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Start Reading The Devil Inside by Leisl Leighton

Dark secrets. A mysterious past. And an unforgettable passion.

After months in a coma, music promoter Melissa Linklater wakes up to a world she doesn’t remember. She’s shocked to discover she’s married – to Phil Paris, the intensely handsome drummer of world-famous band The Sidhe – and has a baby daughter. She has lost the memory of the last eight years of her life. Phil, their baby and his bandmates are all strangers.

Phil is devastated that Mel can’t remember her years with him. He needs her to remember – because he is nothing without his wife. Fame and wealth, even his music, no longer bring him joy. The only things that matter are Mel and their baby. He throws all he is into helping Mel remember, but instead of recovering memories of them, she starts to remember a secret past and a web of lies that threatens to destroy everything she knew about herself.

Someone else is also after those secrets. As her mysterious stalker escalates from anonymous phone calls to break-ins and physical threats, the police and her doctors don’t believe her – but Phil does. While she still can’t remember anything about her life with him, she does feel things for him – passionate, needful things that make her want to trust him with her darkest secrets. Will sharing those secrets make them closer or bring more danger to their door?


Chapter 1

Glass tinkled around Melissa. Metal groaned.

Her head spun even though the car had come to a stop.

The scent of dirt and grass was heavy around her. There was a copper taste in her mouth and something warm and sticky ran across her face from her nose and ears. Her head hurt—everything hurt—but she forced her eyes open.

The world was upside down.

Oh god.

The baby!

She tried to move her arms to touch her stomach but couldn’t. They hung over her head, limp and too heavy to move. She tried to look around for help but the wave of pain and nausea almost made her pass out.

More glass tinkled. The car groaned. She could smell petrol. No, no, please. This couldn’t be the end. She couldn’t lose the baby. She couldn’t leave Phil.

Phil!

A sob ripped from her throat. They were supposed to have forever. That promise had meant more than she’d ever let on; more than she’d ever understood. She’d already lost so much … so much—

Pain spiked through her head as a memory flashed into her mind.

Mama and Papa standing over her, their expressions oddly blank as they intoned, ‘Forget, kukla. Forget.’

Forget? Forget what? She couldn’t remember. But she knew it was something painful. A loss. A horrible, terrifying loss.

Her mind slid sideways and her vision went dark as nausea rose up in a sick, thickening wave.

Was she dying? She couldn’t die. Not now. Not when she was about to get everything she’d ever wanted. Phil and … She was supposed to be a mother. The baby deserved the best life with parents who loved her so much it hurt. Like the love she’d missed out on with her mamochka and papochka.

She groaned as the words stabbed through her mind. Mamochka? Papochka? Why did the sound of them make her heart squeeze even worse than when Mama and Papa had died in that car crash, gone in flames before anyone could help?

Flames. Hot. So hot. Smoke choking her as she was picked up, carried away, screaming; screaming.

But that wasn’t right. She hadn’t been there when Mama and Papa had died.

An image lurched into her mind of a house in flames swallowed in the distance by the dark. Her mind slid painfully away from the image and she almost threw up.

Oh god. Oh god. It hurt.

The sound of laughing. Was she going insane? Who would be laughing? Was it another memory?

She braced for the pain, for the nausea, but nothing came.

The laughing came closer alongside the sound of feet pounding on the scarred turf.

A shadowy figure, seen through the smashed windscreen, ran towards her. Were they here to help? But why were they laughing? Could it be the madman who’d driven her off the road?

She had to get out of here. Had to move. But she couldn’t. Her head was filled with so much pain. Darkness edged her vision. She needed help. But there was no-one. No-one.

She swallowed convulsively, winced against the pain. Her neck was sore, her throat swollen and bruised, maybe worse. Blood filled her mouth. Something bad had happened to her neck. Had she broken it? Was that why she couldn’t move? Why it was so hard to breathe?

Blackness rose up around her.

She jerked to consciousness as something touched her face, her neck. Whoever he was mumbled to himself, his words floating in and out so she couldn’t catch them. Couldn’t tell if he was someone here to save her or the madman who’d run her off the road.

Why would anyone do that?

He sounded so angry, yet his fingers as they brushed her hair aside were so gentle. She still couldn’t see who it was. She couldn’t help the groaning sound that squeezed in her throat. Oh god. Oh god. Was this it?

No. She didn’t want to leave Phil. She didn’t want to die. She didn’t want her precious baby to die.

‘You’re alive,’ he muttered, his voice oddly familiar and yet she couldn’t grasp onto why. Whoever he was, he sounded relieved. Maybe he wasn’t going to kill her. Maybe he would help. She tried to speak again but all she could do was make that squeezed noise, like a groan.

‘What am I going to do? What am I going to do? It’s a sin. I know it’s a sin.’ She almost flinched as he hit the car. The metal groaned and more glass tinkled down, scratching against her hands. Then suddenly he shouted, ‘A phone!’ and squeezed through the window, his fingers brushing against hers as he grabbed the phone she’d been on when he’d run her off the road.

‘Send an ambulance. There’s been an accident,’ he said, his voice suddenly lower, rougher. ‘Send an ambulance.’

She almost opened her eyes, but lifting her lids took more effort than she had to give.

His words rumbled around her as he gave the location, ended the call then fussed around outside the window, muttering about cleaning the phone of his prints, of needing to get out of here before they came.

He leaned back in the window and the car shifted, the seatbelt pushing against her chest, her throat—a cutting, tearing pain. She wanted to scream but even that was beyond her now. Her mind slid towards the oblivion of unconsciousness, but she pushed back against it. She couldn’t pass out. Couldn’t. If she did, she was so afraid she might never wake up. Staying conscious was important. Wasn’t that what every doctor show she’d ever watched always said?

She held onto consciousness with every bit of strength she had in her. But it hurt. It hurt so bad. Then everything arrowed in on the sensation of his lips next to her ear, his breath making her shudder as he said, ‘Your husband should have looked after you, Melissa.’

What? He knew her? Knew Phil?

‘He should have never left your side. If he had, this would never have happened. But don’t worry, precious mother, I will make him pay.’

What? No. She wanted to scream at him, to plead for him not to hurt her love, but she couldn’t make the thoughts do more than swirl in panic in her mind.

‘I will take care of your husband after I’ve taken care of Alexia and Cat and Dae. I promise you, I will make them all pay.’ He stroked the side of her face. Then he was gone, the thump of his feet fading as he ran back across the field.

Melissa wanted to scream, to run after him, to fight him, to stop him. He was going to hurt Phil. He was going to kill the only person who had ever loved her openly and honestly with no secrets, no pain.

The words scrambled around in her head. Secrets and pain. Pain and secrets. She couldn’t take anymore. Not again. Never again.

Her heart raced and her head spun around the words, over and over as darkness tightened on every side, closing in, closing in. No, no, she hated the dark. But it was no use. The yawning darkness swallowed her whole.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Leisl Leighton

Leisl is a tall redhead with an overly large imagination. As a child, she identified strongly with Anne of Green Gables. A voracious reader and a born performer, it came as no surprise to anyone when she did a double major in English Literature and Drama for her BA, then went on to a career as an actor, singer and dancer, as well as scriptwriter, stage manager and musical director for cabaret and theatre restaurants (one of which she co-owned and ran for six years).

After starting a family, Leisl stopped performing and instead began writing the stories that had been plaguing her dreams. Leisl’s stories have won and placed in many competitions in Australia and the US, including the RUBY, STALI, Golden Opportunities, Heart of the West, Linda Howard Award of Excellence, Touch of Magic and many others.

Leisl lives in the leafy suburbs of Melbourne with her two beautiful boys, lovely hubby and overly spunky pets Skye and Ripley, and likes to spend time with family and friends. She is addicted to anything sci-fi, fantasy and paranormal (books, TV shows, movies – bring them on!) and owns ALL the superhero movies. She sometimes sings in a choir, has worked as a swim teacher, loves to ski, can talk the hind leg off a donkey and was President of Romance Writers of Australia from 2014 to 2017.

You can contact Leisl through her website www.leislleighton.com or sign up to her Newsletter and be the first to find out about new releases, appearances, special deals and exclusive giveaways. You can also follow her on InstagramGoodreadsBookBub and Facebook.

Don’t miss The Devil Inside

Dark secrets. A mysterious past. And an unforgettable passion.

After months in a coma, music promoter Melissa Linklater wakes up to a world she doesn’t remember. She’s shocked to discover she’s married – to Phil Paris, the intensely handsome drummer of world-famous band The Sidhe – and has a baby daughter. She has lost the memory of the last eight years of her life. Phil, their baby and his bandmates are all strangers.

Phil is devastated that Mel can’t remember her years with him. He needs her to remember – because he is nothing without his wife. Fame and wealth, even his music, no longer bring him joy. The only things that matter are Mel and their baby. He throws all he is into helping Mel remember, but instead of recovering memories of them, she starts to remember a secret past and a web of lies that threatens to destroy everything she knew about herself.

Someone else is also after those secrets. As her mysterious stalker escalates from anonymous phone calls to break-ins and physical threats, the police and her doctors don’t believe her – but Phil does. While she still can’t remember anything about her life with him, she does feel things for him – passionate, needful things that make her want to trust him with her darkest secrets. Will sharing those secrets make them closer or bring more danger to their door?

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