Me and Cinderella (Book 2- Dirty Rooster Series)

By Kelly Mooney

I’d always been sure of three things...
I’d never move back to Sugar Creek.
I’d never end up like my deadbeat parents.
And no matter how much I loved her, I’d never touch Remington Ashby.

I left Sugar Creek in the dust years ago. But when my father was being released from prison, I had to head home. My little brother needed me.

I didn’t need to see her. Gorgeous, frightened...
Still wearing a wedding dress and sitting on my bed instead of walking down the aisle.

I can’t want her. My little sister’s best friend is pure. Off-limits. A rich girl from the other side of the tracks. The right side.

But now that I have her again, this time I’m not letting her go.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kelly Mooney
• Release date: Mar 26, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463453391

Kelly Mooney

Kelly grew up in Southern New Jersey. She currently resides in Pitssford, NY with her husband and two kids. She developed a love for writing teen romances over the last few years. She has now completed three teen romances in hopes of getting them published. There really is nothing like falling in love for the first time, so this is what she writes. Her second book Never Say Never is the second book she wrote and is now available on Smashwords and Amazon.

Book preview

Prologue

Sugar Creek, SC.

---

I’d known Officer O’Dell my whole life and watching him grip my father’s bicep in an unbreakable hold he asked, Any last word kid?

I grinned, unable to wipe the smile from my face. I tried, I did, but I just couldn’t. I wanted to look solemn, upset that he was going away for a long time, hopefully forever, but I was unable to hide those feelings. All I felt was relief. Relief for me, my siblings, and even our mother. She had been through the wringer with him on more than one occasion that I had cared to remember. And a huge piece of me prayed that, with him gone, she could start acting like a mother, a real mom, instead of the one who had been self-destructing over the last few years.

Just keep him locked up.’

Don’t worry. You won’t be seeing him for quite a bit, Eli. The officer pulled his cuffs out from his waistband and turned to my dad. Wade, you know the drill; put ‘em behind your back.

Dad complied, the anger boiling off of him, as he pinned me down with his stare. A stare that used to make me tremble in my boots when I was younger, smaller, but now looking at him, I felt nothing but pure disgust. Disgust that I allowed him to run us through the muck for so long. Disgust that his blood ran through my veins. Disgust that I carried his last name. Disgust that I didn’t have his ass hauled off years ago.

Officer O’Dell tipped his hat and hauled my dad toward the patrol car. Right before Wade dipped into the back of the car, he turned. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. Wade’s eyes warned me what I already suspected. He’d be back and when the time came, I’d be paying for it one way or another.

I’d be ready for him. His ignorance of what kind of man he raised didn’t weigh in his favor. When he drank and broke the law, I’d taught myself how to be the exact opposite of him. So, I learned as I grew up how to take care of myself, knowing someday that adult accountability was going to be laid at my feet.

Problem with that had been I didn’t want that huge weight on my shoulders. What sixteen-year-old did? I knew the only way out was to bust my ass in high school and get the hell out of Sugar Creek for good. But could I do it? Could I leave them behind forever, knowing he’d eventually show up again? Could I leave them alone, and unguarded?

Chapter 1

ELI

9 years later

I was standing in my sister’s apartment. She and her best friend, Remington, had been sharing a place for the last two years. She had called me, frantic, thinking she had left her curling iron on before she took off for the day. So, I was solicited for the job. I agreed with the knowledge the apartment would be empty. I couldn’t risk bumping into Remy, not after all the time that had passed, the words that were said. To this day I still set her apart from every other girl I’d ever met and always would.

It was Remington’s wedding day, so I shouldn’t have been surprised to find the same white sateen envelope sitting on my sister’s kitchen table staring at me, like the one I had received last month. I never even opened mine. I knew what it was and I couldn’t come to terms with the fact she had given up on me. It was well deserved, but still, it stung like a motherfucker.

I’d been back for three days and all the rumblings in Sugar Creek were about the upcoming nuptials of one Miss Remington Ashby. I never intended to come back. I had a good life now. I left her in the rearview mirror along with my past. A past I had hated. A past I just spent the last decade trying to forget.

I used to plead with the Big Man upstairs to help me forget my upbringing. Plead with Him to let Wade rot in jail for eternity. Plead for my brother and sister to be safe. Hell, once in a while, when I would feel nostalgic, I pleaded with Him to save Remy for me, to finally make her mine. Even though I did my damnedest not to think of her over the years, I had. A flash of dark hair, similar jade eyes, or a scent that was all Remington would throw me into a tailspin. I had a million and one memories of my life and at least half of those memories included her.

Just like I had now, staring down at the invitation, an invitation that reminded me I was too late. I would never be able to tell her how she made me feel.

The thought of her, one of those million and one memories, only confirmed how we were nothing. Nothing but a blip in time with no claim, just a few shared tender moments, years and years ago.

Shared moments that still haunted me.

Shared moments that meant the world to me back then.

Shared moments that I should’ve acted on, but didn’t.

And now I was too late.

One kiss, the week before I left, had convinced me staying would be my undoing. That one kiss, that one touch almost ruined everything I had worked for. Not because, well, frankly how illegal it would have been, but making me want to forego my life plans. Plans to get the fuck out of Sugar Creek for the rest of my days. Remy was a lifer, she would never consider leaving town, that I had no doubt. And that meant she’d drag me down with her, and that was the one vow I had kept, until now.

I was back in Sugar Creek, but only for a spell. Get in and get out was the plan.

With Wade being released from prison earlier than anticipated for good behavior, I had no choice but to come back. I had a hard time believing that, the good behavior part, but either way, I had to come home to protect Brandon. I had tried to convince him to come to Atlanta for the summer, but he wouldn’t budge. So here I was.

Sighing in frustration, I hastily picked up and pulled out the card. I closed my eyes for a second and took a deep breath before reading:

you are cordially invited

to the wedding of

REMINGTON

Anne Ashby

and

BLANE

James Bennett III

May 11 , 2019

FOUR THIRTY IN THE AFTERNOON

Sugar Mountain

2156 Stable View

Sugar Creek, SC

Reception to follow

For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why looking at a piece of paper bothered me so much. I had put her and my feelings behind me a long time ago. So why did those intricate gold words staring back at me feel like a haunting warning? A warning to stop her from making a huge-ass mistake? Blane Bennett was nothing but a lackey who’d been a yes man his whole crooked, spoiled life. I hadn’t known him too well, since he was a few years younger, and from a different town, but rumors flew.

I read up on him when Shea mentioned his name to me last year. I discovered how his family had been under the FBI microscope a time or two for shady dealings with their company business, but no charges ever stuck.

It was similar to the Ashby’s, how they bought into large shares of companies to gain control of the company’s stock and then they would replace the board of directors with their own people who did exactly what they wanted them to do. Corporate raiders. Something in college that once interested me, or at the very least tickled my interest, but decided in the end that it wasn’t who I wanted to be. Not that it wasn’t a legit business—it was. It just felt dirty, and since I’d felt dirty most of my life, I steered clear.

I tucked the card back into the envelope and placed it back on the table. Glancing down at my watch, I smiled. There was still time. Not much, but enough. I left their apartment once I made sure the place wouldn’t burn down and headed to the place I had rented for two months, even though I was only staying six weeks. Only one town over, it wasn’t much, a small, no frills, two-bedroom apartment, already furnished, but it would have to make do while I was there.

By four-fifteen p.m., I was standing in my favorite navy suit behind Remy’s pool house waiting, hoping to merely catch a glimpse of her. A glimpse to confirm she had moved on. A glimpse to confirm it was best to leave the past behind.

Remy was never one for overdoing her face and was usually in a dress, or some crazy-outlandishly expensive outfit, and always beautiful. Today would be no different.

I secretly had always loved that about her, since I was used to girls who cut their jeans to save a buck on shorts and caked on their makeup. Even when Remy had worn jeans with holes in them, you knew she’d paid top dollar for someone to put them there. She was elegant, classy, even as young as she was. The crew I hung with back in high school had been nothing like her. I think that was what drew me to her at first.

She was different.

Pure and beautiful, whereas I was dirty and a sinner.

The first time I saw her was when I had taken Shea to the Ashby house to play back when they were in the fourth grade. She was outside waiting for my sister. Her hair was in a ponytail and tied up with a big blue bow that matched her pretty dress.

She hadn’t heard us walking up, but boy did we hear her yelling at her little sister, Quinn. Her words were harsh and unfitting for any little girl, but it was when she heard us, that moment, her entire being changed. I deemed her to be like a mean princess of some sort. Cinderella had been the only fairytale I’d known. It was the only book Shea had, one that I had read to her a zillion times. She certainly looked like a princess, too, so it felt fitting to my twelve-year-old mind to rename her.

She had gleamed and ran to Shea, embracing her in a hug, but I had noticed the quick glance she shot Quinn, causing her to run back to the house in tears. I hadn’t liked her at that moment. Let’s go, Shea. I grabbed her hand, but she tugged it away.Why do you want to hang out with a spoiled brat?

I’m not a spoiled brat,Remington had fired back.

You sounded like one a minute ago.

She crossed her arms and stomped her foot.But, I’m not. She was mean to me first.

I don’t see you crying like you made her.I turned to my sister. C’mon?

But, Eli, I don’t want to go home. Daddy’s home, and she promised I could ride Chestnut today. My seventh-grade heart had broken in half, hearing why she hadn’t wanted to come back with me. And I hadn’t wanted to be that jerk who kept her from that damn horse. She hadn’t stopped talking about riding it the whole way over there.

Fine. I’ll pick you up at four, after I get done mowing Mrs. Cooper’s lawn.

She had grinned widely knowing she’d won that round. She usually did.Thanks, Eli.

I couldn’t help but smile back at her. She was the cutest kid. A kid I took looking after seriously since my folks failed at basic parenting 101. Tugging playfully on her braid, I winked. Be good, Munchkin. Then shot Cinderella a dark look.

Hand in hand, they had gone off running to the stables.

Over the years, Remy had managed to change my mind about the mean part; in fact, she was downright the sweetest girl I knew, but she was always going to be Cinderella to me. She was this delicate flower I spent years protecting, and I ended up being the one who crushed her.

Remington had grown up in the mother of all houses in Sugar Creek, gardens and paddocks that stretched as far as the eye could see. A house so splendid it felt like I’d been thrust back to the days when plantations were scattered throughout the counties of the south and my job was to sit on the porch swing, drinking sweet tea.

It hadn’t surprised me one bit she wanted to marry in the backyard where she grew up. A grin spread across my face at the old swing teetering with the soft breeze as it hung from the massive oak tree. The very swing she was on when I said my final goodbye. I had driven down that driveway all taillights and dust as I flew out of there, and told myself I would never think of her again.

I tried, but when I closed my eyes over the years, I’d still see her in that dress she wore to my graduation. I could still see her smile. If I tried hard enough, I could still feel her touch.

Tugging the flask from my jacket, I took a swig of the bourbon, trying to erase the memory of her face, her tears when I told her to forget about me. To forget I even existed. To forget about that one damn kiss in my bedroom, a kiss that blew me away all those years ago. I took another sip, remembering the strangled smile she’d forced when I told her she was like a little sister to me, and how when I left, I would never be coming back.

The sound of music rang out, bringing me back to the here and now. I could almost picture her in the white wedding dress, ready to walk down that aisle and give herself to a man who wasn’t me. You’d think being gone for the last nine years would allow me to let her go, wish her well like I should, but I felt like a part of me was giving her away, too. The familiar sound coming from her backyard rang louder into the early evening sky.

A piece of me wanted to stop her, get my true feelings off my chest, but a bigger piece wanted her to be happy. So, I smiled, knowing the right thing to do was walk away, stay away like I had promised her all those years ago. I thought I had the balls to see her one last time and wish her well. I wondered what I would do, say, if I found her alone.

I wanted to search for her and beg her to give me another chance now that we could. But that was all wrong. I wasn’t any good for her, or good enough for her. I could give her a nice life, but I couldn’t give her the life that Blane could, like the life she was used to. I dipped my head down and turned.

Lord knows I had no claim over her, never had, so I tucked my flask back into my jacket and headed toward the field where I left my truck. By the time I reached it, the music had dwindled to almost nothing. Jumping inside, I cranked her up, and turned up the radio as loud as it would go, overlying the last bit of Here comes the Bride.

Chapter 2

REMY

For the last several years, I played the loving, dutiful daughter that an Ashby was expected to be. Not that I wanted to, but had to in order to survive. Dearest Daddy hung my college tuition and my AMEX card as leverage over me once I turned eighteen. He loved to control people and I was no different. He was all, Little girl, you gotta take your life seriously,…blah…blah…blah… when I told him how I had wanted to go to college with Shea.

He had had it with my shenanigans, as he put it, and refused to let me follow her to USC for four years. So instead of becoming a Gamecock, I obeyed and I became a Tiger at Clemson. Daddy thought that separating me from Shea, my best friend, would do me some good. We still managed to stay friends despite his request, although over those four years we barely saw one another, except for summers and holidays.

It wasn’t until we had graduated and found the bond of our friendship unbreakable when my parents finally caved…some. I always knew they hated Shea from the moment they met her. I had known her since we started kindergarten, but we didn’t share a classroom until the fourth grade, and the rest, as they say, was history. We were nine years old, and Shea was, according to my folks, not the kind of people I should associate with.

I never understood that, therefore, I defied them every single chance I got, starting when I was little. It only got worse when I was a teen. It had been easy to lie and sneak around back then, since my father traveled for business all the time, and my mother spent more hours at the country club than with my sister, Quinn, or me. I always knew my parents had favored her because they’d controlled her from the get-go. She was like a bowl of Play-Doh the way they molded and tweaked her into exactly the little angel they had wanted her to be. Over the years I had tried to pull her over to the dark side and be defiant with me, but she refused and played her role.

She was still like that. She was a kiss-ass and I had despised her for it. I wasn’t sure why I couldn’t let those feelings go after all these years. Maybe it was jealousy. Maybe it was her golden-blonde locks, whereas mine were almost as dark as the midnight sky. Maybe it was the way my parents doted on her every given chance. Maybe it was because she scored the love of her life when she was fifteen and I hadn’t. I don’t know. I gave up trying to figure out all the whys and just dealt.

Anyway, around the time puberty hit and boys grew more interesting, I discovered Shea’s older brother, Eli. In all fairness, every female within the town limits noticed him, too. He was perfection. He was on the lacrosse team, he was voted best looking, best smile, and even nailed cutest couple with his senior girlfriend, Nicole Stuckey. I hated her with a passion. He stood at six foot two his senior year, with a pair of long legs that were always wrapped in a pair of faded Levi’s.

I knew this because every single day of freshman year, I had searched for him in the halls to catch a glimpse of him. He’d always somehow catch me lurking in the shadows and would wink. I’d nervously wave, his eyes would crinkle, and a small grin would tug at the corner of his mouth. This led to me being unable to concentrate in whatever class was next, thinking about that wink, those eyes, that smile, and what they all had meant.

He had the most beautiful blue eyes and killer tone to his complexion that really made them pop. His skin was always tanned, like he had been in the sun all day instead of class. He also had a head of hair that I knew he would never lose when he got older, as my father’s had. It was thick, wavy, and a soft brown that he tended to keep longer on the top and shorter on the sides. He also had a tendency of running his hand through his hair more than one should. I assumed this was due to the fact his bangs were always flopping in his eyes.

Me? I didn’t mind at all; in fact, I found I was addicted to watching that move as much as I was addicted to the show, The Bachelor. (One of my guilty pleasures.) I imagined what all those disheveled locks had felt like under my fingers more than I should. I found out once. I pretended I tripped and landed on top of him lying on the sofa as he slept and gave some lame apology. I didn’t know if he bought it or not, but I also didn’t care. Mission accomplished.

By the way, it felt just like I thought. Amazing.

And the pièce de résistance was his smile. It was ridiculously adorable, and when I was lucky enough to be on the receiving end, it melted my heart the second he flashed it. God, I was madly in love with him for years. Well, it didn’t matter anymore, because he and his sexy-as-sin smile had been long gone, and had been for what had felt like forever.

Nine years since the first time he told me it would never happen. Nine years since he threw me into the you’re like a sister to me zone. Nine years and I still thought about him. And, even though I was about to walk down the aisle with another man, it was his face I saw in my dream last night. That was nothing new; I saw him in my dreams all the time. I had just gotten used to waking up and him not being real.

The knob turned, Shea shot me a quick I’m sorry look and bolted for the closet. I retorted with a quick look of disapproval, but I understood. Shea disliked my mother almost as much as I had.

What’s that pout for?my mother asked as she took a step forward and situated my veil, her long fingers guiding the tulle down and over my shoulders. She was wearing a black Dolce Gabbana gown that probably cost more than my dress. What mother of the bride wore black to their daughter’s wedding?

Shaken by the sight of mourning colors, I looked away, I don’t know. I sat and stared at my reflection