Chapter One
This was the part of the evening that Serena Addison loathed the most. The part when her friends went off in one direction and she had to go another.
Tonight, it was worse than usual because she wasn’t just missing out on after-work drinks at the pub around the corner from where they worked in London, she was missing out on a once-in-a-lifetime experience in Singapore.
Missing out on a nightclub that was not only the hottest club in the city, but one of the most talked about nightlife venues in the world right now.
And she knew the soundtrack to tomorrow morning would be her friends excited chatter as they relived their exploits in annoyingly exhaustive detail, and she would have to listen and smile with interest, all the while pretending she wasn’t seething that she was missing out yet again, hearing about their experiences instead of living her own.
And that was so goddamned maddening, Serena wanted to scream with the force of her frustration.
‘You could come with us, you know,’ Evie, her closest friend, had whispered to her earlier. ‘We’re seven thousand miles away from London and from evil Marcia. She’ll never know what you do tonight.’
It was tempting to believe that, but living in a world dominated by social media rendered those seven thousand miles meaningless, and Serena knew it.
She had said as much to Evie too. It would take only one photograph of her drinking and dancing with her friends for her stepmother to follow through with the heinous threats she loved to issue and banish Serena from the family home and, even more devastatingly, sever her contact with her younger brother and sister, which as their adoptive mother she had every right to do.
But that was not a price Serena was willing to pay.
Being separated from Kit and Alexis wasn’t an option.
It never had been. Having helped to take care of them from the first day of their lives after the heartbreaking loss of their mother during childbirth, their bond was far beyond that of normal siblings, and after the unexpected and upending death of their father almost six years ago, she was the only blood family they had.
And they were hers, so it was imperative they stay together.
Not just because Serena grew heartsick at the thought of breaking the promise she had made to her mother during her pregnancy—that she would always be there for her younger siblings—but because she’d already endured all the loss she could stomach.
Her mum, then her dad and then the baby she’d been carrying when she was eighteen years old.
She’d only been ten weeks pregnant and the situation had been far from ideal, especially after the boyfriend she’d thought she could count on had fled, but Serena had formed such a strong attachment to her pregnancy that the loss of it had been a body blow, and without loving parents there to support her, it had been the hardest loss by far.
It was in that moment that she’d known she didn’t want to endure any more of that pain and had vowed to never again put herself in the position where she would lose someone else.
But even knowing that didn’t stop a hotter than usual frustration burning through her blood as she watched Evie and the other girls disappear into the glowing darkness of the nightclub.
Didn’t stop her heart from pounding with heavy, sickly thuds because she wanted so badly to be with them.
To sip colourful cocktails and dance the night away.
More than anything she wanted to have some fun and not spend another evening alone, excruciatingly aware of everything she was missing out on.
But that was not an option. Not as long as she had her stepmother’s beady eyes scrutinising her every move, she thought with a thick surge of resentment.
There had never been any closeness between them.
In all the years of being in her life, her stepmother had never shown Serena a shred of love or support or understanding.
Not even when her father had died, and definitely not even when she’d suffered her miscarriage.
Bewildered as to what had happened and why, Serena had been desperate for a set of comforting arms to hold her and would have welcomed that even from her cold stepmother, but all she had offered was the unfeeling sentiment of it’s probably for the best, as though Serena would have made a hopeless mother.
She’d had to find the strength within herself to pick up the pieces and pull herself up, and she had, only for Marcia to strike again.
Untrusting of Serena to not bring scandal and shame to their name again, she had stymied her plans, dreams, of attending art school.
Serena knew she hadn’t been an angel, especially not after her father had passed away and she’d sought escape from her grief in letting loose with her friends, but the punishment hardly seemed fair.
Unless she’d wanted to lose Kit and Alexis, Serena’s only choice was to endure it.
And endure it she had, along with all of Marcia’s other ridiculous and oppressive rules, for five long years.
No revealing clothes. No late nights. No bars or nightclubs. No freedom. No fun. The list went on and on and on…
Although it had been worth it to remain close to Kit and Alexis, the sacrifices had never been easy, and lately Serena felt more exasperated than ever before with all the limitations, frustration bubbling away deep inside and pushing ever closer to the surface.
More and more often she caught herself longing for the day when she would finally escape her stepmother’s clutches and be free to live as she wanted.
Soon, Serena reminded herself on a steadying breath, because she could feel the aggravation building afresh.
The twins would turn twelve on their next birthday, and with another year or two, when they had more autonomy over their lives and Marcia couldn’t prevent them from seeing her, then she could seize and embrace her freedom.
But until then, she had to play by Marcia’s rules.
If she wanted to remain in Kit’s and Alexis’s lives, she had no other choice.
And she’d survived all this time. She could put up with it for another few years.
At least that was what she kept telling herself.
It wasn’t as if it was all bad. Living within Marcia’s tight boundaries had prevented her from getting close to anyone, from searching for love in the wrong place as she had done with Lucas.
She had not been able to expose herself to any more of the heartbreak and loss that had been delivered to her in two cruel blows—his desertion and then her miscarriage. For that, at least, she was grateful.
But they’ve stopped you from experiencing anything else either.
That thought sounded so loudly in her head that it inflamed every bad feeling she already had.
Aware that she needed to act to keep her mood from plummeting any lower, Serena spun on her heel and started to walk purposefully towards the elevators, knowing exactly what she would do.
If she was at home, she would lock herself away in her little attic annex and vent her frustration through creation, spewing her feelings across her canvases with thick, emotional sweeps of the bright oil paints she loved so much.
That was how she had navigated the emotional quagmire of her father’s sudden death and the loss of her baby.
With no one other than Evie in her life to turn to—and Serena hadn’t ever fully opened up to her about everything she’d been through—it was still the way she dealt with the onset of any hard emotions.
But since she was unable to do that, she would go to the gym in her hotel instead and exercise out her rage.
Lately boxing had become her workout of choice.
She would punch the bag until her hair was damp and her arms were aching and her body was rid of the frustration weighing it down.
She’d only taken a few steps, however, when she crashed into something solid and, with a yelp of surprise, stumbled backwards. It was only the sudden grip of a strong arm around her waist preventing her from toppling backwards that made her realise it was a someone that she had crashed into.
‘Oh, my goodness, I am so sorry. I wasn’t focusing on where I was going and I…’ As Serena lifted her head, the collision of her gaze with a set of smooth silvery-grey eyes drove the words she had been about to speak right out of her mind.
Her body quaked with the immediate attraction that pulsed sharp and hot behind her breastbone, and she found herself unable to stop the spread of pleasant heat across her cheeks.
Powerless to do anything except stare up at the owner of those mesmerising eyes and as her gaze clung to his impressive features, her heart chimed once, twice, three times.
Each strike was more forceful than the last, because he was without question, the most devastatingly sexy man she had ever set eyes upon.
The cut of his face was sharp and distinct and his chiselled features were tanned.
His jaw was strong without being square and was dusted with a light stubble that he wore with style.
His hair was cut close to his head and dark brows that were straight and imposing sat above those unusual, intriguing eyes of the softest grey.
And Serena was intrigued, in a way she had not been in an awfully long time, and in a way that was threatening to set her ablaze right then and there.
There was a small siren of warning somewhere in her brain, instructing her to look away or, even better, to walk away, but she couldn’t summon the necessary willpower to do either.
And then he flashed a smile that had even more plumes of desire unfurling in her stomach.
‘It’s fine. I probably wasn’t paying as much attention as I should have been to where I was walking either. ’