Cherished

CHERISHED CORRUPTED AND CHERISHED DUET MARIE JOHNSTON LE PUBLISHING Copyright © 2022 by Marie Johnston Editing by Evident Ink Proofing by My Brother’s Editor, Deaton Author Services, and Judy’s Proofreading Cover Design by Secret Identity Graphics All rights reserved. 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 characters, places, and events in this story are fictional. Any similarities to real people, places, or events are coincidental and unintentional. Created with Vellum Being tucked away in seclusion with a self-appointed bodyguard is way more fun than it has a right to be. I should resist, but I don’t, and after years of trying not to fall for anyone, I tumble hard for Kase Donovan. We still don’t know who’s after me, but with Kase’s help, I’m working to keep my business afloat. Until my father tracks me down and retrieves me for that pesky marriage contract he had drawn up years ago. I’m forced to return to the ivory tower I grew up in and stay locked up while my life dissolves. Locked doors have never stopped Kase, but even if he can rescue me from a fairy tale gone wrong, there’s still someone waiting to kill me. And we might not learn who it is until it’s too late and we’ve lost everything, including each other. Even if we track down my would-be killer, I’ve fallen hard for my bodyguard with the dark past, and the life I would have with Kase isn’t different from the prison I grew up in. How much am I willing to sacrifice for total freedom? Cherished is the second book in the Corrupted and Cherished duet and the completion of Kase and Holland's story. CONTENTS 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 Epilogue About the Author Also by Marie Johnston CHAPTER 1 Kase Holland was taken over a week ago, and I thought I could move on. I thought I could forget it. She has a life that doesn’t include me, no matter how unfair, and I have mine. But I can’t escape the guilt. Could I have done more? Could I have covered our tracks better? I’ve hardly slept since she left. The only thing helping me through is remembering the desperation in her eyes to let her go. I pace Jacobi’s office like a caged tiger. The wall of windows leading to the deck outside is tempting to just crash through. The pain might give me something else to think about. The way her father broke into our house with armed fucking guards . . . Not our house. The rental. A place I continue to sleep at. On the damn couch with fabric piled everywhere. I left the outfits she assembled hanging in the corner, her half-cut-out pattern on the table, and the partially sewn dress by the sewing machine. I fixed the door. Connor Gray’s armed guards had no finesse. If they were good enough to find us, they should’ve been able to get in without breaking the damn door down. All they’d done was kill the security system. “Do you want to take this outside?” Jacobi asks from his office chair. “No,” I growl while I stalk through the room. Cannon’s watching me from his position on the floor, an arm draped over a knee, looking vastly different than he has for most of the time I’ve known him. The old Cannon wore loose Hawaiian shirts and cargo shorts—all wrinkled—and his hair had been more shaggy than stylishly long. The new Cannon wears fitted sweatpants and snug T-shirts since he is in Penni’s dance studio all the time as one of the most in-demand dance instructors. His hair hadn’t been more than trimmed, but he brushed it back. The guy looks like he walked off the pages of an elite dance magazine. “Why aren’t you going after her?” Cannon asks for the tenth time. “I told you.” I can’t not growl this morning. “Yeah, you told us,” he says, “yet here you are. Prowling like we captured you and put you under house arrest. You don’t agree with how she was taken, you don’t want her to be forced to get married because you want her instead, and you haven’t stopped pacing since she left.” “I told you why I can’t have her.” I told them everything. In a rare moment of weakness and desperation, I shared my life with my friends. All of it. They already knew what I did. They had known it was a family business, but they didn’t know how deeply I was entrenched. They didn’t know that not only couldn’t I get out, but I could cost my family everything if I tried. And now they know it’s my destiny. Jacobi kicks back in his office chair and crosses an ankle over a knee. He’s sitting like a CEO, but he’s dressed in board shorts with a loose white T-shirt. “You’re in a room with two guys who thought they had no shot with the women they were obsessed with.” Yeah, I told them that part, too, and it burned in my throat as I announced my humiliation to the world. “Yet London and I are married, and Cannon and Penni might get married once Penni gets over the whole husband-taking-out-a-hit-on-her thing.” “I can’t push Holland’s dad off a cliff.” No matter what’s happened, she loves him. Cannon lifts a finger. “Penni did not push that asshole—he lost his balance when he was trying to attack her.” “I wasn’t saying she pushed him.” She would’ve been justified. “But Holland’s problems are a little more complex. Connor Gray is loaded, and the Masons have something on him.” “And you don’t