Forbidden Gold (Providence Gold Book 5) Read online

  My brother’s breathing sped up before he answered. “Oh, I don’t know about that. I’m new—like, really new—to this. I’ll just hold you guys back.” And then I swore he ran out of the shop, his heavy footsteps audible down the phone. “Laugh it up, fucker. One day, this shit will happen to you!”

  Although I was struggling to breathe, it felt good to laugh and clear the tension that’d been almost exploding out of me previously. I still needed to follow through on my decision and get help. I needed to fix what I’d done to Ariana this morning, and I needed to organize my life so that I had control of all of it. But damn, it felt good to think about it with a bit of positivity in my mind.

  “Dale, you’re the best brother in the world,” I said through the laughter, meaning every word of it.

  “Fucking right, doggy,” he muttered. “Now, tell me what happened to bring this life change we were discussing on, and then we’ll break it down and get shit sorted.”

  So, lying on my back on the bed that smelled like Ari, I went back to when I’d first noticed her as a woman. That moved onto all of the shit that’d happened between us, what areas of my life I needed to fix, and where I wanted to get to. He was with me every step of the way, throwing ideas at me while he researched therapists and looked at their credentials.

  The issue I’d had before was that the therapist I’d seen as a kid was one of my stepmother’s friends, so my ‘treatment’ had been pathetic and caused more damage. I’d seen a therapist independently while I was at med school, but something like this took long term therapy and wouldn’t ever be an easily fixed situation. So, any therapist who took me on needed to know their shit and also be completely independent from my dad’s wife.

  The one Dale found was all of those and more, and a little bit more of the weight on my shoulders lifted. I’d been carrying it around for years, living a life where I’d assumed what I had was okay, when it was so far from it that it was the opposite of okay. Now the prospect of freedom gave me the extra motivation to do this and see it through.

  “While we’re discussing first steps,” Dale said, drawing me out of my thoughts. “I think you need to text Ariana now before it festers and say something to explain it all.”

  The thought of her knowing my secret made my gut turn to stone. “I can’t do that. She’ll be disgusted, Dale.”

  The sound of frustration he made—one I’d heard repeatedly over the years about what had happened—made me tense even more. Instead of telling me just to do it, though, he said something that made complete sense.

  “No, you’re not telling her shit like that by text. Jesus Christ, Parker, that’s just fucked up. What I’m saying is that you need to tell her this morning was a surprise, and you reacted badly, but that you’re going to make it right.”

  My phone was already on speaker, so I swiped up the screen and hit the messaging icon, finding her name on the list quickly. “Okay, I’ll read it out to you when I’m done.”

  “I’ll just sit here looking at the pile of wool and knitting patterns I’ve got. Shout me when you’re ready.”

  It took me quite a few rounds of editing and changes, but I finally got there.

  “Okay, how’s this? Ari, waking up with you this morning was a shock, but not a bad one. What was bad was how I reacted to it and then didn’t explain it like I should have. I’m so fucking sorry! I have some shit I need to fix, but I’m going to make it up to you. Actions speak louder than words, right? I’ll find something that yells how sorry I am.”

  “You sound awkward, but it still sounds good. Put a heart or a kiss at the end of it before you send it. It makes it more emotional than just a guy talking shit to not look like an asshole.”

  Figuring he was right, I added a heart and hit send.

  “Done. Now I’ve got to make an appointment to see Doctor Chahal.”

  The next six months weren’t easy. Building trust in a new doctor, regardless of how trustworthy they seemed, wasn’t easy, but I got there. Once I let my walls down and told him my story, my new doctor helped me understand it and put it all into perspective. That was the first step to recovery: understanding the situation and working on regaining all the control I’d lost. I explained how I was living my life and why and realized there were a lot of adjustments to be made that I hadn’t even thought were a problem.

  When the opportunity to move my residency to a hospital twenty-five minutes away from where Ariana lived came up, with my therapist's approval, I applied for it, got it, and then transferred to a therapist there, too. Ariana hadn’t seemed happy when she’d found out about my move, but I was slowly getting through to her.

  I was a new version of myself who was more worthy of her. And it was finally time.

  One

  Ariana

  “Oh, it’s going to be a long night,” Sadie, the new bartender at Rebels, muttered as she filled a glass with beer from the tap, her eyes on the sobbing woman two seats down from me.

  She’d only started working here a week ago, but she was the shit. Her British accent and wit made me laugh so hard I felt cheated every time I looked down and didn’t see a twelve-pack on my stomach.

  “He just dumped me,” the chick wailed loudly, getting the attention of most of the customers in Rebels, the bar owned by my sister-in-law and her dad.

  It wasn’t something we hadn’t already heard that night, though, seeing as how she’d been pouring her heart out to Beau for the last twenty minutes.

  Glancing at me and raising her eyebrow as she refilled the woman’s glass of wine, Beau nodded sympathetically. “It happens, babe. Men come, men go.”

  I couldn’t help the snicker that came out of me at her choice of words. In more ways the one…

  Yup, welcome to the lonely girls club. The men we wanted were assholes, so we’d made a pact a year ago to just use them for their penises. Unfortunately, that hadn’t panned out the way we intended it to because my vagina apparently only wanted one man—the asshole himself, Parker Knight. And Beau… actually, why hadn’t she exercised her slut-card? Sure, Rich Suave was her penis kryptonite, but she could still do her thing, right?

  “It was all going so great,” the chick whimpered. “We were having some of the best sex I’ve ever had in my life, and then…” she paused, and I’m not at all ashamed to admit that I leaned in closer to hear what went wrong. I mean, if the sex was great, why would he dump her?

  “And then?” Beau prompted, filling her glass with the inch of wine she’d consumed as Sadie stopped cleaning the bar and leaned in to listen, her eyes on me to make it look a bit less obvious.

  “And then I came so hard I farted,” she finished, just as I took a strong pull on my straw, meaning that I almost inhaled it all when I did a choking laugh.

  Here’s something that became brutally apparent as I tried to stop myself from drowning—if it was possible to do it when you inhaled your drink—it’s impossible to save your life quietly. Every time I tried to wheeze it out or cough into my hand, my abdomen would do this weird squeezing thing, and my brain decided I had to start hacking it up.

  “Give me a second,” Beau choked out, and then a glass of water appeared under my nose. “Christ, girl, get it together.”

  I would have told her it was impossible, but I was too busy trying to breathe. I wouldn’t take it for granted ever again if the oxygen would just go into my lungs.

  “Is she okay?” orgasm fart chick asked, passing me a tiny cocktail napkin. “She’s going purple.”

  I didn’t hear what Beau replied because just then, a hand started patting me firmly on the back.

  “What happened?” a deep voice belonging to the man I was doing everything I could to avoid said, breaking through the sound of my last heartbeats that were audible at high volume in my head now.

  “Inhaled her drink.”

  “Ari, tip your head back and take as deep a breath as you can,” Parker instructed me firmly, and I was so desperate for oxygen by that point that I did it without be
ing pissed off like I usually was when he tried to boss me around. I mean, Jesus Christ, I hadn’t had oxygen in ten hours, so I’d be willing to take orders from Satan by this point.

  Doing as he said, I breathed as deeply as I could, lowering my head back down again to cough and splutter.

  “Keep doing it, baby. The more you do it, the better it’ll be.”

  Sure enough, within minutes, the dots that’d been dancing behind my eyes stopped, and I wasn’t feeling so lightheaded. I was going to survive.

  Breathing in a shuddering breath, I was just readying myself to say thank you to him when the woman who should never eat baked beans before having sex said, “Why are you here? You said it was over, and we shouldn’t see each other again.”

  The vice that had only just stopped crushing my chest started up its shit again as I looked up at Beau, seeing her watching something behind me with an expression that screamed I wish I’d brought popcorn. Yeah, probably because it wasn’t Rico Suave who’d fucked a woman so hard she’d farted when she came. Movement next to her caught my attention, and I watched Sadie bring over a bottle of rum, pull the little spout thingy out of the top, and stick a straw in it before placing it on the bar right in front of my face.

  “You’ll thank me for it, love,” she whispered loudly, looking over my shoulder at whatever was happening behind me.

  “For the love of God,” Beau snapped. “You can’t serve her a bottle of rum, Sadie.”

  Sighing, she reached under the bar, picked up a freaking massive glass with a logo printed on it, put it on the bar, and poured the contents of the bottle into it. Then, she reached across the bar, picked up three cherries and a straw, and dropped them in with the rum.

  Looking at it with a frown, she smacked her head. “Of course, where’s my brain at?”

  Not waiting for an answer, she lifted the glass with both her hands, walked over to the area where the ice was, tipped some into it, and then brought it back, only stopping to pick up a second straw. Once she got back to where I was, she placed it back on the counter and picked up the soda gun.

  Pressing down on a button, she sprayed Coke into it. “One potato, two potatoes,” she counted and then stopped.

  Leaning down, she took a sip using the second straw, hummed, and sprayed a quick squirt of Coke on top.

  “Righty ho, bottoms up,” she prompted, leaning on her elbows on the bar, straw in her mouth as she waited for me to do the same thing.

  Warily, I picked up the spare straw and took a mouthful, almost dying for a second time tonight as the pretty much undiluted rum hit my raw throat. With a wink, Sadie sucked on her straw and waved her hand at me to do the same thing.

  “Really?” Beau snapped, and then a third straw appeared in the glass as she joined us, gulping down a couple of healthy mouthfuls.

  Once we were halfway down the glass, Sadie lifted her head. “Sorry, you were saying?” she asked, her question aimed at the woman who was patting her face dry with a cocktail napkin now.

  Keeping my head down, I muttered, “Please, Jesus, don’t go into any more detail.”

  And while we were on the subject, ish—and not that I had enough oxygen going to my brain yet—who the hell does that? And why the shit would they ever admit that they’d farted when they’d come to anyone, let alone a stranger behind a bar? It was a level of disgusting I couldn’t even get close to getting my head around.

  It’s all shits and giggles until someone comes and farts, I guess.

  “You’re right, Ramona, I did say that, but I’m here to see my friend,” a new deep voice said, and I spun around to see who it was. Doctor Chris Carter, the hottest doctor at the hospital. It was ironic, too, seeing as how Beau and I had been discussing the merits of waking up with a broken bone just to get his hands on us only an hour previously.

  That was until this exact moment when we learned he could make women orgasm so hard that they farted, well at least it was that way for me. No woman wanted that on their conscience, but Beau might think it was worth it just to see him naked.

  Glancing over my shoulder at her, I mouthed, “do I look like shit?” My mascara was waterproof, but that didn’t always mean it’d hold up. The way she held her hand up and wiggled it back and forth as if she was saying ‘ehhh’ didn’t fill me with the warm and fuzzies.

  Here’s the other thing about our dreams of waking up with a broken bone so that Dr. Bet-He-Has-A-Huge-Stethoscope would put his hands on us—it had to be after a full body wax and sugar scrub, so we were fresh to death. Oh, and with a full face of makeup. It was what it was, I wasn’t going to feel ashamed by the fact I wouldn’t go and get medical help without looking my best. He was that kind of guy, but then so was Parker, and he’d seen me in some awful states, before and after I’d had surgery done to take me from hideous to meh.

  Yeah, I’d had two procedures done, and I didn’t regret either of them. I wasn’t like my brothers. I didn’t wake up in the morning looking ready to roll without people running away and being hit by nightmares for the rest of their lives—I was the star of those nightmares unless I did my shit.

  Did I take hours doing my hair and makeup, contouring, so I looked like a different person now? Fuck no. I only did what needed to be done.

  Did I edit my social media photos so much so that people didn’t recognize me when they saw me in person? Fuck no, and those bitches pissed me off. People are going to see them in real life at some point, and it’d be obvious that they were an asshole who Photoshopped the shit out of themselves. I mean, come on, we’ve all giggled when we’ve come across it. What part of them thought people wouldn’t guess or that unedited photos of them wouldn’t make it online?

  Anyway, when I’d hit nineteen, I’d had such huge problems with how looked that I begged my parents to let me have surgery. I could have done it without it, but I’d needed their support and to know that they understood exactly why I wanted to change. I just wasn’t happy with who I was, and I needed them with me. They’d tried to help me get past the problems since I’d hit puberty, but seeing how much planning and research I’d put into it and how I needed it done just to make the reflection I saw every day bearable to me, they’d finally given in, and we came up with a plan of action.

  I also didn’t want my brothers to find out so, one summer, I went to stay with Mom’s best friend in San Diego and had my nose done and breast implants put in. People always automatically picture Playboy bunny tits when you mention implants, but mine were placed under the muscle so they looked natural, and I’d chosen the ones with a softer profile. I was an A cup when I went in, and I came out a modest D cup after it.

  My nose was my biggest hang-up. I hadn’t even been able to look in the mirror when I was brushing my teeth. On my brothers, it looked handsome and suited them, but on me? I fucking hated it. It seemed too broad for me, and no matter how many makeup tricks I tried, nothing fixed that. The surgeon slimmed it down, took away some of the height at the end of my nose, and then shattered my face with a hammer and a chisel. Slight exaggeration, but still.

  Technically it was part of the procedure to straighten it out and get the effect I wanted, but cheese and rice that shit was sore. I thought I was dying when I woke up and couldn’t breathe, but then they told me they’d stuffed these big flotation devices up my nostrils to support it, and it all made sense.

  The results were everything I wanted and more. I was tall at five foot nine, but even though I ran every day and was active, I was curvy—aside from on my chest. Sure it was pointed out by assholes in middle and high school, but it wasn’t until I heard the guy I’d been crushing on at the time say he’d fuck me in the dark, so he didn’t have to see my flat chest and big nose that I knew I had to get it changed. Yes, the words coming from him stung, but it was more that I couldn’t see past the two problems myself, and if other people were discussing them behind my back, it would be unlikely I’d ever feel confident.

  I’d had so much building up inside me that I became an em
otional wreck who didn’t want to leave her room. There hadn’t been a way for me to let the feelings out until one day something happened in the shower to change it all, and I knew I needed to get help. I’d turned my head and caught sight of myself in the mirror, and I’d been so disgusted, I’d fisted my razor in my hand and stared at my wrist.

  Can anyone imagine hating what they looked like so much that they wanted to end it? That’s when I knew I had to do something because I was drowning. It was a wake-up call, so I’d researched the way I was thinking, researched ways to fix it, and also researched getting help with my mental health. I’d never had to consider that I might have a mental health issue, and for a moment, I’d felt weak. Seeing that it was a genuine problem that affected more than just me… finally, I felt like I’d had a release and could think clearly again, so I’d planned the surgeries and found a therapist.

  People can say what they want—every last person has hang-ups about something to do with themselves. Makeup can fix some of it but so could surgery, and I will never regret what I did. I didn’t have any desire to have anything else done or go bigger in boob size, but maybe something would happen one day, and I’d change my mind. Never say never! Now, if you were to look at the two areas—especially my breasts—it’s unlikely you’d be able to tell they were fake. I wanted it to look natural and not like I’d had two bags put in the area. All I’d wanted was to look fucking normal, and it’s what I’d gotten.

  Now I was facing the rest of my problems one day at a time, finally confident physically, but not emotionally or in my identity. Weird, but true.

  Which was why I’d been distancing myself from my family recently. I wanted to find my place in the world and not as Noah, Archer, Levi, or Tate’s little sister—which was pretty much all that everybody recognized me as.

  And it was why I was here listening in on this conversation, having only just escaped death by the skin of my teeth, staring at two of the hottest doctors in the history of mankind.