CHAPTER ONE
“I’d like a tall, half-caff, soy latte with an extra shot, and cream at 120 degrees.”
WTF?
120 degrees?
“Did you get the order, Abby?” Ronald, my manager and boss at the coffee shop, asks.
“Yes,” I nod, even though I’m not so sure I’m capable of making the customer’s order. How does one make sure the coffee is exactly at 120 degrees? Is it even possible?
Ronald brushes his bright orange hair away from his pale, freckled face and squints his eyes. He does that a lot when he looks at me, like he’s sizing me up and doesn’t quite know if I’m capable.
Can I blame him?
Not quite.
Since I started this job a few weeks ago, I’ve been a complete disaster at it. It’s pathetic, really. At the age of twenty-three, this is my first real job—a barista at a coffee shop. And I am completely inept at it. The only reason why I’m still employed is because Ronald feels sorry for me.
“I’ve got this,” I tell him in what I hope is a confident voice.
I hear Paul, the other barista working today, snort, and I fight the urge to throw a scone at him.
I make my way to the counter where all the machines are lined up and grab a cup. Who knew that making a cup of coffee was actually so difficult to do? The new respect I have for baristas is astounding. I promise myself for the thousandth time I will never order an elaborate drink again.
“Maybe Paul should do this one? It’s a complicated order,” Ronald says nervously.
Perfect. My boss thinks I’m an absolute moron.
“If that’s what you prefer,” I say evenly. I know an impending disaster when I see it. The last thing I want to do is mess up another customer’s order.
I need this job.
It’s the first time in my life I’m on my own for money.
For better or worse, I’ve never had to worry about my finances until now. I’ve been blessed with a well-to-do family and come from a life of privilege. And up until a few months ago, when I broke my engagement with my absurdly wealthy Russian fiancé, I never thought I would have to worry about money.
I try not to think about that moment in my life but as usual, the memories creep up on me, and I find myself reliving what was without a doubt the worst time in my young existence.
My ex-fiancé Dimitri Lobonav-Dostyanevsky was handpicked by my mother to bring an end to, as she so eloquently put, my “lackadaisical” life. It’s not like my mother was far off at the time. After I graduated from St. Andrews University with a degree in history, I had never felt more lost. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. All my other schoolmates had clear paths mapped out in their minds, but me, I felt like I had been placed in a super car on a Formula One racetrack and didn’t know how to start my engine.
I came home to London after university and moved into the flat my father had left for me when he passed away when I was a baby. My stepfather had given me a monthly allowance, and my mother warned me to find my way. I had tried. I volunteered at different charities and actually enjoyed giving my time to the organizations, but it wasn’t enough. Not for my mother, whose sole mission in life was to see me marry well.
Since I wasn’t much of a dater, she took it upon herself to find my future husband. Enter Dimitri Lobonav-Dostyanevsky, my rich Russian oligarch. I had tried to like him. I really had. He was pleasant looking enough, was as rich as Midas, and really didn’t care what I did or whom I went out with. In fact, he pretty much left me alone, a condition I had grown acutely accustomed to over the years. Dimitri was forty-one and wanted a young wife who would stay home and give him children. My mother convinced me that it was enough. That I didn’t need love because if I married him, I would never have to worry about anything again. That my situation couldn’t get much better than this. She reminded me that there was a line of women waiting to take my place if I said no. At the time, her advice seemed logical and the right thing to do. So to my great shame, I was foolish enough to go along with it.
I was comforted by the fact that Dimitri felt the same way as me. We were both using each other. Neither of us was in love, we were just looking for a means to an end. And so I naïvely believed it would work.
He proposed with an enormous twenty-five-carat diamond ring that must have cost a small fortune. It was horrifyingly gaudy. I actually cringed when I saw it. It was too much and not my style at all. I only wore it when I would see him, which luckily was only a few times a week.
Dimitri was generous and had opened a bank account for me to buy a new wardrobe and to plan our wedding. He told me to spare no expense and the bigger, louder, and more ostentatious, the happier he would be. I wondered if he even realized that I’d rather run from those three adjectives than toward. My mother, on the other hand, was another story altogether. She had lit up like a Christmas tree when she heard him say those words.
Bigger? Check.
Louder? Check.
Ostentatious? Check.
“Shall we ship in swans and have them running around on the estate?” she had asked me one evening while having dinner at Scott’s.
“The wedding is in December,” I argued. “And I’m pretty sure swans won’t just run around the estate, at least not the way you’re picturing in your head. They might even freeze to death. They migrate during the winter months.”
My mother waved off my concern.
“We’ll have heaters for them,” she said. “We take care of our animals, Abigail.”
It took all my years of discipline to refrain from rolling my eyes.
In my entire life, I had never even seen my mother change the water for our pets.
Regardless, I realized quickly this was something she could plan in her sleep and would have a ball doing, so I left it all to her. She became immersed in organizing the wedding of the century and thankfully ignored me.
But everything was just moving too fast.
And the only thoughts that kept going through my head were: Am I making the right choice? Is this my future?
Is.
This.
It?
But even with all of my reservations and fears, I had pushed all self-doubt out of my mind and blindly forged ahead. It was all fine and dandy, and I had even fooled myself into believing this marriage would be good for me.
And that’s when it all went to shit.
The second I was in Provence and had set eyes on Michael Sinclair after not seeing him since I was seventeen years old, everything inside my soul shifted. For years I had tricked myself into believing that it was only a child’s crush. That all the moments we shared together meant nothing. That he was an illusion I had conjured up in my head.
But I was so wrong.
Here was the man who had been my first kiss. Who had always been kind to me. Who was gorgeous beyond words. And who had made my heart race like a mad woman whenever he was near.
He made me feel alive.
And special.
Needed.
And in no way inadequate.
I had tried to push my feelings aside for him, and I had thought I did a good job until the night of a party that my best friend, Georgie, had thrown for me.
I’ll never forget it.
Dimitri loved skimpy, revealing clothes. He didn’t seem to mind if other men ogled me. In fact, it seemed to please him if his friends found me desirable, like he owned something that others coveted but couldn’t have. My brown hair had been curled and primped the way he preferred, and I had a thick layer of makeup on that made me feel like a wax figure at Madam Tussaud’s famous museum.
I had tried to be confident. But the face that stared back at me in the mirror was not one I recognized, and from the moment I arrived at the party all I had wanted to do was find a way to cover up my half-naked body. After chatting with a few of our guests, I had escaped into one of Georgie’s guest bedrooms.
I shut the door and blocked out the noise from the party, needing to escape from all the suffocating feelings that were slowly choking the life out of me. It wasn’t like Dimitri would miss me. He was too busy texting and playing Candy Crush on his phone.
I took off the five-inch stiletto heels my stylist had paired with my minidress and found myself laying on the bed, wishing the party to be over. And my life, for that matter.
I didn’t know what I was doing with my future.
I felt as though I had lost all direction.
Like I didn’t even have a purpose.
And as destiny goes, that’s how Michael found me.
I heard the door slowly open, and I was annoyed that someone was about to invade my private moment.
“The room is occupied,” I called out without bothering to see who it was. If it was some couple looking to shag, they could bloody well find another place. The place was certainly big enough.
“Shouldn’t you be enjoying your party?”
I shot up from the bed when I heard Michael’s voice.
I tried not to think about how incredibly handsome he looked in his tailored black suit. He was so beautiful it almost hurt to look at him. Michael Sinclair had movie star good looks. He was tall, well over six feet, with longish, jet black hair that was mussed and always looked as though he had been up to no good in a bedroom. His bright blue eyes were like jewels shining out of his tanned and handsome face. His cheekbones were strong, his lips, full and sensual. His face was angular and masculine, his jawline perfect and his body… God, his body. It was long and lean, with slim hips and broad shoulders and a chest that was made to lick, kiss, or do any other type of dirty deed one could think of.
My blue eyes focused on his sensuous lips. I knew what they tasted like, considering he had been my very first make-out session. It was a moment he probably didn’t even recall since he had been so smashed.
But not me.
Me. I remembered every minute of it. Every detail. My back pushed up against a wall, his hands on either side of my face, his tall, hard body leaning down close to mine as he tasted what I willingly offered. The memory of that kiss had been my companion on many lonely nights.
And now—
This.
Michael Sinclair here. Right now. To torture me more.
It was unfair for him to have so much raw sex appeal.
He oozed it.
I was hit with a surge of pure, white-hot lust. God, I imagined he’d be great in bed. The beautiful way he moved, like some exotic cat, the strength I could see in his hands and body. I didn’t need to be a Nobel Prize winner to come to that conclusion.
“I just needed a moment,” I told him as I pushed the forbidden thoughts out of my mind and tried to tuck my very naked legs underneath my minidress, which was virtually impossible. I was exposed in every way.
“It’s a party for your upcoming wedding,” he pointed out the obvious.
“Thank you for the clarification,” I replied, annoyed that he had to be here right now when so many conflicting emotions were racing through my head.
Michael’s inscrutable gaze studied me.
“Dimitri seems…” He waited a moment like he was searching for the right word. “Pleasant.”
I could hear his disapproval, and it infuriated me. This was not something I wanted to deal with at the moment.
But still, I found the need to defend my fiancé.
“He’s wonderful,” I told him.
“Of course,” Michael replied politely. “And you love him.”
Love him?
That was rich. I wished I did. I knew I should have agreed with Michael. It was the proper thing to do. But I couldn’t utter the lie. For some reason saying the words, yes, I love Dimitri, made me feel like the sky would open above my head, and I’d be struck by lightning.
Especially professing the lie to him.
So instead, there was an uncomfortable silence.
“Don’t you?” Michael pushed as his keen gaze searched for the truth.
“What’s it to you?” I asked flippantly.
He watched me like a hawk.
“I’m curious.”
“You shouldn’t be,” I responded. “I’m marrying him, aren’t I?”
Michael stepped forward and his lips curled in disdain.
“I never took you for a woman who would marry for money.”
“I’m not,” I said angrily, genuinely hurt by his accusation. Even though I had basically just insinuated I didn’t love Dimitri, I was horrified that he actually thought I’d marry him, or any man for that matter, only for money. Yes, Dimitri was wealthy, but if he weren’t nice, I wouldn’t have agreed to marry him. It was a flimsy defense, I knew, but in that moment I didn’t have the time or the inclination to analyze it further.
“Then what is it?” Michael replied, his eyes watching me.
My mind raced as I tried to remember all of Dimitri’s pleasant attributes.
Candy Crush.
What?
What was that? Why did that come to mind?
Well, he is extraordinarily good at it, Abigail.
“Is it the sex?”
I was shocked into silence.
“Is that it, Abby?” Michael went on, his voice low and almost husky. “Does he know how to fuck you?”
My body pulsed in excitement as he robbed me of the ability to breathe.
Did he really just say those words to me?
“I’m not discussing my intimate relationship with my fiancé with you,” I finally said. “And I’m appalled you’d even ask.”
“Appalled?” Michael said with amusement. His lips curled into a smile as he studied my face.
“I’d venture to guess he can’t even make you come,” Michael went on to my mortification. “You don’t have the look of a woman who’s satisfied in bed.”
Holy shit.
He guessed right.
But I’d never admit it.
“Are you finished?” I asked coolly, trying to downplay the conversation and what he was making me feel.
Michael continued to stare me down in that toe-curling way of his, unnerving every inch of me—inside and out. He was too confident and cocksure.
And he had every right to be.
“Why are you hiding up here?” Michael ignored my question and asked another of his own.
“Hiding?” My eyes rounded. “I’m just taking a break from the party.”
“You should be basking in love, glued to his side,” he told me as he took a step toward the bed. “Nothing is adding up here, Abby, and I’m trying my best to figure it out.”
The room suddenly felt so small. His presence seemed to take up every inch. And his words. The insinuations. The truth in them was something I couldn’t deny.
“There is nothing to figure out,” I finally said. “I am basking.”
In what feels like acute misery.
He raised a brow. I knew he didn’t believe me.
And then Michael’s gaze moved from my face to my naked legs and my practically exposed chest. I could feel the heat burn my skin and I was shamefully turned on beyond belief. The fire in his eyes nearly took my breath away.
“Neither the dress nor makeup suit you,” he finally said.
I felt the air leave my lungs as I insecurely brushed back my hair. Why was he doing this to me? Turning me into a hot mess at my own engagement party?
Goddamn him and his sinful good looks.
I decided I hated him at that moment.
“It seems your travels around the world have caused a memory lapse in proper manners,” I said coldly. “You’ve forgotten how to speak to a lady, Michael.”
“You don’t look like a lady.”
I sputtered in outrage.
He took another step closer to the bed, holding my gaze as his eyes glimmered with something I couldn’t decipher.
“I thought you might want to know.”
“A real gentleman—” I began in a huff.
“Whatever gave you the impression I was a real gentleman?” Michael asked quietly, interrupting me.
Right.
He wasn’t.
In so many ways he was the furthest thing from the word.
He was the enigma of the Sinclair family. The one who threw out women the way one would do to trash. The one who reveled in a good pub brawl. The one who flew around the world, chasing humanitarian causes. The one who everyone in our social circle said could never ever be tamed.
A man I so desperately desired.
Even now.
I had to get away from him.
Michael Sinclair was my weakness. An addiction I had never been able to shed since I was a child. I could resist chocolate, but I could not resist this man. I scooted off the bed as elegantly as possible, trying my best to keep my short dress in place and not give him even more of a view than necessary.
“I guess I was mistaken,” I told him as I reached for my stilettos.
“You were,” was his taut reply.
I could feel his hot eyes on my body.
I wondered if he was judging me. Like I was some foolish child incapable of making a decision on her own. I couldn’t stand it.
“Is there a reason you came in here? Did you intentionally seek me out to insult me?” I let him hear how annoyed I was. “Or let me guess, you’re meeting a lover for a quick shag? If that’s the case, there are plenty of other rooms that are empty.”
“I’m not meeting a lover,” Michael replied quickly.
The relief I felt from his words was staggering.
And not the type of reaction a woman who was about to get married should have for a man other than her fiancé.
“Not yet, at least,” he went on.
Right.
I fought the urge to throw my high heel at his handsome face.
“Well then,” I said with false bravado. “I’ll leave you to it. The night is still young, and I know there are plenty of women out there who are just dying to become another notch on your belt.”
“Know of anyone I should look out for?” Michael asked with a raised brow, the look on his face sinful.
Bastard.
I ignored his question, standing up and wishing more than anything my feet weren’t hurting so badly so I could walk out of the room without looking as if I was in acute pain.
“If you’ll excuse me,” I said as I tried to make my way past him.
He grabbed hold of my arm and the surge of desire I felt from that single touch was astounding. My entire body was burning with longing.
Why, God?
Why did he have to make me feel this way?
“I haven’t said you could leave,” he growled.
A shiver of nervous energy shot down my spine. I looked up and met his stormy gaze and wondered why he seemed so angry.
“I don’t recall needing your permission,” I replied.
His blue eyes narrowed.
“You don’t need a husband, Abby. You need a keeper.”
“A keeper? How medieval of you. But thank you, I’ll be sure to take your opinion into consideration.” I rolled my eyes, smirking. “Now please let go of me.”
I felt his hand loosen its grip as his finger lightly brushed my arm. My entire body was on hyper alert. I couldn’t think properly, let alone make my legs move. My breath was frozen. My insides were highly aware of the sexy man standing so painfully close. I could feel the goose bumps appear on my skin and I hated myself for reacting.
“Are you sure that’s what you want?” Michael’s voice was rough, hypnotic, as his cerulean eyes met my gaze.
I tried to look away. But I felt trapped. Was that desire I saw? Or was my mind playing tricks on me?
“Completely.” My voice was breathless. I couldn’t help it. I was turned on. Like want-to-rip-off-his-clothes-and-jump-into-bed-with-him-turned on.
Michael broke my gaze for a brief second before hitting me head-on with his intensity.
“I think I read somewhere that it’s custom for the bride to receive a kiss from someone other than her fiancé before she’s sent off for marriage.” Michael’s gaze flicked to my lips then back to my eyes.
My heart leaped out of my chest.
“Whose custom would that be?” I asked shakily.
Michael shrugged.
“Must be someone’s.”
I tried to laugh it off, but when I saw the look on his face, my eyes widened in fear. If he kissed me, I was done.
“Michael—”
“Abigail—”
I didn’t stand a chance.
In a second, he looped his arm around my waist and pulled me toward him as his lips began to descend upon mine.
“What are you doing?” I put up a half-hearted fight. The kiss was exactly what I wanted.
“Something I’ll probably regret,” he said enigmatically. “But then, I think I’ll regret it more if I don’t do it.”
I wasn’t given a chance to argue. Or to push him away. His lips were on mine before I could even think of a proper reply.
And at the second of impact, I knew I wouldn’t have stopped his onslaught if I could.
Michael Sinclair didn’t just kiss.
He devoured.
He consumed.
He owned my soul with a single brush of his sensuous lips. He showed me just how good it would be if I were lucky enough to fall into bed with him. He knew what he was doing. What he made me feel. He was a master at seduction, and I was so willing to be schooled by him. His strong hand pulled me up against his taut body as his lips slammed into mine and took every inch of my soul.
It wasn’t just a kiss.
It was mouth-fucking at its best.
His lips coaxed mine as his other hand wrapped itself in my hair, pulling me toward him so that he could have deeper access and control. I was unable to stop myself from wrapping my arms around his neck and pulling him in. This was the man I dreamed of my whole life. And he was giving me exactly what I continually fantasized about.
His tongue swept into my mouth as he deepened the kiss. His fingers moved from waist to my ass, cupping it, as he pulled me against his hard cock. I was soaking wet within seconds. If possible, he deepened the kiss, ravaging my mouth, claiming me, owning me in the way no other man had in my entire life. He was all that I wanted.
Needed.
My knight in shining armor come to life.
It was so wrong.
I was about to be married.
I was supposed to be the happy bride-to-be. But this kiss, this man, proved me wrong in more ways than I ever knew. He pulled his lips from mine as he grazed my neck with his teeth, marking me first, then placing soft kisses on my skin. I grabbed hold of his head, ran my hands through his thick hair and pulled his mouth back to mine, as I sucked on his tongue, melded my lips to his and unleashed all the passion I had for him.
Within seconds he ripped himself away from me and stared down at my flushed face. I was panting with need. Longing. I would sleep with him right then and there—propriety, the fact that I was supposed to be getting married next week—all of it be damned. All he had to do was ask. Make one move, even.
But he didn’t.
His eyes were dark and wild as he pulled away from me, creating distance between us.
“Jesus,” he panted. “Who the hell are you?”
It was a fight or flight moment.
I chose to fly.
Because at that moment, I had no idea who I was.