PLAYED - A BRITISH BAD BOY ROMANCE (60 page)

CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN

Cold.
Darkness. Pain.
I had known these things before, but time seemed to stretch out as my senses
began to wake from their unnatural slumber. Everything felt slower, almost as
if I’d been taken out of the normal world and thrust into something
supernatural. I could feel my heart racing in my chest.

My heart… A
heartbeat… I’m alive!

The realization seemed to sweep through me,
connections turning on as I could feel myself moving, little sensations of
touch filtering through the fog. Where the hell was I? What was going on? I
forced my eyes open, the blurry brightness causing them to clamp back shut
immediately.

Oh, fuck. I’ve
been drugged!

I had to get out of here. I had to do something to
run, to save Nathan, to escape this place. I began to thrash in place, even as
a pain shot out from my arm, searing into my shoulder and neck. I reached
across my body blindly, feeling the tubes, struggling to understand what the
hell was happening to me in this terrible place.

“Nurse!”

The voice was strange, almost ethereal. I thrashed
harder as I felt hands pinning my shoulders down, but then a strange sense of
calm flooded over me like the gentle lapping of the tide coming in. I felt warm
and light, like I was soaring beyond myself, back into the blackness I’d fought
so desperately to escape.

They were
drugging me again! No!

But as hard as I tried to claw back toward the light,
it faded again, and there I was in the cold, the darkness, the pain…

The next time I woke was different. It wasn’t the hard
beating of my heart that brought me back into the world; it was the soft touch
of someone’s fingertips on my palm, and the overwhelming scent of flowers.

“You’re going
to be okay…”

The whisper was nice. The voice was soft, and each
syllable seemed to caress me, wrapping me up in a warmth I’d almost forgotten
existed. I took a chance and fluttered an eye, glad to be shrouded in darkness.
I could feel my hand being squeezed.

“That’s right.
Come back to me, Sandra.”

My eyes flashed open, unfocused, straining to
understand. I was in a hospital room, that much was certain, but it was nicer
than the ones I’d seen as a child—much nicer than the facility my grandma had
lived in during the last hard years of her life. High tech equipment and
soothing colors surrounded me. Even the bed I was lying in seemed unusually
comfortable. More importantly, the room was filled with flowers of every size
and color imaginable, even more opulent than the display Nathan had put on back
at the Peachtree.

Nathan… that
voice…

As I turned my head, I saw him beside him.

“Nathan,” I
whispered, staring up at him.

“I’m here,” he replied, his face contorting with
emotion. Regret, fear, happiness, love—I watched all of those feelings shift
across his face as he watched over me. My heart began to race as I tried to
piece together exactly what had happened to me back at Captain Pierce’s house.

“The Captain…
he shot me. We have to stop him.”

Nathan just laughed softly, running his fingertips
along my arm. Even in my weakened state, he gave me goosebumps.

“Relax, Sandra. He came out of that house looking like
a hero, but it turns out there are still a few good cops on the force. When you
went storming into the building, you left a car with a busted trunk and all the
evidence you needed to put that asshole away for life just sitting there on the
passenger seat. You’re lucky the right person found it.”

Lieutenant Daniels
, I thought to myself. I’d been
right about him. He
was
a good cop.
I’d owe him big time for this one.

“Where is he?”
I asked, suddenly worried.

“The Captain? You don’t have to worry about him
anymore. He’s in a holding cell waiting to be charged right along with a dozen
paddies. He rolled on the whole organization. You should see the news. This
whole thing has been one hell of a story. You’d hate it.”

I laughed and instantly regretted it. Pain shot
through my neck, and I hissed as it momentarily blinded me.

Nathan grimaced. “Sorry. Don’t laugh. You did take a
bullet, remember? Few inches in either direction and it would have taken out
your spine or your jugular. Doctors said you’re lucky to be alive,” he added,
holding my hand tightly. “I told them you were too goddamn stubborn to die.”

That shed some light on what had happened to me. but I
still had questions for him to answer. “Where are we now? This doesn’t look
like County General.”

He grinned a little. “I hope you don’t mind, but the
hospital they had you in was a little beneath my standards. Soon as you were
stable, I had them move you here. Good Samaritan East, best care you can get
this side of the Mason Dixon line.” His expression softened. “My baby deserves
the best,” he told me.

I blew out a slow breath. Good Samaritan East wasn’t
in my provider network. This whole thing must have cost a fortune, but then I
realized I was worrying over nothing. Fortunes were something Nathan could
afford to lose. Hell, it might even humble the guy a bit… But something about
his words caught me off guard.

Baby? He never
called me baby…

I glanced up at his eyes, and suddenly I understood.
My hand softly moved to my tummy, holding it tight.
No words could express the way I was feeling.

“Relax…
You’re fine, and so is our little miracle,” Nathan said, placing a hand over my
own. “Everything is going to be ok.”

Nathan’s face blurred before me, and I squinted,
trying to make him out. “Nathan,” I whispered, feeling drowsy again. I
desperately fought to focus. I didn’t want to lose him again.

“Yes?” he
replied quietly, stroking my cheek.

I leaned into his touch, craving just a few more
seconds of lucidity. “Stay with me… Stay with us…”

He nodded, leaning forward to press his lips against
my forehead just above the bridge of my nose. “Always, Sandra,” he promised me.
“I’ll always stay.”

I let his words wrap me in a tender embrace as I
closed my eyes and drifted blissfully away.

CHAPTER
NINETEEN

Paris
is cold in the
winter. You never really think about that when you’re looking at pretty
pictures of the Eiffel Tower and the quaint, narrow streets paved with
cobblestones. It all looks so warm and inviting, and yet here I was, being
forced toward shelter by the crisp and biting wind stinging my dark skin.

The dress wasn’t
helping.

I shuffled up the steps of the huge church in the
sheer, but billowing white folds of cloth. It draped beautifully over my frame,
but did nothing to hide my obvious pregnancy. The strapless bodice was
especially troublesome, as it exposed my expanding cleavage to the frigid air.
At this point, I would have traded the whole outfit for a pair of yoga pants
and one of Nathan’s big stretchy white t-shirts.

It was my fault, of course. I was the idiot who had to
go outside for a breath of fresh air just a few minutes before the wedding. I’d
taken on the Irish mafia, almost single-handedly dismantled a sex-trafficking
ring, and exposed the corruption running rampant through my city’s police
department, and yet nothing seemed so terrifying as walking up the steps and
through the doors toward my destiny.

Everyone was waiting inside to start, cradled in the
warmth of the cathedral. I was happy to see them, and obviously elated to be
there, but this had all happened so fast… Was I ready? Could we truly be a
family?

I thought back to everything that had led up to this
moment. Unsurprisingly, Nathan didn’t want me returning to the force after I’d
recovered, especially once I’d testified against the Captain. Right or wrong,
cops looked after their own, and there was enough corruption to ensure I’d
never see another promotion—or worse, that backup might not arrive next time I
needed it. He told me I could oversee his security team, but that was just an
excuse to keep me close while he found a suitable ring.

And what a ring it was.

I glanced down, the oversized diamond sparkling wildly
in the colored light that streamed down from the stained glass windows. It was
a platinum band with a sixteen-carat monstrosity situated right in the center
of it. I wasn’t the kind of girl who spent her life dreaming of her wedding
day, but on the occasions in which I had contemplated it, I never once imagined
I’d have a ring or a dress as beautiful as this. Sure, it had to be
custom-tailored to fit over my eight month pregnant belly, but that was a
problem money
could
solve.

I looked away from the ring and toward the people
staring expectantly at me from the pews. This was it. My moment. I almost
laughed at the beauty of it all.

Everyone turned to watch as I stepped onto the red
carpet leading to the altar. The organ began to play its marching tune, filling
the space with warm, reverberating tones that disturbed the butterflies once
lying dormant in my stomach.

Here comes the
bride…

I tried not to look at the crowd, instead focusing on
the man waiting for me just a few feet away. Nathan looked incredible. He was
standing at the end of the aisle, that goddamn smirk spread wide across his
handsome face, shifting in anticipation as he watched me steadily approach. I’d
gotten used to looking at his thousand-dollar suits and his shoes that cost
more than my car, but this was on a whole other level. There wasn’t a stitch on
his clothing that had been made by a machine. It wasn’t just hand-tailored; it
was molded, every fiber of the cloth handcrafted for this very moment. Ours
were a pair of outfits suitable for a prince and a princess, worn by a
billionaire and an ex-detective who wasn’t quite ready to wear several million
dollars’ worth of diamond jewelry and a dress too pretty to sit down in.

I took my first step toward him, clutching my bouquet
to my chest. I didn’t have a father to give me away. He’d left while I was
still in elementary school, which either was because of, or had led to my
mother’s addiction—I’d been too young to tell. Only a few distant relatives had
come in his stead, and as much as I appreciated their support, I wasn’t about
to let my uncle’s third cousin walk me down the aisle. Like everything else in
life, if I was going to do this, then I was going to do it alone.

A certain solemnity hit me, just for a moment. I
wished my mother could’ve been here, and Jenny—or at least, the versions of
them I held so near and dear to my heart. In my mind’s eye, they were always
sober, happy, and at peace, always living the best days of their lives. Nothing
could have made this day any more perfect except for their smiling faces
beaming at me from the pews. I felt a pang of regret sting my heart as I
envisioned them doing just that.

I couldn’t let them bring my moment down. Nathan and I
had decided back in that shitty Peachtree Overlook apartment that there was no
use in hanging on to ancient history. We couldn’t change what had happened back
then to either of us, but we could certainly change our futures.

That was what I was moving toward now, I realized: my
future. My heart swelled as I began to step toward him in time with the music,
tears brimming in my eyes as I let go of my guilt. I walked away from the
ghosts of my mother and Jenny, and I reached out for Nathaniel Hale.

With every step, the one that followed seem to come
even easier. I walked past the rich and the famous and the row of cameras
capturing the event for the evening news. A real Cinderella tale, they’d say: a
pretty detective from the Bronx finding her billionaire prince. They’d talk
about how lucky I was.

And they’d be
wrong.

Nathan Hale was the lucky one. He’d found the woman
who could love him for all of his strengths and all of his flaws—of which there
were many, I reminded myself with a grin. He’d found someone who could satisfy
his most secret desires and make his dreams come true.

That was why I was marrying him. I was doing this
because every single day, he made me feel like I was worth all of this. Every
challenge we faced, big or small, every danger we’d overcome and every dollar
spent—I was worth it.

And I couldn’t
have loved him more.

His eyes sparkled with the same tears I was holding
back as I stepped up onto the platform. The priest said the words that would
bind us for all eternity, but I wasn’t paying attention. My whole world
consisted only of the one man who had become a bigger part of it than I had
ever anticipated. When Nathan whispered his “I do,” it barely even registered.
My reply was just as simple, the two words slipping out breathlessly and
effortlessly from my lips.

The priest closed his book. I could hear the smile in
his words as he said, “You may now kiss the bride.”

We collided, the world melting away in that moment as
our lips made their first contact as husband and wife. Everything around us was
simply a farce. The fairy tale wedding, the dress and the church and the pretty
faces—none of it mattered. The only real thing was
this,
our love and passion. Nathaniel Hale belonged to me, and I to
him, and as our kiss stretched on and on, I was in no hurry to return to
reality.

Everything else could have gone to shit. The church
could have burned down around us, for all I cared. This was perfection, and
nothing could ever compare.

“I love you, Sandra,” Nathan said, his lips finally
parting from mine.

“I love you too,” I whispered in reply, smiling as I
stared into his glittering eyes. “Now, can we get out of here before these
cameras see things unfit for broadcast?”

“What about everybody else?” Nathan said, glancing
past me at the crowd as if he hadn’t noticed them before.

“We’re in
Paris,” I replied, laughing. “Let them eat wedding cake.”

Everyone in the room erupted into cheers as Nathan
lifted me from the floor, my billowing white dress pouring over his strong arms
as he carried me to the doors at the side of the cathedral.

“Well, don’t just stand there,” Nathan shouted over
the noise. “Grab some champagne and enjoy the party!”

The room cheered again as we burst through the doors
and into a short hallway leading to a sunlit path. Cold wind bit into me again,
now infiltrating from beneath my dress as Nathan carried me outside the church.
I shivered in his arms, but quickly found myself thrust into the backseat of a
long, black limousine that was waiting for us. The heated seats immediately
brought relief to the chills sweeping through me.

Nathan just stood there at the door, letting the cold
in as he stared at me, my legs awkwardly kicked up over the seat. I leaned
forward, grabbing at his tie and pulling him in through the door, laughing as
the chauffeur closed it behind us. Nathan tried valiantly to get the
blacked-out divider up as the amused driver looked on. The window was closing
too slowly as I ripped at Nathan’s belt, straddling him in my dress and
lowering myself around his raging erection.

“Slow down,” he chuckled. “We have all night and if
you’re not careful, we’ll have a baby with French citizenship...” He gripped me
and moaned, shuddering as our bodies once again came together, though this time
felt like it meant so much more than the last.

“You didn’t marry a slow girl,” I playfully replied,
rocking my hips and driving him deep within my yearning body. He grunted softly,
his hands gliding up my back to pull at the laces holding my bodice in place.
“Besides, a marriage isn’t official until you consummate it.”

“What is this, the sixteenth century?” Nathan said,
laughing even as I drew myself against him and worked his throbbing shaft with
every ounce of my being. The sensation of his cock slipping inside drove me
wild. The fire between us only flared brighter as we explored our newly formed
marital bonds.

“Just make love to me, Nathan,” I told him, placing my
hand gingerly on his cheek. “No witty comments. No stupid grins that you can
hide behind. Take me like it’s the very first time. Make me yours all over
again.”

We reveled in each other’s passion, basking in the
knowledge that we would be together forever. A love like this didn’t come to an
end. Though I didn’t say it out loud, I knew in my heart that not even death
could separate us.

I moved on top of him, steady and slow, gasping as he
finally freed my breasts from their fabric prison. He buried his face between
the swollen mounds, carefully kissing and touching, gingerly lapping at my
sensitive nipples until they hardened under his tongue. For once he was letting
me have control. It was how I knew that I
really
had him. He had finally surrendered to me as much as I had to him.

He tugged dress up and off my body, revealing my
pregnant nakedness. He moaned, watching me ride him ever so slowly. I dug my
nails into his shoulders and pressed my forehead against his, on the verge of
collapsing as my new husband drove me to the brink of orgasm.

“I love you,” I breathed, shivering as a telltale
current jolted through me, heralding my impending orgasm. I bit my lip, looking
lustfully into his eyes. “I don’t think I can hold back, Nathan…”

“Don’t,” he commanded me, “You don’t ever have to hold
back with me, Sandra. I love you. And that’s never, ever going to change.”

I let myself go, staring out the window at the streets
of Paris as our bodies blended into one. I knew this wasn’t the end.

This was only the beginning.

The End? Not
yet! You’ve arrived. Turn the page for the last secret bonus novel, Stepbrother
Fixation!