CHAPTER 2

Sutton

You didn’t grow up the way I had around men and let some stranger put his hands on you. I was about to hand the fancy city slicker his ass when Mad Max flew across the room and held a fork to the handsome man’s neck.

Trust Max to attack with a kitchen utensil.

“Get your damn hand off of her,” Max snarled menacingly. “We don’t handle women that way.”

Because the man hadn’t let go of my arm, I was now bent at a rather strange angle. Nonetheless, I felt a surge of affection for Max. It meant a lot to me that he cared.

“I’ve got this, Max,” I said, but it was like I hadn’t even spoken.

Throughout this, the stranger didn’t even flinch despite the fact that the tines of the fork were pressed against his jugular.

“Charming,” the handsome stranger said in an even tone. “I assume this is a friend of yours?”

Max growled at him and shoved the fork harder against the stranger’s neck. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Alice and Reena staring on with wide eyes. The last thing I wanted was for this to escalate any further. I tried to nudge Max to the side with my foot, but he wasn’t about to move.

Couldn’t he see that I wasn’t in any danger? In what I hoped was a calm voice, I said, “This is Max. He’s going to put the fork down now.” That elicited a growl from Max, but I kept going. “He was a friend of my daddy’s back in the day.”

The stranger’s brow rose in surprise before a look of incredulity entered his eyes. “Somehow I doubt that to be true.”

A spark of anger lit inside of me.

“Look, I don’t know why this is any of your business. I don’t know you, and I certainly don’t owe you any explanations.” I yanked my wrist to free, and this time he let it go.

I could still feel the imprint of his fingers and rubbed my wrist absentmindedly. I wondered why it hadn’t bothered me more. Usually I wasn’t a fan of people touching me.

Besides Max, the last person to hug me was Ruth Ann when my mama passed away. She hugged me so tight and whispered that one day I would understand my mama better. I understand my mama just fine, I had thought to myself. Hell, I knew her a whole lot better than most. But I just smiled and nodded appreciatively at Ruth Ann. She meant well, and besides, Ruth Ann had known Mama before she got sick, before the men, and before the drugs.

Max growled at the stranger with such vicious intent that I started to wonder if he just might fork the man after all.

“Listen punk, just who the hell are you?”

 Neither man was backing down.

“Is there a problem over here?” Gabriel rushed over to see what the fuss was all about. As soon as he saw me, a look of disgust crossed his face.

Bastard.

The stranger’s cool gray eyes stared into my own. My heart thudded wildly in my chest and I felt as if I had been running. It was the strangest response that I had ever had to a man. I took a hesitant step backward.

The stranger spoke. His deep voice was clear and insistent. “Your father was Hollingsworth Sutton, III, renowned billionaire, owner of Sutton Enterprises, and my former boss. To my knowledge he never once rode a motorcycle. For the most part, he didn’t even drive himself. I don’t know what this Max has told you, but he was no friend of your father.”

Perhaps it was the intensity with which he spoke, but Max paled and moved away from the stranger, dropping the fork to the ground.

“Max?” My voice sounded young and scared.

I wanted him to say that the stranger was lying. He and my daddy went way back, and my father had died in a blaze of glory, just like Max had told me all those years ago. Max had said that was the only reason my father wasn’t there to raise me himself. I knew that Max gave my mama money to help us survive. But that was a debt to my daddy. That’s what Max had said. It couldn’t be a lie, could it?

“Baby girl…” I could hear the sorrow in his voice.

“You didn’t know my daddy?” My voice was hollow, the accusation rang through the air. Max was one of the good guys, one of the few people in this shitty world that was on my side.

“Now, Sutton, don’t look like that.” Max’s gruff voice held a hint of sorrow.

“Max, did you know my daddy?” I asked him point blank.

He heaved a sigh, almost as if weighing his words before he uttered, “No, Pumpkin.”

I felt my stomach drop down past my toes.

Max continued hurriedly, “But your mama and I had a special relationship. When I found out about you, well, I tried to marry her. But you know what she was like with all the drugs and whatnot.”

I felt sick inside. I knew all about their special relationship. She had plenty of special friends that would slip into our trailer late at night. I didn’t realize that they were paying for sex until someone in the third grade happily filled me in. They told me my mama was nothing more than a prostitute, and I would grow up to be just like her.

They didn’t understand, nobody did. Mama wasn’t like that. She could be fun when she wasn’t high. We laughed and sang funny songs on the radio. She took me down to the thrift shop, and we would look for fancy dresses to play princess in.

“Yeah,” I whispered, “I knew what she was like.”

“You want me to get rid of him?” Max motioned toward the businessman who had been silent during this entire exchange, his eyes never leaving me.

I shook my head and answered in a low voice, “I want to hear what he has to say.”

Gabriel puffed up, choosing now to exert his nonexistent authority, “Not now, you aren’t. You have a shift to work, Sutton. I am not paying you to sit on your ass.”

The stranger’s mouth looked pinched as he asked in a clipped tone, “How much is her time worth to you?”

“What?” Gabriel looked confused.

“I will need an hour with the girl. If she sits here at this table with me for that length of time, I will give you two hundred dollars.”

Gabriel’s jaw dropped before his eyes took on a greedy tint. “Three hundred.”

“Done.” The man pulled out a money clip and peeled off three hundred-dollar bills and then handed them over to Gabriel.

“Shit,” Gabriel said with a smirk. “I’d have done it for two hundred.”

The businessman didn’t miss a beat. “I would have paid five. Now, if you will leave us? We will need some privacy.”

Max and Gabriel ambled away, and the man motioned for me to sit across the table from him.

I folded my arms, not sure that I wanted to know whatever this man was so insistent on telling me. “Why should I?”

His mouth pressed into a thin line. “You are wasting my valuable time. Unless you have the three hundred dollars to repay me, I suggest you sit.”

My ass hit the chair faster than a freight train. I didn’t have three hundred dollars. Hell, I wasn’t sure I had thirty dollars. With a sassy smirk, I saluted him. “Yes, sir.”

His lips looked pinched again. Good. I liked that the was just as irritated as I was.

“My name is Mark Williams,” he began. “I am the CEO of your deceased father’s company, Sutton Enterprises. You may call me Mr. Williams.”

I laughed. It was probably inappropriate, but who goes around telling people to call them mister anything?

Mr. Williams sighed, but then continued on as if I hadn’t laughed in his face. “Because of certain legalities, I was forced to locate and apprise you of your father’s passing.”

“You are too kind,” I quipped sarcastically.

I didn’t like the way he was rattling off information like a census bureau official. To piss him off, I deliberately called him by his first name, “Listen, Mark.”

“Mr. Williams,” he bit off gruffly.

“Mark,” I insisted, my back ramrod straight. “You need to work on your bedside manner. You cannot just walk into a girl’s life and rip it all to pieces. Shit, who tells someone that their daddy is dead and in the same breath insists that they call them Mr. Williams in the same statement? Why did you come anyway? If my father didn’t want me in his life, surely he doesn’t want me involved in his death.”

Mr. William’s jaw clenched. “Your father didn’t know you existed until the very end. He was a good man.”

I scoffed. This time he had really pissed me off.

“Right,” I said. “He was such a good man that he slept with a woman, impregnated her, and then left them both in poverty. Yep, you are right, he sounds like a real winner to me. Perhaps things worked out how they were supposed to.”

I pushed the chair back to stand, but Mr. Williams reached out and grabbed my wrist again.

“I’m not finished.” His slate gray eyes blazed silver for the briefest of moments.

It unsettled me. I couldn’t figure out what it was about this man that had me feeling so off kilter. Despite my intention to leave, I found myself settling back into my seat.

“You have two minutes,” I bit out.

He growled at me. I felt it low in my belly.

“You, Sutton Landry, are going to listen to me. Your father wanted better for you. When he learned of your existence, he was too ill to travel. His dying wish was for me to collect you personally. I am a very busy, influential man, Miss Landry. I do not run errands for just anyone. You will hear what I have to tell you.”

I could see the raw masculinity in his features as he barked out his orders. It’s obvious that I had riled the beast.

A part of me felt a shiver of sadness that I had disappointed him. But I didn’t want to dwell on that. Who was he to make me feel this way?

“‘Collect me personally.’ Just what is that supposed to mean?” I retorted hotly.

His gray eyes bore into mine as he said, “To bring you home, Miss Landry.”

A small breath escaped my lips. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to cry and laugh. “Home? Mr. Williams, really? My home is the old single trailer that I’ve lived in my entire life. My home is Otterville Falls, and even this shitty bar where I work. Wherever you came from with your fancy suit and Italian shoes, that’s not my home.”

“This town isn’t fit for anyone.” He said it so softly that I just barely heard the words.

I felt heat suffuse my cheeks and knew that I was seconds away from ripping his head off or bursting into tears.

“It might look like nothing to you, but it’s everything I have. I am not throwing it away because some smooth-talking city slicker walked into my bar and offered me the moon. Good day, Mr. Williams.”

He didn’t stop me as I rose this time, but his eyes could have burned holes in my back for how intently he was staring at me.

Mr. Williams stayed at that rickety table in the bar for my entire shift. He saw all the regulars, the drunken brawl that was a nightly occurrence, and not once did he leave his seat nor speak to anyone else.

When it finally hit closing time, I approached the table. “I’m gonna need you to move along now, Mr. Williams.”

I was tired, my feet hurt, and after all that work, I had only made one hundred and twelve dollars, part of which I shared with Joe, our short order cook.

“You do not appear to be leaving.” His frosty tones were grating on my nerves. Who in the hell did this asshat think he was?

“Well, Mr. Williams, for those of us who actually work here, we still need to mop the floors, wipe tables, and clean the bathrooms. It will be a while yet until I can leave. So why don’t you run along back to Neverland, or wherever it was that you came from?”

Once again, I could have sworn I heard a low growl. My belly flipped and I felt a strong desire to try and ruffle his perfectly impassive expression.

“Very well,” he said at last. “I will wait until you are finished.”

What the hell?

“Suit yourself,” I muttered under my breath. There was no point arguing with a jerk, my mama used to say, and Mr. Williams was a first-class asshole.