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  Wait for It is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  A Loveswept Ebook Original

  Copyright © 2017 by Molly Fader

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Loveswept, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  LOVESWEPT is a registered trademark and the LOVESWEPT colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Ebook ISBN 9780399593956

  Cover design: Diane Luger

  Cover photograph: Connor Evans/Shutterstock

  randomhousebooks.com

  v4.1

  ep

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  By M. O’Keefe

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Blake

  There’s a sound people make when they break.

  Not the gut-twisting snap of a bone or ligament. But the hiccupping sigh that escapes when the person realizes he is not who he thought he was. He is not as tough. Or as smart. Or as strong or powerful or rich as he wanted to believe.

  I know how to break a man. I’m not proud of it, but it’s a skill. And a useful one in a fight and a business negotiation.

  It’s a pretty simple science, really: find the hidden and secret place where they hoard all their weaknesses, and then apply the right pressure. Discovering the right pressure is the real science—but most people are simple. Money, pride, revenge, violence—those things are predictably effective.

  But then—and this is the hardest part—you can’t flinch. You can’t back down. You can’t ease up in the face of their pain. You have to be right there while you break them, staring in to their eyes as you rob them of the comforting lies they tell themselves.

  It’s fine. That’s what I tell people across boardroom tables, when I’ve taken their money and their plans and bent them to my will.

  It’s okay, I whisper to the men whose noses I’ve shattered and who are blinded by blood and tears as I walk them back to their corner of the ring.

  Breaking people shows them where they belong in the world. It can be comforting. It should be comforting.

  Hierarchy works.

  Survival of the fittest works.

  And that sounds awful, I understand that.

  I am not a hard man. Merely a busy one.

  And very, very wealthy.

  Outside the Porsche the world is wet and green and I can feel the humidity through my suit despite the air conditioning. I’m heading down into some godforsaken trailer park to meet my brother Phil’s “wife” and “kids.”

  Tiffany is her name and she says she’s been with Phil for over five years and has three children with him.

  My family—Mom and Christine and I—didn’t know anything about her. Tiffany claims she didn’t know anything about us either, but that’s pretty fucking dubious.

  Phil was always really good with secrets. He was like a pack rat and kept everything that mattered hidden away, stored in some dark hole. It was the only thing he was good at. And I smell Phil all over this thing with his “wife.” He wants money. Again. And access to Mom. Again.

  Fucking Phil.

  And now this—a wife and kids hidden away in a trailer park. A secret or a lie. I wasn’t sure and I didn’t care.

  They were not getting close to my mother.

  If I had to break this woman into a thousand pieces, I would.

  I pulled in to the trailer park, full of sagging trailers and scrappy little gardens choked with dandelions. Kids too young to look so cynical watched my car from a teetering jungle gym in the middle of the whole sorry mess. Because the Porsche’s suspension was an unforgiving thing, I slowly drove up the dirt track until I saw Dylan standing next to a shit-box Toyota.

  Dylan was a former driver who had bowed out of the life after a crash and fire during a race several years ago. He was my business partner, the gearhead behind 989 Engines.

  And the closest thing I had to a friend and maybe even a real brother. Which wasn’t saying much these days.

  He’d recently fallen in lust for some woman out here and was now thinking with his dick and not his formidable brain.

  Unfortunate.

  Unfortunate on several fronts, not the least of which was the new transmission we’d built for race cars. The transmission had some serious applications outside of NASCAR. It was a game-changing kind of situation.

  But Dylan couldn’t see past this girl.

  Never would have thought Dylan would be such a cliché.

  I parked the Porsche and got out, buttoning the top button of my suit as I rounded the front of the car. Dylan watched me, the scars on his face pulling tight as he squinted into the sun.

  “You’re not going to be a dick, are you?” he asked.

  “No. Where is she?”

  “In the trailer with Annie.” He pointed to the old RV that had been put up on blocks. I had never seen anything quite so ugly.

  “Just,” Dylan said, “try and—”

  “What?”

  “Be…kind.”

  I laughed. Right. Kind.

  Because kindness was such an effective force in this world. Just ask those suspicious kids eyeing my car.

  The ground was spongy from a recent rain and I dodged a puddle walking up to the metal steps of the RV. I didn’t bother to knock, just opened the aluminum door and ducked my head so I could step inside the dim trailer.

  One woman, thin with hacked off white-blond hair stood up to greet me like this was a dinner party she was hosting. I’d put money on this being Annie, Dylan’s obsession. She reeked of hope.

  And I did not see the appeal.

  “Hi,” she said, sounding far too chipper. The girl was nervous. I tucked that little ace up my sleeve.

  “You must be Annie,” I said with a soft voice and plenty of charm. “You are as lovely as Dylan said.”

  She blushed and ducked her head, an awkward Disney princess. I wanted to tell her to be careful. To stop showing me quite so much of her nerves and self-doubt.

  “Would you like some tea?” she asked.

  “No, thank you.”

  “I’m Tiffany.” The other woman came to her feet.

  Shit. She was young. Twenty-five maybe. She was tall, nearly reached my shoulders, which was not an insignificant height. She wasn’t as thin as Annie was, but she had a hard look about her, which wasn’t at all surprising. Any time with Phil would file you down to an edge.

  She wore a little makeup, blush that stood out on her very pale cheeks. A pink T-shirt tucked into a pair of khaki shorts made her seem young. Not childish. She wasn’t a child. She was just…young.

  Her eyes were surprising, though. The color of a storm. And sharp enough to pierce metal.

  T
iffany of the sharp eyes and brass balls held out her hand for me to shake.

  I took my time, as if I were assessing her for contagions, but finally slipped my hand into hers and shook it.

  Her palm was damp with sweat.

  “My brother’s secret wife.” I made it a joke, like we were all in on this together, but Tiffany’s eyes narrowed.

  “And you are my husband’s secret brother,” she said back. “Well, my soon-to-be ex, I suppose.”

  “Right.” I nodded like she’d gotten the test right. “Where are your kids?”

  “Don’t worry about my kids,” she snapped, hard and fast. And if I was ever going to break her—she just told me where to apply pressure.

  Interesting.

  If she was really after money or access to Mom, she’d trot those kids out fast. They were her best bargaining chip.

  “You don’t trust me?”

  Tiffany, with the too bright cheeks, didn’t hesitate. “Nope.”

  Yeah, more and more, my guess was that there were no kids. Or if they existed, they weren’t hers. Or maybe they weren’t Phil’s. This was a shitty con. A bait and switch.

  “That seems about fair.” I stepped in closer, crowding her with my size in the small trailer. “I don’t trust you much either.” I glanced over at Annie, including her in that sentiment. And Annie, the lost-little-lamb, had the good sense to shrink back against the wall, putting as much room between her and me as she could.

  Annie had been broken before. It was written all over her face.

  Jesus, Dylan, what the hell are you doing with her?

  But Tiffany didn’t cower. Not even a little. She stood there with her chin up, those stormy eyes blazing.

  “Well, this is off to a great start, isn’t it?” Tiffany said.

  “Right, let’s just skip to the end.” From the inside pocket of my suit, I pulled out a checkbook and a pen. There was no time to suss out the pressure needed to break her—I was going to bank on the fact that she was like Phil.

  Lazy and cruel and greedy.

  “I’ve never done this before,” I lied. “So I assume you’ll let me know if I’m doing it wrong. Will ten thousand be enough?”

  “For what?” Tiffany asked through lips that were tight and pale under the slick of gloss she wore. Oh, she knew where I was going with this.

  I leaned in and whispered; “To make you go away.”

  Annie gasped. “Blake, no, you don’t—”

  “You’ve done enough, haven’t you?” I asked her.

  “What have I done?” she snapped, showing a little spine. Good for her.

  “Tell me,” I asked Annie. “If I give you ten thousand dollars will it make you go away, too, so my business partner and I can get back to work? I’m assuming you’re in it for his money, so how about we just save some time and do this now.”

  “You’re wrong,” she said, her whole body vibrating. Her outrage was adorable. She looked like a wet cat.

  “We’ll see, won’t we?” I turned back to Tiffany. “Now, for my ten thousand I want assurances from you that you will not try to contact my mother. Should you take my money and contact my mother anyway, after taking a DNA test to make sure that whatever children you have are related to me, I will take them from you. And you will never see them again.”

  Tiffany put one hand behind her, bracing herself against the table.

  “Get out of here,” Annie said, throwing open the door. “Now. I won’t have you—”

  “No,” Tiffany said, her face pale but her eyes were bright. “It’s okay.”

  “It’s not okay—he’s being an asshole. You do not have to stand here and take this, Tiffany!”

  Oh, but she did. She had—in her way—asked for exactly this.

  “That’s the check?” Tiffany asked, pointing to my checkbook.

  I handed it to her and she took it with shaking hands. She took her time reading it.

  Pretend you’re better than this, I thought. Tell yourself whatever you need to for a few minutes more. Until you put that check in your pocket and show me who you really are.

  “Make it fifteen,” Tiffany said, “and it’s a deal.”

  Well, well. A twist I didn’t see coming. But at least now we were on the same page and no one was pretending.

  “Ten’s my offer,” I said.

  “Then I guess Margaret will be getting a phone call, won’t she? And now I want twenty.”

  Annie gasped, stunned.

  I very nearly laughed.

  Oh, well-played, trailer trash. Well-played.

  I took the check, tore it in two, and wrote her another one. Twenty grand. Tiffany took it, her hands steadier this time, and tucked the check in her bra.

  “Remember,” I said, because she hadn’t broken when I expected her to and that made her unpredictable and perhaps dangerous, “if you reach out to my mother I will take your children.”

  Tiffany’s pale cheeks blazed red and her eyes all but scorched the suit off my body. I half expected her to take a swing or something. Anything.

  “Pleasure doing business, asshole,” Tiffany said, and stepped out of the trailer.

  Unbroken.

  This was going to be a problem.

  Chapter 2

  ONE YEAR LATER

  Tiffany

  Hoo-boy. I’ve been here before.

  Not in front of a house built into a mountain in the middle of what looked like a rocking Christmas Party.

  I wish.

  But rock bottom. The twinkle lights and the laughing people and the holiday music I could hear through my car windows—they weren’t fooling me. This was rock bottom.

  Yeah. I’ve been here, plenty.

  I am an expert on rock bottoms. An authority. I could teach a class, PhD level, on recognizing them. I should teach a class—one of those continuing education things, like pottery or Intermediate Mandarin.

  Surviving Impact When You Hit Bottom.

  When He Looks Like Prince Charming but Is Actually the Troll Dragging You to Hell.

  Making a Home out of Those Stone Walls.

  Rock bottoms don’t always look the same, or look like you think they should.

  Some rock bottoms look like living in a trailer park outside of Cherokee, North Carolina with three kids, no money, and a black hole of a husband.

  But sometimes rock bottom looks like a Norman Rockwell painting with a candle-lit dining table surrounded by a mom, dad, and sister in a Laura Ashley dress.

  Rock bottom may come in different forms, but here’s the trick—it always smells the same. Like panic and tears. Like regret and vomit. Fear and blood.

  Because this looks like a Christmas party, but the smell…Oh God, I know this smell.

  “Mommy?”

  My babies were in the back seat. Danny, Amber, and Sienna.

  I wiped my eyes. Swallowed the sour bubble in the back of my throat.

  Oh, this smell. This socking smell.

  “Yeah, baby?”

  It was Danny. It was always Danny. He was six years old and it was getting harder and harder to protect him. He deserved a childhood. A nice long one. And already I could see it ending. The way he tried to protect me. The way he didn’t fight with his sisters and always had one eye on the door. He was already learning to be wary and compromise.

  And that’s why you’re here. Something has to change.

  “Where are we?” he asked. His little boy voice was husky with sleep. They’d all fallen asleep by the time we were out of Asheville. The adrenaline and tears left them in exhausted puddles in the back seat.

  “A friend’s house. You remember Annie from the trailer park?”

  I could feel him pull on my headrest to stand up in the back seat and place his little face beside mine. I turned my head and pressed a kiss to the soft skin near his ear.

  “This is Annie’s house now?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Whoa.”

  “Yeah.” I laughed, somehow. Through the smell an
d the stress and the sweat. “Whoa.”

  “Does she live with a dragon?” Danny asked. “Because that looks like a dragon’s house.”

  I tilted my head as if studying it. “Yeah, I think you’re right. Totally a dragon’s house.”

  “Are we having a sleepover here?” Danny asked, his corn silk hair touched the side of my face and my eyelids flinched.

  I’d driven up here thinking we could spend the night. Hoping, really. Because going to my sister’s new house was out of the question and I didn’t want to go to a hotel if I didn’t have to, and home…well, home wasn’t home tonight. Home might not be home again. Which was a drag because we really liked that apartment.

  But there was no sleepover happening here. We were crashing a party.

  “Would that be fun? A sleepover at a dragon’s house?” I was working hard, supremely hard at keeping my voice light. There was a trick to that too, another class I could teach:

  How to Make Rock Bottom an Adventure for Your Kids!

  With all my will, I suffocated my sob, my hand at my lips in case it tried to crawl back out.

  “Yeah!” he said, his blue eyes reflecting all that Christmas and joy around us.

  “You go on back to sleep, sweetie. I just need to talk to Annie.”

  “She’s going to help with dad?”

  I swallowed hard, so hard it hurt. So hard I almost choked. It wasn’t pride; that had been dealt with a looooong time ago. And the only things that mattered in my life were sitting in the back seat—two of them buckled in to car seats. The other eyeing Annie’s house like he was a detective on TV.

  We’ll just call the terrible knot in my throat nerves. Lingering adrenaline from forcing my kids to climb out the bathroom window.

  “Yep. Stay here with your sisters and I’ll be right back.”

  He let go of my headrest and fell back into his spot in the piles of blankets between his sisters’ car seats. He was supposed to be in a booster, but I had it in the trunk.