Didn’t they know?She was never going to see them again.
She needed everything they had given her because her ex-husband, the lying, treacherous, vile thieving bastard, had just been released from prison after only serving three years when he should have been kept there for the next twenty years at least.Her divorce was only finalized a week ago.
It wasn’t a marriage based on even the slightest amount of attraction on her part.He wasn’t her type.She didn’t even have a type, but if she did, the lecherous, cowardly, oily type that was him, was not it.
He had tricked her into marrying him, telling her he would return something he had taken that belonged to her; something she held dearer than anything else in her life, more important than all her money put together.
It had been sheer good luck that he got arrested the day after he presented her with a marriage license he had forged, but she was still legally bound to uphold it because he was a snake of the worst kind.
And still, he refused to give her what belonged to her.Now he was out, seventeen years earlier than expected, and it was clear he had found the right corrupt people in power to release him.
She didn’t want to have anything to do with him.If she saw him again, she wouldn’t hesitate to decapitate him.
But this, here in this hotel room with these three strangers, this was never going to happen again.It was their first and last time, despite the promises they kept making about the next time.
She needed to get rid of her virginity and they sufficed.All three of them.
Now she was ready to be alone for the rest of her life.
Chapter Seven
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She had to stop thinkingabout them, Adrienne told herself for the hundredth time.Granted, it had only been a few hours since they turned her world upside down.
She hadn’t slept, hadn’t eaten, and hadn’t stopped thinking about them at all.Which also implied that now was as good a time as ever to pack up and leave the city.As in, right this minute.
Her father owned a tiny little cabin deep in the Adirondack Mountains.No one knew he owned it.It was his private place to go and think.He had gifted it to Adrienne to do the same when she needed to solve a problem or just unwind.
Before she lost her nerve, she called the office and told her PA, Sarah Bates, to inform everyone that the company was closing for two weeks.Her motto was simple.When she was on vacation, her staff was on vacation.It’s the only way she could truly relax.
She was giving herself two weeks to get a feel for it before she made the final leap to selling her companies and going off-grid.For good.
She packed a few bags, got some supplies, gathered up all the fresh vegetables from her fridge then loaded her car, and was just about to set off when her phone rang.
Her stomach knotted immediately at the sight of the caller ID.Peter Walkman.He was the DA who had been instrumental in putting Desmond Morton away.She wondered if he knew what Desmond had done to get his sentence so significantly reduced that he only served three years.
She rubbed her arms to get some warmth into her system.Desmond always had the ability to make her feel ice-cold and repulsed.
“Adrienne, I had no idea,” Peter said immediately.“This comes right from the top.We’re thinking blackmail is involved, or else how did he just get to walk out of prison in broad daylight?Are you okay?"Peter asked, his voice rife with concern.
After Desmond’s case, for which he was sentenced for racketeering, extortion, kidnapping, and worst of it all, human trafficking, Peter Walkman had put on his best suit, meaning one that actually fitted him properly, and asked her out.She accepted the invitation to dinner as a new acquaintance and made that abundantly clear to him.
God, she had been so stupid back then.She didn’t know anything about Desmond’s criminal activities—she’d been too sheltered to know that men like him existed.She’d puked her guts out throughout his trial as she listened to the things he’d been involved in.He was the scum of the earth.He violently raped women and sold their children.
She’d been twenty-four when he approached her, hadn't stopped crying since the death of her father a week before.
She shuddered to think what would have happened to her if he hadn’t been sent to prison.If she had to be his wife, in person.
“I’m perfectly fine, Peter.”
“Adrienne, listen to me.You need protection.I’m not taking any chances.The man is obsessed with you.You’re the only reason he’s out.He’s been talking about coming toclaimyou again.Your divorce is probably what prompted him to get out in the first place.”
Adrienne pinched the bridge of her nose, a tsunami of a headache threatening to burst from her eye sockets.
Desmond was supposed to leave her alone, dammit.They were divorced.But she had been subconsciously expecting him to show up.He thought he had her right where he wanted her.He was wrong.But she couldn’t deny that the main reason she was packed and ready to leave and go hide out in her father’s cabin was because of him, no matter how brave and unbothered she pretended to be about his release.
She had given herself twenty years of freedom—the length of his prison sentence—before she thought she would have to deal with him on the off chance he still wanted to come after her.
