Prologue
Assholes aren’t born, they’re made.
I tried to relax as I eased onto my side against the plastic covered leather of his chair. Shifting my gaze down at the lines of blue transfer ink on my pale, naked skin, I held tight to my why. I drew in a deep breath, resolute in my decision to not allow fear or regret to permeate through any part of me. This was my chance to overcome it. All of it.
When I met him, he was already tarnished. Broken. Marred by the darkness that ravages the world like an unstoppable beast. I couldn’t begin to understand the ways in which he would use me. I wasn’t prepared for the ways in which he would destroy me.
Justin had my love. He possessed my heart. I had given him as much as I knew to give—then the asshole took what more he wanted and left me, kicking the dust off his feet as if the particles were my remains, the leftovers in which he no longer had any interest. I couldn’t see it then, but in that chair I knew.
As I closed my eyes and prepared for the pain, I reminded myself. I beckoned forth the truth that he had been torn apart and remade in the image of an asshole, and I was his victim.
Where does the blame reside?
My lids flew open when I heard the buzz of the gun, and my breath caught in my throat.
“Try to relax.”
I forced in a gulp of air and blew it out slowly, willing my body to surrender.
Justin was a victim once too, wasn’t he? Then again, to say I felt remorse for him would have been a lie. I loathed him with every fiber of my being. The truth was, I had come to believe every victim had a choice—to rise or to fall. He chose wrong.
I sucked in a breath at the first bite of pain as the needle pierced my skin, but I did not allow myself to run from the sensation. I was done running. Done hiding. Done cowering. I wasn’t him. I knew he would never likely stop running. He would never see beyond the blinders of his carnal nature. The fortress around his battered heart prevented him from embracing the purity of love. Life. Happiness.
“You’re doing great.”
I peeked down at the ink, my permanent reminder.
He may have broken me; but unlike the villain who made him, he did not make me.
I have been reborn.
Chapter One
He didn’t hear her as she approached his office. Immersed as he was in his notes from a vision session earlier that afternoon, there was no room for the distraction he often knew her to be. It wasn’t until she softly tapped her knuckles against the doorjamb that he became aware of her presence. His mind still coated in a fog of color pallets, he barely saw her as she took a step over the threshold of his workspace.
“Sorry to interrupt,” she murmured with a tired smile. “I didn’t want to leave without checking in. I won’t be entirely unplugged this weekend. I’m sure Mr. Dixon wouldn’t allow it even if I wanted to be.”
Judah St. Michaels leaned back in his chair and offered Logan more of his attention. He replayed what she said and sought for the relevance of her sentiment. When he grasped it, his thoughts making way for all his memory held in regard to the nuisance who was Mr. Dixon, he mentally set aside his current task.
“I know he seems impossible to please, but I put you on this project for a reason. If anyone can make him happy while maintaining the integrity of Eddalyn’s Interiors, it’s you.”
He noticed as her smile grew a little brighter before she replied, “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
Ignoring whatever it was about her lips that was undeniably distracting, he reminded her, “That said, if you don’t come up with a new design for his office by Monday, he’ll be more than a nuisance—he’ll be a bulldog. I don’t want him pissing all over us.”
“Right,” she replied with a stiff nod. “Well, I’ll do my best.”
“That’s all I ask.”
“Goodnight, Jude. Enjoy your weekend.”
She turned, her fallen, blonde curls bouncing against her back as she went. The dress she wore clung to every slight and delicate curve of her toned, feminine physique. Taking in the sight of her retreating figure, Judah’s professional air dissipated as the familiar sense of lust infiltrated his mind.
He found Logan Holloway incredibly sexy. Since the moment he laid eyes on her, more than a year prior, he’d imagined what it would be like to seduce her. In the beginning, he hadn’t been discouraged in his pursuit, regardless of their working relationship—which was meant to be temporary. Even her boyfriend, at the time, wasn’t enough to silence Judah’s attraction into submission.
In the history of their acquaintance, she never gave in to his advances. While at one point he would have sworn their attraction was mutual, she was and still remained the only woman who had ever denied him so unequivocally. At first, this only incentivized him. Judah was not a coward to be intimidated by a challenge. Even the distance which separated the two after their first project was complete—and he obligated to return to his own office—did not alter the reality that she was not easily forgotten.
When he made the permanent move to Fort Collins, as the newly named partner of Eddalyn’s Interiors, he found the game had changed. While he remained the same—not foolish enough to alter his perception of women and the capacity in which they fit into his life—Logan became someone else. With the surname of another, she was out of bounds. At least, Judah’s rules labeled her so. He didn’t live a life bogged down by guidelines—but the boundaries he enforced were kept close to his chest and were usually nonnegotiable.
Though, for reasons he could not adequately explain with logic, matrimony didn’t rob him of his desire for Mrs. Holloway.
No. She took care of that on my behalf, he reminded himself.
Friends. That was her proposal. It had been months since she suggested the idea, and he still found himself mulling it over. A decade had passed since he’d entertained anything akin to friendship with a female. As precious as he knew them to be, he wasn’t foolish enough to push beyond the boundaries which would lead to any sort of obligated vulnerability with a woman. As far as he was concerned, under their current circumstances, it was best to keep Logan in the sphere of his mentee. Admiring her from afar couldn’t be helped.
He was first, and foremost, a man.
Judah’s thoughts shifted when his doorway was once more filled with a female. This time, however, it wasn’t attraction he felt—his fondness for the woman grounded in a respect far grander than any state of physical appearance could ever garner. Not to say she wasn’t beautiful. At fifty-six years of age, Eddalyn was just as elegant and regal as he always knew her to be.
Judah was taken under the wing of the brilliant woman before he graduated from college. She had known him all his life and was convinced he possessed a designer’s eye, his attention to detail a trait she often noticed and praised. Even from a young age, Judah was aware of his preference for places that were esthetically pleasing. When the time came for him to decide his course of study, which would propel him into his professional career, he didn’t think twice about it. He knew Eddalyn’s Interiors was a reputable firm by which he intended to enter the design world.
Contrary to what an ignorant party might presume, every position Judah ever filled for Eddalyn was earned by merit and hard work. While they possessed an identical surname, that only ever got him through the front door. For nearly eleven years, he worked tirelessly. He fought for the forty-nine percent of her company he owned, and he didn’t so much as contemplate discussing his buy-in until after he made her millions.