The Million Dollar Series - Volume 4
Not long ago, when Monica Kenny's husband realized his wife had gone through premature menopause and would never give him the children he so desperately wanted, he took a mistress, deceived and divorced her. Monica tried to move on, but was unable, feeling the fool for allowing herself to be so badly abused and mistreated by the man she loved. Unable to look herself in the mirror, Monica was determined to even the score. She needed to hurt Nate in a way in which he would never recover. She needed revenge! That would come in the form of stealing from him what he valued most in the world: his son, the boy Monica had recommended they adopt two years ago, in order to save their marriage. Her husband rejected the idea at the time, only to later adopt the infant after his divorce from Monica was finalized.
In order to succeed with her plan, Monica must convince a judge the child should be taken, and she will have to paint Nate as an adulterous, unfit parent who provides a hazardous living environment and abuses his child. That man is who Monica truly believes her husband to be, but it will be hard to prove, considering Nate has been acting the model father and has announced he's "changed his ways" and "become a better man".
Knowing her husband and the lies he tells, Monica enlists Nate's past mistresses-the only women she believes can help: Daphanie Coleman and Tori Thomas. Monica positions the women to seduce Nate into succumbing to his most primal urges. But when the psychopathic killer, Freddy Ford, a man who has shot both Monica and Nate in the past, and left them for dead, breaks out of a psychiatric institution seeking revenge, the task of rescuing the child Monica loves from the man she hates, becomes more complicated, increasingly impossible and even deadly.
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The Million Dollar Destiny Excerpt
Two months down...seventeen years and ten months to go, Daphanie thought, staring down at her infant child who had just woken, and was smiling, reaching a hand up to her.
"Hey sweetheart. Hey baby," Daphanie smiled at the boy. Ironically, his name was Nate.
"Why did you name him that?" Daphanie asked Trevor the first night she lived under his roof.
"Because if Nate Kenny hadn't alerted me to your lies, didn't convince you to sign your rights over to me, I wouldn't have my son. Our child would've been a bastard. I'm eternally grateful to that man."
Daphanie picked up little Nat. It's what she'd been calling him, because hearing that man's name every time she spoke to her baby was just too painful. Daphanie pressed the baby to her breasts, took him over and sat down with him in the glider.
"Are you hungry, Nat?" Daphanie said, kissing the baby on the head. His last feeding was over four hours ago when she heard him screaming from her room. She climbed out of bed and took Nat down to feed him Similac in the middle of the kitchen, under a low burning overhead stove light. Trevor never fed their baby. It was implicitly stated early on as one of the conditions that allowed her to stay there: she would do all of the off-hour caring.
Now in the little boy's room, Daphanie bounced Nat in her arms, hoping to stop him from recognizing his hunger for she wanted just a little more time with him. The baby's face crumpled, his lips turned downward and he started a long whine, which she knew would turn into a full tantrum if he weren't fed.
"Shhh, shhh, shhh," Daphanie said, bouncing him faster. Nat needed food. But Daphanie didn't feel like feeding her baby food from a can again. It wasn't natural. What he needed, what she knew the baby wanted was what coursed through her mammary glands. She thought of this every time she stood under the hot spray of her shower, dreaming of what was forbidden, massaging her breasts till the milk leaked from her nipples onto the shower floor and washed wastefully down the drain.
Looking toward the door, Daphanie figured Trevor should've been all ready dressed and leaving for work. She knew if she weren't in his path to the front door, he would've never gone out of his way to say goodbye. Still squirming in her arms, Nat became more restless.
"Okay, baby. Shhh, shhh, shhh," Daphanie said, opening her robe, sliding down her gown strap to expose a heavy breast. She took it in her hand, massaged it gently, squeezing her nipple softly to coax a bead of milk from it. She brought Nat's face forward and immediately he began to suckle. It had been so long since she fed her child the way God intended. She felt him pulling the life sustaining fluid he needed from her. And finally, after doing all that mothers did: changing diapers, bathing the baby, rocking the baby to sleep, it was only now she truly felt like this child's mother.
She brought Nat closer, lay back her head, rocked slowly in the glider, and closed her eyes, trying to suppress the tears that she knew would come. The two months she had been there had been hard, but this made up for it, Daphanie thought. She started to drift off, telling herself if she could have this moment, once every now and again, she could deal with whatever punishment Trevor chose to deliver her. Suddenly, Daphanie was startled by the opening of the bedroom door, and even more surprised when it wasn't the nanny that Trevor hired to care for Nat much of the time, but Trevor.
"What are you doing?" Shock painted his face. "I said, what the hell are you doing?" he said again, walking toward her, looking as though there was a need to rescue their son.
"I'm feeding our baby." Daphanie pulled Nat closer to her breasts, cradling him tighter.
"I said you were never to do that. All the formula you need is-"
"I don't want to feed him anymore formula. He needs milk. My milk!"
"Give him to me." Trevor said, his hands outstretched.
"No!"
"Give me my fu**** son!" Trevor demanded.
Daphanie pushed back in the chair, covering Nat with her arms, but Trevor was on her, his hands wrapped around their tiny baby's body. And he was pulling him like the child was in a wrecked car about to explode: like Daphanie's arms were flames licking his son's skin. She had no choice but release him for fear Trevor would break Nat if they continued to struggle.
"Please!" Daphanie screamed, reaching so far out from the chair that she toppled over, spilling out of it, falling to her knees. She looked up to see Trevor staring down on her, resentment on his face, holding their child as far away as he could from her.
"I told you never to do that. My rules! You don't like them...leave!" He stormed out the room, Daphanie hearing her son scream down the hall as he was being carried off.
(Continued...) © 2016 All rights reserved. Book excerpt reprinted by permission of the author, RM Johnson. Do not reproduce, copy or use without the author's written permission. This excerpt is used for promotional purposes only.
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The Million Dollar Series - Volume 4
Conversation with RM Johnson
RM Johnson is the award-winning, bestselling author of 23 books. He holds an MFA in creative writing. He is a professor of English and Creative Writing and lives in Atlanta, GA where he is at work on his next novel.
BPM: Could you tell us something about your most recent work? Is this book available on Nook and Kindle? My new novel: The Million Dollar Destiny is available on both Amazon.com and BN.com and through direct order from Createspace.com. The Million Dollar Destiny is the final installment in my bestselling, The Million Dollar series, which includes the novels: The Million Dollar Divorce, The Million Dollar Deception, and The Million Dollar Demise.
BPM: Give us some insight into your main characters or speakers. What makes each one so special? Nate Kenny is a millionaire and man who will go to any length, illegally, immorally or otherwise to get what he wants. In this installment, his newly remarried wife, Monica Kenny tries to turn the tables on Nate, attempts to plot and connive as he so brilliantly does, but finds, nearly at the loss of everything she loves, that she is not the master manipulator she thought she was.
BPM: What inspired you to sit down and actually start writing this book? Why now? The Million Dollar Destiny was a long time coming. Deceit and Devotion, which is a related book in the series, was released way back in 2011. I was looking forward to seeing what was going on with Nate and Monica Kenny, Lewis Waters, Tori Thomas and the rest of the Million Dollar characters. I also wanted to give my readers the satisfaction in knowing how their narratives end.
BPM: What did you enjoy most about writing this book? Wrapping it up, I believe. I started writing the first novel in this series in 2002 or 2003. I love these folks, and I've enjoyed seeing how they changed, matured and how life has affected them. I'm happy they are all going off to a better place.
BPM: Where do your book ideas come from? Are your books plot-driven or character-driven? I write both styles of books: plot and character driven novels. My ideas come from everywhere. If the story is interesting to me, and I believe my readers will find it as enjoyable, I'll definitely write it!
BPM: Did you learn anything personal from writing your book? Writing the novel is always a learning opportunity for me. I've been doing this professionally for 19 years: this is my 23rd book. I learn more about myself, improve as a writer and novelist each time I go through the tortuous process of creating another work of fiction. If there is nothing else I learn during that process, I am reminded that writing is what I love.
BPM: What were your goals and intentions in this book, and how well do you feel you achieved them? My goal was to reintroduce my readers to friends they made in this series of books: to update them, to give them an opportunity to care for these people again, worry about them, and watch them grapple with issues that very well could cause them great pain and loss, then be allowed to see how the characters solve those problems or not and come out the other side.
BPM: What projects are you working on at the present? I actually have three projects I'm working on. Two are novels ideas, I'm very excited about, neither of which I can mention for top secret, special reasons. I say that jokingly. And the last, which I believe I'll start today, is a one-man stage performance based on my novel, My Wife's Baby.
