Page 16 of Forbidden Bastard
The room she’d paid for had a twin bed and not the normal queen bed most American hotels had, but the sparseness didn’t matter.
Sandi twirled around her closet-sized hotel room humming.
She hadn’t hummed since she was in that high school production ofMan of La Mancha, yet here she was--happy.
She chose clothes from where she'd hung them in the small armoire and glanced out the window toward a glowing florescent red and gold restaurant sign.
When she thought about Paris and the Eiffel Tower she’d never thought she’d smell rice cakes.
Granted, the room only showed a Chinese food restaurant and a crowded street, but this was still Paris, and she'd been kissed.
Her plan before Charles had come onto the scene was to check out the Louvre, the next stop on her trip. She shrugged into her knee-length black knit dress.
Maybe teenage Sandi Smith hadn’t known her life of leisure was a lie, but she knew now.
She’d never return to Paris as money was going to be tight to nonexistent soon enough.
She’d probably marry a mechanic and hope one day her children had a solid background with skills where they weren’t running things before they were ready.
And all because her parents hadn’t wanted to deal with being responsible, so they'd tossed their future in her hands once her grandfather had died.
They'd be broke. Unless she tossed caution to the wind and married Charles.
Whoever he married would be a duchess, live in a grand home, and have a better view from her hotel window.
His kiss made her lips tingle.
Her phone rang. Sandi plopped on her twin bed with a cozy white comforter and answered her mother, who immediately said without a hello, “So our contract is on hold, dear.”
Part of Sandi wished her mother was here. She’d always been a lady and she might actually know how to act when one kiss affected her balance.
Not like Sandi who was just expected to make good choices without understanding details.
Sandi finger-combed her long hair. “I made a counter offer to Charles Esposito.”
Her mother was the one person in the world who could talk her into a position, but today Sandi just couldn’t do it. “Your father and I need that contract.”
If Sandi married Charles, then maybe she’d know what great sex was and not care about making another bad choice. Not that she’d tell her mother that. She picked up her grandmother’s rose necklace from the nightstand to put it on. “I’ve never been a bargaining chip before.”
She heard the click of her mother’s heel as it came in contact with the marble tile, a signal that her mother was upset. “Your father mortgaged our home to keep our warehouse open despite the online competition because you said the novelty would pass.”
That made the decimation of their life that much worse.
The Denver mansion had been paid for. Her voice went higher as she asked, “You have to sell the house too?”
“That deal for you to marry Charles could save us,” her mother said fast. “As you were the one that told us to keep the warehouses that now has no customers.”
And possibly ensure Sandi was the happiest woman who ever lived, if Charles kissed her like that every day. Charles was nearly perfect, but rather than rejoice, she felt trapped where all roads led to fixing the mess she’d made for everyone with one trip down the aisle. “I’ve made lots of bad choices, I get it. And I don’t want us to lose our home, but… I wanted to fall in love, the old fashioned way.”
“Is he awful?" her mother asked. "He looks very handsome in his online pictures. I thought he was a gift sent from heaven to save our family from further ruin.”
Charles was handsome, that was true, and Sandi usually spoke honestly with her mother. Her mother had always been taken care of and expected to be pampered but she'd married a rich man who had no business skills. Unfortunately she hadn’t inherited her grandfather’s smarts either. She scooted forward to continue their conversation but then a knock sounded on the door. “He’s… Charles is here. I have to go.”
But she didn’t hang up. She kept the phone in her hand and answered the door.
Charles’s dark eyes, strong shoulders, and sexy clean-shaven chin below perfect lips made her insides twist like she might get another shot at a kiss.
Totally unfair how he made jeans and a black t-shirt rock because it showed off those muscles of his.
