Ryder (3 page)

This was the twenty first century. I wasn’t having some pigheaded alpha male
—especially cavemen, like Ryder Knox—ordering me around. To be at his beck and call. To serve him as my master.
Hell no.
I was a modern woman. I had equal rights—same as any goddamn man.

Submission
was
not
for me.

I was smart and I knew it. Not only because I’d finished school in the top one percent of the national scores. Not because I’d earned my
law degree cum laude. No. Simply because my mom told me so—every day, since I’d been a little girl.

Mom told me to always be smart. To learn to take care of myself. To never be
dependent on any other person, let alone a man. She insisted I saved twenty percent of my earnings every month, and that as soon as I had enough money saved, I learned how to invest it wisely into property and shares. I was a twenty-two year old woman with a kickass investment portfolio.

That way,
I’d have way more options open to me. Options to choose where I wanted to work, who I worked for, and where I lived.

I’d
also have other options—I could pick carefully who I married, and never be tied to a man because I needed him to take care of me. I’d be able to take care of myself.
Always.
Because often, after many years in a relationship, things went bad. And then the woman was usually tied to a man she resented, but had no way of escaping. Trapped.

No, my mom was wise. Sylvia
Summers didn’t want for her only daughter what she’d seen so many of her friends, and their daughters, go through. And she maintained that her and my dad’s relationship was as great and as healthy as it was
because
she was financially independent. Dad knew from the get go that if he messed up, she could leave, because she had the means to look after herself. She didn’t need him financially. She was in the relationship because that’s where she chose to be. Fate did not control her future.

Smart woman.
I wanted to be just like her.

It was also her idea that I worked for her brother, Uncle Eric, during
my university years, so that I’d get a feel for the property market. That way, as my portfolio grew, I’d know how to manage it. So while most of my friends just lazed around the pool on hot summer days, I was working at Clarke and Sons Agency, learning the ropes and the ins and outs of the property market. I was far from being a property tycoon, but I was way ahead of other women my age, and damn proud of myself.

OK, there was
one
area they beat me at. I’d only ever had two boyfriends, and both of them complained that I studied too hard and wasn’t much fun to date. Especially since I wouldn’t even have sex with them on a regular basis.

I wasn’t a virgin, I’d tried it a few times in my late teens,
and also with both boyfriends, but I really didn’t know what all the bother was about. It was messy, condoms were awkward, and afterward he’d turn around and fall asleep, at the time when I wanted to cuddle, and told how special I was to him.

During a winter vacation,
a few years back, when we were snowed in and I was house-bound for several days, I found a few books on a shelf. That's when I discovered that book boyfriends were far superior to real boys. I didn’t have much time for boys and real sex after that.

When I didn’t have my nose in a book
, studying, or wasn’t working on my computer checking the share prices, I was reading romance novels on my e-reader. On a Friday and Saturday evening, I’d rather read about sexy fictional men with square jaws, chiselled abs and rock hard chests than to actually have to interact with the male species, just to be disappointed by the whole experience. So I’d lose myself in as many books as I could devour when I had down time.

“
Book nerd” was a title I wore proudly. It’s what Lexi, Uncle Eric’s daughter, called me when I refused to go partying with her until the early hours of the morning. It didn’t bother me one bit. Because I knew that the devastatingly handsome book heroes couldn’t break my heart. Every story ended with a happily ever after. What wasn’t to love about that?

Everyone who
knew me well, teased me about being a hopeless romantic; the only times I ever really ugly cried, was while reading or during a sad movie. I didn’t do crying in real life.

Not anymore.

There really wasn’t much
need for it; I lived a pretty charmed life. I had mostly everything I ever wanted. My parents were loving and wealthy, my home life was near perfect.

Besides, I’
d done all the crying I had in me, enough for a lifetime. I’d been a mess for a year after
The Incident
—crying for weeks and months on end. Then finally, after nearly two years of therapy, the coping mechanisms I’d been taught to help me get on with my life, started working.

My tears dried up.

One day I
stopped crying. Just like that, the taps closed. I’d used up my all my tears.

On
a good day, I could block the memories completely. Sometimes I wouldn’t think of ‘it’ for weeks on end, carrying on with my life as if
The Incident
never happened. It was better for me, there was nothing I could do to change it, ever. So why linger on it?

I had to get on with my l
ife.

For my family’s sake.
But especially for my brother’s sake.

Harrison was still struggling to come to grips with what
’d happened, even though ‘it’ occurred nearly ten years ago. That day had changed him forever—we lost not only our friends, but also the
real
Harrison.

T
en years later, the carefree, loving seventeen year old had turned into a bitter, angry—and overprotective—man. One who was set on revenge and righting the wrongs of the world.

I was luckier.
Books and reading were my escape. A way to leave this world and engross myself in the lives of the heroes and heroines on the pages of a romance novel.

As long as it worked for me, I would keep on reading.
My fantasies helped me cope with life.

I was truly blessed just to be alive.

If anyone knew how unfair life was, it was Max.
And me
. Born on the wrong side of the tracks to a wild-child mother was a tough life for any kid.

Marianne Knox got knocked up before she turned sweet sixteen.

A pretty runaway teenager who lived a carefree life as a rock band groupie—with no fixed address and no ambition in life other than to be a hippy—my father could have been any one of the band members she was sleeping with.

Free love, peace, smoking weed and rock concerts were what filled her days. Unlike most other hussies who fell pregnant, her sweet
, easy-going nature ensured that she was taken care of by the band. Marianne was their lucky charm. Especially after they wrote a song about her, which went straight to number one, and put the band on the international map.

The
contracts and the money rolled in. It ensured that Marianne and her offspring always had a place to stay, even though it was a constantly moving home, because they were usually traveling the country—from one concert venue to another.

Spreading her own unique brand of love and peace, the band members shared her loving. Even when her belly was round and she couldn’t give them much more than a blowjob in return for a place to sleep, and food in her stomach.

She took care of the band member’s needs, and in return they accepted her bastard child as their own. Since she was underage, not one of them wanted to claim being my father; instead they took turns to look after me when they needed Marianne to service one of them.

Most days she walked around with me on her hip, humming a tune,
with a sweet smile on her face. Everything worked out well for her. She even managed to breastfeed me for a full eleven months before one of the guys refused to share her tits with me any longer.

That was when she fell pregnant with Max. Same scenario: father unknown. The only thing that was certain, was that we were definitely not fathered from the same loins. Max and I couldn’t be more different. I was labelled the grumpy one, serious and brooding. My eyebrows were permanently knitted into a frown and I learned to scowl before I could walk.

Max was the “sunshine boy”, always happy and smiling and cooing his way into everyone’s heart. As he grew older, his blue eyes and blond curls softened the heart of every female within a thirty foot radius. My scowl became permanent as Max got away with just about anything.

Yet even I couldn’t help loving the little shit. As much as I wanted to hate him for stealing the limelight, Max had a heart so generous and forgiving, he epitomised loving freely and unconditionally. He was every inch Marianne’s baby.

Actually, a paternity test in Max’s case was quite unnecessary. It was clear as daylight who his father was. The lead singer of the band, Jake, had the exact same eyes and features as Max, down to the slightly crooked Romanesque nose. Both were left-handed and walked with the same swagger. Like father like son.

I always got the feeling that Marianne was in love with Max’s dad, and that he was the real reason she stayed with the band for so long. But because Jake was married, she only got to sleep with him on tour. Whenever the tour bus got back to Los Angeles, I noticed the sadness in her eyes as he went back to his home and f
amily for the duration of our stay. It was then that we shacked up with any one of the three other guys who weren’t in a serious relationship at the time.

Any one of them could have fathered me. They were all tall, dark haired men.

Yet only Tiny, the six foot three, hard muscled drummer, had eyes the color of mine. Steel grey. Usually he was high, sniffing white powder up his nose with a rolled hundred dollar bill. Sometimes he’d give the bill to Marianne once he’d finished snorting with it. And the fact that she always used that money to buy something I needed, further convinced me that it was more than a hunch that Tiny had indeed fathered me.

It t
urned out that Tiny was aggressive as all hell when he came down from a high, so Max and I were kept out of his way. He was angry most of the time and I often heard him and Marianne scream at one another through the curtain that separated us in the bus. He kept on telling her that she was his woman and that he didn’t want to see her sleeping in anyone else’s bed.

Every muscle in my body coiled when I heard him say that. My chest grew so tight that I could hardly breathe. I wanted to jump up and punch him, because my mom was mine and Max’s
—nobody else’s.

Luckily she told him no. She said she wasn’t in love with him. That’s when he said nasty things about Jake, which only made my mom cry and tell Tiny she hated him. He’d hit her, then he’d call me and Max ‘little bastards’ and her a whore and laugh, his voice thick with anger.

The last time they had an argument was when Max was only eight and a half years old. It was a week before my birthday, and Marianne had asked Tiny for money.

Every time Ryder thought about those days, he became the frightened little boy who was trying so hard to be brave…

Young Ryder had watched, wide-eyed, through the peephole as Tiny put his willy near Marianne’s backside and his hands on her bare bosom. She moaned and writhed beneath him—he was sure Tiny was hurting his mom, yet it made his willy go really stiff as he watched them and heard the noises they were making. He couldn’t understand the blood rushing through his veins or what was happening to his young body.

Tiny gripped her by the hair, calling her a slut and slapping her ass, playfully at first, then harder till she screamed
for him to stop. It was then Ryder’s willy jerked a few times and warm liquid squirted into his pants. Had he just peed himself?

His heart beat in his chest, his hands clammy as he clenched his fists. Tiny had mounted her from behind, just like Ryder had
seen the Jack Russel do to Sassy, their dog. Next thing, and Sassy had babies. Three of them. All because the Jack Russel had humped her. And now Tiny was doing
that
to Ryder’s mom.

Ryder didn’t want Marianne to have more babies. She could hardly take care of him and Max, and when she wasn’t naked in one of the guy’s beds, she was crying her eyes out and mumbling about her life being wasted, and that she had no chance of a normal life.

It got worse. Jake was diagnosed with throat cancer. He couldn’t sing any longer. So he stayed home in LA and stopped coming on road trips with them. Marianne pleaded with him, saying she needed to spend time with Jake or she would go crazy. She promised to be only his, but he just shook his head and said he was sorry, he couldn’t leave his wife and his kids. Ryder heard Marianne scream at him that he just had to
look
at Max to know he was his kid too, but Jake laughed bitterly and told her there was no way in hell he was giving up his life for her.

Two weeks later, Marianne ran off with the new vocalist. Randy was five years younger than Marianne, yet he was besotted by her. In spite of the alcohol and drugs she regularly consumed, and bearing two kids, she still had the body of Venus and a sweet smile that melted any man’s heart. Randy said he couldn’t work with Tiny, that he was sure Tiny was going to murder him in his sleep, with Marianne in his arms. So when Randy got offered a contract by a new label, he disappeared, taking only his guitar and the
two boy’s mom with him.

Tiny was gutted. He ranted and raved for weeks, taking his anger out mostly on Max.

Ryder had to protect his little brother; he knew it wasn’t Max’s fault that their mom didn’t love her boys anymore. Max missed her as much as Ryder did. Every night young Max cried himself to sleep while Ryder rubbed his back and bit back his own tears. His throat burned, his chest ached, yet he refused to cry. It was up to him now to be strong for Max.

In spite of all her shortcomings, Marianne had been the
only light in their young lives.

And now she was gone.