Surrender A Section 8 Novel - By Stephanie Tyler Page 0,13
Powell’s daughter was a brilliant plan on paper. In the flesh, harder than Dare had thought. He’d done worse things in his career—many of them—but this felt right and wrong all at once.
Grace Powell could be his salvation or his undoing. Or both.
No matter. Moving forward was the only option. He slopped through the mud and went to her, knowing his father would hate him for doing this. But for the first time in his life, he didn’t give a damn about what Darius would think.
And while she struggled, she didn’t seem all that surprised.
He grabbed her from behind, pulled her tight against him. A hand over her mouth, another around her waist, and she fought as he carried her to his truck.
She wouldn’t stop fighting.
The garden. She smelled like gardenias long after they’d left her garden. He nearly buried his nose in her hair because the smell drove him crazy, over the edge, out of control.
Goddamn, this had been a mistake. He’d let himself go too long without a woman. This was simple lust.
Keep lying to yourself.
She wore a small cross-body bag, as if she’d been expecting to go somewhere. She shifted against the bindings he’d purposely made tight so she’d hate him. So she’d spit on him, stop staring at him like . . .
Like he was more than her captor.
“What’s your name?” he asked, even though he knew.
She eyed him coolly, and when she spoke, her voice was laden with both honey and steel. “You should just call me leverage.”
* * *
The man who’d approached her had fire in his eyes and looked at her like she was prey. Right before he’d put her in the car, Grace had spoken one final time.
“I don’t know anything about my father’s business,” she lied carefully, because he’d know.
“You are your father’s business. That’s enough for me.”
“What did he do to you?”
His eyes had glittered. “He tried to kill me.”
She’d wanted to say, Me too, but she didn’t have the strength. Dare wouldn’t believe her anyway.
She’d spent the day helping one woman gather the strength to press charges against her abusive husband. By the time she’d convinced her, helped her get into the car with Marnie to go to the police station, the tension headache had gotten worse. She’d popped several Motrin and kept going, processing another intake on a woman who needed Marnie’s help.
By the time she’d gotten home, she hadn’t wanted to go into the house, the one she’d built so lovingly—her sanctuary.
It was ultimately what would ruin her, her own fault. And so she’d stayed outside in the garden, until the rain came and the pain in her head receded.
Until Dare came and grabbed her.
White knight or black king . . . it was too early to tell. What wasn’t too early to tell was that she wouldn’t be able to live in her house again.
She’d miss her garden the most, didn’t believe for a second she’d be allowed to go back and tend to it. No, she’d been found and she’d have to let the house, and everything in it, go.
The garden was brimming—August was the time to start picking and freezing the herbs before they withered in the brutal heat and humidity that oppressed everything it touched.
She had been studying this forever, learned a kind of practical magic from her mother. It was a way to keep her close, since she’d left the private island when Grace was twelve. Grace’s last memory was of the helicopter rising above the house.
She’d had no idea that the last time she saw her mother would be the last time.
Don’t go there, she warned herself harshly. This wasn’t a time to show weakness, despite how very weak she felt at the moment. Soaked to the skin, she tried not to shiver, bit down fiercely on the inside of her cheeks to stop her teeth from chattering as Dare led her from the truck into the house she knew as Darius’s.
The last time she’d been here, it had been on another hot summer’s day and she’d been reluctantly saying good-bye to Darius and Adele. Excited to start her new life, hating the fact that it would include moving around the country every six months for her own safety . . . and yet, two years had passed since that day and she was still here, in the Louisiana bayou, hoping the destruction and natural wildness of the place would shield her from evil.