Hot, Sexy & Bad

by Angelo, Judy, et al.

  An Original work of Danielle Stewart.

  Half My Heart Copyright 2013 by Danielle Stewart

  Danielle Stewart’s Half My heart: A Clover Series Novella

  This is an introductory novella to Danielle Stewart's new Clover Series.

  At eighteen, Devin Sutton lost his first love, his freedom, and his hope. Years later, the only thing he has on his mind for this holiday season is finally settling the score back in Clover, North Carolina.

  That is, until he crosses paths with the girl he thought he’d lost forever. Rebecca Farrus was supposed to be off living the life of her dreams, not tending bar in some dive.

  When faced with the choice will Devin decide to celebrate what he’s finally found or keep seeking retribution for everything he lost?

  Table of Contents for Half My Heart

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter One

  I enjoy screwing with people. I know that makes me twisted, but I don’t care. Fighting a smirk, I lounge back in my plush leather office chair, fingers laced behind my mop of messy hair. I keep it long as a form of protest against the business world I’m living in. I get sideways looks from all the stuffed shirt executives I have to meet with, but I couldn’t care less.

  I’m getting comfortable, preparing for the show that’s about to unfold. Any second my office door is going to fly open. After the move I just pulled, it’s inevitable. And just like clockwork, in charges my right-hand man, Luke Miller. Luke’s normally even-keeled face is blood red and the vein in his forehead is throbbing. There is nothing I enjoy more than pissing off my business partner.

  “Devin Sutton,” he says like a mom scolding her child. I know when Luke uses my full name he’s angry. “Rochelle just told me you asked her to clear your schedule for the week. These meetings aren’t optional. You’re selling your company. You have to be there.” I triumphantly watch as Luke loosens his tie slightly. Apparently the stress I cause is choking him. His thick-rimmed designer glasses might start fogging up soon if I don’t do something to calm him down. But what’s the fun in that?

  “Then move the meetings.” I shrug indifferently as I watch Luke swallow back the words he’d like to say. He’s a big guy, as tall as I am, and equally strong, but historically he’s been a gentle giant, a peacekeeper. It’s a hobby of mine to test this theory often to see if he truly has the patience of Job. He always wins, but this stunt I’m pulling may put him over the edge.

  “We don’t move meetings with eight of the most powerful people on Wall Street. They set the schedule and we show up. Now what’s going on with you? Family emergency?”

  I roll my eyes, barking back, “You know damn well I don’t have any family, Luke.”

  “Exactly, and I can’t think of another single reason why you’d bail on something this important. So unless you tell me you’re dying . . .” Luke takes a seat in the leather chair across from me and narrows his eyes, searching for a sign of looming death. “Wait, are you dying?”

  “No,” I groan, standing to face my enormous office window. We’re on the twenty-second floor of my Wall Street office building, and the view of the city doesn’t get much better. Though I couldn’t care less about that either.

  My back is to Luke as I try to limit my explanation. I’m a grown man, and the owner of this company. I don’t answer to anyone.

  “I’m going back to Clover. I have some business there.” I press my hand to the glass. The large window doesn’t have any bars on it, but it still feels like a prison to me.

  “Like hell you are. You stand to make an enormous amount of money from this sale. We all do. If you blow this off, people will start to lose confidence in you and we’ll never get a more lucrative offer. You aren’t jumping ship now, leaving us all high and dry because you’re feeling nostalgic.”

  I turn back toward him with force. My back muscles tighten; I fill my chest with air and flex my biceps. Similar to a blowfish, I puff myself up—a way to intimidate anyone in my way. It sounds ridiculous, but it works. I let my eyes flame at the accusation. “First, I won’t bail on the deal. Second, it isn’t nostalgia driving me.”

  “Vengeance then? Don’t forget I’m one of the very few people who knows who you were before you came to the city. Clover is nothing but a speck in the rearview mirror. You need to leave it that way. The plan has always been that you’ll sell the company once we hit a certain threshold. We hit it. This sale will make you wealthier than you ever imagined.” Luke pounds the table with his fist and looks at me, his expression showing regret instantly. That isn’t who he is; the table-banging guy is who I am. It’s why Luke spends the majority of his time apologizing for me. It’s what makes us work.

  “I’m already wealthier than I ever imagined.” My voice booms like thunder and Luke looks as though he’s face to face with a bear rather than a man. I know it’s because he’s seen me demolish four guys in a bar fight like I was snapping toothpicks. I’ve proven I’m fully capable, and nearly always on the brink, of an adrenaline-fueled fury.

  “Devin.” Luke’s voice is quieter now, and that’s why I respect him. He has the ability to control himself, temper his emotions. I envy that. “It’s almost Christmas. We’re trying to close the deal before the holidays. Don’t you want to be in New York for Christmas? Ice skating. The tree at Rockefeller?”

  “I hate Christmas, you know that too, Luke. It’s repulsive . . . the sparkly lights and the delusional fog that falls over people. Everyone acting like all is well in the world just because it’s the twenty-fifth of December. Ridiculous.”

  “What kind of heartless bastard hates Christmas?”

  I point my thumbs at my chest. “This kind of heartless bastard.” I grin, fully aware I’m aggravating him. “Wait, last Christmas we were at the bar all night drinking until we couldn’t see straight. I don’t remember you being too fond of the holiday either.”

  “That’s apples and oranges. I might not have had plans that day; it doesn’t mean I hate the holiday. Actually I think it just means we’re pathetic. Listen, I’m the closest thing you have to a friend, Devin. I don’t want you going down there and ending up where they put you last time.”

  I scoff at the ludicrous suggestion. “That town couldn’t touch me now if it wanted to. They should be afraid of me. I’m sure as hell not afraid of them.” Not anymore, anyway.

  “Then why go back? Just use your money to hurt them from here.”

  “This isn’t something you do from afar, it’s personal.”

  I lost nine years of my life because of the corruption in Clover, North Carolina. I fully intend to handle my business with them face to face. The sale here in New York will have to wait. I’ve finally gotten the mayor of Clover to meet with me. I need this deal to go through under the wire, before the sale documents are signed here in New York. The leadership of the new company will never allow a deal like I’m planning in Clover to go through, so it’s now or never.

  Luke throws his head back in exasperation. I know this look well. It means I’ve won. “I’ve always had your back, Devin.”

  “Then have it now.” I drop into my chair and cross my arms over my chest. “Buy me a week, that’s all I need, then I’ll be back here signing whatever you want me to sign.”

  “Fine,” Luke agrees reluctantly. “Promise me you won’t kill anyone. Just handle your business and come back.”

  “What’s my rule, Luke?”

  “I know. You don’t make promises. Just nod to let me know you hear me.” Luke stands and squares his shoulders to mine. Our relationship has morphed over the two years we’ve known each other. We’ve moved from business partners to a type of friendship. Not a clear-cut one, but something I value all the sam
e, even if I don’t tell him so.

  I nod and grab my coat and briefcase as I head out the door. “One week,” Luke shouts behind me and I laugh maniacally, just to screw with him a little more.

  ******

  Driving to Clover from New York City is a calculated decision for me. I don’t want to be at the mercy of a flight schedule if I need to get out of town fast, and I don’t want to use the company jet on my personal time. I’m calling this a business deal, but that’s far from the truth.

  The downside of the drive is the endless time I have to think about where my life has brought me. There’s a lot of history for me in Clover, and none of it is good. Well, almost none of it. My mind rewinds to my childhood, and the long stretch of road in front of me means I have nothing to distract myself from it.

  I can attest to the fact that the term military brat was coined for a reason. Something about attending half a dozen schools and saying goodbye to every friend you ever managed to make, can be hard. It made me resilient, but if you pair that life with parents like mine, you end up with someone socially stunted.

  My father was a commander of a brigade combat team and I spent my childhood following him around the country from post to post. My mother was equally dedicated to the Army as the family readiness leader attached to my father’s battalion. She had been responsible for coordinating functions to raise money for the families. She also ensured that all loved ones were up to date on the location of the soldiers while deployed. Two very admirable jobs, but they more-or-less equated to lots of microwave dinners and unsupervised time for me. I’d never understood how two people could be so dedicated to strangers while overlooking their own son.

  The move to Clover, my seventh home in seventeen years, had been the worst one. It had been right at the beginning of my senior year of high school. No matter how much I’d begged my parents to let me stay at our last post at Fort Drum in New York until graduation, they hadn’t listened. A family stays together, my mother had always said. Apparently she’d just meant a family cohabitates, because there had been nothing about us that felt together.

  The one redeemable thing about Clover is that it’s the place where I fell in love for the first time. It’s where I met Rebecca, the girl who helped me shake the nagging shadow of loneliness that had followed me around my whole young life. But it’s also the place that broke me. It stole a decade from me. Clover robbed me of my life with Rebecca, and I intend to even the score.

  Chapter Two

  I spent nearly a decade behind bars, a fact few people in my life today know. I was locked up for a crime I didn’t commit. Throughout the darkest moments I could count on only one thing, the arrival of Rebecca’s letters. They were a source of comfort, especially when my parents died and I was unable to attend the funerals. When the loneliness in prison was so palpable I thought it would suffocate me, her letters were a tangible reminder that someone cared. Over the years she wrote about her life, about what she had become and all the things she was achieving.

  Early on, she asked me if it hurt to know she was doing well and, with a completely honest heart, I told her I loved that she was happy. I quickly wrote back that all I ever wanted to hear was that she was taking advantage of all that life had to offer her. Hearing about it gave me peace.

  That’s not to say there weren’t moments when bitterness would overtake me. Jealousy would fill my body like it had been poured into me. I felt the strangest combination of gut-wrenching heartbreak and overwhelming happiness for her. But receiving her letters was still the best part of my day.

  She wrote often that she did not believe for a moment I had set the fire that killed Brent Hoyle. She knew I was not capable of something so terrible. Brent was Rebecca’s ex-boyfriend and the son of the sheriff of Clover. As much as Rebecca believed I was innocent, a jury of my peers was not as easily convinced. The sheriff spun a story about the fight Brent and I had that afternoon. I was merely protecting Rebecca, but no one seemed interested in the facts. Not the jury and not the town. I was appointed a lawyer who I found out later was the wife of Sherriff Hoyle’s best friend. The judge in the case hardly seemed to be awake the majority of the time. The evidence left more questions than answers, and the trial seemed rushed, my defense halfhearted. There were no witnesses called; no one was allowed in the courtroom to watch the trial. A day and a half and it was over. That was the kind of thing that could happen in a small town if no one was there to stop it.

  From the moment I was arrested, I was in complete isolation. I wasn’t able to see my parents or Rebecca. Everything happened in a flash, and before I knew what had hit me, I heard the words, “life without the possibility of parole.”

  I was convicted on Christmas Eve, the court making a special concession and working a half-day just to make sure I was dealt with. I spent Christmas Day behind bars with the realization that I would never be a free man again. That is why I hate Christmas, why the sound of jingling bells or the sight of a mall Santa Claus makes me want to pummel someone.

  I shake the memories as I pull up to Main Street, Clover, and park my BMW in front of the Winston Hotel. I have some of Rebecca’s letters all stacked up on the passenger seat, and they seem to be calling my name. They root me to this plan, a constant reminder of why vengeance is so necessary. People have to pay for the time they stole from me. Written in these letters is the life Rebecca lived without me: Mack, the man she fell in love with and married, her job as a successful artist, and her thriving studio. It’s enough to kindle the fire in my belly, to drive me to continue.

  I pull a letter out, a Christmas letter, and smile at the stocking-adorned paper she wrote it on. Her swirling script dancing all over the paper reminds me of the feeling I used to get when her letters would arrive.

  Devin,

  There is no feeling in the world that can compare to spending Christmas morning with your child. Adeline is just a baby, so she doesn’t understand the holiday yet, but watching her stare up at the twinkling lights on our Christmas tree makes my heart feel full. I want to give her everything she ever needs and more. Being her mom is like staring into the future, a future that I control.

  Mack is over the moon and he’s proving to be a wonderful father. I could never do this on my own and I am so blessed to have him. I can’t help but wish you were here, able to hold sweet little Adeline in your arms. She would adore you, the way I do.

  I dream of all the holidays I will spend watching her grow, every present she will open, every wish she will make. I can’t wait to see what my future holds with her. I know now that I am happiest being a mother. It’s what I was always meant to do. I only wish she could know you. I wish things were different for us.

  Merry Christmas, Devin.

  As always, you have all my love and half my heart,

  Rebecca

  All through the years, no matter how full her life became, she still signed the letters the same way. As she found more and more happiness, she continued to share her heart with me. When it would have been easier to stop writing, to move on, she stayed connected. It was I who eventually cut the ties between us.

  I place the letter down and grip my steering wheel tightly, trying to ground myself back to reality as I sit in the parking lot.

  Last night, before I left New York to come back to Clover, I told myself I wouldn’t look for her. Just as I hadn’t looked for her when I was exonerated and released from prison. What was the point? In her letters she left no room for doubt; as time passed, she moved on and was happy. I have my empire in New York, and she lives a couple hours from Clover with her husband and daughter. That’s just the way it is.

  I don’t know why I never wrote her about the Innocence Project that began working on my case. I’m not sure why I didn’t let her know they were on the verge of proving my case was handled unjustly and that I was not the killer. I just stopped writing. I was given a settlement, reparations from the state—just over one million dollars. I walked out of prison a rich and free man. It
took all my willpower to leave her alone, to not push my way back into her life and try to win her back. I had to put any thoughts of her out of my mind.

  That’s not to say there weren’t plenty of nights spent with various women where I pictured Rebecca in my bed instead. Most people fought to forget the loss of their virginity, the awkwardness of it. For me, I was continually trying to recreate the feeling I had that night with Rebecca. It was only one night, but it left an imprint on my soul. If I close my eyes I can still taste her cherry lip gloss and feel my fingers tangling in her dark luscious hair. The physical pleasure of that night is still enough to warm me to the core, but it was more than that. We were two people completely misunderstood by the world who instantly saw each other the way we were meant to be seen. To me she wasn’t just the pretty cheerleader without potential. To her I wasn’t the misfit outsider who deserved to be tormented for being different. We connected and then we were torn apart.

  These days I have no problem attracting women. I flash a half smile across a crowded room and like fish on a line I reel them in. I raise an eyebrow in a dirty little way, and women swoon. I know putting my hand on the small of a woman’s back as we leave a bar helps seal the deal. The flashy cars and expensive suits don’t hurt either. But every woman in New York falls miles short. None of them hold a candle to Rebecca. Mack is a lucky son of a bitch, and frankly, I hate him for it.

  I did the only thing I could. I threw myself into my work. Invested my settlement money in the business I was starting and busted my ass to make it grow into a fortune. In the process, I hardened my heart against the idea of happiness and began to draw up plans for my revenge against Clover. And now, it is finally time to accomplish that.