by Natalie Ann
Table of Contents
Prologue
Epilogue
Table of Contents
Portrayed
Good Catch
You Always Do
Two Peas in a Pod
Face the Music
Decision Time
Upset
Small World
Buzzing
Traditional Way
Water and Bubbles
Play It Safe
Started Off
Tease
It Was Right
With You
Love Life
Deposit
Red
Judgment
Butterscotch
Labels
Wild Thing
All about Support
Make It Special
Same Thoughts
Illusion
Nice List
Black Cloud
Great Taste
Come Back
He’s Old
Lifeline
Rest of Our
Right Person
It’s Always Me
Honeymoon Phase
Believe Me
Keeping Me Going
More Space
Two Toothbrushes
About Time
Open Mind
This Is It
Our Hands
Be There
For the Best
Copyright 2017 Natalie Ann
All Rights Reserved
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without a written consent.
Dedication- To my favorite Physician Assistant—Beckie.
Author’s Note
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
The Road Series-See where it all started!!
Lucas and Brooke’s Story- Road to Recovery
Jack and Cori’s Story – Road to Redemption
Mac and Beth’s Story- Road to Reality
Ryan and Kaitlin’s Story- Road to Reason
The All Series
Ben and Presley’s Story – All or Nothing
Phil and Sophia’s Story – All of Me
Alec and Brynn’s Story – All the Way
Sean and Carly’s Story — All I Want
Drew and Jordyn’s Story— All My Love
Finn and Olivia’s Story—All About You
The Lake Placid Series
Nick Buchanan and Mallory Denning – Second Chance
Max Hamilton and Quinn Baker – Give Me A Chance
Caleb Ryder and Celeste McGuire – Our Chance
Cole McGuire and Rene Buchanan – Take A Chance
Zach Monroe and Amber Deacon- Deserve A Chance
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Table of Contents
Prologue
Portrayed
Good Catch
You Always Do
Two Peas in a Pod
Face the Music
Decision Time
Upset
Small World
Buzzing
Traditional Way
Water and Bubbles
Play It Safe
Started Off
Tease
It Was Right
With You
Love Life
Deposit
Red
Judgment
Butterscotch
Labels
Wild Thing
All about Support
Make It Special
Same Thoughts
Illusion
Nice List
Black Cloud
Great Taste
Come Back
He’s Old
Lifeline
Rest of Our Lives
Right Person
It’s Always Me
Honeymoon Phase
Believe Me
Keeping Me Going
More Space
Two Toothbrushes
About Time
Open Mind
This Is It
Our Hands
Be There
For the Best
Epilogue
Prologue
Zach Monroe heard the door shut softly and rolled over onto his other side, assuming Amber slipped into the bathroom quietly like she had the last few mornings they’d been together.
Who would have thought this convention in Vegas would’ve turned out like this?
He never figured he’d find someone that he had so much in common with, someone he enjoyed being around who talked as much as him.
Someone he didn’t want to be without. All from a trip he hadn’t wanted to attend in the first place.
Love at first sight? No way. He’d never believed in it.
Until he saw Amber sitting by herself at the bar with a beer in her hand Tuesday night.
Okay, maybe it wasn’t love. Maybe it was more like instant attraction and deep lust. That was more like it. More like how he classified any relationship he’d ever had.
They shared a few beers, then retired to his room. The only time they’d been apart since was during the actual convention.
He must have fallen back to sleep because the next thing he knew, the sunlight was coming through the large window in his room, reflecting brightly on his closed eyelids. They’d been too busy to shut the blinds. He wondered if anyone had caught a glimpse of them last night, then smiled and decided he didn’t care in the least.
Turning on his back, he opened one eye to the space next to him. His other eye popped open when he saw it was empty.
Slowly, his hand slid over and felt the coolness on the sheets. There was an eerie silence in the room right now that sent his heart thumping.
He sat up and looked at the dresser and saw the drawers all neatly shut like they had been when they went to bed.
Swinging his feet to the floor, he walked naked to the bathroom and noticed the door open and a damp towel hanging. She must have gone for coffee, he thought.
Only something was telling him otherwise.
Opening the first drawer where she’d put the change of clothes she’d brought with her when they met up last night, he found it empty, so he opened another, hoping against hope, but he knew in his heart that it would be bare.
He was just ready to look in the hallway when he realized he didn’t have a stitch of clothing on, so he grabbed his jeans and a shirt, not even bothering to button or zip anything.
As he suspected, she wasn’t in the hall either.
He showered and dressed, then made his way to the front desk. “Hi, could you tell me if Amber Dustin has checked out?”
The young woman looked up and said, “I’m sorry, but we can’t give that information out.”
He stopped for a second and then asked, “Can you tell me if there is even an Amber Dustin staying here?”
He just realized he never found out what hotel she was in. They’d spent the entire time in his, and she always had a change of clothes with her when they met up each night.
“Sandy,” he said again, reading the name on her tag. “I know you’ve seen her with me. Here’s her picture to refresh your memory,” he said, giving her a charming smile that used to melt his grandmother’s hea
rt when he was a kid. He’d pulled his phone out and showed her the picture he’d snapped of him and Amber sitting on the couch in his room.
Sandy looked right and left, then started to punch a few buttons. “I’m sorry, there is no one staying here by that name.”
“Is there anyone here with the name Amber?”
“I’m really sorry, but I’ve said more than I should already.”
Zach sighed. He knew the rules but had been hoping he could sweet talk Sandy just the same. He’d done it before. He could talk a saint into handing over his robe on a cold winter’s day, but right now he just didn’t have it in him. Bitter emotions were creeping up his spine, turning sour in his mouth.
“Thanks, Sandy. If she comes back, will you give her my card?”
Zach pulled it out and handed it over. Not only had Zach realized he didn’t know the hotel Amber was staying at, but they’d never exchanged numbers either. How could that have slipped his mind?
Probably because they were so in tune with each other when they were alone that details like contact information never came up. Or maybe it was the excitement of meeting up each day like strangers in the night.
Yeah, he was losing his mind.
The convention! He rushed through the doors of the main room to see if she was around. It was early yet, but maybe she went back to her hotel to shower and change for the last day.
She never showed.
By the end of the day, he’d given up. He’d asked a few people from the medical side of the convention who she was. Showing her picture around and hoping against hope he hadn’t been played.
Plenty had seen her, but no one knew anything else. No one knew where she was, where she was staying, or where she worked. The coordinator said that he couldn’t give out that information no matter how much Zach tried to bribe the man.
How could he not try though? There was this magical pull she seemed to have over him clouding all reason.
By the time he boarded his flight back to Virginia, he knew he was going to be on a mission to find her. Part of his job was finding and recruiting talent from all over the world, even when they didn’t want to be found. This should be a piece of cake.
How could she have done that? Just leave the way she did without a word. They still had one more night left in town.
Why would she have just disappeared like that? Didn’t she feel the same connection he did?
Once he got back to his office he was going to dig right in. And when he found her—because he would—she would have some explaining to do.
No one played him and walked away. Not again. Never again.
Portrayed
“Hey, Mama. How are you feeling?” Amber asked her coworker Rene Buchanan when she walked into the office on Monday morning. “Did you miss me while I was gone last week?”
Rene smiled and pushed herself up from the chair. She wasn’t really that big at seven months’ pregnant, but big enough for her tiny frame to need help getting up. “Like Snow White misses a poison apple.”
Amber laughed. “I love this new you. You’re pretty funny,” she said, walking over and giving Rene a hug, then running her hand over the small watermelon protruding in front of her. “How’s Junior doing?”
“He’s doing good. Eating me out of house and home.”
“You mean you’re eating yourself out of house and home for him. Don’t be blaming the baby for the growth of your butt.”
“Thanks,” Rene said, snorting.
“We’ve got all sorts of equipment here to get you right back in shape after Junior is done wrecking your body.”
Rene shook her head, then grinned. “You’re so cynical. Besides, it’s not all that bad. Ask Cole. He’d tell you he’d keep me pregnant nonstop if he had his way.”
“That’s probably because you’re horny. My sister was the same way and her husband said the same thing.”
Rene blushed sweetly. “Okay, I’m going to leave the room now.”
“No, you aren’t,” Amber said, grinning. “You started it. So when’s the wedding?” Amber asked, glancing down at the large diamond on Rene’s finger. She wasn’t feeling any envy, not really.
“We don’t have a date yet. Cole wants to be married before the baby comes and I understand why, but I want to be able to dance and have fun at my wedding, not be wearing a mumu.”
“Then maybe you shouldn’t have gotten knocked up.”
Rene wrinkled her nose. “Very funny.”
“I know, I know,” Amber said. “Those super mutant powers of Cole’s. Bet those little buggers of his can swim through concrete. You better watch it, or before long there will be a little sister in the oven next.”
“Bite your tongue. I want a break between kids regardless of the horny hormones.”
“Ah, but you plan on having more?” Amber asked.
Rene had been so shy when she moved here almost ten months ago. The last thing Rene thought would happen when she started her new job was to get engaged and be expecting a child in the first year. Was Amber jealous of Rene over it? Absolutely.
Amber had never understood how someone could find that connection with another person so quickly.
That is, until this last week when she met Zach Monroe.
She shook those thoughts from her brain. It was best to not let her mind go there right now or she might start crying again. She did what she had to do to protect herself and she wouldn’t second-guess that now. She didn’t need history to repeat itself.
“At some point. Right now, I just want to get through this pregnancy and settle into my new life.”
A few minutes later, her boss, Dr. Max Hamilton, walked into their office. “How was the convention? Are you ready to make me break out the checkbook?”
Max always said she could talk him into anything, and she could. She knew it and enjoyed the thrill of it. Besides, she made his practice a lot of money and was proud of her smooth-talking skills.
“I sure am. I’ll put all the brochures and paperwork together with my notes for you by the end of the week. You could have gone with me and then I would have had you under contract already.”
Max laughed at her. “Which is why I didn’t go with you. Besides, Quinn hasn’t felt well and I didn’t want to leave her alone with the kids for a week.”
“Is she okay?” Amber asked of Max’s wife of just eight months.
“Nothing that another month won’t fix,” he said, smiling brightly.
“Get out! Quinn is pregnant already!” Amber exclaimed, rushing over and hugging him.
“Yeah,” he said, returning her hug. “We told Nick and Mallory at dinner last night, and she’s telling her siblings today, so I wanted to let you guys know. Besides,” Max said, turning to Rene, “I figured you’d hear it from Mallory by the end of the day if I didn’t tell you now.”
Mallory was Rene’s sister-in-law and Quinn’s best friend. “What the heck is in the water here? That is three of you pregnant now. When is Mallory due again?”
“December eighteenth,” Rene said. “Just a month ahead of me. Congrats, Max.”
“Thanks,” he said. “Now let’s get some work done. Amber, you’re in with me. I’ll make sure I tell Dena and the rest of the staff when they come in so they aren’t hurt they didn’t hear it from the source. Rene, you’ve got the office rotation for now.”
Amber watched them both walk out of her office, then pulled her chair out and sat down.
She was happy for Rene and Max. She was happy for anyone that was in a relationship. In general, she was a happy person.
Or at least that’s what she portrayed on the outside.
On the inside, right now, she was wondering what possessed her to sneak away Friday morning without saying goodbye to the one person she’d felt any type of connection with since she was in college.
The one person that might be able to help her move on.
***
“Are you okay, Amber?” Dena asked her.
“Yeah, why
?”
It was the end of the day and Amber thought she’d done a good job acting like her normal self. She’d been laughing and picking on everyone all day long, just like she always did.
“I don’t know; it seems like your usual shine is dull. Just tired from the trip?”
She didn’t want to think about Vegas, because doing that would remind her of Zach. She wondered what he was doing right now. Was he thinking of her? Did he even miss her?
She’d never even gotten the name of the company he worked for. Just that he was there doing software demos on the other side of the building.
They met up each night for dinner and ended up back in his room. Every evening before it was time to meet him, she’d go back to her hotel around the corner, get a change of clothes for the next day, and then spend the night with him.
She’d never done that before. Gone to a convention and had a fling. And never before had she had a fling that lasted days.
That old saying of “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” didn’t seem like it was going to work for her, though. Not when every time she closed her eyes she saw Zach’s light brown eyes glowing with passion as he looked at her. The bright smile of his and his frequent laughter. She’d never laughed as much as she had for those three days.
Nor could she remember the last time she was truly happy. The type of happy that made her cheeks hurt from smiling so much. Probably never if she thought hard enough.
“It was a long couple of days.”
“Out partying?” Dena asked.
Everyone still thought she was this party animal. Sure, she was when she was younger. A bit of a wild one, people would say in describing her. She was more so in college. Until that all changed one night when she woke up and realized she’d been doing everything wrong. That her life—her world—was never going to be the same again.
“Nothing more than the normal. Dinner and a few drinks, then off to bed.”
She wasn’t about to add she didn’t go to bed alone. Or even to her own bed.
“If you say so.”
“I do,” Amber said, smiling. “Wait until you see the stuff I tried last week.”