Break Me (Corrupted Hearts Book 2)

  ALSO BY TIFFANY SNOW

  In His Shadow, The Tangled Ivy Series

  Shadow of a Doubt, The Tangled Ivy Series

  Out of the Shadows, The Tangled Ivy Series

  Power Play, The Risky Business Series

  Playing Dirty, The Risky Business Series

  Play to Win, The Risky Business Series

  No Turning Back, The Kathleen Turner Series

  Turn to Me, The Kathleen Turner Series

  Turning Point, The Kathleen Turner Series

  Out of Turn, The Kathleen Turner Series

  Point of No Return, The Kathleen Turner Series

  Blane’s Turn, The Kathleen Turner Series

  Kade’s Turn, The Kathleen Turner Series

  Blank Slate

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2017 Tiffany Snow

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Montlake Romance, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake Romance are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503943681

  ISBN-10: 1503943682

  Cover design by Eileen Carey

  For Jessica Poore.

  You make Montlake a family.

  CONTENTS

  C.H. 1

  C.H. 2

  C.H. 3

  C.H. 4

  C.H. 5

  C.H. 6

  C.H. 7

  C.H. 8

  C.H. 9

  C.H. 10

  C.H. 11

  C.H. 12

  C.H. 13

  C.H. 14

  C.H. 15

  C.H. 16

  C.H. 17

  C.H. 18

  C.H. 19

  C.H. 20

  C.H. 21

  C.H. 22

  C.H. 23

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  1

  O. M. G.

  I turned slowly in front of the full-length mirror.

  I looked fantastic!

  I smoothed the fitted bodice of my high-neck halter dress. Black satin wrapped around my neck, flowing into black-on-black horizontal stripes that ended just under my breasts. The fabric changed to a shimmery gold with vertical black stripes extending down the skirt. It was sleeveless and fit perfectly. The designer off Etsy who’d made it had done an incredible job. The light glinted off the subtle gold tones and the skirt flared in a perfect bell to my ankles.

  The doorbell rang and I nervously adjusted my hat, turning it slightly until it was just right. Tugging on silver gloves that went past my elbow and halfway up my arm, I then slipped on a pair of matching gold ballet slipper flats and hurried through the living room to the front door, swinging it open just as the bell rang again.

  “Happy Hallo—” My voice trailed away in dismay. “What are you wearing?” I blurted.

  Jackson Cooper—my erstwhile boss and current boyfriend—stood in my doorway, eyeing me with the same look of shock that I was sure was on my face.

  “I’m wearing a tux,” he said, gesturing to his attire—a gorgeous black tuxedo with a blindingly white shirt, perfectly tied bow tie, and black shoes that shone even in the dim light. “What the hell are you wearing?”

  “A dress,” I said, maybe a little defensively. Okay, a lot defensively. I was starting to be a bit concerned that I’d misinterpreted what Jackson had meant when I’d asked what kind of party we were going to on Halloween. “I’m a dalek.”

  “I can see that,” he said, gesturing to my hat, a gold dome complete with knobs and eye stalk. “But why are you dressed as a dalek?”

  “It’s a Halloween party, isn’t it? I asked you and you said, ‘Yes, it’ll be fancy, so dress up.’ That’s what I did.”

  “China . . .”

  That’s me. China Mack. Well, sort of. Mack was a shortened version of my middle name—Mackenzie—not my real last name, which was so long it had proven unpronounceable by 99 percent of the people who tried. In school, I’d never been able to fit my whole name in those little bubbles on standardized tests. Not that I’d had to take many of those. Once my IQ was measured at one hundred seventy-five—genius range—I’d never taken another one of those tests. Instead, I’d been fast-tracked and had graduated MIT at the age of nineteen with two undergrad degrees in computer science and biological engineering plus a master’s in engineering. That was four years ago.

  Jackson passed a hand over his eyes while I bit my lip, awkwardly switching the wire whisk I was holding to the other hand. The gold, palm-sized, half-moon-shaped balls attached up and down the length of my skirt banged against the door as I stepped back. The noise made me wince, as did Jackson’s sigh.

  “You do that a lot,” I said.

  “I do what a lot?”

  “Sigh.” He said nothing, so I continued. “I mean, it’s perfectly natural. Your body even requires sighing. When a person needs a breathing machine, sighs have to be programmed into the ventilator or the patient will suffer from oxygen deprivation.”

  His lips twitched. “Is that so?”

  I nodded . . . and my hat slid off. Jackson caught it neatly before it hit the floor. “Thanks,” I said, taking it from him. The two little knobs on the side looked a little like Shrek to me, but it went with the costume. “I guess I should go change.”

  “Probably a good idea.”

  “This’ll make a great cosplay costume for ComicCon, though,” I said, turning my back to him. “Unzip me?”

  “Mmmm . . . yes, please . . .” This was followed by the slow lowering of my zipper and the touch of Jackson’s lips to the back of my neck. Suddenly I wasn’t sorry at all that I needed to change.

  Twenty minutes later, Jackson was buttoning his shirt and tucking the tails back into his slacks while I stood in front of my closet clad in my favorite Victoria’s Secret Dream Angels panty and bra set in dove-gray lace with white trim. Hands on hips, I surveyed my clothing.

  “I have a problem.”

  “Just one?”

  I wasn’t the best at inferring whether someone was joking or not—one of my many social inadequacies—so I turned to glance at Jackson. He was grinning at me and looking too sexy for a man who’d just given me three orgasms in a row. But the smile meant he was teasing.

  “Yes, just one at the moment, but it’s a big one.” I gestured to my clothes. “I don’t have anything to wear.”

  “Surely you have a dress, a skirt, something,” he said.

  I shook my head. “I own a TARDIS dress, a Star Trek—the Original Series—Uhura minidress, and Princess Éowyn’s wedding gown from Return of the King.”

  “If you own Princess Leia’s metal bikini, we’re skipping the party.”

  “That chafes,” I said absently, turning around to poke through my closet again. Did I have anything in the back that I’d forgotten?

  “We’ll revisit that later,” he said. “What about Mia?”

  “She’s out at a friend’s house,” I replied. “What about her?” I failed to see how my niece’s presence would alleviate my problem.

  “I meant, what about her clothes?” Jackson asked. “You two are about the same size. She probably has something you can wear.”

  I gave Jackson a look. “She wears like a size two. Besides, I can’t just go wear someone else’s clothes. Not only is it
rude, it’s unsanitary.”

  “I’m sure she washes her clothes,” he said, reaching for my hand.

  “But she washes her yoga pants with her fleece,” I protested, obediently letting him lead me to my niece’s bedroom, which used to be my storage room before she moved in a couple of months ago.

  “So?”

  “So . . . everyone knows that if you wash fleece with something stretchy, lint becomes forever embedded in the stretchy fabric. She should wash her yoga pants with other stretchy workout wear, though why she wears workout clothes just to sit on the couch and watch television is beyond me.”

  Jackson opened Mia’s closet and began searching through it. Selecting a garment, he pulled it out and held it up in front of me. “That should work.”

  I looked down. “But it’s really short . . .” As in miniskirt short.

  “Yes.”

  “It’s October. I’ll freeze.”

  “No, you won’t. I’ll keep you warm.”

  I opened my mouth to tell him he couldn’t physically fulfill such a promise, but the look in his eye and the set of his jaw told me his patience might be wearing thin. I took the dress.

  “Okay.” I unzipped it, stepped in, and pulled the black fabric up my legs, shimmying to get it over my hips. “She shouldn’t even own a dress like this. She’s only fifteen.”

  “Kids nowadays,” Jackson said, and I was glad to see him smiling slightly again.

  I pushed my arms through the holes and turned around so he could zip me. “It barely covers my . . . tush.”

  “Your tush?” he teased with a laugh.

  “Well, what else are you supposed to call it? Butt sounds vulgar. Ass is worse. Rear sounds like I’m a granny.” I looked over my shoulder at him. “What do you call it?”

  His hand settled on the body part in question and squeezed. “I call it awesome,” he said softly, his lips by my ear.

  Though he hadn’t really answered my question, I wasn’t dumb enough not to appreciate a heartfelt compliment on my . . . “Posterior?” I tested out. Jackson just laughed.

  “That’s even worse. Come on. Let’s go.”

  I had to change my shoes and ended up wearing black Converse sneakers because I didn’t own anything other than tennis shoes. I’d shopped specially for the gold flats for my dalek dress, which I didn’t think went with the black dress I was now wearing. I wasn’t a fashion maven, but it made sense that my shoe color should match my dress.

  Jackson looked me up and down, making me do a twofer of my nervous tics: push my glasses up my nose and tighten my ponytail. My hair was so thick and long that I almost always wore it up just to keep it out of my way.

  “Well? Will this do?” I asked, though since he’d picked out the dress, he had only himself to blame if I still wasn’t dressed appropriately.

  The corner of his mouth lifted in a half smile. “It’s perfect.”

  “I still think it’s pointless to have a Halloween party that you can’t dress in costume for,” I grumbled, pulling my coat out of the closet.

  “I’ll take that under advisement.”

  The house where he took me was too huge to be called a mere home. Three stories with towering columns in front, it hearkened back to the days of Southern belles and mint juleps, elaborate even by Raleigh, North Carolina standards. A valet greeted us when we pulled up and took the car keys from Jackson.

  “Whose house is this again?” I asked as we ascended the stairs to the front door. Lights sparkled at the windows and I could hear music inside as well as voices, talking and laughing.

  “My erstwhile business partner,” he said, taking my hand. “Philip Jacobs. He was the principal investor for my first company, SocialSpeak.”

  SocialSpeak, the social networking website and app that Jackson had built. Two years after it had become common parlance and boasted a user base of nearly a billion people, he’d sold it for a cool $2.1 billion.

  “So you have a lot to thank him for,” I said.

  “It goes both ways. He was rich before and he’s even richer now, because of me.”

  Something in Jackson’s voice was different and I frowned as I glanced up at him. His lips were pressed together and his jaw was set in a grim line. “He wasn’t happy you made him richer?” I asked.

  “He didn’t want to sell. I did and I had controlling interest. I wanted to get the capital for Cysnet. SocialSpeak was never anything more to me than a way to make money. Philip saw it as a lot more than that.”

  “If there’s bad blood between you two, then why are we going to his party?” I asked as we stopped in front of the door.

  “Because it was just business. He’s a businessman, first and foremost. We’re still friends, despite our differences.”

  I was distracted from asking anything more about Philip because the door swung open to reveal a butler. Looming over us, he had to be more than six five, his square head twice the size of mine. His eyes were deep set with thick black eyebrows, and his salt-and-pepper hair was combed straight down over his forehead.

  “Good evening, Mr. Cooper,” he intoned, his voice resonating through the foyer. He didn’t smile. I wasn’t sure he even knew how. “Please come in.”

  I stared up at him, openmouthed, my feet rooted to the floor.

  “Thank you, Ruskin,” Jackson replied, dragging me past the butler. I craned my neck around Jackson to keep my eyes on the giant.

  “You said it wasn’t a costume party,” I hissed to Jackson.

  “He always looks like that,” he replied.

  “He always looks like Lurch?”

  “Yep.”

  And people said I was weird.

  The mansion had its own ballroom and I was again reminded of antebellum balls as an orchestra played while dancers swirled around the polished marble floor. I felt immediately underdressed as I took in the long gowns and high heels adorning the women who passed. Their hairdos were upswept and they wore more than a handful of diamonds and other glittering gems.

  “How long do we have to stay?” I asked, tugging at the hem of my dress. Crowds weren’t my thing. People weren’t either, generally speaking. Computers were so much easier.

  “We just got here. You want to leave already? I thought you’d enjoy going out for a change.” Taking my hand, he threaded my arm through his and led me toward the bar set up in one corner.

  “I like staying in. Friday night is old movie night.” I was a creature of habit—deeply ingrained habits—that kept me feeling in control even when so much was beyond my control. I liked knowing what to expect. Surprises weren’t in my vocabulary.

  “Lots of people go out on Halloween,” he replied. “Think of it as an expected societal convention. Either this . . . or stay at home and hand out candy to strangers all night.”

  I frowned. He had a point, damn it. Those little shits hit up my neighborhood hard, too.

  “A glass of chardonnay and a Glenfiddich 15 on the rocks,” he told the bartender. He handed me the wine. “Time to put on a smile and pretend to have fun.”

  I obediently stretched my lips into my best fake smile, which wasn’t very good. Jackson grimaced.

  “We’ve got to work on that,” he teased. I stuck my tongue out at him, which I should’ve thought better of because his eyes immediately darkened and I knew his thoughts had jumped straight into the gutter.

  I pointed a finger at him. “I’m not having sex with you in a closet here.”

  “Their bathrooms are really spacious.”

  “Eww. No.” I sipped my wine, enjoying our banter. Jackson was so easy to talk to. He “got” me, all my weird hang-ups and quirks included. It also didn’t hurt that the sex was fantastic. I once had told him we must have what was referred to in common parlance as chemistry.

  “We’ve got chemistry, physics, and fucking biology,” he’d replied before kissing me.

  Although I’d wanted to correct him, I’d realized in the nick of time that he’d been giving me a hyperbolic compliment
, plus an endearment. So I’d concentrated on the kissing rather than grammatical interpretations of physical attraction.

  Just then, Jackson reached out and tugged me toward him, turning me and sliding his arm behind my back, nestling me into his side. A flash went off, blinding me, then three more in rapid succession.

  “Thank you, Mr. Cooper.” Two photographers with cameras that looked more complex than necessary for this day and age moved on, talking to one another and scanning the crowd for what I assumed were more famous faces.

  “What the heck was that?” I blurted, blinking to get the black spots out of my vision.

  “Just the press, society pages, that sort of thing,” he said. “It happens sometimes.”

  Oh yeah. Jackson’s multiyear achievement of gracing Forbes Ten Most Eligible Billionaires list meant people liked to see what fortune-hunter model he was currently dating. Except I fell into neither the “fortune hunter” nor “model” categories.

  “No one’s taken our picture before,” I said.

  “We’ve yet to be somewhere very public.”

  “We eat Thai every Wednesday.”

  “Carryout.”

  I had no retort, so I took another sip of wine. Okay, maybe more of a gulp than a delicate sip. I’d seen the women Jackson had been with before: Victoria’s Secret Angel, a tennis pro, a Hollywood starlet.

  “What are the papers going to say about me?” I asked quietly, watching the couples swirl past us. The music floated through the air, the chandeliers were down low . . . aesthetically speaking, it was very romantic in the cliché popularized version of the term. But I also found that I liked it. And I liked being there with Jackson. His arm was warm and solid against my back.

  “It doesn’t matter what they say. They always vilify whoever I’m with. Just ignore them.”

  Awesome. “I thought I’d left public ridicule behind with high school.”

  “Society pages are Mean Girls on steroids.”

  Ruskin-the-scary-butler approached before I could note how impressive it was that Jackson had seen the chick flick Mean Girls. “Mr. Cooper,” he said with grave importance. “Mr. Jacobs would like to speak to you in the library. Will you follow me?”

  “Of course.”