 by Shandi Boyes.jpg)
Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 89093 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89093 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
I should have never existed. My father didn’t want me, my mother was killed trying to get us away from him, and although my siblings knew of our father’s sick and twisted games, they followed his footsteps instead of creating their own.
My imprint on the land was basically non-existent, but since it was far from the controversy of my family’s ‘business’, I was living my best life.
That was until the embers of my past sailed back in so furiously they burned.
She was the woman I had failed to protect, the one I was living the life of a hermit for, but since her very existence was now dangerously entangled with mine, she was also the one I had to let in even with it doubling the chance she wouldn’t make it out the same.
Jae Ward was once my savior, but now I must be her captor because when lies are twisted, the only person you can trust is yourself.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Chapter One
“You lying piece of shit!”
After grabbing the first thing I can get my hands on, I send it flying across the room. When the lit scented candle shatters into the wooden headboard a pair of handcuffs are dangling off, I suck in its citron blossom scent while screaming like a banshee.
I’m stunned.
Speechless.
Yet, oh so relieved.
If Isaac, my friend and boss, hadn’t suggested I start my eight weeks of vacation a day early, I’d be none the wiser that my fiancé is a two-bit cheat. I was apprehensive about taking so much time off as it was, but in the year Cedric and I have known each other, we’ve only spent the equivalent of seventy hours in the same room. I wanted to know the man I was set to marry in a couple of months. I didn’t want to be caught up in the chaotic storm adventurous men like Cedric instigate without any thoughts on the aftermath of their turbulent ways.
Thank God the twister ended before all my Amex points were cashed in.
I don’t know why I expected better from Cedric. Our entire relationship has been one dangerous twister after another. We met at a surgical convention in Dallas. I thought he was a little cocky, but I’d be a liar if I said I wasn’t flattered by his attention. A month after the convention, he accepted a position at Ravenshoe Private. Three months later, we were engaged.
It’s been a crazy year, but I never anticipated this, and from the widening of Cedric’s eyes when it dawns on him who threw the candle, he wasn’t either.
“Twinkie Pie.” He bats away the blonde whose waterfall locks are barely concealing the adulterous event occurring before my very eyes before he scuttles across the damp-with- sweat bedding. “You were meant to meet me at the airport tomorrow afternoon for our flight.”
“I left early. I thought it would be nice to wake up in the same location as you on our first anniversary instead of in a different state.” I wave my hand across the mountaintop views stretched as far as the eye can see. “The view was worth seven hours on the freeway, but the greeting could sure do with some work!” With my annoyance as piqued as my voice, my last three words come out as shouts. “We’re supposed to be getting married in three months! We leave on a once-in-a-lifetime trip tomorrow afternoon. Yet, here you are, fucking a whore on the sheets your mother gifted us at our engagement party!”
“Hey,” the blonde pipes up. I assume she’s going to defend herself against the derogative name I called her but am proven wrong when she stammers out, “I thought we were going to see the lights of Paree together, Snookie Bear?”
Her pout enhances the plumpness of her lips from sucking my fiancé dry, and they make me utterly ropeable. “Oh, go ahead, sweetheart. Go see the lights of Paree with him.” I overemphasize her nasally voice while trying my darndest to impersonate her bimbo attitude. “Just make sure you clean the smegma from his cock before further oral activities.” She swishes her tongue around her mouth when I murmur, “A buildup of dick secretions causes all sorts of nasty issues if you swallow too much of it.”
When I turn on my heel, Cedric leaps out of bed. “Jae…” His chase-down isn’t to beg for forgiveness. He wants to pinch the last of my nerves. “If you no longer want to go on our little getaway, perhaps I could take Rosha with me. She’s never seen Paris—”
“Neither have I!” My half Australian, half Korean heritage echoes in my ears when my shouted words bounce off the thick wooden walls of the cabin. “That’s why we were going to Paree.” I’ve never believed in physical violence, but before I can remind myself of that, my knee pops into Cedric’s groin in sync with my purse, whacking him up the side of the head. “And I’d rather rot in hell than ever let you use my Amex points.”
After a final sneer, I continue my exit.
In good judgment, Cedric lets me leave.
While galloping down the stairs of the cabin, I grumble my annoyance about both his inability to grovel and for stupidly discounting the numerous rumors the past six months about him sleeping with interns at Ravenshoe Private.
Although this estate has been in his family’s vault of properties for almost a decade, this is the first time I’ve traveled here. With the holiday of a lifetime already maiming my stingy heart, I suggested that Cedric collect his ski equipment from the cabin instead of purchasing it new. I thought it would save us a couple of dollars. In reality, it saved me thousands.
Even annulments are expensive these days.
I’m glad I am so frugal. If I hadn’t been, every milestone I’ve achieved in the past ten years would have been null and void. I would have been back to square one.