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“One watch from his massive collection, the rarest and most expensive one. He never wears it, but he’ll notice the empty spot.”
I thought this was too obvious and said so.
“Good point, I’ll just go and—”
“Amara, open the door right now!”
“Crap! I gotta go. Coming, Daddy,” she said in a sleepy voice before the phone went silent.
I shook my head at her antics. I knew this game and how it would play out, with her getting a spanking and then having wild sex afterward. Amara and King were newlyweds and in the marital bliss stage of their marriage, and according to her, they still had crazy monkey sex every day.
He really was the perfect Daddy for her and I tried not to be envious of their sex life as Amara deserved every good thing that came her way. She’d suffered a tough time on the streets before going home to the family vineyard and being claimed by King Connelly for a second time.
I still got giddy remembering when she shared her and King’s reunion story with me and Ocean. How, after years of running, she finally came home only to discover King had built their dream home.
Amara’s homecoming hadn’t been an easy thing. Between her brother’s scheming to steal the family business, King calling her on her crap, and the exhausting job of building her self-confidence to help her overcome the impulse to run away every time things got tough, she’d had lots to contend with.
Still, she’d pulled through all of it with King at her side. I wanted to stamp my foot and holler at the endless ways of how unfair it was that Amara had her Daddy but mine left me all alone.
She’s better than you and deserves happiness more than you do.
Shut up!
After all, even though her brother played a dirty trick on her and stole years from her life. King wanted her. Who wanted you?
Fuck!
Good point! When was the last time Alex gave me exactly what I wanted? Maybe the green-eyed monster was right, and I wasn’t good enough. Ugh! When Alex was away, the demons in my head would come out and play. And around and around it went. The green-eyed monster was winning this round.
My phone beeped with an incoming call from Ocean. It was grand central today, but that was usually how it worked. I’d hear from one of them and then the other, and then radio silence until one of us made a call. I guess we were in sync somehow.
“Hey,” I answered.
“Hey yourself. I wanted to check in and see if we were meeting up over the holidays at some point?”
In the background, I could hear Dorian clanging about. Probably making her a five-star meal. He often did that, spoiling Ocean with amazing food and wine as they enjoyed their jungle paradise.
I knew I should stop feeling sorry for myself and be happy for my friends. After all, all three of us kinda had a rags-to-riches story, and all three of us had been rescued by a handsome, rich Daddy-Dom. It wasn’t like Ocean and Amara had exclusive rights in the luck department. I’d had the same good fortune as them, but Alex wasn’t here with me.
He has more value than you do.
Shut up!
Why is self-worth so hard to have and keep? Why couldn’t abandonment issues just go away? This always came up for me. I knew it wasn’t real, but I couldn’t help it either. I once had a family who loved me, then they’d died. The people who killed them took me and turned me into a drug mule, but that part of my life was over. Except it wasn’t really because I still got caught in the victim trap.
Sharing my story with Alex that first time in the airport coffee shop had tethered us together. Like me, he was also an orphan. But, unlike me, he was the prince of a massive inheritance, turned king of an empire. He’d lived an incredible life with anything he could want. By comparison, the cartel kept me and other young girls in a run-down drug house. None of us owned anything except the clothes on our backs. When I met Alex, I’d been wearing threadbare jeans and shoes not even a homeless guy would wear.
How could he love me when I was such a loser?
He’d allowed me to steal his plane ticket and unknowingly helped me escape. But an attempt on my life forced us to deal with the cartel’s hold over me. Not that I was important, but I was alive and could bring down their operation. The night he arrived home after his successful meeting with the head of the cartel to negotiate my freedom, Alex proposed.
He’d rescued me from certain death that day, and in a magical setting, got down on one knee and asked me to be his wife and his brat. The box he’d opened held the most gorgeous ring I’d ever seen. The memory had me shift my gaze down at my hand, I admired the beautiful pearl and diamonds encased in the coral reef.
He does love me, and I am good enough!
A sense of wellbeing passed through me with that thought but quickly reverted to the negative self-talk. I was totally losing it.
Okay, so he’d been busy lately, I rationalized, but he promised that when he returned from his trip, I would have his full attention.
