Chapter 1
Tyler Shadder
I had flown in from Paris for this meeting. Devan had guaranteed me that this was the one. I sigh flopping onto the couch in the hotel room where I had met my best friend.
“She’s ambitious. She has a family. She has everything she could ever want or need. She even has a church! Although, that brings me to wonder, is she really in church? Or is it for her parent’s benefit? Either way, why would she want to marry me?” I ask him exasperated. He had told me he found me a wife. Oh man, did he. She’s everything a man could want to have as a wife. I watch her on the other couch as she begins to stir in her drug-induced sleep. Devan shouldn’t have drugged her, to begin with.
“Do you want a wife or not?” Devan questions me with a smirk on his face because he already knows my answer.
I need a wife. I’m desperate, but I didn’t think I was desperate enough to have my drug dealing friend kidnap and drug a woman he met at a coffee shop.
Devan had told me all about her over text message as I was on the way here. She’s amazing. She’s worked with kids. She has a spotless record. She helps around in the community. She takes care of her parents and is working on her business degree. Devan already dropped her from the college before he called me. He has friends who are hackers so he had them do that. He wanted to give me the time to convince her to stay with me before people started asking too many questions. I wasn’t worried about people. I was worried about the media. The attention she would get in Paris for being my wife. I was worried her family would come and take her back home. I was worried I would get in too deep and then she would leave. That was the last thing I needed. I needed a forever solution. By the look on my friend’s smug face, he believes he found just that for me.
“She’s waking up Devan. I’m going to leave and get something to eat. Let me know when you need me to come back,” I mutter getting up and leaving the plain hotel room.
Earlier today, I was thinking that my life couldn’t get any worse. Now, my life has been flipped, spun, turned backward, and dropped to the floor. I mean, if I get caught with Devan and all this I’m going to have kidnapping on my record. I can’t believe I let Devan talk me into letting him handle my personal life. I should have just went to an online dating site. I’m such an idiot.
I walk around downtown in a small city. I get a hot coffee and sit at a table outside waiting for Devan to call me to go back to the hotel. It’s been about two hours. I realize right then, I had made another mistake. I left that woman alone with Devan. When the man wants something, he usually gets it. I jump up and rush to my car. I get in and drive in a hurry back to the hotel. I throw the car into park and run up to the room. I arrive just in time to see Devan talking to her in this sickeningly, annoyingly, sweet voice he gets when he’s trying to coerce someone into something.
“Listen, you said you needed help. I’m here to give you that help. You just have to trust me and the process,” Devan tells her and then he looks up to see me. He winks at me. His signal for saying she’s going to agree.
I walk over to them and see that she’s fully awake now... but also calm. She’s extremely calm. For a woman who was just kidnapped, this is odd. Wait, Devan said she needed his help? Is there something I’m missing? What would an upstanding woman need help with?
