At the Stroke of Midnight (Naughty Princess Club 1)

Seriously, why can’t I catch a break?

“Here, knock yourself out,” PJ tells her, interrupting my thoughts and handing her two twenty-dollar bills.

She tells him thank you and then shocks the hell out of me by kissing my cheek and saying she loves me in front of other human beings, before stepping back and pointing at PJ with a serious look on her face.

“Don’t hurt her, or I will murder you in your sleep,” she tells him menacingly, before her face breaks out into a wide smile. “Have fun, kids!”

With that, she races out of the store in a blur of black, her long blond hair flying out behind her. When she’s out of sight, I turn to look at PJ, not even bothering to hide the annoyance on my face.

“Listen, you can’t just buy me a whole new wardrobe and then hand my daughter money. That’s not how this works. I might not be able to afford it right now, but I am not going to—”

He cuts me off by placing one of his fingers over my lips, and I suddenly have the urge to lick it, even though I’m pissed at him.

“I already told you, I’m making a list of all the ways you can pay me back. As for Anastasia, I gave her that money for purely selfish reasons. She’s a teenager, and frankly, she scares me. Jesus Christ . . . how do you even sleep at night?” he asks with a shudder. “Don’t judge me because I’m trying to buy her off in the hopes that she won’t kill me.”

With a sigh, I shake my head at him, knowing he won this round. If I had the money, I would have given it to her as well, just so she’d continue liking me. Raising a teenager is rough.

PJ grabs the bags from the counter and then grabs my hand, pulling me out of the store. I like the feel of his big, warm hand wrapped around mine. It feels normal walking through the mall like this with him, and that scares the hell out of me.

I barely know him. I’m just starting to get my life back on track after one man screwed it all up, and I don’t need all the confusion and distractions that is PJ Charming, aka Puck Jazzy.

“Cynthia? What on earth are you wearing?”

My good mood is immediately forgotten when a voice that sounds like nails on a chalkboard has me coming to a stop and my head whipping away from staring at PJ’s handsome profile.

There, wearing a horrified expression on her face that probably matches my own, is Claudia, Brian’s mother. She’s just emerged from Ann Taylor and her arms are loaded with shopping bags as she looks me over from head to toe before shifting her judgy gaze to PJ.

“Who are you, and why are you holding my son’s wife’s hand in public?”

Old habits die hard, and as soon as she says these words, I try to yank my hand out of PJ’s hold, but he’s not having any of that. He squeezes my hand tighter and pulls me closer to his side. I let the warmth from his body chill my frozen heart as I stand staring at the woman whom I looked up to for almost half my life. The woman who never treated me like I didn’t belong in her family, even from the first day Brian brought me home to meet her, when I still looked like I was fresh from the trailer park. The way she’s looking at me right now with a mixture of disgust and embarrassment makes me realize she never really accepted me. She spent every waking moment from the day we met trying to turn me into something I wasn’t. Trying to turn me into her. A snobby trophy wife who turns a blind eye to her husband’s philandering ways, catering to his every whim while losing pieces of herself along the way, until there was nothing left but a pretty, perfect shell of a person.

The anger and loathing I feel toward her is raging inside of me. I want to lash out at her, scream in her face, and cause a huge scene in the middle of the mall in front of her favorite store. But I can’t. I won’t. I don’t want to give her the satisfaction of knowing how much she’s hurt me in the months since Brian left.

“This is my friend PJ, not that it’s any of your business. And I believe you meant to say your son’s ex-wife, you know, since he served me with divorce papers before he fled the country with our babysitter and every penny we had,” I tell her quietly and calmly.

PJ gives my hand another squeeze, and as much as I want to be embarrassed that he has to witness this confrontation right now, his strength is the only thing stopping me from collapsing on the floor in a mess of tears and obscenities.