by Laura Kaye
She bee-lined for the bedroom, already working at the buttons on her silk blouse. Despite being under the gun, she took the time to hang up her work clothes and put everything away in the walk-in closet that was nearly as big as her childhood bedroom had been.
Cole didn’t like mess or clutter.
Slipping into a pretty blue blouse, jeans, and her ballet flats, Alexa’s gaze cut to the alarm clock on her nightstand. She had twenty-five minutes. Twenty-five minutes to make sure her lateness didn’t ruin their whole evening.
Damnit, Alexa. You should’ve kept your eyes on the time better.
It was true. She’d just been elbows deep in materials arriving for the model home in Cole’s newest development. This was the first time he was letting her take the lead on the interior design of a model, rather than hiring their usual outside contractor, and she wanted it to be perfect.
She wanted to be perfect. For Cole.
Cole really liked perfection.
Alexa got it. Cole’s perfectionist tendencies went a long way to explaining how he’d built Cole Slater Enterprises, the biggest real estate development and management company in western Maryland. Hell, Frederick was almost a company town, at least where real estate was concerned. There were more developments in the area with the words Cole or Slater in their names than she could count. Their own neighborhood was a prime example—Slater Estates.
Running back out to the kitchen, a low pleading meow caught Alexa’s attention.
“Come on, Lucy. Come with Mama,” Alexa called, heading straight for the cat’s bowl. She poured dry food into the dish, spilling a little in her haste. The hairless sphynx brushed against her leg in a show of affection. Alexa gave Lucy’s mostly blue-gray body a quick pet as she scooped up stray morsels of food with her other hand.
The clock on the microwave told her she now had twenty-two minutes.
She grabbed the package of two filet mignons from the fridge, along with a bag of fresh asparagus. Moving as fast as she could, she found the grill pan for the meat and the sauté pan for the asparagus, and got that much going. The baked potatoes she’d planned weren’t going to be possible with this little time, and trying to boil water for corn on the cob would be pushing it. Her stomach knotted as her pulse raced. She buttered thick slices of Italian bread and seasoned them with garlic, then slid them into the warming oven to brown.
As soon as she turned the filets, she was back in the fridge. When her gaze settled on the container of chickpea salad from the weekend, relief flooded through her. She’d forgotten they had that. Finally, she threw together a green salad with chunky fresh vegetables.
Keeping a close eye on the time, she set the dining room table—Cole always preferred to eat in the formal dining room. And then she was pouring the wine and plating the food with two minutes to spare.
Alexa might’ve fist-pumped if she wasn’t so anxious about almost having been late. Her stomach was in so many knots she wasn’t even sure she’d be able to eat, though it was her own damn fault.
Six-thirty came and went. Six thirty-five. Six-forty. Sitting alone at the dining room table, Alexa frowned. Finally, her phone buzzed an incoming text message from Cole.
I’ve got a dinner meeting tonight. Don’t wait up.
Alexa stared at the screen for a long moment, then found herself blinking away threatening tears.
She let herself wallow for several minutes, then shook her head. “Stop it, Al,” she said out loud. God, she really was over-emotional lately, just like Cole said she was.
Between her job, designing the model home, her classes, getting used to living with Cole, and their upcoming wedding, there was just so much going on. She felt like she should be juggling it all with more grace and enthusiasm. Instead, what she really felt scared her. Scared her bad.
Dread. Skin-crawling, stomach-dropping, run-while-you-can dread.
It was ridiculous.
Alexa was on the cusp of having everything she’d ever dreamed about. A beautiful home she could be proud of, a secure job that she loved, a man who worshipped her, and more money than she’d ever be able to spend. She wasn’t greedy; that wasn’t where her interest in money and a nice house came from. Instead, it grew out of the way she’d grown up. How little she’d had as a kid, how terrible the conditions she’d endured had been—against all of that, it was amazing to think about how much she had now.
She was grateful beyond imagination. Grateful to be safe and secure. Grateful to be able to help her mom, who needed all the help Alexa could give her. Grateful to Cole for making it all possible.
Which made the dread seriously ridiculous.
It was just wedding jitters. Totally normal.
Right.
Sighing, she dried her eyes and surveyed the beautiful dinner she’d managed to throw together. Given how scarce food had been when she was younger, Alexa absolutely hated to waste anything. Problem was, her appetite had been all over the place lately. Either she couldn’t stomach the thought of eating or she was binge-eating a bag of potato chips while Cole was at work.
Knock, knock.
The quick raps on the front door pulled Alexa from her thoughts. She crossed the dining room to the wide oval foyer framed by a grand curving staircase. A glittering chandelier hung from the ceiling, casting colorful prisms here and there from where it caught the late-day sun through the large picture window above the door. Out on the front porch, Alexa found a stack of packages. She gave a wave to the UPS driver as he pulled out of the end of their driveway.
With only two weeks until the wedding, presents from the registry had been pouring in every day. Cole had so many friends and work colleagues that she’d never met, Alexa didn’t know who most of the gifts were from.
She carried in two smaller ones, then two medium ones, and then found herself struggling to move the large square box on the bottom. It was too deep to get her arms around and not easily pushed. What the heck could it be? She crouched behind it to try to gain leverage to push, and was just about to give up when a strong breeze blew her hair across her face and she heard a soft click.
Her gaze cut to the front door.
“Oh, shit,” she said. Knowing what she was going to find, she tried the knob anyway. Locked.
She was locked out and Cole was away until who knew what time. And she couldn’t easily go anywhere because her purse, car keys, and phone were all inside.
“Shit, shit, shit.”
She sat heavily on the stupid box and dropped her head into her hands. And burst into tears.
Not because of being locked out. But because of being . . . trapped with no easy way out of the situation? Suddenly, that felt like a crazy, accurate metaphor for her life.
If she was being honest with herself.
Which she really, really didn’t want to be.
“Stop it, Al,” she said in a rasping voice. “You’re not trapped. Stop thinking that.” Except, just then, she leaned her left cheek too heavily against her hand and sucked in a breath at the smarting of the healing bruise there.
The one from the fight she and Cole had last week. The fight that had started with Alexa leaving a big mess in the foyer from where she’d been unboxing another delivery of packages and escalated into Cole saying Alexa was just like her mother—something Cole knew cut her deep. The fight had ended when Alexa told him he was being mean and he’d kicked a box at her—when she’d tried to duck out of the way, she tripped over another box on the floor and fell, hitting her head against the leg of a console table in the foyer, giving her some nasty bruises.
Alexa had been totally and absolutely stunned, especially when Cole hadn’t stayed to help her. Instead, he’d said her tripping had just proven his point and stormed out. She’d fled. To her past.
A past she’d left behind for a whole lot of very good, logical, and well-thought-out reasons.
When she’d finally returned home, Cole had apologized so profusely he’d gotten down on his knees and cried with his head in her l
ap. Never in the nearly five years they’d been together had he ever hurt her. At least, not physically. He could be short with her when he was stressed and occasionally his criticism bordered on the mean side. But the truth was Alexa could be messy and she could be disorganized and she could be forgetful, all things that drove him crazy. And Cole could also be generous and sweet and he’d done so much for her and her mother. Their lives were better because of Cole Slater.
“Alexa?” came a deep voice.
Prickles ran up her spine as she lifted her head—and found herself staring at her past, into the dark blue eyes of Maverick Rylan.
Alexa swiped at the wetness on her face and nearly jumped up off the box, her heart suddenly in her throat.
With his longish sandy blond hair, square jaw, ruthlessly masculine features, and Raven Riders cut-off jacket hanging on those broad shoulders, Maverick was the sexiest man she’d ever known. Had been when they were together, still was even now. No, he was hotter now. More muscular. More rugged somehow. More self-possessed. Utterly desirable.
Snap out of it, Al!
Releasing a shaky breath, Alexa met his gaze head-on. “Maverick, what are you doing here?”
About the Author
LAURA KAYE is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of over twenty books in contemporary romance and romantic suspense. Laura grew up amid family lore involving angels, ghosts, and evil-eye curses, cementing her life-long fascination with storytelling and the supernatural. A former college history professor, Laura also writes historical women’s fiction as Laura Kamoie. Laura lives in Maryland with her husband, two daughters, and cute-but-bad dog, and appreciates her view of the Chesapeake Bay every day.
www.laurakayeauthor.com
www.avonromance.com
www.facebook.com/avonromance
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.
By Laura Kaye
Raven Riders Novels
RIDE HARD
Coming Soon
RIDE ROUGH
Hard Ink Novels
HARD TO SERVE
HARD EVER AFTER (novella)
HARD AS STEEL
HARD TO LET GO
HARD TO BE GOOD (novella)
HARD TO COME BY
HARD TO HOLD ON TO (novella)
HARD AS YOU CAN
HARD AS IT GETS
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Chapter opener raven illustration © Fun Way Illustration/Shutterstock, Inc.
Excerpt from Ride Rough copyright © 2016 by Laura Kaye.
RIDE HARD. Copyright © 2016 by Laura Kaye. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition MAY 2016 ISBN: 9780062403346
Print Edition ISBN: 9780062403339
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