For the First Time Read online

  Risky Business

  Melissa Cutler

  InterMix Books, New York

  INTERMIX BOOKS

  PUBLISHED BY THE PENGUIN GROUP

  PENGUIN GROUP (USA) LLC

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  A Penguin Random House Company

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  RISKY BUSINESS

  An InterMix Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  InterMix eBook edition / August 2014

  Copyright © 2014 by Melissa Cutler.

  Excerpt from Undefeated © 2015 by Melissa Cutler.

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

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  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  eBook ISBN: 978-0-698-15188-8

  INTERMIX

  InterMix Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group

  and New American Library, divisions of Penguin Group (USA) LLC,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  INTERMIX® and the “IM” design are registered trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) LLC

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  This book is dedicated to the courageous soldiers and their families who sacrifice so much in the fight for liberty and justice.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Preview of Undefeated

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Of course, being that it was Allison Whitley’s lot in life to suffer the presence of water, it was pouring rain the night the Buffalo police marched her husband down the front walk of Pinky Rae’s Gentleman’s Club, right past Allison and into one of four idling patrol cars.

  From her birth, Allison’s world had been saturated with water. It flooded her waking hours with rain, snow, swift rivers, and waterfalls, and her nightly dreams with crashing waves and the insidious menace of backyard swimming pools.

  It wasn’t as though she never touched the stuff. She wasn’t that far off her rocker. She showered every day. She didn’t even mind filling a pot with water to boil pasta. But when the water got bigger than her, that’s when life got tricky. Her pulse sped and her insides fluttered so that she felt like a hummingbird—hollow-boned, buzzing fast and light. Unable to stop.

  The thing about water was that she didn’t trust it. Not one bit. It was an inconvenient feeling for the daughter of a tour boat captain who’d grown up in the shadow of Niagara Falls and whose mama thanked God for the Falls every night before supper. But then, Allison supposed it was human nature to cringe away from the thing that had tried to kill you.

  Pinky Rae’s neon signs flashed out of sync with the police lights and shimmered on Lowell’s round, wet face like he was Lake Erie during a Fourth of July fireworks display. “Allison, don’t listen to them. I didn’t do anything wrong.” An officer pressed on the top of his head, muscling him into the patrol car’s back seat. As the door closed, he hollered, “I swear, it’s not what you think.”

  That had been her response, too, when her sister Janie called. Janie had seen Lowell’s Corvette parked at Pinky Rae’s because, tonight of all nights, the Women’s Evangelical League that Janie belonged to had planned to picket the place.

  It’s not what you think, she’d been tempted to plead with her older sister over the phone. A strobe of bright, hot anger flashed through her at the memory. Anger at her own foolish pride for wanting to defend her husband for the sake of their marriage’s public image despite that there was no way Janie could be wrong about what she’d seen. Pinky Rae’s sat alone on a barren corner and there was no mistaking the custom gold paint job on Lowell’s Corvette or the license plate frame reading EAT MY GOLD DUST.

  One would’ve thought a respected city councilman would at least have had enough sense to park out of sight. Guess Lowell was feeling a little big in the britches after his latest landslide victory.

  Clinging tightly to her embarrassment so anger couldn’t unravel her, Allison had braved the rain for the express purpose of dragging Lowell’s ass home before reporters showed up to cover the Women’s Evangelical League’s protest. Not that she cared about salvaging their relationship. She’d filed for divorce months ago, though they still shared the same roof. But she’d be damned if she was going to let the soon-to-be father of her child land himself at the center of a local scandal and lose his position with the city, along with his income—which, by default, was her only income.

  If she’d had some idea of what she was going to find when she got to Pinky Rae’s and what the aftermath would be like, she would’ve spared herself from the strongest summer storm in five years and, instead, would’ve spent one last pleasant night in the house unpacking shower gifts in the nursery.

  Amid the soundtrack of Lowell’s continuous stream of lies from behind the closed patrol car window, she tried to look as dignified as one could while standing outside a strip club wearing a soaking wet purple maternity dress. Templing her hands over her forehead as a shield against the rain, she sought the attention of the nearest officer. “Excuse me, I’m Lowell’s wife.”

  Technically true, because he’d never signed the papers, but the words tasted as sour as lemon juice to her tongue. All she ever wanted, more than being a bride, more than having a career in the business world, was to be a stay-at-home mom. She’d thought Lowell was the perfect provider to make her dream come true. Stupid, that she’d been so delusional as to believe she’d get all she ever wanted by the age of twenty-six.

  She should’ve known that the world didn’t work that way.

  She wiped water from her eyes, as if that would do any good. Blast it all, she hated being wet. “What is he being charged with?”

  The officer’s all-business expression morphed into pity. “Embezzlement.”

  Not what she’d expected to hear. Not at all. She’d expected solicitation or lewd acts in public, s
omething fitting for an arrest made at a so-called gentleman’s club of a man with pervy fantasies like Lowell had turned out to have. She grabbed the officer’s sleeve. “What did you say?”

  “He’s charged with embezzling over five hundred thousand dollars from the state of New York.”

  Allison’s throat tightened. She dropped her hands, blinking through the rainwater that was stinging her eyes. Lowell’s faults covered a whole spectrum of sins, some even of biblical proportions, but he’d never struck her as particularly greedy.

  As if the universe was laughing at her naiveté, Lowell’s Corvette rolled past her on the back of a tow truck, its gold paint glinting in the police lights and neon signs. She gaped at the words EAT MY GOLD DUST as the convoy disappeared down the street. Mortification burst to life inside her. “Oh, my God. I’m such an idiot.”

  She whirled toward the patrol car and pounded on the backseat window with her fist. “A half a million dollars? Really, Lowell? What the hell did you do with it all? Because I’m sure not living in the lap of luxury.”

  Someone took her by the elbow. “Ma’am, I have to ask you to back away from the vehicle.”

  She wrenched her arm away and smacked the glass with her open palm. “I clipped coupons for you, you son of a bitch.”

  The officer took her arm again, more tightly this time. “Mrs. Whitley, please.”

  But she refused to budge. Breathing hard, she spit wet hair away from her lips, then shoved it away from her face. Goddamn, she hated water. “How did you know where to find him?”

  The officer shifted his weight, looking uncomfortable. “Mrs. Whitley, your husband comes to Pinky Rae’s every Thursday night. I’m so sorry.”

  Oh, hell, no. Impossible. Thursday night was poker night. The one night a week she got the big TV all to herself.

  “I thought this was supposed to be poker night?” she shouted through gritted teeth.

  Lowell had the wherewithal to look contrite. “Sometimes I played video blackjack.”

  She opened her mouth, a scathing retort on her tongue, when pain rippled up her spine, contorting her forward—punishing her for her stupidity in ever pledging her life to a dirtbag like Lowell Whitley. Damn him and his skeevy friends that had vouched for him about their poker games all these years. She’d bet his Corvette they were all regulars at Pinky Rae’s, too.

  She leaned against the patrol car for support as the pain seized her whole body from the inside out.

  “It’s going to be okay, baby,” Lowell called.

  She’d thought her sensibility had snapped when she found out the truth about poker night, but calling her “baby” was one outrage too many. Anger and pain swirled inside her like a lethal cocktail. It was all too much. She had to get out of the rain.

  She pushed away from the door, then wrenched her arm away from the officer and speared a finger in Lowell’s direction. “Don’t you dare ‘baby’ me. You’re signing the divorce papers if I have to bring them to you in prison!”

  “What about our daughter?”

  She let out a hard laugh as the officer draped an arm across her collarbone and forcibly backed her away. “You should’ve asked yourself that before you stole a half-million dollars.”

  She heard her name and turned to see Janie dodging cops, running her way. Allison’s belly quivered as another shock of pain overcame her. She folded forward, eyes squeezed closed, and bellowed for all the world to hear, no longer caring about facing childbirth with brave composure. She had no dignity left anyway.

  Janie’s polyester-clad legs appeared next to her. A soothing hand stroked her back. “Allie? What’s wrong?”

  The question cried out for a sarcastic response, if only her jaw wasn’t locked in a guttural scream. She was about to give birth to a baby girl who would come into the world cursed with a pervy criminal as her father and a delusional dreamer as her mother.

  She breathed through the final wisps of pain from the contraction, then straightened to rest her forehead on Janie’s shoulder as the beginning of a sob built like a painful lump in her throat. “I hate the rain.”

  Then her sister’s arms were around her, strong and capable as Janie had always been. “I know you do, sweetie. We’re going to get you to a hospital.”

  “We?”

  “Grant’s here, too.”

  She groaned and buried her head more deeply into Janie’s fleece jacket. Nothing like having her two most perfect siblings witness the worst moment of her life. Who she really needed at a time like this was Chelsea, the only member of the Lexington family more screwed up than she was. Until tonight anyway.

  She hissed through her teeth as another contraction curled her in on herself, this one so intense that she quaked from her toes to her fingertips. She braced her hands on her knees, cursing the clouds for their relentless pounding of cold, heavy drops.

  The next time she blinked her eyes open, emerging from the haze of pain, it was to see the patrol car in which Lowell sat drive away. As fast as her thirty-nine-weeks-pregnant belly allowed, she rose to her full height and watched the back of his head through the rear window. That’s when the truth hit her, colder and harder than the rain or Lowell’s betrayal or the last contraction that nearly brought her to her knees.

  My life is never going to be the same again.

  Her hands wrapped around her belly, cradling her baby, as a new kind of pressure built between her legs. Hot liquid burst from her body, splashing over her legs and feet, adding insult to injury.

  Her water had broken.

  She turned her face up to the rain. Bring it, Universe. What was a little more water after the life she’d been given? Grant and Janie sprang into action, fussing over her and coordinating with the cops still on the scene.

  “Hang on another minute, Allie. We’re going to get you out of the rain,” Grant said. As if she could escape it. As if water hadn’t haunted every aspect of her life already. She knew what it meant to drown—and it felt a whole lot like this.

  Another contraction ripped her apart, wrenching from her lungs a bellow so foreign and primitive, she couldn’t believe it had come from her. This time, she squatted. She didn’t mean to, but her body was working apart from her mind and that’s what it wanted to do. It wanted to push.

  Far above her, a rumble of thunder cracked and the rain thickened. So much for getting to the hospital. Her poor baby was doomed to be born in a drenching rainstorm beneath the flashing neon signs of Pinky Rae’s Gentleman’s Club.

  “She’s coming,” she said, flailing for an arm or hand—anything—to brace herself with. People were moving around her, taking action, but the pain was a steady force now, a never-ending current of electricity that made her eyes roll back and her fingers stretch out, and she couldn’t process anything besides the building pressure inside her.

  The lights and people blurred. Sound muted. Despite the crowd surrounding her, she’d never felt more alone inside her body. Alone and scared and out of control. Yeah, she thought, this was exactly what it felt like to drown.

  Chapter Two

  Eight months later

  It wasn’t every day that a man watched his dreams go down the toilet, but it seemed to be happening to Theo Lacroix with alarming regularity. He banged his stick against the door to the penalty box, his eyes on the wall-mounted television screen behind the snack bar on the far side of the ice rink. The nightly news program replayed the courtroom scene from earlier that day as the judge sentenced Lowell Whitley to ten years in prison.

  Theo spit his mouth guard into his gloved hand. “Caliss de chien sale.”

  His curse was drowned out by a buzzer marking the end of his time in the box. Nevertheless, the French sounded too polite to his tongue. To capture the full weight of his fury, only crude American English would do. “Fucking bastard.”

  That was more like it.

  With his eyes fixed on Whitley’s red face as the TV replayed his post-sentencing statement of apology, Theo stood and jammed the mouth gua
rd in place. He dropped his head to the side to crack his neck, then shouldered through the door onto the ice. If only this wasn’t a no-contact game, he’d be throwing down gloves with the first Bridgeport Puckheads player he came up against.

  He sneered one last time at Whitley’s image on screen—which was why he didn’t see it coming when he was slammed hard from the side into the wall. The plastic sheeting rattled from the impact. Chucking his stick to the ice, Theo jammed his elbow back to pry the offender off him, then swiveled forward.

  Will Corgan grabbed Theo’s jersey and twisted, pinning him to the plastic sheeting. “Get your head back in the game, Lacroix.”

  Fucking Corgan and his temper. Corgan wasn’t the only soldier with a short fuse, not by a long shot. Theo belonged on that list, too, but at least he knew better than to think the world owed him anything. “We’re on the same team, asshole.”

  Corgan gave Theo’s chest a push. “Oh yeah? Because you don’t seem like you’re on anybody’s team tonight. We’re tied with a minute left and you’re watching the goddamn TV.”

  Like Corgan was unaware of what had gone down in court that afternoon and what Whitley’s conviction meant to Theo’s future. “Who do you think scored our two goals, huh? Why don’t you give me a break?” He punctuated the last word with an open-handed shove to Corgan’s cheek.

  Corgan snickered. “I promise we’ll throw you a pity party after we win. But you know what this game means to Brandon.”

  He did. Mostly because Brandon had reminded them at least a hundred million times over the past several weeks.

  The ref blew his whistle. One of the coaches had called a time-out. Theo gave Corgan a final push and muscled past him to the bench where the rest of the Destiny Falls Bomb Squads were gathering.

  From across the ice, Brandon and Liam, one of Bomb Squad’s defensemen, skated to the bench, with Brandon executing a showy side stop that sprayed ice shavings over Theo’s legs. “You guys suck,” Brandon said. “Brawling? Really? You know the scouts are in the stands. What the hell?”