The Marriage Dare Read online

  The Marriage Dare

  Penny Wylder

  Copyright © 2019 Penny Wylder

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or businesses, organizations, or locales, is completely coincidental.

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  Contents

  1. Daniel

  2. Monica

  3. Daniel

  4. Monica

  5. Daniel

  6. Monica

  7. Daniel

  8. Monica

  9. Daniel

  10. Monica

  11. Daniel

  12. Monica

  13. Daniel

  14. Monica

  15. Daniel

  Epilogue

  Books By Penny Wylder

  1

  Daniel

  The woman in front of me laughs. Loud and brassy and totally over the top. “And that’s why I say never spend too long in a tanning bed, you know? Too many risks.” She laughs again, this time placing her hand on my arm.

  I laugh along with her, though I don’t find her funny. They rarely are. She’s only speaking to me because he knows that I’m the owner of this casino and she’s hoping that I’m going to fuck her. Take her upstairs and show her a good time so she can get showered in fancy room service and the bragging rights that she fucked the owner of Brazen Casinos. Sometimes I take them up on their offers and show them a good time. But usually those are the ones that have a spark. Something unique about them that makes me want them, at least for the night. Other than truly magnificent size of her implants, this one has nothing. And that’s saying a lot, considering how badly I need a good fuck right now.

  Most of the women who try to throw themselves at me have done their research. And they know that I don’t enjoy speaking with sloppy drunks, and that I never have more than two drinks in an entire evening. She—I can’t remember her name—has had two drinks in the course of our thirty-minute conversation. Probably to convince me that I’m she’s drunk enough to hit on. But I don’t take advantage of people. If there was ever a way to turn me off, that’s one of the fastest ways. If she wants to spend her money in my establishment, I’m not going to argue with her. But nothing else is going to happen. Even though she’s bragging now about her extensive exercise routine and how flexible she is. I struggle not to roll my eyes.

  Not that she has any idea that I’m not paying attention in the slightest. She’s self-absorbed enough not to notice, and you don’t get to where I am without having some charm and the stamina to speak to people that you don’t enjoy. Brazen Casinos is the most successful chain in the western United States, and everybody wants a piece of that. Especially here at our flagship in Las Vegas. So I plaster a smile on my face and make wannabe groupies and VIPs feel good about spending their money before they get so drunk that I have my staff take them back to their rooms.

  Rinse, repeat.

  She’ll wake up with a hangover tomorrow, remember this as the best conversation of her life, and wonder what on earth she did to wake up in her own bed before she has to leave for the airport. Oh, and she’ll spend another five figures in the casino before she leaves. No skin off my back. I’ve seen people like her a hundred times, and it’s worth it to spend a few minutes listening to vapid conversation for that much profit. Hell, maybe I’ll even tell the concierge to give her a ten percent discount on everything. Especially the drinks. In my experience, nothing makes rich women spend money faster than the thought that they’re actually saving money.

  But fuck, I’m tired. I’m trying to focus on what’s in front of me but my attention keeps drifting to literally everything else. I make a note of a lightbulb over one of the poker tables that’s flickering. I’ll have to have that changed by maintenance.

  I need a vacation. A long one. Which is laughable, given the amount of money I have and the fact that I run a business fueled by vacations. But as many wealthy men know, it’s hard to keep your wealth if you don’t work. So a vacation isn’t in the cards for me right now. I’m poised to open another two locations and I’m not going to risk anything going wrong during the launch of those properties because I couldn’t power through. I just need a good night’s sleep, and maybe a good fuck—though not with her—and I’ll be good as new.

  The woman who’s name I’ve forgotten raises his hand to the waitress for another drink, and I pull out my phone. No urgent messages, unfortunately. Nothing to get me out of this. Usually I just let my mind fade into a smooth fog and wait, but this conversation is grating on me. I could flip through my phone and see if there’s anyone I feel like calling for that late night booty-call, but after this conversation, even the idea of that isn’t appealing.

  I take a sip of the whiskey in my glass and savor it, focus on the rich taste. The smokiness. It’s the best that money can buy, and not the whiskey that the bar here serves to anyone. It’s reserved only for me. But tonight, it’s not enough.

  But that might be about to change.

  Across the room, I see a woman in a blue dress. She’s facing away from me, but that doesn’t matter—the back of her dress plunges to her waist, giving me one hell of a view. It’s a pity that the dress doesn’t fall any lower, because even from here, I can see that she’s got a fantastic ass. One that I can imagine gripping firmly, and is completely distracting me from the movie in front of me. Dark hair falls in waves over her shoulders of the woman in blue, and she gracefully sits at one of the poker tables.

  That’s when I notice something else. That dress, gorgeous as it may be, isn’t new. A dress like that—and I see many gorgeous dresses walking around my casino—is made for the wearer, and this is not. It’s too long. I see her try to sweep it around her chair so that it doesn’t get tangled. And the dress gapes a little, giving me a glimpse of the side of her breast.

  So she bought it from someone. Not a crime of course, just intriguing. It’s not something that a lot of people would notice, because they’d be blinded by her beauty. And it almost worked with me. But I like a little bit of mystery. Most people who come into a Brazen Casino wouldn’t be caught dead in second hand clothes. Hell, she’s got a body good enough that I know plenty of designers would offer her clothes for free simply to see her wear them.

  She’s a ways away, so it’s difficult to tell, but I think I spy a frayed edge at the hem of the gown. Definitely interesting.

  I’m no stranger to hand-me-down clothes. I didn’t own a new article of clothing until well into my twenties. But this image doesn’t make sense, and figuring out the puzzle of the mysterious brunette is far more interesting than listening to a busty blonde blather about here overseas yoga retreats.

  Pulling out my phone again, I activate the security system. We have cameras covering every table, as cheating is one of the worst offenses in my—or any other—casino. But in this instance I’m not looking for cheating. I’m looking for her face.

  I flip through the cameras until I find the right table, waiting until she turns. And when she does, my entire body goes cold with shock. I know her. She has a face I’ll never forget and crimes against me that I’ll never forgive.

  Monica Blast. The rich girl from next door who tormented me for years without reason or excuse. I’ll never forget her face. Or lose the desire to take revenge. And she here she is, not fifty feet away. Only a fool wouldn’t see this as an opportunity.

  She’s on my turf, and wearing clothes that don’t
suit her. Monica was never a person that had problems with money—she could afford whatever she damn well pleased. So why is she wearing a dress like that? Not that I mind watching the curves of her back. She’s been sexy since high school, and she knew it too. I can’t imagine that things have changed so much for her that she’d need to rely on hand-me-downs, but I suppose that anything can happen. But there’s a small alarm bell ringing in my head.

  Another thing that I’ve learned about rich people: If they lose their money, they’ll fight like hell to get it back. Even if that means cheating or stealing. Poor little rich girl in my casino in a dress that screams of lost wealth isn’t something that I can just ignore.

  It doesn’t matter that she’s sexy as hell in her second-hand dress. It doesn’t even matter why she’s here in the first place. What matters is that she took everything from me. I never thought that I would have chance to pay her back for all the kindnesses that she paid me when we were younger. Because of course, attention at all from someone of her ‘status’ was always a kindness, wasn’t it?

  I have to hold myself back from laughing, the dark thoughts blooming in my mind. Monica is the woman who made me who I am today. I never stopped fighting to take back what she stole, and now I have everything I could want and more. Except one thing. Revenge.

  My mind is fully awake now, revving up and formulating a plan. She deserves everything that’s coming to her. Perfect humiliation, and greater pleasure—but only if she begs me for it. I’ll fuck her mind before I fuck her body. But I can be sure that I’m going to do both.

  The now-drunk blonde is still talking, this time about the absolutely extravagant trip that she took to the Maldives with her girlfriends—and a few of the boy toys they use when their husbands aren’t around. Fucking rich people. Seeing Monica reminds me how much I hate people like them, and how even though I’m approaching the stage of near limitless wealth, I’ll never, ever, be like the same. I stand quickly, knocking back what’s left of my whiskey. “Excuse me.”

  I walk away from her without another thought, leaving her gaping and sputtering because I now have far better things to do.

  As I watch Monica flip her hair over her shoulder, a memory comes to me. It’s so vivid that I have to stop walking and let it replay. A defining moment between us.

  The sun was bright that day. I remember because it shone off her hair. So many details pop out at me from those moments—the smell of the dirt under me after she pushed me down, the sound of her friends laughing, and my panic.

  It had been summer, and I worked as a dishwasher at a little diner in our town for almost nothing because I was fifteen and they just needed another body. I had saved every penny from that job, and finally bought myself something. A Game Boy. Rage flies through my chest even now over the stupid, simple object. But it was the most expensive thing that I had ever owned, despite the fact that it was used and more than a little beat up when I got it.

  I loved that Game Boy more than anything. Those first few weeks I had it were the best, the rest of my measly salary going to buy old games to play on it. Finally, I had thought finally, I know what it feels like to be like them. People with money. People who didn’t struggle every day for simple things like Mom and Dad. I had even tried to give them the money I used to buy they toy, but they wouldn’t hear of it. They insisted that I use the money to buy something for myself.

  My guilt was strong, but I bought the Game Boy, and it was the most fun I’d ever had. Until that day. I’d returned from my shift at the diner and was playing a game on the porch when Monica and a few of her friends came down the street. My parents were still at work—they were almost always at work. She had been mean to me for a long time, but lately she had been nicer. I smiled and waved as they passed.

  “Hi, Daniel,” Monica said. “What are you doing?”

  I shook my head. “Nothing much, just playing a game.”

  “Can I see?” She had sounded so genuinely curious, and she had been so beautiful. Perfect pink sundress waving in the breeze. Of course I said yes, and sprinted down off the porch to show her. I showed her the game. It was something simple, I barely remember now. It’s not one of the details that’s preserved.

  Her friends laughed when I showed them, and then, she did too. “What a nerd,” one of them whispered.

  Monica was still laughing. “I’ve never seen you with a Game Boy before.”

  “I just got it,” I told her, still oblivious. “I’ve got a job washing dishes at Joe’s.”

  One of the friends rolled their eyes. “No you don’t. I go to Joe’s every week and I never see you there. He probably stole it.”

  “I do work there,” I protested. “Customers can’t see into the back where I’m working.”

  “He definitely stole it,” the other friend said, stepping in front of Monica. “Why are poor people always such filthy liars? Aren’t they, Monica? Filthy liars.”

  “Yeah,” Monica said quietly, appraising me. She isn’t looking at me with the same hatred as the other two, but neither is it kind.

  “I—” I didn’t even get the chance as I was shoved to the ground. The dirt was hot under me, and I could smell it.

  “Don’t even bother,” the first girl said, yanking the Game Boy out of my hands. “People like you don’t deserve stuff like this.” She handed the toy to Monica. “You should break it to teach him a lesson.”

  Monica took it, and she was still staring at me. Her eyes were cold and completely devoid of emotion. There was silence for a moment, like she was waiting for something, though I didn’t know what. Why was she doing this? Why were any of them? I thought things were getting better.

  And even though I hated this, I couldn’t help but notice how gorgeous Monica was. She had grown up, and I was starting to notice curves that hadn’t been there before. Curves that I craved to touch.

  I was disgusted with myself for wanting her, but that didn’t change the pull of desire in my gut or the way I was chanting in my head to try not to get hard. They were already mocking me, I didn’t need them to make fun of me for being a pervert too.

  “Smash it.” One of the girls said.

  “Yeah, smash it.”

  The words went up in a chorus, begging Monica to break the Game Boy, and my heart started to pound. She wouldn’t. Not really. Right? I had worked so hard. I hadn’t stolen it. There was no reason to break it. I pushed my hands under me and started to sit up, distracted by a shift in her movement.

  It was Monica’s legs that caught my eye, the way they peeked out from underneath her dress. At the angle I was, I could almost see up it, and I was caught in a moment of indecision about whether to stand because suddenly all I wanted was to see just a little bit further. To see if she was as pink and sexy as I had imagined at night when she plagued my thoughts.

  She saw. Monica’s eyes narrowed as she looked at me, figuring out exactly where I had been looking, and anger flared on her face. It was the first emotion that she had shown—pure and utter fury. Her friends were still egging her on, begging her to smash my most precious possession, and as I watched, her face turned into a cruel smile.

  “Monica,” I begged. “Please. Don’t.”

  She did it anyway. I was on my feet in a second but I wasn’t fast enough. She threw it with horrifying force into the street, and I watched as it splintered apart into pieces. Her friends cheered and then laughed, and I felt cold steel and anger grow in my chest.

  For the briefest of seconds, I thought I saw regret on her face. But it was only for a second as her friends pulled her away, and in the next moment one of them said something that had them all laughing.

  It served me right, I remember thinking. I should never have been fooled by her beauty. Monica Blast was my nemesis. It was pure and simple. She was a bully in beautiful packaging and I needed to always remember that. Stuck-up rich princess, and the biggest bitch I had ever known. My enemy. My bully. And in my limited experience, I had found that bullies didn’t change. />
  2

  Monica

  Don’t panic. Do. Not. Panic.

  I take a deep breath, in and out to calm my beating heart. I just lost that hand, but I have enough money for a couple more if I play my cards right. Literally. And then I’ve got nothing. My whole life I’ve been told about beginner’s luck, and I can’t think of a time that I needed it more. Turns out, beginner’s luck is absolute horseshit.

  But never let them see you sweat, right? Pretend you’re at a pageant. When I used to walk the stage in beauty pageants, poise was everything. It didn’t matter if you tripped or weren’t perfect, as long as you were poised. I can do that now. I flash a brilliant smile at the dealer as he deals the cards. The dress I’m wearing is one of my pageant gowns from years past. I found it in one of the boxes and decided to take it for one last spin before I try to sell it. It doesn’t fit anymore since I’m thinner from skipping meals and I no longer wear the ankle-breaking heels that are meant to be worn with it.

  Sitting in a box hasn’t exactly done the dress any favors either, but it’s good enough to get by, and that’s all I need right now. “How are you tonight?” I ask the dealer. Not to distract him or anything, but because it’s easier for me to conceal my nerves if I’m talking.

  “I’m doing well,” he says quietly. Hands move deftly over the cards as he deals. I peek at my hand, and my heart sinks. It’s a two and a three. Not exactly what you want when you’re trying to win big.

  But maybe not everything is lost, because the card that lands face up on the table is a six. Okay. Okay. Possible straight. I just smile like I’ve got everything I want in the world, even though I have absolutely nothing. Nothing.