Off-Limits Box Set

by Ella James

  Dash does, too. He told me recently when we were snuggling in my dorm room bed that he’d decided finally to amor fati it. Let it go. I know he’s still sad sometimes, but he doesn’t dwell on it the way he did sometimes the first six months.

  I walk over to the window and look down, through two huge trees, at the house parking lot. Dash has been gone on a mysterious errand for more than an hour now. If he’s not back soon, he might be late for graduation. As it is, I have to report to my station near the football stadium in fifteen minutes.

  “Is your dad still sitting with us?” Lucy asks.

  “Hmm?” I turn to face her.

  “Oh, nothing. I had heard your dad might sit with us.”

  I shrug. “If he told Dash that.”

  Dad’s relationship with Dash is…strange. The best kind of strange, but strange for sure. Shortly after we wrapped our little movie reel this summer, I was doing rush week when Dash called and asked me out to dinner—here in Athens. Come to find out, he’d been at Dad’s house. What they talked about, I’ll never know, but since then, we’ve had dinner with Dad and Harlow several times, and it’s never seemed awkward in the slightest.

  I peer back out the window in time to see a long, dark SUV pull up. Something about the way it parks catches my eye, and sure enough, a second later, the doors open and I see… “Mags?” I whirl toward Lucy. “Mags is here? I didn’t know she was coming.” I look back out the window, and I notice my other friend Charley. She’s putting a bag in Dash’s arms.

  “Hey now…” I laugh.

  “Surprise, surprise!” With Liam on her shoulder, Lucy bounces over and hugs me. “I guess you kinda spoiled the big ‘boo’ moment, but that’s okay.”

  “So Dash went to the airport?”

  She shrugs, looking mysterious.

  A minute later, Liam walks back into my room hauling a suitcase. Right there on his heels is Charley. She skips over to me in her short, red dress and flings her arms around my neck. “My chickadee! Congratulations!”

  “I thought you were graduating today.”

  She beams. “I am, but I’m not walking.”

  “Oh my God, you rebel. Can’t believe you’re here!”

  Mags is next, snapping my picture and tucking a stray hair into my cap. “You look great, Amelia. Did you have your eyebrows done?”

  “Just yesterday.”

  “Are we ready?” Charley asks.

  “Where’s Dash?”

  She wiggles her eyebrows in answer, and I smile—even as I feel a pang of disappointment. Then my door opens and Dash is there: my favorite sight. He looks so tall and broad in khaki shorts and a white collared shirt with the sleeves rolled up. His beard is just the way I like it: kind of short and just a little darker than a five o’clock shadow. And of course, he’s wearing glasses. I just love my sexy artist man in glasses.

  I don’t even realize that I’ve started walking toward him until I reach him. Then I throw my arms around his neck.

  “You’re back.” I press a kiss on his jaw.

  “That I am.”

  “Thanks for bringing my buds.”

  He smiles. “Of course.” He runs his hand over my collar. “You look hot. Like a sexy scholar.”

  “That’s the look I’m going for with this. The sexy scholar.” I wink.

  “Is it time for you to go line up?” He looks down at his phone.

  “I think it is.”

  “C’mon.” He grabs my hand. “I’ll walk ya there.”

  For a few minutes, as we walk the cobblestone path toward the stadium, there’s no one on this crowded campus but the two of us. We’re not a sorority girl and her three-years-older, super hot, animator boyfriend, or a couple with a big boat-load of baggage. I’m not a little girl with glasses, and he’s not the boy next door. We’re just a couple on a summer afternoon. A couple with an open road ahead, and no more secrets.

  Dash

  I have one more secret. I’ve been working on it in my every waking moment for a month now. Something special, just for Am. Well—for Ammy and a couple thousand others.

  I got the idea last summer, but I wanted to be sure before I did it. I didn’t want to do this thing too soon. So I talked to Lucy. And Maggie. And Charley. And even Am’s new stepmom, Harlow.

  It’s a film short: just a hundred and seventy seconds. It doesn’t start until the graduation ceremony is almost over, and I’ve had time to slip into a fold-out chair a few spots down from Ammy, who’s sitting amongst the rows and rows of graduating students on the football field.

  I watch her eyes follow the agenda on the giant screen in the end zone as it plays the words to the school song. Then that’s over, and the screen turns sky blue.

  My heart trips over itself.

  The film first shows a dove, sitting pretty in her nest in a big oak tree in a park. I catch Ammy’s face here, and I’m pretty sure I see the first “o” of her mouth. A bit of Vivaldi’s Summer plays in the background, light and airy, then a little slower as the viewer travels down the tree trunk, where we see another bird: this time a big, black raven in an old bird house that’s tacked onto the tree’s lowest branch. The raven tilts his head up, watching the bright, beautiful dove from down below her. Then he flies away and comes back with a worm.

  Amelia’s eyes are huge. She looks around. She looks almost afraid. My heart pounds.

  After that, the dove and raven fly together in the clouds. But then the tree loses its leaves and my pretty dove is left alone. A tear rolls down Amelia’s cheek. The little dove bows her head; the angle changes, and flowers start to burst forth from the ground. The raven comes back. The dove ignores him for a moment.

  Shit, Ammy is crying.

  My eyes fly between Ammy and the screen as the two birds huddle under a branch while rain falls all around them. Then they lean against each other. After that, they settle in the dove’s nest together. The shot pans, and in the sky above their tree, the clouds form the words I’ve seen so many times before, so I don’t look this time: Will You Marry Me, Amelia?

  I can only watch her sob for just a second. Then I’m on my feet, moving past the three people between us, getting on my knee in front of her as everyone around us gasps and whispers…and the stadium begins to roar, because now it’s us onscreen.

  I watch the footage that night from our bed in Lucy’s family’s private jet. Am is sleeping on my arm, and I’m drinking orange soda. We’re on our way to Cozumel for a quick weekend away. Some time to celebrate. On the flatscreen mounted on the jet’s small bedroom wall, I watch her face light up as I open the little black box. Then she clings to me and sobs, so much it takes a while for me to get the diamond on her finger.

  Then she’s looking at it, laughing and hugging me and crying on camera. I see her mouth: “You had this planned!”

  I see myself grinning like a fucking fool. A fucking happy fool. A fool who just got lucky like that ragged ass raven.

  In the last few seconds, we’re both on our feet. I’m twirling her around. When I close my eyes, I am still twirling her around.

  It’s like a dream, this life. It’s like a Disney movie. And it’s ours.

  Do you want to know what happens next? Sign up here to get a bonus scene and be added to HEA Press’s and Ella James’s email lists.

  Want to know what the next Off-Limits Romance is? Add FRACTURED LOVE to your Goodreads TBR! https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35134867-fractured-love

  Did you know Crown Jewels, book one in this series of stand-alones, is free for a few days? Keep reading for an exclusive excerpt! Available on Amazon now!

  Acknowledgments

  How is it possible that this part is harder than writing the book? To Rebecca, first, for being the kind of friend I used to think was fictional, and the kind of collaborator that makes things easier at every turn. Your guidance on this book and so, so many other things has been invaluable to me. I’m so lucky to have you in my corner. To the team at HEA Press, thank you for working tirel
essly to make this book the best that it could be. All the good things I’d heard about working with a publisher turned out to be true. To Kiki and the wonderful team at Next Step PR for all their hard work on this release. You guys are rock stars. To the bloggers who went out of their way to help with this release: giving away ARCs, posting gift card giveaways, making time in your busy lives to read and review, making teasers, answering my random questions on Facebook chat at all hours of the night. You people are incredible—so generous and kind! We authors really don’t deserve you. To my early readers…the ones of you who read an ARC and send corrections just because it’s kind. I appreciate you more than you know. To Kiezha at Librum Artis Editorial Services and Jodi at TJS Literary Editing, thank you for helping with this book’s edits. To the women of Ella’s Elite—thank you for your constant support (especially in times of colds and flu, LOL) and endless enthusiasm for my books; it means the world to me. To my author friends, for reading ARCs, offering blurbs, and helping with the release party. And for general shop-talking. You guys are the best. To my Very Good Friends, for listening to me bitch about screaming babies, sleepless nights, and piled-up dishes…you know who you are. I love you guys. To my family, for lots and lots of patience, and your willingness to subsist off of Ritz cracker chicken and pizza for a month. You are my world. And, of course, to my readers. Old ones who read Stained and everything since, and the ones who’ve only read this book. Thank you for trusting me with your time. Thank you for cheering for Dash and Amelia. Thank you for loving books and supporting authors. Without you, this would still just be a dream.

  Copyright © 2017 by HEA Press

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Published by HEA Press

  For You.

  Sometimes fractured love is the sweetest.

  Part One

  Prologue

  Landon

  Monday, June 12, 2017

  Denver, Colorado

  She sits alone at a lime green booth, eating an avocado she sliced open with the hard edge of a spoon. I’m in my spot before she slides into her booth, and so I see her press the spoon against the dark green skin and split the avocado open, pull it apart. I know what she’ll do before she does it—or at least, I think I do.

  Yep.

  She goes for the pepper shaker first, taking it from where it stands next to the napkin holder. Pepper first, and then the salt. She stares into space as she chews and swallows, digs into the soft, ripe fruit, and then repeats. I’m some thirty feet away, behind a column painted to look like a tree.

  I didn’t bother with the ruse of food.

  I watch her push aside the finished shell of peel that held the first half of her snack. She scoops the seed out of the second half and sets it in the empty bowl of peel. Then she digs into the fruit with her spoon once again, at one point bringing her hand to her mouth and straightening a finger. I can’t see her clearly enough to know for sure, but I think she licked it. She should know better than that.

  Her flaxen hair is pulled into a ponytail. Sleek, but nothing fancy. Up against the stark white of her coat, her skin looks deeply tanned. I’m too far away to see the freckles strewn across her nose and cheeks, but I assume they’re where they’ve always been.

  Truth be told, she looks exactly like I thought she would, right down to the pink and gray sneakers I see underneath her table, and the small, square, multicolored, canvas purse she wears diagonally across her chest.

  Once she’s finished with the avocado, she appears to lick her lips, and then she’s staring into space—or at the mom and children at a round table ten or fifteen feet in front of her. Her shoulders look relaxed. Her back is straight, her long legs crossed. She gives no clue she is getting up until she does. Rather than gather the fruit peel to her chest and then stand up, she stands first, lingering over the table for a moment before she reaches over to pick up her trash, as if it’s an afterthought. She confirms my hunch—that she’s distracted—a moment later, when she throws her stainless steel spoon away, along with the fruit peel and her napkin.

  Her eyes widen.

  Oops.

  She hesitates a moment before turning, walking past a few restaurant-fronts, and disappearing into the sea of people in the vast lobby.

  I don’t need to hurry after her—I know where she’s going—but I do. I grab my leather briefcase, toss my coat over one arm, and follow her with long strides.

  The bustling lobby is busier than usual, because it’s Wednesday. The outpatient clinics are busiest mid-week. No one wants to come to the hospital Monday or Friday. Not for a planned appointment.

  I pass the wide hallway that snakes around the hospital’s right, front quadrant, and head past benches, sculptures, and a long row of check-in and information desks that form a line down the center of the lobby.

  The elevator banks are straight ahead, but I’m not going there. I hang a right, down a hall that leads toward the admin offices, and then take the first stairwell I see. My loafers rap softly against the cement stairs—quiet enough that I can hear her Nikes bounce against the stairs above.

  I know it’s her.

  I know her gait.

  I look up into the sliver of space at the middle of the stairwell, and I can see her coat flap, see her ponytail fly, as she climbs. I’m still on the first flight when I hear a door open then shut.

  Shortly thereafter, I push through the same third-floor door, coming out beside a water fountain and a large, fake, potted plant. I slip into my coat, pick my briefcase back up, and follow the route I remember from my interview: past the waiting room, the doors to the NCCU, and finally the neurosurgery inpatient check-in desk, using my new ID to get the doors to open.

  Once I’m in the neurosurgery inpatient area, I walk past patient rooms, the nurse station—deserted, because they’re changing shifts in Conference Room 1—a restroom, and several patient rooms.

  As I near the door to Conference Room 2, I see her dark gold hair, her slender shoulders. Then she’s through it, out of sight.

  There’s this moment, as I step into the room behind her, when I feel light and weightless. Like I think a patient must feel during surgery, hovering somewhere near the ceiling. Then I see the face of one of our chief residents, Dr. Dorothy Eilert, and I’m back on solid ground.

  She nods at me.

  I nod back.

  I stand near the back of the small room while a handful of residents from years two through six, plus two chief residents—the seventh years—greet the four of us newbies for orientation. I stand there, still and calm, while Dr. Eilert goes over some logistics, introduces each of us.

  In med school, I learned how to bullshit with the best of them. The art of sounding sure when I don’t know shit. What kind of smile makes me look sincere and empathetic, even when I’ve got a killer headache. How to live off stale bagels and caffeinated gum, while sleeping an hour every other day on a cot sized for a nine-year-old. I can talk to patients with tact, swallow criticism with grace, and keep my ego in a little box I only open when I really need to push myself. Surgeons aren’t supposed to be human. We must be more than.

  So I smile when Eilert introduces me. I stand four feet behind her, and while Eilert and the other chief speak, I keep my jaw relaxed, my face relaxed, so only I know that I want to strip her crisp, white coat off, push her up against the wall, grab her by the ponytail, and fuck her until she cries—for me. I want to hear her moan, whimper, and beg—for me.

  She stands there, playing with her hair as she listens to Eilert, rubbing an itch near her collar, breathing, her heart beating, and the sight of it is so surreal. I can’t stop looking. Even when my gaze is pointed downward, my attention is aimed at her.

  I tell myself my racing pulse is nothing but adrenaline, fired off because of wha
t my senses process. My reaction to her is scientific. Predictable. Meaningless. There’s no such thing as serendipity. There’s no such thing as fate or soul mates. Everything I’ve learned in school—in life—has taught me that.

  Evie is nothing but a memory, dancing out in front of me.

  I can keep focused.

  We four interns—otherwise known as first-year residents—get our marching orders for the first three months.

  “Kim, inpatient. Prinz, critical care. Rutherford, neurosurgery. Jones, you’ll be our floater. What that really means—” Eilert winks at me, “is neurosurgery six days out of seven and inpatient the seventh. Our second years have us mostly covered in the NCCU.”

  I can see the birthmark on the back of her neck. Will we be in surgery together, ever? Surely so.

  The buzz of people talking ebbs and flows around me. I chat and smile and listen as my body riots from the inside out.

  And then it’s over, people turning toward the door. I smile and shake a few hands. Everyone starts filing out. I turn to follow…but I can’t move.

  I can feel the heat of her behind me, feel the tug of her.

  I step toward the door as the last of our colleagues slips through it.

  I watch it shut.

  Then I turn and look into the past.

  One

  Evie

  September 4, 2006

  Asheville, North Carolina

  “But what if he doesn’t like Empire Strikes Back?” My sister Emmaline tilts her head up, looking at the poster we just hung. In her brand new, silky Princess Leia nightgown, she looks more like four than seven. She’s tiny for her age, and it’s late, so her little voice is wobbly with tiredness.