Finally Yours (Finally Series Book 1)

  Finally Yours

  Elena Aitken

  Contents

  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

  Epilogue

  Finally Mine

  Also by Elena Aitken

  Join Me!

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  There was no way.

  Absolutely no way.

  It didn’t matter how many times I stared at the number, it didn’t get any smaller.

  As if that would matter.

  Even if it got smaller, I’d still be screwed.

  But still.

  I clicked on my phone one more time in case there’d been some sort of miracle, and scrolled through the email that had come through from the college admissions office one more time.

  Yup. Still screwed.

  $11,000.

  For one semester.

  Well, maybe it wasn’t quite eleven thousand. I was rounding up. But only by a few dollars. Not enough to make any real difference. Either way, the number still made me sick to my stomach. How could they get away with charging so much for college classes? Was it even legal? Did it even matter?

  It didn’t, because I needed those classes to finish the college degree I should have finished years ago. The real question was, where the hell was I going to come up with that kind of money to pay my tuition?

  So much for bettering myself.

  So much for trying to start a whole new life after my husband of over fifteen years proved to not only be a philandering asshole, but also a cheat and a fraudster, too.

  I really needed to stop being so shocked by it every time I thought of it. It was pathetic and I may be a lot of things, but pathetic was not and would never be one of them.

  All the signs that Daniel was a dishonest swindler siphoning millions of dollars from his client’s investments had been there for most of our marriage. I’d simply chosen to ignore them. Just as I’d chosen to ignore his string of girlfriends for the last ten years or so. It was easier not to rock the boat. Fortunately, it didn’t make me complicit in the crime. Just an idiot.

  An idiot who, at forty-one, was trying—and clearly failing—to start over her life.

  How could anyone start their life over when the only job you could get without a college degree in the upscale town of Aspen Valley was minimum wage, which barely paid for rent and food? Never mind trying to afford anything extra, like the education I should have pursued instead of marrying Daniel and falling into a life of luxury that turned out to be based on nothing more than lies.

  I wasn’t usually such a negative person, but it was starting to look more and more hopeless. Since I had to declare bankruptcy because of Daniel, there was zero hope of getting a loan. Hell, I was lucky I even got a job. Apparently being married to a douchebag who’d swindled millions and claiming ignorance about it all didn’t make you seem very credible or smart.

  Not that getting the job in the pro shop at the Aspen Valley Country Club I used to be a member at was very lucky. Far from it.

  Serving the men and women who used to call themselves my friends was—

  “Excuse me?”

  Speak of the devils.

  Bitsy Neville and Janine Lister, two of the women who I’d spent countless hours shopping and lunching with in my former life—my stomach turned just thinking about how I’d become such a shallow version of myself while I was with Daniel—flitted into the pro shop.

  Bitsy’s gaze zeroed in on me. She raised one heavily penciled eyebrow and pursed her lips together. “Isn’t there a club policy about employees using their cell phones during working hours?” She made a clicking sound with her tongue and wagged her finger, as if I were a child.

  I swallowed hard.

  You need this job. You need this job.

  “We wouldn’t want management to hear about this, now would we?”

  You need this job.

  “After all,” Bitsy continued, a sour grin taking shape on her overly made-up face, “club members are the most important thing, aren’t they?”

  I could say a lot of things about what was really important, but I didn’t. My mantra still rang through my head. I did need the job. As demeaning as it was. Every penny counted.

  “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Neville.” I tried not to choke on the formal way I addressed her. Club policy. “What can I help you with today? Is there something specific you’re looking for?” My voice dripped with fake sincerity, not that I expected her to notice. And she didn’t.

  Instead, she flipped her hair over her shoulder and shrugged. “No. I’m just browsing today.”

  “Of course.” I nodded demurely. “You just let me know if—”

  “You should probably put that away now.” She nodded to my cell phone, still in my hand. “I would hate to see you reported, after all.”

  “Of course.” Dutifully, I tucked my phone away under Bitsy’s watchful stare.

  Satisfied, she spun on her heel and wandered around the shop, picking things up, carrying them around, and then purposely putting them down again where they didn’t belong.

  You need this job.

  Although I was fairly certain the job had only been given to me to humiliate me and make the other members feel better about themselves. Sadly, most of these people enjoyed treating me like a piece of shit on the bottom of their overpriced designer golf shoes a little too much.

  Still. It was the only job I had. It was a paycheck and I’d take it. At least until I could finish up my degree and get a real job.

  If I could find the rest of the money I needed for the final semester. I had vastly underestimated how much tuition prices had gone up since the last time I’d taken a class. Not for the first time, I was kicking myself for not just finishing my degree while I had a chance. Marriage could have waited a few more months. In hindsight, it could have waited a lot longer than that. Like, forever. But, hey…there was no turning back time now

  At any rate, I almost had all the money I needed. Almost.

  I had some from my grandmother’s inheritance when she passed a few years ago that the banks couldn’t touch when they came collecting. The classes were paid for. Mostly. The books for those classes were another thing altogether. Over a thousand dollars for books? It was robbery. Especially considering most of those books were delivered digitally. How was I supposed to study from my phone? I realized I was showing my age, but I couldn’t help it. I wanted to pull out an old-fashioned highlighter and a packet of sticky notes like the old days. And if I was going to have to sell a vital organ in order to pay for those books was it too much to ask to actually have the books?

  And it was looking like I might have to if I didn’t come up with a solution, and soon.

  I took a breath, exhaled slowly, and scanned the shop. I tried to ignore the stacks of sweaters that Bitsy had very clearly tousled and the shelves of boutique lotions that were no longer neatly lined up with the labels facing outward. I’d fix that later.

  My eyes landed on Janine Lister, who was trying on shoes. No doubt she did need assistance if she was trying to shove those size ten feet of hers into a size eight golf shoe. I rolled my eyes. For as long as I’d known Janine—a long time—she always insisted she wasn’t a size ten.

  To hell she wasn’t.

  I shook my head, but didn’t bother going over to offer help because even if I offered it, I knew from past experience she wouldn’t take it. Instead, she’d stick up her nose and make some kind of snide comment about my clothes or my car or…well, any other insult she’d probably spent the night before thinking up.

  As terrible as Bitsy had been, Janine seemed to have made it her personal mission to try to make me feel as worthless as she possibly could. Just the way she used to spend all of her time sucking up to me. But that was when my husband was one of the club’s most influential members.

  Her two faces were just about as overpowering as the scent of her flowery perfume that probably cost more than my paycheck that filled my senses a few minutes later when she wandered up to the till with a box of the size eight shoes in her hand.

  Janine never did know when too much was too much.

  It made my stomach roil to think that I used to be friends with these women. Not that you could ever really be friends with stuck-up, snobby socialites. For the millionth time in the last few months, I was grateful I’d maintained my friendships with my real friends. Women who’d been by your side since you were thirteen and knew everything about you, and loved you despite it, were worth their weight in gold.

  “Did you find everything you were looking for, Mrs. Lister?” Rules were rules. “These are a nice choice,” I continued before she could say anything. “And an eight. I’m so glad we had your size in stock.” I smiled. If she’d been paying any attention at all, she could see how fake it was.

  Fortunately for me, unless they were actively insulting me, none of them paid me any attention. Not now. Now I was a nothing. This time last year, she would have been kissing my ass because of who I was married to. It was such bullshit. So fake.

  How quickly things changed. And those changes were not necessarily all bad. Not at all.

  “I’ll wear the
m at the charity event next week.”

  Janine was talking. I nodded and smiled as if I cared at all. She handed me two hundred-dollar bills to pay for shoes that were one hundred ten and didn’t even bother looking at the change before she stuffed it in her Gucci wallet.

  It would have been so easy to short her. She’d never notice a few dollars missing, and maybe I could at least pay for my—

  No, Abby! I chastised myself while at the same time putting on a bright smile for her. “I hope they bring you luck.”

  Because your game is terrible.

  Fortunately, Janine was too dumb, or too oblivious, to notice my jab. I held my fake smile until Bitsy rejoined her and together they left the shop. As soon as they were gone, I sagged against the counter.

  Fuck. Double fuck.

  I could not start stealing. I was not Daniel. I was absolutely not my husband.

  Ex-husband, I quickly corrected myself.

  No. I had morals. Daniel didn’t even know what they were. But…fuck morals. I needed the cash. Besides, this was different. Daniel took money from the rich and kept it. I would be taking money from the rich and giving it to the poor. Me! That was different. And I was just as much a victim of Daniel’s crimes as everyone else.

  Okay. Maybe not.

  But still. Was it fair that I was left to piece my life back together when all of Daniel’s victims barely even noticed a few dollars missing from their own bulging bank accounts?

  No.

  But it was too much of a stretch. I was desperate. But not that desperate. Yet.

  I gave myself a nice little pep talk and did my best to put my money troubles out of my mind. At least for a few minutes. I focused on stocking the shelves and changing out displays until my shift was over and I could go home to my tiny apartment.

  I was standing on a step stool, doing my best to reach for the bust of a mannequin dummy that needed a fresh shirt display, when I heard his gruff, rough voice.

  “You should be careful up there. It’s not safe to stand on a ladder without someone spotting you.”

  I spooked and lost my footing a little, causing the ladder beneath me to wobble. To my horror, I shrieked like a little girl but then quickly found my footing a moment later when the ladder stabilized. And that’s when I finally dared to look.

  I knew the voice.

  I knew it very, very well.

  And I knew damn well what was attached to that voice. Which was why I both didn’t want to look and also, more than anything, did.

  I squeezed my eyes shut for another second, took a breath in an effort to compose myself, and finally looked down to see Phillip Conrad.

  The Phillip Conrad.

  Phillip was a ridiculously handsome man, built like a Greek god, with a full head of thick dark hair streaked with silver, and just a bit of stubble—that was new—on his incredibly chiseled jaw. Somehow, while most of the men in Aspen Valley got soft around the middle and had hairlines that moved farther back on their foreheads, Phillip did the exact opposite and just got more handsome. If it were possible.

  And apparently it was.

  Just like everyone else at the club, we used to be friends. Only Phillip had been more than a friend. A lot more. He’d been…well, we’d dated a long time ago. Before Daniel. I’d really liked him. I mean, really liked him. The kind of like that you might even call…love. At least you might call it that under different circumstances. Very different circumstances.

  But that was all ancient history, because then I’d met Daniel. And even though I was dating Phillip at the time, as soon as Daniel came along, it was as though Phillip suddenly lost interest in me. As if I didn’t even exist. One minute, I thought we were getting serious and ready to take our relationship to the next level, and the next minute…it was over. It left my head spinning. Fortunately—or not, in hindsight—I had Daniel to distract me.

  But that didn’t mean I’d stopped thinking about Phillip. Not at all. For a while, I’d tried to talk to him about us. But I had my pride and it didn’t take long to figure out that he wasn’t interested in whatever I thought we’d had. So, I moved on. Mostly. After a while, it was just easier to go out of my way to avoid him. It sure as hell hurt less if I didn’t have to see him. Because no matter how much time passed, every time he looked at me with those dark eyes, it did something to my insides.

  And now, here he was. Standing directly beneath me, one hand on each arm of the ladder, his face pointed up—giving him a fantastic view up my short khaki uniform skirt at my—oh shit. I was in desperate need of doing laundry, but the shoebox I was renting didn’t have machines and I hadn’t had time to go to the laundromat and—I’d gone commando.

  The blush in my cheeks came hard and fast. I grabbed the mannequin with one hand for balance and quickly made my way to the safety of the solid floor. “Thanks.”

  He grunted in acceptance but didn’t move away, leaving me boxed in between the ladder and his hard chest. He was taller than me, at least six two, with a wide, broad chest, and thick, muscular arms that—despite the fact that he probably thought I was a nothing just like everyone else—sent a thrill through me, right between my legs. Something about a big, strong man never failed to turn me on.

  No. Correct that. Something about Phillip never failed to turn me on. Not that I’d admit it. Especially not now. And especially not with his dark eyes and the way they were staring at me that would have definitely made my panties wet—had I been wearing them.

  “You shouldn’t be putting yourself in danger like that.”

  He looked at me with a disapproving smirk on his face.

  “I’m fine.”

  “But you might not have been.”

  “Right.” I tried to slip away, but his arm didn’t move. “Excuse me.”

  My body trembled, and I hoped like hell it didn’t show.

  I had no right to let myself feel anything around this man. Although it had been him, not me, who’d lost interest in our relationship. I thought we were going to…it didn’t matter. Once Daniel came home from Europe, and I met him for the first time, everything changed. He’d pursued me intensely and Phillip…he’d just backed off, as if I hadn’t meant anything.

  And maybe I hadn’t.

  But maybe if he’d called again, asked me out one more time…maybe I wouldn’t have married Daniel.

  Yes. I knew that was true.

  I’d liked Phillip a lot more than Daniel. I’d been completely turned inside out with him. I would have done anything for him, and our attraction to each other was off the charts. So I’d thought. But it had never gotten physical. He said he wanted to wait, and I’d agreed because I didn’t want to mess it up by sleeping with him too soon. But then again, maybe that’s why he was able to walk away so easily? I still wondered about that. Like Phillip was the one that…what? Not got away. But the one that filled my thoughts. That I thought about. And fantasized about. All. The. Time.

  “I mean it, Abigail. You could have been hurt.”

  I paused and looked at him suspiciously, just the way I looked at anyone in this place who said more than two words to me. Let alone anyone who showed any concern at all about me.

  “Of course, Phill—I mean, Mr. Conrad.” I caught myself and the stupid rule of employees not calling the members by their first names. Talk about degrading.

  For a minute I thought he might correct me and ask me to call him by his given name. Instead, he nodded and said, “Mr. Conrad? Hmm…”

  I couldn’t even begin to explain why such a simple comment turned me on the way it did.

  I needed to stop thinking of him like that. After all, not only was he a member, he was Phillip Conrad. Perhaps one of the most important, and wealthiest, members of the club. And there was too much history between us for it ever to be anything else. And that’s exactly how I should be thinking of him. In fact, it was the only way I should be thinking of him.

  “Yes, Mr. Conrad.” I nodded as demurely as I could. “You’re absolutely right. Next time I’ll have someone hold the ladder.”

  He eyed me for a moment. If it had been any other time, I would have been absolutely sure there was desire in his eyes. Just when I was starting to think I should go back to work, he took off his suit jacket and handed it to me. “I forgot to return this to the restaurant,” he said. “It’s a ridiculous dress code. You’d think since I spend thousands of dollars here every bloody day that they’d let it slide.”