Fated

Fated

Nicole
Tetterton

Copyright © 2013 Nicole
Tetterton

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, disturbed or transmitted in any form of by any means including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without express from the author.

This work is entirely fiction. Any
similarities with persons living or dead is simply a coincidence and not intended by the author.

Cover art by
Samantha Bagood/Cover Pub
.
http://coverpub.samanthabagood.com/

To the LOML for always supporting me in my dream; without you I know that I would never be able to do any of this or even have the confidence to put myself out into the world. Thank you for always believing in me, for never giving up on me, saving me from myself, and for giving me my own fairy tale so I am able to write these.

Also, thank you for not getting mad over the many days of a dirty house due to my fixation of writing.

Prologue

Austin

I hate this crap
. I think as I allow myself to get up and leave the office, my office. I see my father’s disappointment all over his face as I walk to the elevator with a small smirk on my face, I’m positive that he knows what is going to happen with the rest of my night, before I leave for my case that is. I make my way towards the elevator as a few of the women from the other offices in the building smile at me; I’m not sure why they are even on our office floor. They all know my reputation and yet they still try and come onto me. They don’t care about me, which in my book makes it alright to just fuck them and leave them, they don’t care so why should I, and with me that’s all they are looking for anyways. Before I make it into the elevator I see the blonde from behind my secretary’s desk nervously look around, waiting for me nonetheless. I don’t think too highly of myself, but I just know that’s all. We have this type of relationship, the type of relationship that I have with every woman I meet, where we flirt back and forth. I stop and smile to her.

“Austin,” she smiles back at me.

“Good afternoon to you.” I don’t know her name, but I smile the award winning smile that I know I have. “How was your day?” I ask as I lower my voice so that only she can hear me. She drops the papers that she is holding. I know it’s awful and that I shouldn’t sleep with my secretary, but sometimes I can’t help myself, plus I have been feeling a bit lonely today. I let a slight chuckle escape my lips as she bends over, picks up the papers, and I get a great view of her tits when she shirt gaps open. That is the last thing I can handle before she looks back up to me and smiles, she knows what just happened. She isn’t really nervous; she knows where this is going to lead. I lean down to where only she can hear and say, “You know, I’m leaving, which means that you can leave as well, since you are working for me.”

“But Jack said-,” I cut her off.

“Who cares what Jack says, I’m telling you that you are the secretary for my office and that you can leave.” I let a smile slither onto my lips again. I think I see the recollection of what I am actually trying to tell her register in her head. She is an idiot. She is just my type; beautiful and stupid. I know, I know that is awful to say about someone, but it’s the truth and half of girls only act that way because they think that we –men- like that. We don’t, and it isn’t cute. “Well, I think that I am going to go get a drink at the bar next door.” I say and walk out into the elevators as the door closes I can see her between them I smile at her, but as soon as the doors close I lean against the wall and pray that no one else gets on.

I have just ordered my second beer when I see her walk through the door. It’s only her second week working for the firm, but she really just makes it too easy for me.

“Hey,” she smiles at me, “I was worried about getting out of there, and Jack was staring me down.”

“I told you that you could leave,” I say without looking at her as I take a swig from the bottle and I notice her taking off her cardigan, to expose the small shirt underneath it. Her tits are almost hanging out of the top and I have to control myself not to roll my eyes at her. It’s sickening how obvious that she is.

“I know, but I thought that was just because you were inviting me to come out with you.” She shyly smiles and her statement causes me to laugh. I feel slightly bad, but I really just can’t help it.

“I never asked you to come out.” I tell her and her jaw falls open.

“Yes, you did.” She says matter of factly.

“No, I did not.” I say clearly stating each word
, taking another swig from my bottle, and then turn to look at her, “I told you that you could leave for the rest of the day and then made a comment about where I was going.” I have been doing this little stunt for as long as I can remember I already know the next words that she is going to say.

“Well, then I’
ll leave.” She seems to be mad as she grabs her bags and for a slight second I think about letting her leave, but then the emptiness won’t go away, so I add,

“No, you’re already here, stay. No need to ruin the day because of a misunderstanding.” I
say to her, and I wonder if she knows that this is all a part of my way to get her to take her clothes off for me in a few hours.

I nurse my second beer as she starts to take shots, go figure she is only twenty-
two. My phone begins to buzz in my pocket and I pull it out looking onto the screen.

“Hey, Mar,”
I say and then notice Ms. Blondie’s look wondering who in the hell that I am talking to.

“Hey, I have a favor to ask of you.” I hear come out of the receiver. Mar lives three houses down from me and is like the little sister I never had, and sometimes never wanted.

“Who is that?” I hear Blonde ask me, and I wave her off.

“God, Austin, it isn’t even 5 in the afternoon,”
Mar groans, I scowl at the blonde as I get up from the bar and walk outside.

“Yeah, I know, but I’m leaving tonight.”

“She sounds like a child.”

“She’s of age, what’s going on?” I ask her, she’s the type of girl who doesn’t ask for help easily.  “What’s the favor?”

“My sister, she’s in trouble.” She sounds worried.

“What kind of trouble?”

“I haven’t gotten all of the details yet, but she’s moving down here from Boston. She got arrested last night and I haven’t gotten all of the details yet, but it doesn’t sound pretty.” She’s rambling now, she must be really worried.

“Don’t worry; I’ll take care of it Mar, but I will be out of town until the fourteenth.” I tell her.
I would do just about anything for Mar.

“That’s fine, she’s coming down in a few days, I’ll pay you just don’t tell her that I am doing so, she will kill me.” She tells me.

“No, you don’t have to. Mar, we are friends and I help out my friends.”

“Alright, thanks, oh and one more thing Austin.”
She trails making sure that I’m listening.

“What?”

“Don’t fuck her,” I know I should be appalled that she just said that to me, but I’m not. She’s right I have a tendency to have sex with a lot of women, most of which never hear from me again, but I can only imagine that if she’s anything like Mar, which I assume she is since they are twins, I wouldn’t be attracted to her. It’s not that Mar isn’t attractive it’s just she isn’t my type. She’s funny, smart, and she’s just too damn innocent, but the thing that really kills me with Mar is that she actually cares. We hang up the phone and I walk back inside to Blondie sitting at the bar, when I sit down next to her I see her lean over and put her arms around me. I can tell that the shots have started affecting her and then I feel her teeth on the sides of my neck.

“Are you ready to get out of here?” She asks me and I let her think that what she is doing is turning me on, but it’s not. She isn’t, but the idea of sex does.

“Let me make things clear before we leave.” I say looking her in the eyes, “What you are insinuating is all it will be, nothing more.”

“Oh, I’ve heard things around the office. I know what I am getting myself into, and I’m a big girl and from what I’ve heard
that you are a big boy. I can only hope that you can live up to the hype.” She whispers into my ear and I cringe a little on the inside, but I pay my tab and pull her by the arm to my car.

Two hours later
, I am looking over at Blondie lying in my bed asleep having my own dilemma. Do I wake her up and make her leave, or let her sleep and wake up to an empty house. I would rather not come home to anything stolen or my car damaged again.

“Get up,” I tell her and she shoots up as I push on her shoulders, I know that she wasn’t sleeping.

“What?” She seems stunned.

“Get
up; I’ve got to get ready to leave.” She scoffs at me and I motion for her to get a move on. “I have to leave in twenty minutes, get up and leave.” I watch as she moves over to the side of the bed, pulling the sheets with her and kneels trying to kiss me, but I turn my head away and she scoffs even louder.

“You’re an asshole.” She shouts at me as she finally gets up off of the bed.

“So I’ve heard. Now hurry up.” I’ve heard it all at the point; asshole, pig, player, dog, dickhead, emotionally unstable, sexual harassment, nothing affects me anymore. Nothing that any of these girls say to me affects me.

As I wake in the morning to my phone ringing I read that it’s my father and groan
GREAT!

“Hey, dad.”

“Good job, Austin,”
you made another one quit.
I add in my head knowing it’s what he is thinking.

“Dad, I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“Do not fucking play dumb with me, Austin. Look you keep this shit up and you are going to end up getting disbarred.” Well, there could be worse things.

Chapter One

Sophie

I’m completely unaware
of what I am doing at this moment in time; it’s almost as if I am having an out of body experience… I watch the small car veer off of the interstate and down the off ramp. I see myself sulking as I am pumping gas and then walking inside of the store to pay and use the restroom. My life is in complete shambles right now. I am twenty-five, single, massive amounts of student loan debt that is currently being sent to collections -and I haven’t even used my degree since getting out of college- a failed business, and I have been evicted from my apartment, twice.

Last year
, at this time, if someone would have told me where I would be now I would have laughed; I had everything. Like I said I have an unused English degree, but last year that didn’t matter, again I had everything. I had started my own party planning business in Boston shortly after I had graduated from college, which was going well, I was making close to ten thousand dollars a month. I had my boyfriend who had just proposed to me and we were beginning to plan our wedding. I had a beautiful downtown apartment that everyone was envious of.

Everything started falling apart during the summer when my business started slowing down and collapsing around me, and at the beginning of November I had to move in with my fiancée. I figured that even with my failing business that at least I had him, so my life wasn’t completely fucked… at least at that moment.

Everything crumbled the week after Thanksgiving. I had just gotten the news that I had to close the doors to the business the beginning of December, between the wedding and trying to keep it afloat, and the fact that I didn’t have much anyways, that I had blown my savings. What? I was in my twenties, I didn’t think that I needed a whole lot. So here I was the day that I locked my doors for the last time and I walked my small, pathetic self, back to the apartment. I had once loved walking home. My old apartment building was spectacular, it over looked the entire city, and I had full floor to ceiling windows, and believe me it was amazing at night, especially when you were having sex, but that is neither here nor there. So, where was I , oh yes, I am walking back through the snowy street, we had just gotten an unexpected snow storm for Thanksgiving and it was all melting away, it crunched under my shoe. I sighed as I opened the small door that led up to Joe’s apartment.

Joe and I had met two years ago, when I was planning his sister’s wedding. He was kind and charming, and extremely good looking. He was tall with muscles in all the right places, he
had these deep grey eyes that I at one time thought were beautiful but now I think otherwise, and then the messy hair that sat on top of his head, sometimes I couldn’t say no to him. He didn’t realize at first how much money that I had, but once he saw my apartment he had to have figured it out. I was twenty-three living in one of the most sought after and expensive complexes in the city. I was worried at first that he was only with me because I had such a successful company, but as time went on I believed that we had this amazing chemistry. We did, we took romantic cruises, we had an amazing time, and when we got engaged a year later no one was surprised.

Paige, my best friend and employee had urged me to get a per-nup before we went through with the wedding, but I was convinced that Joe wasn’t after
the money that my business was making that I had managed to accumulate plus I knew that I always managed to blow it all anyways, I was constantly struggling to pay bills, but he had no idea. I was convinced that he really loved me for me. I was twenty-four, stupid, impulsive, too creative for my own good, and now broke.

So, where was I… oh yes, I walked up the staircase to Joe’s small, crummy apartment, the only thing that was holding me together on this day was that our wedding was on the fifteenth, in exactly two and a half weeks. It was the only thing that had put a smile on my face all day. I picked up my
pace a bit not wanting life to defeat me at that moment. I slide my key into the lock and entered, immediately walking to the bathroom and starting the tub. I slipped into it only moments later and let the water engulf my body. I felt myself slowly falling asleep in the tub, but figured that maybe, just maybe, a soothing nap would help me.

I was awoken some time later to the front door being slammed shut and then voices coming from the living room. I got out of the tub and slipped into the clothes that I had lying on the floor. As I pulled up my yoga pants up over my ass I heard the conversation as I can only guessed they made their way into the bedroom.

“I told you, babe, it’s not like that. This had been the plan from the beginning,” I heard Joe say, and I wondered who he was calling babe, “Get her to fall in love with me, marry her, divorce her, and get a large chunk of change that we can live off of for a while.” His words crushed me at that moment.

“I know, it’s just how do you know that she won’t make you sign it,” I heard a female voice say. My whole body went cold as I sat down on the edge of the t
ub and listened, I knew that it wasn’t what I should have done, and that I shouldn’t listen to any more, not because I was invading their privacy, but because it was crushing me inside to hear it. Then I heard him laugh.

“Because, she thinks that I truly love her,” he wasn’t aware that I had just locked the doors today; when I had moved in here I had used the excuse that since we were getting married I wanted to go ahead and start living together, and my apartment wasn’t a family apartment. I had managed to fall into a depression in the last week and he didn’t even notice; I understand why now.

“But you don’t?” she asked coyly, the way the words sounded made me want to be sick.

“Now babe, you know that you are the only one that I love.” He said and then I heard him kiss her. He had used me this whole time, trying to get money; that bastard. I let myself sink off of the side of the tub and onto the cold hard tiled floor; it was the perfect simile for my life at the moment. I heard her giggled followed by
a, “Joe, stop it.” and it made me sick. I silently cried into my lap for minutes that lasted longer than I thought they could.

Then the hurt resided, and anger coursed through me. My eyes popped op
en, completely clear of tears and I threw open the door and saw them completely naked all over one another.

“Hey Soph, this isn’t what it looks like,” Joe said
I saw the shock on his face and that’s all I remember, I saw red after that. Paige had to come pick me up from the police station later that night. I was slapped with a nasty restraining order, a domestic abuse and aggravated assault case, and guess what else… that’s right, Joe was suing me, for ten thousand dollars. Alright it might be possible that I had anger issues, but that’s why the court made me move, they considered that I was unfit to take care of myself that night by the state shrink. He, the shrink, told me that night that he didn’t think I had necessarily mental issues, but something more like had a mental breakdown with everything happening in my life. He was probably right.

The next day I had to get my belongings from Joe’s apartment. That in itself was a ridiculous ordeal, Paige had to drive me, and there were two officers there. It didn’t help matters that Joe’s girlfriend was there with him. Apparently she was living there with him befor
e I lost my apartment.

I looked at her and noticed immediately that her eye was blackened, and that she wouldn’t look me in the
eyes. Joe on the other hand smiled at me when I walked through the door. He, also, had a blackened eye, and I couldn’t help but laugh at myself when I noticed that he was missing a few teeth. The officers made both of them leave while I collected all of my things.

When I walked into the bedroom I couldn’t help but notice how the dry wall had a large indent in it, and I remembered that when I came out of the bathroom I threw her off of him and punched him in the face. I sighed and wanted to get out of there immediately.

It was easy to gather all of my belongings considering that most of them were still packed up. As we walked out of the building with the last of my things Paige let out a pent up sigh, “So, that was interesting.” And she laughed; I couldn’t believe that I was actually hearing her laugh.

“What’s so funny?” I asked her.

“Oh, after hearing what happened and then seeing them,” she paused and looked around almost like she was making sure that no one could hear her, “Honestly, I’m glad that you did it. He’s a fucking prick.” And then she nudged me with her shoulder, “I’m just sad that you’re leaving.”

“It’s probably for the best.” I told her.

“You’re definitely right about that.”

“How did Marsi handle it when you called her?”

“Well, like Mar,” I shrugged. Marsi was my twin sister and who I am currently on my way to go live with. She was always the smarter of the two of us, and the more levelheaded. She was the one that mom and dad have always been proud of.

“I’m going to miss the hell out of you, Soph.” she looked down at the floorboard as we got into the car and then sped off through Boston to her apartment, even though the business had plummeted Paige was much better with her money than I was. Plus, I gave her fair warning what was going on, and she had managed to find another job, quickly. I was happy for her.

We laughed and cried the rest of the night, as we sat around and drank some wine, and I woke up this morning, said a sad goodbye, walked to the door, and with one sad look behind my shoulder I exited her apartment into the still snow melting streets. My car that we had picked up last night was sitting in the parking space and I got into it. I saw Paige sitting in the window and then disappear behind it. We tried not to be emotional people.

Boston had been my home for the last seven years, I
had gone to school there, I had graduated there, I had started life there and now all of that was taken away; all because of fucking Joe.

I watched Boston fall into the rearview mirror the further I drove away until it eventually turned into
a busy interstate. The drive to Miami was over twenty-four hours and Mar refused to let me drive the whole thing, even though I hadn’t slept since my stint in the police station I didn’t feel like stopping. Oh, mom and dad I’m sure would be so proud. I sigh as I enter Savannah and pull off the interstate, deciding try and get some sleep for the night. Mar had wired me some money before I left this morning. She wanted to make sure that I stayed in a good area, so that I wasn’t raped or whatever, but to be honest it probably wouldn’t have bothered me. Not that I wanted to get raped but I am just so empty inside that nothing could possibly bother me. I smile when I pull up to the classiest hotel that I could find and enter through the door hoping that they would have a room for the night. I got lucky and made it up my room and laid down at eight hoping to get up early for the rest of my drive.

I tossed and turned not sleeping, but Mar was right I needed to get off of the road for a little bit, no need in dying if I could avoid it, right? I exhale and knowing that the
restaurant next door was open late. I pull my yoga pants back over my ass, slide into an oversized hoodie as I walk out of my room and to the restaurant that shares the same parking lot. I sit down at the bar and look over at the girl who smiles at me and walks up the horseshoe shaped bar to me. She is a tall girl, really pretty as well.

“Can I get you anything?” She asks, with a bit of an underlying drawl as if she doesn’t want anyone knowing that she has an accent, and I can tell that she is ready to go home even if the car doesn’t close until one.

I sigh, “A Grateful Dead and a shot of tequila, no training wheels.” I ask her. She is probably around my age.

“Straight for the hard stuff?”
I hear the rough voice next to me say as I turn, looking at him, the first thing that I notice is his enticing blue eyes, they are almost the color of sapphires but on the inside the turn into a greyish color. His messy dark brown hair manages to bring them out even more. His grin is enticing. I can’t tell exactly how tall that he is but I see his bicep bulge out from under the sleeve of his shirt and I can’t help but love the stubble that is sitting on his face. I smile politely at him and respond.

“It was a long drive.”

“Where are you coming from?” He asked me with a mischievous grin.

“Boston,” I tell him.

“Ouch,” he fully smiles at me. His smile is exhilarating. It’s one of those smiles that lights up the entire room. I run my finger through my hair as I look around and I know that he has the attention of every woman in the room; every one of them are drinking him in. I laugh as I lean into him,

“You do realize that literally every woman in this restaurant is staring at you.” He smiles at me,
Oh that smile.

“No, I hadn’t.” he tells me as the bartender sits my drinks down and then places a ticket, I guess to be mine, in a cup that sits in front of where I si
t. I pick up the shot glass and toss the liquid into my throat. Slamming the glass back down on the bar just enough so that it doesn’t break, and then pick the straw and take a sip from my cup then looking back over to him. I can’t help but notice him staring at me, almost like he is studying me.

“Bullshit,” I say.

“Excuse me?” he looks shocked, as if I’m the first person to ever call him out and I lean back over to him so that only he can hear me.