I will never forget our wedding night. The preacher was obviously buzzed on piña coladas, but that didn’t make our vows any less special. Trent’s eyes shone with happiness and love, and mine did too. I wore an elegant white dress that accentuated all of my curves, especially the new little bump of my tummy. We shared a long and passionate kiss at the altar, our toes in the sand. Then Trent caressed my tummy as he beamed with pride.
I was giving Trent what he always wanted. A blushing bride and an heir to the Trenton Paine fortune.
Break Me
Eli was a suave and stylish billionaire who had it all … until he lost everything. Now Eli sits in a prison cell accused of murdering his ex-wife. It’s a horrible crime, but he didn’t do it.
With nothing left to lose, Eli turns to Avery, his sweet and sassy little lady. Only Avery can help Eli pull off the most daring escape of his life.
Avery will stop at nothing to save the man who raised her. She loves Eli—always has, always will. But Avery is a woman now, with a woman’s needs. What she wants, she isn’t supposed to have.
Avery can tell Eli feels the same way about her. She sees it in his eyes. Together, they run from the law while clinging to each other, their forbidden desire growing by the day. If their love is true, it will survive the ultimate manhunt … and the ultimate taboo.
Eli is determined to prove his innocence and reclaim his riches. Avery just wants her very own “happily ever after.” But Avery has no idea how far Eli is willing to go. She belongs to him now, and Eli takes what he wants, when he wants it.
1.
The day my stepdad broke out of prison, I paid him a visit just like any other week.
I remember sitting on the edge of a broken chair, facing a window of bulletproof glass. The window was smudged from a hundred desperate handprints. That was my stepdad looking back at me, no doubt about it. But there was a hardness to Eli I didn’t remember from before. Getting locked up changed him way too fast.
It had been what, all of six months? Going on seven?
The man sitting across from me looked strange and familiar at the same time. His body was all bulk, broad shoulders and hard angles, his arms covered in prison tattoos. Eli held the phone to his ear and barked orders in that scratchy growl of his. I was only half listening. I mean, we’d been over the plan a thousand times.
Stealing another glance, I couldn’t help but notice the heft of Eli’s arms and chest, the result of too much free time lifting weights in the prison yard. His muscles rippled and flexed, threatening to tear through the fabric of his orange jumpsuit.
Sitting across from Eli, it drove me crazy that a bunch of manmade barriers separated me from him. I wished Eli would just smash the glass, climb through the wreckage and come home with me. Of course that would never work.
We had a better plan.
I kept reminding myself to be patient, to wait for tonight.
Feeling restless, I had a look around the room at the other visitors. Everyone was sitting in creaky chairs like mine, surrounded by dirty white walls. I saw wives and girlfriends, mothers and grandmothers, and way too many unruly kids. Sucking on cheap candy from the commissary, the little brats were so hopped up they either couldn’t or wouldn’t sit down and shut up for half a second.
I recognized several of the women from my previous visits. We all traveled from near or far to remind our loved ones they are not forgotten. The sad part was, without even trying to, we also reminded our men that life on the outside goes on without them. Kids grow up. Lovers grow apart.
Not me and Eli, though. I would never abandon the man who raised me. Eli always treated me like his own daughter, even though we’re not kin. Even after Mama was gone, and it was just him and me.
We always stick together, Eli and me.
One of the ceiling lights made a crackling sound and flickered on. The harsh light cast a glare on the window, showing my reflection in the glass. I swept back my long, brown hair and admired my best feature, my stormy gray eyes.
I’m not a model or anything, but I always did to dress up for my visits with Eli. Today I was wearing a black halter top, tight jeans and two-inch heels.
My body was a little on the curvy side, and I had the kind of figure that most guys don’t seem to notice. I was a cheerleader in high school, but the only reason I made the squad was because the petite girls needed someone else whose shoulders they could stand on. That period of my life felt like such a long time ago.
Eli rapped the glass with his knuckle. The harsh sound drew me out of my daydream, sending me back to reality.
“Hey!” Eli growled. “Over here, Avery. Focus.”
“I’m listening,” I lied.
Eli had much darker eyes than mine. They were glaring at me with such intensity, I couldn’t help but look down, breaking eye contact with him. A big part of me missed the old Eli, the kind and sweet man who gave me a home—the man I learned to call my father. But a secret part of me was intrigued by the new Eli, too.
Those dark eyes, that prominent jawline covered in scruff. And the tattoos. My god, why did he get those tattoos? Whoever inked Eli did him no favors. The prison tats covered both of his arms like inky sleeves, but the designs were nowhere near professional.
Between the muscles and the tattoos, to look at Eli you’d never guess he used to be a venture capitalist. That he was a billionaire, right up until less than a year ago.
Now Eli looked like the villain in a big dumb action movie. Which was funny to me, since Eli was the smartest man I knew. If you believe what the police, prosecutors, judge and a jury of his peers had to say, then Eli was also the most dangerous man I ever met.
Tonight we were going to find out just how smart—and just how dangerous—Eli really was.
I knew it was wrong, but the way Eli looked at me sometimes, I might have been hoping for a little more.
2.
Eli’s troubles had begun during my senior year at Shiloh High School. On graduation night, as I walked across the stage, I glanced at the crowd and found Eli standing against the back wall. He was beaming with pride. But I couldn’t help but also notice a look of sadness and resignation in his eyes. I felt the same way. Soon he would be taken away from me.
Instead of going out and partying with my friends, I went straight home following the ceremony. I didn’t care about the classmates I would probably never see again. I could only think of Eli.
Of course, this was before the government seized all of Eli’s property. We were still living in the immaculately preserved Georgian mansion that Eli had inherited from his parents. His parents had inherited the estate from their parents, back through several generations to his great-great-great grandfather, Buford B. Rutherford, a decorated Civil War general and two-term governor of the Virginia commonwealth.
Thousands of slaves once toiled in tobacco fields surrounding the mansion that General Rutherford built in Shiloh. At one time, the Rutherfords owned the largest tobacco company in America. When Eli took control of the family fortune, he cut all ties to the tobacco industry, re-investing in more lucrative and less problematic markets.
Eli had also transformed the farmland into a lush private park. When I was a little girl and Eli was courting my mama, I loved nothing more than to walk the winding trails of the Rutherford estate. Eli and Mama walked so slowly, I grew impatient and skipped ahead, helping myself to apples, cherries and plums from the fruit trees that lined our path.
Then we came to Eli’s personal nine-hole golf course. He had designed and built it to run alongside the green river that ran through the family’s estate.
“Will you teach me, Eli?” I asked.
“Sure thing, kid,” he said. “Just as soon as your mother and I come back from our honeymoon.”
Eli made good on his promise, and it became one of our little rituals—a round of golf in the cool mornings before work and school.
Mama never joined us. She didn’t care for sports. She was the most beautiful woman I h
ad ever seen, though, with long auburn hair, full red lips and icy blue eyes.
Mama was so pretty and proper, you almost had to tiptoe around her to keep from offending her Old South sensibilities. I’ll never forget the time I made the mistake of tracking muddy footprints up the stairs of our wraparound porch. Not even mud inside the house—just a few brown footprints on the white-painted porch. I had caught a bullfrog in one of the smaller creeks on our land. In my excitement I had rushed home to show my prize to our butler, Maurice.
“Maurice!” I cried, holding the bullfrog in both hands. I squeezed it by the belly, its long hind legs dangling and swinging as I raced up the steps. “Maurice, come look!”
The door opened and I froze in my tracks. It was Mama. The way she looked at me, I wished I could disappear under the porch.
“What’s the meaning of this?” she asked.
“Nothing, Mama,” I replied. “I just thought Maurice would like to see this frog of mine.”
“Maurice is ironing the linens. You are not to disturb him.”
“Yes, Mama.”
“How would you like it if he disturbed you while you were playing or doing your homework?”
Truth was, I’d be thrilled for Maurice to interrupt me when I was doing my homework. But I couldn’t admit that to Mama.
“I wouldn’t like it one bit,” I lied.
“But you did disturb him. Now Maurice will have to put aside his ironing to mop up this mess you made. You have terribly inconvenienced him. Even worse, now he must take time out from his busy day to punish you.”
Mama cracked open the heavy front door.
“Maurice?” she called. “Maurice? Come down here this instant.”
Maurice was a sad-eyed black man in a secondhand tuxedo. He knew not to keep Mama waiting. Seconds after she called his name, he was trotting out the front door.
“Oh, there you are,” she said. “Maurice, escort Avery to the cherry orchard and let her pick a switch. Then hurry right back, you here? I don’t have all day.”
“Come along, little one,” Maurice said, taking me by the arm and guiding me down the steps.
After we crossed the lawn, he took the bullfrog out of my hands and placed him on the grass. “Now let’s get this over with. Find the smallest limb you can.”
I pointed to one.
“Hmm, that one might sting something awful. Here, how about this little one over here? It might not leave such a mark.”
I was trying not to cry as I imagined the spanking I was about to get. I nodded my head through the tears, and Maurice snipped it with his pocketknife. When we turned for the long walk back to the porch, Mama was standing there. She was tapping one foot, but every other bone in her body was stiff and silent as it could be. Mama watched our every move with a look of cool indifference.
“Swat her five times, Maurice,” Mama instructed. “Then clean up this mess before the mud has a chance to dry.”
Then Mama turned to me, shook her head and frowned.
“I never dreamed you’d be such a troublemaker, Avery. Terminating the pregnancy was a real option, you know. But I carried you through to term. And this is my reward?”
Maurice patted my shoulder kindly. I bent over and put my hands on my knees, waiting for him to strike. The switch hit the backs of my thighs. I flinched at the stinging pain, clenching my teeth to keep from crying out. When the switch landed on my skin for the fifth time, I tumbled forward and fell onto the grass. I heard the door shut and knew Mama had re-entered the house.
“Here, Miss Avery,” Maurice said as he helped me to my feet. “Let’s get you out of those muddy shoes and up to your wash room so you can tidy yourself up a smidge.”
My thighs were smarting from the lashes, but I had known worse pain from Mama. I was grateful that Maurice had gone easy on me.
Eli had flown to New York for the day to see about his investments. When he got home that night I made sure I was wearing a short dress, and I made sure to twirl in front of him so he would notice the red marks on the backs of my legs. When I told him about my punishment I saw anger flash in his eyes. He excused himself. A moment later I heard his muffled shouts in another room as my stepfather lay into Mama for mistreating me.
“She’s a child, Patricia,” Eli shouted. “Children make messes. What about that don’t you understand?”
“You love her more than me,” Mama sniffed.
“She’s my daughter,” he answered. “Of course I love her. But I pray she never grows up to be as twisted and spiteful as you. Don’t forget, Patricia. That girl is the only reason I haven’t tossed you out like yesterday’s slops.”
I smiled to myself as I listened to my stepfather. He had called me his daughter, a distinction that filled me with pride and joy. I had never known my own father. He was a topic of conversation that was strictly off limits.
The way Eli scolded Mama, I knew it would be a long time before she dared to have me whipped again. Unfortunately she found more subtle ways to torture me. As I grew into a young lady, Mama and I waged a cold war for control of my stepfather’s affection. The more I won, the more Mama retreated into resentment, spa treatments, the accumulation of uncomfortable shoes, and tall pours of her favorite wines.
By the time I was in high school, Mama’s youth had slipped away, and she was no longer the world-class beauty that I remembered from my childhood. She turned to plastic surgery in a last-ditch effort to tighten her sagging skin. The collagen injections were supposed to fill out her thin lips. But the operations turned her into a tight-faced nightmare. Eli never said a word, but he didn’t have to. I saw the way he turned from her in disgust.
“I’m not paying for your disfigurement, woman.”
“What do you care?” Mama hissed. “You don’t need the money. You have barely looked at me in years. Let me have this one thing for myself.”
“One thing? Patricia, I have given you everything.”
“You stole my best years. I hate you. I hate both of you.”
Mama swiveled and stared me down.
“You ungrateful little bitch. I’m your mother. Your own mother! Someday you and your father will pay for ruining my life. I was courted by dozens of suitors. Now … now I’m all alone in this enormous house, surrounded by people who despise me.”
“Shut your mouth, Patricia,” Eli said. “Shut your mouth, or leave this instant.”
Mother fled. Later, when she sent for her things, we learned she had not moved far. She was situated in one of the guest cottages on the far bank of the river that flowed through our estate.
She did not come back to the mansion. We saw her occasionally when Eli and I were playing golf on our side of the river, but Mama never acknowledged us in any way. I begged Eli to cancel her credit cards and divorce her ass, but he refused, not wanting to put me through a bitter custody battle.
“When you’re eighteen,” he promised, “and your mother can no longer hold any of this over your head. That’s when we’ll consider a change.”
I was never interested in the immature boys at school. With just me and Eli living in the Rutherford mansion, I liked to pretend that he was my husband, and I was his wife. Our ordeal with Mama had only brought him and me closer together.
Although I thought of Eli as my dad, I had eyes that worked just as well as the next person’s. I couldn’t ignore the fact that Eli was the most handsome man I had ever seen. It was silly to think about, but I had this fantasy that he would divorce Mama as soon as I was a legal adult, and then it would just be him and me from then on.
Sometimes, when I was alone in my bed, my thoughts would drift to other things, things that made me blush when I saw my stepfather the next morning.
“What?” he’d ask, looking puzzled, before returning his attention to the Wall Street Journal and the breakfast that Maurice had prepared.
Then, one night, Mama’s cottage caught fire. I had been out with friends. Firefighters were unable to save the structure, and the cottage was a
total loss.
My mama’s body never found, although a pair of investigators from the fire marshal’s office did identify the traces of gasoline used to accelerate the blaze around the perimeter of the home. When the smoke cleared out of the kitchen, they found something the fire could not erase—Mama’s own blood.
Her vital fluid had spilled across the kitchen floor just minutes before the fire began. Most of the blood had boiled away from the intense heat, but some had seeped into the grouting of the kitchen tile, where it survived the flames.
Inconvenient clues were uncovered. Eli was the only person at home on the night of the fire. No one else even had access to the gated property. When the investigators learned that Eli had recently liquidated half of his family fortune, they had enough evidence to charge him with first-degree murder in the death of his wife.
Too Big Taboo Bundle: Naughty Brats, Forbidden First Time, Man of the House Page 8