Trust Betrayed

By Rose C Carole and Cris Anson

Two tortured souls need each other to heal. One soulless villain vows to destroy them both.

 

To escape an abusive boyfriend, trauma nurse Vanessa flees to her late grandmother's cottage a hundred miles away. With new friends and a new job at a rural medical center, she struggles to overcome her PTSD and her distrust of men.

 

Building contractor Blake lives with crushing guilt. Scarred inside and out, he doesn't trust himself anymore. After the loss of his wife, he buried himself in work, avoiding friends and family and keeping his emotions buttoned up tight.

 

When they meet, Vanessa feels not pity, but empathy, on seeing Blake's burn-scarred face. Fascinated by the moody carpenter, she wants to learn more about him. And what better way than to have him work on updating the house she'd inherited from her grandmother. 

 

This cautious beginning blossoms as they reveal their inner fears and desires to each other. Can they let go of the past and find a future together?

 

But her former boyfriend wants her back and will stop at nothing to find her. In this deadly cat and mouse game, lives are at stake. And time is running out.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Crisrose Publishing
• Release date: Oct 29, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393563877

Book preview

Prologue

H ey man, good to see you here again. It’s been too long.

Blake nodded to Club Lucifer’s bartender and eased onto the bar stool. Yeah, he supposed it had been awhile. One year, three months, and fourteen days, to be exact.

One year, three months, and fourteen days, post-Mariel. The patch he’d stitched over the hole in his life threatened to unravel just by being here.

He ordered a bottle of Yuengling and swiveled on the stool, partly so his good ear was turned to the barkeep and partly so he could watch the floor. He picked out a few of the usuals—the violet wand expert plugged in against one wall, the wax-play guru in his own alcove with a bevy of groupies around him. Against the Saint Andrew’s cross, one of the Masters flogged his long-time slave/wife. The lovely brunette’s face wore an expression of unfocused bliss, the ecstasy of subspace—an expression Mariel had worn. He had to look away.

Too many memories.

What the fuck did he think he’d accomplish by coming here, re-opening old wounds and shattering his heart again? He lifted the bottle to his mouth and sucked down half the brew.

Did he think changing his routine would make him feel better? Go to work, go to sleep. Go to work, go to sleep.

At least attempt a night of uninterrupted sleep—eight hours free of the nightmares that jolted him awake a few times every night.

Shit!

He slammed the bottle down on the bar and stood, reaching for his wallet. Coming here was a mistake.

Blake DeMarco, it’s about time you showed your face around here.

Too late.

Seriously, Bro. Welcome back. His friend Yuri Demidov gave him a one-armed hug and looked him in the eye. You need any help, man, just ask for it, and you got it. Understand?

Thanks, Yuri. I will.

His friend gave his face a thorough once-over, checking out all the imperfections, the scars. You’re looking good. Any residual pain? Everything healed?

Healed? Yeah. Right. Fine. Skin’s just tight, that’s all. I’ve been pumping iron to get back into shape. He snorted. Although I suppose hauling slabs of black oak around all day helps a bit, too.

Yuri Demidov was one of the mainstays of Club Lucifer; his unparalleled skills with both flogger and whip made him a highly desirable player with bottoms, subs, and unattached slaves alike. His educational discussions and hands-on classes were in demand all up and down the East Coast.

Blake mourned the warm brotherhood and easy camaraderie of those days. Both had vanished from his life one year, three months, and fourteen days ago. It hurt him to remember the times they’d spent together, both with partners and as friends in everyday life.

Been some changes since you’ve been gone. Yuri slid into the empty stool next to Blake, all but forcing Blake to sit down again or be rude to one of the few men he counted as a friend.

Yeah? Such as?

They put in a couple of private rooms upstairs. That part of Club Lucifer is now a sex-positive arena, and if the doors are open, anyone can watch or join in. I don’t care how exhibitionistic they are, I hope they have enough sense not to use the play area down here for sex.

He upended the bottle and finished his beer.

Couple of new stations for rigging and such. Real sturdy. You’d approve of the workmanship. Eyebolts out the yin-yang for locking up a sub good and tight.

Might check it out sometime, he said, knowing it probably wasn’t going to happen any time soon.

You thinking about, you know, looking for a new partner here?

The cutting edge of panic crept around Blake’s heart and gave it a hefty squeeze. No. Not yet. Just getting my feet wet, so to speak. Easing back into it.

He was crazy, that’s what he was. Crazy for coming here. Panic threatened to take over. Hey, it was good to see you again, Yuri, but I’ve got to split. You take care now.

It took all his concentration to walk, not run, out of the building and back to his truck. He wasn’t ready for this. He might never be.

Chapter 1

Vanessa Prevost followed Carolyn, her new friend and co-worker, through the front door of the woman’s home after a hectic first week on the job. Not as grueling as what she’d left—trauma nurse in a big-city emergency room—but the small medical center in a rural area of central Bucks County, Pennsylvania, had its own heartaches.

Make yourself at home, Carolyn said as she tossed her satchel onto a shabby-chic loveseat in the living room.

Vanessa took in the toys scattered across the bare floors and blinked. She thought Carolyn had a child in college, but baby toys? Oh, a doggie dish. Right. She did remember Carolyn mentioning her fur baby, but the dish looked way too small for a monster named Cujo.

Carolyn must have seen her eyeing the toys. My neighbor keeps him during the day. She’ll be knocking on the back door soon. Meanwhile, let’s get a glass of wine. Red or white? I have a nice Malbec or a California chardonnay.

Malbec is good. Vanessa settled on a side chair covered in blue-flowered chintz and shucked off her sensible wedgie heels. Even though it was mid-June, she wore thigh-highs because the offices were kept fairly cool and she didn’t want to freeze her toes off.

Carolyn handed her a goblet filled with ruby liquid and she took her first sip of an alcoholic beverage since she’d moved a few weeks ago to Jamesville, more than a hundred miles and a thousand light-years from Baltimore and her horrific past.

So. Carolyn slid onto her loveseat and stretched out her legs. How’d it go for your first week? Got a handle on things?

Getting my bearings. Having eight-to-five hours makes quite a difference. Can’t remember when I’ve last had a weekend to myself.

What about the medical center?

Like night and day. MedStar Harbor Hospital was over fifty years old, crowded, no room for expansion. The Jamesville Medical Center is like a dream. All single-bed rooms, up-to-the-minute tech, I love it. It’s good to finally be in a management position. The RNs all seem competent and happy to be working here.

Why the move to Jamesville? Do you have any family in this area?

Vanessa hesitated, ambushed by unexpected grief, and she blinked back a tear. My grandmother died last year and left me her home. We were very close. I finally decided to move up here when this job opened up. Perfect timing to save her health—sanity, too —but she didn’t say it aloud.

Oh, I’m sorry for your loss, but as they say, when one door closes, another opens. I’m happy a door opened for you right here. You’re doing great work.

Just then they heard a knock, a Hellooo! and a loud, high-pitched yapping.

Oh, there’s my neighbor with Cujo. Carolyn jumped up and disappeared down the hall into the kitchen.

Tuning out their murmured conversation and the happy barks, Vanessa closed her eyes and sighed. This could work out. Her ex would never know to look for her here. He’d always called her a city girl, but her grandmother’s cottage held warm memories from when she and her sister had spent their childhood summers here, helping weed Grammy’s vegetable garden, watching the apples develop on the trees. The place needed lots of work, but she’d have weekends free to put sweat equity into making it a real home.

She must have dozed off, because a sudden jolt startled her awake. A wiggling, yapping ball of fur had landed on her lap. Paws climbed up her chest and a wet pink tongue flicked out to lick her cheek. Surprised into a laugh, Vanessa got her fingers around the middle of a white-and-tan furball and lifted it off her and onto the floor. Cujo? Couldn’t have weighed more than ten pounds.

It—he—danced on his hind legs, his front paws reaching for her knees, apparently wanting to climb back up onto her lap.

No, no, no, she said, louder than she’d meant to as she held him off, not on my stockings.

If you’d like, get down on the floor, Carolyn suggested. Then he won’t go for your legs. He just wants to play. He’s a Jack Russell terrier. They’re full of energy.

Looking dubiously at Cujo, she did, sitting on the carpet, knees up, arms ready to catch him if he tried to jump on her face. But Cujo just barked, joyfully, it seemed to her, and ran around her in jagged circles, darting onto her lap to lick her face, scampering away then veering back, licking again, his tail wagging furiously and tickling her skin, until Vanessa got into the rhythm of having the childlike kind of fun she hadn’t experienced in thirty years. Her laughter floated around the living room, and she abandoned herself to the joy of simply playing, her legs kicking with every new attack. Her joy changed to alarm when the pup sank his teeth through the front of her expensive silk blouse and began growling and worrying it back and forth. No! No! Stop it! No!

---

Blake had come to deliver the cheval mirror he’d promised his niece for making the Dean’s list both semesters. He knew he’d never get Carolyn off his case otherwise. He wanted to get in and out quickly, in no mood for one of her lectures. "Get over yourself. It is what it is," she’d say. Or worse yet, "You need to get laid." What the fuck did she know about what he needed?

He opened the front door, and the sweetest sound he’d heard in a long time greeted him. He set the mirror down in the hallway and stood there, drinking in the musical sounds. Delighted, carefree, female laughter wrapped itself around him, the incredible joy of it sweeping him back to a better time, a time before. He stood transfixed by the sound until Cujo’s incessant yapping yanked him out of his mesmerized state.

He took a step into the living room and blinked at the unexpected sight of a lushly curved woman sprawled out on his sister’s living room rug, the damn dog barking and dancing all around her. The woman’s gorgeous legs kicked up and around at random, bunching up her black skirt and exposing her lacy-top thigh-highs. He swallowed. What he wouldn’t give to have those legs wrapped around his neck… And if that’s the first place my imagination goes, maybe Carolyn is right. I do need to get laid. He mentally shook himself. Gotta get my mind back in the game. I’m still mourning Mariel.

Another step and he saw the entire woman, the mounds of her lush breasts softly outlined by the silky white blouse floating over her as she sprawled on the floor, playing with Cujo. Her curly hair framed her face in glorious shades of auburn. A ray of late-afternoon sun peeked out of a passing cloud and set her hair on fire.

At that moment, the little terrier snagged the hem of her blouse in its razor teeth and jerked it hard. The laughter stopped and her voice took on a tone of alarm.

No! No! Stop it! No!

He rushed into the room, knelt beside the woman, and grabbed the pooch by his scruff. Cujo, you little terror, what are you doing?

His arm brushed against her breasts, generating a jolt of awareness. It had been a long time since he’d felt the softness of a woman against any part of him.

Blake, what’s going on? I go to the kitchen for a minute and come back to this. What am I missing here?

He blinked. Carolyn loomed over him, her fists planted on her hips like a modern-day Colossus. Sheepishly, he realized the incongruity of the situation. One arm outstretched, holding a wiggling terrier by the scruff of his neck, he knelt over the stranger in his sister’s living room. The woman stared at him, her hazel eyes wide with—fear?

Cujo. He held up the dog to his sister with a reproving glare. He was mauling her shirt.

From his peripheral vision Blake saw the woman trying to inconspicuously cover those luscious legs with her skirt. He rose and backed away. It was probably prudent not to offer her a hand. Sorry. I thought you needed help. I’m sorry if I scared you.

It’s fine. I was just—nonplussed for a moment.

She rolled to her feet and shook out her skirt. Her spine straightened, her chin thrust out, and her gaze solidified into one of Don’t mess with me. Her eyes lingered on his face. He waited for the all-too-common reaction when someone first saw him—pity or revulsion.

Instead, she rose on her tiptoes, took his scarred face in her hands, and scrutinized every inch of his ugliness. Then she did something unprecedented.

She kissed his cheek. The scarred one.

I’m so sorry for your pain, she said, genuine sorrow flitting across her face. She stroked around the edges of the burn. He could feel her touch. Maybe not the same sensation as on the normal skin, but the gentle pressure of those fingers imparted—dare he think it—compassion. He mentally crumbled at her feet, his energy leaking from his body, a slight feeling of nausea coming in waves. He knew what she saw. Hell, he grimaced every time he looked in the mirror, and it was his god-damn face.

Starting just past his left nostril, extending to his ear and down his neck, fibrous ropes of scarred flesh hideously disfigured the left portion of his face. Half his ear had melted off, and rigid flesh twisted up the corner of one eye. Still, she wasn’t repulsed.

They did a good job, she said, still stroking his face, seemingly touching every millimeter of shriveled skin as if to impart life to it again.

He snorted. Yeah, right.

I worked as a trauma nurse in Baltimore for twelve years, she said mildly. I’ve seen good and not-so-good burn treatments. This is good. Do you still do the stretching exercises on your neck?

He opened his mouth. Nothing came out.

You should keep up with your physical therapy, even though you probably think it doesn’t help. Did you have the reconstruction done at the Jamesville hospital?

He blinked, looked at her mouth and saw it moving, but he didn’t hear the words. He didn’t think about the three surgeries he’d endured to graft skin from his thigh onto the raw meat of his face and neck. He saw only the moisture, the softness, the sexy curvature of that luscious mouth. He could drown himself there.

He leaned forward to … he didn’t know what. To kiss her? To thank her? To drink her in, to ravish her …

This stranger, this beautiful woman with fiery hair and burning eyes held his gaze, almost daring him to move closer. She leaned toward him just that infinitesimal millimeter—

Yet he couldn’t. It would be like thumbing his nose at Mariel. He didn’t deserve that kiss-that-almost-was. He took a step back.

So too, damn it, did she.

He didn’t blame her. A throat cleared. Carolyn. Blake, this is Vanessa Prevost, a new co-worker. Vanessa, this is my pesky younger brother, Blake DeMarco.

---

Vanessa extended her hand to the mountain of a man standing before her. Black hair fell over his forehead, almost covering deep chocolate brown eyes. The scars over the left side of his face did little to mar the noble look of his square jaw, high cheekbones, and aquiline nose, but furrows etched his brow, and anguish filled his beautiful dark eyes. She wanted to soothe his torment, to heal the hurt that seemed to envelop his soul.

He hesitated for a moment before he clasped her hand in a strong grasp. Though his lips curled up in a faint smile, it didn’t reach his eyes. Whatever horrible event had caused his injury, it had also stripped his life of joy.

Nice to meet you, Vanessa. He released her hand quickly, as though the contact was more than he could bear.

Vanessa stepped back in an effort to provide him the space he clearly needed. Nice to meet you too, Blake.

Would you like a beer? Carolyn interjected. We were just relaxing after a long week. She nodded at the two wine goblets sitting on the coffee table.

I don’t want to interrupt your good time. Blake edged in the direction of the door as he spoke. I just stopped by to drop off the mirror you wanted.

Oooh! Where is it? Carolyn exclaimed, clapping her hands.

It’s out in the front hall.

Carolyn followed Blake. Unable to contain her curiosity, Vanessa followed as well. They all stopped in front of a magnificent cheval mirror with exquisite carvings of horses prancing around the perimeter of the glass.

Oh my God, Blake, you did a fantastic job. Sissy is going to flip out!

You made this? Vanessa asked, her wonder at the masterful craftsmanship displayed in front of her seeping into her words.

A flush of red crawled up Blake’s face. Yeah.

Carolyn’s right. It’s incredible. Vanessa reached out and trailed her fingers over the horses. They’re so lifelike.

Sissy loves horses, so I wanted to include them in the design.

I’m sure she’ll love it. Vanessa stepped into her own reflection in the mirror. She was able to look Blake straight in the eyes without staring at him directly. He stood behind her, meeting her gaze, a fleeting look of desire crossing his face. But he schooled his features quickly, making her feel as though she might have imagined it.

I’m gonna go, Blake announced. Let me know when Sissy gets home.

Carolyn didn’t argue. Blake gave his sister a quick peck on the cheek, nodded to Vanessa and left, leaving an immediate void in the room.

C’mon, let’s go drink, Carolyn said, walking back toward the living room.

Vanessa watched Blake’s retreating form until he climbed into his truck. There was something about that man, something that called to her nurturing temperament, that made her want to help bring happiness back into his life. But just as the thought crossed her mind, panic gripped her. Could she get close to another man so soon, if ever?

You coming? Carolyn called, pulling her out of her thoughts.

Yes! Vanessa watched Blake’s truck disappear before she turned to the living room. One way or another, this man was going to insinuate himself into her life, she just knew it.

Chapter 2

W hat kind of voodoo did you use on Blake?

Vanessa’s concentration jerked away from juggling requests for vacation time by the nursing staff and the spreadsheet she’d been working on. "What are