All she needed was a job…
The last thing twenty-four year old grad student Angie
Roberts needs is to worry about her new boss’s father. After all, she’s never
even seen him. He remains sequestered upstairs in a house that looks like it
should be the main feature in an episode of Hoarders. She had no idea the house
was such a dump when she took the job. But she’s concerned about the safety and
health of the old man living under such horrid conditions.
What she got was a mystery…
Despite warnings not to venture upstairs, she wanders up to
the second floor. What she sees is shocking. The man she finds is a gorgeous,
sexy, middle-aged man-- and he's stepping out of the shower. But something is
definitely not right. Why would this wealthy, handsome man live in a house in
such disrepair while his nine-teen year old son resides in a lavish penthouse?
Why does he hide away from society? Why does he come to her rescue and then run
away?
What she discovered was
heartbreaking…
Angie learns that forty-four year old Grayson Whitmore
suffers from schizophrenia. Paranoid, he retreats into his own world.
What she ended up with was a
treasure…
Angie is determined to get through to him. They form a
friendship that blazes into an inconceivable love fired with erotic passion.
Angie must now come to Grayson’s rescue because the wicked that has been
perpetrated on him is unconscionable. First, though, she must gain the trust of
a man whose mind does not allow for such a thing.
Early Sunday morning, I crawled out of bed in search of
Grayson. I discovered him upstairs in the room with the books. They were piled
all around him as he scratched at something on the floor with an old shovel.
The room was saturated with an early morning chill, so thick I could feel it
seeping through my skin. I hugged my torso, scrubbing my palms up and down my
arms. I approached him hesitantly and asked what he was doing. My heart was in
my throat because I never knew what to expect with Grayson. He stopped and
leaned against the handle, his cloudy gaze finding my face. He was fully
dressed. He must have gotten dressed again after we’d made love
earlier.
“Digging,” he acknowledged casually. “Digging a
trap.”
I swallowed hard, emotion stacking like bricks in my chest.
I shook my head, my mind grasping for purchase, trying to understand. “A trap
for what, Grayson?”
“Danger. I have to be prepared. I have to protect
us.”
I reached out a hand, trying to keep it steady. “You’re
safe, Grayson.”
His gaze shifted to my proffered hand, but he didn’t move.
He didn’t believe me. Fear and skepticism drew a roadmap of worry on his face.
His jaw squared and he tightened his lips into a brittle line. I watched his
body uncurl as he grabbed the shovel and silently started scraping at the floor
again. That’s when I saw it. There was a large, jagged crater in the dusty wood
that must have been covered up by the scattered books. It was directly over the
small cracks I’d seen in the ceiling downstairs, the network of spider veins
I’d noticed soon after starting here. I wondered how long he’d been working at
this trap. I could already see exposed beams and fluffy insulation. If he kept
this up, eventually he’d put a hole right through the wood floor.
“Go back to bed, Angie.”
“I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying with you, Grayson,” I
said sternly, plopping myself down on the floor next to
him.
He stopped again and stared at me, his blue eyes almost
cobalt in the gray dawn. His hair was a loose mane framing his face, giving him
an unruly look. “You’ll be tired. You haven’t gotten much sleep.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, hurting, thinking of the reason I’d
been up most of the night. We’d held each other, made exquisite love, bathed in
a temporary utopia where I could pretend he was okay.
But Grayson wasn’t okay, and as I spent more time with him,
I realized the extent of his fractured thoughts. My Grayson was funny and
brilliant. My Grayson was tender and passionate. My Grayson could melt my heart
with the tiniest smile. But this man, too, was my Grayson, a man who was sometimes
out of touch with reality, who lived in the distorted world concocted by his
brain. It was a world of doubt, fear, and distrust.
Lisa Eugene began writing as a way to mentally escape from
the hectic medical world where she has been a practicing nurse for over twenty
years. After publishing her first novel, STRICTLY BUSINESS, she quickly learned
that readers couldn't get enough of the world she created and now she lives out
her wildest fantasies by writing steamy romantic suspense for her fan-favorite
Washington Memorial Hospital series.
When she's not plotting her next dangerous, fast-paced, sexy
adventure, you can find her juggling a full time job, playing soccer mom, or
curled up reading a good romance.
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