Book #1 of the SIN series
New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today bestselling author of the Consequences series, Infidelity series, Sparrow trilogies: Web of Sin, Tangled Web, Web of Desire, and Dangerous Web, and the Devil’s Series Duet
COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE INFORMATION
RED SIN
Book 1 of the SIN series
Copyright @ 2021 Romig Works, LLC
Published by Romig Works, LLC
2021 Edition
ISBN: 978-1-947189-67-6
Cover art: Letitia Hasser at RBA/Designs/Romantic Book Affairs
Editing: Lisa Aurello
Formatting: Romig Works, LLC
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
2021 Edition License
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to the appropriate retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Red Sin
Red is the color of blood, sacrifice, danger, and courage. It’s also associated with heat, passion, and sexuality. When two people meet unexpectedly with an inexplicable attraction that defies common understanding...it can be called RED SIN.
Julia and Van found one another in a shaken snow globe. Stranded in a blizzard, they embraced being two individuals with no last names. The plan was to walk away from each other with no regrets—until that plan changed.
Julia’s life was delivered a staggering blow the day she discovered her fiancé’s infidelity. The night she met a handsome stranger, one who showed her the possibility of a life filled with more than the fulfillment of expectations, she took a chance.
When it comes to business, Donovan Sherman is a wolf—a bloodthirsty carnivore who leaves wounded prey and victims in his wake. He learned from the best, his onetime nemesis and now-mentor, Lennox Demetri, who showed him that opportunities are only ripe for those willing to risk it all, a lesson Donovan took to heart.
With Julia McGrath, Donovan must decide if this beautiful woman who showed him the meaning of red sin will fall victim as his prey or if after experiencing the unbridled passion, there is more that he wants.
From New York Times bestselling author Aleatha Romig comes a brand-new romantic-suspense novel in the world of high finance, where success is sweet and revenge is sweeter.
Have you been Aleatha’d?
“WHITE RIBBON,” a novella, first appeared in the no-longer-available Top Shelf Romance anthology I HAVE LIVED AND I HAVE LOVED.
Since the original publication, a few changes have been made to the novella.
If you have read “WHITE RIBBON,” in the anthology, I recommend you begin at the beginning so as to not miss a thing. If you read “WHITE RIBBON” as a free prequel novella—where the updates were present—you may jump ahead to chapter seven.
Chapters one through six of RED SIN are “WHITE RIBBON” as found in the limited-release free novella.
It was my plan to avoid making you jump from here to a free prequel and back.
If you haven’t read “WHITE RIBBON” anywhere else, or if you’d like to refresh your memory on how Van and Julia met in a shaken snow globe along the white ribbon, please start at chapter one.
As I first wrote “WHITE RIBBON” it became obvious to me that I wanted more Julia and Van in my life. I knew there was much more to their story: more intrigue, more mystery, and many more sexy times to come.
I hope you feel the same way as you begin the Sin Series with book one, RED SIN, including where it all began on the “WHITE RIBBON.”
~Aleatha
Julia
My knuckles blanched on the steering wheel as I pumped the brakes of my rental car. Even though I’d been told—more than once—that automatic brakes didn’t require pumping, I couldn’t help myself. The action calmed my nerves, giving me the illusion that I had an ounce of control as the tires slid and scooted upon the ice-covered road and large snowflakes the size of oranges fell from the sky.
With the sheer quantity of snowflakes hitting the windshield, I knew any sense of control I thought I possessed was nothing more than a figment of my imagination. If circumstances were different, I could relax and see the beauty around me. If instead of driving alone to an unknown future, I was sipping hot chocolate next to a roaring fire with friends and family, I might be able to appreciate that I had somehow managed to enter a giant snow globe and that whole world had just been given a strong shake.
My attention went back and forth between what I believed was the road before me and my GPS. The directional system had taken me on what it considered the best route. According to the screen, I was still on the pavement; thank God the GPS could differentiate because from my viewpoint, everything between the endless borders of tall pine trees was nothing more than a white ribbon.
Though I continued forward, my estimated time of arrival continued to grow later and later. That was in no doubt due to my decreased speed. Between the snow-and-ice-covered surface, the lack of defined road, and increased blizzard conditions including gusty wind, it seemed as if instead of driving, the car was crawling forward. The speedometer varied between fifteen and a whopping twenty-five miles per hour.
When I’d left Chicago this morning, the forecast had been clear. The weathercaster said that snow wasn’t supposed to arrive until late tomorrow. With only a seven-hour drive, my plan was to arrive at the hotel in Ashland, Wisconsin, before nightfall, spend a few days, and get a feel for the city. With fewer than ten thousand people, it would be drastically different from what I was used to in Chicago.
Different—that in a nutshell was exactly why I applied for this job.
“Good plan, Julia,” I said aloud to myself.
Maybe after hours of driving north from Chicago, I was hungry to hear a human voice, one not singing or on a podcast. Or perhaps, I was too exasperated with my situation to keep quiet any longer.
“Did you ever wonder why this job was available? It’s because whomever this client is could be a psycho and on top of that, it’s located in the middle of nowhere.”
Sadly, nowhere was exactly what I’d sought.
Going back to my analogy of a shaken snow globe, that was my life.
Shaken.
Hours of driving had given me a new perspective, one that benefited from a bit of distance. I knew there were many people who faced greater obstacles and more adversity. I also wasn’t the princess in the ivory tower that many believed me to be.
My eyes narrowed as I tried to make out the road before me. The headlights created a tunnel of illumination filled with glistening large snowflakes above a thick white blanket.