Trust (Twisted Hearts Duet Book 3) Read online

  Table of Contents

  BLURB

  FREE NOVELLA

  READER GROUP

  FOREWORD

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  ALSO BY MAX

  MAILING LIST

  THE MUSIC

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  TRUST

  Copyright © 2020 Max Henry

  Published by Max Henry

  All rights reserved. No part of this eBook may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, including electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Max Henry is in no way affiliated with any brands, songs, musicians, or artists mentioned in this book.

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this eBook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this eBook and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it to the seller and purchase your own copy.

  Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  Cover Image: Mr.Big Photography

  Cover Model: Marko Vukotic

  Cover design: Max Effect

  Four simple rules when you’re new parents:

  1. Don’t believe anything will stay the same.

  2. Don’t forget to take time for yourselves.

  3. Definitely don’t blame each other for what you no longer have.

  4. And whatever you do, don’t keep secrets.

  Some things need to be learned firsthand.

  Want to come hangout with some like-minded chicks?

  Then click here to jump into Max’s Madhouse on Facebook and get committed!

  FOREWORD

  TRUST is a bonus epilogue for the TWISTED HEARTS duet. If you haven’t read DESIRE and REGRET yet, then please STOP and go here: http://amzn.to/2GpbvKV

  TRUST is set in a fictional town in New Zealand, and as such I have written in my native tongue and used NZ English spelling and some slang terms. The legal age of consent in New Zealand is sixteen years old.

  Please bear these things in mind when following Zeus and Belle’s journey.

  Much love,

  Max

  xx

  ONE

  Belle

  An extra pair of hands would be fucking fantastic right about now. Instead, I’m left juggling a child, an umbrella, and my phone while traffic tears past us at highway speed.

  “Shit.” I slap the phone against my side, plastering it to me before it falls to the grass, and then smile at my daughter.

  Thank Christ she can’t understand what I say yet.

  Her head wobbles on unsteady shoulders, a chubby hand reaching out to knot in the lengths of my hair.

  I’d pry those fingers free, but again, umbrella and no free hands. The same damn umbrella pinched between my cramped shoulder and neck.

  “Not much longer, okay, bubba?” I smile at Sera and once more scout the roadside for somewhere I could set her down.

  Let’s just say that motorists aren’t the eco-friendliest bunch. If she didn’t get her gnashers sliced up on the bent and torn aluminium can, she’d be bound to pick up any manner of diseases from the litter that blends into the patchy grass as though it’s evolved some kind of camouflage over its time roadside.

  “Daddy will pick up this time, okay?”

  I have no idea why I’m telling Sera who it is that I try desperately to dial with three fingers and limited view of my screen, other than in a vain attempt to convince myself Zeus will be available to answer.

  His cell number connects at the same moment a truck and trailer roar past, rocking the useless car and blasting Sera and me with the backdraft. I’d move farther off the road, but you know, electric fence and all that fun stuff.

  “Hey, baby.” I can hear the smile in his tone. “What’s up?”

  “How busy are you today?” A motorbike screams past with a high-pitch wail.

  I’ve never seen Sera flinch until now.

  “Where the hell are you?”

  “Stuck.” I drag in a deep breath and glare daggers at the useless hunk of metal before me. “Are you able to leave the site for a while?”

  “Babe.” Zeus pauses, and I know the answer before he says it. “You know I’m training the new guy today.”

  “Yeah, well, I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t important,” I snap.

  He hesitates, and I can imagine the damn frown on his handsome face. “What do you need, Belle?”

  “Shit.” I glance at Sera’s wide-eyed curiosity and wonder how long it is before a swearword becomes her first. “Never mind. I’ll figure it out.”

  The resulting growl vibrates deep in my gut as much as the throaty engine that just tore past. “Spit it out, dove.”

  His patience frays, and I don’t blame him. I’m acting like the damn child I was when I first laid eyes on him.

  “The damn car is dead,” I grind out, jostling Sera on my hip. “As in, kaput. Finito.”

  “Where are you then? Are you near home?” The horn sounds in the background signalling the end of his break.

  “Northern motorway,” I relent.

  “Belle—”

  “It’s fine,” I growl. “I can figure this out.”

  “Fuck’s sake.” A rustle indicates he covers the mouthpiece before he hollers, “Gimme a minute!”

  I could call the roadside service for the motorways—whatever the hell their number is—but that doesn’t get the car home. Second, to my need to get off the side of the road is how the heck I’ll get groceries tomorrow without a vehicle.

  “Dove, I have to go.” Zeus sighs. “Call the fucking emergency number to get the response unit to you. If you can’t see it on the signpost from where you are, google it.”

  “Yes, dear,” I sass.

  He pushes a gruff groan before continuing. “And then fucking call me to let me know what’s happening.”

  The bossy tone he uses catches my next breath in my throat. I’ll pay for this tonight. And I can’t damn wait. Angry Zeus is scary-hot Zeus.

  As though to remind me to tame the current reel playing in my head, Sera slaps a sticky hand to the side of my face.

  “Go. I’ve got this, babe.”

  He sighs—somebody shouting at him in the background. “I know you do, dove.”

  I hang up acutely aware that after our pointless conversation, that’s all I really needed—the reassurance he gives me that I’m tough enough to figure out whatever gets thrown my way.

  We’ve known the car needs fixing, but reduced hours at the yard, and me going part-time since having Sera, added to a host of other things that made our incomings not quite enough to carry our outgoings this past year.

  Both of us buried our heads in the sand and hoped like hell things would turn around before we got to this point, but yet, here I am.

  Roadside. With twenty per cent battery and a now grizzly baby.


  “One more call and then we’ll find somewhere to sit so I can feed you, huh?”

  Her button nose twitches, chin trembling as she studies my hopeful smile. The damn thing ain’t catching. Sera’s deep blue eyes water, her cherry lips turned down at the corners.

  I have mere seconds before detonation. Better make it a quick call.

  I take a hesitant step toward the steady traffic tearing past our abandoned car and search the roadside for the little rectangular signs that display the emergency breakdown number. There’s one, but the freaking thing is so far away that I’d need superhuman vision to read it from here.

  Google it is, then.

  The phone slips from my grasp as I turn and hits the ground—screen first. Every muscle in my body tenses as I remind myself that I have a babe in my arms who wouldn’t appreciate me dropping her in a fit of rage.

  Life would be so much easier without the damn umbrella that I’m struggling to keep upright, but I’m not the kind of mother that wants to risk her daughter’s delicate skin in the mid-afternoon sun. Especially when I have no idea how long we’ll be stuck here.

  Sure as shit no way I’m putting her back in the car seat to be swiped by some lax driver while I watch on, either.

  So, struggle city it is.

  Carefully bending my knees and maintaining balance, I retrieve the phone and bring up the search app. A handy-dandy pop-up in the centre of my screen advises the phone has switched to low-power mode. Fantastic.

  By the time the rescue service has my position narrowed down, and a vehicle despatched, I’m two seconds from a meltdown to match Sera’s. Her piercing wail aches in my left ear, the phone advising I have a precious eleven per cent left as I set it down and kick aside discarded cigarette butts to give us relative privacy behind the wall of my sedan.

  “I’m hungry too, bubba.” She latches on without hesitation, sucking greedily at what little I have to give.

  Our barren cupboards have meant my diet has near halved, resulting in reduced output. I keep telling Zeus it’s fine whenever he presses for how much I’ve been eating, but the fact my hipbones jut out where he used to have ample flesh to grasp is a clear indicator that I stretch the truth.

  Again, that sand is damn handy when I want to deny the reality shoved in my freaking face: I’m weeks away from having to bite the bullet and add formula to our weekly shop, which is no doubt more expensive than just feeding my damn self properly.

  Get it together, Belle.

  There’s an answer. I know there is. But unless Wade is happy for me to have a baby at my feet while I ink somebody, then a return to work is out of the question. Daycare is expensive.

  Why the hell didn’t they teach us these things in school? You know. Like, the really important stuff?

  A crunch of tyres and the flashing yellow of my saviour draws my focus from my spiral and back to the gentle sucking of Sera as she feeds. I carefully remove her from my spent left side with the hopes I can feed her the right later.

  Going by the tiny frown on her brow and the quivering lip, she’s not having a bar of it.

  “You must be Belle,” the portly middle-aged man asks as he retrieves road cones from the back of his utility. “I’ll get these set up, and then we’ll have you sorted in a heartbeat.”

  His gaze drops to the unsecured strap of my feeding bra and the skewed shoulder of my over-sized T-shirt. Yep. We both know what I was doing just now, and considering I have a wailing child balanced on my knee, we both know what I need to do next.

  I ditch my already wounded pride and suck it. The guy tucks his head down and gets to work while I shift my shirt to the other side and flop out tiny-tittie number two. I’m leaving the house prepared for everything from now on. Usually, I’d have a cloth to drape over my shoulder for privacy, but of course, I was only ducking out to get Sera’s shots done. We weren’t going to be long.

  Or so I thought.

  “So,” my new friend says before clearing his throat. “What seems to be the problem?”

  The poor guy has no idea where to look.

  “I have no alternator,” I state feeling every part the shambles that I probably look with my shirt skewed, a faded umbrella over my head, and a grizzly child hanging from my boob.

  “Okay.” He nods, still staring at the tufts of overgrown grass poking through the cracks in the bitumen. “I can give you a jump start, but you won’t make it far if the battery isn’t charging.”

  “Yep.” I pop the P with my lips.

  I’m well aware of what it means.

  “Do you have insurance to cover a tow-truck?” He lifts his chin to squint at the sky.

  “Nope.” Still poppin’ my P.

  “Okay, then.” The guy scratches his chin while I seat Sera on my leg and tuck my boob away. “All I can offer is to drop you at the nearest service station.” He pointedly looks at his work ute. “When you’re finished.”

  I shake my head while rubbing circles on my daughter’s back. “You’re safe to look now.”

  His cheeks flush a deep pink when he turns his head my way. “Are you able to retrieve the vehicle by tomorrow?”

  Can’t really see Zeus towing it home with his motorbike. “I don’t know.”

  I’ve completely screwed up this guy’s afternoon. It’s written in the crinkle around his eyes as he lets out a long and laboured breath. “I’m sure you’re doing the best you can—”

  Aren’t we all?

  “—but I need to advise that if we’re required to remove the car tomorrow, you’ll receive a bill for the transportation and impoundment of an abandoned vehicle.” He shrugs one shoulder. “We can’t leave it there, missy. Too much of a hazard.”

  Missy. I’m sure the guy is aiming for cute and friendly with the term of endearment, yet my hackles rise at how irresponsibly helpless a simple word makes me feel.

  I’m not a stupid little girl.

  I can look after myself … when my car wants to run.

  “It’s okay.” I rise with a much more subdued Sera clinging to my side. “I’ll have it sorted.”

  He nods once and heads for my poor, neglected Honda. “Standard fixings for the capsule?”

  “Yeah. We don’t have the anchor bolt. It’s a belt-in model.”

  A chubby thumb in the air and my hero gets to work moving Sera’s baby-seat from our ride to his. Her little head flops against my shoulder, and I reposition the umbrella from where it dug into my neck, to my other hand.

  Sure, the sun is beating down with a ferocity that has me eyeing the animal trough in the neighbouring paddock with envy, and I have a mountain of issues to tackle before this problem can be put to bed for good. But shit. Life could be worse.

  Sera’s safe. And I’m safe. I have enough to be thankful for.

  Damn it.

  Shuffling my baby-girl to the other side, I manage to rest the umbrella’s stem along her back, jamming the handle in my hand so that I can retrieve my phone. Zeus will be out of his mind if I don’t give him that promised call.

  The info at the top right shows nine per cent remaining as I swipe hastily to his number.

  “All set to go!” Chubby calls out, swinging his arm to gesture me to the sign-written vehicle.

  The line rings once as I jam the phone between shoulder and ear and set about fixing Sera in her seat. Straps pinched precariously between my forefinger and thumb, I lean a little further into the ute to click her safe and sound.

  The damn call drops out.

  “You can do that at the servo,” Chubby instructs with a nod toward my phone. “We need to get you two off the side of this road.”

  I glance down at the depleted battery—seven per cent—and sigh. “Sure. Sorry.”

  Fingers crossed it lasts until then.

  TWO

  Zeus

  “Not sticking around, bro?”

  I wave off my workmate and sling a leg over the bike. “Gotta head away early. Ask Terry if you need anything; he knows I’m gone.”
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  “Yeah. Whatever.” He dismisses me with a friendly wave.

  One jerk of my wrist and the bike roars to life. Fucking Belle won’t pick up. Or to be more accurate, her damn phone won’t get past voicemail.

  Common sense tells me that if something truly bad had happened, I’d damn well know about it by now. But that fucking part of me that’s always wanted to keep Belle out of harm’s way niggled at my brain like a damn worm until I bailed on the crew.

  She called an hour ago.

  She should be home by now.

  The one upside to leaving before the end of my shift is that the traffic isn’t as thick this time of day. What takes me over half an hour in the evening barely costs me fifteen minutes before I’m cutting in front of Belle’s abandoned car on the side of the motorway.

  Sera’s seat is gone from the back, and the vehicle’s locked up tighter than a nun’s.

  One more glance at my phone shows a new voicemail. Fuck. First thing I’m damn well buying when we have the spares is a Bluetooth kit.

  I tear my helmet off and dial through the voicemail, giving the car a kick for good measure while I wait. The robotic woman goes through the motions, and I stab the ‘1’ harder than necessary.

  “Hey, babe. Sorry it took me so long to call. My phone died, and it was ages before the staff would let me use their phone out back. Kate dropped me home. See you there.”

  Thank fuck.

  I release the breath I didn’t realise I’d held and take a step back. Cars whip by on the opposite side of Belle’s Honda, their backdraft rocking the heap on its worn suspension.

  I shouldn’t stop here longer than necessary, but if I get on that damn bike right now, I’m bound to add a traffic fine to our list of problems.

  My arse hits the steel Armco, hands dropping between my knees.

  How the fuck did we get here?

  A year ago, we had it all mapped out. Belle was starting up her tattoo studio at home, and I was getting extra pay under my belt before going out on my own. Instead, the home studio has become a makeshift storage room, and I’m working more hours than I ever have for barely the same pay as I made at my last job.