Wilde Forever (Wilde Women Book 1) (2 page)

“Anthony was sure his son would immediately come to his senses and track her down but I disagreed, so we set up a friendly wager.”

Gently fingering a long necklace hung with a diamond-encrusted owl showing emerald eyes, she smiled and sighed softly.

“I knew Robert would hem and haw so we bet on a timeframe. Since almost three months passed before someone,” she sniped with a raised eyebrow, “finally dusted off his passport, I won the bet! This necklace was my prize. Anthony thought the owl was fitting because I had clearly demonstrated knowledge of our son’s foolishness that he hadn’t seen.”

Stopping to remove the necklace, Bryanna walked over to where Darcy sat, leaned in and kissed her affectionately on the cheek, then straightened and placed the glittering jeweled owl around her daughter-in-law’s neck.

“This is where it belongs now,” she told her with a knowing smile. “Mothers always know, yes?”

“Mom,” Robert choked out in a voice brimming with undisguised emotion.

Bryanna stroked his face lovingly and put her palm upon his cheek. “This woman has stood by you, given you three beautiful children, and put up with a family that is sometimes hard to deal with. I love her like she’s my own child and am proud to call her my daughter.”

The three women sniffled and reached for their purses to extract tissues as they watched their parents and grandmother embrace. It was a lovely moment that they would remember forever.

Now it was Robert Baron-Wilde’s turn to talk. After wiping away some tears with his pocket handkerchief, he guided his aging mother to her seat, kissed his adoring wife on the lips, then straightened and addressed their guests.

“Well,” he chuckled. “Following Bryanna Charles in the spotlight is no easy thing! Thanks for that Mom.” The room laughed along with his jest.

“I had no idea that you and Dad made a bet around my stupidity but I’m glad you did and more glad than you’ll ever know that Darcy hadn’t slammed the door shut on a future with me.” Smiling down at his wife he drawled, “But that doesn’t mean she didn’t make me crawl, beg, cry, plead, and whine until she finally agreed to marry my sorry ass. I’m not surprised at all to learn that you may have had a hand in that, Mom.”

Bryanna waved her hand at him and shook her head as if to imply she was innocent—but everyone in the room now knew better.

“I thought that our wedding day was the most important event we’d ever share—but I was wrong when four years after that momentous occasion our family started to grow.” Reaching down to grab hold of his wife’s hand, he bent over and raised it to his lips for a gentlemanly kiss upon her knuckles.

With her hand in his, Robert turned watery eyes on the three young women sniffling and smiling at them from a front table.

“My beautiful wife gave me a love I am thankful for every single day and blessed our marriage with the birth of three wonderful, amazing daughters who have given us more joy than we ever imagined.” A murmur of acknowledgment greeted his words.

“You know, daughters are like snowflakes. They are the same on the outside, beautiful, loving, and kind. But on the inside each is totally unique and completely different from her sisters.”

Darcy Baron-Wilde blew her children a kiss and mouthed I love you, as the girls struggled to keep their composure.

“Our first blessing was Brynn. In every way that counts she is a Baron-Wilde through and through. Her mother and I are so proud of what she’s doing and I’d be remiss if I didn’t thrown in a shameless plug for the business she started all by herself. I expect everyone in this room to get their asses upstate to visit the Wilde Bakery and and Baron’s Tea Room. We love you sweetie.”

Brynn pressed her lips together to stop the torrent of tears threatening to fall while her two sisters on either side hugged her tight.

“Two years after our Brynnie lit up our lives a real firecracker joined the bunch when Rhiann came along. Always a girly-girl I never remember her in anything but a dress and always, always with a new pair of shoes! Quite the fashionista even as a schoolgirl although her love of footwear only grew worse as she got older.”

Laughter erupted around the room when Rhiann lifted her foot and wiggled it declaring, “Jimmy Choo,” with a silly giggle.

Robert shook his head and crooked a half-smile. “Our Rhiann lives in the Big Apple now and has taken an impressive job with a high fashion magazine where she heads the marketing department. We are so damn proud of you for chasing your dreams, daughter.” Laughing, he added, “I see your mother eyeing those shoes honey and I feel a New York City shopping spree coming on.”

“Time to put my discount to good use,” Rhiann yelled out with a hooting laugh.

Then he turned a warm, loving smile on Charlize. “And then there’s sweet Charlie. Darcy had a hard time with our third and she was something of a surprise, but one we give thanks for every day.” Looking around the room as he tightened his grip on his wife’s fingers, he covered their clasped hands with his other and smiled indulgently. “Did you know that Charlize has just graduated from art school? Quite an accomplishment. Right now she’s helping Brynn at Mom and Dad’s old farmhouse and before too long she’ll be off to Italy where she’s been accepted in a prestigious art academy. Pottery and glass, right sweetie?” he asked as Charlie beamed and nodded enthusiastically.

“Our three snowflakes. The same but distinctly different.”

Darcy rose and stood next to her husband as he handed her a flute of champagne. Holding his glass high Robert offered a toast saying, “We thank you from the bottom of our hearts for coming out tonight to honor us with this marvelous celebration.”

Tipping his glass toward those gathered, he clinked his glass with his wife, and with arms entwined, the long-married couple drank.

Turning toward their daughters, they raised their glasses again, “To our snowflakes. We love you, Brynn, Rhiann, and Charlize.”

“Hear, hear,” someone called out.

It was Bryanna Charles Baron-Wilde who got the last word in, of course, when she raised her glass to all present and said, “To my son Robert, his beautiful bride Darcy, and their three magnificent daughters. Wishing you all love, laughter, and a lifetime of happiness.”

“
Y
OU BELONG TO ME, ROSE. Every sweet, delectable inch of that glorious body is mine. Trying to run away from me won’t work little darlin’. I’ll find you no matter where you go. Don’t you forget, it was me buried balls deep inside you last night, not some uptight city boy who needs a goddamn manicure in order to touch you. I’ll put my rough hands on you whenever I want and you’ll fucking like it and beg for more.”

“Shut up Jacob,” Rose hissed furiously. “Someone might hear you.”

“So what? Afraid your little bullshit secret will blow up in your face? That your friends and family will find out you’d rather slip off your panties in my truck and ride my cock like it was a day at the rodeo than smile, shake hands, and be a good little Wall Street puppet wife? Grow up Rose. You weren’t quite so full of yourself when you were on your knees with my cock pounding the back of your throat. How do you think that hairless wonder you trot around like a lap dog would feel if he knew you swallowed my come like a good girl and asked for more?”

“Amy! Where the heck are you? Help me get these damn trays back in the kitchen, would you? Amy! C’mon, I need you.”

Oh shit.
Slamming the laptop shut and turning toward the sound of her boss’s frustrated voice, Amy bolted off her stool like she’d been shot from a rocket launcher and went to lend a hand. The last thing she needed was to get caught heavy breathing over some hot erotic romance during work hours, especially if her boss picked up on the fact that the stuff she was reading was written by her own little sister. The Wilde family wouldn’t be fans of Rhiann’s secret other life should they ever find out, and this was one confidence Amy intended to keep.

“Sorry boss,” she mumbled, picking up a stack of empty trays and carrying them into the back of the huge commercial kitchen. Making sure she got them all, Amy grabbed a handful of white bakery boxes that needed folding on her way back into the shop and waved them at her harried looking employer. “I’ll sit with these and put a bunch of them together for under the cash register.”

When Amy didn’t get any more than a dark glance thrown her way, she knew it was time to cut and run. Whatever was making her boss so grouchy was probably something she didn’t need to know about anyway.

Turning up the volume on the dock her cellphone was snapped into as a soothing playlist went through its tunes, Brynn watched as her assistant scurried away from her foul mood. She’d feel bad about being such a wretched bitch later. Right now all she could focus on was her lousy frame of mind and what was causing it.

She was fit to be tied about a change her grandmother recently made to her estate. In a nutshell, the old biddy instructed her attorney that upon her passing, the deed for the property where Brynn presently stood, where her beloved Wilde Bakery and Baron’s Tea Room was located, would pass to a cousin she particularly loathed—
unless
Brynn was married and settled. Nana Wilde was a piece of work, and she knew that forcing Brynn’s hand was the only way to win this particular battle.

“Damn you Nana,” she growled. “You play dirty.”

Pushing her around wasn’t the way to go. She was twenty-eight goddamn years old, not fourteen, and she already had one disastrous marriage on the ledger to darken her past. She didn’t need or want another. In Brynn’s mind, men were entirely more trouble than she was willing to take on. An outrageously manipulative marriage clause was the family matriarch’s way of bringing her to heel. And she fucking resented it.

Brynn Baron-Wilde was the oldest of three sisters, and the least romantic or air-headed of the bunch. She left that crap to her siblings. Rhiann, the sentimental fool, was always insisting that Prince Charming was going to ride in at any moment. And Charlize—sweet, uncomplicated Charlie who carried a small pouch of crystals—offered to do a tarot reading at the drop of a hat and had an herbal tea blend for whatever was on your mind, good or bad. She loved her sisters deeply and truly, but they could not have been more different.

As the serious, bookish first child, Brynn was the one who worried about crossing the T’s and dotting the I’s. Even as a kid, she’d made it her responsibility to ensure the rules were properly followed and proprieties were observed at all times. Nana was always saying that her habits made her old before her time. Okay, maybe that was true, but at least she didn’t go off half-cocked over every little thing.

To Brynn’s way of thinking, those straight-laced habits had been a hidden blessing when she started up a business and why, after only four years, the bakery and tearoom had become a financial goldmine. Of course it took a lot of hard work, sweat, and many hours of her time each day, but she’d become a success all by herself. Nana dangling the property deed over her head like a hostage in a negotiation seriously pissed her off. This particular baby was hers, and the only offspring she ever wanted or needed. No daddy required.

Moving by rote around the gleaming kitchen full of stainless steel and wood, she went about the rituals of her workday neatly and efficiently. Sighing heavily, Brynn tried not to let those harried thoughts keep her from all the things she needed to get done. Glancing at the large picture window that opened up into the shop where her customers could gather and watch what went on in the bakery, she saw Amy smiling at a customer and flinched.

Shit.
She’d been a bitch just now and that wouldn’t do. When she was finished with the morning tasks, she’d pull her assistant aside and do a bit of apologizing. Taking out her bad mood on an employee was out-of-character for Brynn. Amy was probably wondering what the hell was going on. Groaning at the thought of having to explain this insanity to someone, her thoughts inevitably slipped into the past.

There was something to be said for the
been there done that
phase in life. It was where Brynn neatly filed any and all relationship issues; she saw herself as a classic overachiever whose only real failure had been a brief, foolish marriage undertaken the year she graduated college. Even now, so many years after the fact, she still couldn’t fathom what in the hell she’d been thinking. Roger Ellis was a sniveling bastard on his best day. Her college boyfriend, he’d cheated on her so many times there was no real way to keep count.