Liability: A Sapphic Romance, page 1
Liability
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
LIABILITY
First edition. June 16, 2019.
Copyright © 2019 Renee Dahlia.
ISBN: 978-1393282648
Written by Renee Dahlia.
Also by Renee Dahlia
BeST
Count Me In
Strum Me Hard
Tune Me Up (Coming Soon)
Cricket Slam
Captain's Knock
Desiring The Dexingtons
Love Wasn't Built In A Day
The Secret Life of Spinsters
The Widow's Modiste
Farrellton Foster Family
Liability
Gamble Racing
Driven To Distraction
Driven By Passion
Driven By Ambition
Driven To Protect
Great War
Her Lady's Melody
Her Lady's Fortune
His Lord's Soldier
Kapow
Out of Her League
His Buxom Beauty
Craving His Spotlight
Her Pregnant Rival
Seraph's Burlesque Club
Show Up
Show Off
Show Queen
Show Time
Show Dance
Standalone
The Shipwrecked Earl's Bride
Watch for more at Renee Dahlia’s site.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Also By Renee Dahlia
Liability (Farrellton Foster Family, #3)
Foreword
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
Epilogue
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Also By Renee Dahlia
Liability
Renée Dahlia
She was just a fantasy. . . Until she crashed into her garden and her life!
Crashing into a billionaire’s garden wall isn’t the start to Neve’s dream car restoration business she aimed for. The cost of the damage will wreck her chances of a new start, throwing her back to work she’d left behind, and a painful childhood saved only by an incredible foster mum. Then Jessica Beaumont recognises Neve from her former career as Maiden Heaven - porn star.
Jessica can’t believe it when the woman she idolised during her toughest time smashes, literally, into her controlled and secluded life. Her rich parents think Jessica’s queerness is a phase, but there’s nothing transient about her interest in Neve. Offering to invest in Neve Lee’s business is an excuse to be closer to Neve and Maiden Heaven. Knowing she’s a liability as a girlfriend, Jessica focuses on the money, and forgetting the old guilt. . .
Working together roars their lust into overdrive, but as they’re both looking to the future, a letter from Neve’s past will change everything.
- billionaire lesbian romance
- found family
- porn star/fan
- opposites attract
About the author
An avid reader, Renée Dahlia writes contemporary and historical queer romance. Renée is a bisexual cis woman who is fascinated by people and loves to explore human relationships, with a side of humour, through her writing. Renée has a degree in physics and mathematics, using this to write data-based magazine articles for the horse racing industry. Her love of horses often shines through in her fiction, and she loves a good intrigue and to escape the real world in the pages of a book. When she isn’t reading or writing, Renée spends her time with her four children, usually watching them play cricket.
To the brave kids surviving the foster system and those who give them a loving home.
Foreword
Welcome to LIABILITY, the third book in the Farrellton Foster Family series.
Each of the three books in this series can be read as standalone novels. The characters are connected by their foster mother, Mrs Farrellton.
If you love sapphic romance in a high heat contemporary setting, you should enjoy LIABILITY. This book was written in 2019 and has been extensively edited and updated in 2022.
Please be aware that this book contains descriptions of death during an accident and subsequent injury to one of the main characters, drug addiction, and a foster kid meeting a biological parent.
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I hope you enjoy reading this book!
Renée
Chapter 1
Sydney, Australia
Neve loved the way the 1963 Mini Cooper S hugged the road as she drove it home to her mechanic’s workshop. Low to the ground and responsive, the tiny car was an icon, and she had a very special version of the famous Mini brand. She’d hunted long and hard for the little car, a vintage specimen with only 4,030 of these cars ever made. She’d paid half the price listed in her favourite car magazine’s value guide, and she knew she’d got the deal of year. A belated Christmas present for herself. The Mini would make the perfect driving advertisement for her new restoration business. This one wouldn’t be for sale, not if Neve could help it, even though she’d be able to make a tidy profit if she did sell it.
“Worth the risk.” She mumbled to herself. The faded British Racing Green colour was exactly right, and once repainted, the car would shine. It was the colour she would have repainted it no matter what colour it had originally been. The 1,071cc engine purred as if it hadn’t been sitting slowly rusting under a tarpaulin in the leafy backyard of an upper north shore residence. It’d taken her a few hours to get the car started, but once it fired up, it sounded almost perfect. A few minor adjustments to the engine, a bit of fine tuning—she grinned at her own pun—and the Mini would sound like it’d just been driven out of the factory fifty-six years ago. She’d calculated the age of the vehicle on her phone’s calculator app when she’d first spotted it for sale online. What a find this had been. Satisfaction filled Neve’s body with warmth as she drove over the hilly north shore back towards her rented garage in Tempe. The body needed so much work. The seat covers had disintegrated, covering Neve’s work jeans with dust. Neve couldn’t wait to restitch leather seats, and her hand squeezed the gear stick tight as she shifted down into third to take the corner ahead smoothly. The Mini flew around the corner and she changed back up again to let the engine coast down the steep hill as they headed towards a fairly major road.
Thunk.
“Shit.” That didn’t sound good. The car wobbled badly, and Neve shoved the gear stick back into fourth to engine brake the car as they careered down the steep road. A tyre bounced on the road beside her. Fuck. Fuck. She’d lost a front tyre. She pumped the brakes. Nothing. The foot pedal slammed against the floor as if there was nothing there. She thumped the brakes as hard as she could. Nothing. Just the floor. Crap, something worse than just the tyre coming loose had happened. No brakes. Neve’s heart pounded in her chest. Her skin prickled, alive with adrenalin. She had to slow the car before she reached the busy road below. She downshifted again, then with all her strength, she grabbed the handbrake and pulled. Neve expected the car to skid. Nothing.
“Fuck!” The handbrake slowed the car a tiny bit. Enough that the loose tyre gained speed, racing ahead of her. Not enough to stop her crashing. Well, damn, Neve wasn’t ready to die just yet. She pulled harder on the handbrake with everything she had. She shoved the car into second gear. The engine squealed in protest. Acrid smoke filled the car, burning her nostrils. The car wobbled, lurching towards the side where the tyre was missing. Neve’s left hand flew back to the steering wheel. Her fingers clutched the wheel as she wrestled the Mini. Keep the vehicle upright. Lean it away from the missing tyre. Think. Neve. Think. The motions came automatically. Look around. Find somewhere to go that wasn’t the main road. Sweat stung her eyes. She didn’t dare blink.
There. A driveway. If she could wrangle the car over there... With a hard shove, she forced the gear stick into first. The engine screamed. High pitched and dreadful. The noise of destruction. The sound of her dreams being extinguished. She grabbed the steering wheel with both hands and turned the wheel hard. The Mini lurched sideways, finally starting to slow under the force of engine braking and the handbrake, and it slid like a movie trick shot towards the driveway. If she could just... With a hard bounce, the Mini bumped onto the driveway. The seatbelt dug into the side of her neck with a sharp pain. Dust from the deteriorated seats puffed out as her butt bounced hard. A cough caught in her throat. Together the reduced slope of the driveway and the pressure of the handbrake slowed the car enough. This might hurt but it probably wouldn’t destroy her beloved Mini. A forlorn hope? Neve braced herself for impact—her legs pres
“Relax.” Didn’t relaxing your muscles make them absorb a crash better? Her hands twisted the steering wheel, trying to keep the car upright. Crunch. The Mini hit a sandstone wall and bounced backwards. Neve’s body felt like a rag doll, slammed against the ancient seatbelt. Her head whiplashed by the impact. Thank fuck she’d managed to slow the car a bit before it hit the wall. Her breath hissed out, long and slow until her lungs burnt. It made sense that she’d held her breath throughout the whole drama. Time started to beat at a normal speed now. Wasn’t it weird how time slowed when your heartrate went up?
The crash probably only took a couple of seconds, yet every detail was etched on her brain as if it had been an hour. The smell of overheated metal lay underneath the rich sickening scent of burning rubber, and the dust from the rotten seats started to settle in a cloud that made her mouth dry. She patted her body quickly. No major damage. Only a sticky patch of blood on her neck where the seatbelt had cut into her skin. Weird that it didn’t hurt. Yet. Neve brushed her hands back over her head. Shit—the wheel had come off, leaving the car without foot brakes. Why hadn’t the brakes worked? It didn’t make sense ... unless the problem was a fucking catastrophe. She needed to assess the damage quickly. Too much of her future was wrapped in this car. Too much of her carefully saved up cash. And thanks to that bitch, Caitlin, she didn’t have a back-up plan anymore. Neve rested her head against the seat. Just for a moment before she would have to face the consequences of this crash.
“Hello. Hello.” A knock on the window jerked Neve back to reality. She turned off the key automatically, even though the Mini had stalled on impact. Yet another thing to fix if the car was still able to be restored. Fuck. She needed to get out this wreck and figure out what had happened. Her fingers slipped on the door handle, trembling, and she wiped them down her grubby work jeans. A brown smear of blood added to the grease stains. Time to get out of the car and face the problems awaiting her. She’d never feared a problem before. Except ... this problem mattered more than anything before.
She pushed open the door and stepped out. Her knees wobbled, jelly-like, and she clutched the car door for support. A willowy white woman with long brunette hair held out her hand. Neve blinked at the vision of long fingers and ridiculously pale soft skin. She looked up and swallowed.
“Hi. Look, I’m really sorry about your fence...”
“Are you okay?”
“Yes.” Neve rolled her shoulders, testing and stretching.
“Your neck is bleeding.”
Neve reached up and dabbed at the sticky line. “The seatbelt.” She tugged at her collar, pressing the fabric against the cut. It couldn’t be that deep since it didn’t hurt. Just a sting. Neve kept her right hand bent up to keep her shirt against the cut, nominally to prevent it bleeding, and shook out her left hand. God, why did that hurt so much? Oh, from the panicked dragging on of the handbrake. She’d probably pulled a muscle, or something. Whatever. It was better than being pole-axed by a truck at the bottom of the hill.
“Come inside and I can find a band-aid or something.”
“Thanks, but I need to check the car first.”
The lady clucked her tongue. “People are more important than cars.” Her admonishment made Neve straighten her back. All the shaking in her limbs disappeared as she stiffened and stared back at the lady.
“I’m fine. The car matters to me.”
“This old thing?” The lady’s perfectly shaped eyebrows raised up, drawing Neve’s attention to her face. Neve sighed—it’d be her fucking luck to crash her car into the fence of some perfect North Shore rich wife. Beautiful brunette locks in long ringlets framed her face—the type of curl that took hours in a salon—and a classically straight nose, big wide brown eyes with a touch of green, long lashes, lush lips painted with a rich luscious pink. That colour couldn’t possibly be real, and there was no way Neve was going to think about whether her nipples would match her extraordinarily faked lip colour. No. Focus. The car was her livelihood. It came before the rush of lust at the way this lady stared at her with a naked fascination. Damn her imagination. No fancy rich wife from this plush suburb would be staring at her like that. She shook her head twice quickly. Oh, fuck, that hurt. Her neck muscles must have taken the brunt of the crash, with her head whipped around like a bloody trailer jack-knifing.
“I’ll have you know that this old thing,” Neve mimicked the lady’s disdain, “is a valuable antique. It might not look like much now, but it’s going to be amazing once restored.” She spun on her heels, stomping her work boots on the clean concrete driveway, deliberately turning away from Mrs Rich Wife. Neve crouched down on her heels to take a closer look at the missing wheel. A string of colourful swear words flew through her mind, and she pinched her lips together to prevent them leaving her mouth. The bloody axle was broken. Where the hell was she going to find a spare part? She couldn’t afford to get a new one cast, and this car wasn’t going anywhere without a replacement axle. She rocked back on her heels, landing firmly on her butt on the concrete. A bruising encounter with the hard surface knocked the worry out of her. No, she wouldn’t catastrophise, she would do what she always did. Find a way to carry on. There would be a solution. There had to be.
“Are you sure you are okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” Her finances were fucked now, but that was none of anyone else’s business.
“It’s just that you are crying, and... Please come inside and let me call a doctor or something.”
Neve wiped her left hand across her face, annoyed at the tears wetting the back of her hand. The residual dust from the seats on her hands turned to a smudge.
“I don’t need a doctor. Just a shower and a fucking tow truck.”
“I can arrange that.”
“Why would you? I crashed my car into your wall. It’s my fault. My business. I should be paying for your wall too.” Damn it. She hadn’t bothered with full insurance on this car—couldn’t afford it anyway. The costs kept piling up. She swallowed, her throat suddenly sore and dry.
“Come inside. We can discuss terms.”
Neve nodded, slowly because her neck was really starting to hurt now. She used the Mini to pull herself to her feet and forced herself to bounce a little as if she was as fine as she said she was. What was a little lie to some rich stranger who couldn’t possibly give a shit about her?
“Sure. Let’s get it over with.”
The lady turned and walked back towards her house. Her fucking massive brand-new mansion perched on the side of the hill. The house screamed wealth, with actual sandstone and the clean lines of modern architectural design, and a wave of self-consciousness washed over Neve. Suddenly she felt grubby, less than, and she fucking hated feeling lesser. Mum, Mrs Farrellton her foster mother, had taught her that she was enough. More than enough. She might not have finished school, but for fuck’s sake, she’d made something of herself, and she was resourceful enough to have a crack at her dream business. The one that rested on the little Mini becoming a beautifully restored car that she could drive around—a moving advertisement for her car restoration business. Simply being a mechanic didn’t fit with her creative needs. Fixing old cars and making them wonderful again was her goal. So much so, that she’d worked two jobs—an apprenticeship as a mechanic and her favourite sideline job. She tried not to growl under her breath; being sacked from that job sucked. She’d liked that work, and the money had been the key to setting up her own garage. Yeah, she knew there was a parallel to her own life in her goal. Mum had been the one to patch her up when she’d been broken, and now she’d use that to make old wrecks gorgeous once again.
“Don’t worry about your boots. The cleaner comes tomorrow.”
Neve sighed. In another life, she would be the cleaner. She’d been lucky to find a job that paid more than menial tasks. It had paid, almost, enough to get her own garage. If it hadn’t been for Caitlin’s scheming, she’d probably still be doing that job. Well, now wasn’t the time to wallow in might-have-beens. She needed to negotiate a payment plan for the damage her crash had caused, and all that shit. Urgh. She pulled off her boots, tucking them neatly against the wall beside the front door, and followed Mrs Rich Wife inside. After a short hallway, the room opened out into a massive space framed by a whole wall of windows overlooking the bush. Of course, a house like this wouldn’t have neighbours. Neve swallowed—the damage bill was going to bankrupt her before she’d even started.
