Her Name Is Trouble: A small-town contemporary romance (The Daimsbury Chronicles Book 2) Read online

  Her Name Is Trouble

  The Daimsbury Chronicles, Book 2

  By Zee Monodee

  Small-town contemporary romance set in Surrey, England

  The Daimsbury Chronicles:

  Bad Luck With Besties

  Her Name is Trouble

  Coming Soon

  Upon A Stormy Night (A Spin-Off)

  Against All The Odds

  Her Name is Trouble

  (The Daimsbury Chronicles, Book 2)

  By Zee Monodee

  Copyright 2014-2015 Zee Monodee

  Kindle Edition

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

  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 book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  As the story is set in England, the spelling and Grammar for this book is English (United Kingdom.)

  Cover Artist: Zee Monodee

  Editor: Natalie G. Owens

  Blurb:

  When famous male model Luke Morelli returns to his hometown of Daimsbury in Surrey, he doesn’t expect to cross paths with a walking calamity named Missy Taylor. Within minutes of meeting her, she’s got him out of commission with a broken toe. It’s obvious he should steer clear of the troublemaker...but something about Missy intrigues him, making him want to know her better.

  Texas transplant Missy Taylor is running away from the privileged life she has known in the US South. Her real identity is under wraps, but Luke Morelli stands the risk of uncovering her lies and half-truths the more he stays in the village.

  Her secret concerns him, in fact, but Luke doesn’t have a clue what the truth could imply should Missy’s true identity be discovered.

  Her name is definitely trouble...for him...

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgements

  About The Author

  Coming Soon

  Related Work

  Her Name Is Trouble

  Chapter One

  Sideways.

  Famous male model Luke Morelli had never heard that one. Women threw themselves at him all the time, shouting in his ears to fuck them every which way. Never sideways, though.

  And not like the girl before him looked like a rabid fan. He saw horror on her face, and that split second in which she swore then froze proved enough to catapult her forward from the abrupt halt, the bowl of soup in her hands lurching. The hot liquid dappled the air, sloshing like a tidal wave, to land with a splash onto his shirt, burning his skin.

  He cursed. She cursed. Then she dropped the bowl, which shattered on the floor and splattered more hot soup on his white trousers. He now stung everywhere, the prickle creeping from his skin into his flesh.

  Thank goodness none of the scorching liquid touched his face. He needed his mug for his job, and with a very important shoot only a week away, he couldn’t afford any setbacks. He’d be posing for the new collection of suits from the Saints section of Sinners&Saints, the line from worldwide textile conglomerate TnT Industries that had given him his big break almost a decade earlier. His body represented the icon of the Sinners underwear line, but his face carried the embodiment of Saints’ image.

  He’d spoken too soon, though, because the walking calamity’s feet unglued from the floor and she slipped in the puddle of soup. She skidded so hard and so fast, she slammed into his chest, and when he reached out to clasp her shoulders—which struck him as surprisingly frail under her bulky sweater—he lost his balance and the momentum of her push sent them both to the floor. In her fall, she landed the heel of her trainers right onto his toes.

  Pain flared through his left foot, obliterating any burning sensation on his skin, and the sound that would’ve left his lips muffled in his throat when his back landed on the hard marble floor and the breath knocked out of him. She fell in a heap on top of his body, but he didn’t feel her weight; she had to be lighter than a feather.

  “Gosh darn,” she breathed into his face. “Y’all okay?”

  A southern American accent? Here, in Daimsbury? This Southern belle was a long way from home, for sure.

  His older brother, Liam, suddenly crouched over them.

  “Son of a—” Liam started. “Missy, what are you doing all sprawled out on Luke, of all people?”

  So his brother knew the troublemaker. Of course he would; Liam lived here. Luke started to reply, coming to her defence—not her fault he’d been in the way—but he stopped at the sight of the deep blush on her face. That’s when he took a proper look at her. Black hair, as dark as a crow’s. Obviously a bad dye job, because the locks held no shine and the frizz alone could power a laptop with static electricity. Freckles on the upturned button nose, milky skin that he’d bet belonged to a natural redhead, a pink, kissable mouth with—how surprising—a slightly fuller upper lip. Smoky makeup covered her eyelids, and the irises’ colour struck him as clear grey. These were the only visible features on her, though; the rest of her body, except for the tips of her un-manicured fingers, covered by thick and hefty black fleece.

  He frowned. Such dark, concealing clothing in the thick of spring? Granted, this was England, but everyone jumped for joy and stashed away winter clothes when warmer temps crept in. A ray of sunshine proved enough to bring the miniskirts and tank tops out here. So why not for this girl, who obviously, was very beautiful?

  Liam said her name was...Missy?

  But something about her didn’t add up. He narrowed his eyes and watched her closer. No, it struck him more like this young woman didn’t feel comfortable in her own skin. Why? He knew models with plainer features than hers who carried themselves like royalty. Being in and out of all kinds of people’s midst, and always a keen observer, he picked up cues and clues nobody else dwelled upon.

  “I am so sorry,” she said in a soft, lilting drawl.

  Definitely Southern—he’d say Texas based on the time he’d spent below the Mason-Dixon Line in the US. So a Texas transplant in Daimsbury? Intriguing. He blinked as he focused on her.

  Liam grabbed her elbow and helped her up. As he glanced at Luke still on the floor, he shook his head. “Missy, he’s been in here less than two minutes. How did this happen?”

  She hung her head, mumbled another apology, then turned on her heel and ran back from where she’d come from. That swinging door had to lead to the kitchen of Ben & Jari’s, the only restaurant in the village.

  Luke grabbed the outstretched hand and pulled himself to his feet.

  “That was designer?” Liam nodded at Luke’s clothing.

&nb
sp; The whole outfit would be ruined. He smelled curry in the soup, and nothing stained as bad as turmeric.

  His left leg buckled under him as acute pain shot from his toes. Bloody hell, had she broken something? It felt like it.

  “What’s wrong?” his brother asked.

  He winced and tried to hobble enough to clasp a chair back for support. “I think she smashed my toes.”

  Liam rolled his eyes. “Awesome. You just got here and you’re already out of commission.”

  Panic grabbed him. “Wait a sec. What do you mean, ‘out of commission’? I have to be back in New York next week for the Saints’ shoot.”

  “Trust me, you’re not going anywhere for a while. If that toe is broken, you’re looking at a few weeks of taking it easy. And that includes no hopping all over the globe tripping from plane to plane ASAP.”

  As much as he wanted to ignore these words, he had to pay them heed. Liam knew what he spoke about; as the local girls’ school football coach, he’d brushed up his knowledge of injuries and the time each one set the injured party back.

  Luke closed his eyes and sighed. Jacob Taylor, the big boss at TnT Industries, would kill him if he delayed this shoot. They were already behind schedule, the company waiting to clear this task out of the way before they could launch a corporate social responsibility campaign that would drive even more worldwide awareness to the brands of TnT.

  The pain in his foot increased, his comfortable, roomy Nike trainers growing constricted on the left side. Bad sign; the foot must be swelling.

  “You better take me to a doctor,” he said. “The sooner we ascertain the damage done and how to rectify it, the better.”

  Liam nodded. “Yeah, but you might want to swing by home before hitting the village surgery. Unless you want to go like SpongeLuke. You’re all yellow.”

  “Haha, very funny.”

  His older brother would never let him live it down that he’d loved watching SpongeBob until he’d turned eighteen. Still loved to catch the show when he could; a guilty pleasure he hid from the world. As the epitome of masculinity both for underwear and men’s clothing, he had an image to cultivate.

  Liam chuckled and wrapped an arm around his waist.

  “Wait. You’ll get your clothes all dirty—”

  “I still remember how to do laundry, even though I have a wife now to help around. Come on. And good thing we both wear the same size.”

  Perfect—Liam would pilfer his suitcase with a legitimate excuse now. A groan escaped him. His brother might still dislike that he’d dropped out of his A-levels to become a model, but Liam never begrudged the perks of his position on the top rungs of the industry. Mind, he loved his sibling, and could see where the feeling sprang from, Liam having to step in as the father figure when their paternal had finally drowned himself into a bottle the year Luke had been ten, Liam fourteen, and their sister, Joely, a mere seven.

  They hobbled to the entrance of the still-empty restaurant and Luke paused in the doorway to catch his breath amid the pain and also to throw another look towards the kitchen.

  She—Missy—hadn’t come out again, and something about her tickled his mind like a nagging doubt. Could he somehow know her? He didn’t remember meeting anyone named Missy, and he could count on his photographic memory of people to guide him there.

  So what was it about her?

  She’d proved herself a mighty disaster around him, though, and caution stated he better steer clear.

  As things stood, he would already be toast with his employer, all thanks to a hurt foot.

  ***

  Missy—real name, Iris Ann—Taylor huddled in a little ball in a corner of the dark restaurant pantry where no one would come looking for her. She’d had enough of being found today, after slamming head-on into Luke Morelli out there. Her clothes stank of curry but she didn’t bother with the wetness or the smell.

  You can run but you can’t always hide.

  She closed her eyes tight as the thought flashed in her head like one of those billboards on Times Square.

  Bad analogy to bring up, because thinking of that location brought to mind the image of Luke on one of those enormous screens. The very first poster from Sinners&Saints to become iconic, where a twenty-year-old Luke stood in nothing but snug briefs, one buff arm around the waist of supermodel Mary Beth Beresford. He pulled her silk nightie-clad form to him while she had placed a delicate hand on his naked chest and peered up into his face with desire evident in her hooded eyes and parted lips. Think Victoria’s Secret but in a male version—that’s how popular the brand, just starting back then, grew to become. Or David Beckham or Cristiano Ronaldo in underwear ad campaigns…times ten! Luke had proved that sinful and sizzling.

  Missy had been fifteen at the time, and like the rest of the world, had glimpsed that image for the first time as it had been unveiled in New York, and she’d crushed big on the hot new male model to hit the industry. Every woman had wanted to be Mary Beth, so Luke would pull her to him in that manner in the bedroom. A relative unknown before Sinners&Saints launched, Luke had shot to global fame from that point on, acquiring name recognition—he used to be known as ‘that black briefs’ guy—and becoming one of the hottest commodities in the world of male fashion. Where models looked like androgynous creatures on the runways, he stood out with his muscular build and wide shoulders in perfect proportion to his six-four height. Who wouldn’t have swooned upon this veritable incarnation of masculine perfection?

  And then she’d met him at her family’s summer home in the Hamptons, and he’d even turned out not to be a jerk. Instead, Luke had proved himself a soulful, down-to-earth man who wore his regular guy roots like a badge of honour. He’d listened when no one else had, given her undivided attention while the rest of her entourage brushed her off as a nuisance or an afterthought.

  That night, at the cocktail party on the eve of her departure for boarding school in Switzerland, Luke Morelli had caught her in his spell. She’d lost herself in the deep, moss-green eyes, in those adorable crinkles at their corners whenever he smiled, which he did a lot. His beautiful mouth would so often break into a grin, a genuine expression of his feelings that he displayed as an open book on the perfection of his chiselled features. She’d yearned to run her fingers in the silky, dark locks that fell over his forehead at the front and touched his collar at the back.

  At one point, she’d even opened her mouth to tell him to call her Missy, like what her friends—not that she had many; her mother had seen to that with her tyrannical upbringing—called her, but had bitten her tongue at the last second. For him, she’d have to remain Iris Ann Taylor, the only daughter and heir of his boss, Jacob Taylor. Thank the Lord she hadn’t; otherwise, she’d have been busted today.

  And back then, she’d also heard that Luke and Mary Beth Beresford had chemistry that didn’t fizzle off the photo shoot stage; they’d become a couple in real life. No respectable Southern belle took another woman’s man. She’d had all the manners drilled into her...so much so that nothing of her had been left, except in those moments when she’d pull her razor in her bathroom and drag it across the skin of her wrists and arm. The cuts and bleeding had made her feel something, anything, and when matters got so dire that she’d contemplated pushing the blade just a tiny bit more so it’d reach her vein, the time had come to run. She’d left Texas with an acquaintance who loved to party, convincing him to show her the clubbing trails of Europe. After Ibiza and Barcelona, she’d ditched him in London, where she soon lost everything she owned.

  A cue for a new beginning, as she’d seen it back then. But she’d had nothing, no one, and she wouldn’t dream of alerting her family or using their plastic money so they could know where she was.

  A memory of words spoken to her had flittered into her mind then. Luke telling her about his birthplace, a small village in Surrey called Daimsbury, about an hour west of London. He’d said it held magic, and she’d believed him. Hitchhiking had brought her to the sleepy l
ittle hamlet, and she’d skulked around the only restaurant’s back alley hoping to score something from the bins—beggars couldn’t be choosers, and she’d die before going back to her father!

  She’d been scarfing a surprisingly untouched takeaway portion of the best chicken tandoori she’d had in her life when a shadow had fallen over her. Ben Hamidi, one of the owners of Ben&Jari, had taken one look at her and asked her if she planned to scavenge for the rest of life, because otherwise, he had a proposal for her. A job in the restaurant to earn her food and bed, for starters.

  The rest became history, and she’d been in this small town for the past nine months, being herself—Missy—and not Iris Ann, the paragon of southern belle graces her mother had made her into.

  But now the past had caught up. She shook her head at her naïveté. Here she stood in his home place; of course she ran the risk of running into him sometime. What had she been thinking to come here?

  The pantry door squeaked and a sliver of light fell across her lap. Missy glanced up, encountering the silhouette of a stocky man in the doorway. She sniffled and wiped her nose with the edge of her sleeve.

  “I...I’ll be right out,” she said around the lump of dread in her throat.

  He didn’t reply her. Instead, he walked in and squatted in front of her. The ray of light now glinted off the shiny pate of his bald head.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked in his deep and comforting, raspy voice after long seconds of watching her with patience gleaming in his large dark eyes.

  “It’s nothing, Ben—”

  “Beti...”

  Ben hailed from Lebanon, but had adopted the Indian endearment for ‘daughter’ from Jari Saran, his restaurant partner with whom he lived on the restaurant building’s upper floors. To this day, she still had no clue whether they were a gay couple or just good friends.