Page 1 of Imperfect Saint
1
Millie Turner had a problem, a very big problem. Her problem was six foot two with a square jaw, gravelly voice, and the build of Bruce Wayne. Only instead of saving the world like Batman, the rat bastard had tried to destroy her and she knew if she gave him half a chance that he’d do it again.
Her eyes drifted back to the impressive ivory wedding invitation sitting atop her desk. She’d been staring at the thing off and on for the past two months but she’d yet to come up with a solution to her problem. As a last-ditch effort, she’d begun praying for an end-of-times style apocalypse but she knew that was probably asking a lot just to avoid an unavoidable situation.
Her brother was getting married. Her only sibling, her best friend, her other half was marrying his other half. She was happy for Colin. Really, she was. He’d found the courage to come out to their father and he’d made things right with the only man he’d ever loved.
He and Reed had been made for each other. Anyone with two eyes could see that. Reed was Colin’s match in every way. The yin to his yang. They were different as night and day but that was why they worked so well. They balanced each other out. They just fit.
Millie loved Reed too, albeit in a different way. She’d been a little girl the first time she met the hard-edged teenage boy that had stolen her brother’s heart. It hadn’t taken him long to steal a part of hers too. Reed had become like a brother to her over the years and she was happy that Colin was finally going to make him an official part of the family.
Her problem wasn’t with Colin or with Reed.
Her problem wasn’t even with her meddling father. After twenty plus years, she’d finally found a way to deal with him and his scheming. She simply avoided him and his phone calls whenever she could.
Avoidance was one of her greatest skills.
She avoided people she didn’t want to deal with. She avoided talking about things that she didn’t want to think about. She even avoided admitting the truth to herself whenever she could so that she wouldn’t have to hate herself for being so, so stupid.
But she couldn’t avoid this.
She couldn’t avoidhim.
Joshua Bell. Her ex-fiancé, and Colin’s best friend.
It hadn’t come as a surprise when Colin told her that he’d asked Joshua to be his Best Man. The Bell and Turner families shared a long history. The eldest Bell and her own grandfather had founded Turner Bell Records together. They’d navigated the ups and downs of the music industry and grown their company into what was now one of the premiere labels in Nashville. In the years that followed, they’d had families and of course their sons had grown up together. So, when those sons had started families of their own, it had been only natural that their children would grow up side by side.
Colin and Joshua had been practically inseparable since they were in diapers. They were the same age, with Colin only four months older, a feat he’d had no control of but had always enjoyed teasing Joshua about when they were children. They had been best friends since before they’d learned to walk and gone through every milestone together as they grew up. They were more like brothers really, sharing everything from sleeping bags to secrets.
Her relationship with Joshua had never been brotherly though, at least not that she could remember. Quite the opposite. She wasn’t sure exactly when it had happened, but for as long as she could remember she’d been in love with Joshua Bell. Even when the then teenaged Joshua had alternately ignored her or called her names for being just a kid that couldn’t keep up, she’d wanted to be good enough for him. Old enough. Pretty enough. Smart enough. Whatever it took. She’d spent every waking moment, and most of her time asleep, dreaming that her brother’s best friend would someday see her as more than just the annoying, tagalong little sister.
When he finally had, she’d thought all of her fantasies were coming true.
Joshua had been her first kiss. Her first boyfriend. And her first love. The problem was, she hadn’t been his.
Her relationship with Joshua had been warped from the start, only she’d been too young and far too naïve to know it. She’d been too caught up in the fantasy of him to realize that the real, flesh and blood man was no prince. She could still vividly remember the day that the blinders had come off her eyes and she’d seen the truth.
She knew the exact moment that she’d realized she wasn’t special to Joshua the way he was to her. That she never had been. She could remember what she’d been wearing when she finally understood that she was only a thing for him to possess, to use, to control, to show off. She could still feel the lingering heat of his hands on her and taste the blood in her mouth when she’d learned that she was nothing to the man that she’d made her everything.
She could remember exactly when she’d stopped loving Joshua Bell.
It hadn’t been the day she’d found him in their bed with another woman. No, that had happened later, much later, years later, but that day, in their home, in their bedroom, she’d finally found the means to an end. In the grand scheme of things, on a list of all that he’d put her through, cheating barely even ranked, but for her it had been the last straw.
He’d given her an easy way out, which was the kindest thing he’d done for her in years.
She’d taken it and she’d gotten away. She’d run away and she hadn’t looked back since. She’d let her family believe she’d ended things with Joshua because of his infidelity. It was easier that way. Easier to avoid her part in all of it. Easier to leave that other part of her behind and rebuild her life and herself without the heavy shadow of her past looming over her.
She’d created a good life for herself too. She had a good job. She had good friends. But still, the very thought of seeing Joshua again, being in the same place as him, standing beside him as her brother spoke vows about love and honor, made her regress back to that scared, timid girl afraid to step so much as a toe out of line for fear of Joshua’s reprisal.
“You do know staring at that invitation isn’t going to make it burst into flames, right?” Lemon Kelly strolled into the office and collapsed into an oversized chair, pulling Millie’s attention away from the sheet of cardstock.
Millie frowned when Lemon kicked her feet up, propping them on the edge of Millie’s desk, but she held her tongue. It might be Millie’s new desk, in Millie’s new office, but Lemon was still her boss. Even though she acted more like a bratty sister than an employer sometimes, it wasn’t Millie’s job to chastise her about not ruining the furniture in an office that Lemon basically paid for.
Before Lemon had moved back to her hometown of Fate, Texas permanently, Millie had worked out of Lemon’s home in Nashville as her personal assistant. Then her superstar boss had gone home to find herself and ended up finding the man of her dreams as well. Lemon had married Shane Lowry, became step-mom to his three daughters, and she spent as much time in Texas as she could these days.
But Millie’s life was in Nashville. Her family was here. Her life was here. She’d offered to move to Texas to continue working with Lemon because she loved her job and her boss but Lemon had refused and honestly, Millie had been relieved. Texas was great and all but Nashville was home.
It had been Lemon that insisted Millie remain in Tennessee and expand her personal assistant services into a full-blown agency. Lemon was the one that had rented Millie the office space and set her up with meetings for new clients that needed full-time assistance. When the number of clients and jobs had grown, it was Lemon that had urged Millie to hire on help so that she could manage her now thriving business instead of other people’s day-to-day duties.
