Chapter One
Penny Lomax
Once upon a time, there was a woman, a quite unremarkable woman, with only one notable attribute—her desire and ability to write. Filled with emotion, her words captured audiences everywhere, creating voracious readers all around the world. Her career boomed, books flying off the shelves, film producers calling from Los Angeles in the middle of the night, pitching their plans to turn her latest bestseller into tomorrow’s Oscar-nominated success. It was a fairy tale—everything she’d dreamed about and more—and like all fairy tales, this woman needed a man.
Jackson had been that man. The tall, brooding hero who’d swept into the woman’s life and mesmerized her. He became the inspiration for her next conquering protagonist and the one after that. Everything was good.
I had been that woman. It was my stellar writing career, and Jackson had been my man, but as it turned out, there was to be no happy ending for our tale.
Staring into the milky twilight, my mind wandered to the rights and wrongs of our split, analyzing them for the four millionth time.
Why had things gone sour? Was it my fault?
I swallowed at the troubling questions, perusing them instead of the matters that should have held my attention—the overdue manuscript on the screen in front of me with no ending, the pile of letters which needed to be read, or contracts to be signed and bills to be paid. Those were the things that should be important, not the other things.
Painful things.
Memories that stung.
The final image of Jackson as he stalked out of the house, the way his face distorted from the anger that devoured him, the insults he’d flung like knives, slicing into my skin. Wounds which left scars—even now.
I sighed, denying the hot tears pricking in my eyes at the recollections. It had been a year, damnit! One whole year—plenty of time to come to terms with the loss of Jackson. Plenty of time to get my life on track, and I’d tried. God knew I had. Day after day, I sat in this study, churning out my books, but my stories had grown stale, my heroes vacant, their words empty. It was impossible, apparently, to sell a convincing romance when your heart had been ripped out. Hard to believe in happily ever after when you were bereaved.
Recently, things had grown even harder. It wasn’t that I had writer’s block. Fortunately for me, the dreaded block had never been an issue. I had characters screaming to be heard, each fighting for focus, but in the last few months, I couldn’t seem to finish anything. It was as though the ending of every tale eluded me—each conclusion just out of my reach. I’d wake at night—when I could sleep—with the genesis for the finale in my mind, but as soon as I reached for my notebook, it faded. Like the sunshine faded from my window, knowing the night would come to take it away, the completion of each new book I wrote evaded me.
Every new book was taunting, mocking me as I sat at my desk.
I was stuck in a rut.
I needed those endings. I needed to move forward, but I couldn’t keep beginning new tales without finishing the last ones. It was a pointless and futile endeavor to create art I’d never complete, and my constant failure was eating away at what little self-confidence remained. Jackson had taken the first chunk, ripping away my self-assurance as he sped off, and the long, agonizing nights on my own in the months since had tainted the remainder, but now, this inability to finish anything was robbing me of something more fundamental.
Writing was what I loved, what I was good at. It had always come naturally, and this oppressive obstacle was hitting me where it hurt. My self-belief was in tatters, just like my word count and my sales. It was like a poison that got into my water supply, and everything it touched was toxic. Sure, I had the big house, the product of my many successful series. The garage was full of fast cars, I no longer had the passion to drive, and the blue, alluring pool, but it seemed empty, no longer so appealing since I had no one to share it with.
There was no denying it.
Life had lost its gloss without Jackson, but it had become unbearable without my work. I had a stack of books waiting for their endings. Heroes and heroines gazing into each other’s eyes, waiting to clasp hands and walk into the sunset, but apparently, I had neither the inclination nor the ability to give them that thing they yearned for.
I was a romance writer without love, an artist without inspiration, and a writer without a muse was done for.
I was cursed.
Swallowing back on the frustrated fear threatening to consume me, I pushed away from my desk and stalked across the large study to flick on the lamp. The old-fashioned piece flooded the area in pale, sickly light, and my brow furrowed. There had been a time I’d loved the lamp with all my heart. I recalled the day I’d chosen it with Jackson, like most of the furniture in the house. Each piece had sentimental value, the memory of the conception flitting into my mind like the haunting scenes of a black-and-white movie. But then, that was the problem with this whole place. The eight-bedroom, Tudor-style mansion had been Jackson’s choice. He’d fallen in love with it at first sight, and like a lovestruck fool, I’d given into him, purchasing the property after only one viewing.
Don’t get me wrong. Initially, it had been incredible. Its beamed features and large, open galleried staircase were the stuff of dreams—the kind of places I penned into my novels—but after he left, it all changed. Now the house was a relic, a testament to the love I had lost, and everywhere I looked, there were ghosts of another time. The smiling face of Jackson as he sat by the fireplace, the image of his fine body, stretched out on a lounger by the pool in the sunshine, or the way he’d ravished me in the master bedroom. Those scenes had been the origin of a thousand new words for my pen name. P.J. King. Each gentle caress of his hand, the beginning of a new chapter, each kiss, the climax of another tale, and now, without those muses, I was only that unremarkable girl again.
Just Penny Lomax.
Doomed to wander the empty hallways of the house forever and never conclude another single story. Destined to live up to the inconspicuous fate, which had once been hers. The fate Jackson had snatched her from all those years ago.
It wasn’t success that had made me happy. Becoming an international bestseller had been wonderful, more than I’d ever dreamed about, but it had never kept me warm at night. It hadn’t held me when I cried or ripped pleasure from my body when I was bound to the king-sized four-poster bed upstairs. Money bought choices, but nothing more, and while my bank balance increased, so did the loneliness—the sense of meaninglessness.
The feeling of being lost in life.
I was definitely only Penny.
Condemned to this futile existence.
Meant for nothing but an ordinary life.
A life without Jackson—without anyone.
A life without love.
Chapter Two
Lucien
Penny Lomax was a tormented soul, or at least she liked to think she was, but in reality, Penny didn’t know what real torment was.
Not yet.
But she would.
Lost and lonely, she wandered the halls of her vast house like a restless spirit, as if she was expecting to see a different view in every cobweb-sheathed room. Like the fabled Miss Havisham, she ceased to inhabit most of the property, using only the study and bedroom, for the most part, wiling away the hours in front of the white, unblinking screen, which seemed to enthral her so much. It was tragic to watch in many ways. Pathetic to see such a capable mortal crumble, but I’d born witness to it, nonetheless, surveying her increasing daily doom with growing pleasure. The lower she fell, the higher I rose. When I’d first stumbled across Penny, she’d been intriguing, but nothing more. Successful and devoted to her then feeble man, Jackson, she’d been content to live out her days in the splendid isolation the large abode provided, but over time, things changed.