“Your mommy and daddy will be home soon, my little love,” I said to him as
he stared up at me with eyes so like Trent’s. Like mine.
I never had time to date or find a husband, but at night, when I was alone in my rooms at whatever hotel I called home for the moment, I’d think about my future. Right now, it looked empty and bleak. I wanted a family, and the look of happiness that my brothers now wore. I wanted a baby of my own and a family.
Or so I considered. I knew I wanted children, but maybe not right away? I grinned a little as I burped Harry over my shoulder and felt his little snuffles fall back to snores. Such a tiny little being, and so sweet.
The problem was, I wanted that same sweetness for myself, but I also wanted some of the wildness that Roxie had told me about. Parties where everybody ended up naked, and the private rooms some of the patrons of the club rented for their own escapades. I wanted to know more about that world.
I wanted to explore it and find out what it was all about. I was more than ready to find out what happened in the world of the grownups. I might have been rich, but I was also very sheltered, and I wanted to tear that shelter down.
I’d formed a plan by the time Trent and Jessi came back to the house at nine.
I headed back to the hotel, changed into an outfit I’d hidden away in my suitcase of secret wonders, and looked at myself in the mirror. I’d applied a little makeup, just enough to make the gray in my eyes lighter, and had curled my hair into long waves. The lace top, with a shelf bra to protect my modesty, and short white skirt spoke of my innocence, but left little to the imagination.
I added a pair of white heels, then left the room with a bag in hand. I went down to the parking garage, found the family car that was left there for any of us to use, and drove to Roxie’s place. She let me in with a scream of excitement and a hug.
“Girl, it’s been a month since I’ve seen you! How are you?” She offered me
a drink, and we’d both sat by the time I got around to answering her.
“I’ve been rushed off my feet. I keep flying from place to place, and I tell you, I’m tired.” I sipped at the wine she’d given me and set the glass on the
table.
Her living room was done in white, glass, and gold trimmings. Tasteful but
not gaudy. I didn’t want to ruin her carpets with red wine if I got clumsy, so I’d asked for white wine.
“Why don’t you tell them to hire a nanny, honey? You can’t keep living like this.”
I looked at her with a little guilt on my face before I smiled. “I told Trent tonight that I needed more time to myself, and I wouldn’t be watching the kids so much. I need to be here to work on that project we’ve started, and I’ll be around, but I won’t be flying back and forth between Laura and Mason in Charlotte, and Kevin and Ember in Tennessee. I know they all want someone they trust around their kids, but you’re right, Roxie. It’s time for me to spread my wings.” I left out the part where I wanted her to help me do just that. For now.
“Okay! Good for you! I’m glad you finally did that. It will be nice to have you around.” She was two feet away on the other end of the white damask couch. I couldn’t help but compare myself to her.
She wore a black leather bustier type top and black leather pants, yet she still looked sophisticated. Maybe it was the black patent leather Prada kitten heels, the way her blonde hair was never out of place, or maybe it was the fact that Roxie never sweated, even in the heat, but she always looked so cool and collected, in control. I admired her. Those blue eyes helped too. They were so…
bright.
I felt underdressed, and maybe a little trashy in my attempts at sexy but sophisticated. I looked down at my lace top, something I would never wear to any place my brothers or parents might see me, and wondered if it wasn’t a childish choice. Something someone pretending to be sophisticated would pick.
If it was frumpy but stylish, then I could pick it out. A suit that leaned a little to the too tight was about as risqué as I usually went. This outfit was my first attempt to fit into Roxie’s world, which was much different from my own. Even if her world was full of power, controlling that power, and money. Not so different from mine, but the power struggles flowed different ways.
“Right, girl,” Roxie said as she nudged me with her manicured fingers.
“What do you want to do for your birthday? Where do you want to go?”
I looked at her, my breath caught in my chest. I had a plan, a cunning one, if she’d play along with it. “I, uh, I want a favor from you. Please.”
“Alright?” she said, a darkened eyebrow arched at me questioningly.
“I want you to take me to that club. The gentlemen’s club. I want to see what it’s like in there. What the men are like, what happens with the women. I really, really want to find out for myself.”
Her ruby red lips twisted into an amused smirk, and her eyes looked at me with pride. “Oh, girl. You want the birthday of a lifetime, then?”
“I do. Badly. Please, will you take me?” I waited, my hands clenched together as she looked me over. She just had to say yes. It was my birthday, and she was the only one who remembered!
2
DYLAN
“Y ou’re a descendent of Jesse James, aren’t you?” a woman at the
end of the conference table asked.
My gaze flicked to the woman, and I noted round, out of date
glasses, fuzzy hair, and a little too much fluff around the hips. She had a twisted little mouth that looked cruel, and I wondered who she was and how she’d come to be here.
“I am, yes, in a way. I’m adopted, but the man who became my father is descended from his son, as a matter of fact.” It wasn’t a point of pride, just something I’d had to learn to deal with over the years. Every now and then someone would crop up to ask me if I had special knowledge about the gunslinging outlaw from long ago.
I was born in 1986, so how could I know anything about a man who died over 100 years before I was born? It was a familiar question, though, and one I’d grown bored with long ago.
“He was such a handsome man,” she crooned from the other end of the table,
and I tried not to roll my eyes. The man had been a murderer and a thief; his spawn had tried to live good lives, despite their ignoble birth, and to get on with life. We didn’t see him as a romantic hero, even if he had been handsome.
