Authors: Ava Walsh
The wedding was a primary focus in their lives as Jane and Lauren continued to work together at Jane’s house. Lauren had met Adam’s family as well as Cole’s and everybody got along incredibly well. The families were already close to begin with and this wedding was only going to strengthen the bonds between the families.
Lauren missed her father more than anything, but her new family filled the void in her heart. Jane was like her sister and now with Cole and Adam’s families too she had three moms and three dads who loved her.
And Lauren had Cole who loved her, too.
She was the bridesmaid at the ceremony and Cole was the best man. They kept it at fifty guests and had the wedding at a quaint little church. Jane looked beautiful in a cream wedding dress with her hair in curls around her face. Lauren wore a soft green dress and her hair in curls as well, while the guys looked sharp in their tuxedos.
The entire day was beautiful and Lauren danced in Cole’s arms later as a local band played for the crowd just outside of a restaurant. The night was cool and the crowd happy and Cole held her close as he breathed in her scent. “Do you want this someday, Lauren?” Cole asked her softly, as they swayed to the song.
“I didn’t before I met you. I thought that love just wasn’t for me,” Lauren confessed, as she pressed her face against his shoulder. “I believed that Jane was crazy to mention meeting a guy when I moved here, but she knew what I needed. She knew that I needed you.”
Lauren caught the lilies and the roses when they were tossed across the room and everyone hugged her tightly as they cheered. Cole came and gave her a kiss and took her to the floor for another dance before the toasts were made.
Six months later, Cole proposed to Lauren at their creek and she said yes. When they got married a year later, Adam’s mother was holding Jane’s daughter Chloe in her arms.
Cole was beside Lauren when she gave birth to their son Jacob as well as their daughter Lily. They had been married for eight years when she found out that she was pregnant with their third child, and Lauren realized that day that she loved Cole more than ever.
Lauren watched her kids play with Jane’s as she sat and rested on Cole’s orders while he grilled with Adam. Everything had changed, even though it was all the same. She looked at her best friend with a soft smile. “What is it, Mama?” Jane asked, as she walked over holding her son Wyatt.
“Have I thanked you for bringing me out here lately?”
“Every day, Lauren,” Jane responded, as she glanced at the guys. “There’s just something about a cowboy, isn’t there?”
“There sure is,” Lauren agreed, as she stared at her husband with soft eyes before he glanced her way. Cole walked over and sat beside her before kissing her.
“Are you okay?”
“I am great,” Lauren told him as she leaned over to kiss him back. “I love you, Cole.”
“I love you too, baby. From the moment I saw you.”
*****
THE END
Bonus Book 28: The Shifting Billionaire's Mate
By:
Eliza Moon
Description
A curvy bartender at a strip club PLUS a smoking hot billionaire PLUS a secret that reveals itself during the full moon!
Twenty-two-year-old Lucia James works at a strip club. She is a curvy girl who tries to do the right thing for her little sister Daisy. After their mother died, the little girl had no one else, and the job helps Lucia keep their heads above water...
Lucia sacrifices everything out of love, but sometimes life just gets her down. She assumes that she can make up for it later.
But that happens more quickly than she expected when she meets one of the richest men in Atlanta, Remy James...
Of course, she meets him at the strip club. What kind of man is he? Can she really give into him? She has to consider Daisy as well.
But their attraction is strong, and Lucia finds it harder and harder to deny him with every day. He is gorgeous and intense, not giving up on his pursuit of her and claiming her as his own...
But then Remy tells her his secret and shocks her even more.
Lucia will have to work all of that out in this tale of love and attraction, destiny and fate. Can she look past the glaring truth to the man he really is?
Chapter One
I opened the back door to the bar and walked through the hallway. I listened to the chatter in the dressing room between the girls as I rolled my eyes. I didn’t love my job at the local strip club in Georgia but it paid the bills, and that was what I needed right now. I was raising my little sister Daisy after my mom had died a year ago, since Daisy’s father had left when she was just one. Mine stepped out in the form of cancer, so we had nobody, since they were both only children.
Now she was seven and needed a lot of things for school, and bartending at this dive brought in a lot of money to rent a decent apartment for us and keep our heads above water.
Yes, I am a bartender at a strip club. I am not a size zero, and I have way too much dignity to get up on that stage and take my clothes off. I make great money selling drinks to the fools that buy them for the girls, thinking that it’ll get them somewhere with them, and we charge a lot for all of our drinks. I guess, as far as this kind of establishment goes, The Goods was a better place than most in this town. I also had a sweet old lady neighbor who watched Daisy in our place after she was asleep.
“Luci, my girl,” my boss greeted me, as I gave him a dark look. “How are you tonight?”
“I am peachy, Thomas. I am going to make you a whole lot of money.” He was a bit of a creep, but he left me alone for the most part and bothered the strippers.
“Good. Amber Rain is dancing tonight, and she should bring in a good crowd. She was just in a series of films that did very well,” Thomas told me, as I nodded and walked behind the bar. I dressed in tight black jeans and a very fitted tank top, which was white and boasted the name of the place over my generous breasts. It was low cut and almost sheer, so I chose to wear some colorful bras underneath to cover my own goods and keep something to the imagination, given the men in here bug me as much as the dancers.
I locked my purse up in my locker under the bar and hung my jacket up on a hook against the wall before I looked down the long wooden bar. I was working with Jenna tonight, who was a hardworking girl and knew her stuff. It was half full of customers now, and I pulled my black curls into a high ponytail and took a deep breath.
After I’d helped a few people and got the crowd settled, I took a good look around. Most of the men who came here were middle class and hung out around the front hoping to get lucky, but we also had tables in the back for VIPs. Those guys had a lot of cash and paid well to sit there, and there looked to be a full group gathered at the middle one. That meant a successful night all around. “Who’s over there?” I asked Jenna, as she pulled her hair up before taking a long drink of ice water.
“His name is Remy James. He’s one of those independently wealthy types that does a little of this and that and makes billions, though I couldn’t name one of his businesses right now. I just know that he is hot, and he tips very well. The man loves to drink and hold court, as you can see,” Jenna said, as she gave me a smirk. She was a bubbly little strawberry blonde with huge green eyes that knew just how to work the crowd. She also had huge tits and wore tiny camisoles under her tank top that left little to the imagination.
One of the waitresses walked over with an order from the table and, since it was for a crowd of twenty, Jenna and I split the order to make it faster and agreed to split the tips down the middle. She worked here to support her two-year-old son, since his father had taken off, so I respected that. We poured the whiskey and tequila from the top shelf bottles and arranged them on two trays so Bella could carry them in two trips.
The announcer stepped onto the stage to tell the crowd that Amber Rain would be performing in a few short dances. Until then, he was going to introduce some of the local girls to get the party started, and the beat to one of the favorite songs right now started playing.
A redhead took the stage and began to move against the pole as I cleaned up the bar for the next group of people who would come for drinks. I was just finishing when I glanced up into a pair of sapphire blue eyes and the best mouth that I had seen on a man in years. He also had a tall, muscular frame and soft dark hair that hung down to his shoulders in tousled waves.
To put it mildly, he was gorgeous. I didn’t get affected by men all that much, so that was saying a lot.
“Can I help you?” I asked, as I leaned forward just enough to flirt a little bit and batted my fake eyelashes at him. I had learned in my first year how to act for more tips, but I was also very capable of keeping it harmless.
“I would like a Tom Collins, if you would.” He spoke in a low, throaty voice that reminded me of a fine whiskey, and I blinked slowly before nodding. “Top shelf, please.”
“Of course,” I assured him, as I grabbed a glass and started to mix the alcohol in one of the clean mixers. I could feel his eyes on me the entire time as I worked, and I got nervous with the intensity of the look.
“Remy! What the fuck are you doing at the bar when we have our own waitress?” a booming voice called out, as I raised a dark eyebrow in curiosity. What was the billionaire doing at the bar?
Chapter Two
I glanced over at Jenna to see her giving me a wide-eyed look, and I expressed every ounce of what I was feeling to her in a single glance. I didn’t want to blow my cover, and I finished the drink before I turned around with a neutral expression on my face. “Your drink,” I offered, as I slid it forward to him and leaned on the bar to take him in. “That will be fifteen dollars.”
Billionaires were attractive these days. “It looks great.” Remy didn’t look at it once, as he was staring into my face with the oddest expression in his eyes. I wasn’t about to mention this and end this moment for myself, though. I was working all night and a newly single mother by day to a busy seven-year-old. The amount of sleep that I got in a solid set of hours was not even worth thinking about right now. I thanked makeup for covering the truth and making men like this seem to be captivated by me at this moment. He reached down and pulled something out of his pocket, and I looked down to see him slide a fifty-dollar bill across the bar.
“Let me get your change,” I offered, as he placed his hand over mine in a possessive manner to stop me from taking it. “Keep the change.” His eyes implored me to follow the order, and I helplessly looked back as I felt all of my tough exterior falling away and leaving me raw and vulnerable. Another friend called to Remy from the table, and his eyes darkened at the mention of him finding the one, or something along those lines. He let go of my hand with a long look and turned quickly on his feet to walk back in a way that made me tremble. “What was that?”
“Sex on a stick. I think I just came,” Jenna murmured, as I shot her a look. “It’s been a while since…well, shit. You and I have a similar life. I think you get it.”
I looked back at the table to see Remy looking at us with a playful expression, and I smiled. My eyes moved towards the stage where our popular platinum blonde waitress was dancing, and I didn’t think that he’d even glanced at her, unlike the rest of the table. Remy looked a little uncomfortable to me, and I went over to Jenna. “You said that he comes here a lot?”
“He’s a regular. He always gets that table,” Jenna confirmed, as I frowned and looked at him again to meet his smoldering gaze. “I don’t think he seems too concerned with the stage tonight, Lucia. I believe that he wants you.”
“No way. Here?” I brushed off her words and turned back to pour myself a cup of coffee. I needed it after getting up after just a couple of hours to get Daisy off to school and then again to grocery shop and pick her up, followed by a trip to the park with her current best friend. I reminded myself that I made enough here to keep us in a good part of Atlanta and that Daisy went to a good school, as my mind wandered to his money that I had placed in my jeans pocket. Tips like that on the regular could really help things, and I might be able to go to college and get my major in English. I was only twenty-three, but it seemed like time was slipping away. I took a long drink of the sweetened coffee and considered a fling with Remy for a fleeting moment.
Men like him didn’t want girls like me who were raising their younger sister. They wanted women who could live impulsively and give them time. Besides, he was gorgeous. Remy had to have girls lining up at the door to be with him. I scoffed at any chance I might think that I had and turned as Jenna greeted a new customer.
The main attraction took to the stage in an hour, before which the bar became packed with new arrivals, as well as Bella ordering several more shots for Remy’s table. I made drink after drink and took the money with a smile as I tried to ignore the pull that was Remy James. He still came back once to order another drink, and I just stared at him when he gave me another fifty-dollar bill. It was safe to assume that he was footing the bill for his rowdy friends, as well, who weren’t getting any less obnoxious with the alcohol flowing freely. “They’re like brothers to me,” Remy told me, as I gave him a questioning look. "Are they bothering you?" The way that he said the words implied that he might get rid of them at the drop of a hat if I asked him to.
“I didn’t say anything,” I defended myself, before I blinked. “I work here, so I see a lot of bad sides of people. I can handle a few catcalls across the room when a porn star is taking the stage.” He raised an eyebrow at me, and I covered my red lips with my hand in horror. I was never rude to customers. Ever. I flirted for that extra five-dollar tip and joked around with them. I made the best of things. “I am so fucking sorry.”
I practically felt Jenna wince beside me, and I dropped my eyes to the bar. “Is that what the woman on stage is? I have never seen her nor heard her name. I am too hung up on you, Lucia,“ he said, while glancing at my name tag. „I can’t stop looking at you. I would like to take you for coffee after work, if at all possible.” I watched as his eyes flicked across the bar to my third cup, and felt the disappointment surge through my body.
“I don’t date customers.” That was the truth in most cases, but not in this one. I knew that Mrs. MacKenzie would want to get home and that Daisy would be getting up a mere three hours later to get ready for school. I was focusing on my responsibilities, so I didn’t want to give into this man and crawl home just in time to get my sister to school.
“I can sense that about you, but I am not looking just to fuck you. It’s a lot more than that.” His eyes made promises that my body didn’t want to resist, and I casually shrugged as my heart kept racing.
“That rule still applies,” I assured him, as he nodded simply and took his drink to walk away.
“Are you serious right now?” Jenna hissed at me, before she went to help a customer. Sadly, I was. I needed to get through the next few years before I would even consider dating anyone, at which point Remy would be long gone.
At that moment, I despised the reality of my life. I would never voice these feelings to Daisy or anybody else, but I longed for freedom sometimes, and now was one of those times. Just one night with Remy would be incredible, but I wasn’t in any place to seek that right now.
The crowd seemed to keep finding the bar, and Jenna and I laughed at the amount of guys who thought that they would get a shot with Amber. She got free drinks at the bar, and I was surprised to find out that she didn’t even drink at all. We talked for a few minutes while she sipped some water and fended off the fans with their pathetic lines and glasses in hand.
Amber was investing her earnings and making a life for herself. She was quite smart, and I wished that I had the chance to do what she was doing to make things work for her future. Not that I could ever strip or do porn, since I already worried about Daisy hearing that I didn’t work at an all-night coffee shop that sold books.
Amber was also gorgeous, with a perfect, natural body and honey highlights in her red hair to bring out her bright green eyes. I am sure that didn’t hurt her success at all.
The night ended with Remy’s friends and the other customers trickling out in a drunken line before Jenna and I went out to help with cleaning up the room. I approached the VIP area to see him sitting there with a drink as he quietly surveyed me. “We’re closed,” I reminded him, as he smiled.
“I want to make sure that you get to your car safely,” Remy replied, as I shook my head. “I won’t bother you at all.”
“What about your ride?”
“Marty is paid very well to be at my beck and call,” Remy assured me, as I fought the urge to roll my eyes. Of course he had a driver, while I walked over to my mom’s old car every night and prayed that it would keep going for another few months. It was twenty years old now, and if it weren't a Toyota then I would be apprehensive.