The Complete Arrogant Series
Read The Complete Arrogant Series Online
Authors: Winter Renshaw
Copyright Winter Renshaw
– 2016
All Rights Reserved
All rights
reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
without written permission from the publisher or author. If you are reading
this book and you have not purchased it or received an advanced copy directly
from the author, this book has been pirated.
This is a
work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the
product of the author’s imagination or, if an actual place, are used
fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business
establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does
not have any control and does not assume any responsibility for author or
third-party websites or their content.
OTHER
BOOKS BY WINTER RENSHAW
Series
Never Kiss a
Stranger
(Never Series #1)
Never Is a
Promise
(Never Series #2)
Never Say
Never
(Never Series #3)
Arrogant
Bastard
(Arrogant Series #1)
Arrogant
Master
(Arrogant Series #2)
Arrogant
Playboy (Arrogant Series #3)
Stand Alones
ARROGANT BASTARD
ALL
RIGHTS RESERVED
All rights
reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
without written permission from the publisher or author. If you are reading
this book and you have not purchased it or received an advanced copy directly
from the author, this book has been pirated.
This is a
work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the
product of the author’s imagination or, if an actual place, are used
fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business
establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does
not have any control and does not assume any responsibility for author or
third-party websites or their content.
COVER DESIGN—Louisa
Maggio, LM Creations
PROOF READING—Wyrmwood
Editing
DEDICATION
For my husband.
This book would not have been possible
without you. Thanks for putting up with a bright laptop screen in your bed
until 2am, even on your work nights.
xoxo
-W
DESCRIPTION
The
last time my father beat me to a bloody pulp was the night he walked in on me with
his woman in his bed.
To
be fair, she seduced me. And to be honest, I liked it. But to everyone else, I
was a victim.
They
shipped me to Utah where my estranged mother lived with her husband and two
sister-wives. And that’s when I met her. My wholesome, perfect step-sis. Well,
one of many. But Waverly stood out because just like me, we’d been fighting a
losing battle our entire lives.
Falling
for her was a mistake, but shit, it’s not like I ever made good decisions.
F*ck
being “family.” I must have Waverly Miller, and I won’t stop until she’s mine.
LETTER
FROM THE AUTHOR
Dear Readers,
Although this book deals with modern polygamy (think
Big Love
or
Sister Wives
) and mentions certain polygamous subsets of the Mormon
religion, it
is intended to be read
purely for
entertainment. None of the opinions or details mentioned in this book, in
regards to any mentioned religious groups, are meant to be offensive,
attacking, or controversial.
This is, after all, a work of fiction.
So sit back, relax, and step foot inside the fictitious polygamous
world I’ve created. ;-)
xoxo
,
Winter
TABLE
OF CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
- JENSEN
ONE
- JENSEN
TWO
- WAVERLY
THREE
- JENSEN
FOUR
- WAVERLY
FIVE
- JENSEN
SIX
- WAVERLY
SEVEN
- JENSEN
EIGHT
- WAVERLY
NINE
- JENSEN
TEN
- WAVERLY
ELEVEN
- JENSEN
TWELVE
- WAVERLY
THIRTEEN
- JENSEN
FOURTEEN
- WAVERLY
FIFTEEN
- JENSEN
SIXTEEN
- WAVERLY
SEVENTEEN
- JENSON
EIGHTEEN
- WAVERLY
NINETEEN
- JENSEN
TWENTY
- WAVERLY
TWENTY-ONE
- JENSEN
TWENTY-TWO
- WAVERLY
TWENTY-THREE
- JENSEN
TWENTY-FOUR
- JENSEN
TWENTY-FIVE
- WAVERLY
TWENTY-SIX
- JENSEN
TWENTY-SEVEN
- WAVERLY
TWENTY-EIGHT
- JENSEN
TWENTY-NINE
- WAVERLY
THIRTY
- JENSEN
THIRTY-ONE
- WAVERLY
THIRTY-TWO
- JENSEN
EPILOGUE
- WAVERLY
Jensen
Two
days ago
“Jensen.” His voice embodied the throaty,
animalistic warning of a lion about to annihilate his prey.
Juliette, my father’s woman,
scrambled beneath me, pushing me off her as a look of fear in her eyes clashed
with the orgasmic flush that colored her cheeks. We’d imagined this scenario a
hundred times before, but talking about it was different than playing it out in
real life. It was a lot funnier in our minds, probably because he was such an
asshole. Maybe I deserved some of it, but she sure as fuck didn’t.
And if fucking me made her feel
better about her pathetic little puppy-on-a-leash life, than who was I to
judge? She was hot as sin and scarcely old enough to be my mother. I had no
problem plunging myself inside her on a weekly basis.
Juliette had been moaning my name
for the last thirty minutes, but now all she could scream was, “No, no, no,
no!”
I didn’t realize I was within an
inch of my life until my father’s fingers curled around my neck. I couldn’t breathe.
He slammed my back against the wall. I was naked. I didn’t remember being
pulled off the bed, but all of a sudden I was on the other side of the room,
face-to-face with the man who’d brought me into this world. He was two seconds
from ripping my balls off and shoving them down my throat.
How
long had he been watching us?
“You
arrogant little bastard!”
he
seethed,
his nostrils flaring
as venomous spit accompanied his words.
I couldn’t breathe, but damn if
my lips didn’t twist into a smile. He called me
“little.”
I towered over that son of a bitch, and he knew it. Plus,
according to Juliette, height wasn’t the only way in which I outsized my
father.
He clenched his hand harder
around my throat, pressing against my windpipe as I gasped for air. Within
seconds the room began to darken, and Juliette’s hysterical shrieks echoed off the
walls.
“Josiah, stop! You’re going to
kill him!”
Jensen
The social worker’s state-owned
Suburban pulls to a gentle stop, waking me from my Codeine-induced, six-hour
nap. I wipe the drool from my mouth and glance out the window. My eyes are
still black and blue and they hurt when I squint, but I’ve learned over the
years to ignore the pain; eventually, it goes away.
“
We
’re here,
Jensen
.” Her voice is annoyingly soft and sweet like
cotton candy. Judging by all the photos on her work desk, she is one of those
Mother Teresa types, only she’s married and she and her husband have adopted a
whole orphanage-worth of system children. Brad and Angelina would be proud. Guess
they didn’t have room for me. “Is that your mother?”
Standing on the front steps of a
picturesque yellow colonial is a woman who resembles my mother. She’s wearing
jeans and a blue sweater, and her hair is long and pulled back. It’s still the
same shade of shit-brown I vaguely remember.
“Come on,” the social worker
coaxes me with her voice, like it’s some kind of magical lullaby. It probably
works on little kids, but not grown-ass eighteen-year-olds. “She’s excited to
see you.”
Bull-fucking-shit.
I sit up, raking my hand through
my dark hair and combing it into place. I don’t know much about my mother
besides the fact that she left my father when I was seven, and she never came
back for me. Dad told me all sorts of salacious stories, none of which I fully
believed. None of what he said mattered, anyway. Her actions spoke for her.
The social worker—who I
think is named Mercy, or some shit like that—climbs out of the Suburban
and waddles to my side, pulling open the door until I melt out like liquefied boredom.
I glance up at my mom again. Her
hands are clasped at her waist, and her mouth keeps dancing into a reserved
smile, which fades and reappears like it’s on some kind of loop. She’s nervous.
I just want to get this whole awkward reintroduction thing over with, be shown
to my new room, and walk a straight line for the next few months.
Then my life can finally fucking
start.
I just need to graduate from high
school in a few weeks and crash here for the summer, and then there’s an
apprenticeship waiting for me in Los Angeles with one of the best tattoo
artists in the world. He called me himself the day he received my unsolicited
drawings and told me there’s a spot for me in his shop this August.
I amble up the sidewalk, the
earth a little unsteady from my Codeine-stupor, and approach my mother for the
first time in eleven years.
“Hi, Kath,” Mercy says to her.
They shake hands like they’re conducting a business deal and my mother gingerly
approaches me. At least she’s willing to meet me in the middle, because this is
awkward as hell.
“Jensen.” She stares at me like
she’s looking at a goddamned ghost. Her trembling hand rises to my cheek and
grazes the spot where my father’s gaudy wedding ring cut into my flesh during
the last beating. Kath pulls her hand back quickly and covers her mouth.
Her eyes well.
She cares.
I think.
“Oh, my goodness. That man is a
monster
.”
“Shall we head inside?” Mercy eyes
the front door and Kath scans around like someone’s watching. “It’s standard
procedure. I just need to ask a few questions, make sure Jensen has his own
room, gets acclimated, and then we’ll sign a few things and I’ll be out of your
hair for the foreseeable future.”
Kath releases a breath and nods.
I’m willing to bet living with my father from age eighteen to twenty-five made
her submissive and agreeable.
We head inside where two tow-headed
kids are zoned out to public television cartoons. They sit cross-legged in
front of a small flat screen in the living room. The walls are decorated with crocheted
art knitted into sayings like “Bless This House” and “Home Sweet Home.” Not a
speck of dust resides on the floors, and judging by the lack of clutter, there’s
an OCD-grade cleanliness thing going on—it’s almost the exact same way
Juliette kept our house in Arizona.
Must be another one of my
father’s persuasions.
“Welcome to our—my—home.”
Kath’s words are robotic and carefully chosen, tinted with a slight tremor.
What
the fuck is she so scared of?
It’s dusk now, and the curtain-covered
windows let in little light. Maybe in the shadows I remind her of my father. I
can only imagine the horrible shit she had to endure. I could cut her some
slack.
But then I remember she left me
there to be raised by that monster and never looked back.
She saved herself from a lifetime
of hell and no one else. She deserves no slack.
The three of us head toward the
family room. Kath grabs a remote and turns down the volume on the cartoons.
The white-haired
Children of
the Corn
turn around with wide, brown eyes and slink up to the sofa next to
her.
Their stares freak me out. They look damn near identical, but one’s
clearly a girl and the other a boy.
“Gretchen, Gideon,” Kath says,
slipping her arms behind their backs, “this is your big brother, Jensen. Can
you say hello to him before you go wash up for bed?”
The kids say nothing. They’re small.
Maybe five or six.
Kath titters, twisting the gold
cross around her neck. I don’t give a fuck. They don’t have to say hi. The girl
can’t stop staring at my swollen eyes. I imagine I look scary as hell.
“It’s all right.” I’d wink, but I
can’t.
Mercy and Kath make some kind of
small talk. I tune them out, scanning my perimeter. This is my new home. There
are doilies on the backs of the armchairs and a big, oak table in the dining
room. I count twelve chairs. Why the fuck would she need twelve chairs?
“Shall we go see Jensen’s room?”
Mercy stands up, clutching her clipboard and clicking her pen.
“Well,” Kath says. Her gaze
shifts from mine to Mercy’s and back. “This was all short notice… a-and while
it’s certainly a wonderful blessing… we… I’m not quite prepared…”
Mercy nods. “Understandable. Does
he have a bed? A place to sleep?”
Kath leads us down a hall and up
a set of stairs to the second level. “There’s an extra bed in Gideon’s room he
can use for now… until we figure things out.”
I don’t want to bunk with a six-year-old,
but Mercy doesn’t pry, and it’s not like I have a choice.
I check my reflection in a nearby
mirror, cringing, and grip the railing as we file upstairs. A moment later,
we’re standing in the middle of a kindergartener’s room, complete with dinosaur
wallpaper and glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling. Two twin beds rest
opposite one another: one outfitted with dinosaur bedding and the other with a
white comforter and a single, flat pillow. I assume that one’s for me.
“I always wanted a room like
this,” I say, monotone. It’s a dig at Kath, reminding her of the childhood I
never had, but I don’t think she picks up on it. She’s flighty and oblivious,
like a hummingbird. I wonder if my father made her that way.
Mercy laughs. “This will do fine
for now. This okay with you, Jensen?”
I offer a tightlipped nod, favoring
the side of me that doesn’t currently have a row of bruised ribs.
The second we leave Dinosaurland,
Kath points me toward a hall bathroom and shows me how the light switch is on
the outside of the door, and then she mentions the linen closet is at the end
of the hall. When we’re all downstairs again, Kath and Mercy linger at the
door, talking like old friends. I’ve known Mercy a whopping twenty-four hours,
but I’ve seen how she’s good with people like that. She has a way of making
anyone comfortable, and I suppose that’s why she does what she does.
Mercy, with her cotton-candy
voice, chubby mom hands, and warm smile, reminds me not everyone is filled with
darkness.
“I better get going,” she says
before sighing, as if she regrets having to leave. The smallest sliver of me
doesn’t want her to go because now shit’s about to get real.
Real awkward.
“Feelings
make you weak, boy
.
”
My father’s
words echo in my head. He raised me on toughened quotes mixed with scripture,
which he conveniently twisted and turned to suit his lectures.
Kath shows Mercy out and shuts
the door. She turns and our eyes meet. The two kids have disappeared upstairs.
It’s just us. No social worker. No bullshit niceties required. I expect her to
let her guard down and morph into someone else entirely, but she doesn’t. She
stands there, shifting from one foot to the other, her fingers intertwined like
she’s knitting a goddamned sweater with her hands.
“I remind you of him, don’t I?” I
place a hand on my hip and cock my head, studying a face that hardly resembles
mine. Her features are soft and bland, not hard and angled like Josiah’s and
mine. Josiah’s hair is as dark as his heart, and I take after him in that
regard as well. We’re built of muscle and brute, though I’m bigger than him. We
wear our strength like a second skin.
She brushes past me, heading
toward the kitchen where she fills a teakettle with water and nestles it on the
stove.
“Tea?” she asks. She must want to
talk. I’m not in the mood to hear her bullshit excuses as to why she abandoned
me and walked away from her own flesh and blood. I’m not interested in hearing
how sorry she is.
“I’m kind of tired. Been a long
day.” I point toward the stairs and paint a regretful half-smile on my lips.
“Please.” She’s not asking. Her
eyes snap toward the kitchen table. “I’ve been waiting a long time for this
conversation. There are things you need to know, Jensen.
About
the past.
About the present, too.”
The
tea kettle
whistles. She grabs two mugs and two bags of tea and I take a seat at the table
amongst one of the twelve chairs.
“I’m sure you have questions,”
she says, setting a white coffee mug in front of me.
Hundreds.
Thousands,
maybe.
None of which matter at all anymore. Maybe at eight or twelve or
even fifteen, I’d have wanted a chance to ask them. I lost my ability to give
two shits years ago.
“Your father,” she says, blowing
on the steamy liquid in her mug, “is a very powerful man.”
You’re
tellin’ me, lady.
There’s a reason he beat the
living shit out of me and walked away with a slap on the wrist. He’s got the
whole town of Charter Springs, Arizona wrapped around his pinky finger. He
drives around in the church’s Lincoln Town Car like he owns the city, and he
sort of does. The man’s never met a traffic ticket he couldn’t get out of, and
he’s never met a local he couldn’t convince to come to one of his sermons. The
man could sell ice to an Eskimo, just like the way he sells his version of God
to a congregation of over
two-thousand
people. Back in
Charter Springs, Josiah Mackey is a hand-picked-by-God, modern-day saint.
“I ran off with him at eighteen,”
she says, averting her gaze. “We never married. You came along quickly, and
then something in your father changed. He became controlling, physically
abusive—manipulative. I couldn’t do anything right. I couldn’t please
him.”
Her hands tremble as she wraps
them around her mug. Josiah Mackey put the fear of God into his congregation
each Sunday, but he put the fear of himself into his women
twenty-four-seven
.
“I tried to leave him several
times. I took you with me each time, and each time he’d find me. And so I
stopped fighting. I made him think I was happy. I had to get him off my case
for a while. But right after your seventh birthday, I announced I was leaving
him for good. He told me if I took you, he’d kill us both.”
“I don’t doubt that.” I stare at
my tea. I haven’t touched it yet. Not much of a tea-drinker, and it stinks like
mulch and barley.
Kath blinks away tears and wipes
the ones that fall anyway. “I wanted to come back for you, Jensen. I did. He
made it impossible.”
If she wants me to feel sorry for
her, it’s almost working.
Almost
.
“I tried to go to the police in
Charter Springs. No one would listen. No one believed me. And by then, he’d
trashed my name all over town. Told everyone I ran off and had an affair. Said
I had mental illnesses and I was a danger to you.” She sniffs and turns away.
“The threats didn’t stop until he knew I was good and scared. I was afraid if I
tried anything else, he’d hurt you.”
“I was a weapon,” I mused. “The
only weapon he had to hurt you with.”
She wipes her nose on the side of
her wrist and nods, her blue eyes softening as if we’re sharing a special
moment. I’m sure it’s a special moment, in her book.
“I wish things would’ve been
different,” she says. “There’s nothing you or I can do about any of it but move
forward. I’m just glad to have you in my life again.”