Fighting Temptation

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First I want to say Thank You to my readers. Without you I would not be having this awesome adventure. You have helped make my dreams come true and for that I’m truly blessed and grateful.
To my husband thank you for standing behind me for twelve years and always pushing me in your own way. To my Mom and sisters thank you for always supporting me. You guys always have my back.
Daddy I miss you every day and I know you’re watching over

me.
To my work family thanks for being supportive and always giving me new material LOL.
To my BETA readers Diana, Ashley, Amy (B) and Taneesha. You guys are awesome and I love you.

Thanks to S.D. @Sugar and Spice Editing for your awesome editing.
Thanks to all of the book bloggers out there who spend so much time helping us promote books and everyone who leaves a review you are all awesome.

To my Author friends thank you for being supportive and inspirational all at the same time. Abbi Glines, Sophie Monroe, Sarah Daltry, Kasey Millstead ,Michelle Valentine, Jasinda Wilder, Jenn Foor, Melanie Codina and so many more.

Looking in the mirror, I barely recognize the girl standing there. Just a few weeks ago my biggest concern was the kind of car my parents were going to get me. Now all I see is a girl with hollow eyes, healing bruises and cuts, trust issues, and a shattered soul. My mom and Jim want me to start seeing a therapist, but I’m not sure I’m ready for that. I’ve always known my dad didn’t work with the most respectable people; they are kind of shady. Hell, why am I trying to sugar coat this? I’ve always known they’re criminals, but I never dreamed this would happen. I always thought his “friends” would protect me, not hurt me.

My father speaks up. “Daria, I will never be able to say enough how sorry I am for what happened to you. I’ve always thought I could protect you. I obviously failed at that. Your mother and I have decided that you should start using Jim’s last name.”

“How can I do that? All of my friends are going to think that’s weird? I’m going to be the topic of conversation enough as it is.”

He looks down. “Well, we also decided we are going to move you to St. Mary’s Christian School. I will pay for your college when the time comes. I know you had scholarships in sight for dance and I know you won’t get those at St. Mary’s. But a new school will give you a little privacy where not so many people know what happened. I know you don’t want to live every day with people looking and gawking at you.”

My mother clears her throat. “We are also thinking about your safety. Having your father’s last name automatically associates you with him; with Jim’s name, you’ll blend a little more. Jones is a very common name, where Broxton isn’t so much.”

I ra ise my voice to almost yelling. “So let me get this straight. I was attacked. I get to live with the nightmares. Now I have to change my name and school. All of this because my father is a fucking criminal with people out to get him.” I stand up and glare at my father. Speaking in the coldest tone I can find. “Fine, whatever. I’ll change schools. I’ll change my name. I’ll start a new freaking life, but just stay away from me. As far as everyone that you are affiliated with knows, I died in that fucking ditch.”

He slams his hand on the steering wheel. “I’ll talk to your mother when I drop you off. This has to stop or you are going to end up dead.”

He shakes his head. “Sweetheart, I’ll never be able to make it up to you, but coming to a crack house in the middle of the night to pull you out before the cops raid the place, I just can’t handle. I’m trying here, Daria; I’m trying to do a better job of keeping you safe.”

We pull into my driveway and I go to jump out, but my father grabs my arm. “No. I meant what I said; we are talking to your mother. You’re leaving for college in a few months and I need to know that you’re okay before you get there.”

When we walk into the house, my mom and Jim are sitting in the living room, waiting. My mom has been crying. Jim looks over at me with a serious expression I’ve never seen from him. “Daria, sit down.”

My dad steps to my side. “Daria, you will not disrespect your mother like that. She had nothing to do with what happened to you; that all falls on me.”

Jim has always tried to be the voice of reason. He clears his throat. “Daria, we all just want you to get some help. We’ve decided to put you in a facility for a few months.”

I look around the room at all of my parents. I walk over to the stairs and, before I go up, I look back. “I hate all of you.”

Sitting at the top of the stairs, I hear them talking about the rehab center they are sending me to. My father tells my mom and stepdad about the pile of cocaine he found under my nose at the party he busted into. I don’t know how he found me; I’m sure his spies/ henchmen were following me again. My family is so fucked up. It’s weird. My stepdad, Jim, used to be one of my dad’s henchmen. When Mom and Dad decided to go their separate ways, Jim fell in love with Mom and Dad let him go because he figured at least we’d be safe. Ha.

As it turns out, going to rehab and talking out my issues was what I needed. The attack and everything that surrounded it still haunt me. That was the reason for the drugs. I thought maybe if I could just I not feel for a few hours, it wouldn’t haunt me. Jim has been a real lifesaver through all of this; he kept encouraging me. He knew how hard it was to kick those habits.

He and my counselor also encouraged me to forgive my parents. Now, I’m packing my room to go off to college. I’ll essentially get to start over. I was supposed to start over at St. Mary’s four years ago. The bad part about living in a small area is everyone still knew what happened to me. Everyone knew about my dad’s business. They all knew… but now I get to see all new faces. No one at the university will ever know who Daria Broxton is; they will only know Daria Jones. I managed to somehow live through high school and rehab. So this is my reward. A new life.

I really want some water. But I can hear them arguing. My parents are always arguing. Maybe I should sneak over to Gabby’s house. No, that would just cause more trouble. I wish my dad would just go back out of town. He’s always out of town on business or something. He’s some sort of tech guy for a company that has him traveling every other week. When he’s here, though, he’s mean and a butthead. I wish sometimes he would just leave and never come back.

He shakes his head. “No. You know how I feel about football. I think it’s stupid and barbaric, but I guess you’re just like your mom’s dumb country bumpkin family.”

My dad is a small-framed man. I look like the men in my mom’s family. Her four brothers are huge and all athletes. Tears sting the inside of my eyes, but I refuse to cry in front of my father. I’m twelve now. I shouldn’t cry just because someone hurt my feelings.

She’s defensive over me. The last time my dad was home, he called me an idiot and said I might have more brain cells if I didn’t get the shit knocked out of me on a daily basis. Gabby was there. She jumped up and told him to go to Hell and that I had a 3.75 GPA. She’s my best friend; I think she would’ve hit him if I would have let her. Instead, I pulled her away from him.

I nod, walking toward my front door. I hear my mom screaming, a long list of cuss words. I rush into the house. My mom has her death glare focused on my dad.

My mom looks at me. “Your father is a lying, cheating son of a bitch, with two families. Some of his mail to his other house got mixed up and sent here, so I started looking into it. Well, he has a house, two cars, and another family in south Georgia.”

“Really, son, I thi nk your mom has just been working too much and is exhausted, coming up with all of this. I think maybe she needs some anxiety meds or something, what with all the stress at her job and you.”

My mother’s face turns a shade of red I’ve never seen. She picks up a manila envelope and throws it across the table; pictures and forms fall out. “You stupid asshole. I hired a private investigator. I know you’ve been ‘married’ to little miss Georgia for ten years now. So do you wanna pack your shit and leave now? Maybe I should call the cops and tell them I have a bigamist living with me. Does little miss Georgia know about Cade and me? Maybe I should call her.”

My dad goes to say something, but I stop him by grabbing him and pushing him up against the wall. “Listen, dickhead. Get out of here. You were never here anyway, so what does it matter? Just stay away from us. Get your shit and get out.”

He does. It’s the last time I see his lying ass. Mom makes me stay away from the court hearings. He does two years for bigamy and my mom reams his ass when it comes to the money, the house, and their assets. What gets me is you think you know someone. My mom had been married to him since she was eighteen; seventeen years they were married. He’ supposedly been married to this chick in Georgia for ten as well. What the fuck? How can someone do that?

That must be my new roommates coming in now. Damn. I’m so glad that I found housing for the summer. I can’t go back home; I’ve worked so hard over the past year and a half. I’ve kicked the drugs, and as long as I take my medicine, I don’t have the nightmares anymore. The door to the room I’m in opens and a beautiful dark-haired girl stands in the doorway.

“Hi, I’m Daria. I hope you’re okay with the side I picked. I got in yesterday. We’re lucky they let us move in for summer session. They normally don’t do that, but last year they lost a bunch of money. I think the board of trustees threw a fit, so they opened the dorms back up for the summer sessions.”

She laughs kind of nervously. “Oh, yeah. I don’t think I could handle living with more than one female. I have a sister and she was enough.”

I agree. “That’s funny; that’s the way I think, too. I can’t stand being around a bunch of stupid girls. I mean most of the time people have two reasons for wanting coed housing. A. You’re a slut, or B. You were late signing up for housing. But I like having guys for roommates as long as we make ground rules and stick by them.”

She t hrows her hands up as if to say ‘praise Jesus.’ “I agree. I’ve had my fill of the bullshit that guys throw out and I just don’t want to deal with it here.”

“You sound like it. I hope I’m a good roommate. The chick I roomed with last year said I was, but she decided to move in with her boyfriend this year. He couldn’t handle her living in the coed dorms.”

“Well, I hope I am too. I’m not real high maintenance or anything. I’m a runner for the cross country team. I still smoke occasionally when I’m stressed. My best friend since birth practically is a guy. I hope you’re okay with him hanging out sometimes; we grew up next door to each other. We’ve never been apart for much more than a few days.”

I laugh. Now she’s rambling. “That sounds okay. Let me just say I’m not a runner. Something had better be after me if I’m running. I’m also cool with your best friend being a guy. Is he gay?”

She bursts out laughing. “No, quite the opposite. Don’t get me wrong; I love him with all of my heart and he would take a bullet for me.” She shakes her head. “But when it comes to women, he’s got issues. He’s gorgeous, smart, and athletic, but he’s an idiot when it comes to women. He has some commitment and trust issues.”

She leaves, going out to the kitchen. A few minutes later, I hear what must be the guys we’ll be living with come in.

He chuckles. “Yeah, I think my cousin Linc is about to have a middle school mistake in his pants, if you get what I’m saying.”

I lau gh; I already like this guy. “See, here’s the thing. We should probably not date each other since we are going to be roommates. I just told her that.” I roll my eyes. “Last year, it was like some white-trash version of the Jerry Springer show across the hall. The R.A. finally had them kicked out. Every other week, we thought someone was going to get killed over there. All the damn screaming. ‘You bitch.’ ‘You whore.’ ‘You slut.’ ‘He’s mine.’ It was seriously fucked up. I was expecting at any moment for some chick to come out barefoot with a 120 cigarette hanging from her lips and holding a baby haphazardly under her arm.”

Russ starts laughing. “That’s funny, but you don’t have to worry about Linc. He made that same rule before we got here. I’m kinda known for having more than one girlfriend at the time, so he made our roommates off limits.”

“He sounds smart. I think you should listen to him, because I’m not listening to that shit again this year. I will kill you in your sleep.”

He laughs and we walk into the common area making our introductions. Russ is so animated and dying to retell the story from last year.

I hear banging; what in the hell is that? I roll over. The clock says its five thirty. Gabby jumps up from her bed and stomps into the living room. I hear her giving some guy hell since its five thirty in the morning. She comes back a few minutes later and changes into her running clothes.

“Fucking Cade. The guys have practice and Cade is determined that I go running with them.” She slips her shoes on. “He’s kinda my trainer.”

I nod, “Sounds precious. I’m going back to sleep and you tell your friend to text the guys next time. That is if he wants to keep his balls.”

A few hours later, Gabby comes breezing into the room and starts digging in her closet. I chuckle. “Gabby, are you okay?”

I shuffle over to her closet to help her pick something. I look at a picture on her desk of her, a girl that looks like her, and a guy. “Who are these people?”

She looks over her shoulder. “Um, that’s me, my sister, Anna, and Cade, my best friend.” She moves to her dresser. “He’s the one who moved here with me.”

As if she se nses what I’m thinking, she says, “Yes, he’s only my friend. I know what a lot of people think, but we’ve been best friends forever. He’s like my big brother and he’s a little overprotective of me.”

“I wouldn’t call him really a player; he just likes no strings attached. But I can’t say he ever leads someone on. He makes sure they understand going in.” She shakes her head. “That all normally works out fine. Except the girl he hooked up with most of the time in high school. She was great a concealing the fact that she thought they were a couple. So when he and I went to move up here, she lost her shit. She started telling everyone she was pregnant. That he and I had been screwing around for years. Which only pissed Cade off more after what all I’d already been through.”

She can sense I want to ask her but she shakes her head. “My story is for another time, with many, many drinks involved.”

“I’m going home for the weekend. I don’t have classes on Friday. My freakin’ parents are trying to make me feel guilty about not coming home more.”

“A couple of hours from here.”
Yeah, sorry, Gabby, you seem nice but I don’t share my life. Otherwise, I’d be telling you that I have to go home for my mandatory counseling sessions, with ALL of my parents.

A few hours later, I return from class to a living room full of boys playing Xbox. I just laugh and shake my head. Russ pokes his head up. “Hey, Daria, sorry. We are having a little showdown. This is Cade, Jason, Kyle, and Brooks. They’re on the team with Linc and me. Do we need to take it elsewhere? Do you need to study?”

I smile. He really can be sweet. “No. It’s fine. I’m about to head out anyway. I have to go home for the weekend.”
Damn. Cade looks better in person, holy hotness.