Ride Rough Read online

  DEDICATION

  To everyone who needs the encouragement

  to fight for what your heart most desperately wants,

  this book is for you.

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  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

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Excerpt from Ride Wild Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  About the Author

  Also by Laura Kaye

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  CHAPTER 1

  Alexa Harmon tore out of her car and ran into the house, her high heels clicking against the concrete of the three-car garage and then the travertine tiles of the hallway and kitchen. She was late getting home from work, and that meant she was going to be hard-pressed to get dinner on the table on time.

  She beelined for the bedroom, already working at the buttons on her silk blouse. Despite being under the gun, she took the time to hang up her work clothes and put everything away in the walk-in closet that was nearly as big as her childhood bedroom had been.

  Grant didn’t like mess or clutter. Everything had to be in its place. Always.

  Slipping into a pretty blue blouse, jeans, and her ballet flats, Alexa’s gaze cut to the alarm clock on her nightstand. She had twenty-five minutes. Twenty-five minutes to make sure her lateness didn’t ruin their whole evening.

  Damnit, Alexa. You should’ve kept your eyes on the time better.

  It was true. She’d just been elbows deep in materials arriving for the model home in Grant’s newest development. This was the first time he was letting her take the lead on the interior design of a model, rather than hiring their usual outside contractor, and she wanted it to be good. Oh, who was she kidding? She wanted it to be perfect.

  More than that, she wanted to be good. Good enough. No, she wanted to be perfect. For Grant.

  Grant really liked perfection.

  Alexa got it. Her fiancé Grant’s perfectionist tendencies went a long way toward explaining how he’d built Grant Slater Enterprises, the biggest real estate development and management company in Western Maryland. Though he’d come into some kind of a trust fund when he was younger, he’d built most of his success with his own hard work and smart investments. Now, Frederick was almost a company town, at least where real estate was concerned. There were more developments in the area with the words Grant or Slater in their names than she could count. Their own neighborhood was a prime example—Slater Estates.

  Running back out to the kitchen, a low pleading Meow caught Alexa’s attention.

  “Come on, Lucy. Come with Mama,” Alexa called, heading straight for the cat’s bowl. She poured dry food into the dish, spilling a little in her haste. The hairless sphynx brushed against her leg in a show of affection. Alexa gave Lucy’s sweater-covered blue-gray body a quick pet as she scooped up stray morsels of food with her other hand.

  The clock on the microwave told her she had twenty-two minutes now.

  She grabbed the package of two filet mignons from the fridge, along with a bag of fresh asparagus. Moving as fast as she could, she found the grill pan for the meat and the sauté pan for the asparagus, and got that much going. The baked potatoes she’d planned weren’t going to be possible with this little time, and trying to boil water for corn on the cob would be pushing it. Her stomach knotted as her pulse raced. She buttered thick slices of Italian bread and seasoned them with garlic, then slid them into the warming oven to brown.

  As soon as she turned the filets, she was back in the fridge. When her gaze settled on the container of chickpea salad from the weekend, relief flooded through her. She’d forgotten they had that. Finally, she threw together a green salad with chunky fresh vegetables.

  Keeping a close eye on the time, she set the dining room table—Grant always preferred to eat in the formal dining room. She made sure to align the flatware just so, just as he liked. And then she was pouring the wine and plating the food with two minutes to spare.

  Alexa might’ve fist-pumped if she wasn’t so anxious about almost having been late. Her stomach was in so many knots she wasn’t even sure she’d be able to eat. Though it was her own damn fault.

  Six o’clock came and went. Six-oh-five. Six-ten. Sitting alone at the dining room table, Alexa frowned. Finally, her phone buzzed an incoming text message from Grant.

  I’ve got a dinner meeting tonight. Don’t wait up.

  Alexa stared at the screen for a long moment, then found herself blinking away threatening angry tears. She stuffed down all the things she wanted to say—and all the things she felt—and replied simply, Okay xo.

  Look on the bright side, she thought. Okay. On the bright side, she’d now have time she hadn’t expected to work on her final project for her senior seminar.

  Still . . .

  She let herself fume and wallow for several more minutes, and then she shook her head. “Stop it, Al,” she said out loud. God, she really was overemotional lately, wasn’t she? Just like Grant said she was.

  Between her job, designing the model home, her class project, her recent move into Grant’s house, and their upcoming wedding, there was just so much going on. She felt like she should be juggling it all with more grace and enthusiasm. Instead, what she really felt scared her. Scared her bad.

  Dread. Skin-crawling, stomach-dropping, run-while-you-can dread.

  It was ridiculous.

  Alexa was on the cusp of having everything she’d ever dreamed about. A beautiful home she could be proud of, a secure job that she loved, a man who wanted to be with her every moment he wasn’t working, and more money than she’d ever be able to spend. She wasn’t greedy; that wasn’t where her interest in money and a nice house came from. Instead, it came from the way she’d grown up. Her father leaving her and her brother with nothing but a seriously ill mother, how little she’d had as a kid, how terrible the conditions in the trailer she’d grown up in had been—against all of that, it was simply amazing to think about how much she had now.

  And hard to believe. A lot of the time, she was sure she didn’t deserve it. And a part of her couldn’t quite accept that it would last. Grant was Armani suits and Ivy-League education and million-dollar bank accounts, while Alexa was mall clearance racks and part-time evening classes and life lived paycheck to paycheck. At least, that had been her before they’d gotten serious. She didn’t need Grant to tell her how lucky she was that he’d wanted her, although he did sometimes tell her just that.

  Mostly, she was grateful beyond imagination. Grateful to be safe and secure. Grateful not to be ashamed and embarrassed of where she lived. Grateful to be able to afford to take care of her mom, who suffered from an array of mental he
alth problems and needed all the help Alexa could give her, which had been more and more since her older brother, Tyler, died five years before. Alexa was grateful to Grant for making so much possible that she never would’ve been able to accomplish on her own.

  Which made the dread seriously ridiculous.

  It was just wedding jitters. Totally normal.

  Sighing, she surveyed the beautiful dinner she’d managed to throw together. Given how scarce food had been when she was younger, Alexa absolutely hated to waste anything. Problem was, her appetite had been all over the place lately. Either she couldn’t stomach the thought of eating or she was binge-eating a bag of potato chips while Grant was at work.

  Knock, knock.

  The quick raps on the front door pulled Alexa from her thoughts. She crossed the dining room to the wide oval foyer framed by a grand curving staircase. A glittering chandelier hung from the ceiling, casting colorful prisms here and there from where it caught the late-day sun through the large picture window above the door. Out on the front porch, Alexa found a stack of packages. She gave a wave to the UPS driver as he pulled out of the end of their driveway.

  With just over two weeks until the wedding, presents from the registry had been pouring in every day. Grant had so many friends, colleagues, and contacts that she’d never met, Alexa didn’t know who most of the gifts were from.

  She carried in two smaller ones, then two medium ones, and then found herself struggling to move the large square box on the bottom. It was too deep to get her arms around and not easily pushed. What the heck could it be? She crouched behind it to try to gain leverage, and was just about to give up when a strong breeze blew her hair across her face, and she heard a soft click.

  Her gaze cut to the front door.

  “Oh, shit,” she said. Knowing what she was going to find, she tried the knob anyway. Locked.

  She was locked out, and Grant was away until who knew what time. She couldn’t easily go anywhere because her purse, car keys, and phone were all inside. And she didn’t know her neighbors yet because she’d just moved in.

  “Shit, shit, shit.”

  So much for getting work done tonight.

  She sat heavily on the stupid box and dropped her head into her hands. And burst into tears.

  Not because of being locked out. But because being . . . trapped with no easy way out of the situation? Suddenly, that felt like a crazy accurate metaphor for her life.

  If she was being honest with herself.

  Which she really, really didn’t want to be.

  “Stop it, Al,” she said in a rasping voice. “You’re not trapped. Stop thinking that.” Except, just then, she leaned her left cheek too heavily against her hand. She sucked in a breath at the smarting of the healing bruise there.

  The one from the fight she and Grant had last week. The fight that had started with Alexa leaving a big mess in the foyer from where she’d been unboxing another delivery of packages and had escalated into a huge argument, culminating in Grant saying Alexa was just like her mother—something Grant knew cut her deep on so many levels. The fight had ended when Alexa told him he was being mean and he’d kicked a box at her. When she’d tried to duck out of the way, she tripped over another box on the floor and fell, hitting her head against the leg of a console table in the foyer, giving her some nasty bruises.

  Alexa had been totally and absolutely stunned, especially when Grant hadn’t helped her. Instead, a bitter, humorless laugh had spilled out of him and he’d said, “Way to prove my point, Alexa. I don’t know why I put up with your shit. If you can’t show me and my house a little respect, you can leave,” he’d said, and then he’d stormed out.

  His house? Granted, she’d only moved in a few weeks before, but she’d moved in for keeps.

  Shocked, she’d lain there for long minutes, completely confused and overwhelmed by the pain and his cruel words. So she’d done what he said. She’d fled. To her past. To Maverick Rylan, her dead brother’s best friend, and the man who’d once been her closest friend and lover. It had been pure instinct to seek him out at the clubhouse of the Raven Riders Motorcycle Club. Despite everything that’d happened between them, no part of her had doubted that he’d help.

  And he had. Or, at least, he’d tried.

  But Maverick represented a past she’d left behind for a whole lot of very good, logical, and well-thought-out reasons. So she hadn’t stayed. And she hadn’t answered his questions.

  By the time she’d finally returned home, all she could see were the million mistakes she’d made—making that mess, overreacting, going to Maverick and opening that door to the past that she’d kept closed tight for so long. For years. She’d been prepared to plead for Grant’s forgiveness, sure he was going to be done with her once and for all. But he’d surprised her. Because Grant had apologized so profusely he’d gotten down on his knees, his head buried in her lap.

  Never before in the nearly five years they’d been together had Grant ever hurt her. At least, not physically. He could be short with her and more controlling when he was stressed, and occasionally his criticism bordered on the mean side. But the truth was Alexa could be messy, which was why she’d tripped, and she could be disorganized and she could be forgetful, all things that drove him crazy. At the same time, Grant could also be generous and sweet and he’d done so much for her and her mother, things Alexa wouldn’t have been able to do on her own. Their lives were better because of Grant Slater.

  The night of their fight, things had just gotten out of hand, for both of them. And it was behind them now, so there was no point in dwelling—

  “Alexa?” came a deep voice.

  Prickles ran up her spine as she pulled herself from the bad memories and lifted her head—and found herself staring at her past, into the dark blue eyes of Maverick Rylan.

  Alexa jumped up off the box, her heart suddenly in her throat. She swiped at the wetness on her face half sure she was imagining this man. This man she’d done her best to avoid—for years—until last week.

  With his longish sandy-blond hair and his square jaw and his ruthlessly masculine features and his Raven Riders cutoff jacket hanging on those broad shoulders, Maverick was the sexiest man she’d ever known. Had been when they were together five years before, still was even now. No, he was hotter now. More muscular. More rugged somehow. More self-possessed. Utterly desirable.

  “You okay?” he asked, stunningly dark blue eyes looking deep into hers.

  Snap out of it, Al! Right. Because clearly she wasn’t hallucinating. And that . . . that was a problem.

  Releasing a shaky breath, Alexa met his gaze head-on. She had to know. “Maverick, what in the world are you doing here?”

  CHAPTER 2

  Alexa glanced up and down the quiet street with its manicured lawns and huge colonials and didn’t see any cars that didn’t belong—or any motorcycles. “Where did you even come from?”

  Maverick’s gaze narrowed on her face. “You’re crying,” he said, like that explained anything.

  “No, I’m not,” she said, brazening it out despite the wetness clinging to her eyelashes. “Seriously, why are you here?” She stopped short of saying he shouldn’t be there, because she suspected that would make him dig in his heels and want to stay. Even though he really shouldn’t be there. Grant wouldn’t like it. Oh, God, why had she gone to Mav for help?

  Maverick’s head tilted the smallest amount, like he was assessing her, or challenging her. “You know why I’m here, Al.”

  Al. No one in her life called her by that nickname anymore. Tyler had almost always called her Al, which was where Maverick had picked it up. Of course, very few people from her before Grant life were still around either. Somehow, her relationship with Grant and the work they did together had taken over everything until she’d all but lost touch with her friends.

  “No, I don’t.” She shook her head not just in answer, but against the old longing she felt for Maverick. In high school, Tyler and Maverick had
been thick as thieves, which meant despite their four-year age difference, Alexa had known Maverick long enough to have crushed on him forever, pretty much. It seemed like some part of her had always yearned for him—and always would.

  But that didn’t mean there hadn’t been problems, too. For a woman who’d grown up wanting nothing more than stability and respectability, a guy who built his life around a motorcycle club engaged in at least some questionable activities didn’t seem most likely to offer that. And then Tyler had become a prospective member of the Raven Riders, following Maverick as he always did—until her brother had wiped out on a rainy mountain road one night and died on the way to the hospital. Mixed in with her soul-deep grief over his loss was a red-hot rage that his recklessness had made him leave her when she needed him so much. When their mother needed him.

  Tyler’s death had thrown a stark clarity on all the reasons that being with Maverick was problematic. She couldn’t be with someone who lived such a dangerous life and couldn’t offer her the security her mother required. Because Alexa was the only one left to take care of her. And it wasn’t like Mav had ever talked about settling down, despite being together for three years. They’d just been having fun, hanging out. But mired in her grief and fear, she’d needed more than that. So she’d broken up with him. Just went cold turkey. Not that Maverick accepted that.

  He’d pursued her. Hard. Dropping by her house, coming to her work, calling, texting. Trying to convince her to change her mind. Until he’d found her at Tyler’s grave on what would’ve been his twenty-eighth birthday, and they’d had it out.

  “Why are you doing this, Alexa? Why are you pushing me away?” Maverick asked, the two of them standing on either side of Tyler’s burial plot as if it were a wall between them.

  Alexa drew on everything she had to hold back her tears. “My mother is a wreck, and taking care of her is all on me. I have to focus on her now, and I have to do what’s best for her. She needs stability, and I need to figure out how to give it to her, and I . . .” She peered up at him. “I need it, too, Maverick.”

  He grasped her hand. “So I’ll help.”