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Prologue
Jolie
“Ugh. Where am I?” I clawed the wet hair from my eyes and peered out between the dripping curls. I’d stumbled out of the rain into the refuge of what appeared to be an upscale restaurant lounge. Dark floors, thick slabs of wood and stone everywhere, massive plants and subdued lighting.
The storm blew the door shut behind me and the Instagram model at the hostess stand actually gasped at the sight of me.
“Uh, welcome to Black Bear Grille,” she said dubiously. She had a pretty Australian accent. A lot of the staff here in Whistler were Aussies; they came for the Canadian mountains during ski season. I was born just over an hour away in West Vancouver but I could’ve been an alien the way this Aussie was eying me. “Perhaps you’re looking for Filthy Joe’s?” she provided helpfully.
“And Filthy Joe’s would be…?”
“The burger truck parked in the lot at the end of the block,” she said, straight-faced.
I dabbed under my eyes. Did I lookthatbad? I’d just come from a beauty salon. “My mascara is running down my face, isn’t it.”
“Oh, it’s much worse than that, hon.”
Okay, I was gonna go ahead and believe her. About a minute ago, I was shuffling along the sidewalk in my spa slippers and the sky had ripped open, a torrential rain crashing down on me out of nowhere, because that was how my day was going. A dead car battery on the highway, an hour in a tow truck with an obnoxious tow truck driver, a soul sucking evening of forced “salon pampering,”my mother, and now this.
The door opened, wind and rain gusting in as someone stepped in behind me. The hostess stood up straighter, lifting her boobs in the direction of whoever it was.
“Good evening, sir,” she said breathily. “Welcome to Black Bear Grille.”
“I’ll just take a seat at the bar,” I told her when her eyes remained glued to “sir” behind me. “To wait out the storm. Should I seat myself?”
She almost gasped again as her eyes darted back to me. “Not like that.”
“You have a powder room, I assume? I’ll clean up.”
Her eyes raked down my PrinceWhen Doves CryT-shirt and wide-leg sweatpants. “We have a dress code.”
“But it’s pouring rain out there, and—”
“Darling,” a man rumbled behind me. “Aren’t you going to say hello?” His voice was as sultry and playful as it was rough.
I turned to find this guy looking at me. I made a squelched squeaking sound in my throat as I did a whiplash double take.Holy fucking hell.
Was he talking tome?
I was never prepared to cross paths with an attractive man, especially without any warning. And this fucker was tall, darkandhandsome. He wore a sleek but simple black blazer, black T-shirt and jeans, effortlessly beauti-fucking-ful. Everything about him screamed:expensive.And also:will fuck you in every sense of the word.
That last part was due to his luscious full lips, stunning pale-greenish eyes and thick whorls of dark “please grab on and let’s go for a ride” hair.
And the bruises. He had three of them on his face. Forehead, jaw, and a dark one that followed the curve of his left cheekbone.
He also had what looked like either a doozy of a hickey cluster or strangulation marks on his neck.
He held my eyes for way too long to be an accident.
Yup. He was talking to me.
I laughed nervously and turned hot pink. “Um. Hello?”
As his eyes slid down my body, the hot pink crept down from my face and sizzled across my senses like wildfire. He looked at my mushy, wet, dirty slippers and the bits of Kleenex that were stuffed between my toes to keep them spread apart while the turquoise nail polish dried.
That was what set Mom off at the salon: the nail polish color I chose. After that, it all spiraled downhill.
I turned back to the gaping hostess who was apparently dumbfounded that I might be seen in public withthatman while looking likethis. Which made two of us. I gathered my scattered brain cells to speak when his low, sultry voice said, “We’ll take your best table.”
