Wrong Place. Wrong Time. Right Viscount.

Chapter 1

Eleanor Montgomery pinched the hip string of a black, silky thong between her thumb and forefinger. Elle had nothing against thongs, had gone through quite a thong phase herself just a few years ago and still rocked them on occasion. This one was cute—and expensive, based on the tag.

So, the problem wasn’t that it was a thong. The problem was that this particular thong didn’t belong to her.

And neither did the red, nearly identical one lying in the hallway a few feet away.

She could hear giggles and groans from the bedroom at the end of the hall and knew without a doubt what was going on. And still, she stood there in shock, unable to believe that this was actually happening. This is what I get for surprising him, she thought, almost laughing out loud at the fucking cliché of it all.

They weren’t supposed to be able to see each other again for another few months, not until the wedding, but she’d decided to surprise him with a spur-of-the-moment, long-weekend trip. She had plenty of sky-miles to burn—a perk of being in a trans-continental relationship—and she’d just finished up a big commission and had a few days to relax before starting her next, so she figured why the hell not? She’d hopped on a red-eye and now here she was, bleary-eyed, in need of a shower, and exhausted.

And he’s in there screwing the Thong Twins.

Elle tossed the offending garment aside and headed down the hall. She dimly registered that she should be feeling utter despair as she neared the door and heard those unmistakable sounds. Her fiancé was balls deep in someone—more than one someone—who wasn’t her. She should be devastated and heartbroken. But she was just kind of…blah. Maybe that was normal. Maybe she was in some sort of shock and the hurt would come later, once she had time to process everything.

She gently nudged the door open with the toe of her shoe. She knew what she would find, at least a general idea, but still, the scene made her inhale sharply as the took it all in, her heart thundering. There he was, in bed with a redhead and a brunette. Well, at least he likes variety. Elle tucked a lock of her own honey blonde hair behind her ear as she stared. Brunette had her head in Ashton’s crotch while his face was buried in Red”s chest. It was like something straight off The Hub for crying out loud.

Again, she waited for the heartbreak, but it didn”t come. Anger came though, swift and hot.

Elle cleared her throat loudly.

“Well, if I had known it was Threesome Thursday, I would have brought two of my own. Ya know, evened up the numbers.”

Ashton reared back, tossing Red roughly to the side with a yelp, eyes wide in shock.

“Eleanor?” It took him a little longer than it should have for him to remove his cock from Brunette’s mouth and leap from the bed. Elle curled her lip in disgust as he frantically searched for pants, and cast her gaze back to the women, oddly feeling no hostility towards them. It wasn’t their fault after all. Ashton was the dirtbag in this scenario. Granted, if they knew he wasn”t single and went along with it, they weren”t exactly moral leaders of the world, but still—they didn”t owe her a damn thing. Ashton did. They didn’t move to cover themselves, clearly not modest by any stretch of the imagination, but they stared at each other, then shifted their gazes between Elle and Ashton, looks of confusion and then suspicion crossing their beautiful faces.

“He’s all yours, ladies. Enjoy.”

She turned and strode down the hallway towards the stairs. In that moment, she was beyond thankful that she hadn’t agreed to move here yet, despite them having the conversation many times over the last few years. She’d always had reasons as to why it wasn’t time yet, but she wasn’t sure any of them had ever been particularly good reasons. Of course, she hadn’t loved the long-distance aspect of their relationship, but it honestly hadn’t bothered her all that much. At least, not nearly as much as it should have. This wasn’t the first time she wondered why that might be, but just as she always did, she firmly shoved the question into a nice little box in the back of her mind to worry about later, not wanting to look at it too closely. Things with Ash were good. They were fine. They were…comfortable.

She shook herself as she reached the landing at the top of the stairs, ignoring the fact that she downgraded from good to comfortable in the span of a heartbeat.

“Norah, wait. Please, let me explain.”

She whirled on Ashton, fire in her eyes, and he had the good sense to snap his mouth shut. His dark hair was tousled and his brown eyes were shining, the flecks of gold bright today. She wanted to sigh. He looked too handsome as usual, like the model he’d been for a time. Then she noticed the scratches down his chest, marring his creamy brown skin and rage flared. She wasn’t even sure if the rage was because he’d cheated, or because he thought he could just sweet talk his way out of it.

“Explain? Explain?! What could you possibly explain about this, Ash? Did the brunette just trip and land mouth first on your cock? Or maybe the redhead fainted and you were just confused on where mouth-to-mouth should be performed? Little hint: nipples are surprisingly not involved.”

“I…alright, you’re right. I have no explanation other than that I’m a bastard.” He at least had the decency to look contrite. “It didn’t mean anything, it was only sex, I swear. I love you, Norah. Please believe me.”

“I hate when you call me that,” she grated. She’d told him how much she hated the nickname and yet he always used it, thinking it was cute or some little inside tease between the two of them. It wasn’t. She seriously hated it. “And did you really just use the it was purely physical so it’s ok line??”

“It’s true,” he said, coming closer. She glared but didn’t retreat when he stepped up and gently cupped her face. He stared at her with those damn gorgeous eyes that had gotten him out of trouble time and time again. The eyes, and daddy’s bank account, of course.

“Come on, babe. We can figure this out. It was just a stupid mistake. I just missed you so bloody much and I let the loneliness get the better of me. How could I not miss you?” He ran his fingers through her hair, brushing it back from her face and sliding one hand to her nape. She felt a small part of her crumbling. He must have seen it because he smiled, looking victorious. “There now. See, we’ll fix this. It was all just a misunderstanding, yeah?”

A misunderstanding. Sure. She understood being lonely and the physical toll of that. She was by no means immune to it. But I don’t go out and bone random dudes. I read smutty books and buy a Rabbit like a normal person!

”Everything will be better after the wedding when you’re here full time. We’ll extend the honeymoon, take as much time as we want to travel the world and spend every waking minute together.” He smiled and gave her those puppy dog eyes. “We can reconnect. The distance has been tough on both of us.”

He was right, wasn”t he? They”d just been apart for too long, only seeing each other for a week or so here and there over the past two years, and the time difference didn’t help anything…Maybe they had grown apart some and after they got married and moved in together, they’d get back to being them. Things would get better. Yes, it would all be fine.

Then a thought hit her: he hadn’t once said that he was sorry for this little ”misunderstanding.” That would have been the first thing out of her mouth if she had done something like this. And yet, the words had never left his lips. No. No crumbling. Fuck this.

She pulled away from him, shoving him in the chest.

“No. I’m done. It’s over.”

“Elle, come on! You can’t mean that. Five years just thrown away over one meaningless hook up?” If it was two people at once, does it still just count as one hook up? Wait a second…

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Was it just one, Ash? Can you honestly tell me this was the first time this has happened?”

“I…” He rubbed the back of his neck as he trailed off and that was answer enough. Ash had never been a good liar. He was a good omitter, but if he had to lie point blank about something, he could never quite pull it off. She’d always thought that was a good thing. Being bad at lying should be a good trait to have, right? Now, a part of her wished he was better at it, a very small part of her wished she could just believe him and maybe continue to live in blissful denial, to keep her comfortable existence and not rock the boat.

But thankfully the larger, smarter part shook her head with disgust.

“Goodbye, Ashton.”

“Elle—”

“Ashton,” the brunette said from the hallway just behind them. Ashton turned and Elle was glad to see that she’d managed to find her bra and thong. Her French accent was thick and annoyingly alluring. “What is this? Wedding? Five years? You said you were single, no?”

“Oui. Free as a bird you said,” Red quipped, walking up beside the other woman. She crossed her arms over her extremely ample chest, giving Ashton a quelling look. Elle felt a little better knowing that neither of the women knew that Ashton wasn’t single.

“Listen, I can explain all of this…” Ashton held his hands out and Elle turned and headed down the stairs while he was focused on his French girls.

Elle silently thanked the women for buying her some time. She needed the head start or she might just punch him right in his stupid perfectly perfect nose. She tore through the living room, snatching up her over-sized weekender bag and Ashton’s keys on the way out.

She bolted out of the house and down the long drive, the white crushed marble crunching beneath her feet. She looked over her shoulder with a pang. She’d always loved this house, one of many that Ashton’s family owned. It was supposed to have been her home in a matter of months, but right now she wanted to scream in frustration at its location. It was out in the countryside, truly idyllic, but the road between it and the nearest town wasn’t exactly a main thoroughfare. All of this area had been huge manor houses once upon a time and most of them had been purchased by historical societies and the like over the years, so the land hadn’t been subdivided off to make way for neighborhoods or strip malls like back home. The tracts of land were still ginormous which meant close-by neighbors were simply not a thing. She couldn’t just run next door to see if someone might give her a lift. The driver that had dropped her off was already long gone, and she didn’t have time to wait for another, so she started huffing it.

She only had the one bag, but she’d packed it for all it was worth and it already felt heavy on her shoulder. At least she had dressed comfortably for the plane in leggings, Converses, and a soft, slouchy sweatshirt—the perfect outfit for making a run for it.

“So, I got that going for me, which is nice,” she muttered in her best Bill Murray impersonation.

She adjusted the strap on her shoulder and kept half walking-half jogging, the bag bumping against her hip in an annoying rhythm. She tossed Ashton’s keys off into the manicured lawn—he’d find them eventually—and made it through the ornate gates at the end of the long drive. Thankfully, Ashton hadn’t managed to escape his angry French girls yet.

Her engagement ring felt like a lead weight on her hand, becoming heavier with each step. My relationship is over, just like that. Five years down the drain. She squeezed her eyes shut and forced the thoughts away. She would deal with it all later, but for now, she just needed to get to town, get a ride back to London, and get a hotel for a few nights. Then she’d have a nice, old-fashioned breakdown. Lots of ice cream and crying and chick flicks. Maybe even a post-break up haircut and makeover would be in order. Definitely some retail therapy. Then she’d deal with reality. Delaying it a few days wouldn’t hurt anything.

“Just have to make it there,” she huffed. She loathed cardio on a good day. Right now, she despised it to the depths of her soul. She neared the small-ish stone bridge ahead and groaned. “What now??” There was a line of cars backed up on either side, a four-car pile-up blocking the entire thing.

She jogged forward, hoping she could schooch past the wreckage. It looked dicey—two of the cars had broken through the stone barriers on either side of the bridge so there wasn’t much wiggle room around them—but maybe she could manage it. If she was allowed through at all.

She caught a police officer’s eye and waved.

“Any chance I can cross?” she panted when he approached. She gave him a smile and blew a blonde curl out of her eyes. She wasn’t above a little harmless flirting if it got her over this bridge and further away from the lovely countryside brothel in her metaphorical rearview.

“I’m afraid not. Too dangerous, miss. It’ll be a few hours before it’s open again probably.” He was young and cute, and blushed fiercely as he took Elle in.

Shit. She didn’t have hours to wait. Elle nibbled her lip and glanced over her shoulder. No sign of Ashton yet, but she didn’t want to just wait around. She turned back towards the bridge, squinting in the distance.

“The road curves back to the left up there, doesn’t it? Around these trees?” She nodded to the stretch of thick forest bordering the road on the left. The officer looked a bit confused, but nodded. “So, one could potentially head that way through the woods and eventually meet up with the road again on the other side, right?” The creek that ran beneath the bridge was too wide to cross here, but surely it would narrow at some point. And if not, I”ll go swimming.

“Yes, I suppose that’s right, but…” He looked a little uneasy.

“But what?”

He rubbed the back of his neck, blushing once more. “Well, there are stories about that forest. Tales. My mum used to say there were fairies there, that they would snatch people away and they’d never be heard from again.” He gave her a shy smile and hiked one shoulder, trying to seem as if he thought they were just silly stories, but she could tell that part of him believed them. She didn’t blame him. Elle had always been a big believer in the unexplainable and the unknown. Superstitions, magic, legends, myths—she would even swear on anything that she’d seen the Mothman once in West Virginia. So, Elle had a healthy respect for all of that stuff.

But she also had a healthy respect for getting away from Ashton as soon as possible.

“Well, I think I’ll take my chances with the fairies. I’ve got an uber to catch and a cheating ex to avoid,” she said with a smile and a nod over her shoulder.

“Do you need help?” he asked, straightening and pulling himself up to his full height, which was only about an inch taller than Elle’s five foot seven.

“No, no, I’m fine. He isn’t dangerous, but I might be a danger to his balls if he catches up to me.” She grinned at him and he chuckled a bit.

“Well, I’d say he deserves that and more for cheating on you, Miss.”

Elle shot him another grin. “Thanks, Officer…” She raised her brows, waiting for him to fill in the blank.

“Charlie. Er, I mean, Slack. Officer Slack. Charlie Slack.” His cheeks heated again and she found it utterly adorable. He looked like he couldn’t have been more than twenty-one, maybe twenty-two. Or maybe he just looked young. Elle was always mistaken for being younger than she was too, and though she was twenty-six, she was constantly getting carded when everyone else at the table was given their drinks without a second glance.

“Well, thank you, Officer Charlie Slack. I owe you one.”

She winked, hoisted her bag further up on her shoulder, and jogged through the thick grass that led to the tree line. She paused for second before stepping into the forest, trying to remember if London wildlife included snakes. She bit her lip and glanced back to the road. In the distance, she saw the familiar black Jag making its way along the winding road towards the bridge. Shit. Guess Ash had a spare key handy. She decided to take her chances with the nope ropes and darted between the two thick trees closest to her.

She kept to the edge of the creek, following its path deeper into the woods, trying to find a good spot to cross. She really didn’t feel like having wet shoes for the rest of the afternoon on top of everything else, so she decided to give it a little longer before finally giving in and wading across. She let her mind wander as she walked, desperate to figure out how her entire life had just derailed so quickly. One minute, she was engaged to a man who was practically perfect (at least on paper), and the next, she was single and not quite sure how she felt about it. She should be more…broken about all of this, shouldn’t she? Sure, she was pissed as hell, but she didn’t feel the devastation and betrayal she should feel, the kind she saw on TV dramas or romance movies. Would it just take time before it all hit her? Or was she not feeling it because deep down, she was…relieved? No, that couldn’t be right.

Sure, she’d dragged her feet on picking a date for the wedding until she finally relented and agreed to the first date Ashton’s mom had thrown out as an option, but that was normal, wasn’t it? To be nervous about cementing such an important, life-altering decision? And she admittedly hadn’t been excited to start the actual wedding planning. In fact, she’d dreaded it and had let Ash’s family handle basically every decision. But again, it was normal for planning something so monumental to be stressful. Probably. Elle sighed.

Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. She honestly wasn’t sure and she didn’t have any close friends to talk to about this kind of stuff. She had plenty of friends, was very much a never met a stranger kind of person, but they were go-to-concerts-or-brunch friends, not have-deep-meaningful-help-me-figure-out-my-life-conversations friends. She cared about them, but she could admit that she was mostly a loner, and she was mostly ok with that. And no, she didn’t need a psychology degree to know that her lack of close relationships stemmed from her parents’ deaths and her fear of letting anyone else in again only to lose them too—her therapist had already told her that more than once.

So, yes, she’d been hesitant about the wedding, stressed about its fast-approaching date, but things had been…fine. That was the problem. They were fine. Not good. Not great. Not I-can’t-live-without-you-for-another-second. Just fine. And that was the reason she’d decided on the impromptu trip to see him. It was like she needed to prove to herself that she was happy with him, that she did love him, that things were still right with them.

“That backfired in the most epic of ways,” she muttered to a squirrel as it chittered at her from a branch.

Elle felt as if she’d been walking for hours already, but it had only been about thirty-five minutes. She sighed, deciding walking farther and farther into the deep, dark woods was probably not a good idea, and accepting the fact that she was going for a little dip. She screamed as she slid down the steep bank, nearly losing her balance and face planting in the water, but she managed to right herself at the last second. She stepped into the water and gasped at the chill.

“Fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck,” she complained through gritted teeth as she made her way across the creek that suddenly seemed more like a small river. She slipped on the rocks and the current pressed heavily against her shins, trying desperately to take her down. “Not today, Satan. Not fucking today.”

She was soaked up to her knees when she finally climbed up the other side and headed back the direction she’d come, figuring going back towards the bridge, just on the other side of the creek was the best bet. She pulled out her phone—already six missed calls and fourteen texts from Ashton—and quickly booked a suite at the Savoy for the next few days. She sighed in contentment, already imagining ordering room service and wrapping up in the exquisitely soft robes.

Many people assumed Elle was a gold digger and with Ashton because he was obscenely rich, old money kind of rich, but what they never seemed to realize was that she had plenty of her own money. Elle had inherited a large fortune when her parents had passed. Montgomery Hotels was one of the largest chains in the U.S. Her grandfather had started it, her father had joined the family business and her mother had helped him grow it to epic proportions. So, not only did she get a hefty inheritance from their estate, she owned a majority of the company when they died as well. She sold her shares to her uncle, and he was happy to carry on the family name and legacy in her stead while she quietly faded into the shadows. Her father had always told her that she had a knack for business, and she admittedly had always been good with numbers, but none of it had ever interested her. He’d always encouraged her to follow her own path, though, whatever it might be.

So, she had always had family money, but she also worked her ass off to start her own business for her digital art. She had big name authors commissioning her work almost daily, big publishing houses coming to her for character renderings and book covers, and her waitlist was almost a year out at this point.

Bottom line: Ashton’s money could go suck a nut and she would be pampering herself up right in the next few days—on her own dime. Despite wanting to castrate him, she couldn’t stop herself from scanning Ashton’s texts.

Please come back…We need to talk about this…Where are you staying tonight? The Ritz? I’ll meet you there in a few hours and I’ll make this right…Come on, don’t ignore me. I love you…What am I supposed to tell people?...What about the wedding?...What do I tell my mother?...Baby, talk to me.

“Unbelievable! Still no fucking apology!” Elle shook her head in disbelief and almost threw her phone into the nearest tree. She thought better of it at the last minute and instead shoved it back in the side pocket of her leggings and trudged on, stopping every so often to switch her bag from one shoulder to the other. She vaguely remembered a marine she’d hooked up with for a while in college talking about trench foot, and she wondered how long one might have to walk around with cold, soaked feet before they were afflicted. Probably a lot longer than she’d been hiking, but still. She was beginning to feel bone-wary and verging on dramatic.

It was then that she realized she’d been walking too long. She should definitely be out of the woods by now, shouldn’t she? She glanced to her right and her stomach plummeted into her soggy Chucks: she’d somehow managed to wander away from the creek. There was no sign of it anywhere. How in the hell had that happened? She’d been lost in thought, but there was no way she wouldn’t have noticed that…right?

“So not good.” She pulled up her navigation app on her phone—only to find that she had no service. The app couldn’t show her how to get back to the road if it couldn’t even find her. Her heart began to pound but she willed herself to remain calm. “Breathe. Just breathe. It’s ok.” She shifted her course walking back to her right in hopes of finding the creek again.

Just as scenes from The Blair Witch Project started to play in her mind, she heard what she thought was a car. She nearly sagged with relief. Almost there.

She picked up the pace but paused before two large trees, their branches having grown together about fifteen feet up, creating a kind of natural archway. The trunks were covered in vines, dotted with small white flowers, and beneath them, a strange symbol had been carved into each one. An elegant knot of intersecting lines, and she assumed this must have something to do with the fairy stories that Officer Slack had mentioned.

“Please take me away,” she muttered. “Anywhere but here.” She reached out and ran her finger over one of the symbols and frowned as a surge of static settled around her, like the sizzle before lightning strikes. She cast her eyes upward. It was a bit overcast, but nothing crazy, definitely not a brewing storm. She shook it off, even as unease skittered up her spine.

“Ok, I’m done with the woods,” she whispered as she stepped between the trees. The static grew stronger, pressing in uncomfortably on her from all sides. The hairs on her arms and the back of her neck stood on end. A wave of nausea crashed into her, and she alternated between hot and cold too quickly to keep track. She heard wind rushing through her ears, circling all around her, but felt nothing on her skin.

“Wh-what the hell…” she whispered through numb lips, trailing off as she fell to her knees, darkness rearing up and taking her under in an instant.