Beg For Me (Morally Gray Book 3)

My mother once told me the key to happiness is to never depend on others to give you the validation that you can only give yourself. It took me years to figure out what she meant by that, but I finally realized it boiled down to one thing.

Stop giving away your power.

As I watch my ex-husband pull into the driveway, his pretty young fiancée in the passenger seat beside him, I recall all the ways I contorted myself to please him and wince.

All that effort for nothing.

“Okay, Mom. See you later.”

Harlow gives me an awkward one-armed hug. Before she can run to the car, I pull her in for a tight squeeze. Irritated, she shakes me off.

“Relax. I’m only gone for two weeks.”

Duffel bag in hand, she lopes off with her father’s confident stride, carelessly flipping her long brown hair over her shoulder.

Fourteen. No longer a little girl, not quite a woman.

It’s a dangerous age.

As she climbs into the back seat of the Mercedes, Nick opens his door and steps out, unbuttoning his black blazer as he approaches me. In Ray Bans and Ralph Lauren, he’s the picture of California cool.

He takes off the sunglasses to gaze at me. “Hey, Soph. You’re looking well.”

The voice that once vowed to love me until death is as smooth as silk. His warm brown eyes are smiling. I’m instantly on guard.

“What’s wrong?”

A wrinkle appears between his brows. “Why does anything have to be wrong?”

“You got out of the car and came to meet me at the door. You’re wearing the face you wear when you want something. And Brittany looks more timid than usual.”

Nick glances over his shoulder. When she sees his narrow-eyed stare, Brittany stops chewing her thumbnail and shrinks lower in her seat.

A flash of irritation crosses his face before he can hide it. There’s nothing Nick hates more than weakness.

I think that’s why I married him. Strength by osmosis. Twenty years ago, I didn’t know self-esteem can’t be borrowed. You have to earn it yourself.

“Nothing’s wrong. I just wanted to tell you the news in person.”

“What news?”

“Britt’s pregnant. We’re having a baby.”

He has the decency to glance away to give me a moment to recover. When I’ve caught my breath, I offer my congratulations.

He glances back at me, his expression wary.

“I mean it, Nick. I’m happy for you both.”

That might the single most generous thing I’ve ever said. It’s also a huge fucking lie, but I’ll die before I’ll admit it. I gaze over his shoulder and pretend I’m the Mona Lisa, enigmatic and aloof. The essence of dignified restraint.

Restraint is one thing you can never have too much of, especially when your wounded inner child is screaming for blood.

Nick says softly, “Thanks, Soph. That means a lot.”

We stand in silence for a moment until he shoves his sunglasses back onto his face, ready to end the conversation. His five-second attention span has expired.

“You’re still coming to the wedding, right?”

The audacity. I’d wrap the garden hose around his neck and strangle him with it, but I’ve got two witnesses. “No, Nick. I’m not coming to the wedding. We’ve been over this.”

“It’s good for Harlow if we’re all friends.”

“There’s a difference between being friends and being friendly. The answer is no.”

His lips tighten. Other people’s boundaries have never been his thing. Hopefully, it doesn’t take Brittany over a decade to figure that out like it did for me.

“We’ll talk about it later. I’ll make sure Harlow calls you while we’re gone. You look great, by the way. You finally lost those last ten pounds.”

He turns and strides back to the car, oblivious as usual to the grenade he tossed over his shoulder.

The man genuinely believes he just paid me a compliment.

They pull out of the driveway, my ex, my daughter, and the poor misguided girl who thinks she won. What she doesn’t know is that it was never a contest between us. Nick didn’t leave me for her. He left because I grew into something he couldn’t handle.

A woman with a mind of her own.

I watch them drive away down the street, still shaken by the baby news. Then I shut the front door and lean against it with my eyes closed, willing my stomach to settle and my pulse to slow.

After I’m grounded again, I head into the kitchen and clean up the breakfast dishes, then go around the house picking up Harlow’s mess. I can tell what room she’s been in by the trail of discarded clothing she leaves behind.

Because I’m her mother and not her maid, I drop it all into a pile in the middle of her bed for her to sort through and put away or wash when she comes home.

Just because I don’t want my house to look like a bomb went off inside it doesn’t mean I’m going to bend myself into a pretzel doing chores she’s perfectly capable of doing herself. While she’s living under my roof, she’s got responsibilities.

Other than abuse or neglect, nothing ruins a child more than lenient parenting. Every weak, selfish adult grew up around people who failed to set rules.

Full of possibilities, the weekend stretches out ahead of me. I’ve got a to-do list a mile long, but I need an outlet after the unsettling conversation with Nick, so I change into workout clothes and drive to the gym.

It’s full of attractive people half my age with twice my metabolism, some of them filming themselves on their phones as they exercise. I find an empty treadmill, drop my car keys and phone into the cup holder, and stick my earbuds in.

I’m just about to get started when I notice the person beside me.

He’s good-looking in that outdoorsy, Malibu surfer way. Tousled gold hair, bronzed skin, blue eyes. Teeth so straight and white they could be veneers. Muscular in all the right places. He exudes health, confidence, and a certain kind of self-possession only enjoyed by those who’ve never had to worry about money their entire life and never will because of their family’s massive wealth.

“Carter McCord. Hi there.”

He turns to me with a movie star grin. “Hi, Sophia. Fancy meeting you here. How are you?”

“I’m great, thanks. You?”

“I’m good.”

I give him a polite smile, then turn back to the treadmill and punch the button to start a programmed workout. A gorgeous young woman in full hot-girl-summer mode walks by, checking out Carter as she passes.noveldrama

I’m not having a hot girl summer. I’m having a bog witch summer. Every gray hair I get I’m celebrating because it means I’m closer to being the swamp queen of my dreams, a frightening, feral thing living in a kingless wilderness with wild indulgence, bound to no one and nothing but my growing cat colony and my untamed soul.

I should start practicing my hissing.

I glance at the Adonis next to me, wondering if he lives in the neighborhood. I would have thought he lived behind gates in Bel Air with all the other billionaires, not down in funky Santa Monica near the beach. Then I see the expression on his face and forget about where he lives because his glower is so surprising.

I follow his gaze.

Across the gym against the wall of mirrors between the free weights and the squat rack is a boy of maybe fifteen in a wheelchair. He’s trying to get to the weights, but a trio of bodybuilders is blocking him. They’re jaw jacking and flexing competitively, giving each other friendly shoves and throwing fake punches, their loud laughs bouncing off the gym walls.

The boy keeps trying to slip around them but can’t. They’re an oblivious wall of muscle. After another few unsuccessful attempts to get closer to the rack of free weights, he gives up and turns his chair away, wheeling slowly toward the locker rooms with his head hanging low.

I glance back at Carter, but he’s no longer there.

I pull out my earbuds in time to hear Carter call out, “Hey, man! You need a lifting partner? I was just about to do some sets.”

The boy stops and peers up at him doubtfully. His answer is low, lost under the hum of my treadmill. Whatever he says, Carter listens to intently, then nods.

Then Carter swaggers up to the three muscle-bound jocks and slaps the biggest one on the back.

When he spins around, bristling, Carter presents him with a dazzling grin.

There’s a split second where I think Carter is about to lose his front teeth, but then he starts talking and the three muscle men start smiling, and all of a sudden, everybody’s best friends.

Carter walks back to the boy in the wheelchair and escorts him over to the free weights. His three new amigos usher the boy into their circle.

A serious conversation begins between the five of them with a lot of head nodding and chin stroking and thoughtful expressions. Then Carter points at the weights, and the bros jump into action.

Everybody starts doing sets together.

Except for Carter, who claps and hoots and smiles like a game show host at the rest of the guys, counting reps aloud and dispensing high-fives on completion.

I’m impressed by his enthusiasm. He would’ve made a great little league coach. The only thing he’s missing is a whistle around his neck.

His strong, tanned neck, which I’m not looking at because I’m not attracted to men who were still unborn years after I’d started my first period.

No matter how good they look in tight athletic wear.

By the time I’ve gone three miles on the treadmill, what appears to be an indelible lifelong bond has formed between the weightlifters, the boy in the wheelchair, and their leader, the COO of the largest media corporation in the world, a man with enough self-confidence for the entire continental United States who has a better hair dresser than I do.

My workout finished, I gather my things, hop off the machine, and avoid looking in Carter’s direction like every other woman in the place is doing.

I’m probably imagining that he’s ignoring them and looking at me. My hormones have been playing tricks on me the past few years. My rusty ovaries could be throwing one last house party before turning off the lights and locking the doors for good.

Either that or he was hoping to talk business. He called a surprise meeting with our board late last year to talk about a merger. Nothing came of it, but I’ll never forget the way he strutted around the board room like a stallion out to stud.

That Carter didn’t seem at all like the type of man who’d help a boy in a wheelchair, much less notice his existence.

I’m not sure why I should be, but I’m glad to be proven wrong.

That night as I work the vibrator between my legs, I picture that it’s his golden head between my thighs. I orgasm so fast, it’s a personal record.