Daddy's Mercy (Charm City Daddies Book 3)

DADDY’S MERCY CHARM CITY DADDIES BOOK THREE STELLA MOORE The right of Stella Moore to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him/her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it was published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. This book is a work of fiction. Names, items, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Cover Design by: AllyCat Creations Formatting and Internal Graphics by: Formatting the Forbidden Copyright © 2023 Stella Moore All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the author. Dedication: For all the women still searching for someone to heal the lost little girl inside of them. NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR MaryAnn's story is a bit darker than the two previous books, and deals with themes such as child abuse and death, as well as the loss of a spouse. Please consider your own well-being before reading. Love always, Stella CONTENTS 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 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Epilogue Carly’s Second Chance Daddy Preview - Chapter 1 About the Author By Stella Moore Also By Stella Moore CHAPTER 1 You’ll be staying with me until the situation is under control. Those words, spoken in Dean Mitchell’s firm, no-arguments-allowed tone, played over and over in her mind as she drove obediently behind the giant black truck. She’d tried to argue when they’d first told her they were moving her, but between Dean and her stern-faced lawyer, Bryant Monroe, she hadn’t stood a chance. As if she ever stood a chance of standing up to anyone. So now she was driving to some strange man’s house where she would basically be on lockdown until the man she’d thought she had loved was back behind bars. But what if they never caught Nate? Surely a man like Dean had better things to do than spend the rest of his life babysitting a woman who was too stupid to know when she was dating a serial killer. What was the time limit on this situation? What was she supposed to do if they decided it was safe for her to return home and Nate was still out there, waiting? Panic locked around her chest like a vice, tightening and tightening until it felt as though she couldn’t draw even a molecule of oxygen into her lungs. Blackness crept along the edges of her vision and her hands tightened on the steering wheel as she tried desperately to will it back. She would not make a fool of herself by having a panic attack and crashing her car into the tailgate of Dean’s truck. Focusing on her fingers, she forced her pinkies to loosen their death grip, followed by her ring fingers. One by one, until she was holding the wheel like a normal person and not like someone in danger of drowning. As her fingers relaxed, so did the band around her chest, and she was finally able to drag in a deep breath. It exploded out of her as a sort of half-laugh, half-sob, and she briefly wondered if that was the sound of someone losing the last bit of their sanity. But then she was able to pull in another lungful of oxygen, and this time she held it for the full count of five like her therapist had taught her before slowly blowing the air out through her mouth. With each breath, the blackness around the edges of her vision receded a little bit more, and the tension in her muscles gradually eased. By the time she turned onto a long and winding driveway lined with so many trees they nearly blocked out the sun, the panic had mostly receded. Thank god, because she would have died of embarrassment if Dean had caught her in the middle of it. The last thing she needed was the most gorgeous man she’d ever laid eyes on thinking she was a total nutjob. Oh, god. What if she had one at his house? In the middle of dinner? Would they be eating dinner together? Was he going to be at the house with her all the time? Did he have a job other than babysitting her? He had to have some other form of income. Unless he was charging Bryant an outrageous amount. Which was entirely possible. Dean had only said the cost was ‘being handled’, he hadn’t said how. Why would Bryant pay for private security for her when the cops would already be watching her? And if Bryant was covering the cost, how was she ever going to repay him? That vice around her chest threatened to tighten again, so she drew in another deep breath before it had the chance. And then they came to the end of the driveway, and for a few moments, all her worries disappeared, crowded out by the sheer awe of the house rising up in front of her. It wasn’t just the size of it, though it was massive. Three full stories, from what she could tell, with three dormers jutting out from the roof of the giant cape cod style home. But it was gorgeous as well, and lovingly maintained. White siding seemed to sparkle in the sunlight,