Hidden Read online

  David and his sister were unable to form words, so she took over and hoped she was doing the right thing.

  For whatever reason, when she stepped forward Amy offered a supportive wink at Quinn, who wore a worried expression. She felt for her.

  Throwing off years of bitchified control and admitting she was wrong hadn’t been easy, but now Amy understood why.

  “Judge Karalis?” she said with her hand out. “I’m Amy Peters, sir.”

  Quinn colored beet red and groaned. “Oh, my dear. I’m so sorry. Where are my manners?”

  She turned in her seat and addressed the Judge.

  “Adrian, this is my son’s girlfriend. Amy.”

  Amy was certain she had more to say by means of an introduction but the gregarious gentleman scoffed as he took her hand and whipped out a greeting that deserved honorable mention in the Holy Shit encyclopedia.

  “Ah, Amy! The Violet vanquisher! Well played, my dear. David’s mama was impressed, young lady! Brava.”

  There was a better than good chance she was about to swallow her tongue.

  And then a surge of love and hilarity blew away any hope of playing a sensible or ladylike part in any of this.

  “Oh my god,” she laugh-blurted. “I think I love you, Judge. May I give you a hug?”

  He barked out a series of laughs and grabbed her for a mighty bear hug. “We teach these Sandersons how to be real, eh?”

  Missy squealed with delight and ran at them to join in. “I’m Melissa, and I want to know everything!” she yipped with happy enthusiasm. “Where did you meet? How long has this been going on?”

  Quinn snorted but did nothing except watch them with an expression of sheer delight.

  “No more secrets!” the Judge hollered. “It’s better when everything is in the open, yes?”

  She and Missy nodded enthusiastically.

  A man loaded down like a packhorse with camera equipment came to the alcove. Garrison whispered something to him, nodded at Quinn and then left with Davinia Paolini in tow.

  Everyone in the room was looking at Quinn—waiting for whatever came next. Even the Judge.

  She stood slowly and nervously wrung her hands for a moment. Amy caught the uncharacteristic behavior and held her breath.

  Sounding every inch the woman Amy had always known, respected and yes, sometimes feared—she watched as Quinn Sanderson gathered the pile of scraps that till now represented her family, and made a neat mosaic out of the mess.

  “I’m sorrier than you know my children that you didn’t feel you could include me in your happiness.”

  She turned a smile on the portly Judge. “Adrian has helped me see what a fool I’ve been. With the launch of David and Amy’s project,” she said with great meaning and a nod in her direction, “we start anew and turn the page. I’d like,” she stammered with a bit more hand wringing, “Well, I’d like a group picture to use in the press releases.”

  “Whoa,” Missy muttered.

  “And after the launch?” Judge Karalis informed them with dramatic gravitas. “I’m taking Quinn to Greece. For a vacation. She’s never seen the Mediterranean,” he added with clear affront. “Can you imagine?”

  After that small reveal-bomb, Quinn went into business mode, directing everyone into their appointed positions for a portrait none of them, except her, saw coming.

  She put the Judge in a chair by her side—V.I.P. seating for sure. She and David along with Missy and Tom stood directly behind. It was so surreal that nobody was talking. Well, nobody except Quinn and her Judge because those two kept up a running commentary on everything from the photographer’s choice of camera to whether or not a yacht was a good outlay of money.

  The dinner that followed was nothing short of life changing. Tom and Missy were hilariously irreverent throughout the whole thing. She and David exchanged several looks because Tom, it turned out, was quite the pundit. He knew a bit of something about everything and had a dry, intelligent humor that paired well with those gathered.

  “How’s it feel?” Missy teased when they excused themselves for a ladies’ room run. “You know,” she laughed. “Having the sun on your face after hiding for so long.”

  Amy slung an arm around her friend’s shoulder, and they looked in the bathroom mirror at their reflection.

  “It feels… weird. Because nobody was fooled. Your mom says she knew before we did! Can you believe it?”

  “I’m happy for you guys,” Missy assured her. “Davy is a horse’s ass but you already know that.” She shrugged. “If you can put up with his first-born crap, have at it.”

  “Your mom has that doing-the-nasty glow about her, don’t you think?”

  Missy had a good laugh and gave her a little shove. “Aren’t you the one who told me you caught your parents doing some naked dirty dancing one night when you arrived home unexpectedly?”

  Amy said, “Yikes—that’s right,” and made a face.

  “Parents do it. Creepy, I know, but there ya have it.”

  “Are you okay with your mom pulling a boyfriend out of her ass? A Greek boyfriend who bears a striking resemblance to a bulldog?”

  Missy whipped her phone out of thin air and showed it to her. “Look,” she said. “Tom did a quick search. He’s part heir to a shipping company in Greece but has lived here most of his life. The ‘judge’ title refers to a background in international law.”

  “Holy cow. So what’s that mean? He’s rich, powerful and what? Smitten with your mom?”

  “I know, right?” Missy giggled. “Go figure.”

  They were each leaning over the sinks to peer closer in the mirror as they swiped on fresh lipstick.

  “By the way, those shoes kick the ass.”

  Missy laughed. “Did you see Mom’s face when I said they came from the Thrift Store? Classic.”

  “You ready?” she asked after they were finished primping and had done one last head-to-toe mirror check.

  They were making for the door when Missy put out her hand and pulled Amy back. “Oh my god,” she drawled. “Are we going to be sisters-in-law?”

  Silence, then a series of giggles followed by squealing laughs as they grabbed each other in a hug and jumped up and down like kids.

  “Hidden no more!” Amy shouted.

  “A family once again,” Missy agreed with sparkling, happy looking eyes. “I can’t believe that after all this time she’s talking to my dad again and we’re edging toward a happy ending.”

  As they stepped from the ladies’ room, David and Tom were right there, engaged in what appeared to be a serious conversation. She heard Tom mutter, “I’ll give you a call,” right before David shook his hand.

  It looked to her like Professor Wilkerson was wasting no time and had chosen his moment.

  Tingles of unimaginable joy danced inside her. Years of skulking around and putting Quinn’s feelings above their own became a memory as this new and totally surprising page turned in their unique love story.

  David smiled at her knowingly.

  “Invite your parents to the launch. I want them there to see what you’ve managed to pull off.”

  “What we've managed,” she reminded him. “Your mom called it our project. I was stunned.”

  “Me too, but you know what, honey? This is the start of something new. Let’s do it up right!”

  They walked arm-in-arm back to the table as the future they were afraid to dream of came into clear focus.

  “We did it,” David murmured into her ear with a husky laugh.

  “Yes, we did,” she agreed.

  And that, as they say, isn’t the end – it’s a new beginning.

  Epilogue

  There you have it! The heartwarming saga of Amy and David. Theirs was a true love story with a perfect happy ending.

  It’s unusual to get letters from a couple!

  My thanks and gratitude to ‘David’ for sharing his story with me. I love when a man indulges his woman’s romantic and sexy sides!

 
Equal thanks to ‘Amy.' She wanted to be sure her feisty character came through and wanted my readers to know just one thing:

  Never giving up is ingredient number one in the recipe for true love and happy ever afters.

  Until next time,

  XXOO

  Mandi B.

  ~Sex With No Apologies~

  THE END

  For sneak peeks (teasers & excerpts etc) of upcoming books - join Suzanne’s reader group on Facebook:

  Halliday Ever After

  Excerpt from Control (Sinful Shares 1)

  Hi Mandi. My name is Emily. I met Adam Jeffries one day when my shitty life was taking me down for the third time. Nothing has been the same since.

  “What the freaking hell,” Emily muttered aloud as her foot gave the bucket of filthy water a solid kick. “Doesn’t anyone around here work except me?”

  As the bucket’s icky contents sloshed and spilled over the sides, she was tempted to start screaming. Eyeing the new mess, she shook off the realization that now there was one more damn thing to do before she could call it a night.

  “Trapped by my own fucking stupidity.”

  It took most of the next half hour to clean up and finally, finally, shut everything down for the night. Another mind-numbingly bland, boring day in a string of thousands just like it stretching back almost five years was blessedly coming to an end.

  Activating the security system, she straddled the front door of The Happy Bunny daycare center and swept the lobby with her eyes, making sure she hadn’t forgotten anything. Even after the door was firmly locked and the system armed, she peered through the glass searching for the slightest indication that something was off.

  Her job may suck from lack of challenge or excitement but that didn’t give her license to be negligent. The center’s owner, an old-school gentleman named Mr. Livingston, counted on Emily to manage the center’s day-to-day activities so the professionals on staff could tend exclusively to the kids.

  So she did, and successfully too. The result of a firm hand and long hours.

  Gathering the long handled satchel at her feet, it was hurriedly slung around her neck while she just as hurriedly began making for the bus stop. Some might shudder at the idea of using public transportation but she sure as shit didn’t. In her mind it was laughably simple. Get behind the wheel of a moving vehicle after an exhausting day and battle not only the traffic but the inevitable end-of-day decompress simultaneously and for her thinking, dangerously—or, use the time traveling by bus and train to relax, unwind, and let someone else handle the driving.

  One short walk, a somewhat longer bus ride, and a restless wait on a train platform later, she was seated on a slippery bench, mindlessly staring at the advertisements stretching the length of the train car as the city sped by.

  Minutes passed. She waited for her station knowing she had a little bit of a ride and emptied her mind.

  Emily shifted on the seat, making sure to keep a firm grip on her bag. Someone coughed. A kid laughed. Lights flickered past outside the windows. All of it had a Groundhog Day quality that made her teeth grind.

  She blinked and a light flickered in her mind’s eye. Swinging her gaze upward her eyes caught a surprising advertisement she couldn’t remember seeing before. It seemed to her that it vibrated even though she knew it was just cardboard.

  Large, red, pulsing letters formed the words Are You Having Sex?

  Life was mocking her, right?

  Her gaze swept left to right, casually checking out her fellow travelers. Nobody but her seemed to be noticing the provocative ad.

  She looked closer at the suggestive text and saw the logo of a condom brand she had never seen before. Modern Savage.

  She gulped and shivered in the same moment. What. The. Hell.

  Next thing she knew, her sensible work pants felt like a type of prison that covered her skin when what she wanted, what she needed, was to be exposed to the evening air. A fierce desire to let her hair down and stand naked under a moonlit sky filled her up.

  The idea was actually funny. She coughed back a laugh and shook her head. Her. Sensible, dependable, stern task-master Emily, having some out-of-body Aphrodite moment out in the open.

  As if!

  A familiar rhythm in the rocking of the moving train car got her attention. She leaned back and peered out the window behind her head. Just around the next bend they’d be at her stop. Patting the bag nestled against her side, Emily did a fast check of her situation before standing up to grip a metal pole by the car’s exit.

  A reflex made her glance back at the pulsing advertisement a second before it was her turn to make for the exit.

  Something thudded, her heart maybe, and her throat felt tight. The words were gone. No pulsing red sex. No Modern Savage.

  She stumbled getting down the steps and barely avoided face-planting from the adrenaline rush that chased her across the wood train station platform.

  It was a brisk couple of long city blocks to her house, giving her enough time to tick off a string of possible explanations for what just happened.

  Maybe a brain aneurism? That would cause a public hallucination, right?

  Or perhaps a dream. Had she drifted off during the train ride? Dreamed the whole thing? Sure would explain a lot.

  It was the darker side of dusk when she saw her home come into view. No matter how shitty a day Emily had she always liked this moment when the familiar twin half-way down a long narrow street, appeared like a beacon offering the way to comfort at the end of a drudge-filled day.

  She loved the old house with its quaint charm that came courtesy of her grandmother Laurel. When the family matriarch passed away three years ago and the house was left to Emily and her older sister, Linda’s snappy rebuke of the loving gesture gave Emily one more reason to dislike her only sibling.

  Declaring the modest, traditional three-bedroom home on a lot measured in square feet and not acres to be tacky, she’d played hardball and demanded a pay-off for her portion of the property.

  Stuck up bitch.

  Luckily, Emily was the sister raised to be practical as well as pragmatic. Since she held her first summer job at the age of fifteen until right this very second, she’d resolutely banked a specific amount each week in her savings account. Even if it meant having a yard sale and getting rid of a bunch of extra stuff to make the self-imposed goal, she did whatever it took. So when Linda made their grandmother’s inheritance about money, she was amply prepared to slap her down by writing a check for her sister’s half of the house.

  Ha! She owned the little charmer now, and barely ever spoke to Linda. Married to a super-sized asshole with two bratty kids from a first marriage, these days her only sibling was busy playing suburban housewife in a rambling five bedroom McMansion about an hour north of Philadelphia. Despite the pleas of family unity by their parents, they exchanged birthday and Christmas cards and that was about it.

  Snagging the dark blue recycling bin at the end of the walkway, she dragged it to the rear of the house and stowed it inside the gate just as her neighbor from the house next door came strolling from his backyard.

  “Hey, Bob,” she called out. “I saw that Jack made second base on the baseball team. Way to go, Dad!”

  Her laugh was genuine. She liked her neighbors across the way. Bob and his partner Larry were what she liked to call ‘property enhancers’, because simply by the presence of a couple of gay guys the cachet of the neighborhood rose. Call it a cliché if you have to, but it’s true. There was nothing like two creatively flamboyant gays to bring everyone’s A game when it came to curb appeal. She was pretty damn sure they catalog ordered every piece of seasonal solar crap they could find.

  Bob barrel laughed as he latched his gate. “Holy crap, Emily. You’d think he got picked for the Phillies farm team by the fuss. It’s just middle school.”

  “Well yeah,” she agreed with a smirk. “But baseball is like God’s gift to American kids no matter where they are.” Laughin
g as they walked to the end of the path leading to the sidewalk, she thought of something funny and added it with a heavy dose of mockery. “And who was it who coached Little League just so a disinterested Jack would sign up and play? Hmm? I pretty much think you’ve been dreaming about this fuss for years. Don’t lie,” she teased. “You know you have.”

  “Guilty,” the busted but proud dad drawled. “Larry can drag him to the Barnes or make him sit through a thousand art museum lectures all he wants. As long as Jack makes the team, he can pretty much do any damn thing he wants.”

  “Men,” she muttered playfully with a well-meaning eye roll. Scooting toward her walkway she waved him off and trudged along to the three concrete steps leading to her half of the twin home’s front porch. A package left by FedEx sat on the rattan chair closest to the screen door.

  Flinging open the screen door, she eyed the package as the metal door smacked against her hip. Her key in the lock, she was just finished opening the inside door when a noise caught her attention. Turning her whole body toward the sound, she was chirping, “Hi Mrs. Ash. What’s …” when a complete stranger stepped from the front door of the other half of the twin home, startling her into silence.

  But only for a split second. Recovering with speed she barked, “Who are you? Where is Sylvia?” An abundance of affection for her older neighbor triggered the instant defensive reaction.

  The man didn’t immediately react to her strident demand, which only made her hackles rise more. Pulling the knob of the other twin’s wood door until it closed completely, he took his good old time in such a blatantly dismissive way that she bet when he finally turned around she’d be looking into the face of an arrogant bastard.

  Slapping on her sternest expression, she went full resting-bitch-face with an added hand at the waist and cocked hip.

  Slowly pivoting, he shut the screen door and finally looked at her. In that moment she had the distinct impression that all of the oxygen in her vicinity vanished. It was the only way to explain the fuzziness in her head when he looked her up and down.