Botched Proposal (Pierson Family Values #0.5) Read online

  Ella shook her head as Serenity waited patiently at the door.

  “I’m in Orlando. Anyway, that’s not why I’m calling. Although, I could do this with you all day. How busy are you today?”

  “Not too much going on. I have a restoration project I’m working on with Brandon, but that’s about it. Brandon and the boys are the ones with all the work to do. I’m just the pretty face.”

  In the background, a bunch of male voices could be heard as they grumbled or tossed out insults. A couple female voices threw out curses as well.

  The male just laughed. “Cut the shit, guys, and get back to work. Open your own damn shops and you can sit back while reaping the rewards.” The line went quiet as muffled words could be heard before he was speaking again. “Yeah, yeah, go blow smoke up somebody else’s windpipe. What’s going on, doll?”

  “I don’t think that’s any better, Marsh. Ugh! Your sister called me that when she was pissed off at me because she knows how much I despise the Kardashians overuse of it at one time.” Ella shivered as the male chuckled. “Will you pick up my friend’s car from Kiss Me please? If you have time …”

  “Yeah, yeah, Lark. I’ll give it a once over just for old time’s sake. You know I still owe you …”

  Ella quickly disabled the speakerphone feature and put the phone to her ear while shooting Serenity a look that kind of worried her.

  “Okay. We’ll review that at another time. Thanks. Give me a call when you figure out what’s wrong and … we’ll take that … yep … that sounds perfect. No … (a breathy chuckle) … not anymore. Tell Carla I say hello,” turning slightly she whispered. “Yes, I needed to bring your wife into this. Sometimes I have to put that reminder out there. It was a different … time. Now, call the house when it’s ready. No. Not my cell. I won’t answer. Bye Mr. Simmons.”

  “Damn. That’s harsh.”

  Serenity heard the male call out before Ella fumbled to end the call. Clearing her throat, Ella turned back to face Serenity.

  “All right. That’s all taken care of. Let’s go on inside. I know my mother is dying to see you. She wouldn’t tell me why though. Knowing what I know now, I believe I have a better understanding.”

  Ella’s flushed features and guilty look had Serenity feeling a bit more unsettled. She wanted to take a moment to see if Ella would talk to her, but wasn’t quick enough in her assessment. Before she could fix her mouth to speak, Ella had run her fingers through her previously windswept blonde hair and plastered on that patented smile that told the people everything was right in her world. She had the key in the door and pushed open before Serenity could offer to take one of the bags back.

  “Mom! I’m back and I brought our special guest with me.”

  Serenity watched as a few members of the Pierson family began to file out of the kitchen and bound down the stairs from the upper bedrooms that they must’ve been occupying prior to Ella’s call.

  They smiled or chuffed as they came to greet their sister. Coats were taken, while introductions were made, and hugs were given. Ella and Clarissa shared a squeeze that made Serenity miss her family. Part of her had a momentary lapse in judgment where she questioned her choice to have this child. It came when she and her family went their separate ways at her childhood home. Her teary-eyed “goodbye” wasn’t one she’d expected to have.

  Serenity hadn’t wanted to watch her family walk out the front door of their family’s modest three-bedroom bungalow-style home three days ago. She’d had to put all of her sales and marketing techniques to use in order to get them out the front door. Her mother and two older brothers were concerned. They hadn’t been convinced she was healthy enough for them to leave her on her own.

  The invitation from Ella had come at the perfect time and had provided her with a way to get her family to enjoy the vacation she’d arranged for them in Fiji. It had been a life-long dream for their parents to spend the holidays someplace exotic and other worldly in comparison to Florida’s beaches and tanned bodies. It was something that Serenity, herself, had been looking forward to partaking of and enjoying right along with them.

  Little Punchkin (Pierson and munchkin combined) had arrived on the scene and thoroughly tossed those plans right out the window. She was hit with a bout of severe morning sickness that caused to her to become weak and faint at work. Having her hospitalized for three days as the doctor and her overprotective family watched over her was enough for her to change her plans.

  Norma—her travel agent and best friend—came through for her and she was able to rearrange everything and get her money back without it all being a big fuss on her end. Her father harrumphed several times before relenting to her plans and agreeing to work with her to get the rest of the crew on board.

  Her father is and forever will be her greatest ally and biggest fan. She loved him dearly for always being in her corner and supporting her in everything she did. They saw eye-to-eye on so many things. One thing he didn’t agree with or appreciate was her adamant refusal to name her child’s father.

  “You’ll know when he does, Daddy. Not a day prior,” she’d told him then repeated the words to each of the other members of her family as she walked them to the car before they finally left. It was hard to see them off but she had a harder task that she had to face.

  Punchkin could remain a secret no longer.

  One of the youngest sibling’s and half of the twins, Clarissa, turned in her direction and asked her if her parents were planning anything for Christmas Eve, which was the next day.

  Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, Serenity answered Clarissa’s question.

  “My entire family is in Fiji and having a wonderful time. I’ve seen so many pictures. It’s shocking to have my parents sharing Instagram photos and sending me Skype messages or using Facetime via Facebook. I miss them but they’re happy to know that I’ve been invited to spend time with yours and my best friend’s families for the holiday.”

  Mrs. Pierson tilted her head in my direction as if she were scrutinizing my response.

  “I’m shocked you didn’t head out with them. I know that you’ve wanted to spend time in Fiji for as long as I’ve known you,” Ella stated and Serenity wanted to shake her.

  As if she put together the ramifications of her statement a few seconds too late, she clamped her mouth shut and sent Serenity an apologetic look.

  “Why didn’t you go with them?” Alyssa, the other Pierson twin, asked as she looked back and forth between Serenity and her eldest sister. “I mean you can see all of us anytime. Not that I know you all that well. I only know your name because my mother mentioned you were a friend of Ella’s the other day. Still, you strike me as the type that would prefer to be out having an adventure with her family versus doing the ‘family and friend visiting’ thing.”

  Ella groaned. Serenity didn’t understand exactly what the issue was between the sisters but she knew she didn’t want or need to explain herself to someone she’d just met. The fact that most of the people in the room turned their attention in her general direction made her feel even less willing to open up about it all.

  “It just didn’t work out that way for me this time around. I’ll attend next time.”

  The family pretty much dispersed after that comment. The women moved to various stations while the guys went to the place where Serenity knew there was a huge screen to watch sports mounted to the wall. Before Alexander could get too far away, his mother called his name. His head dropped forward before he lifted it and made his way back around the corner to where Mrs. Pierson stood in the kitchen.

  Clarissa, Serenity, and Ella took seats on the couch. The table and parts of the floor had decorations spread out all over it.

  Some of the little Piersons were playing nearby while the older ones were helping by creating decorations. Serenity knew that was one of the traditions the family kept. Each year all of the babies got together and created an ornament for the tree. The siblings always got together and purchased
a decoration for the house or tree. This year there was a glass nativity scene sitting on the fireplace. The year was embossed in a red and gold placard that sat next to it. She smiled knowing that had to be part of the scheme Eric and Jamie had put in place.

  Serenity sighed. She remembered him telling her how much he loved having the family around to decorate. The spot on the couch where she was sitting was his favorite because he had the perfect place to see the tree when it was all lit up. She could see why he loved it. The man was right. It was prime comfort real estate for soaking up key aspects of the Pierson family festivities.

  Alex’s slight groan interrupted her thoughts.

  “Really Ma? You have to have these things for tonight’s dinner. You know it’s going to be a madhouse.”

  “Hup. No. I don’t want to hear it. I swear you kids whine more now that you are adults than you did when you were children. It’s unnerving and unbefitting the intelligence all of you exude. Goodness. Before you ask me to ask your older brother, I’m going to shut that down as well. Your brother has had his turn to run errands. It is yours. Unless you want to join me and your sisters in the kitchen?”

  Alex snatched up his keys, the list, and quickly headed out the door. Serenity and the other Pierson women laughed as they watched him sulk away. He wasn’t the brother that loved being in the kitchen. That one had yet to arrive. Thinking of that characteristic about him made her smile. She’d been gifted with having him prep a meal or two for her and she loved every moment of it.

  It wasn’t enough.

  When she looked up from the place her gaze had focused as she allowed her thoughts to drift, her eyes met a set of brown eyes that didn’t appear to be happy sharing space with her or anyone else for that matter.

  Who was this woman? Was she here with Alexander? Why didn’t she go with Alex when he left? Had he mistakenly left her behind in his haste to get the hell out of dodge before his mother roped him into actually helping out in the kitchen as well?

  The ritzy looking blonde’s demeanor said she wanted to be anywhere but in the home of the Piersons. Why wouldn’t she take the opportunity to escape when her guy left if that were the case?

  This blonde had been there when she arrived but Serenity was too busy being introduced and passed around to determine exactly who the chick was dating.

  Serenity’s assumption was that she was one of Alex’s latest conquests-to-be. She rather fit the billing that the sexy lawyer liked. There was nothing about that woman that screamed “long term” or hitch yourself to her wagon. Her very essence said she had too much to live for to be tied down and wasn’t looking to take a chance to have anyone’s sperm connecting with her egg.

  A smile played at Serenity’s lips as she pictured the woman’s reaction if a doctor broke the news to her that someone had gotten her pregnant.

  “No! Not my perfect Barbie figure. I’m a supermodel damn it! I can’t be scarred by a C-section!”

  “What has you looking like the cat that ate the canary over here?” Alyssa—the bubbly, youngest member of the Pierson family—asked as she took a seat next to Serenity.

  When Serenity opened her mouth to speak she was saved from answering by Mrs. Pierson. Alyssa was called back to dinner duty. The young woman bounded up and happily worked alongside her mother. Serenity’s gaze found the bleached blonde’s again. Looking back toward the kitchen, she noticed a curious look on Alyssa’s face.

  Alyssa looked from Serenity to the blonde who pulled at the shoulders of her beige cashmere sweater and tugged at her gray pleated wool skirt that only hit about mid-thigh on her long legs. In the fifteen or twenty minutes that Serenity and Ella had been in the house the woman had nervously changed positions from standing to sitting to standing back up again, twice.

  “La La,” Serenity whispered to her friend with a playful smirk playing on her lips when Ella groaned and rolled her eyes.

  “I am going to find a way to torment you and very soon. Now, why are we whispering?”

  Serenity tilted her head toward the back door and asked, “The bombshell wanna-be?”

  Ella snickered before pretending to reach for another hook for the ornament that she’d been about to stand up to hang.

  “That one is with Eric. I can’t believe my brother is sticking it out with this one. They’ve been on-again, off-again, but she doesn’t fit with his usual type.” Ella gave Serenity a once over and seemed to nod at some internal thought she was having. “You’re more his type actually. The dark hair, full lips, curves and tits for days are definitely everything that he would usually go for. The model over there who is more of a stick figure than anything, I believe, is a consolation prize. She just so happened to be in the right place at the right time.”

  Serenity smiled but her heart was thundering in her chest. She couldn’t believe it. The snooty looking female was there for Eric. She’s the one that he was with and taken that three-day break from. Now, she was in his family’s home for the holiday and waiting for him.

  Worst. Idea. EVER!

  What in the hell had she been thinking?

  This wasn’t the time for her to be here. Serenity had to … grin and fucking bear it. If she said she suddenly had to leave now then key people would know she was lying. Ella would hone in on that like a tracking device. Eric’s mother or sister would be the one to tell him instead of her. If nothing else that’s the one thing she didn’t want. When he learned he was going to be a father, she wanted him to hear it directly from her and no one else.

  Instead of bolting, she snuggled under the blanket lying on her lap. The two sisters offered to share it with her because they’d warned that the spot was comfortable but chilly because of the constant opening of the front door. They said once the family was inside for the evening the room would remain nice and toasty. Serenity had nodded and continued to help with putting together the tree while sitting, listening to stories. Her brain computed the conversation but part of her focus was that door.

  Every single time the door opened Serenity’s lungs would seize slightly and cause her voice to quiver if she were speaking or her breath to stutter in her throat. Fortunately for her, the family chalked it up to the coolness of the day. Having just about all of the Piersons in the household save two key male members had her keeping one leery eye on the door as she continued to converse with the female members of the family.

  She probably would’ve placed herself in a different area of the house had she thought about the anxiety her sitting in that seat might cause her. When Alex had been ordered out of the house to fetch some items for the salads Mrs. Pierson wanted to make, she tried not to think about what was to come. He had returned with the necessary items and suitcases. Jamie had gone out. They were still waiting on two members and it was beginning to make Serenity antsy. Some part of her envied Model Barbie and her freedom of movement. The prime real estate wasn’t looking so prime as her gaze kept moving to the door.

  Who was she kidding with the whole “different area” crap?

  Serenity would still be in the very spot that she’d purposely placed herself. She knew the significance of the couch and understood exactly how important it was for her to be in that place. It gave her the perfect line of sight for the front door, kitchen, and back patio door where the blonde was sitting again.

  The door whooshed open and Jamie walked in. Disappointment wrenched its way through her. She was ready to burst at the seams. All she wanted was to get the initial moment over with, finished. From there, she could do what she came to do and enjoy the rest of her evening. Or so she thought.

  “Something smells amazing.”

  Serenity’s entire body froze as she heard the one voice she swore she would not have a physical reaction to if she ever heard it again.

  Epic. Fucking. Failure.

  3

  The Proposal

  Eric

  Serenity McAdams was the center of Eric’s focus as soon as he entered the house. Just like she had been a few months a
go and the year before that. He couldn’t believe she was sitting in the center of the couch that he loved. The fact that she looked as comfortable as she did in the one spot he enjoyed most when he was home shouldn’t have affected him as much as it did. He hadn’t seen everyone in a few weeks and should be greeting his loved ones, but that wasn’t what happened.

  Her perfectly shaped eyes as blue as the sky above them were just as focused on him as his were on her.

  “Hello Reni,” he said as he stood in the doorway.

  Eric watched her body quiver and smirked as she tried to hide a groan that told him she hadn’t meant to react to him in any way. He’d run through twenty or thirty ways for him to make his entrance behind his brother while making his way up the front steps and across the porch. When he’d come in the door all he could think of was her scent. In his mind, he’d thought of how delectable she smelled.

  What came out of his mouth was something that could be chalked up to the scents of the meal in beginning preparations. His laser sharp focus on the one woman that controlled the beats of his heart and anyone paying attention could take that statement to mean so much more.

  “Hello Eric.”

  The blush that crept along her jaw line and cheeks told him he’d been too focused. Eric forced himself to look around the room and greet his family members. His eyes kept reverting back to Serenity and just how gorgeous she looked. This was home.

  It took him a few minutes, actual minutes, to notice that Lorna was in the room as well. Eric instantly felt like the worst male alive at having all of his focus on a woman that wasn’t the one he was supposed to be proposing to on this very night.

  Lorna. Lorna was there too.

  Right. LORNA! That’s who his focus should be on and not the dark-haired mystic with the curves of a woman who owned who she was and those perfect red lips. Most men didn’t care one way or the other what a woman put on her lips. As long as they were available for the requested and required tasks during sex, most of them were good with or without the stain.