Dear Diary: Book 7 in the Love Daddy Series of Standalones Read online

  “It’s a pleasure meeting you, Chastity.”

  Her shoulder curls closer to her jaw, and the pink stays on her cheeks.

  She feels it, too. This electric crackle in the cursed space between us.

  “Chastity!” A voice from behind breaks the magical moment and her hand slips from mine.

  She whirls toward an approaching leggy blonde, her fake eyelashes dragging her eyelids down with their weight. She’s wearing a dress so short, I can see the crease where her thigh ends and her ass begins.

  A scowl lines the blonde’s face. “What are you doing? What's taking so long? I need to talk to you.”

  “I was just…” My angel’s eyes connect to mine.

  I’m not sure if she’s seeking my permission to leave or awaiting an order to make her stay. I want to believe she would prefer the latter.

  The woman yanks her arm. “Come on. I need to talk to you.”

  “No, I—”

  I don’t hear the rest of it. I'm drawn into the pool of vulnerable, pleading eyes.

  As Chastity walks away, she glances back twice. My girl wants to stay.

  I place my drink on the bar, ready to follow, ready to bring her back. To fucking lift her over my shoulder and drag her back to my cave like some sort of Neanderthal if I have to.

  But, just as I start in her direction, a hand smacks my shoulder and I turn toward the interruption, anger already pulsing through me at the touch.

  “Hey…Jackson. We’ve been looking for you.”

  I barely recall the reason I came here. My heart is drawn to follow the girl in the lavender dress.

  Thoughts of taking her home with me stifle any other thought. I’ll lock her up if I have to until she understands she belongs to me now. I do have a cage…

  “Sorry we’re late.” Francois sounds like he’s already had a few drinks.

  Francois asked me to join our business associates here for a quick drink before we head back to the office to talk more in depth, yet they are clearly not in a state to have a discussion. To make things worse, they haven't come alone. There are five women with the three men from Houston.

  I can spot high-end prostitutes from fifty feet away. I don’t buy women, but I know lots of men who do.

  In warning, I shake my head at Francois. He pales and gives me a sheepish laugh.

  “Just some icing on the cake, Jackson. Come on, man. Let’s get you a real drink.”

  Fuming, I scan the bar for Chastity. I hear Francois order two shots of Maker’s Mark. A minute later he pushes one of them in front of me.

  “I can guarantee, after a couple of these, the weight of the world will fall off your shoulders.”

  “My shoulders are fine,” I growl. He’s lucky I don’t fire him right now.

  I need to get away. I need to get to her. All I know is her first name.

  My heart races as I take a step toward where she disappeared.

  Francois’ hand presses onto my chest to stop me and I bat it away. “Come on, don’t leave,” he raises his hands in surrender. “We gotta show these guys a good time. We need that property.”

  “I don’t give a fuck about the property, and I don’t give a fuck about them,” I hiss sidestepping around him.

  He pauses. “I thought you said you’d do whatever it took to seal this deal?”

  I’ve been passionate and unbending about each of my life’s pursuits—it’s how I function. But what I feel for Chastity is something else.

  The way her hand felt in mine, I want to feel that again. Her shy smile, I want to kiss it off her mouth then give it back to her.

  Her lilac-colored dress, I want to rip it from her body.

  “I need a second,” I say, turning to walk away.

  The head of the Houston team steps into my path. His arms are wrapped around two of the escorts’ waists as distain has me clenching my fists.

  “Jackson, I’m in awe of your hospitality. You really have planned everything. We drink, we talk business, and then we go to bed with our goody-bags.” He looks to the escort at his left with a lecherous grin.

  I glare at Francois. Leaning close to me, his voice drops to a whisper. “Look, I'm sorry. Please just give them thirty minutes.”

  “You said we were going back to the office after the bar. This doesn’t look like a goddamn business meeting.”

  Francois sighs, rubbing his temples. “These guys specifically asked for women.”

  I shake my head in distaste. “If this is how they want to do business, fuck them.”

  I’m ready to tell them the deal is off when my phone buzzes in my pocket. Francois starts to speak, but I cut him off with a glare as I reach inside my jacket for my phone. It’s my personal cell, and only five people have this number: my parents, my PI, my attorney and my housekeeper.

  The five people I trust with my life.

  For a second, I panic that it might be my mom with bad news about my dad. A recent fall left him with a broken hip and that led to pneumonia from lying in bed, recovering. It’s been a downhill slide for months and he’s teetering on that place between rallying in the right direction or giving up and letting the slippery slope take him.

  I hired my own army of medical personnel to get him back on track, but I always hold my breath waiting for that dreaded call. But when I hold the phone up, I see that it’s Isabella, my lawyer.

  I’ve got a lot of legal shit going on right now, so I know what it’s probably about, but her strategizing can wait a few hours.

  Francois doesn’t yet know about the bogus sexual harassment suits that are suddenly looming against me. I’ve not discussed it with anyone other than Isabella, hoping we can squash the bullshit before it becomes public knowledge.

  Standing here in this bar with escorts—escorts who, apparently, somehow my company paid for—will not help my cause.

  “Jackson, we need to get this deal.”

  Francois is right. I need that piece of land. There is no other place like it in Houston and it fits my expansion plans perfectly. But Chastity…

  A rush of adrenaline bolts through me as I spot a flash of lavender in the sea of people.

  Then my heart sinks when it’s not her.

  This girl is blonde.

  I have developed a sudden distaste for blondes. I know who I want. I’ve found my girl and she’s no blonde. In fact, it was a blonde that took her from me.

  Francois leans next to my ear. “Don’t walk out and offend them now. We’ve got so much invested. If you fuck this up, it’s not just you that will lose.”

  I don’t give a flying fuck.

  I want to yell it out. Instead, seething, I face the men and force a stiff smile.

  In a way, I owe them.

  If they weren’t tardy, whoremongering narcissists, who wanted to meet in a fucking bar I’d never have met Chastity.

  I take a deep breath, resolving to finish the business at hand in as short an order as possible.

  But all I’m really thinking about is her.

  I’ll find her. Even if it’s the last thing I do.

  Chapter 2

  Chastity

  Diary Entry Six PM Today

  Dear Diary,

  I will probably be too tired to write when I get home. Another Friday night out with Sasha and the work crew. I’m not looking forward to it. I don’t even know why I go.

  I think sometimes Sasha is so nice to me or is my ‘friend’ because when I’m next to her, I make her look even better.

  Even at work. She’s taken lots of my ideas already and made them out to be hers. Oh well, that’s not a “poor me” moment, it’s just an observation, but what is more telling is this: why do I hang out with her if that’s what I think? I need to re-boot myself or something.

  I rushed home from work to change clothes, and I need to get way back over to The Trojan Horse in Mid-town. Just paying the Uber every time we go out puts a huge dent in my woeful back balance. I bet if I had a Daddy, he’d give me a stern talking to about l
etting people take advantage of me. He’d make sure I understood my own worth and when I faltered, he’d be there to shore me up. Probably a little punishment as well to keep me on track.

  Le sigh. Dare to dream, right, Diary?

  Anyway, I got a call from my dad (def not Daddy, ewwww, er um let’s call him father to be clear). So, I got a call from my father on the train ride home, which just reminded me why being here in New York alone is better than another summer living with people that treat me like I’m invisible most of the time. The most endearing thing my father says is to call me silly girl. Which translates into silly (stupid) girl…

  Okay! I’m off. I’m wearing the new lavender dress I got at the thrift store. It’s way over the top for the kind of place we are going but I don’t care. I feel like a movie star when I wear it. One from the ‘golden age’ as they say. I think I was born a few generations too late. I don’t seem to quite fit in here in the 2020’s. This whole New York world is wow, it’s sooooo not West Virginia.

  Sometimes I feel like Dorothy…Toto, I got a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore…

  Okay, okay! I’m really going now. Bye Diary. Wish me luck, there has to be a Daddy for me out there somewhere…maybe he will be what I find inside The Trojan Horse! LOL

  xoxo

  * * *

  I feel like I’m in a dream as Sasha drags me from Jack.

  At a table twenty feet away, my co-workers are throwing back shots like M&Ms.

  I want to run back toward the bar. The dark-haired giant made my skin tingle the first moment I caught a glimpse of him helping that poor waiter. He looks evil in his own way, but that small act of kindness showed me something about who he is. Who he could be. The contrast is so sexy my butterflies have butterflies.

  I went to the bar to order another drink just to see him up close and when I did, I never in a million years expected him to speak to me.

  Being next to him, I was able to take in his magnificence. The way his shoulders filled out his dark suit in a way that shouldn’t be legal.

  Or maybe it’s my thoughts that should be illegal.

  I figured my fantasies of a special kind of man would stay just that, fantasies. But as soon as I looked at him, I felt like they could be reality. But, really, a man like him would never understand the filthy things I think about when I touch myself. The dreams and stories I only tell my diary.

  But now, the faceless man in my dreams has taken full form. Jack is what I will see from now on when I think of him.

  Daddy.

  His piercing blue eyes under a protruding brow line were a startling contrast against his tanned skin and raven-black hair. His face wasn’t conventionally handsome, I suppose. A bit of a crooked nose, a half-inch scar above his left eyebrow. More Russian mafia than Manhattan metrosexual. But, eye of the beholder and all that, right?

  I look over my shoulder and see him placing his glass down at the bar.

  He’s watching me go. But is he watching me because I'm watching him?

  Yet…I swear there’s a flicker in his eyes as we connect from across the room. Just like I told my diary before bed last night.

  I have to be reasonable. The bar is bustling with women flawless enough to grace the cover of Vogue or Cosmo.

  I’m not bad looking. I mean, I’m an average girl. Curvy in the right places, I guess, but next to most of these women in here I look like a hobbit. Jack, on the other hand, is the epitome calm, confident sex appeal and raw, animal heat. If sex had a face, it would be this man.

  Thing is, I’m hardly an authority on sex. I’ve only ever been around boys who laugh too much and drink too much and get high too often. They make crude jokes in an endless stream that gives me a headache. But Jack is no boy.

  He’s a man. The oozing power and authority coming from him even has people in the crowded bar giving him space. And it’s not just his size, which is a little freakish if I’m being honest. But still, as I watch, people they lower their eyes, practically genuflecting as they pass by him.

  Still, under that exterior there is something about his burning gaze that makes me feel fragile and tiny and protected.

  Every flick of his eyes, every curve of his lips, every clench of his bearded jaw, seems to dive deep and make a home between my legs.

  I do a few clenching Kegels as I walk and a flash of heat spirals up my spine. My breasts are tingling; nipples bunched up into tiny, hard balls, ready to pierce through the layers of lavender chiffon.

  I’m also aware of the sudden wet mess between my legs. My pathetic bit of sexual experience has never left me panting for more. I had one date my senior year and to say it was unremarkable is being generous. For the first couple seconds Bobby Foster tried to dry hump my hip in his car after my senior prom, I simply held my breath. Then, I punched him in the stomach and that was the end of that.

  That’s the extent of my worldly sexual experience, and a man like Jack looks like a pro player while I barely know the rules of the game.

  I peer over my shoulder one more time as Sasha tugs me forward and my steps wobble. Her harsh grip on my upper arm yanks me into a dimly-lit corridor beyond the restrooms where I can smell the cleaning products from behind a locked door.

  “Ow! Sasha, that hurts.” I jerk my arm away, rubbing the spot where her pointed, jabby fingernails dug in.

  “So, tell me…”

  “Tell you what? There’s nothing to tell,” I answer, trying to sound indifferent as I wonder how she noticed me talking to Jack.

  A flash of annoyance darkens her face. “Tell me about that concept you were sketching out earlier for our dairy product client.”

  I gape at her, trying to force my brain into gear. The world feels unsteady under my feet. I want to run my fingers through the dark hair sliding over the collar of Jack’s shirt. I want to pull his face into mine, and feel the scratch of his beard, the warmth of his tongue...

  “Chastity?” Sasha’s voice cuts through the haze. “The concept?”

  “The...what?” My words come out with a little whimper.

  She presses her fingers with Maleficent inspired nails to her forehead on a long huff like I’m giving her a migraine. “That whole idea you came up with, with the clouds and migrating birds…explain it to me again.”

  I return to earth with an anxious twist of my stomach, my real-life flooding back to me. I am once again vividly aware of the pounding music, of my skin prickling with a thousand goosebumps. I am also aware of how unsuitable I am for a man like Jack.

  You’re dreaming if you think he’s had the same earth-shattering experience as you’re having. Too many fantasies, Chastity.

  My heart twists as Sasha moves to my side, exposing a long mirror on the opposite wall that I hadn’t noticed until now.

  Next to Sasha, I look silly. Her legs go on for miles, and she knows how to dress for them.

  I wanted to wear something special tonight and what I see looking back at me is special but not in the right way. Not like the sample-size-New-York-Fashion-Week clothes most of the other women are wearing, paired with their Manolo Blahniks and Jimmy Choos.

  I’m not hating for what the genetic roulette wheel bestowed upon them, I just wish I didn’t feel so bad about me when I compare myself to what feels like everyone else in Manhattan.

  “Chastity. Come on.” Sasha’s losing her patience, as she does often with me. She lives life at hyper speed. “How did you tie the whole flock of birds idea with the client logo and tagline?”

  In a daze, I continue staring at my reflection while I ramble on autopilot. A part of me argues that it’s unfair for me to compare myself to her. After all, comparison is the thief of joy as they say. I mean, before Sasha ventured into marketing, she modeled in Paris. I should be grateful she lets me tag along when the office group goes out after work.

  Her eyes widen as I explain my idea. A smile lights her perfectly-painted red lips.

  “Yes! That’s it. Amazing. Well done. It’s going to be another win for o
ur team. You know, it’s a team effort.”

  She squeezes my upper arms and makes a little kissy sound with her lips. The thinly veiled condescension is not lost on me. I may be a nineteen year old from West Virginia, but I’m not stupid.

  “I’m going to shoot a quick e-mail to the boss, outlining the concept. He was just asking if we could have something together for tomorrow. Don’t want to let the team down,” she finishes on a tight smile, already tapping on her phone, then she adds, “I think it’s your turn to grab the next round. Me and the M-twins are going to go out back for a smoke so meet you back at the table.”

  I should be mad at her for telling me it’s my turn to buy the next round. She knows I’m broke. Working as an intern pays…yeah, basically nothing, and if it wasn’t for the help of my father paying my rent and a small allowance for the three months I’ll be here, I’d be living in a cardboard box under the RFK bridge.

  But instead of fighting off an anxiety attack about paying for drinks, the skin on my arms sizzles and the hair on the back of my neck stands up.

  I have a reason to go back to the bar.

  “Sure thing,” I chirp, watching Sasha saunter back into the crowd as I chew on the inside of my lower lip following her out of the corridor.

  I inhale for courage and walk toward the bar. My gaze shifts to where I see him standing, head and shoulders above the surrounding mortals. Jack was not crafted by God to blend in.

  My stomach flutters and another gush of heat dampens my underwear.

  He’s not alone anymore. He’s standing with a group. Four men in expensive-looking suits, acting like friends. And five women who look like socialites.

  Except…

  Two of the women are stuck to the sides of one man, and the other three are glued to another.

  Hanging out with Sasha has taught me a lot—one of those things being the ability to spot a prostitute at these high-end clubs. If I went by Sasha’s list, these women tick every box.

  They are dressed to the nines. They have seductive smiles on their faces at all times, their hands never straying from their dates. Truthfully, I don’t begrudge the women for what they do. If you want to sell your services for a living, I don’t really care.