Hard Truths (Kiss Her Goodbye Book 1) Read online

  Hard Truths

  Kiss Her Goodbye #1

  Rebecca Royce

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

  Hard Truths (Kiss Her Goodbye #1)

  Copyright @ 2018 by Rebecca Royce

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-947672-63-5

  Paperback ISBN: 978-1-947672-64-2

  Cover art by CoraLee June

  Content Editing: Heather Long

  Copy Editing: Jennifer at Bookends Editing

  Proofreading Editing: Lucy Felthouse

  Formatting: Ripley Proserpina

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work, in whole or in part, in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Rebecca Royce

  www.rebeccaroyce.com

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Foreword

  Introduction

  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

  About the Author

  Other books by Rebecca Royce…

  Foreword

  To my beloved readers,

  This is something a little bit different from me. As the cover suggests, it is a Dark Romance. Our heroine is going to go through some rough things in the next three books before she comes out the other end. Please keep in mind that I always write Happy Ever After stories. We sometimes just don’t get there until book 3… And sometimes happily ever after isn’t all sunshine and roses. Sometimes, it’s a dirty, hard path.

  Take this ride with me into the darkness and let’s see what comes out the other side.

  Rebecca Royce

  This book is dedicated to the members of Rebecca’s Randomness on Facebook. The best reader group ever. Today’s Question Is…

  You guys make my day.

  RR

  Introduction

  “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

  ― Abraham Lincoln

  Chapter 1

  I washed the bad sex off my body, letting the heat from the shower push away the mediocre fuck of the night before. The payoff had not been worth the effort. Weeks of time spent trying to get Brian Chapel to pay attention to me in philosophy class hadn’t resulted in much of anything. 1-2-3 done. Then I’d had to talk to him for the rest of the night about books it was clear to me he hadn’t read but wanted me to think he had.

  He hadn’t even offered a second round to try again. No, I was pretty sure he thought we’d had a good time. I shook my head, letting the shampoo drip down my back. Yeah, Brian Chapel was off the list. I didn’t want a boyfriend, just somebody to make me come for the next six months I had left of school. I’d return the favor, happily. Then we could both part ways.

  I had things to do, and I didn’t need commitment. Just competency.

  Touch me on my clit and I was likely to come, stumble around in my pussy like it was a squeeze test and I was going to get annoyed.

  Inexperience could be worked with if it was owned.

  Enough. It had been a boring encounter, but not the worst. I’d just have to figure out a better system when picking someone out. Maybe someone I didn’t have to see in class all the time.

  I turned off the shower and grabbed the towel I’d hung on the door. My apartment was small, but it was mine, rented for me by my father after I’d shown him how it was financially cheaper for him to do that than to pay for room and board, and all the fees that made campus housing so expensive.

  I didn’t have a roommate. This place was all mine. As my dad had let me know that the day I graduated was the day I would be paying entirely for myself, I suspected this was my last time without a roommate, maybe ever. Social workers didn’t earn much.

  I walked into the living room. I needed water before I could do anything else.

  I opened the fridge and pulled out a bottle.

  The next thing I remembered was waking up in a bed that wasn’t one I knew. I grabbed my head, hoping it would stop spinning if I did. That didn’t happen. I groaned, throwing myself off the side of the bed so I could crawl for an unknown bathroom. There had to be somewhere I could puke other than on myself or the floor. I made my way to the closest door, and fortunately, I was right. There was a toilet, and it called my name.

  For a few minutes all I could think about was emptying whatever was inside of me. I couldn’t fathom anything else. Eventually, the spinning stopped, and I lifted my head. Where the hell was I and how much had I had to drink?

  I was a two drink girl most of the time. Two glasses of wine, two glasses of beer, or two gin and tonics. I never drank anything else or anything more.

  I tried to think. The last thing I remembered was getting water out of my fridge. Then nothing. I’d been in my towel. I looked down. I was dressed. In my black yoga pants and my t-shirt that said Not Adulting Today across the front. When had I put this on? Why had I put this on? Was I exercising? It was Sunday. I didn’t work out on Sundays. I ate bad food and hated myself for it regularly.

  Discomfort filled me and it had nothing to do with my puking, which had to be my least favorite thing in the world. I wasn’t a person who lost control willingly. I said when, I said where, I said how—in all things. I got these tendencies from my father. Maybe it had to do with the fact that my mother had taken off on the back of a Harley with an MC President when I was three and never looked back.

  Maybe it was just how I was made.

  But I didn’t wake up in strange beds, alone, feeling like I’d been drugged.

  I stood in the bedroom and looked around. The place was ornate but not overdone, which was a hard combination to successfully reach. The floor was white. It was funny I noticed that first, but I didn’t know if I’d ever stood on such a pure colored white wooden floor before. The white bedding matched the floor. But the base of the bed was tan, which matched the dresser and the two night tables on either side of the bed.

  The head of the bed pressed against the wall where a piece of artwork seemed to have been designed to complement the bed. My gaze was drawn to the small chandelier over the bed. Five old fashioned arms held what looked like candles, but I imagined were actually well crafted holders for small light bulbs.

  At the end of the bed was a tan ott
oman with orange and white designs. A desk was by the window and it matched the color scheme except for the light green desk chair. Somehow, the different colors didn’t seem out of place in the otherwise tan and white bedroom.

  Even with all of this, the most striking piece was not the decorations but the structure of the room itself. There was one white column that touched the wall next to the window. I reached out to stroke it. This wasn’t a fake decoration. It was marble, and I bet it had structural use keeping the ceiling where it belonged and the house upright.

  Okay. I hiccupped, and I tried to hold back my distress. This was clearly not a college apartment or dorm. I was in someone’s house, and I couldn’t remember getting here. Something was very wrong.

  The door on the other side of the room opened. I hadn’t seen it when I’d been charging for the bathroom. I retreated a step, narrowly avoiding the corner of the desk.

  “You’re awake.”

  The man standing there was a complete stranger, a fact which did nothing to relieve my rapidly spiraling anxiety. He was taller than me, which wasn’t easy since I was almost six feet tall without shoes on. His face was oval shaped, and he had short brown hair. His facial hair looked scruffy and dark but clearly maintained. The scruff only covered part of his face, as though he’d drawn a line and shaved above it. The hair was also not enough to be a mustache or beard so he must trim it. His nose was long but not overly large, and his brown eyes flashed something as he looked at me, waiting for a response.

  He wore a gray colored shirt unbuttoned on the top two buttons, which he matched with tan pants and black shoes. Formal and yet not nighttime formal. He was fit, that much was clear by how he filled out the shirt. I would put him at around forty years old although when people really took care of themselves, I found it hard to tell. He might be much older. My quick impression was that he was handsome, but for me, so much of that had to do with what happened when a person opened his mouth.

  I swallowed. “Who are you?”

  He nodded. “Amnesia happens sometimes. Different for everyone. Feeling okay?”

  “That’s not an answer.” Or at least not an answer I liked. Amnesia happened? What the fuck did that mean?

  He stepped away from the door. “This is your chance to tell me you feel sick. Otherwise I won’t give two shits. You feeling nauseated later? That’s your own fucking problem.”

  Any idea I had that this might be okay, some kind of mix up fled right then. Something very wrong was happening. “I’m feeling fine because I woke up and puked my guts up in the bathroom.”

  “That was fast. Brush your teeth and let’s go.”

  Brush my teeth and let’s go? I felt like some kind of internal parrot, repeating everything this obnoxious douchebag said to me. At least I wasn’t saying it aloud. I got points for that. Maybe.

  “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me who you are and where I am.”

  He strode forward, grabbing onto my arm and hauled me to the bathroom. I let out a yell. His grip was unforgiving, and I was sure bruising, while he dragged me the few small feet into the bathroom. “Brush your teeth so you aren’t disgusting and then you will walk with me out of this room. Unless you want to be dragged everywhere. I assure you, Everly, you don’t want that.”

  So he knew my name. With my heart in my throat and terror relaxing my anxiety, I grabbed my toothbrush from the holder. I stuttered at that thought even as I did it. That was my toothbrush. My pink handled, soft bristled toothbrush in the toothpaste holder next to the sink. And my hairbrush was there too. Both of them, actually. I pulled open a drawer. My hair dryer.

  No, this was too much. “How is my stuff here?”

  “Don’t dawdle.” He walked away from the bathroom.

  With nothing else to do, I brushed my teeth. It at least gave me a moment to catch my breath. I was in a strange bedroom with no idea how I got here. My toiletries were here. There was a good-looking man. He knew my name, and he was an asshole.

  If I brushed anymore I was going to make my gums bleed. I turned off the water and set down the toothbrush. Staring at myself in the mirror offered me no help and no answers. There I was, much as I had ever been, save for the wild eyes I’d never seen on myself before. So this was what terror looked like on me.

  I wasn’t a knockout, but I had a look that some men found attractive. My hair was stick straight black, and I always thought of it as my best feature. Long and thick, I wore it straight down my back and over my shoulders, the same way I had every day of my life. My skin was pale, freckled, mostly over my nose.

  My nose was straight and kind of pert at the end. It fit my long face. My eyes were a little bit too far apart, a little too big. I had hazel eyes that looked almost green sometimes and a thin mouth. My face was severe. I had the kind of situation where even if I was just being quiet, people thought I was mad.

  I wasn’t pretty. Not by anyone’s standards in magazines or in television. But I was good looking enough that I’d always gotten a man when I wanted one. Despite what some of my girlfriends said, how people appeared had little to do with how frequently they could get laid. There was enough want in the universe that anyone could find a willing partner if they put in the effort.

  But right now I was even paler than usual and my eyes were wounded, bloodshot.

  What had happened to me? What had that man done? Where was I?

  My hands shook, and I gripped onto the granite countertop to steady myself. Okay. I could get through this. I was strong. I’d figure it out.

  I walked out of the bathroom with my back straight. The man waited for me by the door. I cleared my throat. “I don’t have shoes.”

  “You don’t need them to come downstairs, but you do, in fact, have shoes.” He pointed to the closet and the dresser. “Your stuff is in there.”

  “My stuff?” This time I repeated aloud. “It’s all here?”

  “Everything that was in your apartment is here now. As far as your landlady is concerned you’ve paid two months rent and moved out. You’re gone.” He snapped his fingers. “Let’s go. Downstairs now.”

  My straight back failed me, I couldn’t pretend anymore. I sunk to my knees. “You have to tell me what’s going on.”

  He strode toward me. “You want answers, they’re downstairs. Move your ass now.”

  Anger surged through me, but it was better than the terror. I forced myself up. Okay. This was happening. Why? Had I done something?

  “At least tell me your name?” I stormed toward him, prepared to kick and scream if he grabbed me again.

  “You can call me K.”

  “Kay? Isn’t that a girl’s name?”

  He rolled his eyes. “As in the letter. You can call me K the letter. I had heard you were smart. Boy were the reports of your IQ overdone.”

  I shoved at him. It was probably not the smartest thing I’d ever done, but I couldn’t overthink it. I wasn’t staying there with him while he insulted and terrified me. Wherever this place was, I was getting out of here. I ran swiftly; I didn’t stop to think. The hallway was long, and much as I expected K to follow me and stop me, he didn’t. Instead, as I looked over my shoulder to see if he was going to come out the bedroom door, I collided straight into a wall of a person I hadn’t seen standing there.

  I went down hard onto my rear end. I gasped, staring up at the man gazing at me. He was taller than K had been. If K was maybe six foot two inches then this person was six foot four. They were both plenty bigger than me. Wavy brown hair with a full beard, sharp eyes so dark they were almost black, stared down at me.

  “Lost something, K?” He stared at me but didn’t address me at all.

  “I knew you’d get her, T.”

  K. T. I knew this time it was the letter. Was this for real? “Who are you people and why do you have me here?”

  “Get up, Everly,” K said as he walked up to T and me. “Start using some self-preservation. If we decide you’re too much trouble, we’ll kill you. We won’t even
think twice about it. So get up, shut up, and move yourself downstairs, now.”

  T’s mouth curved in a half smile. “I’d do what he said. He’s hungry. A hangry K is no good for anyone. Trust me on that.”

  Chapter 2

  I didn’t try to fight T when he took me downstairs. This letter thing was going to kill me. I had a hard enough time with names let alone trying to remember who was who based on some letter system. Okay. I had to remember this. I’d probably never forget K. He was the first to come into the room. K, the one who told me to go brush my teeth, the one who seemed to be done with me, and I hadn’t done anything that I knew about. Okay. Maybe I’d shoved him. But he’d deserved that. He was scary as fuck.

  And now there was T to go along with him. T… Why couldn’t they use names? T, the man in black. The huge man in black. But the problem was that maybe he didn’t always wear black. Oh, hell, for now I was going with that. The man in black. K, my bully captor and his buddy T, the man in black.

  I’d managed to shove K, but I knew it was because I’d taken him by surprise. I would probably not be so lucky again. My father had taught me to read people’s body language, that what they didn’t say was sometimes more important than what they did. Right then, I was getting annoyance from K based on the on again off again tic in his jaw. T, by contrast, was calm and easy. He had a lazy gait, but I didn’t take that to mean he was actually laissez-faire.