Chapter 1
EJ Dimera had everything he'd ever wanted in life...beautiful children, a successful career and the woman who had tormented and owned his soul for years. Samantha Brady was finally going to be his wife. He was finally getting his happy ending...his perfect life.
He'd made a terrible mistake with Abigail Deveraux. Once again protecting his beloved Samantha, he'd allowed a situation to blow out of control. He'd been angry, desperate and vulnerable. EJ Dimera vulnerable? Yes. Something in that young woman's impossibly large eyes had gotten to him...penetrated his carefully constructed, polished veneer. He could not say no. He could not walk away.
Abigail unnerved him. She made him question himself and his resolve. He'd had tunnel vision with Samantha for so long, how could he have allowed himself stray?
EJ and Abigail had crossed a line. It could never be uncrossed. They could never return to the pleasant budding friendship that he had once enjoyed.
He could still taste the sweetness of her skin. In his ears lingered the whispered moans of his name on her lips as he had made love to her.
He would always love Samantha Brady.
But he did not know if he could ever forget Abigail Deveraux.
"EJ?"
Samantha's voice cut through his reverie, bringing him back to the moment at hand.
Their wedding rehearsal.
As if either of them really needed to rehearse a wedding... How many combined attempts did they have between them? Thirteen? Sixteen?
"Where were you just now? Certainly not focused on this wedding," she snipped.
He stood with her hands in his before an alter of roses in the Dimera garden. The minister, thankfully one of the few in Salem who hadn't officiated an almost Samantha Brady wedding, had just finished going over the vows.
"I am sorry, darling," he answered, genuinely remorseful. "I'm just thinking that I finally have everything I have ever wanted. You will be my wife and we will be a family with our children."
Samantha smiled. She was so beautiful when she was happy. Her eyes lit up and sparkled.
"We are going to have our perfect wedding," she said. "Nothing can change that."
Abigail Deveraux sat alone on a bench overlooking the water on Smith Island.
Despite the heat of the warm July sun caressing her bare legs, she shivered. She pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them to ward off the chill.
She knew that today was the rehearsal for EJ's long awaited wedding...his happily ever after. Related to half of the family, Abigail had even been invited.
"I decline on the grounds that I can get over having sex with the groom," she laughed to herself.
It'd been weeks since she'd told EJ to never call her again. Weeks since he'd made it perfectly clear that he didn't trust her not to run her mouth and ruin his future with his beloved Samantha. Samantha Brady. The woman had made his life...and countless others...miserable. She'd lied, manipulated, schemed...hell, she'd even shot him.
Her fears about Abby's cousin Nick had sent EJ to this cabin to begin with... he'd only come here covering for Samantha.
But that's not how that day had ended, she remembered painfully.
Even now, angry with herself for her own stupidity and furious with him over his rejection, she could still see the passion in his eyes as he'd held her down on the bed.
"For God's sake, Abigail! Snap out of it!" she admonished herself.
She stood and walked the short distance through the heavily wooded path to her family's cabin. She had planned to spend the weekend tucked away in the privacy of this place. She wanted to be totally alone with her thoughts...her conscience...as EJ married the woman he claimed to love more than his own life.
"And yet he made love to me..." the thought, unwelcome, sent another pang of misery through her heart.
She had never imagined that she would have sex with someone without love. Her plan had always been to wait for marriage. What was it about those damned Dimeras? First Chad and then EJ...what was wrong with her?
With EJ, though, she'd learned something about herself. She'd found a dark side...a hunger. Her mother would be so disappointed, but she wondered if her father might actually understand. Jack Deveraux had wandered his entire life trying to fill a void that not even the love of her mother and his devotion to his children could fill. He'd settle down for a while and then the need would come again and he'd be off on his next adventure.
Was Abigail doomed to follow her father's path?
She'd made terrible mistakes. She was still wracked with guilt over trying to break up Carrie and Austin Reed. Lying and making Austin believe they'd slept together was the worst mistake she'd ever made...until EJ. Giving her virginity to Chad...another Dimera... had also clearly been a mistake.
She walked in the screen door and her eyes were drawn to the blue and white draped bed. She could remember the thrill of him pushing her onto the bed, holding her wrists above her head as his lips traveled the length of her body.
Stop this, Abigail!
She shook her head, trying to clear the images from her mind. The memories alone were making her flesh heat and her body ache... for him. She still wanted EJ Dimera.
Subconsciously, she traced the path of his lips with her fingers. First her ear, then to the hollow of her neck before skimming along her collar bone.
She sighed and walked to the bed and lay down.
She closed her eyes. She could almost smell him here.
"Oh my God, Abigail."
His voice, so sexy and rich, seemed so real in her fantasy. \
"Abigail!"
His voice sounded hoarse...her name forced. He sounded so real.
"Abigail..."
He sounded too real.
Her eyes flew open, the fantasy lost.
He stood three feet from the bed, staring at her, his eyes almost black with desire.
A thousand questions should have come to mind, but Abigail only asked one.
"EJ, please?"
