Flawed

by Tracy Wolff

  So I reluctantly pull my mouth from his, then step back until he’s no longer holding me. I can’t think when he’s pressed against me like that.

  “I’m a mess,” I tell him, my voice shaking a little at the admission.

  “You aren’t—”

  “I am. I’ve never held a job, I don’t have any money or clothes or even a place to live. I drink too much and I have a very bad habit of leaping before I look.”

  “I love that habit of yours.”

  “Well, of course you do, right now. It got you laid and will probably get you laid again before the night is over.” I give him a wink to let him know that I’m more than okay with that possibility. “But I want you to know that I’m working on all of that. I’ve got a job, one that I think I can be really good at. I’m working on making better decisions—”

  “As long as one of those decisions is being with me, then I’m happy with whatever else you decide.”

  “It is. If you’ll have me.”

  “If I’ll have you? I just drove through the night because I don’t want to live without you. When are you going to understand that?”

  Considering he’s the first one besides Chloe who has ever wanted me, it’s a hard thing for me to wrap my head around. But I’m willing to try, because I don’t want to live without him, either.

  “As long as you know that I’m not always going to be this disaster. You don’t have to worry that you’ll have to fix me. I’m going to fix myself.”

  “Do I look worried to you?” Miles asks as he once again pulls me against his hard chest. “Besides, you’re not the only one in this relationship who needs fixing.”

  “Well, that’s true.”

  He just laughs. This time when he lowers his mouth to mine, I don’t try to fight him. Instead I give myself up—to the moment, to him, and to the knowledge that just because we’re flawed, just because we’re broken, doesn’t mean we can’t be perfect together. And that is all that matters.

  Epilogue

  “You sure you want to do this? We can still make a run for it.”

  I look up into Ethan’s wicked blue eyes and laugh, because we both know he’s kidding. Just like we both know that I’m as gone over Miles as he is over Chloe. “I wouldn’t get very far in these shoes.” I pull back the skirt of my dress to show off my white beaded Manolos with their six-inch heels. They were a gift from Miles, an answer to my concern about how awkward our height difference would look when he bent to kiss me in front of a huge room full of people.

  “Good point,” Ethan agrees with a grin. “So I guess we’d better do this thing then, huh?”

  “I guess so. It’s what people came to see, after all.”

  He holds out his arm and I take it, letting him lead me to the big double doors at the front of the vestibule. Once we’re there, I get my first glimpse of Miles. He’s standing at the front of the crowd in a gorgeous black tuxedo that makes him look more like a model than an engineer, his eyes dancing and a huge smile on his face.

  Butterflies are rioting in my stomach, but he looks as calm and as steady as he always does.

  Of course.

  Miles Girard may be a lot of things—brilliant, absent-minded, even a bit of an asshole when he’s working—but when it comes to me, he’s also steady as a rock. It’s something he’s proven over and over again as I’ve put my life back together these last eighteen months and something I know he’ll continue to prove for the rest of our lives.

  “Feeling lucky?” Ethan asks as music swells through the church.

  “Always.”

  His eyes are on Chloe as he answers, “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

  My best friend—and matron of honor—is also at the front of the church. She’s on the opposite side of the altar from Miles, though, in a deep purple gown that does gorgeous things for her complexion. She’s clutching Violet’s little hand as my adorable flower girl continues to throw rose petals by the fistful onto whatever surface she can reach. Chloe had wanted to have the nanny take Violet after her walk down the aisle, but I’d insisted she stand up at the altar with the rest of us.

  This wedding is a family affair and Ethan, Chloe, and Violet are as much my family as Miles is going to be.

  The thought fills me with a happiness I never thought I’d feel. The same happiness that permeates my whole life these days. The day Alex leaked that sex tape was the luckiest day of my life—I just didn’t know it at the time.

  “Okay,” Ethan murmurs, giving my hand an encouraging squeeze. “Here we go.”

  I nod. Here we go. I ignore the butterflies as I take my first step toward the rest of my life.

  We’re four steps down the aisle when it happens. Miles’s eyes lock with mine, his gaze so filled with tenderness and love and certainty that my nerves dissipate like so much smoke. I forget about the crowd, forget about the butterflies, forget about everything but the fact that the man I love is waiting for me at the front of the church.

  I nearly float down the aisle on Ethan’s arm.

  When I get close, Violet breaks away from her mother and comes racing toward Ethan and me. Chloe gasps and tries to catch her, but I just laugh. Then stoop to pick up the little girl who holds as much of my heart as her mother and father do.

  “You look pretty,” she whispers to me in her slightly garbled toddler speak.

  “So do you, sunshine,” I answer back, giving her a smacking kiss on first one cheek and then the other. “And you taste good, too!”

  “Like cupcakes,” she says solemnly.

  “Exactly like cupcakes,” I agree.

  Ethan’s laughing now and so is Miles, who is close enough to hear the whole conversation.

  Then Ethan reaches over and swings Violet from my arms into his as we take the last couple of steps down the aisle.

  “Who gives this woman away?” the priest asks.

  “Nobody!” Violet answers. “We keep her.”

  My heart swells as everyone behind us laughs. Violet’s eyes go wide at the sound, and then she’s burying her face in her father’s neck.

  “We’re definitely keeping her,” Ethan agrees as he drops a kiss on my cheek before walking over to stand next to Chloe, who looks half amused and half mortified by the whole scene.

  “We definitely are,” Miles agrees, reaching out to take my hand in his.

  It’s not the traditional start to a wedding, but then, when has anything I’ve been involved with been traditional? Besides, who cares about tradition when my heart is swelling with love for all the amazing people in my life?

  I’m so happy, so excited, so grateful to be right here, right now, that the rest of the ceremony passes in a blur. I know I answer the I do question correctly, know that Chloe hands me Miles’s ring and I slip it onto his finger at the appropriate time. But all the rest of it is a blur, right up until the priest pronounces us husband and wife.

  As he announces that Miles can kiss the bride, I push up onto my tiptoes and tilt my head back as I wait for my husband’s lips to meet mine. But Miles just grabs me and pulls me close, his hands sliding down to cup my butt as he lifts me several inches off the ground.

  I’m pressed against him now, from chest to thigh, and I stare at him wide-eyed even as my arms wind around his neck reflexively.

  “What are you doing?” I whisper.

  “Solving that height difference problem you were so worried about,” he says with a wink.

  I’m about to tell him that this isn’t quite what I meant, but then his mouth is on mine and I forget everything but him, everything but the fact that after twenty-four lonely years, I’ve finally found the perfect place where I belong.

  For my mom

  Acknowledgments

  This book was a long time coming and I want to thank my fans for their patience as I struggled through a very difficult period in my own life as I wrote it.

  I need to thank my editor, Sue Grimshaw, and the wonderful Gina Wachtel who have been so kind and patient and lovely
to me. I appreciate you both more than I will ever be able to tell you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for all your support and everything you do for me.

  I also have to thank my agent, Emily Sylvan Kim. I know I’ve put you through the wringer over the last eighteen months and I am so grateful that you are not just my agent, but one of my closest friends. Thank you, thank you, thank you for everything.

  And finally, I have to thank my mother and my three boys, who have stood by me through everything. I love you all so very much.

  BY TRACY WOLFF

  Ethan Frost Novels

  Ruined

  Addicted

  Exposed

  Flawed

  Hotwired

  Accelerate

  Other Books

  Full Exposure

  Tie Me Down

  Play Me (serialization)

  Lovegame

  Come Undone (coming soon)

  Extreme Risk Series

  Shredded

  Shattered

  Slashed

  PHOTO: © KEVIN GOURLEY

  New York Times and USA Today bestselling author TRACY WOLFF lives in Texas and teaches writing at her local community college. She is married and the mother of three young sons.

  tracywolffbooks.com

  Facebook.com/​TracyWolffAuthor

  @TracyWolff

  Read on for an excerpt from

  Lovegame

  by Tracy Wolff

  Available from Loveswept

  Prologue

  Bedroom eyes.

  Fabulous ass.

  Mysterious smile.

  Great rack.

  Epically fabulous ass.

  Legs that go on for miles.

  Bee-stung lips.

  Fuck-me hair.

  Fuck-me tits.

  Just fuck me, baby. Just fuck me.

  Best ass on the planet.

  Best body on the planet.

  Most beautiful woman in the world.

  A perfect ten…maybe an eleven. Maybe a fifteen…

  Fantasy woman.

  I mean, who wouldn’t want to tap that?

  Who wouldn’t want to tap that.

  Who wouldn’t want to tap that…

  These are only a few of the things that run through my head as Veronica Romero climbs out of the black stretch limo that just pulled up in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in LA. Everything I’ve ever read about her or heard about her or, yes, even thought about her floods my brain as she waves to the crowd before starting her long trek down the red carpet.

  In my (very) meager defense, I was a red-blooded American graduate student when topless photos of her on a yacht in the South of France leaked and nearly imploded the Internet. The epic horniness of the twenty-four-year-old male is a cliché for a reason.

  I like to think that if the same thing happened now, I wouldn’t look, considering it was a total invasion of her privacy. But that’s probably a lie. After all, I’ve spent too much of the last year as close to obsessed with her as I can get and still stay on the right side of the law. Then again, watching her now in her natural habitat, dressed in a white gown that is anything but innocent and diamonds that rest in just the right spot to draw attention to her perfect breasts, who could blame me?

  Certainly not the guy behind me, who keeps telling his friend how much he wants to ram his cock down her throat.

  Or the guy to my left who really, really wants to fuck her “perfect peach of an ass.”

  Not her. Just her throat. Just her ass.

  No, they wouldn’t blame me, and it’s no use blaming them, not when all they’re doing is giving voice to the things that are written about her pretty much every day, pretty much everywhere. The tabloids. Wikipedia, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr. The hundred and one unauthorized biographies that have come out about her through the years…

  No, no one can blame them for the filthy things they’re saying. Or for all the dirty, disgusting, depraved things they’re thinking.

  But I do it anyway. Fuck, yeah, I do. I blame them and myself and every other person on the planet who sees only what they want to see when they look at her.

  The goddess.

  The whore.

  The “perfect ass.”

  The fact that after all these years it’s all she lets them see says as much about them as it does about her.

  Her walk down the red carpet is painstakingly slow, her heels high, and the demand for attention nearly crushing with its expectations.

  I move along the rope line with her, shadowing her from the crowd. When she pauses, I pause. When she walks, I walk. When the fans call her name, I watch her eyes, her smile. The set of her shoulders. Everyone has tells, little breaches in their own personal defenses that give away more than they want to share.

  Everyone has secrets.

  I’ve spent the last year learning hers.

  A reporter stops her—one of many—and asks a question that makes her laugh. That makes her pat his shoulder and then slide her hand down his arm in a slow, lingering caress. His eyes glaze over and she blows him a little kiss before going on her way.

  Idly, I wonder what he said to get himself into that much trouble…

  A group of girls chant Veronica’s name from the crowd, and she holds a hand out as she moves toward them. She signs their autograph books, smiles for their selfies, takes their hands and their hugs and their words. She takes all their expectations, gathers them like a bouquet—or an army—and gives out pieces of herself in exchange.

  She moves on before they’re ready to let her go, but there’s always another reporter to talk to. Another picture to pose for. Another autograph to sign or fan to greet.

  So many pieces to give out that I wonder how she has any left. If she has any left.

  And still I keep pace with her. Still I want her attention—and the piece of her that comes with it. My own little piece of her to add to everything else.

  It will never happen, I tell myself as she gets closer and closer to the building and to the freedom from prying eyes. She doesn’t know to look for me, doesn’t have a clue that I’m right here, watching her every move.

  I tell myself it doesn’t matter, that I’m not disappointed. That I didn’t come here—to the craziness of this movie release—because I want anything from her. Because I don’t. I really don’t.

  At least not until she turns unexpectedly, her eyes skimming the crowd until her gaze slides over my face. Locks on.

  In that instant, all my best intentions disappear. Everything does but her and me and the millions of battered, broken moments that stretch between us.

  And when she blows me a kiss—all red lips and wide eyes and smoldering sex appeal—I know I’ve fucked up beyond all repair.

  Chapter 1

  It’s a sunny Wednesday afternoon in LA—just one more perfect day if you don’t count the heavy blanket of smog hanging over the city like acid-tinged perfume. In the distance the Hollywood sign that is ubiquitous in this small section of Southern California is nearly obscured by the cloying, smothering stuff, but no one on the patio where I sit, waiting, even seems to notice, any more than they notice the goddess—no, strike that—the legend—no, not that either—the siren—yes, that works—any more than they notice the famed siren who weaves her way between the cramped and crowded tables.

  The lunch rush is over, but the small sidewalk café several blocks off the main see-and-be-seen drag that makes up so much of Los Angeles’s entertainment-based culture continues to do a brisk business as Veronica Romero slides into the seat across from mine.

  She’s all bright eyes and smiles, all shiny blond hair and tight jeans and colorful gemstones glittering on every finger. Her blouse is white—her signature color—and oversized. Her shoes are high-heeled, and the telltale soles of Christian Louboutin are the same shade of crimson as her lips. And yet there’s a casualness about her, an openness, that I don’t think anyone expects when they think of Hollywood’s most powerful—an
d highest-paid—actress. As she introduces herself, I even catch a glimpse of the elusive dimple that many speak of but few ever get the chance to see.

  It’s charming, and so is she.

  “I’m so sorry I’m late,” she tells me in the throaty rasp that has sent shivers down the spine of many a red-blooded male through the years, myself included.

  “You’re not.” A quick glance at my watch speaks to the veracity of my answer. “I’m always early.”

  “I like that in a man.”

  It’s a canned response, one I can’t help thinking is beneath her. At least until I see the dimple flash again and realize she’s poking fun—at herself as much as at me and the artificiality of this situation.

  “So, how do you like LA?” she asks after ordering a sparkling water from the hovering waiter. The patrons might not have noticed she’s here yet, but the waitstaff certainly has and they circle like buzzards around a freshly killed carcass.

  “It’s…” I pause, try to think of a description that isn’t a lie but that also won’t offend this Beverly-Hills-born-and-bred icon.

  She just laughs, though. “Yeah. That’s what I figured. Thanks for doing this”—she gestures between the two of us—“out here. I just couldn’t fit in a trip to New York this week.”

  “I’m pretty sure it’s my job to come to you. You’re the star, after all.”

  “And you’re the Pulitzer Prize–winning New York Times bestseller who’s slumming by doing this piece.”

  I crook a brow. “Writing the cover article for Vanity Fair is never slumming. Doesn’t matter who you are.”

  “Funny. That’s exactly how it feels to be on this side of the story, too.”

  She grins at me—and it’s not the exotic—sexy—man-slaying—grin that graces so many movie screens. It’s softer, more human. The goddess with feet of clay.