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  Blossoms of The Heart

  Khardine Gray

  Blossoms of the Heart Copyright © 2018 by Khardine Gray

  All rights reserved.

  Cover design © 2018 by Cover Couture

  Photo (c) Shutterstock/ArtofPhotos

  Photo (c) Shutterstock/Catherine Glazkova

  Photo (c) DepositPhotos/MisterElements

  This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  The author asserts that all characters and situations depicted in this work of fiction are entirely imaginary and bear no relation to any real person.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  The following story contains mature themes, strong language and sexual situations.

  It is intended for mature readers. All characters are 18+ years of age and all sexual acts are consensual.

  Contents

  Author Note

  I always wanted to be with him…

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Khardine Gray

  About the Author

  Author Note

  Hello Gorgeous,

  Blossoms of The Heart is a full-length standalone novel.

  It’s a super-hot, super steamy read that I hope you’ll enjoy.

  Happy reading.

  xx

  I always wanted to be with him…

  Why do I fall for guys I can’t have?

  Okay, it’s not guys –plural.

  It’s just one guy.

  THE guy.

  When I was 18 he stole my heart.

  Tai was the guy I wasn’t supposed to have…

  The tattooed rebel my mother told to stay away from me.

  My heart stopped beating that day.

  I was off- limits to him and he was forbidden to me.

  I never thought I’d see him again.

  He stayed away, just like my mother demanded.

  Until… fate decided to hand us an all access card eleven years later. Leaving it to us to work out the kinks.

  We got to see what could have happened if we got together.

  Then it became complicated….

  The passion and heat between us is wild.

  Scorching hot and consuming.

  He wants more. So much more… But I can't give him more…

  This time it’s not my mother telling me I can’t have him.

  It’s life …

  Because … now I have a secret.

  A secret that could tear us apart.

  Chapter 1

  Phoebe

  “You evil son of a bitch!” I cried.

  Jason’s head snapped around the minute I barged into the meeting room.

  I’d pushed his door in with such a force that it slammed into the wall, knocking off some of the books on the shelves nearby to the ground.

  I didn’t care that he was in a meeting with the secretary of state or any of the government type officials the room was filled with.

  I would make him listen to what I had to say, right the hell now.

  “Phoebe, as you can see I’m in the middle of a very important meeting.” He glared at me, his dark green eyes piercing into me like daggers.

  Yes, I was certain that if he could kill me he would. I would kill him too if I got the chance and could push aside my humanity for the length of time it would take to kill a person.

  He’d dealt the last card to break me, truly break me, as if he hadn’t put me through enough.

  “I don’t fucking care—you did this.” I held up the letter I’d received that morning and waved it around. It was an eviction notice for the lake house I’d leased for the last four years.

  “Oh, you got the memo.” A hint of a smile flashed on his face. It was one of those satisfied, evil smiles that showed his pleasure in my misfortune.

  “You spineless, dickless bastard. You had no right.”

  I got the place when I suspected that he, my darling ex-husband, the esteemed and notable Governor of Illinois was cheating on me.

  Situated in Saugatuck Harbor, the lake house was an hour away from the city. Beautiful and peaceful. The kind of place I could see myself getting settled in for good. That was the plan. I’d escaped there when things went all haywire, and I spent most weekends there when it wasn’t crazy busy at work, or if I wasn’t travelling.

  I currently lived in an apartment close to work and had been prepping for the last few weeks to make the move to the lake house. I was going to buy it. I’d finally bit the bullet and decided to pay the deposit just last week.

  It felt like a step in the right direction. Almost like a fresh start because I was beginning to piece my life back together.

  I hadn’t been there in over two weeks because I was busy, and this morning when I went to check up on the place, I was greeted by a blonde woman in a negligee who claimed to be living there.

  Rage filled me when she handed me this letter. I could have breathed fire when I read the contents, informing me of Jason’s purchase of the property and kindly allowing me two weeks to vacate the place.

  Anyone else wouldn’t have been able to buy it with my deposit already secured to it.

  But Jason wasn’t just anyone—he had power that came with his title. No one wanted to piss off the Governor of Illinois . A man that could practically eat you alive with one word.

  The bastard knew I was staying there and he still moved that slut in. Moved her into my home, showing me he could do whatever he wanted and get away with it.

  Back when I leased the place I didn’t want to buy it just in case we did divorce and it would become part of our assets that would be divided up. Or in my case excluded.

  Jason made sure I got nothing.

  Leasing kept it out of that mess because this man made it his mission to take everything I loved away from me. Everything down to the smallest of things he may have given me when we were together.

  But what was worse was he used his influential power to try to make my life hell.

  We never had a prenup but in the end it was as if we did.

  Asshole.

  But… I was the bigger idiot for not buying it sooner. That didn’t escape me and I was kicking myself for it.


  “You had no right.” I cried a little louder this time. My whole body shaking.

  “Phoebe, there’s a time and place,” he stated, getting up and walking over to me.

  Time and place, my ass. “Right now is the time and place. Time to show everyone what a nasty piece of work you are, and this looks like just the place.”

  His face contorted into a heavy scowl. “Get out!”

  “No. Tell me who she was.” I stomped my foot down on the wooden floor. “The woman who now lives in my house. Tell me who she is.” Everyone looked at each other. “I at least deserve to know who the woman is. I’ve been in that house for four years and you moved this person in overnight.”

  “Phoebe, leave now before I have you thrown out.”

  Did he think I was just going to follow orders and allow him to do what he wanted to me?

  I wasn’t going to be the weak woman he thought I was and allow the universe to continue to laugh at me. Continue to throw shit my way and make me grovel in it.

  Every time I felt like I could build myself up and move on, he struck.

  The lake house was the last straw.

  If the powers that be were waiting for me to snap and literally go insane, today was their lucky day. He was about to see a damn side of me he’d never imagined.

  “Is she one of your whores? Or will all the whores be living there?” Bulls-eye. The frightened rabbit look on his face was classic.

  People started whispering and I could hear a commotion just outside the door. His latest secretary—that I knew he was screwing— practically shit herself when she saw me storming past her workstation. I’d heard her call security when I’d burst in here.

  I added a crude smile. “Let me guess, was that Alicia? Pamela? Cinnamon, you know the hooker you paid five grand to so you could fuck her without a condom.” I was going in for the kill. He didn’t know I knew about that. That was the type of disgusting information I’d learned after our divorce. The side of him that no one else saw. Part of his host of secrets.

  I wonder how it would go down if I unleashed the fact that Mr. Esteemed Governor here owned a sex club.

  People around were already talking. The Secretary of state’s face was completely red. maybe he would literally combust if I mentioned the sex club.

  “Stop it!” Jason shouted. When he tried to grab me I stepped back and shocked him, and everyone else, by raising my hand and landing a slap so hard on his cheek it left a mark. Everyone gasped.

  “Fuck you.” I cried. “You knew what that house meant to me, but you took it anyway. You could have bought another house. You could have had anywhere else, but you knew it would hurt me. Why can’t you just leave me alone?”

  I didn’t know why I was even asking that question. I knew why, but the reason was twisted and I was a bigger loser than him. A much bigger loser.

  This man had shown me more than once, and on more than one occasion, that he was a beautiful face with an ugly, ugly heart.

  The devil. Literally the devil.

  “You stupid bitch,” he spat.

  I answered him with another slap to his other cheek that left him stunned.

  “Don’t you dare speak to me like that. Asshole.”

  “You won’t get away with embarrassing me like this. Get her out of here,” he barked, looking over my shoulder.

  A security guard took hold of my arm, but I wrenched it free from his grasp.

  “I can get myself out.”

  I took one look at Jason, shook my head and walked out.

  The only thing that I could take from my outburst today was his embarrassment.

  That was it though.

  That was all, because coming here didn’t do anything for me. It didn’t get my house back. It didn’t add or take anything away from my life.

  It was just me showing my rage.

  But really, I still had nothing and it felt like I was starting from scratch again.

  The minute my doorbell rang that evening, I knew it was my father. He would have heard all about what happened today and come to get my version of the story.

  Mom wouldn’t have come.

  She was close with Jason and his parents, travelling in the same uptight circles. She and his mother met weekly at the country club to discuss the latest fundraisers.

  Mom adored Jason, it was she who introduced us and practically forced him on me.

  She’d never had a bad thing to say about him even though she knew all that he’d done. Even when she knew about his unsavory habits and that the man cheated on me every chance he got. She was still his number one fan.

  Mom and my older sister Emma were like the same person. So the only support I received was from dad.

  “Phoebe.” The first thing he did was give me a hug, which I melted into and tried not to cry.

  No more tears. Not for Jason or anything to do with him.

  No more tears.

  “I bought ice cream,” Dad said when I released him. He lifted a little bag I hadn’t seen before.

  Ice cream was our comfort food.

  “Thank you. I needed that.”

  “Come on, tell me what really happened.” He raised his brows, signaling he’d heard some bizarre version of what had taken place.

  Although I had to admit I had acted bizarre and completely out of character.

  Maybe Jason did tell the truth.

  We went into the garden where I offloaded what happened. Dad listened and didn’t comment until I was done.

  “I’m sorry. I knew how much you wanted to buy the lake house. I have a proposal for you, though, that you may like.” He smiled.

  “What? What could that be?”

  “Work.” His bright blue eyes, which mirrored my own, twinkled.

  I was a sad case. Work was the most exciting thing in my life.

  I was exactly like him— John Walker the expert linguist and doctor in archeology. My father, who to me was my very own Indiana Jones. I followed in Dad’s footsteps and got my doctorate in archeology. But, I took the linguistics a little further because I had a special skill set for reading very dead languages.

  My one claim to having some form of purpose in this life. I could shop and dress like I was ready for the runway, but I’d sooner swap that to go exploring in some cave with Dad or climb Mount Kilimanjaro just for the fun of it.

  Dad and I worked together, and these days, I mostly travelled to various dig sites and sometimes did presentations at universities. I’d studied at Yale so they always had me there, which was nice.

  Work was a welcomed break from the reality. We just hadn’t had any real adventures in years.

  “Work sounds like heaven.” I smiled.

  “I know and I worry that you’re turning into the workaholic I used to be.”

  “What else do I have?” I lifted my shoulders into a shrug.

  “Heaps, you’ve just had a bad spell.”

  Bad spell. I wish it could just be that. a bad spell. The last few years had been awful. Truly awful.

  My divorce had been finalized two years ago but I was still working out the kinks.

  Jason was a very powerful man with all manner of influences which he used to his every advantage.

  God, he was even on the board of governors at the institute. So when there were any functions or anything like that, he was always there.

  There like a fucking reoccurring nightmare.

  “Where to now, boss?” I smiled.

  He chuckled. “Japan. Akito needs you.”

  I straightened up immediately.

  Akito Maderame was an archaeologist too. Dad’s best friend who lived in Japan. They’d met at Yale when they were studying.

  Akito had been in our lives from as far back as I could remember and from as far back as I could remember, we’d always spent our summers in Japan.

  Things changed when I went to college and I found I couldn’t keep up the yearly tradition, but I was there as often as I could be.

  Akito’s daughter
Mitsuke was my best friend, more like a sister to me than Emma. We saw each other every chance we got.

  I hadn’t been to Japan in two years. Not since the divorce. I’d seen both of them many times but Japan too was like family to me.

  My second home.

  “He needs me in Japan?” God, for the first time in a long time, hope sparked in my heart.

  Interest rippled through me when Dad nodded.

  Akito was the director at the Institute of Cultural Heritage. He also ran a research center alongside it, which took on the tasks of funding all the cultural preservation projects, digs, and other excursions.

  This could be good for me.

  Dad smiled. “Two weeks ago, Akito’s team were called to Akiyoshido Cave to

  investigate after an earthquake. One of the tour guides found a tunnel that led deeper underground. They found the skeleton of a samurai, along with his sword.”

  Now this was the stuff dreams were made of. At least for a few minutes I could forget my problems.

  “Wow.”

  “There was also a journal with him written in multiple dead languages.” He smiled wide, knowing that would catch my interest all the more.

  This had my name written all over it.

  I could read anything from Latin, Sanskrit, and Hebrew, to ancient Chinese by village location and clan. When last I checked, I counted my specialty to include over a hundred dead languages, and I could piece together some of the others.

  “Dad, this is big.”

  “It’s massive. The emperor wants Akito to arrange an exhibition at the museum during the Obon festival, to honor the fallen Samurai.”