Page 1 of Always Right

Prologue

Derek

We all have demons.

Demons that haunt us, demons that threaten our sanity, our life. We have demons that will rest at nothing to drag us down, into the mud until they enter our lungs and suffocate us, stealing our last breath. My mother had many of them, her addiction held her hostage for all of my childhood, and therefore me as well.

You see, I never had a chance at a normal life.

Not until I met a girl—Hannah Carson.

She was everything I wanted, everything I needed. Her beautiful face, her beautiful smile could damn near fool everyone, but I saw right through it from the moment I met her. She couldn’t hide the sadness in her eyes or the emptiness in her heart. Sure, she was a married woman, the first sign I shouldn’t have ever gotten involved with her but when I met her it was too late. I was done for the minute I laid eyes on her, the second her hand brushed mine, the instant she looked at me with those brown eyes that begged for me to help her forget her perfect little world.

She didn’t want perfection, though she was perfection itself.

She needed a rush of adrenaline. A rush of life to flow through her veins. I gave it to her and from that moment, she took off with my goddamn heart, running.

She never gave me the damn thing back.

The thing is, I took hers as well.

And as I looked at her from the door of the gallery as she straightened out a canvas, I realized, I had no right to it. I had to give it back. I’d broken her heart, broken her down from the moment I accused her of betraying me again. I’d seen the pieces of the life we’d started to build together shatter on the ground, watched her as she ran out of my restaurant with her pride.

Was I sorry?

Absolutely.

But apologies weren’t enough.

She turned around, stilling as she saw me standing at the door, her lips parting. Her shaky gasp filled the air, the sound reminding me of the moments we would become one and that sound was all I heard. The first gasp as I would sink in to her, the first gasp of pleasure as she was mine.

Because she was mine.

And hell, I’d be damned if I said I could let her go because as her eyes remained fixated on me, I could tell she hadn’t let go either.

Not at all.

Nathan appeared from his office, freezing in place as he saw me standing there, his gaze flying from me to Hannah for a few seconds before muttering a curse.

I offered a nod and engraved her in my mind once again before taking a step back and letting the cold, New York air hit me.

Yeah, we all have demons.

Maybe I was hers.

Chapter 1

Hannah

“He’s back.”

The words weren’t much more than a whisper leaving my lips and had it not been by the way her shoulders tensed, I wouldn’t have been sure Evie heard me, but she did. I knew it. She didn’t say a word, not as she sat her eight-month-old in his highchair, and not as she opened the fridge, taking out some of her home-made pureed food.

“He’s back,” I repeated as the world around me turned blurry. It wasn’t until she heard the crack in my voice that she turned around, sighing when she looked at me. She ran a hand through her long curls, her audible gulp breaking her silence.

“Who is?”

I scoffed, shaking my head and wiping away the tears that managed to escape. My hands trembled and my heart was about to beat out of my chest, but I was going to keep it together. I had to.

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