Chapter 1
DEVONNA
The thing about carefully constructed lives is that they’re one unexpected visitor away from total collapse. Mine lasted exactly eight years, seven months, and twelve days.
“I need your mouth,” I whispered to Garrett as we stumbled down the hallway to my apartment. His hands were already under my pencil skirt, fingers tracing the edge of my lace thigh-highs, sending electric currents up my spine.
“Yes, ma’am,” he murmured against my neck in a way that made my knees weak.
It had been a day from hell. Three venue cancellations, one bride who changed her color scheme for the sixth time, and a mother-in-law who kept referring to me as “the help” while I single-handedly saved her daughter’s wedding from her tacky suggestions.
I’d spent the day managing other people’s emotions while bottling up my own, and now the pressure was threatening to blow the cork across Manhattan.
Hence, Garrett. A security specialist I’d met a couple of years earlier.
Built like a fortress and blessedly uninterested in anything beyond our physical connection, Garrett was perfect.
No romance, no expectations, no messy feelings.
Just two professionals helping each other unwind in the most satisfying way possible.
“Let me guess,” he said, pressing me against my door as I fumbled with the keys. “Today’s clusterfuck is sponsored by a wedding disaster?”
“Try three,” I confirmed, finally getting the key into the lock. “But I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to talk at all.”
I pushed the door open, already unbuttoning my blouse.
Garrett kicked it closed behind us, the darkness of my apartment a welcome relief after the harsh fluorescents of the office.
I didn’t bother with lights. We’d done this dance enough times that we could navigate to my bedroom by muscle memory alone.
His mouth found mine again as we moved through the dark apartment, and I let myself dissolve into the kiss. This was exactly what I needed. Uncomplicated. Physical. A pressure valve release that wouldn’t threaten the life I’d spent nearly nine years building.
I was already reaching for his belt when a sound registered; the distinct hum of my washing machine’s spin cycle.
We both froze.
“Did you leave your laundry running?” Garrett asked, stiffening against me.
“Have you met me? I don’t leave appliances running when I’m out,” I said, suddenly hyperaware of every shadow in my apartment.
“Shit.”
“Yeah,” I muttered, peering into the darkness. “Do you have your gun?”
“What do you think?” Garrett muttered under his breath.
But before either of us could move, the lamp beside my couch clicked on, and my carefully constructed life imploded.
There, sprawled across my pristine white sofa, was a ghost. Not the transparent, floating kind. No. That would be entertaining. This was a far more dangerous kind that haunted me after I’d convinced myself I was over him.
Miles Fucking Houston. Eight years, seven months, and twelve days since I’d seen him last.
“Damn it,” I hissed.
He looked like he’d gone three rounds with a lawn mower and lost. His left eye had swollen shut, his lip split at the corner, and a constellation of bruises bloomed across his torso.
And what a torso it was, covered in ink.
Some I didn’t recognize; others I did, like the tattoo over his heart.
A vintage skeleton key that looked exactly like the one I’d once worn on a chain around my neck for the five years I’d known him.
I didn’t recognize most of the tattoos, though.
They were a roadmap of the years I’d missed.
Geometric patterns interlaced with surprisingly delicate line-work twisted from his collarbones down his arms and disappeared beneath the waistband of the only thing he was wearing: black boxer briefs that did nothing to hide the fact that he still worked out.
He took a long swig directly from a bottle of my 25-year-old Yamazaki whisky, then winced as the movement pulled at whatever damage lurked beneath those bruises.
“Don’t mind me,” he said, crunching on what I now recognized as my imported black truffle potato chips.
“Just waiting for the spin cycle to finish. Blood is surprisingly stubborn.” He gestured vaguely toward my laundry nook with the whisky bottle.
“Your detergent game has improved, Vonnie. The lavender one is my favorite.”
Garrett shifted into security mode, stepping partially in front of me. “Who the hell are you, and how did you get in here?”
Miles’s eyes—well, the one that wasn’t swollen shut—flicked to Garrett, like a lion deciding whether a gazelle was worth the effort of a chase.
“Miles Houston,” he replied, not moving from his seat on the couch. “Old... let’s call it ‘acquaintance.’ And you must be the new distraction.” His gaze returned to me, one corner of his mouth lifting in that half-smile I’d spent years trying to forget. “Been busy, honey?”
“Don’t call me that,” I snapped, pulling my blouse closed. The fury rising in me was almost welcome. Anger was so much safer than the other emotions threatening to surface. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Visiting a friend?”
“Fuck no.” I glared at him with every bit of anger I could muster. It was a wonder the man wasn’t in flames. Stupid faulty laser vision.
“Ouch. That hurts, Von.”
“Cry me a fucking river.”
Miles raised an eyebrow, then immediately regretted it, judging by his wince. “What am I then? Old enemy? Ex-lover? The guy who ruined you for all future relationships?”
“You’re an intruder,” I said, reaching for my phone. “And I’m calling security.”
“I am security,” Garrett reminded me, still in a protective stance.
“More security then,” I amended.
“Before you do,” Miles said, setting down the whisky bottle on my glass coffee table without a coaster, because of course he did, “you might want to hear why Dimitrov’s guys used my face as a punching bag.”
My finger hovered over the screen. “The Peacock? What did you do this time?”
“Why does everyone assume I did something?” Miles asked the ceiling, then immediately waved off his own question. “Fine. I may have borrowed some money a while ago. And then I may have refused to marry his daughter to clear the debt.”
Garrett looked between us, confusion evident. “Who’s the Peacock?”
“Russian loan shark with a flair for the dramatic,” I explained automatically, then silently cursed myself for engaging with Miles’s chaos.
“Ix-nay on the oan-lay ark-shay,” Miles whispered, drawing his hand across his neck in a signal to cut it out.
“Besides, he’s only allegedly a loan shark,” Miles corrected.
“Officially, Mikhail Dimitrov is a legitimate business owner with interests in various entertainment ventures and a temper problem.” He shifted on my couch, revealing more tattoos crawling across his ribs; an eagle I didn’t recognize and what appeared to be a series of longitude and latitude coordinates.
“And what does this have to do with breaking into my apartment?” I demanded.
“I didn’t break in. I still have a key.”
“From nine years ago? I’ve moved twice!”
“Three times,” he corrected. “The Tribeca loft after we split, then that awful place in Chelsea with the suspicious mold situation, and now, here.” He glanced around appreciatively. “Major upgrade, by the way. The building security is impressively inadequate, though. We should talk about that.”
The casual “we” made my blood boil. “There is no ‘we,’ Miles. There hasn’t been for nearly nine years.”
“About that,” he said, shifting to a slightly more upright position with a grimace. “Mikhail seems to think there is a ‘we.’”
“What?”
Miles shrugged. “He thinks you and I are together again.”
“Why the hell would he think that?” I ground my teeth together.
“He heard that you’re my fiancée.”
The words hung in the air like a piano suspended over a cartoon version of me.
“I’m your what?” I finally managed.
“Fiancée. Betrothed. Future wife. Blushing bride-to-be.”
“Where did he hear that from, Miles?” I balled my hands into fists, and beside me, Garrett gave me a worried look.
“Dev, are you—”
“Who, Miles?”
“It was the only thing I could think of when he had his goons dangling me off his balcony by my ankles. ‘Can’t marry your daughter, already engaged, terribly sorry.’”
The metaphorical piano dropped.
“You told a loan shark with a taste for violence that we’re engaged?” My voice reached a pitch I didn’t know I was capable of, and I lunged for Miles.
Or rather, I tried to lunge for him, but Garrett caught me around the waist and held me against him.
“Don’t,” he whispered against me. “Legal charges don’t look good on records.”
“I’m going to kill him,” I hissed back, struggling against his tree trunk arms. Funny, I normally enjoyed being restrained by my fuckbuddy. Not then, though. I wanted to rip Miles’s face off, and Garrett was the chain holding me back.
“To be fair, I didn’t expect him to check,” Miles said, reaching for the chips again. “But he’s thorough. Hence the welcome committee that rearranged my face when I got here.”
“You brought dangerous men to her home?” Garrett asked in a low voice, still restraining me. “What the hell is wrong with you, man?”
“They aren’t going to hurt her. At least, I don’t think they are.”
“Gee, that’s reassuring, asshole.” I stopped fighting against Garrett since there seemed to be no point. He was stronger, and he was right. I’d worked too hard putting my life in order after Miles for me to get an assault charge messing it all up. “Why did they rearrange your face?”
“Probably because they saw you with the Hulk.” Miles gestured to Garrett. “No offense, man.”
Garrett ignored him, releasing me and spinning me to face him. “Is he dangerous?”
“Miles?” I snorted even though I was still seeing red. “No. I could kick his ass any day. In fact, I’d like to do it today.”
“Hey!”