While we enjoyed the company of our friends, my fingers slipped into my pocket for my phone. I was going to make a post to Facebook for our fans to see. That’s when my fingers brushed against the folded sheet of paper – the results from my surprise exam earlier today.
I hadn’t even told him my big surprise yet.
Trent was going to be a daddy.
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Novels by Nikki Wild
Bad Boy Fighters:
KNOCKOUT (A Bad Boy MMA Romance)
Bad Boy Bikers:
ROUGHNECK (A Dark Biker Romance)
Saving Landon (A Bad Boy Biker Romance)
Saved by the Bad Boy (A Devil’s Dragons Biker Romance)
Pride and Pregnancy (A Devil’s Dragons Motorcycle Club Romance)
Rough Rider (Outlaw Kings Motorcycle Club)
Hard Rider (A Bad Boy Biker Romance)
British Bad Boys:
Royal Prick (A Bad Boy British Romance)
Arrogant Brit (A Bad Boy British Sports Romance)
Rock Hard (A Bad Boy British Rockstar Romance)
Played (A Bad Boy British Romance)
Bad Boy Rockstars:
Double Treble (A Twin Rockstar Romance)
Illicit Behavior (A Bad Boy Rockstar Romance)
Rock Hard (A Bad Boy British Rockstar Romance)
Bad Boy Stepbrothers:
Lust (A Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance)
Richard (A Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance)
Bad Boy Billionaires:
Taking Beauty (Book 1 of the Taking Beauty Series)
Claiming Beauty (Book 2 of the Taking Beauty Series)
Owning Beauty (Book 3 of the Taking Beauty Series)
Pretend Married (A Billionaire Romance with a Twist)
Protect And Serve (A Bad Boy Billionaire Romance)
Bonus #4: Saving Landon!
Prologue
THE AIR felt too damp and still for Northern California in August.
The night reeked of unease.
From the odd weather to the moon that stayed sheltered behind the evening’s clouds, it was as though the Universe was all too aware of what we’d done and felt uncomfortable bearing witness to it.
In the darkness, I stood and writhed at the feeling of my dirtied white tank top clinging to the skin of my back. My stale breath couldn’t seem to decide whether to heave slower, quicker, or —should fate allow me the reprieve — stop entirely.
I wrapped my arms as tightly as I could around my torso. I still believed I could find some elusive comfort beneath these watching stars.
“How much longer?” I asked Landon again while wiping some more tears from my face before he noticed. “The sun’s up soon.”
Landon, my then-high school sweetheart, looked up to me with his bright blue eyes and tensed brow with exasperation. Despite his expression, I knew in my heart that his patience with me would hold strong no matter how annoying I became tonight, or any other night really.
“Y—You shouldn’t be doing this,” I panted with an aggressive shake of my head. “Landon, you shouldn’t fucking be doing this.”
I lunged forward to try take the shovel from his grip but he stopped me.
“Lucy—”
“This could ruin everything for you. I shouldn’t have brought you into this. I shouldn’t’ve agreed to it! This was a mistake; A big fucking mistake. What have I done? What the fuck have I done? I’m worse than him now!”
I broke down beneath the weight of the moment I found myself in. My knees buckled, collapsing me into the dirt where I wished to stay forever; in this darkness, brooding on what I’d done, living out my punishment.
In my state of seemingly endless panic, my breath kept rapid. Every inhale of the muggy summer evening felt viscous, suffocating me of any reverie I once found in fresh air.
Kneeled in my deserving suffering, I could make out the beads of sweat building on Landon’s brow. He stood three-feet deep in a muddy hole he’d been digging for what I guessed was the better part of two hours. His hands were dirtied beneath the moonlight and the old shovel he was holding had worn through his leather gloves.
A harmless rustle from the bushes caused me to startle again. I turned left and right for any sign of the police or FBI or whomever else who were surely trying to find us by now. Tears stung raw in the back of my throat.
“Babe,” Landon’s soothing cadence entered my ears. “Lucy, it’s probably a bird. No one, no one is looking for us.”
He climbed from the hole, removed his gloves and rested his hands on either side of my sweaty face. After wiping my damp hair from my forehead, he made sure my eyes were locked on his.
“You’re safe now. You’re always safe while I exist. Do you trust me on that? No bad will come to us for this. Do you trust me?”
I nodded.
Me and Landon had been together three trialling but fulfilling years. In that time we’d shared, I’d happily given him all of me — My secrets, my fears, my problems and my heart; But most importantly, he had my trust — A part of myself I hadn’t offered to anyone else in my life, not even to my own family.
He cradled me into his arms and squeezed tightly. A kiss against my forehead rested my nerves for a moment and briefly distracted me from where I was. But then I made a mistake…
A mistake of tilting my head up to look some feet beyond Landon’s shoulder…
There was a body basking beneath the blue of the moon. Daryl Palermo, the man who gave me life laying unnervingly still on the ground. His once sun-kissed skin was pallor with the ghoulish glow of the dead.
My empty stomach wretched.
He ceased to exist, unable to inflict any more pain upon me or my mother— But why did that thought not make me feel better like it should? Landon felt my dry heaves and hid my face again. Even in death, that man had me retreating like some scared puppy into the safety of Landon’s arms. This time, he wouldn’t deal me merely a small cigarette burn on my arm for not recording his Raiders game. In death, his punishment was inescapable and unending; I made a choice and I would bear this moment forever.
The nook of Landon’s elbow rescued me from further anguish. He combed his fingers through my hair.
“I’ll finish this and we can move on, okay? Daryl won’t hurt you anymore.” He embraced me tighter until my back clicked and the sickly earthy stench of soil was replaced with his Old Spice deodorant. “He can’t hurt you anymore.”
I took a moment to breathe my boyfriend in so he could refill my strength. I wanted to feel some hope that things could return to normal again once the trauma had worn off…
Then my head shook of its own accord.
My heart knew the truth: