“I’m not sure what you have been told about me, but I’m not nearly as bad as they make me out to be.” His deliciously deep voice carried a little bit of ego.
I’m sure you are exactly as bad as they make you out to be….
Brad De Luca is used to getting whatever and whomever he wants. The premier divorce attorney in town, he’s a playboy who’s bedded half the city—including his own clients. And when the newest intern at his firm poses a challenge, his seductive prowess goes into overdrive.
Pre-law student Julia Campbell is fresh off a failed engagement and happy with her new independence. Even if she weren’t warned away from Brad at every turn, she’d know he was bad news. The last thing she needs is a man who could destroy her job prospects, not to mention her innocence. But before she knows it, the incorrigible charmer has her under his spell. His deviant tastes plunge her deep into a forbidden world of sexual exploration…but her heart may not survive the fall.
Blindfolded Innocence
Alessandra Torre
This book is dedicated to Joey,
my best friend and soul mate. I love you forever.
Table of Contents
Prologue
I knelt on the floor, a pillow underneath my knees. Blindfolded, I listened intently, waiting for a sign of what was to come. Only the hum of the hotel air conditioner met my ears. Seconds passed, then a minute. Finally, I heard the door open and then click shut. Footsteps, muted on the carpet, behind me. I felt, rather than heard, a male presence pass by my side and come to stand in front of me. Close, so close. I leaned backward slightly. The sound of a zipper being drawn down filled the silent room.
One
Four months earlier
I decided to break off my engagement on a Wednesday night at 2:20 a.m. I was drunk past the point of walking a straight line, but not yet to the point of slurring my speech. Drunk wasn’t the best mind-set to be in to make a life-altering decision, but a thin curtain had finally been ripped away and a truth that I had evaded for the past two years now stood front and center in the middle of my head, waving its arms and screaming.
Luke was not the one for me.
I met Luke as a sophomore in college. At the time I was emotionally vulnerable, recently dumped by the first “love of my life” two weeks after he took my virginity. That asshole ditched poor deflowered me to run off with a seventeen-year-old blonde, pink-toenailed California princess. Luke was different—quiet, brooding, a sensitive soul who seemed absolutely terrified of me. I was bubbly, beautiful and determined to get over my heartbreak the college way—partying myself into oblivion. I hunted Luke down the way a lioness would a defenseless baby antelope, making my sole occupation getting him to fall completely and hopelessly in love with me—which he did, putting me on a pedestal and worshipping daily at my whim.
I demanded a proposal within six months, which he gave me willingly—I think—and we began to plan a life together. This life plan was hampered slightly by the fact that Luke was a dreamer with high goals but little follow-through. He enjoyed spending time with me, and not much else. He worked in construction—not in a management capacity, as I had originally thought, but as a laborer. My bubbly persona started to turn into more of a nagging mother role. It wasn’t long before my subconscious started poking me with a sharp, pointy stick. I ignored the annoying pokes for twelve months, then my subconscious had enough of waiting.
It is weird the things that enter your head during a breakup. I sat on my bed with Luke sitting next to me, and I wondered