The Breaking Season Read online

  The Breaking Season

  K.A. Linde

  Contents

  Also By K.A. Linde

  Prologue

  I. I Don’t

  1. Katherine

  2. Katherine

  3. Katherine

  4. Camden

  5. Katherine

  6. Camden

  7. Katherine

  8. Camden

  II. The Truce

  9. Katherine

  10. Katherine

  11. Camden

  12. Katherine

  13. Katherine

  14. Katherine

  15. Camden

  16. Katherine

  17. Katherine

  III. Back to Normal

  18. Katherine

  19. Camden

  20. Katherine

  21. Katherine

  22. Katherine

  23. Camden

  24. Katherine

  25. Katherine

  IV. Always

  26. Camden

  27. Katherine

  28. Camden

  29. Katherine

  30. Katherine

  31. Katherine

  32. Camden

  V. History

  33. Katherine

  34. Camden

  35. Camden

  36. Katherine

  37. Camden

  38. Katherine

  39. Katherine

  Epilogue

  A Wright Christmas

  Acknowledgments

  Also By K.A. Linde

  About the Author

  A L S O B Y K. A. L I N D E

  SEASONS

  His for a Season

  The Lying Season

  The Hating Season

  The Breaking Season

  * * *

  CRUEL

  One Cruel Night ✦ Cruel Money

  Cruel Fortune ✦ Cruel Legacy

  * * *

  WRIGHTS

  The Wright Brother ✦ The Wright Boss

  The Wright Mistake ✦ The Wright Secret

  The Wright Love ✦ The Wright One

  A Wright Christmas

  * * *

  RECORD SERIES

  Off the Record ✦ On the Record ✦ For the Record

  Struck from the Record ✦ Broken Record

  * * *

  AVOIDING SERIES

  Avoiding Commitment ✦ Avoiding Responsibility

  Avoiding Temptation

  Avoiding Extras ✦ Avoiding Boxset

  * * *

  DIAMOND GIRLS SERIES

  Rock Hard ✦ A Girl’s Best Friend

  In the Rough ✦ Shine Bright

  Under Pressure

  * * *

  TAKE ME DUET

  Take Me for Granted ✦ Take Me with You

  * * *

  BLOOD TYPE SERIES

  Blood Type ✦ Blood Match ✦ Blood Cure

  * * *

  ASCENSION SERIES

  The Affiliate ✦ The Bound

  The Consort ✦ The Society

  The Domina

  * * *

  STAND ALONE

  Following Me

  The Breaking Season

  Copyright © 2020 by K.A. Linde

  All rights reserved.

  * * *

  Visit my website at

  www.kalinde.com

  * * *

  Cover Designer: Staci Hart

  www.stacihartnovels.com

  Editor: Unforeseen Editing

  www.unforeseenediting.com

  * * *

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

  * * *

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  * * *

  ISBN-13: 978-1948427418

  Prologue

  Today I was marrying a man I didn’t love.

  And only my best friend, Lark, was waiting in the wings with me. Trying to talk me over the cliff. Not off it.

  “Okay, this is what we’ll do.” Lark immediately went into planning mode. I was another project she had to fix. A fire she had to put out. I barely heard what else she said. Just the end. “Poof, runaway bride.”

  I ran my hands down the front of my one-of-a-kind designer wedding dress. The bodice was strapless with a sweetheart neck. Made out of the softest, most delicate white lace with dozens of tiny white buttons running up the back. It swept down to my feet with an impressive train that flowed out behind me. A twenty-foot empire veil would be affixed to the intricate braided design at the top of my head. White. Perfect, virginal white.

  “No wedding. No Camden,” Lark continued.

  My eyes found hers in the mirror. “I can’t.”

  “Physically, you are able.”

  “I can’t,” I repeated.

  “But you don’t love him!” Lark gasped. “How can you do this when you don’t even like him? It can’t just be the money. We all have money. The crew has money. You can have mine. I don’t need it.”

  “Lark,” I said, shaking my head.

  “Is it the bet?”

  I frowned. My dark red lips turning down at the corners. I’d lost the bet to Penn. I’d wagered a wedding date. I was here to deliver. But still, that wasn’t it.

  “No. I just have to do this.”

  “I don’t want to see you unhappy,” Lark told me.

  I almost laughed. But I couldn’t even manage it.

  Unhappy? I’d been unhappy for years. Happiness didn’t belong to a girl whose father had lied, cheated, and stolen everything from her. Who ended up in prison for securities fraud, destroying my mother, who hadn’t even been able to look at me for years. It certainly didn’t belong to a girl whose brother had abandoned them all at the first sign of trouble.

  I wanted my old life back. The one before my father had been arrested for his enormous Ponzi scheme. The one when I’d had everything. When I had been on top of the world, and I hadn’t had to pretend to love or even like Camden Percy to build that future for myself.

  It wasn’t as if Penn was going to suddenly change his mind, to go back to the boy I’d known who worshipped at my feet. I’d been so naive then, thinking he’d always come when I called. And now, he wasn’t here to save me. But to feed me to the wolves.

  “I’ll manage,” I finally got out.

  “You’re miserable. Camden makes you miserable. Katherine, please listen to me. We’ve all been saying it from the beginning. We know the kind of person that Camden is. You do, too. You shouldn’t subject yourself to his whims.”

  She was right. Camden twisted me around his little finger. He fucked with my head. At least the sex was good. That was about all he had going for him other than the string of Percy hotels he owned.

  “Why are you so set on this?” Lark asked.

  I didn’t even know how to explain it to myself. It wasn’t just about security. I had the penthouse overlooking Central Park. I still had a dwindling trust fund that I could probably stretch if I had to. It was more than that. It was an arrangement. Something Camden and I had crafted together for our mutual benefit. As far as I was concerned, I was getting the better end of the deal, as he now knew exactly how little money I owned. We’d had to fork over tax and bank account information before signing prenups. It worked. We worked somehow… even when we hated each other.

  “Maybe I don’t want to fail at one more thing.”

&
nbsp; Lark sighed. “It wouldn’t be a failure. You deserve better.”

  A knock sounded on the door, and the wedding planner, Virginia, burst in. “Time to go, Katherine. Are you ready?”

  Lark shot big, round eyes at me, silently begging me to change my mind. But I couldn’t.

  “Yes,” I told Virginia.

  “Great. I have the veil. Let’s get you both in position.”

  Lark and Virginia helped me from my pedestal and picked up the long train of my dress. We marched down the hallway and to the back of the church. Virginia tucked my veil into my hair and then moved to cover my face.

  I held my hand up. “Leave it.”

  She shrugged and left my face uncovered. I wanted to face this down with clear eyes. Alone. As always.

  The music started. Virginia hurried the bridesmaids out on cue. Lark shot me one last look of despair before stepping into the church in her dark red dress with a bouquet of white flowers.

  “Okay, let them get all the way down, and then it’s your turn.” Virginia beamed at me. “Don’t forget to breathe.”

  “It’s just another runway,” I muttered.

  Canon in D filtered through the church as it moved from the strings of the quartet I had chosen. The sound bloomed and magnified. The doors opened before me. I stood, silhouetted in the atrium of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, as hundreds of guests rose to their feet to watch my entrance.

  For a split second, I faltered. Debated. Wondered if Lark was right. If I should turn around and run. But it was a moment, and then it was gone.

  I stepped forward. Virginia straightened out my train and then the never-ending veil as I walked past row after row of guests. Their faces were a blur. I kept my eyes forward as the altar came into focus. The priest in his ceremonial attire. A line of bridesmaids and groomsmen. Everyone identical.

  Then Camden.

  He stood in a tuxedo that had been handcrafted by a designer in London. I wasn’t close enough yet to discern his expression. That was probably for the better.

  I began to recognize more people. My crew taking up the front rows. My mother seated so regally beside my brother, David, and his little Texas bride. Camden’s father, Carlyle, seated next to Elizabeth Cunningham. To my surprise, they’d recently eloped. Next to Carlyle was Camden’s heinous sister, Candice, and then Elizabeth’s daughter, Harmony, who hated me. My new “family.”

  And then I landed on Penn. My Penn. I just wanted him to look at me. To object. To do something.

  But he just made eye contact with me. Looked sad for me. Pity.

  Penn Kensington pitied me.

  I’d told Lark that I wouldn’t run. But I hadn’t known until that moment that I’d been hoping Penn would object. Not just stand there with his new girlfriend as I went through with it. He really wasn’t going to stop it.

  I swallowed and turned back to the man I was marrying. I was finally close enough to see the smirk on Camden’s strong features. A beautiful exterior hiding a dark interior.

  His look said only one thing—mine. After tonight, I would belong to him. He’d own me.

  And no one was even going to object.

  Not even me.

  I stepped up to the dais. No one was there to give me away. I had made this deal with the devil. And I would be the one to give myself to him.

  Despite all of Camden’s faults, he was handsome. N, he was gorgeous. It honestly wasn’t fair that someone with that face and body also had the keys to an empire. His dark hair shone in the low lighting. His expression was stern and purposefully blank. As if, even here, even now, he didn’t want me to discern what he was thinking. No emotions from him. Not even on his wedding day. I’d expected it from his lips, but I never could understand how he hid behind his eyes. They were dark, so very, very dark. As if I were sinking into the Dead Sea. Drowning. They should have been windows. Instead, he’d closed the shutters, and he was once again a mystery.

  “Katherine,” he said evenly as he held out his hand.

  This was the moment.

  I could turn here. I didn’t have to go through with this arranged marriage. I didn’t have to marry him for his money. I didn’t have to live by this new contract. I could be a runaway bride.

  Something hardened in his face as he waited a heartbeat and then another. Then I placed my hand in his.

  I wasn’t running from him, but… to him. The only person willing to save me.

  He helped me up the steps and before the priest. His eyes never wavered from mine. They were unreadable, but still, there was something else in them at that moment as the priest began the service. I hardly heard what was said. The words so familiar that they didn’t register. All that really existed in that moment was Camden Percy. There was no reassurance.

  I knew what he wanted from me, what I had signed in that contract. My body in exchange for his money and name.

  I had no interest in his heart, and he had no interest in mine. It was better this way. Easier.

  The priest gestured to me. “Do you, Katherine, take Camden for your lawful husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do you part?”

  The room went perfectly silent. As if everyone was waiting on bated breath for my answer.

  Camden nodded his head once, decisive and clear. And I knew there was no turning back.

  I squeezed Camden’s hand and nodded. “I do.”

  Part I

  I Don’t

  1

  Katherine

  My patent leather high heels clicked against the hardwood floor. I reached the wall, pivoted, and walked back the length of the room, wearing a path in my penthouse.

  My phone buzzed. Again.

  I knew precisely who was messaging me and why. I had time to get in a cab and make it to dinner. If I left now, I wouldn’t even be late. And still, I paced back the other direction.

  A muscle fluttered in my jaw as I heard my phone go off one more time. I froze, forcing my body to stop its incessant movement. Then the phone started ringing. I grumbled and wrenched it off of the counter.

  “What?” I snapped.

  “Happy anniversary to you, too, darling,” Camden said silkily on the other line.

  A facade. He didn’t care about our anniversary.

  “Why do you keep messaging me?” I asked him irritably.

  “There’s time for me to pick you up in the limo.”

  “I already said that I’d take a cab.”

  He said nothing, didn’t even sigh, gave not the slightest bit of notice that he was frustrated with my attitude.

  Today was the one-year anniversary of our arranged marriage. I couldn’t act like it was anything else even if he could.

  “I don’t see the need,” he finally said.

  “I will meet you at the restaurant.”

  “You will be there, correct?” His voice was low and guttural as if it irked him that he even had to ask.

  “I just said that I would.”

  Though I had thought of every available excuse to get out of it, including sneaking onto Lark’s private jet and heading down to the Caribbean a few days early. But I knew none of them would pass muster. Camden would just meet me at the resort and be furious with me. And I knew what would happen from there. What always happened when his temper flared.

  Heat ran up my throat, and I touched my fingers to it.

  “I’ll be there,” I said a little breathlessly.

  “Good. Don’t be late,” he growled before hanging up.

  “Fucker,” I snapped back at him.

  I wouldn’t be late, but fuck, did I want to. No, I didn’t want to go at all. I knew what this whole fucking pretense was about. Why he’d scheduled this dinner and forced me to stay behind while my friends darted off to sun and sand and frozen drinks with little umbrellas.

  One year ago, I’d agreed to be his wife.

  This year, he wanted everything else I’d signed away.

>   Time for me to live up to my end of the bargain.

  I released a breath and forced my face back to neutral. This wasn’t who I was. I showed no fear. I was Katherine Van Pelt. Sexy, fierce, and formidable. Not even the likes of Camden Percy could make me waver.

  It was just dinner.

  A stupid fucking dinner.

  It didn’t mean that I had to give in to his demands. I never gave in. Well… not anymore. There had been a moment—barely even a moment, if I was honest—when I thought that this marriage could work. I’d gone to the Maldives for our honeymoon, thinking it would be the worst month of my life. We’d come back, changed.

  I shook my head. I didn’t want to think about the past. A few months where we hadn’t wanted to kill each other didn’t mean that this was going to work as a marriage. Not how I’d thought in those days. No, this had been arranged. We had the contract and prenup to prove it. No point in thinking about what could have been. Not with the present circumstances.