Sutton and the CEO Forever (Bedding the Billionaire #5) - S. Cinders Page 0,1

and began to drag me behind her slightly. Suddenly the tears of disappointment turned into tears of fear. What was happening? Why was my mother acting so strangely?

She didn’t release me until we were safely back in the trailer. Mama had locked the door and then pulled all of the shades. I continued to cry, but she ignored me like I wasn’t even there. Her movements were jerky, and her skin looked pale.

Suddenly it occurred to me that maybe our leaving had nothing to do with me at all. I swallowed hard and then asked, “Mama, why did we have to go?”

She looked over at me with confusion and then sadness. She moved over to the worn sofa and motioned for me to come and sit beside her with a sigh.

“Do you know that I love you, Sutton?”

I knew that Mama was serious right now because she only called me Sutton when she was angry or said something important.

“I know, Mama. I love you too.”

She nodded. “I know, baby. But there are some people out there, bad people, that would do anything they could to take you away from me. I won’t let that happen. I’m sorry about the fair today, truly I am.”

“There were bad people there?” I asked innocently.

She nodded. “I was careful that they didn’t see us, but we will need to stay out of sight for a few days.”

I knew this game well. Mama and I had played it in the past. Sometimes we would pretend that there was lava outside or crocodiles. You had to play quietly and keep the lights off most of the time. Mama had a small television that she would plug in under the table. Then she would drape blankets over the outside so that nobody could see into our fort no matter what.

“Should I get the TV?” I asked.

She nodded and got to her feet. But instead of going to the cabinet with the blankets, she went over to her purse and took out a pill bottle. She counted out two white pills and then took them with a glass of water.

“Are you sick?” I asked.

She looked at me, but a little of the sparkle that usually shone back at me was somewhat dimmed. It was the last time we ever watched TV under the table in our blanket fort. It was also the last time my mama took me to Town Days. I went later on as a teenager when Mama was either high or entertaining someone.

But it never was the same again.

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Sutton - Present Day

“Hey, are you doing okay?” Mark asked as he slipped his arm around my ever-increasing waist and kissed my temple.

I nodded, shaking away the memory of the last time I had been to Otterville Town Days with my mother. It seemed like a lifetime ago.

I lifted my face for a kiss, which Mark happily supplied. “I am wonderful, just waiting on Martha with the shirts.”

Martha, my former arch nemesis, was now in her late seventies. She was married to Earl, a man who, for years, I had thought was a drunken fool that crashed at my trailer when his crazy wife had thrown him out.

What I hadn’t known was that Earl and Martha had been servants for my mother and her abusive ex-husband. They had helped her escape and then stayed on to help protect the two of us.

It wasn’t until a couple of dead bodies popped up and shook our entire town and information was revealed that my mother wasn’t just a trailer park crack whore. She had once been part of a wealthy family and been a rich man’s wife. She’d even found love for a short time here in Otterville Falls.

The first dead body that turned up was Gabe, my old boss at a rundown bar called Abberly’s. I have to admit there was no love lost there. After Gabe, there was Max, an old family friend, followed by Justin, my mother’s biological brother. The worst part was that Knox, the town sheriff, didn’t have enough evidence to charge anybody.

Mark waltzed into my life with this crazy story about how my mother had hooked up with billionaire Hollingsworth Sutton III and gotten pregnant with me. Apparently, my father hadn’t even known I’d existed until he was on his deathbed. Instead of the crack-addicted prostitute, I thought I had buried, my mother had been a trust-fund baby

To make a long story short, I’m a modern-day Cinderella story. Poor girl finds out she’s