The Breaking Season: An Arranged Marriage Romance
Page 28
I kissed her little head one more time after I finished breast-feeding and then handed her back to her father.
Camden easily took her in his arms and rocked her back to sleep. His eyes were only for me.
“Well,” I said sleepily, “it seems the terms of our arrangement are complete now.”
“Indeed it does.”
“It looks like we might have to make a new one?”
“Oh?”
“How do you feel about a vow renewal?” I asked.
He raised his eyebrows. “We haven’t even been married three years.”
“I want to mean it when I say that I’ll love you forever.”
He sank onto the edge of the bed, holding our newborn baby between us. “A ceremony is just a ceremony. And I believe you now, here.” He took my hand in his and looked deep in my eyes. “I vow to love you all of my days. To love and cherish you. For as long as we both shall live.”
I swallowed hard and nodded, repeating the words back to him.
It wasn’t before witnesses. It wasn’t part of an enormous ceremony. It wasn’t anything like the first time we had gotten married.
It was better.
Because it was the truth.
Thank you so much for reading THE BREAKING SEASON!
I hope you loved Katherine & Camden’s story. If you want to see another glimpse of Katherine & Camden when they go to Lubbock to see David for Christmas, grab this second chance single dad Christmas story with Peyton & Isaac in A WRIGHT CHRISTMAS coming November 17th!
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If you loved The Breaking Season, meet the rest of Katherine’s crew. Try the sexy, angsty prequel about Lark & Sam in HIS FOR A SEASON free now!
If you want to know more about Penn & Natalie, you’ll love the sexy, angsty, second chance Cruel series. The prequel novella One Cruel Night is FREE to one-click!
And if you’re looking for the story of Katherine’s brother David and Sutton, try the sexy, emotional duet, The Wright Love!
Don’t miss the USA Today bestselling series that bestselling author Jillian Dodd said was “hotter than a Texas summer,” starting with The Wright Brother, available for FREE! I’d dated his brother. He didn’t remember and I wished I could forget…
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A Wright Christmas
Chapter 1 — Peyton
Thirteen years, five months and twenty-seven days.
That was how long it had been since I’d gotten into the summer intensive in New York City and left Lubbock, Texas behind forever for the sprawling, bustling world of professional ballet. I never thought thirteen years, five months, and twenty-seven days later that I would be back in Lubbock. Not for any dance related reason at least.
“Peyton over here!” My sister, Piper, waved enthusiastically as I stepped through the revolving door with my dance bag and carry on tucked tight to my side.
“Pipes!” I called, dashing through the crowd as if it was New York City streets.
“Don’t call me that,” Piper cried. She threw her arms around me, but not before I saw her roll her eyes.
“Someone has to keep you on your toes.”
“Ugh! And here I thought I was happy to have my sister home for the holiday season.”
I released her with a laugh, pressing back one of my loose curls into the braided bun at my head. “You are happy.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Piper said, ignoring her own brown hair. She’d gotten lucky with our mom’s thick stick straight hair. Straight hair would have been much easier than my father’s curls that went straight back to his proud Mexican heritage. All of our aunts and uncles had hair like me, which I couldn’t deny I loved, but it would have been better for ballet buns. “Let’s go get your luggage.”
“I’m good.” I gestured to my carry on and dance bag, which currently contained a dozen new pointe shoes, an equal number of leos and tights, as well as enough tape wrap, toe pads, and sewing materials to make it through a season of the Nutcracker.
Piper eyed my scant luggage. “You know that you’re going to do something other than dance while you’re here, right?”
“Not if I can help it,” I said with a smile.
“All right. Fineee,” Piper grumbled. She knew the shtick too well by now. “Let’s go, seester.”
We exited the Lubbock airport and stepped out into the dry arid climate that was my home. Having grown up in the middle of nowhere West Texas, I’d gotten really good at disabusing people of their biases about what Lubbock was like. No, it was not technically a “small town.” Unless you considered three hundred thousand people small. Small compared to New York City, not to what most people thought of when they heard the words small town. Yes, we had cowboys, but it was really just a city like anywhere else. People wore their hats, boots, and pressed jeans as their Sunday best, but no one was riding their horses into town. Okay, only that one time and everyone took pictures because it was weird, y’all. Fine, most of the town was a cotton field and as flat as a pancake, but it was still home. Tumbleweeds and all.
We reached Piper’s blue Jeep as bright as a spotlight in the sea of black and white trucks. The words Sinclair Cellars were plastered on the side.
“How’s the winery?” I asked, dumping my bags into the back.
“As excellent as ever. Dad thinks we’re going to have a new vintage this year, a specialty blend that’s going to win us awards,” Piper beamed.
When I was little, the only thing that I’d known other than ballet was the vineyards at Sinclair Cellars. Our dad had worked there his entire life, starting at the lowest job and working all the way up to the top. So, that when Ray Sinclair finally decided to retire, he sold the winery to my dad instead of his kids, who had never worked a day on the winery in their life. They still weren’t particularly pleased, even though dad hadn’t changed the name to our last name—Medina. He’d chosen to honor his predecessor.
Piper worked at the winery full time. She had a real knack for it.
“That’s great,” I told her, dropping into the passenger seat. She revved the engine and then gunned it out of the airport. “And Peter?”
“With his boyfriend,” Piper said.
“Probably for the better. I have to head to the studio as soon as I get in.”
As much as I wanted to see my brother, Piper’s twin, it would have to wait.
“All right. You can probably borrow the Jeep.”
The Jeep. Right. I’d have to start driving again. I’d gotten really used to walking everywhere I needed to go, occasionally taking the Subway or a taxi. I was going to have to reacquaint myself with driving.
“Maybe I should have rented a car,” I said, which wasn’t something I’d considered before this moment.
“Nah, after tonight, you can take one of the company cars. Dad probably already figured something out for you.” She veered onto 27 South and headed into town. “Mom wanted to have a tamale marathon for your first day back.”
I groaned.
“But I convinced her that you’d be too jet lagged to eat seventy-two tamales.”
“Thank God.”
“Speaking of the Almighty, Mom is going to want you to go to church on Sunday mornings too,” Piper said.
“I’m only here for a month,” I reminded her.
“A month. You make that sound like nothing. You haven’t been home more than a few days in like a decade.”<
br />
“I know.”
And I did, but I had a demanding job.
It had been hard enough to balance life and dance when I’d lived here. I’d made time for Isaac, and that was about it. My heart panged when I thought about him, and I forced myself to look out the window as we passed through Piper’s neighborhood.
Isaac Donoghue had been my first everything. My first love, my first kiss, my first…time. He’d taken my heart wholly and completely, and I wasn’t so sure that he’d ever given it back.
I hadn’t seen him since that day thirteen years ago when I’d gotten on that plane to make my dreams come true. He’d encouraged it, even convinced me to go to New York. I couldn’t say I regretted it, but I still wished that there had been a way to have both.
Now I was going to be home for a month, and our circle was too small not to run into him. A quick smile darted to my face in anticipation. Would it be so wrong to hope to see him again? Even if I knew nothing could come from it? He had his own life, and mine was back in New York.
But he was still Isaac Donoghue. The boy who had changed my life. The boy I had loved unconditionally. The boy who had let me go.
“Here we are,” Piper said, killing the engine once we were in front of her one-story white brick house in Tech Terrace. She’d gotten it for a crazy steal right out of college and spent the last six years renovating it. It helped that her on-again off-again boyfriend Bradley was a contractor for Wright Construction, the biggest construction company in the US.
I carried my dance bag inside as Piper carted in my carry on. “You’ll be in the back bedroom on the right. Blair recently abandoned it for the bonus room because she quote needed the natural light for her Instagram pictures.” Piper shrugged. “Anyway, it has a connected bathroom.”
“Thanks, Piper. I appreciate you putting me up. Your house is way closer to the studio than mom and dads.”
“Yeah, I should have considered that when buying this house. It would be convenient to be farther south so I’d be closer to the winery,” she contemplated. “But at the time I was only thinking about proximity to the bar scene.”
I snorted. “And since when has that changed?”
Piper grinned. “It hasn’t.”
“Okay, I’m going to go change. You’re sure I can use the Jeep. I don’t mind catching an Uber.”
Piper waved her hand, already walking into the kitchen and popping the top on a Mexican Coke. “By all means. Blair should be home soon and if there’s an emergency I can always ping Bradley.”
“Are you two still a thing?”
“No,” Piper said. Peyton arched an eyebrow. “What? We’re friends.”
“Uh huh,” I muttered and then headed into the back room to change.
Shucking off my travel clothes, it felt right to get back into tights and a leotard. Sleep beckoned after such an early flight, but I had my fitting for the Sugar Plum Fairy costume and I couldn’t miss it.
I put street clothes over top of my dance garb, grabbed my bag, and then headed out to the Jeep. It took me a few minutes to get used to the hulking beast of a car. I’d learned to drive on my dad’s hooptie, a truck that took too much force for me to be able to open the driver’s side, so I always crawled in from the passenger. This should have been easier than that old hunk of junk, but it was still intimidating. After carefully backing out in the road, I got the hang of it and drove to the new Buddy Holly Hall downtown.
With the creation of the new performing arts center, the Lubbock Ballet Company had moved from their longtime studio, where I had first been introduced to ballet, on 34th Street into the new facility. I was anxious to see the studio, which had been modeled off of the NYC Ballet studios that I was used to. A slice of the city in my hometown.
I parked out front of the massive complex and ambled in through the studio entrance. The artistic director, Kathy Brown, who had just been a budding director when I danced here as a kid, was supposed to meet me here, but I was still a few minutes early. I headed down the row of studios. My heart soared seeing the enormous rooms with ballet barres lining the floor to ceiling glass windows that faced equally large mirrors. They did indeed feel just like home. Most of the rooms were empty save for a baby ballet class taught by a high school aged student. I continued forward until I found what I was looking for.
In the studio were a handful of advanced students—one black girl at the front with her partner, a fair-skinned young man with red hair and freckles, a Latina girl stood gossiping in the back with two white girls, and another brown male dancer stood off to the side, idly doing ron de jambes on the floor. Honestly, I was surprised there was this much diversity. When I had been here, I’d been one of the only non-white dancers.
Kathy stood at the front of the room, heavily pregnant, but still lithe and moving with ease around the studio. The couple started again and my eyebrows rose. I hadn’t expected to be impressed, but watching the girl at the center, I only saw potential.
Kathy clapped her hands, ending the rehearsal, and came out to find me. “Peyton! I’m so glad you’re here.”
“Kathy, it’s so good to see you,” I told her, drawing her into a hug.
“I can’t believe I finally convinced you to be my Sugar Plum Fairy. It is going to be so amazing to watch you on that stage again.”
I smiled at her. “And look at you,” I gushed. “Going to have another ballerina?”
“God willing,” she told me. “Don’t worry. She’s not due until Christmas. We’ll make it through the next month together.”
I laughed and my eyes wandered to the company members who exited the studio, landing on the black dancer once more as she trailed the other dancers, who clustered together like a unit. “She’s really good.”
Kathy nodded. “Too good for here,” she said wistfully. “Bebe is only in high school.”
My eyebrows rose. “High school? You mean this isn’t the professional company?”
“Nope. Just my pre-professional. Katelyn Lawson, her understudy,” she said, pointing out a tall, trim blonde, “has already been accepted to Joffrey for the summer. Bebe doesn’t think she’s ready. She’s only been dancing for two years.”
“Oh my God, Kathy,” I whispered.
“I know.” Kathy patted me on the arm. “Don’t worry about the company. I’ll keep working on her. She’s a little prodigy just like someone else I know.”
I flushed. Hearing that word—prodigy—even after dancing professionally for twelve years made my heart leap. “Thank you, Kathy.”
“Now, come. Let’s get you fitted.”
I followed Kathy into the costume room, happy to fall back into the old familiar feeling. I’d left so much behind when I’d decided at seventeen to leave Lubbock behind—this town, my family…Isaac. It felt almost right to be here again as my career wound down.
To continue reading, preorder A Wright Christmas now! Get now!
Acknowledgments
Katherine & Camden came into my life three years ago as the villains I’ve always wanted to write. They were entitled, arrogant, and wholly uncaring. As I kept writing them through the Wrights then Cruel and finally to the Seasons, I started to think there was so much more buried underneath the masks that they showed the world. That they’d been hurt and they had enough money to make a racket about it. We saw them through the eyes of Katherine’s brother, as the messed up little sister. We saw them through the eyes of Natalie, as the ultimate villain. Then we saw them through their friends eyes, as the people they were idolized to be. Writing who they actually are and peeling back the layers of to bring you who they are today in The Breaking Season was a treat. Thank you for coming on this journey with me.
And thank you to every person along the way who made this possible. But especially Nana Malone for help with Jem, look no one died! Sierra Simone, for loving my broken heroes and wanting to see them come to life. Diana Peterfreund for being the first person to say a reunion romance in the midst of an arranged marriage sounded l
ike your jam. And my cadre of early readers who I wouldn’t be able to get through this without—Becky, Rebecca, Anjee, Devin, and Katie. Not to mention Staci, for this brilliant cover, Jovana, for the amazing edits, and Dani, for championing this book! Last but not least, my husband Joel, who finds my twisted brain sexy.
A L S O B Y K. A. L I N D E
Stand alone companions novels about four friends on the Upper East Side—
THE SEASONS
His for a Season
The Lying Season
The Hating Season
The Breaking Season
Like adult Gossip Girl meets Cruel Intentions—
CRUEL
One Cruel Night
Cruel Money
Cruel Fortune
Cruel Legacy
Like stand alone companion novels about one big family—
WRIGHTS
The Wright Brother
The Wright Boss
The Wright Mistake
The Wright Secret
The Wright Love
The Wright One
A Wright Christmas
Like scandalous political romance—
RECORD SERIES
Off the Record
On the Record
For the Record
Struck from the Record
Broken Record
Like angsty second chance romance—
AVOIDING SERIES
Avoiding Commitment
Avoiding Responsibility
Avoiding Temptation
Avoiding Extras
Avoiding Boxset