Mercedes
THE FIRST THING THAT hit me when I arrived in Ocean Bay was the heat. It was stifling and my ass cheeks had left their imprint on the leather interior of my car.
“Goddamn,” I muttered as I dragged my dehydrated carcass out of the car. Covering my eyes with my hand, I took in my surroundings in a state of semi-awe/semi-dismay. “This place is…intense.”
“It’s amazing, right?” Mom squealed as she got out and walked around to my side of the car. “This is it, Mercy,” she whispered in delight as she caught ahold of my hands and squeezed. “We’ve made it, baby.”
“God, Mom.” I shook my head in embarrassment. It was bad enough that I knew she thought of this place as her meal ticket, but hearing her say it out loud was too freaking much.
“There’s my girl!”
The sound of Gabe’s sickeningly smooth voice had my mother squealing like a little girl and dashing off in the direction of the huge mofo mansion/beach house in front of us.
Ugh.
“Gabe!” Wrapping her arms around her husband’s neck, Mom threw herself into his embrace.
Meanwhile, I attempted not to be sick.
This was beyond gross.
Placing my shades on my head, I’d needed them while driving in the goddamn sun, I reached into the backseat and retrieved my backpack.
Yeah, I wasn’t a purse kind of girl. Give me a backpack any day. Besides, I carried a lot of crap around with me. I had fair reason to. Most seventeen-year olds didn’t have a mother who could move them on a whim like I had.
Dragging my ass up the driveway, I slipped my backpack onto my shoulders and held onto the straps like they were a comfort blanket.
I didn’t need this shit.
A new home.
A new town.
A new family.
Thoroughly revolted at the prospect of all three, I trailed after my mom and her new husband, with a someone pissed in my cornflakes expression molded to my face. I didn’t care if Gabe held the crown jewels inside that mansion of his. I was not going to be happy about it.
“Don’t touch me,” I warned him when he held the front door open for me.
Immediately he withdrew the hand he had been about to place on my shoulder. “Right…uh, no problem, Mercedes.” Good. We weren’t there yet and, if I had my way, we never would be.
Rolling my eyes, I ignored the formal way he said my name. A name I loathed to be called. Another mark on the shit list for you, Gabo!
“This is beautiful,” Mom squealed, clapping in delight when we stepped inside the ginormous foyer. Spinning around to face me, Mom beamed. “Isn’t this place beautiful, Mercy?”
She was right.
It was beautiful.
Of course, I would rather die than compliment this man’s house.
“Peachy,” I replied in a bored drawl, flicking my glasses back down on my nose. I was a master at concealing my true thoughts and feelings. I knew I looked bored, but the truth was I was impressed with the interior of this house. Big time.
As I stood on the cool, black marble tiles and looked around, I was immediately transported to an Italian villa in Europe. That’s what this place reminded me of. The cream painted walls were in stark contrast to the enormous circular, black, cast iron staircase leading up the second level of the house. And the oversized paintings and mirrors hung cleverly to absorb light? Yeah, they screamed pretentious – and filthy rich. Hell, the ceiling was at least twenty feet above us. I was in some deep shit, that was for sure.
With my fingers still curled around the straps of my backpack, I looked at my new Daddy and asked, “Where’s my room?”
“Mercy!” Mom hissed, clearly embarrassed. “Don’t be rude.”
I opened my mouth to give my mother an explicit example on just how rude I could be when Gabe interjected.
“It’s fine, sweetheart.” Walking over to my mother, Gabe wrapped his arm around her shoulders and smiled down at her. “I’m sure you’re both exhausted from the drive down here.” He frowned then. “I’ve organized a family dinner in the dining room, but if you’d rather lie down first, we can postpone?”
I said “yes” at the same time my mom said “no.”
Seeing as Gabe had a higher probability of getting laid tonight if he agreed with my mother, he followed his dick and led her through the house and into the dining room.
Miserable, I followed after them.
“Mercedes, you met my son Rourke at the wedding, didn’t you?” Gabe announced when we walked into the overly jazzed up dining room.
Instinctively, my gaze honed in on Gabe’s son who was already seated at the table and my heart sank into my ass. Rourke sat at the far side of the huge oak table, glaring daggers at my face with hard, blue eyes.
The guy had some fierce eyes. The color was a deep ocean blue and they were pretty. His dark brown hair was sexily disheveled. He looked too good to be sitting across from me. Too built to be going into his senior year of high school. He looked more like a senior in college.
“Yeah,” I ground out through clenched teeth as I took the seat opposite him. “I remember.” He didn’t offer me a hello, so I didn’t bother to offer him one either.
Steeling myself, I folded my arms across my chest, and glared back at the beautiful bastard with a look my mother had labeled my ‘resting bitch face’.
Rourke was snarling at me, so I returned the gesture.
I had no intentions of entertaining his bullshit; I’d endured more than enough of it the last time we met…
This is the biggest croc of shit ever. Getting married in a church for the fifth time? Was that even allowed? Honestly, I had no idea. I wasn’t religious myself, had never chosen a particular man in the sky to pitch my flag to. I mean sure, my mom had been brought up in the Baptist faith, and I, in turn, had learned to pray to the man upstairs when shit hit the fan and I was in need of some divine intervention. However, the fact that I was standing beside my mother as she pledged herself to Gabe, made it perfectly clear the big guy wasn’t taking pagan pleas.
“If anyone objects to this marriage, let them speak now or forever hold their peace.”
Biting back the urge to scream I object, I decided to focus my attention on Gabe’s son who was standing slightly behind his father and directly opposite me. He looked miserable…and hot. Tall and muscular, Rourke Owens filled that suit in all the right places. Maybe this marriage crap wouldn’t be so bad; at least I got to drool over Rourke – in secrecy of course.
Rourke’s blue eyes landed on mine then, startling me, and I smiled, offering him my best ’I know how you feel, this sucks’ gesture. He didn’t return the smile. He didn’t even blink. He just stood a few feet away, staring at me like he was trying to solve a puzzle and the answer was in my eyes.
When the pastor pronounced them husband and wife, and their guests cheered and clapped, Mom and Gabe led the way out of the church, followed by his daughter and the other groomsman, and then finally me and Rourke; the reluctant best man and even more reluctant maid of honor.
We linked arms, but I had to take a moment to steady my nerves before I could walk. God, he was so tall and he smelled delicious; like soap and cologne and man.
“So, this sucks,” I whispered, as we trailed after our parents.
“Does it?” he replied, his voice barely more than a whisper, as he stared straight ahead.
“Um…yeah?” Even in heels, I barely reached his shoulder in height, and had to crane my neck up to look at him. “Don’t you agree?”
“Cut the shit. I know what you want,” he said after a moment, voice still seductively soft. “You and her.”
I stiffened. “And what’s that?”
“Money,” Rourke replied softly. “It’s written all over her face – and yours.”
“You’re wrong about me,” I bit out, voice shaking a little, as we reached the entrance and stepped into the sunshine. He didn’t let go of me and I didn’t move away from him. I knew I should but I…couldn’t. I was determined to defend myself to this boy. “I don’t want this.”
Stopping several feet away from the bridal party, Rourke released my hand and took a step back from me. “My father might be stupid enough to fall for your mother’s shit, but I’m not him.” Folding his arms across his chest, he glared down at me. “Don’t think I’ll make the same mistake with you…”
I KNEW FULL WELL that Rourke Owens thought my mother was a gold-digger – he’d said as much on their wedding day. So did I, but I wasn’t about to voice that opinion to a guy who had obviously decided he hated my guts before getting to know me. He prejudged me and my intentions. He didn’t know shit.
Rourke’s eyes were filled with pure, unadulterated hatred for me as he leveled me with a look that said everything he was feeling in the moment.
Disgust, loathing, disappointment, mild boredom, and pure hatred.
He wasn’t going to accept me, I realized.
Well, fuck him.
People had tried to break me before.
He would fail, just like the others.
Bring it, asshole, I thought to myself. Let him hate me. Saved me the trouble of feigning any plausible amount of politeness around him. I wasn’t much of a talker anyway. I preferred to use my energy on other things, and if Rourke Owens expected me to swan in here and kiss his ass, then he had another thing coming. I was nobody’s bitch and he was about to learn that.
“And Amelia,” Gabe added, taking his seat at the head of the table. “My daughter?”
Reluctantly, I tore my gaze away from the horrible, beautiful bastard and focused on the meek blonde sitting beside him.
“Hello, Mercedes,” Amelia acknowledged with a warm smile. “It’s good to see you again.” She looked younger than fifteen, and fragile to boot.
And even though I really did not want to like these people, there was something about the sadness in this girl’s eyes that caused the ice around my heart to thaw just a little bit.
“Hey,” I replied, inclining my head in her direction. It was the best I could do under the circumstances. Surprisingly, it seemed to be enough for Amelia because she beamed back at me.
Thankfully, the cook arrived then with our starters and, bringing with her, my excuse not to speak.
With my head down, I ignored the chattering coming from my mother and Gabe, choosing to focus on the snot-colored soup in my bowl. Christ, what the hell was that? Pea soup?
Braving the unknown, I dipped my spoon into the bowl and shoved it into my mouth, determined to get on with this damn dinner.
Not bad.
Feeling more at ease now that I knew the soup didn’t taste like a certain body part, I allowed my thoughts to wander as I ate it up…
It felt like my life had been thrown into the fast lane. Four months ago, I was wrapping up junior year with a 4.0 GPA and a full college scholarship in close sight.
Now, I was a little more than a month away from starting my senior year of high school in a snobby private school on the east coast, hundreds of miles from home, all because my mother couldn’t keep track of contraceptive jabs.
You would have thought having me in her sophomore year of high school would have made the woman more proactive and careful, but no, Cassidy James at thirty-three was as reckless and irresponsible as she had been at sixteen.
Even now, I wanted to reach forward and smack her silly. The only thing that stopped me from doing so was the tiny swell on her stomach she was proudly rubbing.
My mother was in love with all things love, but she wasn’t exactly a nurturer. She’d been more like an older sister to me growing up. When I reached the age of nine or ten, the roles reversed and I became the older sister. I was seventeen years old and exhausted from parenting a reckless mother.
Mom, an only child, originally from a small seaport town call Friday Harbor, got herself into a string of bad relationships during high school and ended up nursing me through her junior year until giving up her chance at a high school diploma to go in search of the city life.
Mercedes James; because that’s what you got when you let an immature sixteen-year-old name a baby after the place in which you were conceived.
I guess it could have been worse. I could have been called Tequila, her beverage of pleasure that night.
It wasn’t that I didn’t love my mother, I did, deeply. But we weren’t compatible, and I was embarrassed. Everything she seemed to do irritated me and grated on my nerves, and I knew full well that if I didn’t get out of here soon, I would be the one left holding the baby.
I had nine more months in this house and then I could take off and never come back.
The university of Colorado had an impressive business program and generous scholarships, while, I had a 4.0 GPA and a will stronger than iron.
It was a perfect match.
CU was my first choice for college, but I was willing to learn anywhere in the world if it came to it.
Anywhere except Florida state.
Yeah, I needed out of this place and fast.
I needed the freedom I never had while shouldering my mother’s troubles.
I needed a fresh start.
Unintentionally, my gaze wandered into enemy territory and I had to steel myself when I found Rourke was still glowering at me.
Of course, I narrowed my eyes and glared back.
Back off, Rich Prick. This cat has claws!
Boys like this one never usually bothered me. I had enough pride to say no when they asked me for something I wasn’t willing to give, and enough confidence not to care about the backlash.
At the end of the day, when I left school, I left all of the shit behind me.
Unfortunately for me, I couldn’t leave this particular piece of brown crumb behind.
I had to live with him.
“Before we have dessert, I’d like to set some ground rules,” Gabe announced at the end of dinner, startling me from my reverie.
“Ground rules?” Rourke shot back flatly, staring at his father like he had grown three extra heads. “What. The. Actual. Fuck?”
So he speaks…
Dammit, I had been hoping my memory served me wrong and Rourke Owens sounded like a nasally adolescent.
Nope.
My memory of him had been perfectly accurate.
His voice was deep and gruff and he had that sexy southern drawl I secretly loved.
FML.
“Yes, some ground rules,” Gabe repeated, casting his son a warning glare. “And watch your mouth, son. We have ladies in the house.”
“We do? Where?” Rourke asked mockingly. “From where I’m sitting, we’ve got a life-size version of Barbie and her brat.” Turning to his sister, he added, “No offense, Mills.”
“None taken,” she whispered, red-faced.
“As opposed to you?” I snarled, unable to hold my tongue.
Now he looked at me. Rourke’s eyes were hard and cold as he stared me down. “Did you say something, Six?”
Six?
“Yeah.” I sat forward. “You compared my mother to a Barbie doll and I said as opposed to you; a spoiled, entitled, little prick.”
“Mercy,” Mom hissed in an appalled tone. “That’s enough!”
“Yeah, Six,” he sneered. “Listen to your momma. That’s enough.”
“Would you like me to stick my foot up your ass?” I asked in a sickly-sweet voice, glaring daggers at the boy sitting across from me.
“Mercedes James,” Mom growled. “That’s quite enough!”
“I don’t know. I’ve never tried it,” Rourke shot back, ignoring my mother. He leaned forward and smirked at me. “Would you like to suck my dick?”
“Rourke!” Gabe roared, banging his fist against the hard surface of the table. “Don’t you dare speak to your sister like that.”
Reluctantly, Rourke tore his gaze off me and looked at his father. “She is not my sister.”
“Apologize,” his father gritted out. “Now.”
“Fine.” Rourke waved a hand in the air. “I apologize for offering to let you suck my dick.”
“Your name is quite unusual, Mercedes,” Amelia squeezed out, obviously trying to simmer down the tension in the room by changing the subject. “And really pretty.”
“Thank you,” my mother exclaimed over enthusiastically. “Her father drove a Mercedes when we were in high school.”
“Mom.” I cringed in shame. Like she even knew. Mom was clutching at straws with that bold statement. “Please.” Shut the hell up…
“You’re named after the car?” Amelia chirped up excitedly. “That’s so cool.”
“That’s so fucking tacky,” Rourke sneered, observing me with a disapproving gaze. “What’s your middle name – the condom broke?”
“No, but I know yours,” I shot back heatedly. “Rourke – I should’ve been swallowed!”
“What’s the matter with you two?” Gabe snarled, slamming his fist down on the table. “We’re supposed to be having a nice family meal here.”
“Family meal?” Rourke sneered, still focused on me.
Our eyes were locked in a heated battle.
I would rather die than be the first one to look away.
“We’re not a fucking family, Dad,” he continued to say. “We’re collateral damage in an affair gone wrong.”
“Rourke, please don’t speak to your father like that,” Mom began to say, but she was quickly cut off when he tore his eyes off my face and unleashed his death gaze on her.
“Don’t even go there,” he warned, tone almost soft, eyes full of unrestrained anger. “You’re not my mother. In fact, you’re nothing to me. You’re just one more in a long line of poor fucking substitutes. So, you go right ahead and do what you want with him.” He cast a glance towards his father and sneered. “Fuck him. Repopulate the earth for all I care. But don’t ever think you’re gonna have a damn thing to do with me.”
“Jesus Christ, Rourke,” his father groaned, rubbing his face with his hand. “Can’t you control yourself for one night?”
“I don’t know, Dad,” Rourke shot back sarcastically. “I guess it runs in the family.” He cast a disgusted glance at my mother’s stomach and shook his head. “The whole lack of control thing.”
“One more word, Rourke,” Gabe shot back in a threatening tone. “And I swear to god, I’ll pull your ass from the team this year.”
I watched as Rourke’s face reddened to the point I thought it would burst. Then he exhaled a slow breath and nodded, offering a mumbled “sorry” to my mother.
Ah, now I remembered. Football was a pretty huge deal around here. It was back home, too, but Mom had mentioned how Gabe’s son lived and breathed for the sport. Apparently, the Ocean Bay Falcons were two-time state champs and this year were going for their third in a row. Interesting.
“That’s alright,” Mom replied sweetly, making Rourke grimace further. “I know this is hard for you. It’s going to take some time to adjust.”
I knew how he felt then. Rourke thought Mom wasn’t being sincere. Her voice was sickly sweet and enough to drive her own daughter crazy. Rourke thought she was faking it. She wasn’t. Mom was a people pleaser and genuinely wanted this boy to like her. I, on the other hand, couldn’t care less.
The last course of dinner was eaten in palpable silence.
“That was delicious,” Gabe announced as he dropped his napkin on the table and rose from his chair. “But I’m exhausted.” Turning to my mother, he reached out a hand. “Come on, sweetheart. Let me show you to our room.”
Ugh.
“Your bedroom is on the second floor, right alongside Rourke’s,” Amelia explained as we walked back to the main foyer behind our parents. My eyes met hers and she smiled sympathetically. “It’s really bright and fresh and open. I think you’ll like it.”
“I’m sure,” I muttered, unwilling to be cruel to this timid girl.
“Sergio brought your bags in earlier,” she continued to say, nodding towards my duffel bag placed at the bottom of the staircase. “I can help you bring them up if you like?”
“Sergio?”
“Dad’s driver.”
“Oh. Well, no. Thanks. I can manage,” I replied, patting the lone duffel bag before hoisting it up. Turning to Mom and Gabe, I asked, “Is my room to the left or right of the bannister?”
“The right.” Gabe frowned at me like he couldn’t understand how a seventeen-year-old could have so little belongings.
Two words, Gabe; food stamps.
I preferred eating to wearing fancy clothes.
Splurging every cent we had was my mother’s forte.
One he would soon learn.
“Is that all you have?” he asked.
“I travel light,” I shot back. Everything I owned was contained in the bag in my hands and the backpack on my back.
“Rourke,” Gabe announced then, calling on his son who was sulking in the corner. “Show Mercy where her room is.”
“Do I look like your bellboy?” Rourke snarled, glaring at his father with an almost murderous expression. “Do it yourself.”
“It’s fine,” I interjected, moving for the staircase. “I’ll find it myself.”
“Now, Rourke!” Gabe hissed, displaying a little steel in his spine.
As much as I despised Rourke, I hated the way Gabe just spoke to him.
If he thought he was going to pull that parental bullshit on me then he had another thing coming. Mom and I had a different kind of a relationship. She had always taken a back seat to parenting. I was almost eighteen now, and I sure as hell didn’t need her getting any notions.
“Fine, but she can carry her own shit,” Rourke growled, shoving roughly past me as he stalked up the marble staircase.
I didn’t think that comment rendered a necessary reply, so I kept quiet. I was sure Rourke Owens and I would have plenty to fight about in the coming months. I planned on conserving my energy for the ones that mattered. Besides, I didn’t need his help.
Asshole.
When we reached the second floor, I followed him down a long hallway. He stopped at the second to last door on the left. Without saying a word, he turned the round doorknob and pushed the door inwards. My breath escaped my lungs in a heavy sigh when my eyes landed on the apartment sized bedroom that was to be mine.
“See this door here,” he snarled, drawing my attention back to him as he pointed to the door next to mine, the one at the end. “You keep the fuck out of there. You get it, Six?”
“Six?”
He smiled cruelly. “Yeah. Six. You got a problem with that, Six?”
I hated him.
I knew that was a bold statement to make, having only met the guy, but I honest to god hated Rourke Owens with every fiber of my being.
“I’ve got it, Prick.” He was a prick. There was no other way to say it.
“This is my house,” he hissed, taking a step towards me, dwarfing me with his impressive frame. “Don’t get comfortable here. It’s temporary.”
“About as temporary as your perfectly shaped nose if you don’t back the hell off and leave me alone,” I shot back.
Rourke’s brows shot up in surprise. “You wanna take me on, Six?”
“I’d eat you up and spit you out for breakfast, little boy,” I countered in a bored tone. He unnerved me like no one else, but I would rather die than let him know it.
“I’m gonna break you, Six.” Backing away slowly, he cocked a brow and shot me a look that said he wasn’t one to make promises he couldn’t keep. “When I’m through with you, you’re gonna wish like hell you never came here.”
I’m already wishing I didn’t come here!
He smirked cruelly at me before stalking past me in the direction of the staircase, leaving me a bundle of nerves in the doorway.
The moment he was out of sight, I exhaled a trembling breath.
Yeah. I wasn’t too stubborn to admit that I was in serious trouble with Rourke Owens.
Rourke
“A WORD, ROURKE.” My father’s request came moments before he caught ahold of the back of my neck and shoved me through the foyer and out the front door. He was able to move me because I chose to go with him. If I hadn’t, then let’s just say, he wouldn’t have been successful.
“What can I do for you, Dad?” I asked when we were both standing outside with the front door pulled out.
“You couldn’t help yourself, could you?” Dad spat, his blue eyes full of unrestrained fury and focused solely on my face. “One dinner, Rourke. Would it have killed you to rein it in for one fucking dinner?”
“What do you want from me?” I shot back, losing my cool façade. I was done with this bullshit. “I showed up to your shitty fucking family dinner,” I snarled. “I suffered sitting across from the woman you impregnated and traipsed into our home.” Running a hand through my hair, I bit back the urge to roar. “I’m trying more than you could ever comprehend.”
“Well try harder, dammit,” he spat. “And stop letting me down!”
“Stop letting you down?” I laughed humorlessly. “That’s ironic considering that’s all you’ve done my entire life.”
“Rourke,” Dad called out wearily, but I was done. I was so fucking over all of this bullshit. Ripping off my shirt, I broke into a run. I needed to get as far away from this house as I could.