All of Nothing Read online

  All of Nothing

  Vania Rheault

  For the women who have to fight every day for what they need for themselves and their families.

  Never stop fighting.

  Contents

  Books by Vania Rheault

  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

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Books by Vania Rheault

  available from Coffee & Kisses Press

  On the Corner of 1700 Hamilton

  Summer Secrets Novellas 1-3

  Summer Secrets Novellas 4-6

  Don’t Run Away

  Chasing You

  Running Scared

  Wherever He Goes

  All of Nothing

  Copyright © 2018 Vania Rheault

  All of Nothing

  Published by Coffee and Kisses Press

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

  Cover design by Vania Rheault via Canva.com

  Picture purchased and used with permission from canstockphoto.com

  csp36028879 uploaded by prometeus

  Coffee and Kisses Press logo designed by

  David Willis and Drake Rheault

  Coffee and Kisses Press owned and operated by

  Vania Rheault and David Willis

  Printed in the United States of America

  All rights reserved.

  If you loved this book please post a short review wherever you purchased this book. Thank you!

  ISBN e-book: 978-0-9996775-4-4

  ISBN Paperback: 978-0-9996775-5-1

  Chapter 1

  She wasn’t coming.

  Jaxon Brooks leaned against the cool church wall, the murmuring of the wedding guests carrying to him down the hallway. He hid in a small room, that, judging by the posters on the walls, was used as a space for Sunday School for younger children.

  “Jesus is always with you!” proclaimed one bright poster attached to a cork board with pushpins.

  Jax had never felt more alone than he did at that moment.

  No, that wasn’t true.

  The organist began to repeat the song he and his fiancée had chosen as the hymn that would be played while the ushers led the wedding guests to their seats.

  It was the fifth time the song had been played, and his wedding guests knew something was amiss. No one would still be arriving at this late time; the ceremony should have started twenty minutes ago.

  The joy in the atmosphere had begun to slip away.

  Jax pulled a flask from the inside pocket of his tux and took a long swig. He needed to face facts. His bride-to-be had abandoned him, and he needed to stop the wedding and send everyone home.

  His parents would be devastated. They’d been so happy their lonely son had finally found someone to share his life with.

  A black-haired woman pushed a vacuum cleaner into the room. She took a step back when she noticed him, fear shooting through her eyes, her gaze locking onto his flask.

  “What are you doing?” Jax barked. His muscles, tight from stress, loosened at the chance to lash out. “Surely you don’t expect to vacuum now. There’s a wedding starting soon.”

  It gave him no satisfaction when she paled. She gripped the vacuum’s handle until her knuckles turned white. “I, I’m late, and I—”

  “I don’t care. Do you expect the bride and groom to say their vows over the growling of an ancient vacuum cleaner?”

  Tears sprang to her eyes, and for just a moment, Jax felt a pang of remorse. It quickly faded. He was miserable; why shouldn’t she be as well?

  Nothing had gone right for him in sixteen years.

  He narrowed his eyes, calculating her measurements.

  Tears spilled down her cheeks, mascara smearing under her eyes. She was short, too slim, her collarbone visible beneath her worn and stained t-shirt, but he could work with that. Her feet, clad in tennis shoes, looked too small to fit Gwen’s pumps, but if the dress hid her feet, she needn’t wear any shoes at all.

  The cleaning lady wasn’t entirely unattractive, though the pitch black color of her hair washed out her complexion, and the pink and blue cotton candy stripes at the ends made her look ridiculous. Her t-shirt hid, or tried to hide, a pair of small, perky breasts. Ragged jeans with holes in the knees encased delicate hips and thin thighs.

  No one would believe he’d marry someone like her, or if they did, they’d think perhaps he was finally lightening up a little.

  Not that it mattered what people thought.

  He only needed her for as long as it took to say, “I do”, accept congratulations, and then he’d drop her in the nearest gutter where she came from.

  “Marry me.”

  Raven Grey could smell the whiskey from the doorway, even though he leaned against the far wall in the corner of the room.

  She hadn’t meant to walk in on him, hadn’t meant to see anyone. She’d overslept—it had been her job to clean the small church before the ceremony scheduled that day.

  Her cheeks flamed with embarrassment; she wanted to finish her job and leave. But of course, he was right, she shouldn’t even be here. She should have been long gone.

  Raven licked her lips, her mouth watering. What she wouldn’t give for a swig of that whiskey in his flask.

  God, she needed a drink.

  Of anything.

  “What—what do you mean?”

  “My fiancée walked out on me. I have no bride. Stand in for her, and I’ll give you whatever you want.”

  His eyes pinned her to the industrial carpeting that covered the floor.

  Raven lifted her chin, wiping away her tears. “I’m not surprised.” Bullies were no strangers to her. She dealt with them every day. Only, this one . . . this one could complain to her social worker and get her fired. It’d been a long time since she’d held a steady job, and the placement agency made it clear they wouldn’t tolerate any fuck-ups.

  The man wearing the impeccable tux tilted his head in acknowledgement. “I thought I had found someone who could tolerate my . . . aloofness. But it appears I’ve been mistaken.”

  Raven sniffed. “Is that what being an asshole is called these days?”

  He ran his hand through his short-cropped blond hair and slid the flask into his jacket pocket. Straightening his gold cuff links, he murmured, “I do not think you are in a position to judge me.”

  If looks could kill, she’d be deader than Old Vic, who’d frozen to death last winter when all the shelters had filled, and he’d been left on the street. Alone.

  Raven twitched in the tennis shoes she’d been given by an organization that helped women get back on their feet. They donated gently used clothes and helped women like Raven with their résumés. Not that her résumé contained much, but if she didn’t keep this job, she’d need it to look for something else.

  How could she stand in for a bride? For the type of woman who would marry a man like him? Even in the shadows of the Sunday School room, Raven could tell the man oozed money. Maybe it wouldn’t matter if she was let go. Not if he paid her, and she could use the cash to buy some decent clothes and maybe another stint in a rehab center.

  She took the chance. “I’ll do it if you pay me.”

  “Of course you will,” he sneered. “Gwen was m
arrying me for my money, but in the end, my house, bank accounts, and social status, weren’t enough for her to put up with me. I don’t know if that makes me respect her more or less. I’ll give you all the cash I have in my wallet.” He pulled out a black leather billfold from the inside of his tux’s jacket. Slowly, he counted out the bills.

  Raven swallowed. She hadn’t seen so much cash in one place in a long time.

  “Two thousand dollars. Take it or leave it.”

  She’d be a fool not to take it. But she wouldn’t let him cheat her out of it. She knew his type. Users. Every last one. “Pay me first.”

  He scoffed. “You can hardly tell me what to do. You’ll do this my way, or I’ll speak to the pastor and explain his janitor thought she would add to my ceremony by vacuuming up broken Goldfish. He may not appreciate it when I tell him if that would have happened, I would have discontinued my generous donations that no doubt fund his parsonage.”

  Getting herself mixed up with this man was a bad idea. She knew it by the way her stomach churned—and it wasn’t from the bottle of wine she’d drank last night.

  Raven tried to suck in a breath, but fear clogged her throat. She’d been trying so hard this time. One little mistake could bring her whole recovery down like a house of cards.

  She believed every word he said.

  One word from him and she’d be out on her ass, and everything she’d gained these past couple months would be gone.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  Victory flashed in his eyes, and the predatory look that covered his face made Raven sweat. Her fight or flight response kicked in, adrenaline pumping through her veins. He looked like every man she’d ever come across in the street, pegging her as an easy victim.

  Sometimes she was, and sometimes she wasn’t.

  Today she was.

  And he knew it.

  “Leave everything to me.”

  Jax slipped his phone from his pocket. He had several texts from his mother and brother asking if Gwen was all right and what was happening.

  Jax texted Erik. “Gwen bailed, just as you said she would. But I have a replacement. Meet me in Gwen’s changing room.”

  “Come on,” he said, pushing away from the wall. “I’ll show you where to get dressed.”

  The woman, girl really—she looked young but had a travel-weary look to her—took a step back.

  “How do you expect anyone to believe this? Are you trying to tell me not one person at your wedding has ever met this woman? You didn’t have a rehearsal dinner? She didn’t have a bridal shower?”

  Jax crossed the room in two long strides, and he grabbed her arm, the bones under his fingers prominent under his touch. The girl was skinny to the point of malnourished.

  Junkie.

  He gritted his teeth. Jax knew where his two thousand would go.

  Up her nose.

  Erik was walking down the dark hallway when Jax pulled Gwen’s stand-in out of the Sunday School room.

  “Cover her face with the veil when you dress her,” he said, nodding toward his brother. “No one will know the difference.”

  “What sort of messed up plan is this?” Erik snapped. “Cancel the wedding so we can go home.”

  Before the cleaning lady had come into the room, Jax had expected to do just that. He’d had no other choice. Send everyone home, have his personal assistant send back the crystal, the china, the vases, and art Gwen had chosen for their registry.

  Jax pushed the pale waif toward Erik. “She’ll do. We just need to get through the ceremony.”

  Erik shook his head. “It’s never that simple.”

  “It’s easier than canceling and having to explain to everyone why Gwen left me. I’ll figure something out after the ceremony.”

  “This is insane. There’s no way you can pull this off.”

  “Can you bring her to Gwen’s changing room or not? The dress and everything she’ll need was delivered last night. I’ll go into the sanctuary and let everyone know.”

  “Know what? That you bought off some . . .” Erik swept his eyes from the woman’s head down to her feet. “Homeless girl? I have to say, this is a new low, even for you. Do you even know her name? What’s your name, love?”

  “R—”

  “Her name is Gwen,” Jax snapped, cutting off the woman whose stare bounced between the two of them as if she watched a tennis match on TV, trying desperately to keep her eye on the ball. Her color had come back, and she was no longer shaking or crying, but it would take some work for her to look like a bride. Too bad there wasn’t anyone who could help her with that. The wedding had been planned on the small side, and Gwen’s maid of honor, her only bridesmaid, hadn’t shown up—that had been his first clue things weren’t going to go according to plan today. “Let’s just make this easy on everyone, shall we?”

  He turned on his heel and strode down the hallway toward the sanctuary, where the organist had started once again playing the song, for God knows how many times in a row.

  Jax didn’t trust Erik to help “Gwen” dress for the ceremony. Erik was more apt to help her find a taxi and send her as far from the church as he could, just as quickly as possible.

  But he counted on the girl.

  He counted on the girl’s greed to make her put on the dress and walk down the aisle.

  He’d been wrong about Gwen, but he wasn’t wrong about this street urchin.

  She needed money, and Jax wasn’t above using that to his advantage.

  “You don’t have to do this,” Erik said, leading Raven down the empty hallway.

  He had no idea what she could and couldn’t do. Raven wanted to tell him so, but it wasn’t any of his business, and besides, what was the point? She was in it now, and there wasn’t anything she could do about it.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “No, you don’t. Just keep walking and go out the back door. I’ll make up something to tell Jax.”

  “Jax?”

  Erik pushed a light-colored wooden door open. Sunlight streamed through the dirty glass of a large picture window, where a dress hung on a hanger framed by white panes. The rays of light illuminated the white gown making the satin and lace shimmer.

  “That’s my brother’s name. Jaxon Brooks.”

  Raven crossed the room and reached out to touch the dress, skimming her fingertips over the smooth satin. She expected Erik to tell her not to touch it—to keep her grubby fingers off the fine material—but all he did was sit in a chair and pull out a package of cigarettes.

  He offered the rumpled plastic pack to her, a brown filter peeking from the hole in the top.

  “No, thanks.” She wasn’t a smoker; she preferred to spend what little money she came upon on booze. Now if Erik had offered her a flask . . . but no. Raven had to remember why she was doing this.

  With an unlit cigarette between his lips, Erik stood and pulled the hanger from the window fixture. “Better get this on,” he mumbled around the smoke. “Now that Jax has a way out, he’ll want this over and done with. If you’re sure you’re going through with this, you better hurry up and strip.”

  Raven’s heart leapt into her throat. The last time she’d been told to strip she’d been looking for work and had stumbled into a stripper joint. The owner wouldn’t hire her until he saw “the goods.”

  The gig had given her some pocket money—little had she known the owner would skim most of her wages before he paid her—and it hadn’t been enough to get back on her feet. It had just been another unsuccessful attempt in a long string to turn her life around.

  “W-what?” she whispered, the sound of her voice barely coming from her mouth. What would Erik do to her before she dressed? Rape her? Make her give him a blow job? They were alone in this back room, and he outweighed her by a good hundred pounds. It would be nothing for him to overpower her, take her on the couch, his hand pushing her head into the cushion to drown out her screams.

  “You can’t put the dress on if you’re still in you
r clothes. Gwen’s maid of honor didn’t show up, so I’m all you’ve got to get this dress fastened. If you’re that modest, I can turn around, but love, you don’t have anything I haven’t seen before.”

  What he said could have been taken as an insult, but the spark of mischief in Erik’s eyes calmed Raven’s racing heart.

  He was teasing her.

  Raven wasn’t used to a man being friendly with her. Well, not friendly just to be friends. Raven knew what “friendly” meant. It meant a man would do anything to get into her panties, and if his charm didn’t work, he’d move on to force. Those were the kinds of men in Raven’s life, except for Axel.

  Erik jutted out his arm to pull the sleeve away from his wrist. Revealing a gold watch, he said, “We better get moving.”

  “Okay.” Raven undressed and tried not to feel self-conscious. The shelters she’d stayed at didn’t condone communal sleeping areas, and Raven only undressed in front of other women, but Erik acted like he really didn’t care what she looked like under her clothes.

  The design of the dress allowed her to keep her ill-fitting cream bra on, for which she was thankful. While she didn’t mind being clad in only her underthings in front of Erik, she didn’t want him to see her boobs.

  “What’s my brother got on you, anyway?”

  Raven’s eyes shot to his in surprise. “What do you mean?”

  Erik snorted and gently nudged her, turning her around, giving him her back and the rows of pearl buttons that needed fastening.