Chased into Love (Bachelorette Party Book 4) Read online

  Chased Into Love

  Rochelle Paige

  Contents

  Chased Into Love

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Epilogue

  Epilogue 2

  Also by Rochelle Paige

  About the Author

  Chased Into Love

  He stayed away from trouble...

  Mark Anderson was a steadfast kind of guy. He did all the right things—earned his MBA, worked hard, dated appropriate women—but he was still single when it seemed like everyone around him was happily coupled up.

  Until it came barreling his way in a tempting package...

  Ariana Valenti had always been a party girl. But after a major wake-up call, she's a reformed one. Except not everyone in Las Vegas has gotten the message, which sends her running to Chicago...and straight into Mark's arms.

  Chased Into Love can be read as a standalone. Each book in the Bachelorette Party Series features a different couple.

  Chapter One

  Ariana

  Moving to Chicago in the middle of January wasn’t my idea of a good time, but desperate times called for desperate measures. And with two huge guys standing in my doorway because they’d been sent by my mom’s bookie, my situation was beyond desperate.

  The slightly bigger guy’s gaze drifted over my shoulder to the boxes stacked against the opposite wall. “You going somewhere?”

  “My lease is up, so I’ve got to find a new place.” They didn’t need to know I already had one and it was eighteen hundred miles away.

  “Our boss doesn’t take kindly to people running out on their debts,” the other guy rumbled.

  My back straightened at the accusation. I might’ve gone off the rails after my dad skipped out on us, skipping school and partying harder than I should’ve, but I’d never turned to gambling. “I don’t owe your boss a single, goddamn penny. I’ve never placed a wager with him. Never borrowed money from him or anyone else. I don’t even know who the hell he is!”

  The first guy’s eyes drifted down to my feet and back up again, pausing at my tits just long enough to make me feel super uncomfortable. “You’re Ariana Valenti, right? Because you sure as fuck fit the description our boss gave us.”

  “I am.” As much as I would’ve liked to deny it, these weren’t the kind of guys you lied to. It had been scary enough to open the door and find them standing there. Now I was freaked the fuck out thinking not only about why their boss would’ve described me to his henchmen, but also if what he’d said had caused that lingering stare at my tits. “But I still have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “You might not have placed the bet or borrowed the money, but there’s still a debt to be paid. And our boss has indicated that he’s more than happy to”—his gaze dropped lower again, and he licked his lips—“negotiate with you instead of going after your mom for payment in full.”

  The mess my mom had managed to land herself in this time must be a hell of a lot worse than I’d suspected. When she’d first gotten out of rehab for her gambling addiction a few months ago, I’d thought maybe it’d actually done some good. That she’d finally kicked the habit. I’d hoped that the extra thirty days Alec, my sister Alessia’s husband, had paid for her to stay in there had paid off. But I’d still refused to let her move in with me.

  For the first time ever, I’d had a home all to my own and I hadn’t wanted to share it. Especially not with my mom, considering she’d stolen rent money from Alessia, and we’d all almost wound up living on the streets only seven months ago. No matter how many times she’d tried to guilt me into changing my mind, I’d held firm. Eventually, she’d backed off and found a cheap, rent-by-the-week place for herself, but she’d never once passed up an opportunity to complain to me about how much better my apartment was than hers.

  For the first month she’d been back, we talked or saw each other a few times a week. It slowly tapered off to a call once a week. Then every ten days or so. This month, I’d only talked to her once because she’d hadn’t returned any of my messages since we last spoke. I’d had a feeling that maybe she’d gone back to her old ways, and I’d wanted none of it. So the last time I called Alessia, I’d asked her about moving to Chicago. Since she was in her third trimester of her first pregnancy and Alec was in the middle of hockey season, she’d jumped all over the idea. The next thing I knew, Alec was emailing me a flight confirmation, contact information for the moving company he’d hired to haul my things halfway across the country, and an offer for a job at my choice of his brother’s nightclubs or restaurants.

  His email had gotten rid of any lingering doubts I’d had about my decision, and I’d spent the past two days happily quitting my job, packing my stuff, and saying goodbye to my friends. But I should’ve known it wouldn’t be that easy. Nothing ever was when it came to my mom.

  “My mom’s debts are her problem. Not mine.”

  The second guy shook his head and sighed. “You sure you want to play it that way? We’re being nice since our boss told us to use a gentle approach with you, but he’s not going to make the same stipulation with your mom. This is your only opportunity to protect her from the world of hurt we’re going to be forced to lay down on her when she doesn’t pay up. Our boss doesn’t normally negotiate when someone owes as much as she does. If you don’t come with us now…”

  I gulped as he trailed off, his implication clear—once I made my decision about how to handle this situation, there would be no going back. The little girl inside of me who loved my mom desperately wanted to agree to whatever it took to keep her safe. The rational part of my brain knew that if the expensive rehab facility she’d spent ninety days in hadn’t been able to cure her gambling addiction, then any help I gave now would only be a temporary fix. But I still wanted to fully understand how badly my mom had fucked up before I figured out if I head out of town and leave her to clean up her own mess. “How much does she owe?”

  “Fifty.”

  It took my brain a moment to wrap around the fact there were four zeroes after the five in the number he’d given me. “Who in the hell would let my mom rack up fifty large in debt? She hasn’t held down a steady job in years and lives in a transient motel for fuck’s sake! Nobody in their right mind would ever think she’d be good for that kind of money.”

  The first guy didn’t take kindly to my characterization of his boss. He took a step forward, grabbed my arm with a meaty fist, and yanked me closer. “Watch your mouth, woman. Our orders from the boss to treat you with kid gloves only goes so far. Louie doesn’t put up with disrespect from anyone.”

  “Louie?” I echoed softly, scared to get the confirmation I was almost certain was coming. I only knew of one bookie in Vegas named Louie, and I was hoping like hell there was someone else I’d never heard about before. “My mom owes Louie DeFiglio fifty large?”

  “Yeah, and it’s due by Friday.”

  Shit.

  Fuck.

  Damn.

  Ever since I’d served Louie DeFiglio at one of the VIP booths in the nightclub where I worked a little more than a month ago, I’d done my best to avoid him. It’d stung too since he was a big tipper. But I hadn’t liked the look in his eyes when I’d turned him down after he’d asked me out
to dinner. And I’d liked it even less when he’d shown up two nights later and requested me as his server. Luckily, I was already handling a big bachelor party with a bunch of celebrities in attendance, so my boss hadn’t blinked when I’d suggested someone else take Louie’s table. It hadn’t been as easy to pawn him off on my co-workers the other times he’d come in since then, but I’d managed to figure it out.

  When his visits stopped after two weeks, I’d heaved a sigh of relief since I’d figured he’d gotten the message and was leaving me alone. But I was getting the feeling that maybe I’d been wrong. Maybe he’d decided on a different way to get to me since hanging out at the nightclub wasn’t getting him anywhere.

  “From what I’ve heard about your boss, my mom isn’t exactly his usual kind of client. Doesn’t he mostly take bets from whales? How’d she even come to his attention in the first place?”

  “Word got around to him that her old bookie wouldn’t take her bets anymore and she was looking for some action, so he offered her a seat at his table.”

  The first part of his answer wasn’t a surprise since Alec had gotten the bookie my mom used to drop her as a client when he paid off the five grand she’d owed him before she went into rehab. It was the second half of what he’d said that worried me since it sounded like Louie had made a point of getting my mom in his debt. “But why?”

  His gaze dropped to my tits—a-fucking-gain—and his lips tilted up in a knowing smirk. “I’m sure he had his reasons.”

  Yeah, that’s exactly what I was afraid of. Knowing Louie DeFiglio had targeted my mom to get to me filled me with guilt. But I held on to the fact that she’d opened herself up to his play by hitting up her old haunts in the first place. If she’d stayed away, he never would’ve been able to use her as leverage against me.

  The extra time she’d spent in rehab hadn’t helped at all. All the promises she’d made about never gambling again when she got out apparently hadn’t meant a thing since it took her less time than she’d been in rehab to return to her bad habits.

  If I bailed her out of this mess, it was just going to happen again. Knowing that didn’t stop me from being tempted to go with these guys and find out exactly what Louie wanted from me to cover the fifty grand my mom owed him—even though I had a pretty good idea what he wanted from me to cover that big of a debt.

  If I’d been the tiniest bit attracted to him, maybe I could stomach the idea of doing what he wanted to keep my mom safe. But I wasn’t. Which meant I couldn’t show any hint of weakness when it came to my mom with a guy like him. He’d be relentless until he got everything that he wanted from me. It wouldn’t matter to him if I wasn’t truly willing. If he had to keep using my mom to coerce me into saying yes, that’s exactly what he’d do. It would be an endless cycle, and I refused to allow myself to be pulled into it. Not when I had so many good things waiting for me in Chicago.

  “I’m sorry, guys. My original answer still stands. My mom’s debts are her own. They aren’t mine, and I’m not willing to take responsibility for them.”

  The guy who’d stepped closer to me leveled me with a disapproving glare. “Your mom’s not gonna be able to pay. You know what that means for her. You’re just going to stand by and let it happen?”

  I gave him a jerky nod, swallowing down a lump in my throat. He shook his head and swiveled on his foot before walking away. The other guy jerked his chin towards the boxes I’d packed and lowered his voice when he advised, “If you’re going to take off, do it fast and make it as far away as you can get. When the boss sets his sights on something, he doesn’t take no for an answer. And he’s definitely set his sights on you.”

  He wasn’t telling me anything I hadn’t already figured out on my own. But the fact that one of Louie’s henchman felt the need to warn me sent chills down my spine. I was more grateful than ever that my little sister’s white knight of a husband hadn’t wasted a second to get my ass to Chicago to help Alessia with her pregnancy while he was out of town for away games. They thought I was doing them a favor, but in reality he’d saved me. It would’ve been nice if I had a white knight of my own to rush to my rescue, but that was the least of my worries at the moment. Getting the hell out of here was all that mattered.

  Chapter Two

  Mark

  “What in the hell, Andrew,” I growled at my best friend as I dropped down onto the chair in front of his desk. “You hired a new waitress? And promised her that she could work at whichever location she wanted, start date to be determined by her, and she gets the primo shifts right off the bat? Did all that missed sleep from back when Julia was up crying every hour or two kill more brain cells than I thought?”

  Andrew didn’t bother stifling a chuckle in response to my complaint. Stretching an arm out, he nudged the nameplate until it almost fell off the edge of his desk. “Not enough of them that I’ve forgotten who’s the boss around here.”

  I rolled my eyes and shook my head as I sighed, “Fuck you, too.”

  “C’mon now,” he laughed. “You know I’m joking. It might’ve been my initial investment that started this company, but I know better than anyone that it wouldn’t be where it is today without you. And not just back when we were first starting out and I was too busy with hockey to worry about business either. The sacrifices you’ve made when Jocelyn had her accident and later when Julia was born…”

  I waved off the gratitude that I was sure was about to follow. “I didn’t do much, just put in some extra hours so you could focus on the really important stuff.”

  “We both know it was a fuck of a lot more than that. You’ve practically lived and breathed work for the past year, and you paid the price for my happiness when that woman left you for it.”

  “Lisa,” I corrected out of habit. For a guy who never used nicknames for the people in his life, Andrew had this weird thing about not calling my ex-girlfriend by her actual name. He did it the entire time I’d dated her, and it was just one of the many things she’d taken great joy in bitching about to me. Even though she’d liked spending the money I earned, she was always pissed about how much time I spent at work. It only got worse when I added onto my hours because Andrew had his hands full out of the office. A supportive girlfriend would’ve understood my need to help my best friend and maybe tried to figure out a way to make things easier for me. But Lisa had been far from supportive, and nothing I ever did was enough for her. “Lisa dumping me wasn’t the price I paid for stepping up to the plate for you and your family. It was more like a reward for doing it since I should’ve broken up with her ages ago.”

  “Fuck yeah, you should’ve,” he agreed. “I don’t know why you put up with her shit for as long as you did.”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “We didn’t spend much time together, and it was easier to go with the flow than break up with her and be forced to listen to my mom bitch about how stupid I was to let Lisa get away from me. And now I have to deal with the fact that she’s made it her life’s mission to see me settled down with the perfect girl.”

  “How in the hell did that woman fool your mom into thinking she was a good match for her baby boy?”

  “Lisa was on her best behavior the few times she met my mom, and she was smart enough to push all the right buttons.” I leaned back in my chair, stretching out my legs while I crossed my arms behind my head. “You know how my mom is about education.”

  Andrew nodded and flashed me a sheepish grin. “Yeah, my ears are still ringing from how much she screamed at my parents and me when I decided to play pro hockey instead of finishing my degree.”

  I laughed, remembering how badly my mom had reacted to that news. Not only had she been worried about Andrew regretting his decision later on in life; she’d been afraid that it might make me rethink my own plans when it came to continuing on to graduate school to earn my MBA. Her freak-out hadn’t been necessary since I hadn’t played hockey since our senior year in high school, but my mom wasn’t always rational when it came to me. But I gave he
r a lot of leeway since I was her only child and my dad died when I was in middle school. “My mom didn’t hide how impressed she was that Lisa got her bachelor’s degree from Northwestern, and Lisa made sure to find a way to bring it up each time they saw each other.”

  “A degree from Northwestern was enough for your mom to miss the fact that your girlfriend was a bitch? I thought she was smarter than that.”

  “Like I said, they didn’t see each other that often.” The times we all had dinner together hadn’t even been my idea. Why would they have been when I’d preferred work over spending time with my girlfriend?

  “That should’ve been a sign that things weren’t going to work out with her. With as close as you are to your mom, you’ll want the two most important people in your life to get along.”

  I couldn’t argue with him since he was right. But since I didn’t plan on getting serious with anyone any time soon, I changed the topic back to my reason for barging into his office in the first place. “So what’s the story behind the new waitress? It’s not like you to give carte blanche to a newbie.”

  “She’s my sister-in-law.”

  “Your sister-in-law is pregnant.” I tilted my head to the side and gave him a narrow-eyed look. “And even if she wasn’t, Alec would kick your ass if you hired her to work in one of your nightclubs or bars. He’s as batshit crazy about Alessia as you are about Josie.”

  “Jocelyn,” he corrected. I smirked at him since we both knew he didn’t have room to complain about me using the nickname his wife liked to go by since he never bothered to use my ex’s name. “The job isn’t for Alessia. It’s for her sister, Ariana.”