doesn�
�t matter what flavor as long as it tastes great. Which usually translates into the most expensive kind, and for sure they are expensive, especially in this place.
I slide myself down so I’m sitting near the edge and prepare myself for a long night.
“Would you like something to drink?” asks a pretty cocktail waitress. Even she looks better dressed than I am right now.
“Just a coke would be great,” I tell her.
She gives me a funny look before she heads back towards the bar, only to return a few minutes later with my drink and several others that she deposits on the table before returning back to the bar once more.
I just sit there and sip on my coke for a while, watching the people on the dance floor. All of them look like they belong here as they laugh and have a good time. I seem to be the only one who doesn’t fit in here.
My attention turns to my sister when I hear a high pitched, unladylike scream. I watch as she throws herself into the arms of one of the approaching men and right away, sirens are going off in my head. He’s much older than she is and just screams money. To me, it’s crystal clear he sees her as a piece of ass. Especially when his hands travel down to her ass and he uses it as leverage to lift her up and crush his lips down onto hers. At that point, I force myself to look away from them and focus on the other men standing behind him.
Every last one of them looks like him, loaded. All of them look like they belong on the Gucci runway. Each has their own unique look and style, but one of the men looks like a younger, carbon copy of Hayden. That must be the brother she spoke of earlier in the evening. I’m sure he’s just like his brother and is looking for a piece of ass. They have to be, with men that look like them, tall, blonde, clean cut, and wealthy; they have to be just looking for a piece of ass. Men like that don’t go after women like us, not even women as good looking as my sister. I suspect he’s at least ten years older than she is, and men like that tend to only look for women that put out, not women they can take home to momma or even marry.