LOGINEleven years ago, Leilani Amara Vaughn danced her last ballet the night her rival fell to her death and the world branded her a killer. Now she’s free, but freedom feels like a cruel joke. Every path she takes is already blocked. Every chance at redemption quietly erased by unseen hands. Until one man offers her salvation—Declan Patridge Powerful. Untouchable. Cold as the empire he built. He gives her a job in his home, a roof over her head… and chains she can’t see. He says it’s mercy. She feels it’s punishment. But what begins as vengeance soon burns into something neither of them can name. Because beneath the hatred, the lies, and the silence, beats a truth dangerous enough to destroy them both.
View More“No. I will not live under the same roof as Evangeline’s killer.”The words cracked through the office like a whip.Across from her, Declan barely looked up from the documents spread across his desk. One hand rested lazily against the leather arm of his chair while the other turned a page with infuriating calm.“Then you can pack your bags and leave.”Quiet. So unbearably quiet. Patricia Walsh stared at him, momentarily robbed of speech. In the thirty-plus years she had worked for the Whitmore Family, she had seen Declan furious, grieving, reckless, and cold but this version of him unsettled her most.This version never raised his voice.“I’m sure,” he continued smoothly, “you’ll either find employment elsewhere or retire comfortably on what you’ve earned here.”Her mouth opened and closed once. “Declan—”He finally lifted his gaze. Dark eyes. Empty eyes. Patient's eyes. The kind that could outwait a storm. Hadn’t he waited twelve whole years for Leilani Vaughn? Hadn't guilt g
A noise startled Leilani awake. The wall clock on the dresser indicated that it was a few minutes past ten in the morning. How had she slept till this time? She had never been one to sleep past four am in her entire life. Maybe the illusion of freedom was getting to her. Or is it the quaint atmosphere? The sound of nature? The bed? Or the amount of food Morgana had almost force-fed into her system last night. But it was the best sleep she'd ever had. “Ye're still sleeping, lass?” Morgana asked loudly from the other side of the closed door. “I can't reheat the food again?” Leilani paused looking all over the room. It was on the upper floor, a simple, neutral room with a comfortable queen-sized bed, plush bedding, a thick vintage oak dresser, and a matching table and chair set. The best accessory had to be the huge bay windows overlooking the garden—Morgana's selling point. Leilani stretched. The threadbare T-shirt she'd worn to bed had ridden up her
Leilani sat stiffly, her spine ramrod straight in the French Bergere chair, her eyes darting almost nervously around the warm interior of the cul-de-sac inn. She had expected a seedy motel, one with a painful neon sign, a broken shower, and a door that you might have to brace with a chair to feel safe, perhaps maybe or two, one a few miles from the penitentiary where the warden had taken inm........ But this, the Thistle Inn was the direct opposite. It was a restored Victorian painted a cool shade of Robin blue with egg white shutters, wraparound porch and huge bay windows overlooking a lovely garden filled with all kinds of flowers she couldn't name if a gun was pointed at her head. It was beautiful. Maybe too beautiful. “.... I'll be checking in on you morning and evening till you make your decision.” Lennon was saying as he handed her the room key. Leilani paused her thinking, her eyes fixed on the key but she didn't take it. She would have preferred
Declan sat through the meeting in silence. Board members and stakeholders argued back and forth, voices rising and falling, but he remained unmoved. Every now and then, he sensed eyes drifting toward him. Measuring, gauging, waiting for a reaction. None came. Somehow, he was still in the restaurant. Still watching the killer. All he could do then—and now—was grit his teeth in slow, grinding agony. Waiting. Waiting until he had her in his clutches. “Declan, are you following?” The voice cut through his thoughts. He snapped out of his musings, lifting his gaze to find ten pairs of eyes fixed on him. Watching. Expectant. “I didn’t have to be here for this meeting, did I?” The domineering CEO mask slid back into place with cool, effortless ease. A few mouths opened, prepared to refute him but the calm, impassive look on his face shut them down before a single sound could escape. “All of this,” he said mildly, deceptively so, “could have been a well-documented copy
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