For better, or for worse.
Thank You + New Series!
Thank you so much for reading my Heirs of Havoc series! I couldn’t have done this without your enthusiasm and support! What’s coming next month? A brand new bully romance: Pre-Order Book One in my New Series
Free Preview - Off Limits
Chapter One
Libby
Imagine being in love.
I mean deep, deep in love. The kind of love that songs and sappy movies are written about. The kind of love that makes your friends jealous, grossed out, and happy for you all at once.
Imagine having a person you can’t wait to come home to at the end of a long day. A person who makes you laugh and smile and holds you when you cry. Now imagine they’re gorgeous, successful, wealthy, and incredible in bed.
Now imagine that person leaving you, kicking you out of the apartment you thought you were sharing and then almost immediately shacking up with some bimbo from Milan.
Just for a non-specific example.
A person might be crushed after something like that. They might give up on life and happiness altogether.
But not me. Nope. Never.
I have too much to live for and too much to do to let some asshole who didn’t know what he had stop me from achieving my dreams.
Or at least that’s what I tell my mom when she asks how I’m doing. Going out on a limb, I don’t think she really believes me.
But that’s fine because what matters is what I do, and I definitely don’t sit around moping, wishing he’d call me and tell me what went wrong. Closure is a wonderful thing (another nugget from my mother), but it’s not always necessary. Sometimes you just move on and stop dwelling on things you can’t change.
My mornings start early. My alarm goes off around seven, and I lay in bed, groaning and dreading the day. I’m not a morning person, and it usually takes me about two cups of coffee to really get going.
My brother got me one of those coffee makers on a timer for my birthday last year, so it doesn’t take long before the smell of rich, dark roast coffee is wafting through my small apartment, waking me up just enough that I can drag myself out of bed and toward the kitchen.
The first cup of coffee is what I like to think of as laying the foundation. It gives me enough energy to get into the shower, to wash my hair and pick out an outfit for the day. It lets me get ready, taking myself from a sleepy goblin creature to a savvy, well dressed professional in under an hour.
On the outside, at least.
Usually by the time I need to head out the door, I’m drooping again, so that’s where the second cup comes it, perking me up enough that driving to work isn’t likely to end in disaster. My commute isn’t too long, just a little over half an hour, but every drop of caffeine helps before ten in the morning.
Everyone who’s ever worked a typical nine to five probably can relate to that, but the thing about my commute is it’s beautiful. I currently live in Corbeil-Essonnes, a small suburb outside of Paris, France.
No matter how much I don’t want to go to work, the sight of driving into the City of Lights never gets old, and that, combined with the coffee, of course, usually has me perky enough to be ready to take on the day by the time I get to the office.
I work for one of those big, international accounting firms. We handle clients all around the world in almost every industry (all confidential, of course). Huffington Smith prides itself on the variety of clients it deals with and the quality of its employees. I’m only in France temporarily, on a sort of secondment to help out the Paris office with setting some things up.
Most of the people I work with seem content to ignore me unless they have to deal with me directly, but I’ve met a few people.
Out of everyone in the office Lucien is the one who gives me the most attention. He seems amused by my American-isms, and he’s the one who always tries to get me to say American phrases so he can repeat them back in a truly terrible American accent, just for a laugh.
I’m sitting at my desk, typing up a report that is due at the end of the week, when I see him come sauntering into view.
There’s a stereotype that people overseas are always gorgeous. I have plenty of friends who made jokes about me coming over here and finding myself a handsome Frenchman to bring back with me, and it was for good reason. There are a lot of really attractive people in France.
Lucien is definitely one of them. He’s got that wavy dark hair that frames his face in the way that it falls into his eyes a couple times a day, and he has to shake it out of his face in one of those epic hair flips from a 90s movie.
His eyes are hazel, flecked with green and gold, and he has this smile that lights up his whole face. Not to mention amazing bone structure.
He’s gorgeous, in short.
We get along well, usually ending up working on the same accounts so there have been late nights and early mornings for the both of us, and his good humor keeps me going sometimes when I just want to crawl back into my bed and say a sweet fuck you to public accounting.
“Libby!” he says, putting that accent on my name that makes it sound much more musical and pretty than it has any right to. “Happy Monday.”
“Is there anything happy about a Monday morning?” I ask him, looking up from my keyboard, grateful for the distraction.
“Depends on the Monday, I’d think,” he says. “And it’s almost lunch time, anyway, so that has to count for something.”
“Okay, you do have a point there.”
I’m going to need my third cup of coffee sooner rather than later at the rate I’m going.
“What are your lunch plans, sweet Libby?” he asks, head tipped to the side.
“Oh my god, Lucien. I have no idea yet. I didn’t even realize it was so close to lunch. I’ve just been sitting here plodding away on this report.”
“Breaks are important,” he reminds me. “I know in America it’s fashionable to work yourself to collapse in the name of the capitalist machine, but over here we like to take a more relaxed approach. Have lunch with me?”
I’m caught off guard by his question, too busy laughing at his (completely correct) condemnation of the American work ethic. We’re work friends, and we’ve been out for meals in a group, but never just … together.
I can’t read what he’s thinking on his face, either. He just has a pleasant smile on, waiting for my answer.
I don’t have a reason not to go, so I shrug and smile. “Sure. Sounds great. Any place in particular you have in mind?”
“There’s a little place where I like to get lunch during the week,” he says. “I think you’ll like it. They sell hamburgers. No hot dogs, though.”
I roll my eyes at his teasing. “Hamburgers are German, Lucien.”
“Mm, yes, but the square of cheese food product named after your charming country is not.”
Once again, he has a point. That’s one of the things I like about Lucien. He has such a quick wit, and his teasing is never mean. It’s always kind of dogging on America, but honestly, the country deserves it, and I’m not so patriotic that I can’t laugh at some of the sillier stuff we’ve done.
And when it gets too annoying, I just put on a terrible French accent and tease him right back about croissants.
Moving to France to help my firm expand the Paris office temporarily was a big jump. The offer came at a time in my life where I didn’t have another plan, and I definitely needed the distraction. It felt like everything I was doing back at home was falling apart around me, just because one aspect of my life was crumbling, setting off a domino effect.
I never expected living overseas to be easy, but I did expect it to be a welcome change of pace, and so far, it’s been exactly that. I’ve met new people, made new friends, and sort of carved out a space for myself.
I have a bakery I visit every Sunday to get pasties, and I take a walk by the Seine whenever I have the time. There’s a little old French woman who rents out the shop under my
apartment to sell beautiful, handmade scarves and hats, and I’ve chatted with her in my atrocious French after buying things to send home to my mom and sister.
One day, though, I’m going to have to go home, and I’m not looking forward to it at all.
But it’s too early in the day for existential dread, and when lunch time rolls around, I get up from my desk and meet Lucien by the elevator, ready to head out.
“It’s just a quick walk down the block,” he tells me, winding a scarf around his neck to ward off the chill in the air once we’re outside.
The crisp air helps wake me up, and I keep up with Lucien and his long legs while we head down the street.
As we walk, he chatters about a client he’s working on, talking about their lack of organization and how he’s had to email a woman in bookkeeping three times about the same thing with no useful response yet.
“At this point, I think I may as well just copy and paste my last email and send it again. I don’t know what’s so hard about ‘I need these dates and numbers, please.’ I even said please!”
I laugh, shaking my head at him. “You should just go there and ask her for them in person. I’m sure she wouldn’t be able to turn down your puppy eyes.”
“Excuse me, Elizabeth,” he says, looking scandalized and using my full first name. “I have never done puppy eyes in my life.”
“You did last week when you wanted me to split the last Danish with you,” I remind him.
He pouts, and even that’s attractive.
Before he can work up into a full sulk, we make it to the little cafe he’s been leading us to. It’s cute on the outside, like most places in the Paris area, all pale brick and dark wood with a bright blue awning covering the two seater tables right outside the window.
There are pastries on display, and my stomach growls, reminding me that two cups of coffee aren’t the same thing as breakfast.
Lucien laughs and leads me inside.
The woman behind the counter immediately perks up and starts talking to Lucien in rapid fire French that I don’t have a hope of keeping up with. I can speak and read the language well enough to do my job, but I’ll never be as fluent as a native speaker.
While they talk, I content myself with looking around and reading the menu.
After a bit, Lucien introduces me to the woman, who it turns out is his cousin. She owns and operates this place with her husband, and they make some of the best food in the world, he tells me.
I smile and shake her hand when it’s offered and place my order for soup and a sandwich, promising to have a look at the pastries on the way out.
She seems content with that and says she’ll bring everything over when it’s ready.
Lucien and I find a table off to the side and sit to wait.
“This is a nice place,” I tell him, looking around at the decor. “It’s tasteful and understated, and it feels comfortable and homey.”
“Olive would be happy to hear you say that. She and her husband have poured their lives into this place. I eat here almost every day for lunch.”
I smile warmly at him, charmed by how good he is to his family. “I’m sure they appreciate it.”
He shrugs. “It helps that her husband cooks so well.”
Our food comes pretty quickly, and I practically inhale my roast beef sandwich and butternut squash soup. I can feel Lucien staring at me, so I look up. “If you’re going to make a joke about American table manners, you can save it. I missed breakfast, and I’m starving, okay?”
He grins at me, shaking his head. “No, no. I wasn’t going to tease you. I actually … wanted to ask you something.”
He seems nervous, which is definitely out of character for him. I frown, wondering what could have him so worked up. “Sure,” I say. “Shoot.”
“Well,” he begins. “I don’t think it’s any secret that I am very fond of you. Ever since you joined our office, you’ve been very good company.”
I smile at him, rolling my eyes. “That’s just because you like to make fun of me.”
“No, no,” he insists. “I mean, that part is fun, of course, but it’s not the reason. You are lovely. Funny, intelligent, beautiful.”
I can already feel my face darkening in a blush when he calls me beautiful. I’ve never been very good at accepting compliments about my looks. My work, sure. Tell me all day that I kicked ass on dealing with a client or handling projects. Those are things I can control and things I put a lot of effort into. But my looks?
I’m average height at best, a little over with heels. I’m curvy, but mostly just because I don’t have the height to stretch any of it out. My hair is what my mom likes to call dishwater blond, which just means it’s blond but with more brown in it than she’d like to see. I have brown eyes, and a little nose with a dusting of freckles over it, no matter the season. The only real cute thing about my face as far as I can see is the dimple in my right cheek. Everything else is completely and totally ordinary.
There are a million French girls who look better than me on their worst day, and I know Lucien has seen and probably dated plenty of them.
“Thank you,” I say anyway because that’s how normal people respond when someone tells them they’re beautiful.
He grins at me. “You’re welcome. I mean it, you know. You’re amazing, and I like you a lot. So I was wondering if you’d like to accompany me to dinner sometime.”
I swallow hard, glad I don’t have any food in my mouth to choke on. “Like a date?”
“I was hoping so,” Lucien replies.
Honestly, I’m surprised. Not just because Lucien could have anyone, woman or man, that he wants, but … okay, mostly because of that. I’m nothing special compared to him, and sure, we have fun teasing each other, but I didn’t think he was interested in me like that.
It’s flattering to be asked, definitely.
But here’s the thing about having your heart ripped out and stomped on until its laying on the ground broken into a million little jagged pieces: it makes it really hard to try again.
Lucien’s a really nice guy. Gorgeous, funny, smart. He’s everything any girl could want in a partner. But all I see when I look at him is a big, glowing sign that says DANGER in bright red letters.
He’s waiting for an answer, so I muster up a smile. “That’s really nice of you to ask me,” I begin, and his smile falls.
“Ah, time to let me down easy, I take it?”
“Lucien, you’re great, it’s just that I don’t really plan to stay here, you know? I have to go back to America soon, and I don’t want to start something here and then have to figure out what to do when it’s time for me to leave.”
“Oh,” he says, considering. “That’s actually an excellent point. I’ll confess I wasn’t thinking about the future very much. I got caught up in the present.”
“It’s okay,” I tell him. “I’m still really flattered that you asked.”
“Just so I make sure I leave no stone unturned as it were, is there any chance you would be interested in casually dating?”
“I don’t even know how to do that.”
He nods. “And what if we take the dating out of the equation all together?”
“So you mean like being friends?” I ask him.
He smiles, and it’s a slow, almost sensual thing. “In a matter of speaking. Friends with some perks.”
Ah. Now I know what he means. I can’t tell if I’m disappointed or thrilled that someone like him would want to have sex with me, but either way, it’s probably a bad idea.
“We work together, Lucien. Don’t you think that would make things a little awkward?”
“No. As you say, you’ll be leaving soon enough.”
I open my mouth to tell him that doesn’t matter, but then close it again. Because it’s actually a good point. Lucien’s a friend here, but if I go back to the States and we never see each other again, then what’s the harm in having a little fun, right?
The old Libby wo
uld never have done something like this. She’d never have entertained the thought.
But the new Libby is lonely and a little hard up when it comes to sex, and Lucien’s good looking and interested.
I take another bite of my sandwich, chewing slowly while I think it over. Lucien seems content to wait.
“Okay,” I say finally. “Let’s give it a shot.”
He looks surprised that I agreed so quickly. “Really?”
I shrug. “Sure. What not? You’re, let’s be honest, really attractive, and probably good in bed, so … ” I shrug again, not sure how else to explain. Telling him that it’s been months since someone other than me has touched myself is more than a little embarrassing. Also mentioning that at least forty percent of the reason I agreed is to see him with his clothes off just seems like a bad idea.
Especially when he’s grinning broadly at me, looking really happy with my answer.
For a second I entertain the worry that he might get attached and make leaving difficult, but I dismiss it quickly. Lucien doesn’t seem the type, and if experience is to be believed I’m the one with the attachment issues.
So it should all be fine.
Right?
* * *
Chapter Two
Libby
We finish up our lunch and Lucien pays for my pastries on the way out, inviting teasing from his cousin. We head back to the office and go our separate ways back to our desks, but it’s not five minutes after I sit down to start working again that I get a message from him.
Do you want to come to mine tonight?
I nearly choke on my coffee. Damn, he moves fast.
Trying to make sure I don’t have time to change my mind? I send back.
No, just interested in seeing how this will go. I wonder if you’re as interesting in bed as you are at your desk. ;)
Now I do choke on my coffee, and I need to cough and clear my throat before I can formulate a reply. He’s forward and bold, and my cheeks are flushed.
VENGEFUL ROYALS | A DARK COLLEGE BULLY ROMANCE: HEIRS OF HAVOC Page 19
