Underestimated (Underestimated, #1)

“I’m sorry,” I apologized.

“Jena,” she offered. “I’m Derik’s wife,” she smiled.

Poor girl.

We were all led to a table and sat with the man in the wheelchair, his caretaker, Derik and Jena. I mostly listened to the conversation around the table. Everyone seemed fine with that except for the man in the wheelchair.

Callaway, yeah that was his name.

For some reason he was more concerned with my wellbeing than my husband was. He wanted to know what the doctor had said at my appointment that week. I wondered how he knew about that. I finally had to ask. I couldn’t take it a second longer. Drew choked on the wine that he had just put into his mouth.

“How do we know each other?” I bluntly asked. I expected that he was going to tell me that he knew me through Drew.

“Let’s just say that it has been a goal of mine ever since I found out about you, to make sure that you were always taken care of,” he smiled.

I hadn’t even seen Drew get up. The next thing I knew he was by my side. He held out his hand for me.

“Would you dance with me, Mrs. Kelley?” he asked.

“I don’t think I know how to dance,” I admitted, already taking his hand.

“I happen to know that you are a remarkable dancer,” he smiled. He could be so charming and yet turn into such a dick when I least expected.

I could dance. How did I know how to waltz around the floor like that? I moved with Drew like we had done it a million times.

“I take it we have done this before?” I asked as he spun me back into his arms.

“Yes, you used to love to go out dancing.”

“Drew.”

“Yes, Mrs. Kelley?”

“I’m not sure that I am okay with what happened last night.”

Drew looked down at me as though he was clueless.

“What do you mean,” he asked.

“I just wasn’t expecting our first time to be like that.”

He snickered and pulled me closer to him. “It wasn’t our first time, Morgan, and I was just trying to give you what you liked. You know? Hoping to jog your memory.”

“I liked that?”

“I do miss that a lot,” he admitted. “That was actually mild to what you normally like.”

“It was?”

Oh, God. I was some sort of sex freak.

He laughed again. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll try to remember that you don’t remember what you like. How’s that.”

“Maybe we should start by sleeping in the same bed together again,” I suggested. I could have sworn that I felt him tense.

“I don’t think you are ready for that just yet.”

Who the hell was he to tell me what I was ready for?

I leaned in closer to his ear. “You don’t think that I am ready to sleep in your bed, but I was ready for you to stick your dick in my ass?”

I know for a fact that he tensed that time.

Drew pulled me from the dance floor and back to the table. He never let go of my hand as he spoke to the other guests around the table.

“I think that we are going to call it a night.

Morgan’s not feeling too well.”

I pulled my hand from his. “Actually, I feel fine. I would love to try the pie,” I spoke up, sitting back beside Mr. Callaway.

Mr. Callaway smiled and patted my hand. “That’s my girl. The pecan pie here is to die for. I think I’ll have one too,” he smiled.

My girl? What did that mean? Drew took his seat in front of me and glared at me. I had just defied him in front of other people. I was sure that he wasn’t okay with that.

Drew drove us home, and Derik left with his wife.

I could tell that he was pissed. He wore a clinched jaw and his knuckles were white from gripping the steering wheel so tight.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” I asked. I didn’t care. He was acting like some spoiled over grown child.

“What’s wrong? What’s wrong? You just embarrassed the hell out of me in there, and you want to know what is wrong?”

“And how the hell do you think I did that? You shouldn’t have lied and said I didn’t feel well. Did I always let you talk for me and decide what I wanted?”

“Yeah, Morgan you did and when you didn’t listen, you would be punished once we were home. Maybe I need to show you how we do things around here,” he said through clinched teeth.

That scared the hell out of me. Punish me? What the hell did that mean? I wasn’t backing down. I wasn’t about to let him think I was intimidated by him for one second.

“Fuck you!” I yelled.

He grabbed me by my hair. “You need to stop. I’m warning you, Morgan. You don’t want to do this.”

I knew at that moment that he did hit me, and that vision of him backhanding me did happen. I had a feeling that it happened more often than not. I didn’t care. I wasn’t stopping.

Jettie Woodruff's books