All of Me: A Confessions of the Heart Stand-Alone Novel

by Jackson, A. L.

  I’d lost a piece of myself.

  A goner.

  Last night had been unlike anything I’d ever experienced. The way she’d made me lose control when the only thing I had going for me was self-discipline and restraint. Determination and grit and tenacity.

  Nothing could touch me.

  I consumed what I wanted without it even causing a spike in my pulse. With greedy hands and a black, barren heart.

  No care.

  No responsibility.

  No attachments.

  And there I fucking was, getting attached.

  Attached to that feeling and that body and those eyes. Her spirit shimmering all around me, glowing into the darkest recesses of my spirit.

  Had the sinking feeling she might be the angel that wielded the power to bust through the calloused shell and seat herself on a throne in the middle of it.

  It was for the best. God, I should have been kissing the ground on which her pretty little feet had walked out on—without so much as a fucking note, mind you—saving me the grief.

  But it was there.

  A ball of unspent hurt. Exactly what I couldn’t afford. Exactly why I couldn’t do this.

  I clung to it. The knowledge that I couldn’t let some girl get in my way.

  Distract me.

  Stray me from course.

  Didn’t mean I wasn’t still feeling pissed and surly and bitter, either.

  What better asshole to take it out on than Lawrence Bennet.

  Bennet chuckled one of his dark laughs. “You’re my attorney. You represent me. It’s your job.”

  “I also have an obligation to the state bar. To my firm.”

  “Your obligation is to me.” He said it so hard and fast that I felt the impact of it through the phone.

  I was firing right back. “You don’t own me. No one does. No one will.”

  His short shot of laughter was deep. Ominous. Far too knowing.

  That was what happened when you laid yourself at someone’s feet.

  They walked all over you.

  “Just because you say it, doesn’t make it true. I’m certain Kenneth would be crestfallen to hear I’d grown unhappy with my representation. He’d be downright brokenhearted if he learned his most promising protégé was nothing but a common criminal.”

  Lawrence didn’t hesitate to throw out the loaded threat.

  He knew my intentions.

  Who I was going to be.

  “Don’t fuck with me, Lawrence. Blackmail isn’t going to win you any favors. And anything you have over me was instigated by you in the first place.”

  Asshole had been influencing every move I made from the get go.

  All the way back to when I was just a kid. A fucking kid who didn’t know any better. A kid who was trying to survive.

  He laughed a mocking sound. “Don’t forget who you’re talking to, Ian Jacobs. I picked you up off the ground and dried your tears when you were nothing but a sniveling, starving brat. Put shoes on your feet and a roof over your head. You’d be nothing without me.”

  “Out of the goodness of your heart, right?” Bitterness bled free.

  “Maybe I should have left you in the gutter where you belonged. Just like your whore mother. But I didn’t . . . because I saw something great in you. You’d do well not to forget it.”

  My eyes slammed closed as visions assaulted me. A violent rage boiled in my blood. A seething anger that coiled my guts into a thousand knots.

  Hate and grief and regret.

  Everything whirled, walls spinning faster.

  I struggled to breathe as I shot blisters of hatred from my tongue. “Something great in me? The only thing you saw in me was a scapegoat. The days of my doing your bidding are numbered.”

  He laughed like everything I’d just said didn’t matter. Like I didn’t have a say.

  We both knew I didn’t.

  If he went down, I was going down with him.

  “Have those documents on my desk by five.”

  The line went dead, and I tossed my phone to my desk and propped my elbows on the wood. Digging my fingertips into my eyes, I tried to stop the visions.

  The memories.

  The smell.

  “Wake up. Please, wake up.” Hands shaking. A cold sweat. Nausea rolling. Vomit on the floor.

  I bit down against them, letting the anger surge in to take their place. Focused on Bennet. God, I detested the piece of shit in a way I wasn’t sure I’d ever felt before.

  Dirty.

  Just having an association with him made me dirty.

  I knew that I was.

  A demon.

  The devil.

  A light tapping sounded at my office door.

  I dug my fingers a little deeper into my eyes to try to quell the sting, voice scraping as I tried to keep it level. “I’m busy, Marcus. I don’t want to be disturbed.”

  My executive assistant knew well enough when to step away and not interrupt.

  So, I rocked back in surprise when my door snapped open anyway.

  That surprise shifted to a straight shot of disbelief.

  Shock and anger and relief.

  A tidal wave of that crazy energy flooded across the floor. My mind was rejecting the fact that she was standing there.

  Part of me wanted to shout at her to get the fuck out. To scream that I didn’t have time to play games, that I didn’t want to listen to a goddamned thing she had to say, but my body was definitely on board.

  I could still feel her on my skin. Taste her on my tongue.

  My dick twitched, and I swore beneath my breath.

  Not good.

  Fuck me if I was going to let this girl have the upper hand.

  She stood in my doorway, wearing a floral wrap-around dress that hugged all those curves and a pair of heels that made the girl look like she stood a mile-high, tall and proud and somehow vulnerable.

  All those lush waves were twined in a neat knot on the back of her head, and she was gripping a big black bag she had slung over her shoulder.

  Still, everything was completely off from yesterday.

  Like she’d gone to a different place.

  That energy alive, but brimming with hesitation.

  Disturbed.

  Confused.

  Purposed at the same time.

  Anxiety fisted my guts.

  She pushed her way in, lifting her delicate chin like she was trying to make a statement that she had every right to be there.

  Shit.

  She was pretty.

  So damned pretty that I could physically feel some of those hard spots going soft, and my heart was doing some stupid, wayward thing, beating faster than it should. Getting caught up in her presence.

  With my hands planted on my desk, I pushed to my feet. “What are you doing here?”

  Why did you leave?

  Did I fuck it up already? Were you terrified of me last night? Did I prove just what an asshole I am?

  She snapped the door shut behind her and eased deeper into my office, chewing on that bottom lip that I had half a mind to kiss. To just grab her and kiss her senseless the way she was driving me.

  And that right there was the very reason I should turn my back. Tell her to walk.

  Nerves blazed across that soft flesh, and she anxiously twisted her fingers. Then she was taking a desperate step forward and watching me with those eyes.

  They were like looking into a bottomless aquarium.

  Diving into the deepest sea.

  “I need your help,” she rasped, the words so tight and emphatic that they sank in and took hold.

  Possessiveness swelled. So fast, I felt consumed by it. Suffocated by the need to hunt down any fucker who might have hurt this girl.

  Anyone who’d even had a single thought about doing something that would harm her.

  I’d known it from the start.

  This girl had been running.

  If that was the reason she’d left last night? Someone was goi
ng to pay.

  “Anything.”

  Shit.

  What was I saying?

  But the promise was out before I could reel it back in.

  My fucking resolve shot. Emotions tossed from one extreme to the next.

  Hate. Hope. Lust. Anger.

  Her gaze flashed in adoration.

  The girl was looking at me like I could be her hero.

  Her savior.

  When the only thing I’d ever done in my life was destroy the things around me.

  She took another pleading step forward until I was inhaling her, pink sugared petals pressed to my nose.

  “You’re an attorney,” she said.

  A statement.

  I raised my arms out to the sides, irritation latching onto the word. “Obviously.”

  Unease stirred. A feeling climbed my legs, telling me that I wasn’t going to like what she’d come to ask of me.

  “I want to hire you,” she said, voice just as resolute as the firmness of her nod.

  Uh . . . no. I was most definitely not going to like what she was going to ask. In fact, I was feeling a little pissed off.

  What did she think, I was some kind of fuck for hire?

  Another one of those steps, and she brought us so close she’d nearly erased all the space. So close that I could touch her. Get lost in her the same way I’d done last night.

  The second she did it, I was slammed with urges, ones of bending her over my desk and pushing that dress up over her hips. Taking her from behind. Hard and fast and rough.

  Could almost picture me having to cover that sweet mouth while I made her scream.

  Incredulous laughter rambled around in my chest. “You want to hire me?”

  It came out sounding more like an accusation than a question.

  She nodded, the decisiveness from the second before wavering, her tone slipping, verging on something frantic. “I don’t just want to, Ian. I need to. I need someone who’s willing to stand up for me. Fight for me.”

  Those eyes were pleading, begging for help.

  How was I supposed to ignore that?

  An itch started in my throat, and I reached up and yanked at the collar of my shirt where my tie had become too tight.

  Someone was playing a cruel joke. Choking me out.

  “I can’t represent you, Grace. I think you know that.” There was no softness to the words. No sugar-coating. Frankly, she was out of her mind if she thought I was all of a sudden going to be standing in a position of influence over her.

  Not unless the influence I was exerting was in my bed.

  My head angled down, my mouth at her ear, voice tripping into sex. “I fucked you last night, remember? And now you’re coming here asking for me to represent you? I’m sorry, but it doesn’t work that way.”

  I could scent her, the way desire seeped from her pores and her breaths turned short from my proximity.

  One of those hands came up to the pounding at my chest.

  Not helping matters.

  “Please . . . I don’t have anyone else.”

  A swell of protectiveness washed through my insides, this nudging to do what was right for once. My mind raced. Seeking a solution.

  Okay, fine.

  I might not be able to represent her, but at least I could make some calls, right? No big deal. Set her up with someone who could help her through whatever issue she needed help with.

  “What do you need help with? I’ll see what I can—”

  “A custody battle.” She cut me off before I could get the rest of the sentence out.

  I froze, shock a boom in the middle of my brain.

  A custody battle.

  I let it sink in for a second.

  Then I went fumbling back, trying to put space between us when white-hot panic went streaking through my veins.

  Fight or flight.

  I didn’t know which one I was more inclined to give in to.

  To run right the hell out the door or get in her face for fucking setting off this bombshell in the middle of my office.

  “Excuse me?” I demanded, voice going hard.

  Harsh.

  Fueled by hate and fear.

  A cold sweat broke out on my forehead.

  She started shaking. First her hands and then it spread to the entirety of her body. A storm. Everything she’d been holding inside working its way out.

  Secrets.

  Motherfucker.

  “I need . . . I need someone to represent me. My babies . . . he’s trying to take them away.”

  She kept coming closer with every word that she said while I continued to back away. “I . . . I made a mistake. I fought him in a way I shouldn’t have, and he turned it around on me. I should have known he’d fight dirty. That he’d lie and cheat as a way to threaten me, to control me, to get me to do what he wanted. He’s trying to have me declared as an unfit mother. Saying I’m crazy. That I’m a thief. That I’m no good for them. Of course, he’ll gladly drop the whole thing if I go running back to him.”

  Panic ridged with anger had taken possession of her, a desperation so thick I was inhaling it with every word that fell as a frenzy from her tongue.

  “I think the only reason he wants me there is to control what I say. To make sure I don’t leak the things that I’ve seen. But I’ve seen them, Ian. I’ve seen them and I know them, and there is no way I’m letting my children get placed permanently in that house. It nearly kills me every single time they go for their visitations.”

  It only had those volatile, conflicting emotions crashing harder. Careening. Making it feel like my insides were being battered.

  “He . . . he’s a monster. I didn’t know . . . I didn’t know until it was too late . . . but I don’t know how to prove it.” A hand fisted in my suit jacket. “Help me prove it.”

  It suddenly made sense. The fact that she was there. At the gala. Sitting so pretty and looking for easy prey.

  What a goddamned slap to the face.

  Maybe I had it coming.

  Karma.

  I’d always been warned that it would come around. That it would bite me in the ass. That I couldn’t take and take and take and not end up without someone taking from me.

  What a fucking fool that I was.

  And here I’d thought it was me who was doing the stalking.

  Hostility lit.

  Spread.

  This crawling sense of being used.

  Fists. Feet. Fury. Lashes and blows. The pain. The pain. “Mama needs you, Ian. Just this one time. I need you to do it for me.”

  I tried to squeeze my eyes against the sensation. My spirit tossed into the throes of a motherfucking flashback. I swallowed down the bile and pried Grace’s fingers from my jacket.

  “Is that what this was all about? Your plan? Get under my skin? Sleep with me? Make me start falling for you so you could get your way? Weasel your way in until I didn’t have a choice but to feel sorry for you?”

  Horror seized her expression, that goddamned mouth parting in a surprised, offended O. “God . . . Ian . . . no. I didn’t even know until last night that you were an attorney. I . . . I’d just assumed you were one of the business owners who was attending.”

  Rejection drummed at my lungs, leaving me on a scoff of distaste. “It seems awfully convenient to me . . . you just so happen to need an attorney? Go after the first one who looked your way.”

  “No.” It was a whimper, and guilt flamed somewhere in my spirit when I saw the tears gather in her eyes. “No. Never. I would never do that to you. I swear. I’m . . . I’m falling—”

  I flew toward her, getting in her face when I realized what was rumbling there. Getting ready to erupt. It wasn’t going to happen.

  “Don’t you dare fucking say it.”

  She wasn’t falling in love with me. Wasn’t close to it. Like she’d told me last night, we didn’t know each other.

  She’d fucking used me. Hunted me. Went in for the kill when I was weak. Playing coy when re
ally, she was suckering me in.

  She started grappling, hands going back for my shirt. Like she could get inside.

  Under.

  In.

  Sink in those claws.

  Looking for a hostage.

  “Please, Ian . . . I need you. For them.”

  She started talking so quickly I shouldn’t have been able to keep up. But every word pierced me like a barb.

  “Thomas and Mallory and Sophie. They are nine and five and barely two. My babies. I can’t stand that they are in the middle of this. Being used. Dangled over my head like some kind of bait. Every time they go there, they cry, begging to stay with me, and they’re a little more broken every time they return. They’re scared . . . terrified that one day they’re going to go over there, and they’re never going to see me again. Help us. Please.”

  I wanted to slam my hands over my ears. Punch the words from my brain. Pretend she wasn’t feeding me this line of bullshit.

  I spun away from her, trying to keep my cool, rage turning my hands into fists.

  No.

  I didn’t care.

  This wasn’t on me.

  “Reed . . . he—”

  I whirled back around, entire face pinching, words nothing but a shocked wheeze that gusted from my lungs. “What did you say?”

  She stumbled back a step. “Reed.”

  Low laughter rocked free and bounced from the walls. “Tell me you aren’t talking about Reed Dearborne.”

  Reed Dearborne.

  All it took was that name to send the blood draining from her face. My recognition of the mess this girl had gotten herself into.

  “Fuck.”

  Mother-fuck-fuck-fuck.

  Spinning on my heel, I turned away, yanking at my hair like a fiend, pacing, before I was back in her face. “Tell me I didn’t fuck Reed Dearborne’s estranged wife. You know, the guy who’s running for senate and is one of the most powerful men in South Carolina. Tell me we aren’t talking about him.”

  The last I spit an inch from her face.

  This girl wasn’t just fucking with my heart and head. She was trying to destroy my career.

  She blanched, her hands running up and down her arms. “Please don’t talk to me like that.”

  I laughed again. Bitterness and bile. I wanted to fucking hurl. “And what do you want me to talk to you like, Grace?”

  “Like the girl you made love to last night.”