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Prologue

Violet

I edged down the narrow staircase that led to the kitchen below Shadows danced across the walls and held the air in the steady peace of the night A breeze blew through the valley and billowed through the trees The hum of it softly battered at the walls

Within the old house, the silence was heavy and dense As heavy and dense as ed beat

I inched farther

Carefully

Recklessly

There was no longer anything I could do to stop the draw of the quiet chaos that waited in the darkened room below

When I ust of energy that suddenly lashed and whipped through the stilled disorder

The man a storm where he sat like a stone fortress at the small kitchen table

Protective and fierce

His big body bristled with a rage that seemed to be waitin’ for permission to be unleashed

A wanderer who’d come home

Did itto reht for him to be adored? That he deserved to be loved?

I stepped deeper into the dancing shadows at the base of the stairs

I knehen he felt me

When his spine stiffened and his stony jaw clenched

He slowly pushed to his full, towering height

The er

“Violet” My na thunder “What are you doing down here?”

Fear tuh my belly when I saw the lust flare in his eyes

The greed and possession that curled his hands into fists

But I would no longer livefrom what I wanted most

I could live in fear of as to come, or I could live my life to its fullest, and I kneanted to live like a flower beneath the sun in full bloom

I lifted my chin when I released the words, “I just need to know one thing right now, Richard Ramsey Tell me it’s true Telllike I don’t need you”

Maybe I shouldn’t have given him that trust

Maybe I shouldn’t have given him the chance to lie

Maybe I should have knoould regret it all over again when I saw the guilt flash across his stunning face

But I was finished running

So, I stepped off the cliff I’d been teetering on for the last six years, straight into a free fall, and prayed he’d be there to catch me at the end…

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