Enthrall: Opposites Attract Series, #3

By Roxie Odell

At first opposites attract. Then opposites attack.

 

Both Emilia and Lucas realize the troubles they have been through up to this point were nothing compared to what is boiling over in Bonanza.

Their love goes back and forth, the fears they share constantly pulling them apart. Everything in Emilia's life is upside down, and all she wants is normal, but between her ex, the town sheriff, and her current love, Lucas, she can't keep her head from spinning.

Lucas is on a mission, not only to get Emilia once and for all, but to find in him what he had lost so many years before. What is coming may bring him to his knees. The small town of Bonanza doesn't seem so little anymore, and the threat they're facing is the deadly kind.

Mystery, love, lust, and danger swirl through Bonanza, but will Emilia and Lucas even live to see the end? Or will evil finally triumph over good?

 

Opposites Attract Series

Book 1 - Entrance

Book 2 - Allure

Book 3 - Enthrall

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dark Shadow Publishing
• Release date: May 2, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201261177

Roxie Odell

Steamy Romance author Roxie Odell brings you heat, steam and romance in her stories. Be ready to sweat! Find her on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RoxieOdell/?ref=hl Follow her newsletter: http://eepurl.com/b9G7JX Twitter @roxieodellauthor

Book preview

Find Roxie Odell:

Newsletter:

http://eepurl.com/bHD6Vr

Facebook Page:

https://www.facebook.com/RoxieOdell

C:\Users\wanitajump\Documents\aCoversNew2016\Logos\Roxie Odell Logo.png

Opposites Attract Series

Book 1 – Entrance

Book 2 – Allure

Book 3 – Enthrall

Note: Covers by BOOKCOVERBYDESIGN

Enthrall Blurb

AT FIRST OPPOSITES attract. Then opposites attack.

Both Emilia and Lucas realize the troubles they have been through up to this point were nothing compared to what is boiling over in Bonanza.

Their love goes back and forth, the fears they share constantly pulling them apart. Everything in Emilia’s life is upside down, and all she wants is normal, but between her ex, the town sheriff, and her current love, Lucas, she can’t keep her head from spinning.

Lucas is on a mission, not only to get Emilia once and for all, but to find in him what he had lost so many years before. What is coming may bring him to his knees. The small town of Bonanza doesn’t seem so little anymore, and the threat they’re facing is the deadly kind.

Mystery, love, lust, and danger swirl through Bonanza, but will Emilia and Lucas even live to see the end? Or will evil finally triumph over good?

Contents

Find Roxie Odell:

Opposites Attract Series

Enthrall Blurb

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Epilogue

COMING SOON

Opposites Attract Series

More by Roxie Odell:

Find Roxie Odell:

Chapter 1

Lucas

I THREW OPEN THE FRONT door and walked inside, feeling at the lowest point I could possibly feel in that moment. The demise and heartache throbbed through my chest, and I ached for another day with Emilia. The drive from the airport had been miserable, but walking into the empty house was even more so. I hadn’t been this low probably since I was a child, a childhood I had spent my time drowning out with money and women, a childhood that had crept back into my life and ruined everything for me. I couldn’t even bear to think about it all. Emilia was gone, just gone, and without even a goodbye or a reason. I had fucked up again, only this time, it had cost me the woman I loved.

I shook my head, realizing I was fooling myself if I didn’t think I knew why she had left. I had taken everything out on her, the one person who’d had my back no matter what. I had snapped at her, yelled at her, and left her all alone in an unfamiliar place. My job was to be there for her and with her, to grow together, but instead, I’d pushed her away at the first sign of trouble. It was probably all for the best anyway. Emilia was one of the sweetest and purest women I had ever met in my life. She didn’t have a mean bone in her body, and when she loved, she loved with everything she had. She had even told me she didn’t care about that dark past, that she wanted to judge the man I had become, yet I couldn’t let her love me. I had to push her away and make myself as miserable as possible.

After all those years, all the junkies I beat up, the women I’d let be abused, and the horrible things I did to take care of my family, I was finally getting what I deserved. I may have had good intentions when I was younger, but karma didn’t care about intentions. It cared about the actions I took and the harm I did to other people. Well, it had decided I’d had my fun at the top, and it was time for a little retribution, raining pain and suffering down on me and making sure to remind me at every turn that this was exactly what I had deserved.

As I stood looking out the window, I couldn’t help wondering where Emilia was at that moment and how she was feeling about everything. Just as the thought popped into my mind, I heard the elevator ding out in the hall. I turned and ran for the door, thinking that maybe, just maybe, Emilia had come back. She was coming back to give me another chance, to pursue a relationship we had been fighting for all along. Maybe karma wasn’t taking everything away after all. I hadn’t had such good luck lately, and I needed it to be Emilia standing on the other side of the door.

I grabbed the doorknob and threw open the door, a huge smile on my face. That smile quickly faded when I realized it wasn’t Emilia. Instead, my ex, Natasha, was standing on the other side, swinging her elevator key around in her hand. I’d forgotten to get the damn thing back when I had broken up with her. She was pretty much the last person I wanted to see, and I could tell by the sparkle in her eye that she had some sort of plan. Immediately, Natasha sprang forward, draping her arms around my neck.

Moya vozlyublennaya, she said, speaking Russian.

I’m not your sweetheart, I groaned, trying to pull her off me. What are you doing here, Natasha?

To see you, of course, she said, leaning in to kiss my lips but getting my cheek instead. What’s the matter? You aren’t feeling my love today?

Or any day, I said. We’ve gone over this about a hundred times, Natasha. I broke up with you, and surprise, I moved on. You need to leave that elevator key here with me.

I pulled her arms from around my neck and pushed her off me. I stepped back in the house but stood firm, not wanting her to come in. She pouted and batted her eyelids, not liking the rejection I was showing her.

You’re so stupid. She smiled. We’re meant to be together. You know it. You just won’t accept it. One day, when I’m gone, when I’ve moved on from you, you’ll realize that, and it will be too late for us. I will have forgotten all about you.

I think you should start doing that now, I said. The forgetting about me part.

You think you’re so innocent, that your new money and your big projects make you better than me in some way, she said. But I’m just like you, and you’re just like me.

I’m nothing like you, I barked. Or your father.

Don’t you see it? She walked forward. We work so well together because we understand life. We both know how cruel and unforgiving it can be. We both know there isn’t anything fair in this world. We realize that to make something happen, sometimes it takes a little action on our part. I may have come from money, but I knew all along where that money came from. I knew it was covered in scandal, in blood even sometimes. I knew there wasn’t anything honest about that money, not in the least, but I had to accept it and move forward.

You didn’t have to accept anything, I snorted.

And do what? she said. Put my father in prison like you chose to keep your father out of there too. The world isn’t a pretty place. We both can recognize that and understand it. We can push forward through all the bullshit and know that on the other end is exactly what we want. It takes guts, strength, and bravery to do that. Women like Emilia, they don’t know about that world. They will never know what it’s like to have to scrape your last bit of moral courage and throw it out the window if you ever want to make anything of yourself. I understand that, though, and so do you. That’s why we will always make a good couple. We can navigate the ugly parts of life and not let it get to us.

She smiled and leaned against the doorframe, crossing her silver stiletto over the other one. I stood there staring at her, thinking about the words she had spoken. For the first time since I’d met her, she actually said something worthwhile. She knew the world was cruel and unforgiving, and so did I. She knew what it felt like to lose everything and have to pull yourself up and keep fighting. She knew that no one in that life ever did you a favor without expecting something back. She was right. We had a lot in common, and we were similar in so many ways, but that didn’t really mean a lot to me. Just because we were similar didn’t mean we were meant to be together. If that were true, there would be a line of women I could be with, but I wanted love, not survival. I wanted to care about someone, to find myself in them, and all that Natasha ever did was suck the joy out of a man’s heart. She used them, bewitching them with her Russian eyes, and then left them dry.

I didn’t want a woman like her, someone who was so cold she could barely feel her heart anymore. The manipulation and the games were exhausting, and they were nothing close to what I wanted in my life. She wouldn’t know love if it hit her right in the face, and what she was doing there at my house was looking for a way to survive. Her father was in trouble, serious trouble, and when he was gone, she would be all alone, something she was not accustomed to or okay with. She was looking for me to take care of her, to give her all the things she wanted in life now that she was going to be alone in the world.

I can’t be with you, I said, shaking my head. I promise I never meant to lead you on, but I’m not ready to accept the world you described, the world you live in, as my reality. It’s cold and silent, and I’ve found something in my life that’s more than that. It’s the opposite of that in fact. I’m sorry you’re going through so much, but I can’t be that man for you anymore. You went down a path I don’t recognize, nor do I ever want to again. I turned my back on that world, the one full of lies, booze, and a lack of responsibility for the people around you. You never left that world, and I cannot be sucked back into it. You almost ruined me with your lies and your father’s deceit, something I still haven’t lived down. Everywhere I go, they ask about you and your lies, and I’m more than sick of it.

You’re such a naïve child, she said angrily. You think you’re better than me because of where your money came from. I’m here to tell you that you aren’t. You’re exactly the same as me and exactly the same as you’ve always been. You may wear nicer clothes now and live in a luxurious penthouse apartment, but you’re still that scared little boy, chasing things you can never have. Call me when you grow up and stop chasing the good girls who will only reject you in the end because you are, at the root, that same street thug you were when you were a child.

She shook her head and scoffed, throwing her nose up in the air and tossing the key to me. I watched as she turned around and stalked back into the elevator. I closed the front door and locked it, leaning my back against it for a moment. I thought about what she’d said, calling me just a boy, and figured that maybe she was right. Maybe everything that had happened in my life did nothing more than make me a well-dressed street thug who couldn’t get past the roots that were suffocating him on a daily basis. Emilia was too good for me. She always had been from the first time I’d met her. I knew that, and somewhere inside, I would bet Emilia knew that too. She was too good to be with a man with a past like I did, but she’d given in to it anyway, seeing beyond the past and hoping for a better future. She didn’t judge me or put me down, and that was one of the things I loved most about her. She was a genuine woman with terrible taste in men.

Regardless of whether I knew she was too good for me or not, it didn’t mean I was willing to give up on the idea of the two of us together. I cared about her too much and was drawn to her unlike any woman I had ever been with before. She enchanted me but, in a way, much differently than Natasha had. Emilia enchanted my heart, not just my cock or my need for acceptance. I knew I could be a better man for her, someone she deserved, someone who would always be there for her and with her. The only thing that stood in my way was wondering if I would ever be able to convince her of that fact. If I didn’t, all might be lost.

Chapter 2

Emilia

When my flight landed at the tiny Bonanza airport, Alison was there to pick me up. She greeted me with a huge hug and a smile, and we went straight back to the ranch. As I stepped out of the car, I took a deep breath of the fresh air and instantly started to feel a little better. I wanted to keep my head on straight so I could be there for Alison, and that was exactly what I did. I spent most of the night consoling Alison on the horses she almost lost and