Page 1 of Succumbed

Prologue

Icould count on one hand the men who had earned my trust. My father threw me out for my ambition, my younger brother gladly took what was rightfully mine, and others had wronged me at every turn.

If they didn’t underestimate and patronize me, they found me intimidating and were threatened by my success. As I grew my career, I buried the idea of romantic love in my ambition.

I set my boundaries, established my rules like a fortress around the truest parts of me, and approached romance as a transaction. For nearly two decades, I kept most men at arm’s length.

But this man? This beautiful, raw human being with his heart in his hand and an apologetic smile on his lips?

This man isn’t dismantling my barriers; he’s setting them on fire and reveling in the flames. I don’t know him as intimately as I do the other men I love, haven’t made it far past the walls he’s reinforced every step of our journey. But I see him.

I see how he thinks through a problem and stops at nothing until he solves it. How he gives his whole heart to what he believes in and fights fiercely for it without hesitation. How he’s unstoppable when challenged, no matter how unlikely the odds.

I’ve watched him put the people he loves before himself, time and again, even when it tears us apart in the process.

But I don’t mind a little pain with my pleasure.

Thanks to them, I crave it.

Chapter 1

Declan

The last time I saw her, I was a fool. A stupid, trusting fool who put my future in the hands of someone woefully undeserving. Seeing her striking face again brings it all back to the surface–the humiliation, the anger, the overwhelming need to tear it apart just to rebuild it better.

“Dec, are you watching this?” My brother’s voice interrupts my rage-fueled thoughts as he saunters into the room, flipping his baseball hat around to sit backwards on his brown curls.

I look at the phone he thrusts toward me. There she is again, impeccable as I remember. The video is paused a few minutes before the version still playing in my earbud. Linc looks down at my screen and grunts, pocketing his phone as he plops next to me on the couch and peers over my shoulder.

“Shane!” he hollers, eyes glued to the interview. He knocks my shoulder with his. “Pause it for a sec, yeah? Maybe start it over.”

My narrowed look goes unnoticed as he glances back over the couch and gestures urgently.

“C’mon, man, you gotta see this.”

Shane, my best friend and business partner, rounds the couch and takes the open spot beside me. His lean, muscled thigh bumps mine as he settles back on the couch, blue eyes piercing as he turns to me in question.

“Seriously?” I grunt, gesturing at the immense amount of space around me. “This fucking thing seats twelve. Why the hell are you two on my lap?”

“You’re fine.” Linc waves his hand at my phone. “Start it over, Dec.”

“Here.” Shane plucks the device from my fingers, ignoring my frustrated exclamation and tapping the screen.

Before I can ask him what the hell he’s doing, the video appears on the television mounted across the room.

“God, does she even fucking age?” Linc reaches up to resettle his hat, his eyes trained on the screen. “She’s even hotter now than she was three years ago.”

He’s not wrong. I immediately hate the thought, dismissing it as quickly as it appears.

“Have some respect, kid,” Shane barks, reaching across me to back-hand my brother’s chest.

I grunt, and try to make my wide frame smaller to get a modicum of distance, ready to tell them both off again. Laughter rings out from the television. We all still, watching the woman who tossed us out without remorse as she smirks.

“It’s an honor to have you both here.” The interviewer, Cass Thompson–startup and tech reporter for the Bayview Bulletin–smiles at the two women seated opposite her.

“Thanks for inviting us,” Preston Brooks replies. She’s a society darling and angel investor, well-known in the Bay. “I relish any opportunity to talk about the importance of women-led businesses.”

Lex Livingston, owner of Athena Ventures and arguably one of the most successful businesswomen in the country, dips her chin. “Agreed. Empowering female founders, particularly in the male-dominated tech space, is something I’m fiercely passionate about.”

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