by Robin Lovett
I pause, not sure suddenly how everyone is going to take this, if Logan will like it.
“Go ahead.” He sits forward and nods, giving me courage.
“I’m using the money to open a women’s shelter. And not just any women’s shelter. A comfortable place where women want to go, not some underfunded, substandard facility . It’s going to be a safe place to go when they get in trouble. A safe place for them to stay for as long as they need and bring their children. With lots of support and lots of—”
“How are you going to do this, Penny?” My brother, ever the optimist. “That’s a lot of work you know nothing about.” I remind myself that he’s only like this because he worries for me.
“I’m going to have help. I’ve done nothing but ask for help all week.” I dismiss him, and look back at Logan. “I’m going to call it the Louisa Kane House.”
He gulps and the sternness in his eyes melts into an expression that’s brand new. One I only saw for the first time two days ago. “Thank you.”
I’m dreading now that I chose to do this in front of the others. This is a private moment for us, and I want to empty the room so I can hug him until he’s had his fill of me.
“Who’s Louisa Kane?” Amisha asks.
Logan answers, his voice low and soft. “My sister.”
Amisha gasps. “Penny, that’s amazing.”
I nod. “It is. And Logan’s going to help me.”
Layla gets out of her chair and runs to hug me. “Can I help?”
Amisha joins her. “And me!”
Their support and offer to help makes this new idea of mine suddenly a reality. I’m really doing this. I’m really going to start a charity, and the satisfaction I feel, the pleasure in doing something about all this grief, means as much to me as it does to Logan. I no longer feel powerless but powerful—like I could change the world if I choose.
And I have Logan to thank for it. For all of it.
I meet his eyes, and it’s all there—the sadness for the past, the joy in the present . . . the love. This house, this charity will be a way to tell his sister’s story. It will allow him to do something with all of his grief too. And we can do it together.
Like a lifetime of so many other things.
His need for vengeance is at an end, but I will forever be grateful he sought me out to find it.
Epilogue
She goes for a walk on the beach with her friends, leaving me alone with Blake, and I curb the need to follow. She should have time with them without me. I’ll have her to myself tonight, and every night, forever.
“Did you know about this?” Blake asks.
“I knew she was doing something.” I didn’t know there was a gift, the best kind of gift she could ever give me. My God, I love that woman.
He clears his throat. “You’re going to be busy.”
“Why?”
“I need something from you too.”
He’s baiting me. He may be my brother-in-law, but that doesn’t mean I’ll let him manipulate me. I don’t respond.
He pulls his aviators from his pocket and puts them on. “This business with my father is far from over.”
I cross my arms. “It is for me.”
“He killed your wife’s mother.”
I drop my gaze to the floor. Of course, there are more painful things in Penny’s past to torture her. Will they ever end? “You need to tell her. Today. Or I’ll tell her. No more secrets.”
“She doesn’t need to know this.”
“She does.” I know he wants to protect her, same as me, but lying to her isn’t protecting.
“I found the man who covered it up.”
I can’t hide my outrage. “Jesus.”
He goes on. “It’s the same lawyer who covered up your sister’s murder.”
“What?” I jerk back so fast, the table clatters.
“Yes.”
“How? I looked for years and found nothing.” The animal, the carnal need for justice rears its head in my chest.
“I have my ways. But I need your help going after him.”
I shake my head and try to put the beast inside me back in its sleeping place. “Is there legal proof? I’m done chasing revenge.”
“I’m not!” He pounds his fist on the table, the glasses clinking. “Emmet Nowell will pay for what he did and I’ll make sure of that.”
“I agree he should pay, but going after it on your own isn’t going to go well. I promise. Look how well it worked out for me.”
“It worked out very well, I’d say. Got your revenge and a great wife too.”
I almost smile but don’t. “But not the way you’re thinking of.”
“With your help, it’ll go faster.” He looks out on the ocean. “But I’ll do it with or without you.”
“Do you have a plan? A legal plan?”
“I do.” He looks at me, the mirrors of his aviators masking his eyes. “But when it doesn’t work, I have other ideas.”
I know what he’s going to say, and I don’t want to hear it.
He speaks anyway. “Emmet Nowell has a daughter. Who just graduated from Fenton University.”
My eyes fall closed.
Thanks to my example, he’s going to go after her. And it doesn’t matter what I say. I know—when a man like him, too much like me, decides he wants vengeance, there’s no one who can stop him.
Keep reading for an excerpt from the next dark revenge romance from Robin Lovett!
* * *
DECEIVER
* * *
Coming July 2017 from SMP Swerve
Blake has something planned for me, and God help me, I’m dying to know what it is.
I’ll do more than look at her.
My imagination is limited. Everything I try to envision him “doing to me” seems too tame, too mundane. Nothing this man does would ever be mundane. It would be abrupt bursts of intensity, turned passion, turned . . .
I shake the thoughts from my head.
Dad said I shouldn’t speak to him. Blake is the exact kind of Southern old money I’ve sworn off. Fantasizing about him is a waste of time.
But I have to know why he threatened my father.
I walk back to the file cabinets, away from the foyer, where no one can see me, and start digging through the old papers again. There have to be some answers here.
“You didn’t think I left, did you?”
I jump at his voice—the dark tone, as dark as his eyes, sends shivers down my spine. He’s here. Behind me. I try to turn around. “Blake?”
“Sh.” He holds my shoulders and whispers in my ear. “Do you want your father to hear?”
My heart speeds and my hands start to sweat. I really thought he’d left, but I feel his breath on my neck, his body hot at my back. It’s not proper, not here in my father’s office, but I want him to press me into the cabinets and make me come alive.
“He said I shouldn’t speak to you,” I murmur.
He traces a hand up my arm. “But you’re not going to listen to him, are you?”
I should, but his mere hand lights up my insides, too exhilarating to resist. “Are you going to tell me why my father’s so angry at you? Why you were shouting at him?”
“Maybe.” He nuzzles my ear, and I feel his lips brush my skin.
I turn to face him, finding him closer than he should be, but as close as I’d like. His eyes, mottled with an infinity of secrets, stare down at me with all the mystery and desire I’m needing and dying to have in my world. He’s a potentially dangerous man—full of threats and anger.
But hell, I could melt from the way he looks at me, sink right down into my shoes on the floor from how hot his eyes are. His lips are right there, turned up at the corners, not with lightness but with malicious intent.
“What are you going to do to me?” I can’t believe the words are coming out of my mouth until they already have. What do I want him to do to me? is the real question. Or more like: What don’t I want him to do to me?
His gaze drops from my eyes to my mouth and back—like he can’t decide which he wants more, to look at me or kiss me. “Have dinner with me. At my estate.”
“From threats to a date? You do keep a girl guessing.”
He slips a hand to my waist and brushes it over my hip. “If you like games, I’m happy to play. Just know that you’ll lose.” I can feel the heat of his palm through my skirt.
“I like games. I’m very good at them.” And I want to play them with you.
“Don’t say that until you know the rules.”
“Are you going to teach them to me?” I bite my lip.
He touches his thumb to my lip.
“Give me a reason.”
My lips brush across his fingertips as I speak. “Why should I ignore my father’s warning and come with you?”
“A reason?” He stalks closer, pressing me into the wall.
I grab the lapels of his jacket, needing him to kiss me, begging to get a fill of him beyond just the promises of his eyes. “A good one.”
He doesn’t disappoint.
He grasps my face and tilts my head up to him. His lips meet mine in a rush of passion—all the things he’s holding back in his body and his words set loose from his mouth into mine.
As hot and hard as I’d hoped it would be.
There’s no testing, no teasing, just full-on him, intense and unrestrained. Consuming me and filling me with all the rage roaring through his body. I feel it now—the compressed anger, the animal behind his mad gaze. Any hope I had of escaping this man—every attempt I made to get away from him last night—is gone.
I open my mouth and his tongue invades like a force of nature, unleashing a strength of feeling I had only guessed could come from a kiss. It sweeps through my body, heating me to my core, making me ache to be naked and laid out for him to do this to all of me—for how he would awaken all the things in me I’ve been so desperate to feel.
My hands grasp at his neck, his face, his hair, and I pull him against me, needing to go along on this ride he’s promised me.
But too soon, he breaks the kiss and jerks away from me.
I moan in protest and vainly reach for him, my whole body throbbing with want.
He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and stares at me like I’ve turned into a bomb—one that’s ticking away and set to go off.
I lean against the wall and brush my hair back from my face. “That’s a good enough reason,” I say, my breathing as jagged as his.
His stare turns brutal—a flash of anger so hot it scorches. I stiffen in alarm. But he closes his eyes and grits his teeth, and when he reopens them, the brutality is gone.
“I’ll pick you up when you get off work,” he grumbles, almost like he doesn’t want to, except I catch a glimpse at the crotch off his pants, where he is visibly hard. Oh, he wants to.
“Five thirty.”
“Fine,” he says, then stalks away. Without a goodbye, without a backward glance. His footsteps echo down the hall, then the front door slams behind him.
I’m in so much trouble.
And that’s how I like it.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Rachel Brooks, the agent with the mostest, for her inexhaustible promotion of my work.
Thanks to Alexandra Sehulster, my editor, for knowing just how dark my writing could be even before I knew it.
To Bronwen Fleetwood, for helping every step of the way from the very beginning. I miss you!
To Alexis Daria, for cautionary words and endless support when I’ve needed it most. To Kimberly Bell, C. L. Polk and all of #RWChat for your tireless love of romance and for just, you know, being there.
To my mom for supporting my books and singing their praises fearless of the content!
To Laura Brown, Jenny Baskwell and the great PWG. There’s no such thing as too many writer friends.
To the publishing teams at SMP Swerve for getting all the details just right.
And most importantly, to you who are reading this. Thank you for walking through the darkness to the happy ending. I look forward to sharing many more stories with you. ☺
About the Author
Author photograph © Alexis Daria
Robin Lovett enjoys writing romance to avoid the more unsavory things in life, like day jobs, housework, and personal demons. Reading romance has always been her addiction of choice. When not writing or reading with her cat, she’s busy embracing untamable curly hair or adventuring into the outdoors with her husband. She loves chatting about life and romance on Twitter and Facebook, so don’t be shy!
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Epilogue
Excerpt: DECEIVER
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright Page
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
STRANGER. Copyright © 2017 by Robin Lovett. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.stmartins.com
Cover photography: man © Tom Cullis Photo
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-250-13351-9 (ebook)
First Edition: June 2017
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