Page 2 of The Hottest Daddy
Pain.
Her vision went black.
In the morning, in the hospital, after hours of surgery, they told her. Cory was dead and the man who had killed him and shot her was gone. Missing. In the wind.
And Marley knew she would never feel the warmth of happiness or the feeling of being safe again.
Chapter One
One year later …
Marley Locke stopped existing the moment she closed out the news that night with a smile at her audience and her usual cheery goodbye. She chatted with Rae as usual, changed into her going-home clothes, and told her friend she would see her tomorrow.
Using the stick that she no longer needed, but kept as a way of misdirection, she hobbled out to the waiting town car, and Marley Locke disappeared.
As the town car, driven by one of her FBI handlers, sped out into the dark of New York state and to the safehouse, Marley was forgotten and instead, in her place, Sunday Kemp was ‘born.’
At the safehouse, her blonde hair was dyed professionally back to her original dark brown, her brown eyes covered with violet contact lenses, her nose pierced, even a small tattoo was made on her wrist.
Then, the private jet carrying her to her new home arrived, and she knew this was it. The last moment of her old life. She hesitated once more before stepping onto the aircraft. Sam, her handler, who had become a good friend over the last year, put a hand on her shoulder. “You okay, Sunday?”
Sunday.Her new name. She’d chosen it to honor Cory—they’d met on Sunday.Kemphad been his mother’s maiden name. When she’d lost Cory, she’d also lost them. It had been too painful for them to see her, even though Patricia, Cory’s mother, had stayed by Marley’s bedside as she recovered from the gunshot. As soon as Marley was released, though, she had been on her own. Her own family, long dispersed over the world, had sent commiserations, but not one of them had visited. Rae had been her family, and now she had to leave her only family behind.
From New York, the only home she had ever known, to small-town life in the Rockies. Colorado. From news anchor to someone’s typist. They’d found her a position with an artist who lived in the small town near Telluride and she would meet him the following Monday.
Until then, she would be set up in her new home, a small apartment on the main street of the town, high in the Rocky Mountains. She’d brought nothing from home, not even underwear, except for one photograph of Cory that she’d snuck into the lining of her jacket.
The FBI had told her to leave everything that could tie her to her old life. “Everything will be provided for you.”
She’d asked them about her money. “You have to leave everything,” Sam had told her gently. “You show up in town with millions in the bank …”
“I get it,” she’d said. Money hadn’t meant anything but making her life more convenient; she’d never been a money-grubber. But she hated leaving her books, her piano, and most of all, her friends at the station.
The threats to her life were constant. He, whoeverhewas, was relentless but very well-hidden. But he constantly sent her reminders that he was close, that he would finish the job, make her pay for her ‘betrayal.’
Asshole.Her gut would churn with anger, and sometimes she wished her stalker would show his face. Even if he killed her, she would at least get her chance for revenge. The FBI were troubled and by the time they’d convinced her that they thought her attacker was someone connected to the Mob and that she would never escape him, Marley—Sunday—had almost resigned herself to dying young.
The FBI, and Sam Duarte, in particular, had finally persuaded her to go into protection. “You have so much more life to live,” Sam, a kindly man in his forties, had told her. “You’re twenty-eight years old, sweetheart. Live. Live to honor Cory’s memory.”
He couldn’t have put it in any other way that could have persuaded her. Suddenly, a slower pace of life, and the time to grieve for Cory, sounded more tempting than her career and New York.
In the private jet, Sam smiled at her. “You all set, Sunday?”
She nodded. “I think I’m ready now, Sam. Thank you for arranging all of this, I mean it. And the job too. I’d go crazy without something to do.”
Sam patted her hand. “I don’t know much about your future employer except he keeps himself to himself. Very private.”
“Good.” She was relieved to hear that. She knew her new boss had a large house and hoped they wouldn’t cross paths that much and that she would be left alone to work and think.
The jet landed in Telluride, then she was given the keys to a secondhand SUV. All part of the ruse, she knew, but she didn’t care. It was comfortable and reliable. In the back were suitcases filled with her new wardrobe. Sam made sure she was comfortable. “We’ll follow you to the new apartment,” he told her, “but keep our distance so we don’t attract attention. You look like you’ve arrived on your own. The place is furnished, so you should be able to settle in pretty quickly. There are a couple of bags of basic groceries in the station wagon. You got the burner phone I gave you?”
Sunday dug in her purse and held it up.
“Good girl. Well, I’ll be in touch. Keep that with you, but get a new one to use for your new friends here.”
She nodded. “Thank you, Sam.”
“You’ll be good here, Sunday. I know it.”
