THE GILDED CHAIN
Book 3 in the Surrender Series
Lauren Smith
New York Boston
Begin Reading
Table of Contents
An Excerpt from The Gilded Cuff
Newsletters
Copyright Page
In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
Chapter 1
Someday after we have mastered the air, the winds, the tides and gravity, we will harness for god the energies of love. And then for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.
—Teilhard de Chardin
You are cordially invited to the engagement party of Hayden Thorne and Fenn Lockwood—”
With a pained gasp, Callie Taylor ripped the expensive cream card and blinked hard against the thick tears that started to drip down her cheeks. Fenn, the man she’d loved her entire life, was getting married to her friend Hayden. It was too much to process over the sudden and shattering pain inside her chest. With a little ragged gasp of breath, she glanced about her small bedroom, her last refuge on the wide open expanse of her father’s land. The only place she could really call her own on Broken Spur ranch.
Her room was covered with painting canvases, sketchbooks, and palettes with half-dried paint smears. For years she’d painted her dreams, and those dreams had always included Fenn. But a month ago her entire world in the little Colorado town of Walnut Springs had been flung on its head when Fenn’s real identity was discovered. He was the long-lost twin to Emery Lockwood, heir to the vast technology-based fortune, who lived on Long Island. Once Fenn had learned who he really was, Callie had known she would lose him forever, but standing there holding his engagement announcement in her hand was the first time she’d had cold hard proof of that fact.
The moment Wes Thorne, Fenn’s childhood friend and Hayden’s brother, had placed the engagement announcement card in her hands, her dream was dead. The man she was in love with was going to marry someone else. And not just anyone, but Hayden Thorne. When she’d first met Hayden, she’d instantly liked the other woman as a friend. A pang of envy rippled through her, casting a green tint to her heart.
I’m happy for them…but…
Disgust came after, weighing her chest down like invisible stones. She shouldn’t be jealous of Hayden, not when she cared so much about her friend. But the thought of watching her get married to Fenn? She couldn’t think. It was too awful…She let the torn pieces drop from her hands and float slowly to the floor of her bedroom. Little fingerprint smudges coated the pieces of the card where her paint-covered hands had rubbed on the expensive paper as she’d ripped it to shreds. Those vibrant colored pieces lay at her feet in a mocking collage that only made fresh tears burn in the corners of her eyes.
Footsteps on the stairs drew her attention. Had her father come up to check on her or was it Wes? When Wes had shown up at the Broken Spur a few minutes ago with a letter from Fenn, Callie hadn’t been able to help herself. Having no idea of the damning information the letter contained, she’d gone straight to her room to read it. Too excited to have one scrap of affection from Fenn or any sign that he might be missing her while he spent time on Long Island with his family, she’d blown right past her father and Wes as if they’d ceased to exist.
God, I’m such a fool. How could she have been so blind as to not see that while Fenn was learning who he really was, he was also falling in love with Hayden? God, they even looked good together, both of them beautiful and perfect: Fenn with height and muscled build and gold hair, Hayden with her bold red locks and stunning body. A wave of nausea rolled through her stomach. I’m just the sad little hanger-on sister to him. I never even had a chance. She’d opened her heart to him, given him everything that she was, and never held back. And what had that gotten her? A broken heart. And it was entirely her own fault.
Whoever had come up the stairs now knocked on her bedroom door. Pull yourself together, she told herself, and using the back of her hands, she wiped away any evidence of her tears.
“Who is it?” she called out, desperate to hide the way she was crumbling to pieces.
Her dad couldn’t see her like this. He’d only just gotten home from the hospital after his heart attack a month ago, and seeing her hurting wouldn’t do him any good. He was supposed to be resting, letting the new ranch hands and construction workers handle all the heavy lifting and major work. Not that Jim Taylor ever understood the idea of resting.
“Callie, it’s me, Wes.” Wes Thorne’s voice was soft on the other side of the door, as though he was trying to be nice. He wasn’t nice. He was a wolf, a predator. She’d figured that out the moment she had first laid eyes on him when he and his sister, Hayden, had shown up at the ranch to tell Fenn who he really was and to take him home, away from her. Wes was the last person she wanted to see right now.
“Go away,” she called out. When there was no sound of retreating footsteps, she crept over to her bedroom door and opened it just a crack. She came face to face with an expensive suit shirt and an immaculately tied silk tie. The man always looked like he’d walked out of a Vanity Fair magazine ad. Raising her gaze up his chest, she saw his throat, then his full lips, and finally his cobalt blue eyes.
Wes, the harbinger of her own personal doom, stood there, worry knitting his brows as he gazed down at her.
“Are you all right? I thought I heard…” He studied her, probably seeing her red eyes. The last thing she needed was his pity.
“I’m sorry.” She shoved past him, escaping her bedroom and his assessing gaze as she ran down the stairs, tears almost blinding her vision. She had to get out of here, get away from him, from her father. She wanted to find a quiet dark place and curl up in a ball to lick her wounds, not handle twenty questions from men who didn’t have a clue what she was going through. Have to be alone. Have to.
She hit the bottom of the stairs and passed through the living room just as her father appeared in the doorway of the kitchen.
“Callie, honey, you okay, sweetheart? You look like you’ve been crying.” Jim started toward her, but she held up a hand.
“I’m fine, Dad. I just need to go for a ride, okay? I’ll be back in a few hours.” And without another word to him, she rushed out onto the small porch of their ranch house.
Even as the fresh Colorado mountain air hit her lungs, it wasn’t enough. She still couldn’t breathe…She needed space, distance, to clear her head. She hoped both Wes and her father would leave her alone. Wes would hopefully focus on what he always did. Business. If he stayed close to the new cabins being constructed she could avoid him.
Something about him unnerved her. He was so damn quiet and intense. She didn’t like that intensity. It made her pulse beat faster and her palms sweaty. Not like Fenn. Fenn was safe, didn’t make her edgy or her breath quicken with a queasy anticipation. It was too confusing. Wes made her feel like a skittish barn cat.
Shoving thoughts of him away, she sprinted to the barn where her quarter horse, Volt, was in his stall, happily munching on oats. This is what she needed. To get outside and ride away from everything that left her hurt and confused. Volt was fast and he’d help her escape. Ever since she’d been a child, riding had been her outlet, a way to get free of everything. It was her father’s fault really. When her mother had died, Callie had been only four, and her father had bought her a small pony to give her something to care for and to learn to ride. From then on, riding had been her go-to cure for a broken heart.