Cherished: A Masters and Mercenaries Novella (2 page)

Yeah, like she didn’t know about those. In fact, those were exactly the issues she needed to deal with tonight. She tended to like to forget about her horrible, awful, very nasty parents, but her sister had made it so she couldn’t avoid them. Whatever secrets hottie Will was hiding would have to wait.

“I need a date to my sister’s wedding.”

Both heads turned.

“What?” Serena asked.

“I thought you weren’t going.” Chris shook his head as if to say that was a bad idea.

She fricking knew it was a bad idea, but she was trapped. Of her entire family, she only still talked to her sister, Amy, on a regular basis. Amy, who she’d protected as a kid. Amy, who had begged her to come to the wedding and then screwed her over.

She couldn’t leave Amy alone amongst the barbarian horde. She wished Amy had left her some dignity. “She’s my sister. She called me. I have to go. Besides, I should meet whatever douchebag my dad picked for her so I know who I need to kill later in life.”

Serena leaned forward. “Maybe Amy’s in love.”

“Maybe Daddy’s in debt.” Somehow she seriously doubted that Amy had magically fallen in love with the exact person who could boost her father’s company and who happened to want to get married at the exact right time. “Look, I know my father. He tried to pull the same shit with me. How do you think I got kicked out and disinherited? I wouldn’t marry the man he wanted me to. Larry Halford of Halford Properties. Dear old dad wanted to expand and he views his daughters as assets to be given away at his behest. He was born about a thousand years too late. He would have made a great feudal lord, and by great I really mean awful and unfair.”

“Sheeeit,” Chris said in a slow Texas drawl. “Well, I’m glad you’re going. She asked me weeks ago and I hated the idea of going without you. I wasn’t going to tell you because I know how you feel about it.”

Amy had met Chris and Serena several times. It didn’t surprise Bridget that Amy had invited her friends. And it made what she was going to ask a little simpler. “So which hot hubby are you taking, Serena? Because I really need to borrow the other one. Amy fucked up and told everyone I’m flipping engaged.”

Serena’s eyes widened. “Are you serious? Why would she do that?”

Bridget sighed. “She was at one of her many showers and the cousins started talking shit about me and how I can’t find a man to save my life because I’m fat—very original—and no man wants a woman who writes smut. No good man that is. The family has a problem with the way I make a living. Amy was the slightest bit tipsy and said I wasn’t only seeing someone, I’m freaking engaged, so now to avoid both my humiliation and hers, I need a fiancé. I’m thinking Adam. He’s perfect and he doesn’t scare me the way Jake does.”

Serena’s head shook. “Jake is a sweetheart. He isn’t scary.”

Jacob Dean was former military and unlike his brethren, Kai, he didn’t need to wear leathers and wield a whip for everyone in the vicinity to know that he was a predator. With a body to die for and a face that could have been hewn from granite, Jake Dean looked like a man who had once been a Green Beret and now served as muscle for one of the world’s premier security agencies.

He would be at the wedding in a work capacity since McKay-Taggart provided security for her father’s corporation, but maybe she could pass off Adam Miles as her boy toy.

Adam was a gorgeous piece of metro hotness. He was always perfectly dressed, always lovingly groomed, and the man knew how to take care of a woman. While Jake handled all of the heavy stuff, Adam was the day-to-day man. He took care of Serena’s schedule and made sure she didn’t forget to eat. He made sure she came back to earth after spending the day in her head making up stories. Both of Serena’s men adored her and they were both great fathers to their son, Tristan. Was it too much to ask that she kind of, sort of borrowed one for her sister’s wedding?

“I know Jake’s a great guy, but I think my dad’s met him so I need Adam to play my fiancé for the week.”

Serena looked at her like she’d grown two heads. “I’m not letting you borrow one of my husbands, Bridge. I love you, but they would protest. We’re going to Hawaii. I had to convince the guys to let me come, and do you know how I managed that? By offering them sex. Both of them.”

They could have all the tropical sex they wanted as long as they didn’t do it in front of the wedding party. “Well, I didn’t plan on sleeping with him. Come on.” She pulled out the big guns. She touched her side. “Sorry. It’s a bit of pain from where I lost my spleen.”

Serena went a little white. Serena always did when reminded of the day she’d almost been murdered by her vicious ex-husband and the husband of her and Bridget and Chris’s literary agent, who took extreme exception to his wife representing “smutty” authors. Douchewad. Bridget was happy they were all dead. Except Lara. She still missed Lara. Her new agent was a lesbian whose partner was a big fan, so that was a plus. Losing her spleen because she’d gotten in the way of all the murders had been kind of crappy, but it had caused her to reevaluate her life and it did give her a go-to when she needed some guilt to back her up.

“I’ll talk to him,” Serena said.

Chris put a hand out. “No, you won’t.” He pointed that terrifically judgmental right index finger of his Bridget’s way. “I told you the last time was the last time.”

“But all I got out of it was the last Diet Coke in the fridge,” she complained.

“I believe I pointed that out at the time. It’s been over a year. The spleen is now off the table and you can’t use it,” Chris pronounced. “Serena, you’re officially off the hook for something you didn’t actually do in the first place.”

“It seems wrong to have traded my spleen for a Diet Coke,” Bridget grumbled although she knew she would happily do it on her worst days. She needed the caffeine. Still, it probably was wrong of her. “Fine. Let’s bargain. I’ll let you have the next two hero names we argue over.”

They tried not to have the same names in their books to avoid confusion, but when one wrote ménage, hero names became difficult to come by. She swore her next set of ménage boys would be named Fred, Maurice, and Algernon. That was all she was going to be left with. It was a good trade.

Serena’s eyes narrowed. Yes, there was some interest there.

“It’s not going to work and you can’t trade your husband for use of the name Cash in your next book,” Chris argued.

Oooo, she hadn’t thought of that one.

“Dibs,” she and Serena exclaimed at the same time.

Chris’s eyes rolled. “Seriously? That was a joke name. And I don’t think your family is going to buy Adam as your loving fiancé if he’s sleeping in Serena’s room.”

Minor issues. “He can sneak out of my room at night.”

“We’re taking the baby with us,” Serena explained. “I need both of them. Tristan is a handful. He doesn’t like to sleep. Like ever.”

“Okay, we can say that Adam’s your manny.” She could write a backstory. After all, she was a novelist. She could craft a whole fictional story to obfuscate the truth that she was kind of sad and alone. “That’s how we met. I like that a lot. It’s a meet-cute story. I fell for him because of his amazing diapering technique.”

“Do you even hear your own cray cray anymore?” Chris asked, shaking his head.

“Adam isn’t going to Hawaii as the manny, Bridget,” a masculine voice said.

Damn it. She turned and Jake was frowning down at her. Yep. He scared her. She tried to give him a grin. “Come on, Jake.”

Jake wasn’t buying it. “Nope. There are now a bunch of unattached Doms at Sanctum. I’m pretty sure Ian imported them from Special Forces land. Oh and the doc and the lawyer. Pick from them. Any of them will do, but there’s no way you’re getting the dude who changes half the diapers. It’s not happening. Also, your father’s met Adam. He’s our client, though you should know we both think your dad’s a complete asshole but he pays his bills on time.”

Well, his PA, who he was very likely sleeping with him, paid his bills on time. Perfect.

Serena sent her a sympathetic look. “You know who you want to ask.”

Doctor Will, with the perfect pecs and biceps that she wanted to lick. “Yes. I wanted to ask Chris, but he’s already met two of my cousins and insulted their taste in shoes because they’re awful. They know we’re never, ever going to sleep together. So I’m screwed. Maybe I can tell everyone I’m a lesbian. I could hire a hooker.”

She could also interview the hooker and get some research out of this cluster fuck. Maybe that wasn’t such a bad idea…

“Because that’s not going to take away from your sister’s wedding or anything.” Serena shook her head. “You could tell everyone Amy was mistaken.”

Another way to derail her sister’s wedding. Her family was a cesspit of gossip and judgment. There was one way and only one way out, and that was to find someone to go with her, and her father would probably recognize a hooker from a hundred yards away. He was an expert, after all.

“Okay. It can’t be too hard, right? I’m offering a free trip to Kauai. My father’s sending a jet and paying for the ridiculous suite. All I have to do is take his intolerance, bigotry, and hatred, and I will be greeted with a gift basket on arrival. Wouldn’t any man want a piece of that?”

Of course, taking a neurosurgeon would solve everything, including her desperate lust for one particular doctor.

She looked around but Will was nowhere to be found. Damn it.

She couldn’t. It would be stupid, and the truth was it wasn’t like she was his type. She’d seen the subs he preferred to work with. Thin. Deeply submissive. Not the “just for fun” girls. He would hear her bratty mouth go off and run the other way. She was sure the first time she flipped someone off on the road he would dump her. That was if and only if he would go out with her in the first place, which wasn’t going to happen since he already had a trio of gorgeous women to choose from and his pick of the subs at Sanctum.

“You could ask one of the new guys,” Chris offered. “Unless you want to ask Jesse. You’ve worked with him a couple of times.”

She couldn’t not notice the use of the word “work.” Most people in the lifestyle would have used the word “play.” But she didn’t play. She “worked.” She used the time they gave her at Sanctum to research, never for herself but rather for the characters in her books. When she sat and interviewed the Doms who would talk to her, like Jesse and Alex McKay and Mitchell, she wasn’t looking for someone for herself. She was merely thinking in terms of backstories and characters and good scenes.

Will Daley made her think of what it would be like to have her own Dom.

And that was precisely why she was going to stay away.

Decision made. “All right then. I think I’ll talk to some of the baby Doms since Serena is so very selfish and you are incapable of looking like you want to sleep with me.”

Serena pouted a little. “It’s not selfishness.”

She let her friend off the hook and leaned in for a hug. “I’m teasing you. I honestly couldn’t handle Adam anyway. We would fight over the mirror.”

Jake laughed and started teasing Serena about how Adam sometimes used her hair products. Chris’s Dom returned and settled him on his lap.

Happy couples. Yep. They were all around her. Well, couples and trios. She noted Karina Mills walking into the bar holding hands with her fiancé, Derek Brighton.

So much happiness and not a bit of it seemed to be slated for her.

Great, now she was holding a pity party. Lovely.

She looked around. Beautiful men were everywhere. Even the ones who weren’t conventionally attractive had character stamped on their faces. There was no doubt about it. It was a smorgasbord of male beauty.

Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to pretend to have a boyfriend for a while. Hell, maybe she’d even find someone she liked. Someone who wouldn’t cheat on her and spend her money.

Or she could settle for not humiliating herself.

“Tomorrow. I’ll make a list tonight and ask them tomorrow,” she said more to herself than anyone else.

But her best friend was right there. Serena smiled and put a hand in hers. “I’ll help you. Let’s go get dressed and head back to our place for coffee.”

“And baby watching,” Bridget said quickly. Watching Tristan Miles-Dean had become her favorite pastime. She’d never really thought about babies until her best friend had one, and now she loved to look at the expressions he made while he was sleeping and the way he tried to eat his own foot.

Serena nodded. “And baby watching. We’ll figure out the perfect guy to ask. It’ll be fun.”

Bridget doubted that it would be fun, but at least she wasn’t alone. Chris gave her a wink.

No. She might not have a guy, but somehow she’d found the best friends a girl could ask for.

* * * *

“You’re pathetic, you know.” A sarcastic voice had Will Daley turning away from his current occupation of eavesdropper.

It didn’t matter. It seemed the relevant conversation was over, so he flipped Mitchell Bradford off and slunk out from behind the sofa he’d been sitting on in time to watch Bridget Slaten saunter off in her heels and a miniskirt that left just the tiniest smidgen to his imagination. Fuck, that girl had the sweetest ass he’d seen in forever.

Unfortunately, it was attached to a banging body and the brattiest mouth he’d ever come across.

“I have to listen in because she won’t talk to me.” Will crossed his arms over his chest as she turned toward the locker room. He kept his voice down because Chris Roberts, his boyfriend and Dom Jeremy Hill, and Jake Dean were still talking.

Mitch shook his head. “I think that’s what we call a signal in our world. You see, we’re supposed to read body language and be able to tell when a sub is happy or distressed.”

Will sighed and wished law school had made Mitch less sarcastic. “She’s not unhappy. She’s afraid of something.”

Bridget Slaten was a complete mystery to him, and he wasn’t exactly sure why, but he felt a desperate need to solve her. He’d first met her when Derek had found him a condo. Will figured Derek owed him since Derek and his fiancée, Karina, were the reason he’d nearly been murdered and humiliated horrifically, so when he decided on a fresh start and Derek offered, he’d taken them up on it.