And that was when I realized that sometimes, the right words were also the simplest ones.
”I am ready,” I told him, finally feeling like I’d come home.
It was one in the afternoon outside, but my curtains were drawn and my room was dark.
Or at least, it was supposed to be.
I couldn’t tell the difference.
It’s been five weeks of darkness for me. Thirty-five fucking days and nights of pitch blackness, and by the looks of it it wasn’t gonna end anytime soon.
Maybe I’d suck it up better if that was all I had to deal with, but it seemed like every one of my other senses was heightened beyond the usual. The smell of antiseptic and cleaning solutions seemed to linger on every surface in my room, clouding my brain and giving me the worst fucking headache. Every sound seemed so loud, even though there was not another soul with me on this three-acre estate.
I’d moved to this property upstate just to be away from every person I knew, and then I’d sent all the household help away. I wasn’t about to let anyone see me fumble around like a useless idiot. No one was allowed on my grounds except a housekeeper and my affairs manager. Neither of them were allowed to see me.
But even without the presence of other people my brain was ready to blow. Every creak of the floorboards made me wince, and the birds chirping from the forests outside made me want to commit murder. The sound of my own blood pumping through my veins made my ear ring like the worst case of tinnitus and my bandages fucking itched.
Gabriel didn’t know it, but the chance that I would regain my sight was lower than the number I told him.
Way lower.
I had a fifty-percent chance of regaining my sight in my right eye. And the left?
Zero.
Zero percent chance of seeing in my left eye again, because the piece of glass that had pierced it had gone straight through and severed my optic nerve clean. I was never gonna see out of both eyes again, and that was a fact. Whether I’d even see again at all was as likely as a coin-toss.
Crazy thing was, even after I woke up with bandages all over my body and around my eyes, my first order of business was to call my managers to deal with the hotel.
It was fucked up, ‘cause that was what got me into the accident in the first place.
But I didn’t know what else to do. It was the only thing left that made sense to me anymore, and without it I’d be even more useless than I was now.
My father was still keeping me on the board in name in the slim chance that I’d see again. He hadn’t broken the news to any of the other directors or our shareholders yet. He didn't want to rock the boat. I was still MD, but only in name, and in the meantime my elder brother would take over until I recovered my sight.
If I recovered my sight.
I was lucky to survive at all, the doctors said. It was a miracle I was still here, but it didn’t fucking feel like it. I was so hopped up on painkillers that I didn’t even know if I was still in pain anymore.
I didn’t even know if I was actually alive or if this was some fevered life-flashing-before-your-eyes dream I was having on the operating table.
I couldn’t tell, because I Couldn’t. Fucking. See.
And of course, the final nail in the coffin was my fiancée.
I couldn’t keep the news from someone who might become my wife, and so Samuel and Adelaine McCormick were the only ones aside from my family who knew the true extent of my injury.
While Samuel McCormick had sent his hopes for my recovery and his intention to meet with me when I was recovered, he also conveyed apologetically—but in no uncertain terms—that his daughter did not share his views. Adelaide was still making up her mind about our engagement, he’d said, but it didn’t take a genius to know what she’d choose.
In short, I had nothing left. Not even the wife I didn’t want.
Cerberus shifted in her spot by my feet, a low growl rumbling in her chest at something she heard.
“Easy, girl,” I murmured, reaching down to pat her head.
At least I still had my dog. After I became the vulnerable one between us two, Cerberus grew less wary and started taking on the role of my companion. Now she hardly left my side, following dutifully as I stumbled my way through my dark and empty mansion.
I heard footsteps outside suddenly, and before I could react someone knocked on my bedroom door. Cerberus growled louder.
“I told you never to come upstairs!” I snarled.
“It’s me,” a feminine voice called. “Adelaine. Adelaine McCormick.”
I didn’t recognize the name for a moment, because it never crossed my mind that Adelaine would be here.
Why was she here? Had she come to deliver her decision to me in person? Or to see for herself what had become of me so she could tell all her friends?
I grew even more pissed, because who the fuck had let her in here?
I tightened my fingers around Cerberus’ collar, trying to keep us both calm.
“How did you get in?” I gritted.
“The main gates were open and there was no one around, so…”
My jaw clenched. Mrs. Winfrey must have gone out to get something and left them open as she drove out.
I was furious that she’d fucked with the one rule in this place: Let no one in. I wanted to rage at everyone who couldn’t get that one thing right, including the woman on the other side of the door.
“Leave,” I growled, not trusting myself to say more without lashing out.
“I was hoping we could talk,” Adelaine called from the other side. “It’s important to me, so I wanted to speak with you personally. It’s about the engagement if you already guessed,” she added.
I laughed bitterly. “Oh, it’s important for you alright, to shed the deadweight that is Cameron Lancaster.”
But some foolish part of me still held out faint hope that she would stay anyway. I couldn’t think of a reason why she would—fuck knew I wouldn’t if I were her.
But I’d hoped nonetheless.
“That’s not true,” she said sharply.
“Isn’t it?” I mocked. “I can do nothing for you now. I can give you nothing, not the fortune you wanted nor the social status. Wasn’t that what you were after?”
Adelaine paused, not denying it—and that seriously pissed me off.
“Come in then,” I said mockingly, driven by a pervert desire to frighten her. “Come take a look at your future husband and what’s become of him.”
The door creaked open, and she stepped in.
I tried to imagine what she saw—the dark and heavy curtains that let no light in. The stench of liquor and the bottles that littered the floor. The clothing that I’d tried to put on and discarded because I couldn’t see what went where.
The broken, bandaged man in the chair where he spent his days because he couldn’t make it ten steps without knocking something over.
Cerberus snarled under her breath as Adelaine shut the door behind her and came further into the room.
She was wearing the same perfume I vaguely remembered. It smelled cloying and sugary, like an artificial sweetener, and both Cerberus and I hated it.
“Alcohol and painkillers?” she said, sounding disturbed. Her voice sounded lower than I recalled.
“I pick my own poison,” I replied, resting my hand on Cerberus’s head as her throat rumbled ominously.
Adelaine chose not to debate that.
“How do you feel?” she asked quietly.
I couldn’t help myself at her innocuous question. It was such a simple, everyday question and yet nothing was the same for me or would ever be again. My hand clenched on the armrest as I tried to remain calm.
“How do you think I feel, Adelaine?” I struggled to keep my tone mockingly polite, but there was no hiding my simmering anger underneath. “I can’t tell day from night, and I’m so hopped up on painkillers I can’t even think straight.”
My volume rose with every word, and I was so tense I was
nearly leaning out of the chair. “I’m about to lose everything in the family business and on top of that I’m blind. How the fuck do you think I feel!”
Adelaine didn’t burst into tears or leave in anger. She didn’t say anything at all. Her breathing hitched imperceptibly, but that was it.
The last time we met I’d thought she was spoilt, shallow and vapid. Eager to please and even more eager to get that rock on her finger. But I also knew that none of this was her fault, and she had every right to call off the engagement. She was too young to have to deal with this.
I realized with a start that I couldn’t even recall her face—and that realization bothered me more than I wanted it to.
I was once engaged to this woman, and all I remembered of her was that she was light-haired. A faceless, petite blonde; that’s all that was left of her in my mind’s eye.
God, I was fucked up.
“Just say your piece and get out,” I said wearily. I was unbelievably tired of the whole situation, but most of all I was tired of myself.
Adelaine drew a breath, then exhaled.
“I want to remain engaged to you,” she said evenly.
Every muscle in me went still.
“What did you just say?”
“I still want to marry you,” she said, clearer this time. “I want to be your wife.”
Then her voice grew a little uncertain at my stunned silence. “I mean, if you’ll have me…?”
***THE END***
Thanks for reading Charming, Book #3 in the series!
Read on for the cover and blurb for Broken (Book #2), and an exclusive excerpt of Arrogant, the first book in the New York Heirs Series!
BROKEN
(New York Heirs Book #2)
KARIN
Theo Valentine is a cruel heartbreaker. A manipulative psychopath.
As beautiful as a fallen angel and the most damaged man I’ve ever met.
He came into my life ten years ago like a whirlwind, taking over my town and my high school.
I couldn’t resist. I tried to fix him.
In return, he broke me and destroyed my life.
Now our past has caught up to us, throwing us together again.
Theo is more twisted than ever, but this time, I’m ready for him.
This time, I’m unbreakable.
THEO
Ten years ago, she turned my life upside down.
She came close to me and made me feel for the first time.
So I took everything from her.
Karin Beckett will stay away from me this time if she wants her heart intact.
But she won’t.
She has always been drawn to broken things, and she will try to save me once more.
If only she knows how fucked up I am now.
I’m too far gone, too sick in the head for saving.
All I’ll do is break her again.
***
BROKEN is available on Amazon and free to read on Kindle Unlimited!
Read on for an exclusive excerpt of
ARROGANT,
Book #1 in the New York Heirs Series!
ARROGANT is available on Amazon and free to read on Kindle Unlimited!
Heirs of New York.
Manhattan Royals.
Trust Fund Nobility.
Whatever the tabloids call it, they’re all referring to the same thing: The new generation of playboys and party girls from old money, all richer, more beautiful, and more arrogant than the last.
And the richest, most beautiful, and most arrogant of them all is Ryland Wyatt, CEO and heir to billions in real estate fortune.
Our paths first crossed ten years ago, in a seaside town on the coast of California. The town was large enough to have a social hierarchy, and small enough for everyone to know who belonged where.
Ryland had been at the very top with his father’s behemoth of a business empire.
And I, being a loner despite my dad’s money, was at the very bottom.
We didn’t know each other then—the drama came ten years later in the city of New York, along with all the lies and secrets that Ryland had kept since our time in San Juan.
I thought that I’d escaped him by staying out of his radar back then.
I should have known that darkness followed Ryland wherever he went, like he was a horseman of the apocalypse.
And like Death, he came into my life and destroyed everything in his path, leaving nothing intact. The last thing he shattered was my heart.
This is our story.
Ten years ago
“It’s the same shit, same people, week after fucking week.” Theo sneered at the crowd below like they personally offended him. “How the hell are these idiots not sick of it?”
The JBL speakers surrounding the pool pumped bass music so loud that vibrations shot through the balcony tiles and up my bare feet. LED lights, the kind you used in actual clubs, not the cheap shit from BestBuy, strobed through my rock glass on the balustrade.
Which reminded me—it was time for my fourth refill of the night.
“It's a small town,” I said in a bored tone, picking the glass up and swirling the remaining whiskey around. “It’s not like they have anything else to do other than attend your lame ass party.”
“Fuck you too.” Theo took a deep drag from his blunt, then flicked the ashes at the wild crowd below.
He had a look of irritated boredom on his face, the exact same one I wore on mine. The only reason I still put up with these weekly parties was to maintain the status quo in this town.
My friends and I ran the high school with our own rules, treating the students and even the teachers like they were our subjects—and the key to that was the social game.
Every week like clockwork, Theo would throw his Friday party at his future stepfather’s mansion.
And every week like clockwork, all the high-schoolers in San Juan would beg to come.
An invitation meant serious street-cred, up until the next party rolled around a week later and the new list of names came up to determine who was in our good books, and who was worth shit.
It was pathetic.
At least Theo knew how to throw a decent party, with free flow booze, weed, and enough sex to make even a Playboy bunny blush.
The Beckett mansion wasn’t half-bad either. The three-story house looked like it was plucked straight from the streets of Beverly Hills and slapped into the town of San Juan, CA where jackshit happened. Around the back was my favorite feature—a full-sized pool featuring naked statues spewing water from their tits.
Sounds trashy, but that was nothing compared to what we got up to at the parties. The pool itself probably held more DNA than a sperm bank, but Horace Beckett let his girlfriend's son get away with anything as long as she kept him busy in bed.
We took full advantage of that. The Beckett mansion saw more naked chicks than a beach in Tenerife, and we contributed to that number.
Substantially.
On cue, feminine moans and sounds of slapping skin drifted out from our fuckpad behind us.
When I'd strode through the room earlier to get to the balcony, Gabriel had been slouched on the sofa watching the football game while a topless redhead knelt between his legs and sucked him off like a popsicle. The bastard looked like he didn't have a care in the world.
Cam, on the other hand, had not one, but three girls with him on the chaise, and he’d been pounding into one and while finger-fucking the other two.
It was more weird than impressive, but either way it was completely in character for Cam. That competitive son-of-a-bitch needed to one-up everyone at everything.
I swirled the last bit of amber liquid in my glass. “I need another drink.”
“And I need a new piece of pussy,” Theo clipped as he took another drag on his blunt. “We've already fucked all the ones worth fucking.”
I gave him a mocking smile. “Ennui? At the ripe old age of eighteen?”
“Piss off. You're sick of this p
lace too, don't act like you're not.” Theo exhaled a cloud of smoke and flicked his blunt into the partying crowd without bothering to put it out first. “Everyone here is trash.”
“Not everyone.”
My eyes went automatically to the mansion's bedroom wing, which sat at an L to the balcony.
Third floor, first window from the left.
Her light was on, but as usual, her windows were shut tight like she couldn't stand the club music and screaming from the pool.
Alecia Grace Beckett, Horace's elder daughter and Theo's future step-sister was pretty girl with a good amount of dark hair and above-average legs, but that’s all she had going for her. She was boring as hell, and always with a book.
And I liked girls who opened their legs, not their books.
But what really pissed me off about Allie Beckett was that she refused to play our game.
Yeah.
She actually dared to stay out of it.
Beckett Construction was at its peak, which put Horace Beckett in the same income bracket as Gabriel's family. That meant that Allie could have everything she wanted, whenever she wanted.
She could even be the damned queen bee, ruling our high school and our town right alongside me and my friends.
But she didn’t want to.
She just kept to herself, like she was better than the rest of us.
I threw back the last mouthful of liquor and slammed the glass on the balustrade.
Better my ass—she was an outcast, simple as that. Nothing more than a stray.
An alley cat.
Even her younger sister Karin played her part in the social game. There was just no excuse for Allie Beckett not to.
The only reason I’d left her alone so far was that if we fucked with her, we’d lose our free rein of the Beckett Mansion, and our parties.
I had a thousand and one ways I could make Allie dance, and not one that I could make a reality.
That. Sucked. Balls.
I narrowed my eyes at her windows, as if I could stare through them, right into her proud gray eyes.
Charming (New York Heirs #3) Page 24
