“I can’t tell Charlotte. It would kill her, man. Destroy her. I don’t want to hurt her like that just to get the guilt off of my shoulders.”
“So you’re gonna go home to your wife and pretend like your kid doesn’t exist with another woman in some other part of the world?”
Adam is quiet for several long minutes before he says, “Yeah, yeah, I’m gonna do that. Charlotte…we’ll get through it once I’m home. I’ll miss Mere, but she’s a tough girl. I can send her some money every month.”
“You’re in deep shit, man,” I tell him. There is no way in hell he can keep a situation like this a secret forever.
“You can’t tell a soul about this, McNamara,” he insists. I know he’s serious when he switches to my last name, as if he’s giving me an order.
“I won’t,” I assure him.
And at that moment in time, I would’ve bet my life that I would never be the one to betray his trust.
But fate had different plans for all of us.
Chapter One
Roman
* * *
Five Years Later…
* * *
“I can’t fucking wait for summer,” Hugo says after he straightens from taking his turn and missing it on the pool table in the clubhouse.
Winston, my VP and a man of few words, grunts his agreement.
This round, the third of the night, it’s me and Winston verses Hugo and Cannon. The winter months are slow and boring around here in our tourist beach town, which is starting to show in the depressed demeanor of all the guys.
“No shit. Spring break is just the appetizer before the main course,” Cannon agrees.
“Maybe for you all,” I mutter. “I’m getting too old for college girls.”
“There’s no such thing,” Hugo argues with a dramatic gasp. “Easy pussy is easy pussy, prez.”
“It’s hard to take pride in something you didn’t work hard to earn,” I explain while lining up my shot that goes wide. Grabbing my bottle of beer from the bar, I take a sip before continuing on with my tirade. “Any asshole with a dick would suffice for a bunch of drunk college coeds trying to bang their way through spring break. You’ve talked to enough of these chicks; you know their stories. ‘I don’t want to have any regrets when I start planning my wedding,’ shit like that.”
“Wow, cynical much, Roman?” Cannon asks with a bark of laughter.
“I’m not cynical. It’s the truth.”
“Roman’s ego recently got bruised,” Winston states. He reaches up to stroke his black, closely trimmed beard to try and hide one of his rare smirks. “Some girl called him ‘daddy’ last week. Got him feeling old.”
I glare at Winston while the guys laugh at my expense. That was not exactly something I wanted to be public knowledge. I swear the grumpy bastard enjoys having other people’s misery keep him and his surly-ass company.
“Damn, man! That’s awful,” Cannon, one of the twins who looks like a twenty-one-year-old surfer, has the nerve to say to me.
“Whatever,” I mutter. “I’m done with college girls and their inflated pouts, obsession with selfies and inability to cook fucking spaghetti.”
Before I can continue my rant or force myself to finally admit that I’m ready to start settling down, I feel my phone buzzing from the inside pocket of my cut. And since I’m at the bar with most of the other Savage Kings, that means it’s probably a bullshit, afterhours call about one of the club’s properties. I’ve been managing our rental properties from the beginning and regretting almost every second of it, even though I shouldn’t complain.
I was damn lucky to have met Torin Fury, the president of the original Savage Kings when I first came home from Afghanistan. He thought I would make a good leader for a new chapter in my hometown at a time when I was flailing, trying to find my place in the world again. Torin even threw in some of his own money to help our guys invest in rental properties.
Pulling out my phone, I take a quick glance at the screen and mutter a curse. “Sorry, but I better answer this. If I don’t, he’ll just keep hanging up and calling until I do,” I inform the guys. “What’s up, Ernie?” I ask as I put the phone to my ear.
“Roman! So glad I caught you. You weren’t asleep, were you?” he asks.
“No, Ernie. It’s only ten o’clock.”
“Good, good, good,” he says. “Then that means you can ride on down here and tell your tenants to shut the fuck up.”
I don’t bother to hide my grin since he can’t see me, but I do try to modulate my voice. “What have our tenants done now?” I ask, finding it hard to believe that our widow renter is causing any major problems during her annual trip this week.
“It sounds like a gaggle of geese over there, laughing and carrying on. Sure, they’re some lookers, but these ladies are out of control!”
“Gaggle?” I repeat. Charlotte didn’t come alone this year? Maybe she brought some other thirty-something women who wanted to get away from their men for a week and have a little fun.
“A gaggle! Now, are you gonna do something or not?”
“Can’t you just shove in some ear plugs, Ernie? I bet they’ll be settling down before I can even get there.”
“Do you want me to go over there and do your job? I will, but I won’t do it half as nicely as you. Or I could call the police. Doubt you all need any cops up in your shit, but I’ll do what I have to do to get some goddamn sleep tonight!”
Rolling my eyes at his exasperation, I give in with a heavy sigh. “Fine. I’m on my way.”
“Thanks,” he says with a huff before ending the call.
“Something up?” Winston asks.
“Just got a rowdy crowd over in the Tidelands rental, and Ernie is out for blood.” Sighing, I hang up my pool stick on the wall, telling them, “See you guys tomorrow,” before I head out the door and climb on my bike.
Charlotte Newsom
* * *
“Someone’s at the door!” Sydney yells.
“I’ll get it,” I say. “Who the heck would be showing up here at this time of night?” I wonder aloud to my tipsy self on the way to the side entry, which is where it sounded like the knock came from. I open up since there’s no peep hole, just a screen door, and find a tall man in dark clothes standing on the other side of the screen that I keep locked.
“Can I help you?” I ask.
“I think you know why I’m here,” he grumbles.
I rack my alcohol laden mind to try and figure out why he would be here when it finally hits me.
“Shit! Oh, shit!” I say as I unlatch the screen and push it open for him to come inside. “Wait, it’s not Thursday!” I laugh and slap his hard, very hard chest. “You’re a day early, dude! You weren’t supposed to be here until tomorrow night!”
“I wasn’t?” he asks, sounding confused. When I look up, up, and up even further at his face, his reddish-colored brows are bunched up, forehead crinkled underneath a flop of curly, auburn hair.