by Jess Bryant
Imperfect Saint
All Saints Security Series - 1
Jess Bryant
Blue Lemon Press
Contents
Synopsis
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
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Note from the Author
Also Available From Jess Bryant
Should’ve Been Us
Call Me, Irresistible
Stay A Little Longer
It Had To Be You
Exclusive Bonus Story
No Ordinary Love
No Ordinary Love
No Ordinary Love
No Ordinary Love
Imperfect Saint
Millie Turner is a master at compartmentalizing. She’s put her past in a box and she doesn’t talk, or even think about it. She’s managed to avoid her cheating, lying, manipulative ex-boyfriend for months. Unfortunately, avoidance is no longer an option. Her brother is getting married and his Best Man is none other than the ex that nearly destroyed her.
She doesn’t trust herself to spend an entire weekend in his presence. Not on her own. She needs a date, a distraction, a buffer, someone to keep him away from her… but she never expected her savior to come in the form of a saint.
Hunter St. James has been fascinated by the mysterious Millie since the moment they met. Despite his efforts to get her to open up, she’s kept their relationship strictly professional though. When their boss asks him to act as Millie’s date for a big family event, it seems like the perfect chance to get to know the girl that’s been keeping him at arms-length.
He thought a weekend of playing lovers would be all fun and games but he soon finds out Millie’s more than just mysterious. She has secrets and her picture-perfect façade is just as fake as their relationship is supposed to be. Only the more he learns, the more he wants to know and the less their relationship feels like a lie.
Can Hunter convince Millie to trust him with the truth? And if Millie comes clean about her past, will Hunter still want a future with her? Neither of them is perfect but maybe that’s exactly what makes them perfect for each other.
For anyone that’s ever realized their prince charming was actually a frog and refused to settle for warts.
Imperfect Saint – All Saints Security Series - 1
Copyright ©2019 by Jess Bryant.
Cover Art: Melissa Gill Designs
Editing: Sara Miller – Pretty Little Book Promotion
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used factiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Any mention of name brands means the author recognizes the trademarks associated.
1
Millie Turner had a problem, a very big problem. Her problem was six foot two with a square jaw, gravelly voice, and the build of Bruce Wayne. Only instead of saving the world like Batman, the rat bastard had tried to destroy her and she knew if she gave him half a chance that he’d do it again.
Her eyes drifted back to the impressive ivory wedding invitation sitting atop her desk. She’d been staring at the thing off and on for the past two months but she’d yet to come up with a solution to her problem. As a last-ditch effort, she’d begun praying for an end-of-times style apocalypse but she knew that was probably asking a lot just to avoid an unavoidable situation.
Her brother was getting married. Her only sibling, her best friend, her other half was marrying his other half. She was happy for Colin. Really, she was. He’d found the courage to come out to their father and he’d made things right with the only man he’d ever loved.
He and Reed had been made for each other. Anyone with two eyes could see that. Reed was Colin’s match in every way. The yin to his yang. They were different as night and day but that was why they worked so well. They balanced each other out. They just fit.
Millie loved Reed too, albeit in a different way. She’d been a little girl the first time she met the hard-edged teenage boy that had stolen her brother’s heart. It hadn’t taken him long to steal a part of hers too. Reed had become like a brother to her over the years and she was happy that Colin was finally going to make him an official part of the family.
Her problem wasn’t with Colin or with Reed.
Her problem wasn’t even with her meddling father. After twenty plus years, she’d finally found a way to deal with him and his scheming. She simply avoided him and his phone calls whenever she could.
Avoidance was one of her greatest skills.
She avoided people she didn’t want to deal with. She avoided talking about things that she didn’t want to think about. She even avoided admitting the truth to herself whenever she could so that she wouldn’t have to hate herself for being so, so stupid.
But she couldn’t avoid this.
She couldn’t avoid him.
Joshua Bell. Her ex-fiancé, and Colin’s best friend.
It hadn’t come as a surprise when Colin told her that he’d asked Joshua to be his Best Man. The Bell and Turner families shared a long history. The eldest Bell and her own grandfather had founded Turner Bell Records together. They’d navigated the ups and downs of the music industry and grown their company into what was now one of the premiere labels in Nashville. In the years that followed, they’d had families and of course their sons had grown up together. So, when those sons had started families of their own, it had been only natural that their children would grow up side by side.
Colin and Joshua had been practically inseparable since they were in diapers. They were the same age, with Colin only four months older, a feat he’d had no control of but had always enjoyed teasing Joshua about when they were children. They had been best friends since before they’d learned to walk and gone through every milestone together as they grew up. They were more like brothers really, sharing everything from sleeping bags to secrets.
Her relationship with Joshua had never been brotherly though, at least not that she could remember. Quite the opposite. She wasn’t sure exactly when it had happened, but for as long as she could remember she’d been in love with Joshua Bell. Even when the then teenaged Joshua had alternately ignored her or called her names for being just a kid that couldn’t keep up, she’d wanted to be good enough for him. Old enough. Pretty enough. Smart enough. Whatever it took. She’d spent every waking moment, and most of her time asleep, dreaming that her brother’s best friend would someday see her as more than just the annoying, tagalong little sister.
When he finally had, she’d thought all of her fantasies were coming true.
Joshua had been her first kiss. Her first boyfriend. And her first love. The problem was, she hadn’t been his.
Her relationship with Joshua had been warped from the start, only she’d been too young and far too naïve to know it. She’d been too caught up in the fantasy of him to realize that the real, flesh and blood man was no prince. She could still vividly remember the day that the blinders had come off her eyes and she’d seen the truth.
She knew the exact moment that she’d realized she wasn’t special to Jos
hua the way he was to her. That she never had been. She could remember what she’d been wearing when she finally understood that she was only a thing for him to possess, to use, to control, to show off. She could still feel the lingering heat of his hands on her and taste the blood in her mouth when she’d learned that she was nothing to the man that she’d made her everything.
She could remember exactly when she’d stopped loving Joshua Bell.
It hadn’t been the day she’d found him in their bed with another woman. No, that had happened later, much later, years later, but that day, in their home, in their bedroom, she’d finally found the means to an end. In the grand scheme of things, on a list of all that he’d put her through, cheating barely even ranked, but for her it had been the last straw.
He’d given her an easy way out, which was the kindest thing he’d done for her in years.
She’d taken it and she’d gotten away. She’d run away and she hadn’t looked back since. She’d let her family believe she’d ended things with Joshua because of his infidelity. It was easier that way. Easier to avoid her part in all of it. Easier to leave that other part of her behind and rebuild her life and herself without the heavy shadow of her past looming over her.
She’d created a good life for herself too. She had a good job. She had good friends. But still, the very thought of seeing Joshua again, being in the same place as him, standing beside him as her brother spoke vows about love and honor, made her regress back to that scared, timid girl afraid to step so much as a toe out of line for fear of Joshua’s reprisal.
“You do know staring at that invitation isn’t going to make it burst into flames, right?” Lemon Kelly strolled into the office and collapsed into an oversized chair, pulling Millie’s attention away from the sheet of cardstock.
Millie frowned when Lemon kicked her feet up, propping them on the edge of Millie’s desk, but she held her tongue. It might be Millie’s new desk, in Millie’s new office, but Lemon was still her boss. Even though she acted more like a bratty sister than an employer sometimes, it wasn’t Millie’s job to chastise her about not ruining the furniture in an office that Lemon basically paid for.
Before Lemon had moved back to her hometown of Fate, Texas permanently, Millie had worked out of Lemon’s home in Nashville as her personal assistant. Then her superstar boss had gone home to find herself and ended up finding the man of her dreams as well. Lemon had married Shane Lowry, became step-mom to his three daughters, and she spent as much time in Texas as she could these days.
But Millie’s life was in Nashville. Her family was here. Her life was here. She’d offered to move to Texas to continue working with Lemon because she loved her job and her boss but Lemon had refused and honestly, Millie had been relieved. Texas was great and all but Nashville was home.
It had been Lemon that insisted Millie remain in Tennessee and expand her personal assistant services into a full-blown agency. Lemon was the one that had rented Millie the office space and set her up with meetings for new clients that needed full-time assistance. When the number of clients and jobs had grown, it was Lemon that had urged Millie to hire on help so that she could manage her now thriving business instead of other people’s day-to-day duties.
Millie still handled Lemon’s professional life personally though, and had no plans to hand over her biggest client, and closest friend, to anyone else. Ever. Despite the distance between Nashville and Fate, Texas, Millie still managed Lemon’s schedule and appearances and made sure the musician was meeting her deadlines. Lemon had scaled back on her professional commitments to spend time with her new family but she was still one of the highest grossing female country music artists of all time.
Millie was happy for Lemon. Even if it meant her working life had been turned upside down with all the changes. Even if she sometimes thought about how Lemon had gotten the perfect life that Millie had always imagined for herself. Lemon had the handsome husband that adored her and step-daughters that embraced her on top of a career she loved. Millie had thought she would have all of that and more once upon a time, back before her dreams came crashing down around her like a house of cards. She was happy for Lemon, even if sometimes that insidious green thing inside her felt like it was going to strangle her in jealousy and sadness.
Millie shook off the melancholy that always seeped in with those kinds of thoughts and tried to focus on work, “Don’t you have somewhere to be?”
“Not for a while.” Lemon shrugged.
“Did you get the contract all worked out with the label about the next tour?”
“Yes, Mom.” Lemon did her best annoyed teenager impression and blew a long strand of blonde hair off her face, “Now stop trying to change the subject and tell me what we’re going to do about this wedding situation.”
“There is no we. Not for this. Stop worrying about something that isn’t your problem. I’m fine.” She shook her head but her boss dropped her feet back to the floor to sit upright.
“Seriously, Mills. I may not be around as much but I still know you, and I know you’re freaking out about seeing him again, so don’t give me that bullshit about being fine. You’re not fine and no amount of smiling and pretending everything is okay is going to convince me otherwise, so just tell me the truth. What’s your plan?”
Never had Millie regretted telling Lemon about her history with Joshua as much as she did right then. Lemon didn’t know the whole story, but she knew enough. Lemon knew that Joshua had insisted on total control in their relationship and that he hadn’t understood the concept of commitment. She also knew they’d had a volatile on-again, off-again relationship since they were teenagers. Therefore, Lemon knew enough to hate him which was why this wasn’t the first time the blonde had pressed Millie on the issue of the wedding invitation or more specifically her brother’s choice of Best Man.
Lemon couldn’t believe that Millie had never told her brother the real reason she’d ended things with Joshua for good. She thought Colin needed to know that his best friend wasn’t the good guy he thought he was. But Lemon didn’t understand. She couldn’t possibly understand because even she didn’t know the whole story and Millie never intended to tell her, or anyone, especially not her brother.
She’d only told Colin about the one infidelity. When her brother had gotten angry, she’d told him that she was fine, that she and Joshua had drifted apart and seeing him with another woman had finally made her realize they weren’t the same people they’d been as teenagers when they had gotten together. Colin hadn’t liked it, but he’d accepted that explanation.
He wouldn’t have accepted the rest of it quite so easily, and so she hadn’t told him. She hadn’t told anyone. Not really.
She avoided talking about that part of her life. She avoided going home whenever she could. She avoided events where she knew Joshua would be in attendance. But she’d always known that eventually, someday, she’d have to face him.
But even knowing it was inevitable, didn’t mean she was ready for it.
Millie bit her lip, “I don’t think I can do it, Lem.”
“Do what?”
“Go.”
Lemon gave her a look of disappointment, “Of course you’re going. You can’t miss your brother’s wedding. Colin would never forgive you. Besides, you’re Millie fucking Turner. You don’t run from a fight. You go in guns blazing with everything you’ve got.”
Millie snorted, because no, she wasn’t a fighter. Not at heart. But the one thing she’d learned, after leaving Joshua, was that if she didn’t fight for herself nobody else would. She was a much better fighter when it came to her job, and her clients’ careers, than she was in her personal life.
“You’re going to that wedding and you’re going to keep your chin high and your pride intact and if that bastard so much as tries to speak to you, you’re going to throw a glass of wine in his face.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Why the hell not?” Lemon crossed her arms over her chest and raised an e
yebrow, waiting.
“Because it’s Joshua.”
“And?”
“And…” She didn’t want to admit to Lemon what she had a hard time admitting even to herself. A small part of her was still clinging to the idea of Joshua as her other half. Even after everything he’d done, some small part of her still wished that he truly had been the man of her dreams. She groaned, “He was supposed to be it for me, Lemon. Even when we were little our parents talked about us ending up together, uniting our families. He was supposed to be my Prince Charming.”
“But he turned out to be Prince Douchebag instead.”
“I know.” Millie mentally chastised herself for letting those old useless hopes about changing Joshua creep back into her mind. “But you’ve never met him. You don’t know how determined he can be when he wants something. He knows me inside and out. He knows exactly which buttons to push. He plays mind games and I don’t trust myself not to fall for it again.”
Lemon frowned. “You’re too smart to fall for his bullshit again.”
“If that was true, don’t you think I would have ended things with him before it ever got started? I’ve broken up with him a dozen times and a dozen times he’s managed to win me back. I’m not smart. Not when it comes to him. And I hate him for that, really I do…” She hated him for so many reasons but hating him didn’t change things, not really.
