by KL Donn
Contents
Blurb
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Epilogue One
Epilogue Two
Author Note
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by KL Donn
Happily Ever After
Timeless Love Book 2
KL Donn
2019 KL DONN
Happily Ever After
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This book is a work of fiction. The names of characters, places, brands and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and owners of various products and locations referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication or use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
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Warning: This book is intended for readers 18 years or older due to bad language, and explicit sex scenes.
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Blurb
Ashley Powers was punished.
* * *
After spending two years in prison for assault of the woman her brother married, Ashley is full of remorse and pain. She’s looking to redeem herself, build a better life, and show her family she wasn’t a mistake. Encompassed in a downward spiral, Ashley isn’t sure how to move on from her past mistakes until she meets a man to show her, she is worthy.
* * *
Declan Hart was hired.
* * *
Chasing convicts was nothing new to Declan. Making sure they served their time and justice was served, he wasn’t surprised an old friend asked him for a favor. Investigate the girl and find out what she’s hiding. Ashley Powers was young, spoiled, and full of life…Or so Declan was told. The girl he finds is broken and filled with self-hatred.
* * *
Attraction leads to romance, and theirs, promised love. If only Declan can convince Ashley that she too deserves her own Happily Ever After.
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Newly covered, revised, and freshly edited, From the Ashes has been transformed into HAPPILY EVER AFTER.
Dedication
This is for every bully out there.
It’s a long road to get where you are, it’s a hard one.
Not everyone knows your story, sometimes life happens.
The choice to win is yours, acceptance is waiting just around the corner, and I sure as hell hope you can find your own happily ever after.
Prologue
Ashley
“Ashley Jane Powers you are hereby sentenced to one year in Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women, six months of probation following that, and five hundred hours of community service starting one day after your release for the assault of one Cecilia Marks. Do you understand these conditions?”
I can’t believe this is happening. How? Jail…me? This can’t be real. I hear Mom crying behind me, but I just can’t bring myself to look at her.
“Ms. Powers?” the judge snaps at me, and frankly, I want to snap right back. Yet, I can’t. My parents handed me over, and I took a plea deal. This is my new life.
“Yes, Your Honor.” God, when did I become so meek?
The day your brother chose his love over you.
I have this new thing it seems. Some call it a conscience; I call it a pain in my ass. You see, six months ago, I was a spoiled bitch. Everything was handed to me on a silver platter. Spoon and all.
Now, I’m a number to the state. For the next year, they own me.
Can’t say I don’t deserve it, though.
I hurt my brother, deeply. For as long as I can remember, he’s been my hero. We’ve never been close because I was a surprise baby, and maybe that’s where everyone went wrong with me. Where I went wrong with me.
Three months ago, my brother fell in love with a woman I’d known for what felt like forever. A woman that for some stupid, asinine reason I’d started bullying from a young age. I have so many regrets where Cecilia’s concerned. Most recently was tripping her down a flight of stairs—the reason I’m now a ward of the state.
The slam of the judge’s gavel makes me jump. My fate is sealed. As the guard grips my arm, I hear my Mom cry out, “Ashley!” but I refuse to turn to her. I can’t face any of them. Not because I’m angry that my parents are making me suffer the consequences, or that Landon chose Cecilia over me. I can’t face any of them because of the shame I feel. I deserve everything I get, and if I look at them, I don’t think I’ll be so accepting of my fate.
My name is Ashley Powers, and this is my Happily Ever After.
Chapter 1
Ashley
Incarceration day.
* * *
The clang of the cell door closing behind me is my new harsh reality. For one year, three hundred sixty-five days, those doors will be the only friend I have. Looking over to my cellmate laying on the bottom bunk of the bed, I know she immediately hates me. She’s judging me on my perfectly died caramel-colored hair and my cute manicure that Mom forced me to get a week ago.
I regret that now.
At the time, I’d just wanted my Mom to look at me how she used to before she realized what a raging bitch I’d become. That day opened my eyes to how disappointed she was in me. It fucking hurt worse than anything I could have imagined.
Now this bitch is looking at me like she’s going to eat me for breakfast, and sadly, it is probably true. I’m not prepared for this. For anything other than the cushy life I’ve led.
Not saying a word to the other woman, I toss my meager belongings on my bunk and prepare to make my place in my new living quarters.
“You gonna introduce yourself or what, Malibu Barbie?” And so it begins.
“Ashley,” I reply, trying to hold back the involuntary sneer that wants to come out. I have to tone down my attitude, or I’m going to be somebody’s bitch.
“Barbie’s got ‘tude, does she?” The other woman is taunting me. I know she is. She wants to fight. The problem is, I don’t know whether she’s doing it to feel me out or to bait me into a confrontation we both know I won’t win.
Nine months to release.
* * *
“C’mon, Barbie! Climb that fucker!”
It’s not often that anyone cheers for me in my life. Not when I was in school, not when I fucked up, and certainly not since I’ve come here. These girls take every chance they get to bust my proverbial balls, never call me by my real name, and beat on me every chance they get.
Today, though? Today, they’re encouraging me in a team exercise the prison shrink wants us to do.
Climb a fucking rope.
So here I
am nearing the top of the rope with jelly arms and flailing legs, wanting to make it to the highest point so I can show the rest of these girls that I’m not just some uppity bitch like they think. Then again, I also want to let go so my arms can stop shaking, not to mention, I don’t want to climb my way back down.
Sweat is pouring off me like a waterfall, making my grip slippery, and just as I’m about to reach higher with one hand, my other slips and I’m fucking airborne.
“Fuuuucckkkkk!” I scream all the way down. When I land flat on the mat below, the wind is literally knocked out of me and pain radiates through my entire body. Even my hair hurts.
“Motherfucker!” I wheeze, unable to take a breath.
My legs twitch with every moan. My back aches in a way that makes me wonder if I might have broken something, and my head is beginning to pound. Spots blur my vision, and in an instant, everything goes dark.
Fuck. Am I dying?
Six months to release.
* * *
“Get up!” Someone screams, but all I feel are the kicks to my gut; every footprint that will turn to bruises on my body in more places than I’ll ever be able to count. I still don’t understand what I’ve done to piss off my cellmate this time, but she sure enjoys taking her frustrations out on me.
Putting my hand up in an effort to stop the abuse, a thought occurs to me—this is what Cecilia felt like—and in that moment, I finally shatter. I did this to someone. I made them feel worthless.
I deserve this.
“Fuck you, cunt.” I taunt her so she continues the assault. I’ll take everything she gives me and more. This is what I deserve. Not because I’ve done something to her, but because I’ve been her.
Three months to release.
* * *
“Powers,” I hear the guard call just before my cell door opens. “You have a visitor.” Confused, I get off my bunk, hands raised, and slowly leave my cell after the cuffs are put on.
Since coming here, I have refused to accept visitors because I can’t handle seeing my parents. I don’t need their pity or to face their disappointment in me. I have enough of that on my own. I didn’t expect Landon to visit me, and I can’t blame him. I’m undeserving of his forgiveness and would never put him in the position where he felt the need to give it to me.
Cecilia should and always would come first for him, and I only hope that one day his anger will lessen. I desire nothing but the best for them both.
As we make our way through the halls of the jail, every clinking door behind us has me cringing. It’s a sound I will not miss when I leave here.
We reach the visitor’s lounge—I don’t understand why they call it that; it’s more like a sterile room where the mice go to die—and I’m shocked to see who my visitor is.
Looking to the guard for confirmation that they are here for me, she nods her head and tells me, “You have five minutes.”
Walking to the table, I’m not sure what to say or do. “Cecilia?” Shock is clear in my tone.
When she turns to me with a smile, I almost faint. It’s genuine. She’s happy to see me, and I don’t understand why.
“Why are you here?” It’s rude; I know it as soon as I say it. I’m just seriously astounded right now.
“Landon doesn’t know. Neither do your parents,” she says to me in response. Still not answering my question.
“Oookkkaayy?” What the fuck am I supposed to say?
“You won’t see them,” she accuses.
“No.”
“Why?”
Good question.
My answer is selfish, so I don’t want to tell her.
“I don’t want to be rude, but why are you here?”
“It’s been nine months, and you haven’t contacted anyone, and you refuse their contact. They’re worried. I’m worried.”
She’s worried about me?
“No offense, but am I being punked or something?” I can’t help it. “You are the last person who should be worried about me.” I’m not trying to be mean, I’m just not sure how to handle her being so nice to me after the torment I have put her through.
Her soft smile and pinked cheeks make me feel like even more of an ass.
“Landon and I are getting married,” Cecilia spits out.
“I know,” I tell her.
“You do?” Her turn to be confused.
“Cecilia,” I start softly. “I don’t need an announcement or some big-ass ring to tell me my brother loves you like crazy. I knew it from the moment you guys met, and I was jealous. Fuck, was I jealous. Never once did he speak to me the way he did you or show me his softer side. Hell, he didn’t show me any side but his business one.” I can’t believe I just confessed that.
“I’m sorry, Ashley.” Her eyes shine with pity, and that serves to piss me off more than anything could.
“I don’t want your pity, Cecilia. I’m sorry for everything I ever did to you, fuck am I sorry, but please don’t pity me. I deserve this. Everything that’s happened in here, I fucking had it coming to me.” Tears clog my throat. “For the love of God, you should be rolling in laughter or something that this is where I am. You most certainly shouldn’t be here checking up on how I’m doing. You’re too good for this place!” I refuse to let the tears fall. I will fight them with everything in me.
“Ashley? Why do you believe you deserve this?” Her soft question has me holding my breath.
“I hurt you,” I whispered back. “You did nothing wrong, and I was so mean.”
“Why?”
I’ve thought about that. It’s all I’ve had to do since coming here. Why was I such a raging cunt? Most especially to her. I still haven’t come up with an answer, and it frustrates me beyond belief.
“I wish I knew. At first, it was to fit in, then it became second nature. Then Landon showered you with attention. I wanted someone to look at me the way he looked at you, and I didn’t have that. I wanted to have my person but couldn’t, and in the blink of an eye, you found yours.”
“Two-minute warning!” A guard calls out.
When Cecilia reaches for my hands, I flinch, but she refuses to back down. “You will have that one day, Ashley.” How I wish I could believe her.
Release day.
* * *
“Powers!” the guard calls. I’ve sunk into a deep depression lately and am barely able to tell one day from the next anymore. All I want to do is sleep. I have lost more weight than I have to spare, dark bags have set up permanent residence under my eyes, and getting out of bed is a chore I’d rather not do.
A kick comes from under me, followed by, “It’s release day, Malibu Barbie!” My cellmate is more excited than I am.
Yippee! I’m getting out.
Who the fuck cares?
Yippee! I can start my life.
What life?
Yippee! I get to face my family.
I’d rather get hit by a bus.
A lot of these girls are killers, armed robbers, hookers, junkies, and so many more things I’d rather not think about. They’ve had it worse than I ever will, so why am I having this ridiculous pity party?
Oh, yeah, I’d rather die than try to fit back in with my family.
This isn’t just a low point. I think it’s my breaking point.
A guard once told me that this life, a roof over their head, three square meals a day, and clothes on their back is all some of these girls know. It’s all they would ever know because once they get out, they will fuck up again and end up right back in here. It becomes a cycle until they either die or commit a crime that lands them in prison for life.
She also said I looked like one of those girls that would keep coming back.
I don’t think I’ll make it long enough to bother.
Chapter 2
Declan
“This is Declan Hart.” I answer.
I’ve just finished up a job and am looking forward to some down time when my phone rings. I almost don’t answer it and will soon wis
h I hadn’t.
“Hey, Hart, how you doing?” Fuck. It’s Zach Smith, an old college buddy of mine. Anytime he calls, it’s for a favor that is bound to get me in a ton of shit. He’s a parole officer for the state. Usually, he needs me to dig around his parolees. I’m hoping that’s not the case this time.
“What do you need, Smith?” Fuck small talk.
“What? No niceties for your old friend?” I can tell he’s laughing.
“Nope. Not when the last time you called me, I damn near landed in jail ‘cause that fucker JJ decided he didn’t want to go down without a fight.” Booming laughter meets my statement. Cocksucker.
“All right, I’ll give you that. Look, I’ve got this girl. Something’s off with her, and I can’t figure out what.”
“What do you mean off?” My curiosity is piqued. Dammit.
“Her brother calls to check in on her at least three times a week. My answer’s always the same, but I got curious. Started doing random drug tests, searches of her apartment. Nothing’s wrong. It’s her that’s off. I can’t put my finger on it, though.” He sounds more concerned than usual.