The Promises We Break

My name is Abby Lee, or BayAreaAbby, according to one million followers on Social Share. There are quite a few perks to having that kind of following, but each month I put together a local community donation event and it’s my favorite thing to do. December’s theme, “Support Your Local Fire Station,” was no different.

Lola Penelope Caruso is my favorite person to torment. When she’s had enough of me, her freckled cheeks go rosy, her tiny hands ball into fists, and she pulls at her signature tight braid and lets down her long red hair. I thought I'd seen her at her worst when we told her she’d have to move from New York City to a dump in Jersey with our law firm. But then a six-year-old showed up at my office with a note around his neck and my smile on his face, and she had to ask: Who's your daddy?

After being a soldier, working as a bodyguard should have been simple: Keep the owner of DC’s ultra-secret club safe, don’t think about his midnight eyes or his devil’s smile, don’t surrender my body to his wicked desires. But I underestimated Mark Trevena and the power of his dark, seductive world. I underestimated the hold he’d have on me, the way I would do anything for him at all. And so when he asks me to escort his soon-to-be bride home, I can only—miserably, broken-heartedly–say yes.

I wasn’t sure what to expect when arriving in Salem. Forced to marry a man I’ve never met, attend a private university I’d never heard of, and the whispers of a rumored secret society filling the halls. This life would be near unbearable with my insufferable fiancé if it wasn’t for his uncle, his best friend, and his enemy. When none of them are willing to let me go, it sends us down a path I’m not sure any of us will survive. The life I was promised is distorted behind smoke and mirrors. The truth cloaked by Deceit.

She’s my mission. My prize. My obsession. Ivy Kingston is the most wanted woman in the world for reasons she is completely oblivious to, reasons I intend to capitalize on. She needs a husband to receive her inheritance, so I’m on the hunt for a wife. As long as it’s her. I’m not who she thinks I am. But she has no idea who she really is either. I’ll be her groom. Her keeper. Her lover. And quite possibly her demise.