Chosen: Part One Read online

  About this Book

  My name is Grace Delaney. I was born into this country’s most admired political family. When I was sixteen, the media dubbed me “America’s Princess”. I hate being called that, all the more so since I discovered the terrifying secret hidden behind my family’s glittering public image.

  A few months ago, I graduated from college determined to make a life of my own. But now, suddenly, Adam Falzon is in it. The head of an old-world family with a reputation for ruthlessness, he looks like a fallen angel. As attracted as I am to him, I’ve come to suspect that Adam is hiding secrets of his own more deadly and dangerous than I ever want to know. I don’t dare give into my feelings for him.

  But I may not have a choice. With every beat of my heart, he is drawing me further into a web of dark desire. My chances of escaping are slipping away. Worse yet, I’m no longer sure that I want to.

  CHOSEN is a story of dark romance. It contains scenes of coercion, both emotional and physical, and should not be read by anyone who could find that distressing.

  Table of Contents

  About this Book

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Sneak Peek

  Also by Josie Litton

  Chapter One

  “Over here, Grace!”

  “Grace, this way!”

  “Grace!”

  “Where have you been hiding?”

  “Who’s the guy?”

  “Grace!”

  Stepping out of the backseat of the limo, I resisted the urge to shield my eyes from the camera flashes and television lights. The glare from them would worsen the headache that had been building all afternoon but there was nothing to be done about that.

  Instead, I pinned on a smile and waved to the crowd of paparazzi and tourists, along with a handful of New Yorkers who had stopped to see what the fuss was about.

  “Grace, will you be campaigning for your brother?”

  “Is it true that you’ve been out of the public eye because you’re dating a Saudi Arabian prince?”

  “What about the rumors of a reality show? Are you interested?”

  “Is the homeless shelter just a publicity stunt or do you actually care about the people there?”

  I turned to look at the reporter, blogger, whatever who had shouted that last question. He was a young guy, a little disheveled. One of the security detail was already moving toward him, close enough to intervene if that became necessary. I was determined that it wouldn’t.

  Quickly, I stepped toward the rope line holding the media back. At once, the flash of cameras intensified as microphones were pushed forward.

  “Haven House is a wonderful organization,” I said with a smile that this time at least was real. “It’s founded on the belief that all people, regardless of their circumstances, should be treated with respect and dignity. I support it wholeheartedly.”

  My commitment to Haven House was the only reason I was at the charity gala that evening. Not that the event was intended to raise money for the shelter dedicated to helping homeless men and women who were suffering from mental disorders. That was too unpalatable a cause for such a privileged crowd.

  With expenses mounting and donations hard to come by, the shelter was at real risk of closing. I was desperate to prevent that. Enough so that when my grandmother offered to grant access to the trust fund that I couldn’t draw on without her approval, I accepted her conditions.

  She reminded me that as a Delaney, I was duty-bound to uphold and promote the family image at all times. That meant resuming the round of social events I’d been avoiding recently. I could only hope that the canny old woman had no idea why I had become so withdrawn.

  The conversation that I’d accidentally overheard one night a few weeks before flashed through my mind yet again. Repetition did nothing to lessen its impact. As always, shock and horror at what I’d learned sent me reeling. I could think of little else--

  Not going there. Not if I wanted to keep it together long enough to get through the evening.

  Despite his surprise, the young man who had asked the question managed a follow-up.

  “Is that because of your cousin Patrick? Are you trying to make up for what happened to him?”

  I hid a wince but I also stopped smiling. Patrick had been less than a year older than me. We’d played together when we were kids summering at the family compound in Maine. I had fond memories of a red-headed boy with freckles and a killer grin.

  Growing up, we’d grown apart. Busy in college myself, I’d been only vaguely aware when my cousin dropped out of Harvard although I had noticed him once or twice at family gatherings, looking scruffy and ill-at-ease. But one evening, during a party at my parents’ Hamptons beach house, Patrick sought me out. Seated on the dilapidated old seawall, our bare feet dangling in the water, we talked into the night.

  At first, he made me laugh with memories of the mischief we’d gotten up to as kids. But as the darkness deepened around us, his tone changed. He spoke of innocence and the loss of it, of illusions and how dangerous they could be. And of the pain of betrayal. Toward the end, he wondered out loud whether evil truly exists in the world and if so, what form it takes.

  “The Devil will always come as an angel,” he said. “Or at least with a really good public relations firm.”

  I sensed that he was deeply troubled but I never suspected the true magnitude of the problem until it was too late.

  I was totally unprepared when Patrick turned up dead under a bridge in San Francisco a year ago. It turned out that he’d been living on the streets for months. The writings he left behind were leaked to the media in what had seemed at the time to be a rare failure of the family’s usually perfect image control. They painted a picture of a young man in the grip of paranoid schizophrenia, unwilling or unable to accept treatment.

  That image was so at odds with the person I’d known that I couldn’t make sense of it. As much as I tried to accept that he was gone, I was haunted by the possibility that there was more to his death than everyone else seemed to believe.

  At times, I became so absorbed thinking about Patrick that I wondered if I, too, might not be afflicted by some form of paranoia. Becoming involved with Haven House had helped. It gave me a sense of purpose and direction that I badly needed.

  “Mental illness is a serious problem in our country and elsewhere,” I said. “It’s a tragedy for individuals, families, and society as a whole. We need to do better in dealing with it.”

  With that, I turned away. There would always be another question and another but I’d had enough. Ignoring the continued shouts from the media gaggle, I lifted the hem of my Elie Saab evening gown and climbed the marble steps into the Plaza Hotel, where the night’s charity gala was being held.

  Beside me, lightly grasping my elbow, Will Foster murmured, “Well done, Grace.”

  He was my escort for the evening, a classmate of my oldest brother when they were at Yale, good looking enough to pass muster as my “date” but far too smart to get any ideas about his true role. He was there because Delaney women never attended a social event alone. That was one of Grandmother’s unbreakable rules, among so many others.

  We continued on into the hotel, bypassing the gilded elevators that led directly to the third floor ballroom. Instead, we joined the throng of guests on the broad staircase leading upward to the vast, ornate space where the gala was being held.

  I hadn’t bothered to ask what deserving cause it was for when
I agreed to attend. There were only a limited number of possibilities. A rare disease, preferably one that afflicted a beloved celebrity. Or rights for an oppressed but photogenic minority. Maybe world peace. That last one was always popular.

  “Would you like a drink?” Will asked, interrupting the cynical direction of my thoughts.

  I glanced across the corridor toward the ballroom lined with white-and-gold marble columns under a high ceiling hung with glittering chandeliers. Round tables draped in pale ivory linen and set with the finest crystal, china, and silver had been set up to accommodate the several hundred guests. But most of the crowd was still milling around in the equally lavish foyer off to one side, enjoying a pre-dinner drink.

  When I nodded, he snagged two gold-rimmed flutes of champagne off a passing tray and handed me one. With a smile, he said, “To an enjoyable evening.”

  I resisted a remark about how unlikely that was and touched my glass to his. “I appreciate you coming out at the last minute.”

  “I’m glad to do it,” he replied.

  At least I could be sure that he was telling the truth. Being seen with “America’s Princess”--the media had hung that label on me that when I was sixteen and I’d hated it ever since--could only benefit him.

  I knew that he worked for a Wall Street firm but so did thousands of other smart, ambitious young men and women. Only a select few would rise to the privileged rank of partner with all the benefits to be gained from that. Will’s connections to the Delaney family substantially increased the odds that he would be one of winners.

  Especially since he had no reluctance about serving the family’s interests both big and small.

  “Don’t let me hold you back,” I said. “I know you need to circulate.”

  “I don’t mind keeping you company.” Matter-of-factly, with no hint that he was flirting, he said, “You’re a very beautiful woman, Grace, not to mention intelligent, hardworking, and from what I can see, a genuinely good person.”

  Unexpectedly, he drained his champagne in a single swallow and said, “I have to admit that last part puzzles me. Are you sure that you’re a real Delaney?”

  My eyebrows shot up in surprise. I had never heard him utter a critical word about the family, not even by implication.

  “Seriously?” I asked.

  His shrug was quick and apologetic. “Don’t mind me and for god’s sake, please don’t tell anyone what I just said. I’ve had a rough day, that’s all.”

  He did look tired. There were shadows under his pleasant brown eyes and lines of tension around his mouth. Tall and sandy-haired with a rower’s build, Will was handsome in a conventional sort of way. But just then he appeared older than his thirty years.

  “Anything you’d like to talk about?” I asked quietly.

  For an instant, he looked tempted. But he shook his head.

  “Thanks but no. I’d rather just put it all aside for now. Let’s talk about you instead. Now that you’re out of college, are you going to take up one of the many offers that must be coming your way or are you considering grad school?”

  I hesitated, unsure how much I wanted to open up about myself. But he deserved the courtesy of an honest answer.

  “Neither. I’m only getting those offers because I am a Delaney, and I’ve had enough of sitting in a classroom, at least for a while. I’ve decided that it’s time to make my own way in the world.”

  I’d thought about doing that as far back as high school. The privileges that were mine simply by an accident of birth had come to seem both absurdly unfair and a gilded cage in which I was trapped. I wanted to get out, to prove that I really could stand on my own, and to have a life that I genuinely earned.

  But all that had remained just a vague dream until a few weeks ago. What I had learned then left me no choice. I had to get away from the family, no matter what the cost. Once I did that, I could figure out what to do next.

  Will stared at me for a moment before a startled laugh burst from him. It faded quickly as he took in the fact that I meant what I’d said.

  “Really?” he asked. “You want to make your own way?”

  Defensively, I said, “I don’t see what’s wrong with that.”

  “Nothing…on the face of it. If you were almost anyone else, your attitude would be admirable. But you’re Grace Delaney. Why would you want to throw away the incredible advantages of that?”

  “Because the cost is too high.”

  The words were out before I could catch myself. Alarmed by how close I’d come to revealing too much, I said, “Don’t mind me. My day hasn’t been great either. Can we agree to overlook each other’s indiscretions?”

  “Sure,” he said but not before I saw the speculative flare in his eyes.

  Fortunately, a chime sounded just then, alerting us that dinner was about to be served.

  I set my champagne flute down on a nearby table. Will did the same with his and offered me his arm.

  “Shall we go in?” he asked.

  We joined the throng of elegantly dressed men and women streaming into the ballroom. A string quartet was playing something by Mozart. People were chatting and smiling. The scents of the lush floral arrangements on each table wafted on the air.

  I had been to such events more times than I could count. Nothing about the present circumstances was at all unusual or novel. Nothing at all--

  My thoughts stuttered to a stop as I realized how stunningly wrong I was.

  A man had just entered at the far end of the room. Distantly, it occurred to me that he was coming in the way usually reserved for presidents and royalty. If he had security with him, I didn’t notice. But that didn’t mean they weren’t there, only that they were highly trained and very professional.

  The hotel executive who was escorting him wore an anxious smile and was talking too fast. I recognized him from other visits to the Plaza. He was entrusted with the care of ultra-VIPS, a job that required both tact and confidence. His present state of unease was startling, even odd.

  But all I really noticed was the man himself. He was young, no older than late twenties, and over six feet tall with broad shoulders, inky black hair that brushed his collar and a bronzed, Mediterranean complexion. The perfectly tailored bespoke tuxedo he wore did nothing to conceal the power of his long torso and limbs. He moved with the natural grace of an athlete, radiating strength and will. At a glance, I imagined that he would be equally formidable on a battlefield or in a boardroom.

  And elsewhere…in a bedroom, perhaps?

  The mere fact that such a thought would flit through my mind knocked me off balance. I realized that I was gaping at him but I couldn’t stop myself.

  His features weren’t so much classically handsome as they were unrelentingly male. A wide, square jaw was balanced by a full, sensuous mouth, broad cheekbones and the slashing blade of a nose that looked as though it had been broken at least once. That small defect, if it could even be called that, saved him from being too perfect to be real. Instead, he looked stunningly, even savagely human. The living, breathing, essence of masculinity.

  His eyes under dark, winged brows were oval-shaped and hooded. A sudden urge to see their color speared through me. As though in acknowledgement of my wish, our gazes met across the length of the ballroom.

  The intense, penetrating impact of his attention held me frozen. In that instant, I had the uncanny sense of being seen. The veneer of polite convention that we all depend on was stripped away. Nothing was left except my true self, bared to him as I had never been to anyone else.

  It was an illusion, of course. It had to be. There was no possibility of any such thing actually happening. I was simply more on edge than I’d realized, even overwrought. The man himself had nothing to do with it.

  Even so, the effort it took to look away from him was almost physically painful. I was stunned to discover that my palms were suddenly damp. Worse yet, that wasn’t the only part of me so affected.

  What on earth was wrong? I had nev
er reacted to any man like that, not even close. Maybe I was coming down with something really vile.

  But apart from the sudden hitch in my breathing and the pounding of my heart, I felt fine. More than that, I felt more alive than I had in a long time, perhaps ever.

  A waiter held out a chair for me at the table that Will and I would be sharing with half-a-dozen friends of the Delaney family. I sat automatically. My instincts, added to long experience dealing with such social situations, took over. I managed to get through the next hour without saying or doing anything to reveal the depth of my shock at being so powerfully affected by a complete stranger.

  But even as I smiled, chatted, and moved the food around on my plate, I couldn’t shake my awareness of him. I had to fight the urge to crane my neck and try to see him again. Was he seated nearby? Was he watching me?

  That possibility triggered a surge of hot excitement. But far beyond it, one question was uppermost in my mind as I contemplated my response to the man I already suspected that I would never be able to forget:

  Who was he?

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Grace Delaney, America’s Princess. The title had amused me when I first learned of it. I’d assumed that it was just part of the Delaneys’ carefully contrived public image. Now I had to reconsider.

  She was lovelier than I expected. I’d seen photographs of her, of course, who hadn’t? I knew the superficial details---she was slightly above average height for a woman, fine-boned, and slender with mahogany hair and a face that the camera loved. The image of guarded green eyes, high cheekbones, a slim nose and a sinfully lush mouth was etched into my memory.

  But for all that, I wasn’t prepared for the genuine warmth of the smile she gave the man who appeared to be her escort or the startling candor of her gaze when our eyes met.

  I was used to women looking at me with desire, greed, even on occasion fear. Grace Delaney had stared at me as though she was seeing her destiny. Unfortunately for her, she was likely to be right.

  A flicker of regret moved through me. I suppressed it at once. In addition to being entirely foreign to my nature, even so momentary a weakness simply could not be allowed.