Our Chance

  Table of Contents

  Acknowledgements

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Epilogue

  Books by Natasha Preston

  Copyright 2014 Natasha Preston

  The right Natasha Preston to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictional and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Interior design by Cassy Roop of Pink Ink Designs

  Thank you so much to my husband for his support while I spent hours and hours writing, editing and reading this book. To Zoe for her many, many kicks up the butt when my daily word targets really weren't going to plan. To my PA Chloe for freeing up a lot of my time so I can write. And lastly, to everyone that read Second Chance and told me they want Nell and Damon's story. Here it is!

  Cover design by Hilda Therese Reyes from Dalliance Designs.

  Editing and Proofreading by Emma Mack of Tink's Typos.

  For Chloe Meyer.

  Nell

  'What colour's your underwear?' I bit my lip as I read Damon's latest text.

  Dirty bugger.

  I couldn't concentrate on work and it was all his fault. Who goes on a lad's holiday for a week, knowing full well that your special friend won't be able to have sex until you return and then send said special friend the dirtiest text messages in existence? Even I blushed at some of them.

  His messages made me hot and needy and if every man I worked with didn't look like a troll, I would've dragged one of them to the bathroom by now. Damon and I had a 'friends with benefits' agreement, one that had been running for about six years now and one that I couldn't wait to resume the second he got home.

  It was the New Year and it'd started with me watching Chloe and Logan suck each other's faces off while I exchanged a Happy New Year text with Damon. Now, two days on, I was back at work and wishing I was still watching my best friend getting dry humped in the middle of a club. 2015 was not looking good.

  'Shut up, leave me alone & enjoy your holiday', I replied, then turned my phone onto silent and chucked it in the top drawer on my desk. I started working for the haulage company not long after finishing university. I had a degree which said I could turn a business around like a fucking pro, debts that told me I needed to, but the job I'd landed was right at the bottom of the ladder. Actually, I was the dirt under the ground that held the ladder.

  The company was super small, my dickhead boss was a disgusting pervert, and I got to be his PA. But it was a start. I saw a careers advisor who'd told me to go for this job and in six months time I would have experience in the industry and would be taken more seriously from bigger companies. She better be right.

  "Nell," Reg, the dickhead himself, barked. "I need East Coast Holiday Park's folder."

  No please. Never a please.

  Gritting my teeth, I pushed my chair out and went to get his sodding file from the storeroom - a storeroom that was closer to his office than mine. The girls in accounting winced at me as I walked past. One of them used to be his PA before moving over. I hated her for switching and creating my job opening.

  Ignoring them, I ripped the door open and dug through the archives under E. I wanted to turn his shitty, just ticking over company around, not make coffee and get things for the lazy, rude tosser in the next room.

  He'd had two assistants in the past, one now in accounting and the other left. The longer I was here the more convinced I was that this wasn't a start of a career, he just wanted someone to take care of him at work.

  Pulling the file out of the cabinet, I repeated in my head, four months to go, four months to go. It wouldn't even be that bad if he wasn't so rude and didn't let his son - and unsurprisingly Deputy Manager - talk to my breasts.

  "Here you go," I said, smiling brightly behind an urge to punch him in the face. The younger version of him stared at me from his chair by his dad's desk. "Good morning, Harry."

  A small smile crept on his face and he raised an eyebrow. "Good morning, Nell."

  I didn't like Harry, he looked too hard and crept up when you least expected it. He was a creep and his dad had never told him to stop. I liked really dark eyes, usually they were alluring and mysterious but Harry's almost-black ones were beady with an edge of stalker. With light blond hair, the same as his father's, his mega dark eyes looked even more odd.

  "A coffee when you've got a minute. Harry, want one?" Reg said.

  Please!

  Harry's eyes never left me. And when I say me I mean my cleavage. "I would love a coffee, Nell."

  My fake smile grew to the point where it hurt. I was sure they must be able to see it was a fuck-you smile but I didn't care. "Of course. I won't be a minute."

  If I had laxatives I would grind one - or nine - up and put it in their coffee. Hurry up five o'clock. I made the coffee and then went back to my office to busy myself with rubbish little tasks that I'd been putting off but would mean I wouldn't have to leave my office and risk running into them for the rest of the day.

  After work I went straight over to my best friend's. Chloe answered the door and I felt the stresses of the day melt away. Her smile faded when she saw my frown. "Good day then?" She asked, wincing and tucking her long, straight, brown hair behind her ear.

  "Not really but I survived it. I'm starving."

  "Dinner is almost ready."

  "Will Logan be joining us?" I asked, walking inside as she moved over. Logan is Chloe's fiance and a complete sweetheart. He'd pined her for years before they got together. Not to mention he was drop dead gorgeous.

  She closed the front door and shook her head. "He's working late tonight. Wine?"

  "A bottle of it, please!"

  "What did he do?" She asked, leading me to the kitchen and grabbing two glasses.

  I got the rose out of the fridge, opened the bottle and poured two very generous glasses.

  "Same as always," I replied. Every day was the same. At this rate the o
nly experience I would be leaving with, is filing and coffee making. Neither of those were difficult or would look particularly fabulous on my CV. I didn't mind doing shit for him, that was the point of a PA but he wasn't interested in training me to do anything. He didn't value me as a human let alone an employee.

  "It's not forever. Hey, have you heard from Damon?"

  All bloody day. "A little, why?"

  Chloe had entered full, annoying cupid mode and was determined to get me and Damon together properly - despite what we both wanted!

  "Is he having a good time?"

  "He says he is, yeah."

  She leant her skinny hip against the worktop and stirred a Bolognaise that was bubbling away on the hob. "Hmm, that'll be all those bikini-clad women on the beach."

  I knew what she was doing but I wasn't going to get jealous. Well, I was jealous that they were experiencing what I was so used to but that was it. Damon and I were friends that shared orgasms and that's how we liked it.

  "Probably," I replied. "Seven sinfully good looking guys in Kavos are going to get a lot of action. Add to the mix Damon's dark hair and tattoos..." He was getting laid for sure.

  "Have you met his brother?" She asked.

  "No, but I've seen pictures. The Masters brothers were blessed in the muscles department. And just about every other department actually."

  Damon had a picture of him and his brother and, oh sweet Jesus, the muscular arms in those plain t-shirts. I wish I'd taken a copy of it.

  She rolled her eyes. "You're terrible."

  "Why? Because you want to be the only one that's done the brother thing?"

  Narrowing her eyes, she muttered, "Bitch."

  "Slut."

  We both laughed and she slapped my arm from across the counter.

  Chloe was with Logan's brother, Jace, in her early teens for a couple of years. Then he was killed in a bomb attack in London. Or so we thought. Fast forward four years and Jace turns up very much alive, after giving evidence to put the bombers away and when Chloe had finally allowed herself to love Logan guilt-free. Things got messy.

  "Tell me again why you don't want to make it official with Damon."

  I stuck my middle finger up and changed the subject. She already knew and I didn't feel like going over old ground again.

  After two solid hours of gossiping and dinner, the front door opened and slammed shut. Chloe's whole face lit up and she hadn't even seen her fiance yet. Sappy cow.

  Logan's face mirrored hers, softening and yet his eyes darkened with hunger at the same time. Then he saw me and paused. "Oh, good, you're here again," he said, fully walking into the room and grinning at me. He kissed my best friend's head and dodged her elbowing what would've been his crown jewels.

  "Nice to see you, too, Logan." I nodded at his very naked, very rock solid and sweaty chest. He was a fitness instructor and went running all the bloody time. So far this week I'd been over twice and in time to see him run back from work. I didn't mind the view one bit.

  "I'm having a shower. Tell your pervert friend to keep her eyes on my face, sweetheart, yeah?" He said to Chlo, flashing me a smile before leaving us to it.

  Her face whenever she saw him was sickening. Love was stupid but Chloe and Logan were going to make it. If anything happened and she got hurt I was going to castrate Logan with a blunt, rusty handsaw.

  "So, one more time, how's friends with benefits working out with Damon?"

  "Fine. It's fine. Fucking hell, I can have sex with someone without it meaning anything."

  "I know." She lowered her voice to add, "Just not with Damon."

  "I think I want a new best friend."

  "What do you think's going to happen here, Nell?"

  "I think I'm going to use Damon's body as often as I can, same game plan as his, so stop worrying."

  "At what cost?"

  "Sleep. I'm not getting anywhere near enough when he's around."

  Sighing, she rolled her amber eyes. "Alright, fine. It's your life, I just don't want to see you get hurt."

  "Neither do I. Nothing is going to hurt me, Chlo-Chlo, we're friends and nothing more."

  She didn't look like she believed me at all and that was fine, as long as Damon and I knew the score we'd be okay. If the roles were reversed I'd be just as worried about her too, so I couldn't give her that much shit.

  "Anyway, I better get going."

  "Are you sure?" She asked, her brown eyebrows knitting together and the look of worry etched onto her pretty face. "It's not because of what I said, is it?"

  "No, it's because I have work in the morning and I'm sure you're dying to join Logan in the shower."

  She pressed her lips together and the lightest blush touched her cheeks.

  "Go for it," I said, winking as I stood up and let myself out.

  I walked to my car, tying my annoyingly long hair in a ponytail as the wind kept blowing it in my face. My phone beeped with another text just when I started the car.

  Damon's message of 'The things I'm going to do to you when I get home...' put a huge smile on my face. I chucked the phone on the passenger seat and drove off, thinking about what to reply to really make him wish he'd never gone on holiday.

  Damon

  I sat at home stuffing my face with the Indian takeaway I'd picked up before getting back from the airport. I was knackered and quite possibly still pissed from the fourteen-night bender in Kavos. There wasn't one of six guys I went with that I didn't fucking hate now, and I still had two hours before I got to see Nell again.

  My arsehole of a brother had not so wisely decided to make our annual lad's holiday also his engagement stag. There was no such thing as a stag for an engagement but it seemed like such a great idea at the time. If I didn't feel like a human again by the time I had to leave I was going to disown Lance.

  We had a rule on holiday. Just one that also seemed like a good idea: sober isn't allowed. It wasn't just my liver that was pickled. I don't think I'd formed a full sentence in the last nine days - not one that made the slightest bit of sense anyway.

  There was only one thing I wanted more than to collapse in bed and sleep for days and it had legs that went on for miles, long, wavy black hair and beautiful, bright green eyes. Two weeks was a long time not to see her. It didn't help that I had blue balls and was too wankered to do much about it in Kavos, especially towards the end.

  I shovelled the lamb dish down my throat and cracked a beer open. I wasn't ready for the killer hangover yet so I'd drink tonight. Tomorrow I could die in bed. Thank fuck I had a day to recover before going back to work.

  At nine-thirty Nell text letting me know she was on the way to the club with Chloe and Logan. Her message couldn't come soon enough. I was desperate to get to her. I wasn't, by any stretch of the imagination, a 'good guy' and I'd slept with well over thirty women before I stopped counting, but Nell was the only one I'd gone back to again and again and again.

  I called a taxi because I was probably about ten times over the limit and went to have a quick shower and change. With only fifteen minutes before the taxi was due to arrive, I washed in a rush and changed into some clothes that didn't smell like booze, sleaze and regret.

  A car horn sounded just as I'd finished styling my dark hair. Thank God for that. I should've insisted that Nell met me here, but I didn't want her to see me in the state I was in. It was a surprise when they let us on the plane to come home. We looked like shit, groaned like cavemen in reply to questions and could barely walk in a straight line. But they probably just wanted us out of their country.

  "Hey, man," I said to the taxi driver after locking my door and getting in the black car.

  "So you're off on a bender?"

  Not another one. "Meeting friends," I replied and gave him the name of the club. Meeting up with a girl I'd not seen for two weeks but thought about solidly. I would never admit to Nell just how much I'd missed her while I was away, but it was an obscene amount.

  I was dropped off outside the clu
b after getting the driver's complete life story and made my way inside. No queue to get in. That was never a good sign, though it was still early. The club was half full, groups of women danced while a few men honed in on their target for the night.

  There was only one I was looking for though, and it didn't take me long to spot her. She stood at a raised table with Chloe, laughing at something she'd said. Nell was so goddam stunning I had to check I wasn't dreaming sometimes. Gorgeous chick that didn't want anything heavy or serious, that was also cool to hang with. I'd hit the motherfucking jackpot.

  When Nell was around I barely saw any other girl, they paled in comparison, and I was ready to take her home right now, five seconds after walking in the club. Her sexy body was wrapped in a skin-tight silver dress that showed off her back and long legs. Waves of inky black hair trailed down her bareback to the top of her pert arse.

  Chloe nudged her arm and Nell looked around. Her green eyes darkened. I had the same thoughts as her - each one involved us being naked. She left the table and I got a perfect view of those legs. My mouth went dry.

  Unexpectedly, she leapt into my arms; wrapping said long legs around my waist. I didn't have much time to process what was going on before her mouth was on mine, tongue probing through my lips.

  Hell. Yes.

  I kissed her back, wrapping one arm around her back and the other under that gorgeous butt. Shit, she was addictive. Chloe muttered something about going to help Logan with drinks and I assumed she left us to it. I really couldn't have cared less if she'd stayed.

  "Welcome back," Nell said, looking real pleased with herself for giving me a raging hard on in the middle of the club.

  "It certainly is a good welcome back. Know what would top it off?" I asked, smirking.

  She arched her eyebrow and pursed her lips, urging me to continue.

  "If you blow me in the bathroom."

  Laughing, she untangled her legs from my waist and hopped down. "I'm sure it would but I bet you've had enough blow jobs for the last two weeks."

  I held my finger up. What crap was that? "First, you can never have enough blow jobs, and second, no one gives them like you."

  "Well, thanks, but I think I'll pass for now. You need to get yourself screened before any bare part of you is going in any bare part of me."

  "What? I don't have anything, Nell."

  "You went on a lad's holiday to Kavos. Do you really expect me to believe you spent two weeks looking at the architecture?"