The Buchanan's Redemption Read Online Free PDF Page A

the shoulder, saying, “ Stop beating yourself up for the past. Trust me, I spent years doing it and nothing changed. You aren’t the same person you were six months ago so remember that. Shannon will understand. She’s a smart woman.”
    “I don’t want to lose her, man,” Nolan said with raw emotion. He’d never known the love he felt with Shannon and his darling little girl Aubrey and like a starving man who’d been gifted with a full-course meal, he was desperate to hold onto them. “I wish we’d never opened Malvagio.”
    Dillon’s mouth quirked. “Now you’ve got me curious about this place. How bad can it be?”
    Nolan barked a mirthless laugh. “It’s as the name suggests…wicked.”
    “In another life…sounds like my kind of place.”
    “Yeah, me too. Before Shannon, it was my favorite playground. Now? It just appears sordid and fake. I can’t believe I ever saw anything of value. I wish I could get Vince to realize that we’ve outgrown it.”
    “ You’ve outgrown it,” Dillon corrected mildly. “In case you haven’t noticed, Vince isn’t the least bit interested in following our path to respectability. In fact, he seems to abhor the very idea. I suspect even if he were to find someone, he’d do everything in his power to push them away.”
    Nolan agreed. The ghost of a woman that they didn’t need to name floated between them and Nolan wished he knew how to finally put that poor girl to rest so that Vince could, at last, know true peace and move on.
    But if tonight’s show of stubbornness was any indication, Vince was digging in his heels, quite comfortable in his misery.
    Vince was changing into a bitter, angry, cruel man —   all because of a woman he couldn’t forget.
    Eventually, there would be little left of Vince that was Nolan’s beloved twin.
    And that scared Nolan senseless.

-4-
     
    Emma awoke, her throat scratchy from disuse and her vision still swimming but at least the bone-shattering pain ricocheting through her body had abated to a mild rumble that she could handle. She forced her eyes to focus and when she realized she was hooked to an IV, she made the assumption that she was in a hospital but it only took a second later to realize she wasn’t in a hospital, but rather in a stranger’s house.
    And more specifically, in a stranger’s bed.
    “Careful, you’ll rip out your IV,” a low voice instructed with authority, the sound at once familiar yet foreign and sending sparks of awareness though her abused body. She swung her gaze in the direction of the sound and she realized a man sat in the shadows of the room, watching her. She didn’t know why she knew the man was Vince Buchanan but she did. She worked to swallow, her dry throat resisting the movement until she fumbled for the water cup at her left and gulped the liquid with little grace or finesse but she didn’t care. Why was she tucked into Vince Buchanan’s bed? After what’d happened, she should’ve been hospitalized. Her question must’ve echoed in her expression for Vince rose from the chair, unfolding his solid muscular frame like a predator stalking his prey. Good God, he was terrifying. Emma had never been one for the pretty boys or the ones who’d arrogantly taken from the pick of the ladies. She’d always found the bookish, smart guy with the oddly endearing quirks more attractive, if not a little on the predictable side. Vince Buchanan was the antithesis of every man she’d ever dated and even if she’d known that intellectually, watching him stalk toward her with twin eyes burning with something she couldn’t quite define, made her realize her research had completely failed to prepare her for the reality. She shifted in the bed, trying to put as much distance between them as possible but he didn’t seem to care and stopped close enough to smell his aftershave. “Where am I?” she asked, her voice hoarse and small sounding. She cleared her throat and tried again with more confidence