The Gigolo's Bride (The Necklace Chronicles) Read online

  The Gigolo’s Bride

  The Necklace Chronicles

  by R.E. Butler

  Copyright 2012

  Smashwords Edition

  The Gigolo's Bride (The Necklace Chronicles)

  Copyright © 2012 by R.E. Butler

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book 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 use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  **Cover Design: Deer Watson Media**

  This e-book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locations is coincidental.

  Disclaimer: The material in this book is for mature audiences only and contains graphic sexual content and is intended for those over the age of 18 only.

  * * * * *

  Many thanks to Alexis Arendt at Word Vagabond for editing this book. Her guidance and insight were invaluable. Thanks also to Deer Watson Media for the fantastic cover.

  For my father, who spent countless hours watching Star Trek with me so I could develop a love of science fiction, for my Aunt BL, who is always there to offer encouragement, and for my husband...I love you.

  Table of Contents

  Preface

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Contact the Author

  Preface

  Five Years Earlier

  Norlan Homeworld, Dena System

  Giu Medical Center, Kyvern City

  Eden stared up at the ceiling of the medical center, silently cursing the friend who had saved him. Overdosing on kotik would have been so simple. He’d already started to drift away, free of pain and misery for the first time in ten years. It was bad enough that Paoli had saved his life, but Eden would now have to add the hospital stay to his long list of debts.

  The door to his room opened, and he heard his sister Sloan’s soft gasp of alarm. Of course she had come. She thought he could be saved. But there was no hope for him. He was an empty vessel: his soul long gone, his heart so broken it would never mend.

  “I know you’re awake, Eden,” Sloan, older by four years, said angrily.

  He turned his head towards her, his unkempt blue hair falling across his eyes. He’d tried to lessen his appeal to potential customers by not grooming himself, but it hadn’t seemed to matter. They wanted him, clean or dirty.

  “What do you want, Sloan?” His voice was weak, his throat dry. He’d been in the medical center for three dins now, and he knew it wasn’t the first time she’d come.

  Sloan was lovely and kind. A medical officer, she had an affinity for lost and broken souls. Eden’s soul wasn’t broken, it was missing entirely. She tucked a strand of dark brown hair behind her ear.

  “I wanted to tell you that I think you’re an asshole and an idiot, and selfish, too.” Her mouth curled in a snarl, her brown eyes dark and stormy.

  “What?” Sloan had never talked to him that way.

  “You heard me. How dare you try to take your life! Do you know how important you are to me? You’re my only brother, Eden. I love you. I need you to stick around.” She dashed tears angrily from her cheeks.

  His mouth opened in surprise. “I...I...” he stammered, but he didn’t know what to say.

  She handed him a credit. “I paid for you to do the soul-walk, Eden.”

  Bile rose in his throat. No woman would want someone like him. Someone used up. He had nothing to offer anyone.

  Sloan sat on the edge of the bed. Her angry snarl softened, and she smiled sadly. Taking his hand in hers, she said, “I know you hate yourself. I tried to love you enough for both of us, but that didn’t work. I realize now that you have to love yourself, too. You have to forgive yourself for the life you were forced into and make changes for the better. When you get out of here, do the soul-walk. If you have a bride out there, then killing yourself is selfish and insane. You will leave her for someone else to have.”

  “I’m not worth having,” he said in a voice thick with sudden tears.

  “You are, I promise. You’re the kindest, sweetest person I’ve ever known. Any woman in the galaxy would be lucky to have you.”

  She leaned over and kissed his forehead. Straightening, she said, “I paid for your hospital stay. They’re keeping you here for another two dins, and then you’ll be released to my home for one more din. You can do the soul-walk then. Think hard before you decide to throw that credit in the trash, Eden.”

  Ashamed, he nodded at her mutely and watched her leave. Turning the credit in his hand, he wondered if there really was a woman out there in the universe that was waiting for him. There were males that came back from the soul-walk without finding a female, but the majority were linked to a female somewhere.

  Maybe, though, if he did find himself linked to a female, he could get her to love him first before he told her about his long life spent degrading himself for his own people. Maybe if she loved him enough, she could overlook all that he’d done.

  For the first time in years, a glimmer of hope shone inside him. He clutched the credit in his hand and made a vow to the heavens that if he was given a mate, he would do everything in his power to set his life to rights and make her proud of him.

  *Three Days Later*

  “Eden Atarn?” A young male called out as Eden sat next to Sloan in the soul-walk agency’s main office. He was still feeling a little shaky from the drugs used in the soul-walk, but he was euphoric with the news that he did have a soul mate, somewhere in the universe.

  He waved his hand and the young man came over to him. “Your bride is on a planet called Earth. So far, only three other males have females on that planet and the minimum for an extraction trip is twenty-seven.”

  He nodded, taking a small memory chip from the young male, that contained the images Eden had seen in his mind during his soul-walk. “How long?”

  The young male shrugged. “It could be several lunar-cycles or it could be years. There’s no way to know. Everything you need to know about the abduction trip and costs involved is on the memory chip. When the twenty-seventh bride is located on the planet, a message will be sent to you. Fifty percent of the cost will be due then, the remainder two dins before the trip’s scheduled departure. If you fail to pay the appropriate fees, your bride will not be abducted and you will have to wait for the next trip.”

  He nodded, understanding the gravity of the situation. Without knowing for sure how long it might take to get the trip ready, he was going to have to work hard to earn enough money. Not only to set himself free, but also to pay for the trip.

  Eden thanked the young male and turned to Sloan. She stood up and helped him up. They walked out to Sloan’s hover-machen, and she drove him back to the Bordelayz. The hover-machen lingered above the ground as she pulled in front of the building and got out, offering him her arm to help him make the walk back to his room.

  Bile rose in him as he walked through the front door, past the two guards who were always stationed there, and down the long, twisting hallways that led to the small room he shared with Paoli. The scent of disinfectant mingled with sex assaulted his nose, and he had an urge to find a needle o
f kotik and forget his troubles. Then he remembered the beautiful woman in his soul-walk, and he shook himself out of his destructive desires. She was his, and he needed to snap out of it so he could bring her home. Home to him.

  Paoli rushed to him, hugging him tightly. “I missed you, friend,” Paoli said, tears shining fresh in his eyes.

  Eden said what he hadn’t said during his time in the medical center, when Paoli had kept vigil at his side. Pressing his forehead to Paoli’s, he said, “Thank you, my friend, for saving my life.”

  Paoli nodded silently, and Eden turned back to Sloan and hugged her. All their lives, he had envied her. Although he found her beautiful, by Norlanian standards she was too tall, her cheekbones too high, her lips too full. Their parents knew that she would not marry well financially, so they had supported her desire to go into the medical field. But he had never had a choice in his schooling. When he wished to learn about art, he was chastised and punished. His young life had been spent in classes learning about polite society - “your betters”, he’d been told. He didn’t hate her for what their parents had done to him. He never had. He counted himself lucky to have her as his careful guardian and supporter.

  “I love you, Sloan. Thank you for everything.”

  “I love you, too, Eden.” She brushed a lock of hair from his forehead. “I wish your life had been different. I wish I could have stopped them from selling you, using your beauty to increase their place in society.”

  “It was the path laid out for me.” He held up the memory chip. “I have a new path, now. Thanks to you.”

  She winked at him with a smile, kissed his cheek and left.

  After meeting with Yuil, the owner, he found out how much money he owed on his debt to free himself, and added it to the amount needed for the abduction trip. His heart stuttered a bit at the large amount, but he knew he could do it if he had enough time. He didn’t want to ask Sloan for it. It was important to him that he saved himself first and set his life right before he brought his bride home.

  That night, as Eden lay with one of the females who had paid for his time, he pictured his soul mate instead, imagining it was her light skin that he caressed, her moans of pleasure that touched his ears, and her hands on his body. Each woman he touched brought him closer to freedom, closer to her. He was ashamed of his life, his slavery. He didn’t know how she would react to all that he would need to do to set himself free and bring her here. But she was his perfect match, and he could only hope that she would love him enough to overlook his faults. That she wouldn’t loathe him for selling his body. By law, until he freed himself from his contract, he could do nothing else to earn money except have sex.

  “No,” he told himself as he stretched out his sore body on the cot in the small room he shared with Paoli several hours later. “No, I will keep my past from her until she loves me so much she can overlook all I had to do to bring her home. I’ll love her more than anyone has ever loved her. I’ll give her everything she could ever want or need. I may sell my body to pay her way here, but when she’s with me and I’m free...I can make her proud of me. Proud that she loves a man, not ashamed she loves a brokah.”

  For the first time since his freedom had been taken from him, he felt not only hope at the future, but happiness. According to the soul-walk company, her name was Ashleigh.

  His hope for the future.

  His bride.

  Chapter 1

  “I have a delivery for Ashleigh Turner,” a young man said as he walked into the Lyttle Tots Daycare. Ashleigh looked up from the reception desk, where she was filling in for Gwen on her lunch hour.

  “Oh, that’s me!” She signed the small clipboard and took a heavy vase filled with rainbow-colored roses. The delivery man disappeared, and Ashleigh put the cut-crystal vase on the reception desk and looked for a card.

  “Please tell me those flowers are for me,” Gwen said as she came back into the reception area.

  “Sorry, they’re for me,” Ashleigh said with a smile as she pulled a small envelope from the plastic pick and opened it.

  “You have a new boyfriend I don’t know about?” Gwen stowed her bag in the bottom drawer and sat down in her chair.

  “Nope. Maybe it’s Tate, wanting to get back together.” Tate was Ashleigh’s ex-boyfriend. They had split two months earlier when she had found him in bed with her cousin.

  There was no card inside the envelope. Instead, she pulled out a delicate white-gold chain with a sapphire gem the size of her thumb hanging from it.

  “Oh, wow,” Ashleigh said under her breath as she lifted the necklace up so the overhead lights glinted off the stone. Sapphire was her birthstone, and she’d always been partial to the color blue. Her first thought had been that it was a gift from Tate, but she couldn’t remember ever telling him what her favorite color was. Would he know that sapphire was her birthstone?

  The necklace was pulled from her fingers. “Holy crap, this thing is gorgeous! What’s the card say?” Gwen gushed.

  Possessiveness flitted through Ashleigh briefly as she gently retrieved the necklace from her friend. “There wasn’t a card, so I don’t know who it’s from. Maybe Tate.”

  “You don’t sound so sure,” Gwen pointed out.

  “Well, he did give me earrings for Valentine’s Day, but that was before we broke up. He hasn’t called me in a few weeks. The last time he did, I shot him down pretty good, so...” She didn’t finish her sentence. She decided to call him when she got home and find out if he had sent her the flowers and necklace.

  She picked up the envelope to put the necklace back inside, but then thought better of it. It was so beautiful and perfect, and she wanted to wear it no matter who it came from.

  Gwen put the necklace on Ashleigh, and she left the brightly colored reception area to look in the mirror in the staff bathroom. The dark blue stone complimented her peaches-and-cream skin, and she lifted her long auburn hair up and piled it on her head so she could admire it.

  Adrianna Lyttle, the owner of the daycare, came out of one of the stalls and washed her hands. “Oh, that’s lovely, Ashleigh. Where did you get it?”

  “It was a gift from a...secret admirer,” she said, enjoying the idea of a secret admirer more than her cheating ex trying to get back in her good graces again.

  “Ooh, mysterious! Any idea who it is?” Adrianna tossed the paper towels in the bin and held open the bathroom door.

  “Nope. But he’s got great taste.” She smiled at her boss and walked through the door. She left the flowers at the front desk and went back to the three year-olds’ room where she worked as a teacher. Even though she didn’t want to, she took off the necklace and placed it in her purse in the cabinet. She didn’t want to risk it getting broken by curious little hands. She had received her associate’s degree in early childhood development the year before, and after completing her certification work, she got a full-time job at Lyttle Tots. During her summers in high school, she nannied for a couple in her neighborhood with young children, and that was when she knew she wanted to work with kids.

  There were twelve three year-olds in the class, and she and the other teacher, Hannah, had their hands full. It was stressful at times, but Ashleigh had always been able to handle stress and difficult situations with ease. Her mother said she had been “born calm” and never freaked out no matter what.

  When she was ten, she was in the front seat of her grandfather’s town car, and they were driving home from the grocery when he had a stroke and lost control of the car. Without a thought, she grabbed the wheel and pushed his foot off the gas pedal, steering the decelerating car over to the side of the street where it ran up on a curb and knocked over a mailbox. The homeowners rushed out and called the emergency squad, and her grandfather recovered. She remembered someone telling her mother that she wouldn’t have been able to react so fast and be so calm as Ashleigh had been, but Ashleigh hadn't understood how freaking out would have helped anything.

  “Oh, no!” Hannah groane
d, surveying the kids as they woke up from their after-lunch naps. Already they were active, several of the young boys deciding to try out some wrestling moves and knocking over a small table. As the table tipped, it jostled a shelf with paint jars that tipped precariously. Ashleigh closed the distance quickly, stopping the jars from tumbling to the ground and righting the table.

  Turning her attention to the boys, who were rolling together in a tangle of arms and legs, she separated them and directed their attention to another, less hazardous activity.

  She caught herself thinking about the necklace throughout the afternoon, even looking in her purse a few times just to assure herself it was still there. Everyone wanted to know who the jewelry and flowers had come from, and she found herself the topic of idle gossip for most of the day.

  It was the night of her book club, so she grabbed a sandwich from the deli at the grocery and ate it on the way. She had belonged to the book club for over a year and loved the opportunity to talk to other women who loved to read. Growing up, reading had been an important pastime for her. Her mother hadn’t liked her watching television very much, so she’d happily buried herself in books from the library. That love of reading had stayed with her into adulthood.

  The book club was held at the home of one of the founding members, who owned a bookstore with her husband. The monthly fee of twenty dollars for club membership provided the book for the month and a few dollars towards the snacks and drinks.

  “Ashleigh!” Kelly cried as she opened the door to her home. After a quick hug, Ashleigh put her jacket on a hook in the hall along with her purse and pulled out her copy of this month’s read, “A Time to Weep”.