In the eye of the storm, p.1
In the Eye of the Storm, page 1
In The Eye of The Storm
Copyright 2023 Monica Clayton
Published by M.E. Clayton
All Rights Reserved
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 enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This book is a work of fiction. The entire content is a product of the author’s imagination, and all names, places, businesses, and incidences are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), places or occurrences, is entirely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any manner, whatsoever, without the express written consent from the author, except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Formatting: Smashwords
Cover: Adobe Stock
Warning: This book contains sexual situations and other adult themes. Recommended for 18 years of age and over.
Table of Contents
Author's Note
Contact Me
Dedication
Prologue
1. Junie
2. Ripley
3. Junie
4. Ripley
5. Junie
6. Ripley
7. Junie
8. Ripley
9. Junie
10. Ripley
11. Junie
12. Ripley
13. Junie
14. Ripley
15. Junie
16. Ripley
17. Junie
18. Ripley
19. Junie
20. Ripley
21. Junie
22. Ripley
23. Junie
24. Ripley
25. Junie
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Author’s Note
Just a couple of things before I let you go and get your read on. While I am doing my best to work with better editing and proofreading software, all my books are solo, independent works. I write my books, proofread my books, edit my books, create the covers, etc. I have one beta who gives me feedback on my stories, but other than that, all my books are independent projects.
That being said, I apologize, in advance, for the typos, grammar inconsistencies, or any other mistakes I may make. Since writing is strictly a hobby for me, I haven’t looked into commitments in regard to publishers, editors, etc. My hope is that my stories are enjoyable enough that a few mistakes, here and there, can be overlooked. However, if you’re a stickler for grammar, my books are probably not for you.
Also, I am an avid reader-I mean an AVID reader. I love to read above any other hobby. However, the only downside to my reading obsession is when I fall in love with a series, but I have to wait for the additional books to come out. So, because I feel that disappointment down to my soul, when I started publishing my works, I vowed to publish all books in my series all at once. No waiting here...LOL. Now, the exception to that will be if enough readers request additional stories based off the standalone, such as in Facing the Enemy. At that point, if I decide to move forward with a requested series, I will make sure all additional books are available all at once. As much as this is a hobby for me, I am writing these books for all of you, as well as myself.
Thank you for everything!
Contact Me
I really appreciate you reading my book and I would love to hear from you! Now, unfortunately, because I do have a full-time job and one part-time job, plus a family that I love spending time with, I’m not very active on social media. However, for the sites I do participate in, here are my social media coordinates:
Website
News & Updates
Author Pages
Social Media Sites
Newsletter Sign Up
Other Books
Dedication
For my sister-
You’ve come such a long way, and I’m so proud of you!
Prologue
Nothing good ever came out of eavesdropping, but it was hard not to hover near the door where it was cracked open just enough to ruin your life. No matter how violently those panicked butterflies fluttered in your tummy, it was natural to stop and listen when you heard your name being said.
Right?
“It’s not that easy,” Paul hissed into the phone. “Junie and I have been together for almost three years.” There was some silence before I heard the words that justified those violent butterfly attacks in my stomach. “Of course, I love you and want to be with you, but it’s not that easy to just break up with her. We live together, honey. It’s going to be awkward as hell to wait for her to have to move out.”
I stood near the door, my heart breaking, but I wasn’t crying. I wasn’t falling into a hysterical mess. I was listening intently because I wanted to make sure that there was no mistaking that Paul was telling someone else that he loved them. I wanted to process what was happening, so that he couldn’t deny it when I confronted him later. I wanted to hear just enough to break my heart completely, so that I didn’t fall for his apologies later. I wanted to let him hurt me enough to make sure that I wouldn’t weaken later. There would be no ‘we can still be friends’ here. I wanted to hate him, so that I could sever whatever love that I had for him, and then move on when I was ready.
“What are you talking about?” he continued to hiss into the phone. “Of course, I’m not still having sex with her. I told you that I put a stop to that months ago.”
He was lying to whoever was on the other end of the phone. While the sex had waned considerably, we were still having it. It might only be a couple of times a month, but we were still having sex, and that was more upsetting than anything else. Discovering that my boyfriend of three years was cheating on me, I knew that there was no way that I’d find peace without a complete physical now. Sure, we still used condoms, but they weren’t guaranteed. We weren’t ready for kids, so we had agreed early on to keep with the double coverage of getting the shot and condoms.
Thank God now.
Getting pregnant, and then co-parenting with a cheating jerk was not the kind of life that I wanted to live. I wanted my children to be raised by parents that loved each other and were faithful to one another.
“No one is better than you, darling,” he went on. “You know you’re the best sex that I’ve ever had. Why would I want to sleep with her when I have you? You’re so wild, sexy, and beautiful. You’re all I want. You know this. The way you let me fuck you at the club is the stuff of dreams. I love you so much, don’t be mad, honey. I’ll end it soon. I promise.”
With all the proof that I needed, I walked away, heading straight for our bedroom. I sat on the bed as I did a mental inventory of all the stuff that was mine, and all of the stuff that mattered enough to take with me. Paul and I lived in a very small two-bedroom apartment because, with rent prices being what they were, we had agreed to the sacrifice of staying here while we saved up for a house. When rent on a decent apartment was the same amount as a house payment, the choice was simple.
Looking around, I couldn’t help but feel relieved that we’d never taken that next step. Paul wanted me gone with the least amount of awkwardness as possible, and I wanted to leave the same way. There was no denying that I was heartbroken-crushed even-but I also had my pride working for me. I could reserve the tears and emotional breakdown for later. For now, I needed to call the gang and have them help me move out as soon as possible. I wasn’t worried about finding a place to stay because I knew that I could stay with Roark.
I wasn’t sure how long I sat on the bed, planning everything out, but the sound of Paul’s Oxfords snapped me out of my thoughts, and I knew that this was it. The man that I thought I was going to marry didn’t exist anymore. Instead of a man who was faithfully in love with me, this Paul stood in his place.
“Junie, have you seen my green tie? The one with the diamond pattern?” I looked up at him as he went to stand in front of the closet mirror. He had a ‘business meeting’ tonight, but now I knew better.
I stood from the bed, then turned to face him. “You know, to be fair, you’ve never even asked me if I would be willing to have sex with you at a club,” I told him, and his entire body froze.
He slowly turned around, his eyes wide, his face red with shame. Or maybe it wasn’t shame. Maybe it was just having gotten caught. Everyone was going to know that he wasn’t the good guy that he wanted us all to believe.
“Junie, I-”
“I’ll be out by the weekend,” I promised him before walking out of our bedroom and his life.
Chapter 1
Junie – (One Year Later)~
It was a good thing that I typed as fast as I did and that ten-key was my jam, because being the senior billing accountant for the city of McLaurin was a busy freakin’ job. The town was big enough that my job would never be eliminated, which was a good thing. Nevertheless, if there was one thing that I’d learned while working for the city of McLaurin, it was that all city councils were just as greedy as big government corruption.
They all wanted their money, and they wanted it on time.
Returning to McLaurin ha
Flynn and Tori Becker were the best parents any girl could ever ask for, and I wasn’t just saying that. They were the kind of parents that supported you but didn’t hover. Dad was in property management, and he made his money as basically a landlord. However, his real estate ventures were limited to commercial properties because he’d had no interest in residential properties. I’d always suspected that he had too much of a conscience to evict families, and that’s why he’d chosen to stay away from that part of the real estate business.
Mom was his bookkeeper, and it really was a family business. Mom had originally worked for a small health center, but when Dad’s business had started growing, she had quit her job to help him with his books. Together, they did well enough that they’d been able to send me to college without the debt hanging over their heads for years. Luckily, I’d been an only child, so while expensive, they’d only had to make the sacrifice for one kid, instead of many.
College had been everything that it’d been expected to be, and I had enjoyed every single year of it. I’d gone for my business management degree and had gotten it with some rather respectable grades upon graduation. My first job had been working for a law firm in their billing department, following Paul in his quest to chase his dreams with Pearl Marketing. I hadn’t minded living in Mercy, but it hadn’t been the city of my dreams, either.
However, while Paul had ended up being one of the biggest mistakes ever to come out of going to college, Roark Storm hadn’t been. Roark was my best friend, and he’d been since our sophomore year of college.
We’d met at a party where Clint University had been celebrating its fifth football win in a row. Clint was a die-hard sports college, and the hysteria of its wins was insane. However, liking sports, it hadn’t bothered me. I enjoyed watching sports, especially winter sports. Winter was my favorite season of the year, so hockey, ice skating, snowboarding, and skiing were some of my favorite things to watch. While I enjoyed football, basketball, and baseball, I preferred to watch winter sports. The Winter Olympics were my guilty pleasure whenever they were on.
Anyway, we’d been at a party, the crowd drunk, high, wired, and just plain crazy, when Roark Storm had grabbed me by the arm, dragged me down the hallway, my beer splashing all over the place, then had promised me a thousand dollars if I would pretend to be his crazy, possessive, violent girlfriend. Apparently, some girl wouldn’t leave him alone, and he didn’t like being nasty to females. His desperation had been so endearing that I’d made a complete fool of myself-and him-and had acted like I’d been auditioning for my own reality television show.
After that, we’d been inseparable. We’d become best friends, and despite how our friendship had started, something had placed us firmly in the ‘friends only’ zone, and there’d never been anything more between us. A lot of people hadn’t believed that we’d been just friends, but I hadn’t cared. I also hadn’t been willing to give Roark up whenever whichever guy that I’d been dating had taken exception to our closeness. Paul had been the only guy that hadn’t minded that my best friend was a guy.
So, while we had a tight group of friends that still kept in touch with each other, Roark was my best friend, and he’d been for the past six years. We’d done the meeting of the families, had gone on trips together, and had even shared the holidays together. Roark knew all my secrets, and I knew all of his. I had no doubt that he was going to be godfather to my children one day, and I was going to spoil the shit out of his children in return.
I also loved his parents. Julius and Chanel Storm were warm, welcoming, and the cutest couple ever. They had accepted me right away and had always treated me like one of the family.
The only person that didn’t seem to care for me much was Roark’s older brother, Ripley. He was older than Roark by two years, and he was a professional snowboarder. I’d met him during our junior year of college when I’d gone to visit Roark’s parents for the weekend, and he’d been there. Already graduated from college, Ripley had just won his first snowboarding competition the week before our visit, so when he’d been a little cold with his greeting, I had just assumed that he’d been dealing with a lot. It’d been hard to imagine that Roark and his parents could be so accepting, but not Ripley. However, I had quickly learned how wrong I’d been when I kept getting that same cold reception whenever he was around.
At any rate, one sour older brother wasn’t enough to make me stay away from the Storms. Hell, when my relationship with Paul had blown up in my face, Mrs. Storm had called me to let me know that they were there for me, no matter what I needed.
Needless to say, with the support of my parents, the Storms, and Roark, I’d gotten over my heartbreak, and I was happy with where I was now. It’d only been a year, but I was completely over Paul Hopper and that waste of three years. While I hadn’t dated anyone since we’d broken up, I was only twenty-six and in no hurry. I had plenty of time to find the love of my life, so I wasn’t going to force the dating thing just to prove that I was over him.
As I was locking up my computer and shutting things down for the day, my phone chimed with a notification. It was only Thursday afternoon, but I was gearing up for a four-day weekend that was bound to be awkward but fun.
My Goofball: I’m calling u n an hour. U better answer
Out of habit, I glanced at the watch on my wrist. I was very aware that my phone had the time on it, but old habits died hard. My father had this thing about watches, and so I’d always worn one because he was always buying me one.
Me: So demanding
My Goofball: I know ur schedule better than u do. U better answer
It was true. Roark did know my work schedule as well as his own. He was a CPA and handled a lot of accounts, mainly those of his family, but his hours could be erratic depending on what he had going on. Tax season was especially horrifying.
Me: Relax. I’ll answer. I promise
My Goofball: Just want 2 make sure everything’s a go
Me: You have control issues
My Goofball: U have no idea
That was probably some kinky sex reference that I wanted to know nothing about. At six-foot-two with rich brown hair, bright blue eyes, and a body that made girls want to fight over him, Roark Storm was simply too gorgeous for words. He was also so damn charming that I had no doubt that the woman of his choice would let him tie her down and control whatever the hell that he wanted to.
Me: Dork. I’ll talk 2 u soon
My Goofball: (smile emoji)
Making sure that everything was locked up tight before I took off for my extended weekend, I grabbed my purse, then headed out. While I was looking forward to a four-day weekend, things were bound to be awkward at first. However, I wasn’t going to let that stop me. I was not going to let Paul Hopper ruin our tradition.
Besides, I was completely over him, remember?
Chapter 2
Ripley~
Granted, I didn’t have anything pressing going on right now, but these weekends of babysitting weren’t exactly high on my list of things to do. While I didn’t mind going to the cabin, the trip would be more welcoming if it were just me and my brother.
However, it wasn’t.
A year after graduating from college, I’d taken my love for snowboarding and had tried my hand with going at it professionally. I’d been blessed with enough athletic talent that snowboarding had come easy to me, and for the past five years, I’d been killing it in competitions, making a name for myself and making more money than I had ever expected. Endorsements were where it was at, and I had plenty.
Originally, I had gone to college to get my engineering degree, and I’d gotten it. I enjoyed the puzzle that was engineering, and I enjoyed figuring out how things worked and what was the best way to make things fit together. I liked stimulating my mind. I liked figuring things out and finding out how to make a new trick work was what did it for me with snowboarding.
