AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Jitters rack me. So many what-ifs. “I’m scared,” I rush to say. I was supposed to be with my family. Instead, I’m relying on a total stranger who hit me with his car. Maybe this whole plan is just to get me to shut up.
“Because you’re smart.” Taking my shoulders, he squeezes them. Immediately I feel calm and safe under his touch. “Give it a chance. You take a chance on me, and I’ll take a chance on you. Okay?”
“Okay.” I nod, seeing the promise in those silver depths. A promise that squeezes my heart so tight, I have to bite the inside of my lip not to sigh in wonder.
“Good.” He says, giving me a gentle squeeze. “I cooked, so you have to wash dishes.”
“Ugh. Nobody asked you to cook, dude.” I stomp, turning my back on him and gathering the dishes.
“Wake up earlier the next time then, darling,” he drawls in his long Southern twang, making me look over my shoulder and laugh at how ridiculous he sounds.
“I know you were wondering when my Southern accent was going to come out.” He laughs. “I’ll see you in a bit. I’m going to let the grounds people know you live here now. No one should come here. If they do, you call me.” His tone turns deadly serious.
“Alright.” I nod, loading the dishes in the sink.
He takes a long moment debating, then says, “Nikki, when I say you can trust me, I mean only me.”
I nod. “Just you.” Other than Daddy, I never had anyone be that intense about keeping me safe. The look that comes over Mathias’s face is that of a protector. At the moment I know he’s the one person on this earth I can trust above all others.
In a flash, I rush over and hug him.
“Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much, Mathias.” Shaking and trembling, I let the tears I held from the moment I watched my daddy go to heaven flow freely.
He doesn’t say a word while he holds me as long as I need him to. When he steps back, his smile is beatific, as if I’ve given him a gift rather than him saving my life.
“I’ve got you, darling. We are in this together.”
At this moment, I know we were.
ChapterThree
Mathias ~6 Years Later…
“Nicolette Love.”
Pride swells in my heart at hearing her name. I love the way she has her cap perched atop her massive curls as she walks across the stage toward me to get her degree. She’s so small, curvy, beaming with joy.You can’t think of her as curvy, motherfucker.I snatch back the thought with a ruthlessness I’ve come to welcome in years since she turned eighteen.
Like what the fuck is wrong with me? She’s a kid, or was when I met her the night I graduated college. But now… I force my focus on the scene before me and not the excitement vibrating between us. It takes everything in me not to swoop her up in my arms and spin her around and cheer, especially when she turns her amazing smile on me. Just for me.
There is a riotous cheer as Loves erupt en masse in the audience, cheering their long-lost relative recently brought back into the fold. The open, overflowing joy and love they show her lets me know I’m doing the right thing in stepping back and allowing her to be fully embraced by her huge extended family. I have nothing to offer her anyway but despair and disappointment.
This is what she deserves. To be cared for out in the open. To be able to stand in the sun. Not hidden away in a little cottage like she’s some dirty little secret.
She turns away after sneaking me a cheeky little wink I couldn’t help but return, waving to the Loves, who outnumber any other family present. The fact a Shelby is here is no surprise—we founded the school. I came today for my own special reason. To celebrate Nikki. We did it. I kept my promise, seeing that she got her education. Even created a scholarship especially for her with no one being the wiser. Now I get to see all that we worked for come to fruition. The amusement of seeing her family in rare form is an unexpected joy. I’m a special guest, largest benefactor to the university with the Isabella Shelby Scholarship. From my position right beside the university’s president, handing out diplomas, I don’t miss a thing.
I even see Angel with his new wife, Ezekiel-Jane, among the horde of Loves looking like a mountain of menace. The way he keeps looking down at his little ball of fluff of a wife and scanning the room lets me know that he’s absolutely fucking gone for the little librarian.
“Congratulations, Miss Love.” I smile down at Nikki, watching the lovely smile stretches across her face. She is fucking immaculate. Such a change from the elfin little creature I hit with my car. The best decision I ever made was keeping her with me.
“Thank you, Mr. Shelby.” Her voice stumbles a little over my name.Mr. Shelbyis nothing she’s ever called me. AlwaysMathiasorThiwith her mix of Southern and Northern accents. I hand her the diploma. We talked about this. About being careful. How no one can know what we mean to each other, what we’ve been to each other. It would make the career I want in politics untenable and her life miserable.
Being associated with a Shelby is a boon for everyone except a Love. We can’t control what families we are born into, but the animus between our families runs deep and is not without cause. And not some long-ago bullshit either.
My father seems to like causing problems every fucking chance he gets. And he’s only gotten worse now that the Loves are associated with the second-biggest employer in the area—the Creative Chaos Plant. Rap mogul FADE Carrington is married to one of the Love cousins, Delightful, and wanted the computer-chip plant here to give back to the community from which both their families hail. None of the families, including mine, who’ve had a stranglehold on the livelihoods of people here welcomed the change, and they’ve been conspiring to derail them ever since the plant—and the influx of businesses that followed—came to Shelby-Love.
Adding to that, the Spencers have been actively campaigning for the demise of any and all Loves. Once it was discovered the child they’d thought was their grandson, Mateo was not their son Leon’s child, but in fact, he the son of the rock star, Santiago Rosas. I feel for their loss, but I never recall Dr. Mimi ever saying the kid was Leon’s, her husband who perished in Iraq. In fact, I remember Mrs. Spencer crowing about it to my father, who, though he hated everything Love, was happy for his friends.
Other rich landowners who held a grip on this state all have a reason to hate the Loves and Takedas for everything they represent, the twilight of the landed elite. My reason for going into the snake pit of politics is to hurry them on into their inevitable extinction. I couldn’t give a fuck about who rules as long as I see the fruits of my mother’s vengeance drench this bitter earth I was born into.
