The Redemption of Memphis Drake: A Second Chance Romance Read online

  A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

  This book contains subject matter that may be sensitive for some readers.

  I understand and respect that some readers have triggers. When I write each story, I do my best to stay true to each character considering the upbringing, social status, friendships, education, and other influences that may affect their dialect, language, and decisions. Each scene is crafted with the ultimate goal of realism to put the reader in the moment and make them feel like they are part of the scene. Because of that, sometimes characters, like real people, may say things that are offensive. Please be aware that sensitive language, subject matter, and sexual situations are addressed in this book.

  New readers—Welcome! This is a standalone novel. No previous reading is required. You will be introduced to characters from my previous novels, but no spoilers are given. If you like them, I invite you to check out The Fame Series duet.

  For fans of The Fame Series, you’ll be happy to see the characters you love making appearances. The beginning of this novel takes place during the last six months of The Cost of Fame.

  PROLOGUE

  Sacred heart was the oldest, most spectacular church in Suffolk County. With its elaborate rose window and intricate stained glass, the Neo-Gothic Revival structure stretched up toward the sky like it had been commissioned by God Himself, to give us a taste of what heaven must be like. If a more exquisite church existed, well I’d never seen it.

  As breathtaking as it was, I would have been just as happy at some rinky-dink chapel in Vegas or at the courthouse down the street. All I wanted to do was marry Nyla and make her mine forever. But her father insisted we do it here at the church she grew up in.

  I’m sitting in my tux parked in a car across the street like a cop on a stakeout, waiting to catch a glimpse of her. I tug at my bow tie undoing it and unfastening the first button of my shirt. It feels like the damn thing is choking the life out of me, although I know the claustrophobic feeling has little to do with what I’m wearing. I’m growing impatient. She must have found it by now. Maybe I should go. Why torture myself?

  I grip the key to fire up the engine, freezing when I see the oversized oak doors of the church swing wide. My breath catches and my heart stops. There she is in her ivory gown with her hair swept to the side in some fancy French knot adorned with tiny white flowers. Fuck me, if she’s not the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

  She wipes beneath her eyes, and even though I’m too far away to see, I know she’s crying. Of course she is, you asshole. You just ripped her heart out. In her hand, she clutches the note I left her.

  My dearest Nyla,

  I can’t do this. I’m sorry.

  Memphis

  That’s it. That’s all I fucking wrote. No explanation. Nothing. Who does that?

  I scrub my hand over my face. I’m such a dick. I imagine the look of confusion on the face of the limousine driver as Nyla climbs in with her Maid of Honor instead of her groom. Her father lays a hand on his shoulder giving him instructions, probably telling him to get her the hell away from there before guests start filing out. The man nods and we watch as the limo speeds off down the street.

  Her dad gazes up at the sky shaking his head like he’s asking God why this is happening. He treated me like a son and is no doubt almost as blindsided by this betrayal as my poor Nyla. He trudges up the steps, steeling himself to deal with this mess I’ve left and inform everyone we love there will be no wedding today.

  Once he’s inside, I turn over the engine and stare blankly at the church one last time shell-shocked by what I’ve done. Nyla is my heart, my soul, my life. I love her more than I’ve ever loved anyone, and I know I always will. That’s why I have to go.

  ONE

  The Rules: Know Your Mark

  Nine months earlier

  “You bastard! I hate you. I wish I’d never met you,” my soon-to-be ex-wife screams across the table hurling, a glass that misses my head by an inch. Trust me when I say, the feeling is mutual. Her lawyer grabs her by the waist, hauling her back when she tries to lunge over the table at me. The mediator gives me a sympathetic glance telling me he’s seen his share of crazy chicks, too.

  All in all, I’m lucky it was just a glass. Her last lover ended up in the hospital with his cock super-glued to his stomach. The one before that had to have a bullet carved out of his shoulder. Yes, my little missus was a violent and certified psycho. That little tidbit of information had been conveniently kept from me before I married her.

  I used Angie’s lack of impulse control and penchant for bad decisions to my advantage, convincing her to marry me in a quickie wedding two months after we met, much to her family’s dismay. I tried to weasel my way onto her bank account without having to tie the knot, but Angie wasn’t having it. Or more aptly, her father, Harlan Stapleton, wouldn’t allow it.

  Not that it mattered. The only money in there was the allowance Harlan allotted to her each month. He claimed women didn’t have the brains to handle money. Something Angie took extreme issue with considering she had a master’s degree in finance.

  One of Harlan’s three attorneys sets a briefcase on the table, opening it to reveal stacks of crisp bills lining the inside. “Here’s one hundred grand. Take it or leave it.”

  A hundred grand? Are they kidding? My lawyer, Paul, and I scoff, pushing back from the table and rise from our chairs. I pull my phone from my inside jacket pocket. “I think we’re done here. If you gentleman will excuse me, I have some photos to upload.”

  “Wait! Wait!” Harlan bites out then takes a moment to confer with his team of sharks. Angie remains disinterested, tracing her fingers seductively up and down the swell of her breasts. She toys with the cross on her necklace I know is filled with cocaine.

  “One-fifty,” one of the suits offers.

  “Three hundred or I’ll see you in court, and we all know you don’t want to go to court,” I counter before my lawyer has a chance to respond. He’s only here for window dressing and he knows it. This isn’t my first rodeo.

  Harlan snarls his lip but acquiesces, conceding defeat.

  “Alright, Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton. If you’ll just sign your name on the pages that are marked, we’ll have the judge sign off on this today,” the mediator says, sliding the papers to us.

  Ah, having a judge in your pocket. Yet another benefit of being rich and famous. There would be no long, drawn-out divorce. Harlan couldn’t risk it. Embarrassed by his only daughter’s decision to elope with a lowly bartender, he kept our shameful marriage a secret, but insisted on bringing me into the business, determined to make me into someone respectable. Boy, did that backfire on him!

  Which brings me to rule #1: Know your mark.

  You see, there are two kinds of men in this world: The ones willing to take you under their wing to help you succeed, and the ones that treat you like an idiot, giving up all their secrets just to prove how much smarter they are than you. Harlan was the latter. He wanted an idiot, so I gave him one.

  “Keep your mouth shut, don’t tell anyone you’re with my daughter, and pay attention,” he’d said. And like a good little con man, that’s exactly what I did.

  After seven months in the corporate office, I’d acquired too much information about the television evangelist and his family to risk a public spectacle, including the well-kept secret that he was siphoning money from the church to fund his flailing side businesses, and was on the verge of losing everything. This affected me for two reasons. One, it gave me the leverage I needed to strong-arm Harlan into laundering money for my boss, Vito Moretti. Two, it put a large damper in my
divorce settlement, which was the only reason I agreed to marry Angie in the first place.

  Instead of walking away with millions, I’d have to settle for a mere three hundred thousand, half of which would go to my partner, Mike. It’s not even close to what I need but should still be enough to buy my freedom. And after over a decade of being under Moretti’s thumb, that’s what I cared about most.

  I scribble my name, watching Harlan stare down his nose at me in disgust. Of course, he couldn’t let his daughter handle this on her own. Angie changed her mind more than a kid in a candy store. One minute she was smacking the hell out of me, the next we’d be fucking in her father’s office on his prized antique J.F.K. replica desk. I think she hated us equally. Harlan’s fear that she would stay married to me just to piss him off was justified. After all, pissing him off was the only reason she’d married me in the first place.

  But hell would freeze over before I’d stay with her. As much as Harlan was ready to be rid of James Hamilton, James Hamilton was ready to be rid of Harlan Stapleton. And his pain in the ass daughter too.

  “That should do it. Mr. Hamilton, I’ve noted you received one-hundred-thousand dollars today. Your lawyer will receive a cashier’s check for the rest in the coming weeks. I assume that is acceptable?” the moderator says, stacking the papers and placing them in his bag.

  I nod, grabbing the case of money. We stand and file out of the room, letting our lawyers wrap things up. The case is over. They can go back to being golfing buddies. They’ll probably meet at the bar and laugh about what a shitshow today was over a few drinks.

  “Hey James, you think I could get my fee now?” Paul asks catching up with me, his short legs struggling to keep pace with my long strides. I stop walking and glare at him. He knows some of my situation and why I want the money. He clears his throat. “Right, you take that. I’ll take my cut once the check comes through.”

  We continue toward the exit with Angie shouting obscenities behind us. “You don’t deserve a fucking penny of that money. I hope you choke on it! I don’t know why Daddy’s lawyers went so easy on you.”

  I ignore her and keep walking. We’re done. I don’t have to see or speak to her or Harlan ever again. But Angie’s not having it. She follows me through the office continuing to make a scene. “Do you hear me, asshole? I’m talking to you. And just so you know I’ve been fucking someone else this whole time, and I’ll be fucking him again as soon as I leave here!”

  Of course, I knew she was screwing someone else. I’m the one that set it up. I always have a contingency plan in play just in case I’m forced to sign a prenup. It’s null and void if either party gets caught cheating. Not that it was hard to get Angie to stray. Her idea of faithful was waiting until my car was out of the driveway before letting one of her lovers in the back door.

  Even though we had no prenup, I took pictures of one of her indiscretions, just in case I needed to use them. And I made sure Harlan was aware of it. The daughter of the most pious evangelist on television caught snorting coke and cheating on her husband? Imagine the publicity nightmare. Blackmail was always a great motivator. The more damning things I had, the less my marks contested, and the more they were willing to pay.

  “Good. Thank him for me. The more he was fucking you, the less I had to.” I toss the words over my shoulder with barely a glance back.

  “You son-of-a-bitch! He was right about you. You’re just an arrogant bastard that thinks he’s smarter than everyone else. Just wait! Someday you’ll get what’s coming to you!”

  Like I haven’t heard that before. “I sure hope so, because right now that’s another two-hundred grand.”

  “I hate you!” she shouts, whipping something at me that strikes me square between the shoulders. A plastic cup bounces across the ground sending pens scattering everywhere. I turn in time to see Angie snatch a pair of scissors from a nearby desk and fly at me with them. I dart out of the way just in time to avoid a fatal injury, but not fast enough to keep the blade from puncturing my trap muscle. Two security guards restrain her, dragging her kicking and screaming into a corner.

  “Jimmy, I’m sorry! Come back! I love you,” she cries, struggling against them to break free.

  “Crazy bitch,” someone mumbles, and I can’t help but agree. I swear I don’t usually think that way about women, but in this case, if the Manolo Blahnik stiletto fit …

  Harlan is standing between me and his hysterical daughter, stunned by what’s transpired. I catch his eye and can tell he knows he got off cheap. If that little episode had happened on the way in instead of the way out, he would be paying double. Not that he has it.

  I reach up and yank the scissors out, chucking them onto a nearby table. Blood seeps from the wound and I realize I’m probably going to need a couple of stitches. I’ve had worse. It’s a side effect of the job. You tend to piss a lot of people off doing what I do.

  Believe me, if I could have picked another line of work, I would have done it. I hate being this guy. But this is the only life I know. Sometimes our paths are chosen for us and there’s not a damn thing we can do about it. And it’s not like I have some fancy degree and the time to be patient while I work my way up the corporate ladder. No, if I don’t find a way to make some real money soon, everyone I love will die.

  TWO

  Good Deeds are Always Punished

  Only at county general could you have a stab wound and be instructed to take a seat and wait your turn. As I sit in the emergency room waiting to be taken back, my stomach twists like a pretzel. I lie to myself pretending it’s from the gash, but even I’m not that good a con man. I pull my cell from my pocket, checking for a message or text. Nothing.

  I’m debating whether to dial when there’s a tug on my shirt. I glance over to see big brown eyes belonging to one of the most adorable little girls I’ve ever seen peering up at me. “What happened to you, Mister?”

  “Emma! You can’t ask a stranger that. Sorry, mister,” a girl slightly older than her apologizes. From the resemblance, I’m guessing they’re sisters.

  “It’s okay.” I smile and lower my voice to a whisper. “I’ll tell you, but you have to promise not to tell anyone else, okay?”

  They nod enthusiastically giving me their undivided attention. I glance around like I’m making sure no one else can hear. “You ever hear of Batman?” They nod again. “Well, I’m him. Today I got in a fight with a bad guy.”

  The younger girl’s shoulders slump. She smacks her little hand to her forehead in exasperation. “Not you too!”

  I chuckle. That’s not the reaction I was expecting. “You know another Batman?”

  She crosses her arms over her chest with a huff. “No. My stupid brother thinks he’s Superman. That’s why we’re here. He hurt his foot flying off the porch after some bad guys.”

  “Ouch! Well, sometimes flying is tough.”

  The older one rolls her eyes. “It is for him.”

  I stand when a Rubenesque nurse with smooth chocolate skin calls my name. “Tell Superman Batman hopes he feels better and not to worry about the bad guys for now. I’ll take care of them,” I say thumbing my chest.

  “Bye Batman!” they chime in unison waving at me. I bring my finger to my lips to shush them. They slap their hands over their mouths, swinging their eyes around to make sure no one heard them. I love kids. I’d have a dozen of ’em if I could. But that’s never been an option given my occupation.

  “Batman, huh?” the nurse with a name tag reading Bethany asks as we mosey down the hall. “You know they think you’re really him.”

  “Who says I’m not?”

  “Mmmm hmmm. Careful handsome, or instead of just getting stitched up, you’ll find yourself talking to a doctor from the psych ward too,” she cautions with a grin while drawing the curtain. “The doctor will be right in.”

  I take a seat in the chair and lean my head against the wall wondering how the hell I’m going to come up with the rest of the money. I can’t ask Mike.
He wouldn’t give it to me anyway. In fact, he’d probably set it on fire before he’d loan it to me. We may be partners and are technically brothers, but it’s no secret Mike has always resented me and my family and wouldn’t lift a finger to help us. He blames my dad for his father’s death and is convinced my dad and brother are the reason his good-for-nothing mother, Sheila, ran off and left him.

  And me? Well, I guess I can’t blame him for hating me. After all, Sheila pitted us against each other from the start. The woman had us hustling before we were old enough to know we were doing anything wrong.

  I close my eyes and think back to when we were kids. Before our parents married. Before the cancer came back a second time and took my mom. Before his mother seduced my grieving father. Before his dad caught them in bed together. Before Mike and I walked in and found his father on the floor with a self-inflicted gunshot wound, blood seeping from his head at a rate faster than the beige shag carpet could soak up.

  In my mind, we’re about six years younger than that fateful day, putting us at around eight years old. My baby brother, Mason, hasn’t even been born yet. The memory is so real it’s doesn’t feel like a memory at all.

  The smell of Spanish moss growing on Cypress trees hangs heavy in the sticky air. Another sweltering summer day in Baton Rouge. Mike and I come bursting through the door, sweaty and hot after playing baseball with some neighborhood kids. The screen door slams shut leaving a frustrated Chewie peering at us from the other side. He drops his slobbery tennis ball with a splat and whimpers.

  “Go home, Chewie. Go see Mom,” I command, motioning with my bat. The one-year old Golden Retriever named after the Star Wars character perks up hearing the word mom and takes off down the street toward my house. He really is the coolest dog ever. Mom and I picked him out together. We had wanted a dog for years, but Dad always said no, until Mom got sick. Now he gives her pretty much anything she wants.