Wild Heart Read online

  Contents

  Also by Laurelin Paige

  Foreword

  1. Jolie

  2. Jolie

  3. Jolie

  4. Jolie

  5. Cade

  6. Cade

  7. Cade

  8. Jolie

  9. Cade

  10. Jolie

  11. Cade

  12. Cade

  13. Jolie

  14. Cade

  15. Jolie

  16. Jolie

  17. Cade

  18. Jolie

  19. Jolie

  20. Cade

  Epilogue

  A Note from the Author and Acknowledgments

  Paige Press

  Let’s stay in touch!

  About Laurelin Paige

  Copyright © 2021 by Laurelin Paige

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover: Laurelin Paige

  Editing: Erica Edits

  Proof: Michele Ficht and Kimberly Ruiz

  Also by Laurelin Paige

  Visit my website for a more detailed reading order.

  * * *

  The Dirty Universe

  Dirty Filthy Rich Boys - READ FREE

  Dirty Duet (Donovan Kincaid)

  Dirty Filthy Rich Men | Dirty Filthy Rich Love

  Kincaid (coming 2022)

  Dirty Games Duet (Weston King)

  Dirty Sexy Player| Dirty Sexy Games

  Dirty Sweet Duet (Dylan Locke)

  Sweet Liar | Sweet Fate

  (Nate Sinclair) Dirty Filthy Fix (a spinoff novella)

  Dirty Wild Trilogy (Cade Warren)

  Wild Rebel | Wild War | Wild Heart

  Man in Charge Duet

  Man in Charge

  Man in Love

  Man for Me (a spinoff novella)

  The Fixed Universe

  Fixed Series (Hudson & Alayna)

  Fixed on You | Found in You | Forever with You | Hudson | Fixed Forever

  Found Duet (Gwen & JC) Free Me | Find Me

  (Chandler & Genevieve) Chandler (a spinoff novella)

  (Norma & Boyd) Falling Under You (a spinoff novella)

  (Nate & Trish) Dirty Filthy Fix (a spinoff novella)

  Slay Series (Celia & Edward)

  Rivalry | Ruin | Revenge | Rising

  (Gwen & JC) The Open Door (a spinoff novella)

  (Camilla & Hendrix) Slash (a spinoff novella)

  First and Last

  First Touch | Last Kiss

  Hollywood Standalones

  One More Time

  Close

  Sex Symbol

  Star Struck

  Dating Season

  Spring Fling | Summer Rebound | Fall Hard

  Winter Bloom | Spring Fever | Summer Lovin

  * * *

  Also written with Kayti McGee under the name Laurelin McGee

  Miss Match | Love Struck | MisTaken | Holiday for Hire

  Written with Sierra Simone

  Porn Star | Hot Cop

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  DID YOU KNOW…

  This book is available in both paperback and audiobook editions at all major online retailers! Links are on my website.

  If you’d like to order a signed paperback, my online store is open several times a year here.

  One

  Jolie

  Past

  * * *

  The soft landing of something on my upper back woke me up. I opened my eyes and rolled over to discover my father towering over me and a grocery bag on the bed behind me. I didn’t have to look inside to know what I’d find.

  “You know what to do.” He handed me an empty plastic cup.

  I stifled a groan, and simultaneously, I felt my stomach drop. Stuffing down my emotions often led to a sense of dread, but this was more than that. While the routine was familiar to me, I had real reason to fear today’s results would be different.

  I’d been trying not to think about that. I wouldn’t be able to push it off now.

  Out of habit, my gaze flickered to my window. He’d glued it shut the day after he’d discovered Cade in my room. He’d installed bars the following week, sealing me in a literal prison.

  How long ago had that been now? Four weeks? Only four more until he came back for me. It already felt like a lifetime had passed, and graduation day seemed an eternity away.

  “Hurry it up, Julianna. I need to be in early for a meeting with Sylvia.”

  No wonder my alarm hadn’t gone off yet.

  With a sigh, I threw the covers off me and picked up the bag. “We did this just two weeks ago,” I said, but I swung my legs around and put my feet on the floor. Complaining about it wouldn’t get me out of it.

  “When you behave like a whore, you should expect to be treated like one.”

  My empty stomach churned, and I wondered if I could manage to throw up on his shoe if I angled myself right.

  But the wave of nausea passed, so with the grocery bag in one hand and the cup in the other, I headed to the bathroom.

  “Leave the door propped open,” he reminded me when I tried to close it out of habit.

  This wasn’t new either. He always made me keep the door ajar, as though he thought I might have urine tucked away somewhere in my bathroom cabinets, and I’d try to substitute it out for mine. And even if I did, what good would that do?

  It wasn’t really about what I might do, though. It was about control. It was about me understanding that he was my lord and master. My prison guard. The person who controlled my fate.

  What would he do when I ran away?

  I almost wished I could be there to see his reaction.

  A smile briefly bent my lips thinking about it, but it vanished as soon as I took the cardboard box out of the bag, and I was forced to face my situation. This was the whole reason I’d avoided truly fantasizing about the future with Cade this last week. This unknown could change everything, and I hadn’t been able to process that possibility.

  “Julianna?” My father was as impatient to get this over with as I was reluctant.

  “Sorry. I was rereading the instructions.” It was a lie that was hard to justify considering how often I’d had to take these—once a month since I’d started my period, more frequently since he’d caught me with Cade—but I noisily tore into the box so he wouldn’t feel the need to confront me on it.

  Leaving the unpackaged stick on the counter, I took the cup with me to the toilet to do the deed. “This would really be easier if you just put me on the pill. Since you’re so worried about me getting knocked up.”

  This was another familiar conversation, and he didn’t even bother to give me his usual lecture about how preparation was an invitation and all that.

  That wasn’t the reason he didn’t give me protection. It was another way he could control me. Plus, I was pretty sure he got off on how humiliating the whole thing was. Sick fuck.

  I flushed the toilet and took the cup, now filled with my pee, back to the bathroom counter. After uncapping the stick, I dipped the end in and counted to ten. Then I put the cap back on and set it on the counter while I washed my hands, trying to ignore the current wave of nausea and the probability that I didn’t need this test to know what was going on inside me.

  As soon as he heard the sound of the faucet, my father nudged the door the rest of the way open and leaned against the frame.

  His eyes were pinned to the test, watching as the pink control line brightened. “You know what happens if this is positive, right?”

  This was another speech he gave every time. He would take me to the doctor to get me an abortion. I’d go through the procedure willingly, or he’d tie me to the bed and take care of it himself with a hanger if need be. There would be no bastard grandchild. End of story.

  I couldn’t bear to hear it this time. “Yes, I know.”

  “Are you sure? Maybe you should tell me so I can be sure you’re clear.”

  “I know, Dad,” I snapped. “I don’t need to repeat it back to you.”

  His eyes darkened, and his hand twitched at his side while he tried to decide what to do about my disrespect. It was obvious he wanted to backhand me, and I wasn’t sure why he even had to think about it since he rarely denied himself a reason to punish me, especially since the whole Cade incident. He’d been taking out his wrath about that on me for the past month.

  Today, though, he let it go and glanced at his watch. “One more minute.”

  One more minute until the truth was confirmed. One more minute until I could no longer pretend my breasts didn’t hurt more than when they did with PMS and that my exhaustion wasn’t just about missing Cade and my missed period wasn’t about stress and that the come-and-go nausea wasn’t a weird stomach bug.

  What if I was? What would I do then?

  Tears pricked, and I shut my eyes, refusing to watch for the second line. I had forty-five seconds left before I had to figure anything out, and I planned on putting it off as long as possible.

  My eyes were still closed when I hear
d my father move to pick up the stick from the counter. “How likely is it his?”

  A sob threatened in my chest—or another urge to vomit—and I had to sit down on the edge of the bathtub for support. He knew the answer already, but he wanted me to know it too, and even though I already did, I did the math, figured out the calendar in my head, and thought about when I was most likely ovulating.

  The thing was, I didn’t know.

  And there was no way I could know without a paternity test, and I didn’t know if that was even possible before a baby was born, which meant I couldn’t have an abortion, no matter what my father said. I wouldn’t give up Cade’s child. No way, no how.

  But being pregnant put a wrench in running away with Cade. And if it ended up not being his, was it fair to saddle him with that burden?

  “You need money to have a child,” my father said, as if he could read my mind. “You need a home. Insurance. Healthcare. Baby clothes and furniture. Who’s going to pay for diapers? And formula? Minimum wage isn’t going to get you far. Even if you’re both working.”

  I wasn’t surprised that he had guessed I’d been planning to leave. I pushed him off every time he tried to talk about my plans after graduation, and he’d made it very clear he wanted me to stay with him while I got a degree in education so I could come help out at the family school.

  What did surprise me was something else. “You’ll let me keep it?”

  He set the stick on the counter and came to crouch in front of me so we were eye to eye. He had his doting father mask on, which was probably the cruelest of all his masks because it confused me and tore at my emotions. “It will be very hard,” he said softly, taking my hands in his. “And you’ll need my support, but if that’s what you really want, princess, of course you can keep it.”

  Silent tears streamed down my cheeks. I had no options. It was a facade of a choice.

  So I took the devil’s bargain, knowing full well that nothing he offered came without a cost.

  Two

  Jolie

  Present

  * * *

  I pushed open the front door and blinked, as if closing my eyes could make the boy and his duffel bag go away, but he was still very much there, standing in the yard when I opened them. “Tate?”

  “Ah. There. My mom,” he said to Cade, who was standing next to him with a look of horror on his face that had to match my own.

  Immediately, the air went out of my lungs. The doorknob under my hand felt sweaty, and my heart was racing so fast and so hard, it felt like a trapped animal inside my chest.

  This can’t be happening.

  After Cade left the room, I must have rolled over and fallen back to sleep, and now I was dreaming. There was no other explanation. Because the scene in front of me was plucked directly from my worst nightmare, and no way was it really happening.

  The current dread was such a contrast from how I’d been floating on air only a few minutes before. Cade had promised he would see this through with my father, and maybe that was more about his own relationship with Dad, but I could tell things were changing. I could feel the tether between us—the one that had always been there, had never broken even when we’d been apart—and instead of yanking at it, trying to break free like he had earlier in the week, it had started to feel like he was shortening the leash, pulling me closer.

  And I was ready to stop resisting being pulled.

  I was ready to tell him everything, and that felt pretty damn good.

  With the truth on my mind, I’d thought of Tate and reached for my phone. It had been a while since I’d checked in on him, and even though I knew he was mature enough to handle being alone with the neighbor keeping an eye on him, I still got anxious when I didn’t hear from him for too long.

  The fact that my phone wasn’t anywhere in the room demonstrated just how distracted I’d been in my old home. Had I really not texted Tate since dinner? Panicking before it was necessary, I’d jumped out of bed and thrown on a change of clothes so I could go look for it.

  Then, when I’d come downstairs, the sound of an engine drew my gaze to the window, and I saw a car I recognized—a Nissan Versa that I’d signed a lease on only three months before—and any chance that it could just be a coincidence disappeared when the engine stopped, and the driver who stepped out had a face I knew by heart.

  A face that had earnestly sworn to never take the car out on the highway if I wasn’t with him when I’d handed over the keys.

  And the only way to get here from Boston was by highway, so either he’d broken that promise—and he was not prone to breaking promises—or I was dreaming.

  Definitely dreaming.

  Because why would Tate even be here? He thought I was at a conference in New York. He didn’t have any reason to think I’d be elsewhere, and even if he did, he couldn’t suspect I’d be at my childhood home, and he certainly had no way of figuring out how to get here. He’d been only seven when we’d last been here together. He didn’t know the name of this town, let alone the address, and that was why he couldn’t be here.

  Could not. There was no way. This was not how Cade was finding out about him.

  But the cold of the air blowing through the open door was undeniably real, proof that this wasn’t a dream, that I was standing on my father’s porch, that I was watching my son have his very first conversation with the one other man who meant the most to me, and I was seriously about to have a panic attack.

  “Jolie’s your...mom?” Cade’s expression had gone hard. He was good at shutting down his emotions from view, a skill he’d perfected when we’d lived together seventeen years ago to help him survive the monster who was my father.

  The skill I’d perfected back then was freezing up, and I was frozen now, my chest tight and my head screaming to do something, my body unable to move.

  “Um, yeah. I wasn’t sure I was in the right place.” He gave his best grin. “But I guess I am. I’m Tate, by the way.”

  It was just like my kid to befriend a stranger. He was always sweet and polite, and for the most part, unafraid. I’d done my best to give him a life that allowed him to trust that people were good. It was the life I’d longed for and so it was the one I’d wanted for him, and in any other situation, I’d have taken this as a win.

  But now I saw how I’d done him a disservice because I loved Cade—I’d both fallen for him again, and I loved him still—but I could admit he wasn’t ready for this, and rightly so, he might lash out. As much as I wanted to fight to preserve whatever had been repaired between us over this last week, I had to think of my son first.

  With that thought in mind, I could finally move.

  I took a step out, then drew back quickly when I remembered I was still barefoot, and the ground was covered with snow. “Tate, get in here,” I snapped, ignoring the strong desire to ask what the hell he was doing here. That could wait. This, however, was immediate. “Now. Right now.”

  Confusion marring his brow, Tate took a step toward me, but Cade grabbed his arm, sending warning signals shivering down my spine. “Wait. How old are you, Tate?”

  “Leave him alone, Cade.” Keeping the front door ajar so I could hear what was happening, I opened the coat closet, remembering I’d seen Carla’s house slippers in there when we’d hung up our coats the night before. “Tate, come on. Get in here.”

  I had one slipper on and was looking for the other, when instead of listening to me and coming in the house, my son answered. “Almost seventeen. You’re...Cade?”

  “Tate!” I hadn’t used that sharp of a tone with him since he almost stepped into the road chasing after the cat when he was eight, but this conversation couldn’t happen like this. Absolutely could not.