Want Me Read online

  Want Me

  a Mess with Me novel

  M. Malone

  Contents

  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

  Epilogue

  Excerpt of Need Me

  Excerpt of Beg Me

  Also by M. Malone

  About the Author

  Want Me

  My girl and I have an understanding.

  We date. We have fun. No strings. No labels.

  It’s not until she tells me that I’m no longer her not-boyfriend that I realize how much I liked it. Cooking dinner together. Nope. Talking about our day? Not anymore.

  Just sex. Every guy’s dream, right?

  Except for one little problem. If I’m not her boyfriend, then the position is open for someone else.

  1

  ANYA

  I always thought that I’d leave this earth in dramatic fashion.

  How would I go, I’d wonder?

  Fall to my death off a cliff while hiking?

  Drown while white water rafting?

  Or something more mundane. Such as a heart attack after spending years eating ice cream and cookies instead of dinner.

  But it turns out my time to leave this mortal coil is right here. Right now. Cause of death?

  Acute mortification after choking in front of one of the sexiest men I’ve ever seen.

  As my life flashes before my eyes, I’m not inundated with images of all the things I never got to do or with regrets about the past. There’s only one thought that’s as loud as a bullhorn.

  Am I seriously being taken out by a wedding cupcake?

  2

  ANYA

  a few months ago…

  “Well, look who it is. My angel.”

  The voice pulls me out of my daydreams and I look up to see the smiling face of my parents’ doorman. George has worked here for almost as long as I can remember and he always has a smile and a kind word for everyone he meets.

  He and his wife, Paula, treat me like one of their own kids and I know she calls to check on my parents a few times a month.

  “Hmm, I have no idea what you mean,” I tease.

  I take my sunglasses off and slide them in my bag. Despite it only being June, the sun glares down from overhead blanketing the nation’s capital in heat. DC doesn’t wear heat well like California or Florida. Instead it just feels like a sweaty armpit. As much as I love the summer, I’ll be grateful when it’s over. Some days it feels as if I’ll melt right into the pavement.

  George tips his head and raises one bushy eyebrow. “I know you’re the one sending us the money. You’re the only one I told about our financial problems.”

  “It sounds like you have a secret admirer.” It’s a struggle not to smile. He won’t need much inducement to send the money back if he thinks it’s coming from me. He’s a proud man and won’t accept help if he knew the source.

  Which was the reason I’d paid part of his hospital bill anonymously in the first place.

  “Anyway, I’m just popping in to see Mom and Dad on my lunch break. She called this morning and said he’s having a good day. I’ll see you when I come back down. Maybe if Paula is up for it, we can play cards again.”

  George gives me a shrewd look that says he won’t be deterred long by my evasion.

  “Say hello to Vik and Marta for me,” he says while holding the door for me.

  “Will do.”

  I take the elevator up to the fifth floor and then walk to the first door on the right. My mom opens up as soon as I knock.

  “Anya! I’m so glad you could come. He was just asking about you.”

  My mom’s expression is radiant and it’s such a relief to see. Too many days her eyes are pinched and her smile strained, the stress of being caretaker to a husband who is often angry and hostile taking a visible toll.

  “Hi Pop! What are you doing?”

  I throw my bag down on the floor and kneel next to where my father is hunched over at the dining table. The pose brings back memories. When I was little, I would sit in his lap while he read me articles or told me about his research. Not that I understood most of it but the love in his voice needed no explanation. Nothing since has ever made me feel so safe.

  “Anya, lyubov moya. Come and see what I’m working on.”

  My heart warms at the way he whispers my love, the same way he did when I was a small child. He holds up the paper he’s been writing on. It’s covered with chemical formulas.

  Ah, today he’s back in the prime of his career when he was a brilliant young chemist just emigrated from Russia. No wonder my mom said today was a good day. He’s always happiest when his mind travels back to before he lost his job at the university and he was still considered a rising star in his field.

  “That’s great, Pop. Will you tell me about it?”

  I lean against the arm of the chair and let the sound of his voice flow around me. It’s amazing how different he can be when the dementia eases its grip on a once brilliant mind. However, it’s not long before I can see he’s tiring.

  “I’ll be back in a few days to visit again, Pop. Don’t give Mom a hard time.” I whisper the last part, hoping it takes root in the back of his mind and stays put even when things get fuzzy again.

  There’s no room for anger here. It’s not his fault that he gets so belligerent on the days when his memory and confusion are worse. The doctors have assured us that personality changes are common in dementia patients. However knowing that it’s common doesn’t make it any easier for my mother when he’s accusing her of poisoning him or screaming for her to leave him alone.

  “Maybe you can bring James with you next time.” Mom sits on the edge of the chair and pats my father’s shoulder fondly.

  Wow. She waited a whole twenty minutes before working that into the conversation. A record. A forty-one-year-old divorced workaholic is not exactly what she would have chosen for her only daughter, but he’s a man and he’s breathing. That’s enough to fan the flames of hope in my mother’s romantic heart.

  “I’m not sure if he can, Mom. He can’t really leave in the middle of the day the way I can. He’s the boss.”

  She hums in understanding. “Still, it would be nice to see him again. I never got to thank him properly for the flowers he sent.”

  “He sent you flowers?”

  This is news to me. Law never said anything about ordering flowers for my mother. Her birthday was last month and he saw me wrapping her gift but he never asked for any details. He can be infuriatingly self-contained that way. I used to think he was completely oblivious since he never asked for details about anything, then I realized that he doesn’t talk because he’s listening.

  The man takes it all in for further research later and never forgets a thing.

  “Well, that was nice of him.”

  “Yes, it was. They were the most beautiful peonies. I’m not sure how he knew they were my favorite.”

  “I must have mentioned it at some point.”

  “That’s the kind of man that will make a thoughtful husband.”

  “On that note, I have to go.”

  I lean over and give my father a quick kiss on the cheek. He doesn’t even look up, already reabsorb
ed in his world of formulas and equations. If it weren’t for my mother, I think he’d happily stay there forever.

  My mom walks me to the door. “You’re in quite a rush today.”

  “I need to get back to the office and finish what I was working on. I don’t want to be held up this evening.” Although I usually avoid telling my mother stuff like this because she gets way too excited, I can’t help it. I have to tell someone. “Law said he planned something special for tonight. I think he’s planning to propose.”

  My mom places a hand over her heart. “Oh, Anya. You really think so? He’s such a good man.”

  “He is, isn’t he?”

  I’m usually not so insecure but after the dumpster fire of my last relationship, it’s hard to trust my own judgment. But Law is nothing like the men I’ve known before. Maybe it’s because he’s older but he knows what he wants and he doesn’t play games. I can count on him.

  “He is, sweetie. That man loves you. I can tell.”

  “For once I got it exactly right.”

  She pulls me into a gentle hug. “Be careful out there, sweetheart.”

  She says the same thing every time I leave. Back when my father still went to work, she used to say it to him every morning.

  “I will. Love you, Mom.”

  Right before the door closes behind me, I hear her call out, “Call me after! I want to hear every detail!”

  I leave with a smile on my face. My mom is one hundred percent going to take over the wedding planning. She’ll probably drive me crazy inside of a month but it’ll give her something to think about other than doctors, medicine and frustration.

  After everything she’s been through over the past couple of years, it’ll be nice to have something fun to talk about with my mother again.

  3

  LAW

  After closing the door to my office, I rest my head against the wood. It’s been a long-ass day and it’s nowhere near over.

  Such is the gift and curse of being the boss.

  Not that I don’t love it. Owning my own marketing agency has been the culmination of a lifelong dream. I’m not so far removed that I don’t remember the early days, eating ramen on the floor of my shitty apartment because I’d rather starve than ask my father for money. I’d worked long hours at my first marketing job, determined to learn everything I could and prove my worth. I had no way of knowing if it would even be worth it back then but I still showed up every day, burning with the drive to prove myself. To carve out a space in this industry that no one could take away.

  Now I’m here and have discovered that the fear of losing it all never goes away. In fact, it’s only worse because now I have an audience. My failures have the potential to take out a whole company of faithful employees who are counting on me to lead them.

  The phone on my desk rings but I ignore it. After the meeting I just finished, I deserve to be off grid for a bit. New client meetings are usually easy but every once in a while you get one of those clients. The ones you just know will be more trouble than they’re worth. But when you’re in business, you have to weigh the potential payday against the trouble.

  Big clients don’t come around every day and this client alone could cover the agency’s payroll for two years.

  Minimum.

  All I have to do is ignore the little voice in the back of my head. The one screaming run away.

  Frustrated, I scrub a hand through my hair. The last time I ignored my instincts it turned out to be a mistake. As always, the mental image of Gareth Whittington brings a scowl to my face. On paper, his business seemed sound and although adult entertainment is considered a gray area for a lot of people, I was open to the idea of branching out. It wasn’t the nature of his business that gave me pause.

  It was him.

  I didn’t want to work for someone who seemed to have no moral lines. The girls in his raunchy videos were all legal but I got the distinct sense that if they hadn’t been, he wouldn’t have cared.

  That immediately put him in my hell-no category.

  Elizabeth convinced me I was being too cautious. It was something she’d teased me about all too often. In the beginning, she’d found it charming.

  Don’t be such a grandpa, she’d say with a smile.

  After a few years that smile became a sigh. Then the sigh became a smirk. She stopped calling me grandpa as a joke. No, she had other names for me then.

  Stick in the mud.

  Boring.

  Then the final name that changed it all.

  Ex-husband.

  It’s embarrassing now how much stock I put in her opinion. I worshipped the ground she walked on and she used that knowledge to screw me over and steal most of our clients when she left to start her own agency. It’s well known that love makes you vulnerable. Apparently, it also makes you a dumbass.

  Light spills across the surface of the desk when my office door opens suddenly. Startled, I swipe the sheets of paper I was reviewing into a folder and rest my hands on top.

  “Sorry, boss. I knocked first but you didn’t answer.”

  Mya Taylor-Hamilton is one of the best marketing agents I have on staff and a newly minted Vice President. Creative and brilliant, she’s also a whiz with difficult clients. She’s one of the reasons that I don’t have to think about Elizabeth anymore. All the accounts that Liz used to handle, Mya took over flawlessly.

  “It’s fine. What did you need?”

  Mya’s eyes dart to the folder under my hands. My fingers tighten around the file reflexively.

  Not that I was looking at anything I shouldn’t have been but thoughts of Elizabeth usually affect me this way. Maybe because my good sense knows she’s the last thing I need to think about these days.

  “It’s time for the staff meeting. I can run it for you if you’re too busy.”

  “No. I’m coming. I need to stretch my legs anyway.”

  “Great. I’ll marshal the troops.” With a wink, she shuts the door behind her.

  I open the top drawer of my desk to put away the folder and my eyes are drawn to the sage green envelope pushed to the back. Every spring Elizabeth would inevitably buy another sundress in the color or a new pair of shoes. I’d complained about it at the time but after she was gone, I’d missed the soft hues of her clothes hanging in the closet across from mine.

  She’d always loved the color.

  Enough to use it on her wedding invitation to Gareth.

  I slam the drawer.

  The staff meeting turns out to be an unexpected bright spot in the middle of my day. For once, every team has positive updates on their projects and we move through our agenda quickly.

  Finally something is going right.

  I’ve gotten really lucky over the years, hiring some of the best and savviest agents in the business. Mya’s team handles most of our beauty and luxury brands while her husband, Milo, handles men’s fashion and sports. Our other team lead, Kevin, handles the technology division. Having the right people at the helm of each division has made my life easier and kept us at the top of the marketing food chain.

  We wrap up business quickly and as the meeting breaks up, everyone streams out of the conference room. When I emerge into the hallway, Anya falls into step beside me. She holds out a steaming cup of coffee. I accept it gratefully. Caffeine is on my short list of legal addictions that keep my sane.

  “Thank you. What was that for?”

  She shrugs. “You looked like you could use it. You had a rough morning, huh?”

  For a moment I have no idea what she’s talking about. There’s no way she could know about the new client yet. I’ve been careful to keep that info close to the vest. My confusion must be evident because she laughs.

  “The staff meeting. I know how much you hate them.”

  Letting out a relieved sigh, I nod. “That I do but they’re a necessary evil. This is exactly what I needed though.”

  A few more bracing sips of the strong brew and I feel almost normal. It’s not te
chnically in Anya’s job description to make coffee for anyone, she’s our office manager and not an assistant anymore, but she insists on doing it everyday. Remembering my early attempts to make the coffee remind me of why. For someone who loves it as much as I do, I’m terrible at it. When I make the coffee it tastes more like motor oil.

  “Well, I’m hoping that coffee puts you in a better mood so that you’ll tell me about this surprise you have for me.” She grins widely.

  Her cheerful disposition makes it hard to say no to her in general but I have to admit the caffeine boost has definitely put me in a more flexible state of mind.

  “I will tell you that it’s something you’ve wanted for a long time.”

  Her eyes sparkle. “That’s all I get?”

  “That’s all you get.” Damn she’s cute with her flashing blue eyes and the little dimple that only shows when she’s grinning this hard. “Where were you earlier? I was looking for you.”

  The light in her eyes dims slightly. “My mom called and asked me to come by at lunch. She said Pop was more lucid than usual. ”

  “I’m glad you went to see him. Maybe you should start doing that more often. Take all the time you need.”

  She squeezes my arm gratefully. “Maybe I will. You can always call if you need me while I’m out.”

  “Sure thing.”

  Even as I say it, I know nothing short of a national emergency would make me call and interrupt her time with her father. His declining condition worries her a lot. She’s a woman that loves deeply and it’s been breaking her heart knowing there’s nothing she can do for him.