The Wallace Girl: The Feud Series Read online

  The Wallace Girl

  The Feud Series Book 1

  Text copyright © 2019

  Ginger Scott, Anne Eliot

  Writing as Eliot Scott

  Butterfly Books, LLC

  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 permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or events is entirely coincidental.

  Eliot Scott

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  ISBN: 9781937815189

  Contents

  1.

  2.

  3.

  4.

  5.

  6.

  7.

  8.

  9.

  10.

  11.

  12.

  13.

  14.

  15

  16.

  17.

  18.

  19.

  20

  21.

  22.

  23.

  24.

  25.

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  We dedicate this to the old-school romance readers who miss the days of sneaking Mom’s dog-eared paperbacks and reading them by flashlight.

  1.

  Alex Sinclair, present day.

  I don't know why I'm surprised to find JoJo Wallace standing near some crap rental car as I pull my Mercedes into the Memorial Hall parking lot to attend my father’s funeral.

  The girl had promised to see my father buried six feet under. Promised me while naked with her lips still swollen from my kisses and her thighs covered in my sweat.

  Jojo's never been the type to break a promise. But she’s a Wallace, so it’s expected, I suppose. They’re steadfast, honorable, kind, trustworthy, considerate and loyal to a fault.

  Personality traits that irritate the shit out of my family.

  We Sinclairs specialize in promise-breaking, lies, murder, fucking up people’s lives through severe emotional torture and, above all, destroying the Wallace girls from each generation by using all of the above against them.

  Over the years, as the youngest male member of this family, I’ve made a shit ton of promises to this particular Wallace girl, and because I was so good at breaking them, I’ve made my daddy very proud.

  The last promise—the promise not to hurt her—I made to JoJo Wallace before we made love. And it was broken while my cock still pulsed inside of her sweet body. Dad beamed when I told him. Yeah…my deeds required every detail shared. My father and my older brother, Grady, hung on my every word when I told them, as if they’d done the deed themselves.

  Because she’d been a virgin, I forced myself to go slowly that night. I told myself it was to make sure that JoJo at least had some sort of pleasure out of her first time—before I destroyed her.

  When I’m honest with myself about it all—when I look back and remember the unthinkable things I’ve done on behalf of my father to hurt her—I know that somewhere I’m also guilty. I’m probably the guiltiest of all. That night, the worst night of my life, I got a lot of what I didn’t want, but I also got exactly what I did.

  Defining what happened between me and Jojo depends on how you look at it; which side you’re on.

  Which family you were born into.

  That first time, she'd come so long and so hard we knocked our favorite fishing rods halfway across the room, and her moans had nearly shaken down the walls of my parents’ boathouse. After, I was panting for breath like I'd run a marathon. But Jojo simply sighed, sounding sleepy and satisfied, as she wrapped her arms so tight around me I couldn’t pull out—didn’t want to pull out. And she whispered how much she loved me all mixed up with the kisses she was pressing onto my skin.

  I can still feel where each of her words hit against my neck between her kisses. Those spots are my curse to bear.

  * * *

  Five Years Ago

  “You’re the best boyfriend in the world.”

  Her soft hair was tickling my chin, and her gentle fingers reached up to twine into my hair.

  “Have I told you yet how…I think I’m the luckiest girl in the world? How I can’t wait to do that again. And we’re so much closer now, and I can see our future…”

  Jojo had a dreamy way about her sometimes. She was nervous and excited with her rambling—one of the things I loved about her. I was still full on pulsing lightning bolts into her wet, slick tightness. I was also wishing to do it again, relishing how my cock ached beautifully from my release. My eyes saw only flashing stars, and I’d never felt more alive, while at the same time, my entire being was so consumed with regrets that I wanted to die.

  As if she’d sensed my conflicts, which was always her way with me, her hands stilled and landed on my cheeks. She kept them there, waiting for me to focus on her heat-flushed-face before slaying me with the sweetest kiss on my lips and the even sweeter question. “Did I do it right, Alex? God…I love you somehow even more now. I’m so happy we waited until today. It was amazing. Was it amazing? For you?”

  I planned for her elation, anticipated her sweetness and sentimentality, and I even expected her to love me more, because—love? That’s JoJo Wallace’s essence. It’s what she is, and what she does, and how she hands it out to the world like she owns a pocketful of self-replenishing hundred dollar bills.

  I dug into that rotten part of my soul for strength, imagining my father’s face waiting for me to “get it done”—conjuring my brother Grady’s laugh, and picturing their rough, cruel hands on JoJo’s soft skin, “doing the job for me.” That’s what they threatened to do if I didn’t come through—that’s what helped me stay strong.

  I locked on the stony facial expressions I’d perfected while staring myself down in the bathroom mirror weeks and days before, and turned my voice into the well-practiced ice tones copied from my father, and I looked down at her and shook my head.

  Her smile faltered. “No? It wasn’t good?”

  I shifted my hips, making sure my weight was heavy and uncomfortable against her in a way I’d never done before. JoJo’s frame is slight compared to my six-foot-three one, and until then I’d been holding myself up with my forearms.

  “We’re done now, JoJo.” I gritted out the words, choosing to look at a point on her forehead to avoid her clear, beautiful and loving gaze. I couldn’t let her see the torture I was feeling. She needed to believe. “I got what I wanted. Now that you’ve finally put out, there’s nothing left for me to do. You and I are—and were—nothing.”

  A ruthless laugh slipped out, just as I’d practiced. It made me sick to be this man, but that wasn’t enough to fight off the inevitable evolution. Monsters are born to be monsters.

  “We’re less than nothing, actually, and we always have been.” I added that last bit for me more than her. I had to lie to myself.

  “What?” She blinked, trying to breathe under me, while I pressed down more weight against her, willing her not to argue, and damn
me to hell, memorizing the feel of her skin…her scent, the way her lips bruised from my kisses.

  “We’re not together anymore. I guess you could call this break-up sex.” I readied myself to look in her eyes, and I accepted my destiny.

  While those deep pools of hers widened with surprise and shock, I spewed out so many of my truths mixed with lies. It was critical she dialed in, and even more critical that she believed me.

  “Our friendship, the one that started just before freshman year, was set up by my father. Our relationship was simply a game.”

  “‘Mhmm. No. You’re—what are you doing? No.” She was shaking her head. This was hurting her. She was fighting it already. It killed me, but I pressed on.

  “Yes!” I shouted and she recoiled a little because I never, ever shouted at her.

  I left off telling her that I didn’t know about the plan until years after we met. Not until I was so much in love with JoJo—not until things had gone too far. That fact…it was irrelevant now. My love for this girl was how my father manipulated me. It was how he leveraged me to do so much.

  “The lake, the fishing, the poles…how we met...” I pressed on. “And all of high school. Every suck-ass school dance. All of it was a twisted set up, JoJo. We’re over. This was—is—the end of the game. So I hope.”

  “Game?”

  Long ago, she and I agreed that this feud between our families wasn’t real, only I was pretending. I knew better. I came to know better. This feud quickly became the realest thing in my life.

  “My father’s game. You and I…the players.” I grinned a smile I hoped was as wicked as one of my father’s. “Nightly entertainment for my entire family—better than any series you can find on TV. This is just the end of it. I guess my father’s bored with it now that your mother is dead. As long as you leave town as promised, and as long as you don’t come back, it’s the end. You know my father’s mantra: Pain for Pain. That’s what he was doing—fucking with your mother, waiting for me to fuck you.”

  I shrugged like it was not a big deal, and again I left off what was not important for her to know. It was easy for me to say all of that convincingly because my father’s game was very real. It terrified me—made me obedient. It had real rules and dangerous plays. Rules I once tried to escape—plays that I tried to alter. I had many failed attempts at rebellion, so my father called my behavior back then when I balked at all of this.

  I was punished for it—threatened. They had taught me a lesson, one that brought me in line with the Sinclair ways. It had cost JoJo too much. To keep her safe I’d never broken them again.

  The one lie I’d spewed to her in all of this was as cruel and as practiced as my words and my expressions, because I had to make her believe it. “I do not love you, JoJo. Never have. This whole thing was a four-year joke.”

  Somehow, through it all, I held on. I kept it up when she surprised me by wrapping her arms tighter around me. When she repeated how much she loved me and said that she didn't care about my family or my father or his games. And when I didn't answer after Jojo smiled up at me and continued with confidence: “We can change everything. It will be 'Love for love' not ‘Pain for pain’ instead, okay? Please, Alex…please. We can do this.”

  I smiled at her sweet face, leaned down and kissed her soft smile, stole those too idealistic words off of her lips.

  I kissed her because she was right.

  I also kissed her because she was wrong—because love for love was not enough to keep her safe from my father or my brother. She thought this was familiar, that this was just more of the stern father-to-son relationship she’d seen. She had no idea how deep it all was.

  Then, because her smile up at me was part love, part laughter and part lust, and her amazing body was bare, because she was so damn beautiful to me—and because she still smelled half like lavender and now half like me—I kissed her again as my cock swelled inside of her.

  I was selfish.

  I kissed and kissed and kissed her until she'd gone limp with desire, and I had her moaning under me again, and I pumped myself into her willing softness.

  I licked, bit, and pressed kisses all over her already kiss-bruised skin. I ran my hands thrice over where they should never have been in the first place, and this second time?Shit…it was the last thing I deserved.

  Worse, if my father found out, it would please him, the last thing I want when I’ve vowed to never please him on purpose.

  I brought her higher and higher—relishing her cries and how her heated skin rolled against mine. I made love to her until I had her fingers digging into my back while she rocked up into me hard and fast and hungered. I lost my mind when she’d called out my name, over and over again. Instead of lingering inside of her and lying against her hot-skin how I did the first time, though, I rolled off of her with a groan.

  Even though it killed me, I said, “You make me sick. One time and you’re as talented as your whore of a mom. Get dressed and get out.”

  I could see her tremble. I couldn’t go back on any of what I’d said. I changed her forever.

  I changed me.

  Us.

  So I told her again.

  “We’re done. Don’t contact me again. Don’t even try; you’ll be sorry if you do. Let me be clear. My father will kill your aunt—if not both of you. No more family for you. Got me?”

  She’d nodded, tears staining her skin. She was in shock, but she’d asked still: “Why? Why? Why?”

  I couldn’t be sure if she was agreeing to just erase this part of our lives and move on to the next, or agreeing because she understood. So I repeated it all again. Her cheeks drooped and her bottom lip quivered, but there was no cry. She’d moved beyond that to a deeper sadness.

  She was in despair.

  One last word croaked from her lips.

  “Why?”

  As if I could answer that honestly—at all—ever. Because the answer to that was “if I didn’t, my father and my brother would have killed you.”

  “Happy fucking birthday, JoJo,” I said instead, a cruel smile locked on, that barking laugh coming out again. “Emphasis on the fucking.”

  2.

  Jojo Wallace, Present Day.

  I don't know why I stopped at the Sinclair boathouse to grab the fishing rods before the funeral. Looking at them bent in the trunk of my rental car like they still have some spring left for casting while the fishing line is impossibly tangled is only making me feel pathetic. The lure Alex gave me as a gift, one that I used to actually wear as though it were as valuable as any diamond necklace, is tied in there too. Its broken chain, and the fact that Alex had to be the one who wound it into the middle of the mess and obviously never looked back, actually hurts.

  It makes me feel even more pathetic.

  As if that's possible.

  It's been years since Alex Sinclair and I were those kids—the ones who didn't care about appearances, about our parents, about his father's company.

  The company that runs this town and everyone in it. The man who ran all of us.

  I hate that company. I hated that man, and I’m happy Mr. Sinclair is dead.

  It—he—took innocent people and shredded them to dust. That oil company of his swallowed great men whole, including my own parents—my house. Though no one could ever prove any of it, or pin anything to the venerable Sinclair name, everyone knows Michael Sinclair created demons, gutted out hearts and left everything cold.

  It left me cold for the last six years.

  Or maybe...maybe it just left me alone. Alex is alone now too, finally. And that fact is why I’ve come back.

  Well, maybe he’s not entirely alone. He has Grady, but they’ve never been brothers or friends. He also has his mother, May. Such a bright month for such an awful human being. She never liked me, but it wasn’t personal. I think she’s not capable of liking anyone. She’s the best actor of the bunch. She…all of them…fooled me for so long.

  That was when I wore pigtails and cut-off
shorts. Those were the days when she let me fall asleep in the Sinclair's basement during a marathon of Star Wars movies with Alex. It took a while for her to accept me as his friend, but she had. I was welcome in their home. That was before I understood they'd thought of me and my mother—the Wallaces—as a threat.

  Dangerous. Disgusting. Prey on which to feed.

  "Nice dress, Josephine," May calls out from behind me like my thoughts have conjured her out of a mist.

  I jump, but don’t turn yet, pausing to pull off the Post-It note I’d left on the dent in the driver’s door before I pulled away from the rental lot just to make sure the attendant saw it and wouldn’t hit me with a random fee when I came back.

  “I hope you know you’re not invited.” Her crackled, nicotine-laced voice sounds the same, like death's fingers reaching around my neck to choke me. I’m sure she hates that I'm here. That she can’t control me anymore. That I’m still alive while the rest of my family is dead all thanks to them. But the Sinclair hatred is why I came. I’m here to face it.

  To defeat it.

  That...and I’m here to save Alex. My Alex…not theirs…not anymore.

  "May, the paper said the service was open to everyone.”

  “You’re not anyone to us. Remember?”

  I turn to face her clutching my sweater to my stomach to hide the snag in the black chiffon fabric draping down the front of my dress. This was my mother's dress, and it's the only black dress I own. I know it's tattered and old, but it's one of the few things I’ve got left of her and it is still beautiful. I won’t be ashamed of it, but I won’t let May point out its flaws.