Chapter 1
Kiera
When I was little, I would tiptoe through the hallways of my family home, flinching at the screams of pain coming from my mom as my dad viciously beat her. I would slip silently into my brother’s room, terrified my father would catch me out of bed and make me his next target.
James knew that whenever the screaming started, it wouldn’t be long until I snuck into his room, seeking safety.
He would fling his covers back and beckon me to hide under the sheets, where the two of us clung to each other and waited for the storm to pass.
He always held me against his side, telling me not to worry and that he would never let our father hurt me.
When the screaming stopped and James fell asleep, I would lie by his side, listening to his gentle breaths, and vowing to myself that I wouldn’t end up like my mom.
That I would never let a man hurt me.
As I surveyed the angry, purple bruises covering my ribs, disappointment swirled within me. I had broken my vow, and the worst part was, this wasn’t the first time I’d been at the receiving end of my fianc?’s temper.
Pulling my top down to cover the bruises, I tore my eyes away from the mirror, unable to look at the pathetic woman I had become.
Grabbing my glass of white wine, I downed the contents in one gulp before pouring another generous helping from the bottle I’d brought upstairs while I got ready for my night out.
I took another mouthful, a smaller one this time, licking my lips to savor every drop before I applied a layer of pink gloss. For what I was doing tonight, I was going to need the Dutch courage alcohol provided.
As if I needed the excuse to drink.
Wine had become my best friend of late. The only time I didn’t indulge was when my daughter, Billie, was home from her boarding school.
Currently, she was in school, safe from her disgrace of a mother, and had another few weeks of her current term.
I knew the amount I was drinking was increasing every time she went back to school, but I couldn’t help myself.
Alcohol helped me forget the shit show that was my life.
And that shit show was about to get a whole lot worse, yet there I was, standing in front of my mirror, determined to go ahead with my evening plans despite knowing what the consequences would be if Alec ever found out.
Slipping my feet into the black heels I’d selected to go with my outfit—a low-cut blouse revealing the swell of my breasts, and a short skirt showcasing my long legs—nervous anticipation swirled in my belly.
What if no one spoke to me?
What if no one looked at me?
What if I left feeling worse than I already did?
Not that I could feel much worse; I didn’t relish the idea of cheating on Alec, but I needed an escape.
I needed one night where I felt something other than the perpetual gloominess I lived in.
Besides, it wasn’t as if Alec was faithful to me, and if I were honest, I didn’t care if he cheated on me, not when I couldn’t stand him touching me.
I often wondered how I had ended up in this predicament; engaged to a man I could barely tolerate, isolated from my friends and family, and lonelier than ever before. But any time I asked myself the question, the faces of those who’d destroyed my life floated before my eyes.
I was never sure which of them I hated the most. Between them, they took everything from me, leaving me with a shattered heart and broken trust. If it wasn’t for Billie—the only good thing in my life—I would have ended my misery long before—a thought that would repeatedly circle in my head every time Alec laid a hand on me.
In recent weeks, his outbursts had become more frequent, thankfully, always while Billie was at school. I could suffer his violence all the time she never witnessed it, but I’d be damned if she ended up suffering the same emotional damage I had after years of hearing the screams from my mom.
They still haunted me in my sleep.
Alec tended to lose control whenever he tried to instigate sex, and I turned him down. I could have just given in and saved myself a beating—something that had gotten me through the first few years of our relationship—but these days, the thought of him being inside me churned my stomach.
Ironic, really. My skin crawled whenever the man I was engaged to touched me, yet I was about to head to a sex party with the intention of fucking a complete stranger.
My life really had become one giant fuck up.
For the entire cab ride to the mansion where the party was being held, my body vibrated with nerves. Paranoia that I was going to get caught thrummed through my veins, mixing with the bottle of wine I’d finished before leaving home.
The driver attempted several times to talk to me, only receiving one-word answers when I was too busy checking my phone, making sure Alec hadn’t called or messaged to say he’d unexpectedly changed his plans and had come home early.
It wouldn’t be the first time.
He was a senior manager for an investment company, and often traveled for work, or at least, that’s what he told me. I was certain his excuse for being away from home was so he could fuck his way through half the population.
But hey, if he was fucking other women, he wasn’t bothering me.
Or beating me, for that matter.
When the cab pulled up at the gates, my stomach plummeted to my shoes. I deliberated asking the driver to turn around and getting the hell out of there, but at finding my friend, Donna, waving at me with an enormous grin on her face, I forced myself out of the car.
I could do this.
I needed to do this.
For one night, I needed to feel something more than the black cloud that followed me around wherever I went. The cloud that always appeared whenever Billie wasn’t at home.
From the moment she was born, she brought light to my shattered life.
In the months I carried her, my heart had been trapped in a cage of barbed wire, the sharp spikes piercing the organ with every beat.
But when Billie came into the world, and I held her in my arms for the first time, the barbs destroying me weren’t as ferocious.
The pain in my chest was replaced by love.
Her arrival gave me a glimmer of hope and a happier future.
But every time she went away to her boarding school for weeks on end, the barbed wire tightened again, and the cloud reappeared, growing heavier and thicker with each new appearance.
I needed to do something to alleviate it before I collapsed under its weight.
I needed to feel alive, even if it was just for one night.
A distraction from the chaos of my mind.
I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t been jealous when Donna bragged about the last party she went to at dinner a week ago.
As she relayed the moment she was railed by a stranger, and had experienced the best orgasm of her life, envy so powerful had slivered through me, and I’d almost snapped the stem of my wine glass.
It wasn’t the fact that she’d had an orgasm; while I often struggled to reach a climax, I could make myself come with enough effort, but it was how that stranger had made Donna feel.
Someone had taken their time exploring her body, bathing her in attention, and making her feel like she was the only one that mattered.
And fuck, did I want that.
Donna saw the look of need etched all over my face, and after our two other friends, Ava and Michelle, left us to finish our drinks, she invited me to the next party.
As in, tonight’s party.
Donna was the cheer captain in the ‘I hate Alec Walker fan club.’ She despised my fiancè, to the point that she refused to be in the same room as him. She knew a little of what went on in our relationship, but I was careful with what I shared.
Like how often I was at the receiving end of Alec’s fists.
From the start of my and Alec’s relationship, Donna had begged me to leave him, especially when I confided in her the first time I’d discovered he’d cheated on me.
She’d long since given up trying to get me to walk away from the relationship, understanding that Alec was the reason Billie was living a life that I could never give her.
Instead, she’d turned her attention to convincing me to get my needs fulfilled elsewhere. In her words, two could play that game.
With the knowledge that the parties Donna attended were selected guests only, and were kept in strict confidence, she wore me down, which was why I was sitting awkwardly in a huge living room, clutching my glass of champagne, and watching various couples talk, flirt, and subtly touch each other.
I had no clue who the house belonged to, but it was stunning.
Sparkling cream marble floors glittered underneath the dazzling lights from the chandeliers, and gorgeous black and white artwork adorned the walls.
Several smartly dressed waiters weaved between people carrying trays of champagne and hor d’oeuvers, not speaking a single word to anyone, and ignoring the reason why everyone was at the party.
Sipping my drink, I took in the scene. Donna had left me within ten minutes of our arrival when she spotted the guy she’d hooked up with at last week’s party, and I hadn’t plucked up the courage to talk to anyone.
I was seriously regretting my decision to attend the party, though. Guilt flowed through me like a steady stream, and even after two glasses of champagne, I still couldn’t shake the feeling of betrayal out of my system. What I was doing was wrong, even if Alec regularly cheated on me.
Two wrongs didn’t make a right.
Deciding that being here was stupid, I downed the last of my drink and pulled my phone out of my purse to call a cab when a dark shadow fell over me. My heart leaped into my throat when I met the eyes of a gorgeous man smirking at me.
“I’m guessing this is your first time at a party like this?” he said, his voice smooth as silk.
The nerves I’d been struggling to keep at bay pulsed through me like an electric shock. “What gave me away?” I replied when I managed to find my voice.
He chuckled, his deep timbres making my stomach clench with an anticipation I hadn’t felt in a long time. “You’ve spent the last twenty minutes looking like a rabbit caught in headlights. May I?”
“Of course,” I muttered hesitantly when he waved at the space next to me on the couch.
Sitting as close to me as possible, his thighs pressed against mine, and a slight tremble started in my fingers. Inhaling a calming breath, I was hit by the scent of his cologne; a woodsy aroma mixed with a hint of cinnamon.
A delicious shiver traveled down the length of my spine, hitting me in my core. Still, guilt warred with the building excitement, and a loud warning bell rang in my head, telling me that I was playing with fire, but the noise was drowned out by the sparks zapping through me.
No one had looked at me the way this man was for a very long time.
Like he wanted to rip my clothes off and take his time exploring every inch of my body.
“I’m Gavin,” he said, holding out his hand for me to take.
“Emma,” I replied, his large hand engulfing my small one.
Donna had told me that the majority of people at these types of parties never gave any real information about themselves, including their names. I was only too happy to keep my details to myself if it meant Alec never found out what I’d been up to.
Besides, for one night, I wanted to be someone different. Someone who wasn’t trapped in the life I was.
“So, what brings you here tonight, beautiful?” Gavin said, his emerald green eyes boring into mine, our hands still clasped together.
Perhaps it was the alcohol swimming through my veins, or maybe it was because he called me beautiful. Either way, a surge of confidence powered through me. Allowing a flirtatious smile to tug at my lips, I leaned into him, internally telling myself that I could do this.
“The same reason you and everyone else is here,” I purred.
His eyes darkened as his mouth pulled into a devious grin. Releasing my hand, he placed his soft palm on my knee, slowly skating it up higher, and disappearing under the material of my skirt. “Well then, let’s not beat about the bush.”
Excitement burst through me like a display of fireworks, and when his fingers drew a small circle on the inside of my thigh, my pulse quickened. Without thinking, my teeth sank into my bottom lip, drawing Gavin’s attention to my mouth.
He reached up and pulled my lip free. “Mmm, I’d like to nibble on that lip. I can think of a few other places I’d like to nibble, too.”
His voice held unspoken promises, and when I didn’t respond, he edged closer, moving his mouth to mine.
I froze in my seat, my eyes fluttering closed as he pressed his lips gently against mine.
My heart was now racing faster than a speeding train, and when our mouths opened together and our tongues twirled, my core clenched.
Gavin groaned as our tongues circled each other, and the fingers that had been dancing over my thigh gripped the flesh harshly.
A bolt of panic flashed through me; I couldn’t have any marks for Alec to discover, but my panic was washed away when, with his other hand, Gavin laced his fingers into my hair, tugging my head back to deepen the kiss.
A pulse beat between my legs as I clutched Gavin’s shirt, not wanting the passionate kiss to end, and wanting more.
“Shall we go find somewhere more private?” Gavin asked, breaking the kiss, his eyes blazing with heat.
I was about to tell him just how much I wanted to go somewhere private when a strange feeling rushed through me, dousing the raging fire burning under my skin.
The feeling of being watched.
Jolting back from Gavin, a flush covered my cheeks as my head whipped in the direction the scorching gaze was coming from.
The blood in my veins turned to ice.
A figure leaned against the doorway across the room. A figure I knew oh so well.
There’d been a time when I wanted to spend every waking minute with him, but in the last ten years, I’d gone out of my way to avoid him, thankfully, only crossing paths with him on rare occasions.
His handsome face was contorted with fury, and in one hand, he clutched his phone, holding it as if he had just taken a picture of me.
The tremble that had started in my fingers quickly worked its way through my body, but it wasn’t because I’d just kissed a stranger. It was because I was in trouble.
Big fucking trouble.