Page 1 of Wild Night

PROLOGUE

POSEY

I’m being watched.

I know I am.

I can’t describe how I know, but there are eyes on me that I don’twanton me. Eyes that belong to someone I want nothing to do with. A man who is not really aman. He’s weak and fake, an asshole of epic proportions.

He pretends to be a big man, acts as if he’s good and perfect. Lavished me with gifts, pursued me, consumed me. He’s a monster. And he’s watching me. I didn’t think I would feel them on me again. It’s been a while. I was hoping he would vanish completely and never return.

My ex-husband… well, estranged husband.

I wish he were my ex.

What a mistake that was—marrying him. Allowing him to be part of my life. I let him financially seduce me, which is more my fault than his. I’ve worked hard my entire life, and it felt nice when someone wanted to take care of me and that he seemed to have the means to do so thoroughly.

I made the mistake because it glittered with gold.

It seems the women in our family tend to do that. They make serious mistakes when it comes to men. Big ones. Life-altering ones.

My mother and father seemed somewhat in love with one another, but my father was cruel. They were obsessed with each other, really. My mother was often unhappy, trying everything she could to keep my father satisfied.

But that unhappiness, either with him or herself—I’m not sure which—she took out on me and my sister. So, maybe it wasn’t love they shared. Maybe it was something different, something twisted. But whatever it was, she stayed for longer than any woman should.

They had us later in life, both being well into their thirties when they married and started a family. My sister came first, then me many years later. I don’t know if it has anything to do with them being from a different generation than my friends’ parents, or maybe it’s just because we were so spaced out.

Maybe it was because of whatever twisted shit they had between them, but my household never felt happy. It never felt like a peaceful place to be. It wasn’t safety or comfort. It was living on the edge, walking on eggshells, and falling… a lot.

Nobody ever smiled.

And raised fists or backhands slamming against our faces or bodies were more common than not, along with anything that was in arm’s reach flying through the air. That’s why my sister ran away when she was a teenager, and that’s why I did the same the moment I turned eighteen.

I lasted a few years longer than my sister, but only because I was scared to go out on my own—she wasn’t scared of shit.

Never was.

I will always admire her for that, even though I don’t think she went about life the right way. That she made the rightdecisions. And as I’ve discovered more about her in recent years, I’m one-hundred-percent certain that she still chose wrong. But maybe that’s just the Bennet women’s curse or something.

When I ran, it was, of course, with thewrongman—continuing the great tradition of picking wrong. I had a few more bad men before I married the absolutely completely incorrect man.

Now that I’m thirty-six, maybe, just maybe, I have learned my lesson… but I doubt it. I’ve been celibate for two years straight, choosing not to pick a man at all, and that’s not healthy, either.

I’m not sure that means I’ve learned anything. And I don’t think I know what healthy even is. I haven’t chosen a man, haven’t looked at one, and sure as hell don’t want anything to do with one.

At least not yet.

Not until this divorce is finalized, because if he is watching me, the last thing I want to givethatman is ammunition of any kind or drag someone else into my mess of a life.

I scrounged together enough money to hire an attorney and file for divorce about a year ago. But nobody can find him. I’m hoping for a default divorce to be granted at this point, and until today, I didn’t think he would ever be back, so I wasn’t sure it mattered what I requested because he didn’t care. Not after two years… right?

I don’t think I’m asking for much. I just want the things I have with me, nothing else. I want to keep the car, a red two-door Mercedes convertible, which was technically a gift from myhusband. And jewelry pieces that were also gifts so I can sell them because fuck him.

Also, I am asking for fifty thousand dollars to help me start over.

Considering this man moved me intohishouse, then made sure to keep everything separate, never commingling a damn thing, and left me here without a dime of help. I didn’t know the house was a rental. I thought he owned it.

Only after he walked out of the house did I discover that it’s a rental, and I’ve been making the strokes so the lease isn’t broken because I really can’t afford to pay the fees for the broken lease.

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