Chapter 1
Charlotte
These days I was falling asleep easily, I was just exhausted all the time. I was supposed to be working on dad’s accounts, and I had them all scattered around my desk, but I nodded off without noticing. Within moments, in the middle of the day, I was fast asleep.
I was having the same dream again…it wasn’t really a dream. Rather a re-living of that week from five months ago. The best week of my life, the days I’d never get back.
His velvety brown hair, which I weaved my fingers through. The feel of his biceps bulging as he lifted me up in the air. The rock-hard toughness of his abs that I touched as he stripped his shirt off. The heat coming off my body every time I was near him.
They were flashes of the same images over and over again. They were so real that I thought I could feel my lips swollen and throbbing when I woke up from these dreams. He kissed me ferociously, like a wild animal. Like no man had kissed me before. He didn’t ‘handle me with care’, as I’d been handled all my life.
I was a woman, and that was how he made me feel. He treated me roughly, but so gently at the same time. He took me in the woods…right there, in the middle of the campsite. I could hear the roaring of the fire behind us as he undid his pants. He grunted with every thrust and I had never been so dripping wet before.
I’d just finished college at Vanderbilt, and what I was supposed to do was go to Law School. My parents were determined, especially dad. He needed a lawyer to help his business, an in-house family lawyer he could trust—and who better to do it than his own daughter?
It was like ever since the day I was born, he had my whole life mapped out. I started getting piano lessons when I was seven, I tried my hand at ballet when I was eight—but I’d always been curvy, even as a child. I sang in a choir until I was fifteen, when dad decided that I needed to focus on my grades because that was what would ultimately help his business.
Mom’s responsibility was to teach me my manners. I was taught how to sit with my ankles crossed, and act as the perfect hostess when my parents entertained. Dad wanted to make sure that I was always his friends’ biggest envy at the country club. The daughter they all wished they had. Only dad never noticed the way his friends looked at me when he wasn’t looking.
By now I’d outgrown the sweet polite little girl image, and had turned into the kind of girl these men wished they could flaunt on their arms. The girl they fantasized about in bed with their wives. It made my skin crawl. Knowing that my father’s friends drooled over me and stared at my cleavage when I walked past them.
But that was my life and I accepted it. I did as I was told, until I graduated college. That was when I put my foot down. I was determined to experience life, enjoy a bit of freedom. I argued and fought with dad, something I had never done before—until finally we came to a compromise.
He was going to let me take a year off before Law School, and I believed that was all the time I needed to get a taste of everything I’d missed growing up.
So, the first thing I did was get in a car and drive myself, along with my best friends; Macy and Laura, to Radnor Lake. We’d been talking about going on a camping trip for years, but we never actually planned it. We all wanted something different.
And oh how different it was! It was nothing like we’d experienced before.
The wilderness was freeing. Our cell phones had no service. It was like we were cut off from the outside world. We moved around the lake to different campsites as we hiked, and we met up with different people as we passed through. We had cookouts and partied around bonfires. The sense of pure freedom was exhilarating and turned out to be the most amazing week of my life. Over there, I wasn’t Andrew Williams’ proper polite daughter. I could be me. I could drink as much as I wanted, I could party as hard as I could…and then I saw Lincoln and everything came to a standstill.
Despite being surrounded by tough men just like him—in tattoos and flannel shirts, Lincoln stood out in the crowd. Maybe it was just the way he looked at me, like he could see right through me. I hadn’t been more terrified of and attracted to a man before like this in my life.
The moment I saw him, I knew I wanted his hands on me. His mouth everywhere.
He was thinking the same thing. He came over to our campsite, a can of beer in his hand which he crushed and threw away. When he came up to me, my body was already reacting to his presence. It was like he was expecting to see me there, like we’d always known each other.
I knew I was acting irresponsibly. I was doing everything against my good breeding and my best manners, but nobody knew me there. Nobody was watching me.
When he led me out to his tent on the campgrounds, I wasn’t even afraid. He made me feel safe with him. I just had that feeling in my gut that he’d look after me. Even though I knew I would never see him again. From the moment our eyes met, we both knew what was going to happen.
He kissed me and I sank into him and there was no going back from there.
I’d never had a one-night stand before. In fact, I’d never even kissed a stranger. So, having sex with Lincoln, a man I’d just met—whom I’d barely spoken to; was a milestone. But it was more than just that. He made me feel beautiful when he touched me.
I felt adventurous, high on adrenaline as he fucked me under the stars. It was dangerous and sexy, and something I knew I’d never experience again. But he wasn’t just a random stranger, he also held my hand when we walked back to to my campsite. Every time I looked at him, I wished my life was different. That I could actually be with a man like him. But I knew it could never happen. We came from two different worlds, and no matter how attracted I was to him, our lives could never collide.
Instead, I tried to enjoy the week. We spent all of it together. Partying and drinking and having sex by the bonfires.
Over the course of just one week, I was beginning to feel like I’d known him all my life. He was more than just a sexy stranger, he was a guy I could get used to. He wasn’t like any of the other proper rich guys I knew, the ones my parents eventually wanted me to settle down with. Lincoln was spontaneous and protective. I was his woman for the week, and he made me feel special.
As I sat on my chair, in my father’s study, with my eyes closed and dreaming, I was thinking of him. I was fantasizing about him constantly since I returned home. I couldn’t get him out of my head. I couldn’t stop imagining a life with him. Waking up beside him, our legs intertwined, his mouth on my neck, on my breasts. My hand on his cock.
Despite how big and strong he was, I felt powerful with him. I knew the effect my body had on him. He never once spoke about his feelings; he just wasn’t that kind of guy and obviously, one week was too short. But I’d seen it in his eyes too. He wished we’d met under different circumstances.
I could feel Lincoln’s hands on my body, and I sighed, thinking about that moment when I first saw his clothes coming off. His jeans rolling down and that magnificent cock.
But then I felt a sharp jolt all over my body. I was snapped out of my thoughts with a jerk. My eyes flew open and my hands rose up to my mouth. I was going to be sick.
I jumped out of the chair and rushed to the bathroom adjoining the study.
Kneeling down in front of the toilet, I threw up. I clutched my stomach. I was beginning to show now. There was no hiding it from the world anymore that I was pregnant. As much as dad wanted to keep it a secret. His perfect precious daughter was going to be a single mother.