PRAISE FOR MELISSA FOSTER
“With her wonderful characters and resonating emotions, Melissa Foster is a must-read author!”
—New York Times bestseller Julie Kenner
“Melissa Foster is synonymous with sexy, swoony, heartfelt romance!”
—New York Times bestseller Lauren Blakely
“You can always rely on Melissa Foster to deliver a story that’s fresh, emotional, and entertaining.”
—New York Times bestseller Brenda Novak
“Melissa Foster writes worlds that draw you in, with strong heroes and brave heroines surrounded by a community that makes you want to crawl right on through the page and live there.”
—New York Times bestseller Julia Kent
“When it comes to contemporary romances with realistic characters, an emotional love story, and smokin’-hot sex, author Melissa Foster always delivers!”
—The Romance Reviews
“Foster writes characters that are complex and loyal, and each new story brings further depth and development to a redefined concept of family.”
—RT Book Reviews
“Melissa Foster definitely knows how to spin a tale and keep you flipping the pages.”
—Book Loving Fairy
“You can never go wrong with the heroes that Melissa Foster creates. She hasn’t made one yet that I haven’t fallen in love with.”
—Natalie the Biblioholic
“Melissa is a very talented author that tells fabulous stories that captivate you and keep your attention from the first page to the last page. Definitely an author that you will want to keep on your go-to list.”
—Between the Coverz
“Melissa Foster writes the best contemporary romance I have ever read. She does it in bundles, topped it with great plots, hot guys, strong heroines, and sprinkled it with family dynamics—you got yourself an amazing read.”
—Reviews of a Book Maniac
“[Melissa Foster] has a way with words that endears a family in our hearts, and watching each sibling and friend go on to meet their true love is such a joy!”
—Thoughts of a Blonde
MORE BOOKS BY MELISSA FOSTER
LOVE IN BLOOM ROMANCE SERIES
SNOW SISTERS
Sisters in Love
Sisters in Bloom
Sisters in White
THE BRADENS
Lovers at Heart, Reimagined
Destined for Love
Friendship on Fire
Sea of Love
Bursting with Love
Hearts at Play
Taken by Love
Fated for Love
Romancing My Love
Flirting with Love
Dreaming of Love
Crashing into Love
Healed by Love
Surrender My Love
River of Love
Crushing on Love
Whisper of Love
Thrill of Love
THE BRADENS & MONTGOMERYS
Embracing Her Heart
Anything for Love
Trails of Love
Wild, Crazy Hearts
Making You Mine
BRADEN NOVELLAS
Promise My Love
Our New Love
Daring Her Love
Story of Love
Love at Last
A Very Braden Christmas
THE REMINGTONS
Game of Love
Stroke of Love
Flames of Love
Slope of Love
Read, Write, Love
Touched by Love
SEASIDE SUMMERS
Seaside Dreams
Seaside Hearts
Seaside Sunsets
Seaside Secrets
Seaside Nights
Seaside Embrace
Seaside Lovers
Seaside Whispers
Seaside Serenade
BAYSIDE SUMMERS
Bayside Desires
Bayside Passions
Bayside Heat
Bayside Escape
Bayside Romance
THE RYDERS
Seized by Love
Claimed by Love
Chased by Love
Rescued by Love
Swept into Love
SUGAR LAKE
The Real Thing
Only for You
Love Like Ours
Finding My Girl
TRU BLUE & THE WHISKEYS
Tru Blue
Truly, Madly, Whiskey
Driving Whiskey Wild
Wicked Whiskey Love
Mad About Moon
Taming My Whiskey
BILLIONAIRES AFTER DARK SERIES
Wild Boys After Dark
Logan
Heath
Jackson
Cooper
Bad Boys After Dark
Mick
Dylan
Carson
Brett
HARBORSIDE NIGHTS
Catching Cassidy
Discovering Delilah
Tempting Tristan
STAND-ALONE NOVELS
Chasing Amanda (mystery/suspense)
Come Back to Me (mystery/suspense)
Have No Shame (historical fiction/romance)
Love, Lies, & Mystery (three-book bundle)
Megan’s Way (literary fiction)
Traces of Kara (psychological thriller)
Where Petals Fall (suspense)
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2019 by Melissa Foster
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Montlake Romance, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake Romance are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781542007382
ISBN-10: 1542007380
Cover design by Letitia Hasser
Cover photography by Wander Aguiar Photography
To the Lisas in my life
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
EPILOGUE
A NOTE FROM MELISSA
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CHAPTER ONE
AURELIA LOOKED LONGINGLY at the muscular arm circling her waist and the large hand cupping her breast over her shirt and promptly closed her eyes, chastising herself for doing it again. Always a bridesmaid, never a bride was beginning to ring too true, and it was all Ben Dalton’s fault. She’d had a ridiculous crush on her Henry Cavill–lookalike best friend for far too long, and it was getting in the way of her life, her thoughts, her everything. Every time she went out with a guy, she compared him to Ben, who looked rugged and yummy in jeans that hugged his thick thighs and perfect ass and could rock a suit like he’d strutted off a runway. He ev
en owned a pair of black-framed glasses he sometimes wore for reading, which took him from Superman to Clark Kent in a heartbeat. What woman wasn’t turned on by a stud in glasses? But it wasn’t just his looks. She quickly bored of every date, waiting for them to be quippy, fun, and unknowingly seductive like Ben. If she wasn’t careful, she’d end up the spinster of Sweetwater, New York. Harmony Pointe, she corrected herself. Though she’d grown up in Sweetwater and moved back to reopen her grandmother’s bookstore and combine it with Ben’s sister Willow’s business, Sweetie Pie Bakery, Aurelia had recently changed directions. In an effort to stop waking up in Friendsville, she’d bought an adorable bookstore with an apartment above it on the corner of Main Street and West Avenue in the next town over, Harmony Pointe.
She allowed herself another minute to enjoy the feel of Ben’s broad chest against her back, his titillating breath warming her neck, and yes, even his morning wood pressing into her bottom. The situation would be sexier if the man-child wrapped around her wasn’t also drooling on her shirt.
That was about all the action she’d ever see from him.
She’d spent the last month swearing she was done doing this with him. But when he’d called her last night and said, “Come on, Rels, hang out with me. I miss you,” that was all it had taken. The way he said Rels always made her stupid heart melt. She’d been called Aurelia since the day she was born—the day her mother had died—by everyone except Ben. He had coined the nickname Rels—or Relsy if he was in a particularly sweet mood—and he only seemed to use it when they were alone. It was ridiculous that a secret nickname could make her feel special, but it did. She knew she was important to him. She was the first person he called to share any kind of news, and they were known in their circle of friends as Ben and Aurelia—always linked, like Ben and Jerry. Two people who seemed to exist as one perfect combination.
Except she didn’t want to be Ben and Jerry.
She wanted to be the perfect combination of man and woman, like Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively. The type of couple who had wild, crazy sex and woke up naked, tangled in each other’s sticky body parts, not clothed on a chaise lounge in the middle of Benjamin Unable-to-Commit Dalton’s living room with drool on their shoulders.
She huffed out a breath and peeled his long fingers off her breast, reminding herself this was exactly why she’d taken her grandmother Flossie’s words to heart after her grandfather had passed away last month. She’d heard stories about couples like her grandparents who had been together for more than fifty years dying within weeks of each other, and she’d been petrified that she’d lose her grandmother, too. As they’d driven back to the Long Island assisted-living facility where her grandparents had lived for the past several years, Aurelia had begged her grandmother to move back to Sweetwater and let her care for her. But her bright-eyed grandmother—the woman who had taught her to tie her shoes and speak her mind, the woman who had owned a bookstore in Sweetwater for forty-plus years and instilled a love of all things literary in Aurelia—had said, This isn’t the end of my story, bubbelah. Your grandfather and I could fill a library with books about our love. We had our happily ever after, and we shared a beautiful, spectacular life. But as your grandpa would say, now it’s time to start a new adventure—my next chapter.
Ben murmured, holding Aurelia tighter and pressing his all-too-tempting arousal harder against her jeans, tearing her from the pages of her past—and thrusting her into the going-nowhere scribblings of the present.
She tried to pry his fingers off her again and said, “Time to wake up, Benny boy.”
He groaned, tightening his hold.
“Ben!” she snapped, irritated with herself for falling into her old ways so easily. She’d moved into her apartment above the bookstore two weeks ago in an effort to be in before Ben’s sister Bridgette’s wedding, which had taken place two days ago. That was her deadline for her fresh start, her own new chapter.
I sure screwed that up.
Ben startled awake and peered over her shoulder. “Sorry, Rels. I didn’t mean to grab your boob again.”
Right, you didn’t mean to. Thanks for the reminder. “Whatever.” She sat up, and he hauled her back against his chest, making her laugh despite herself.
“I love waking up with my best bud by my side,” he said. “Even if she is cranky in the morning.”
“I’m not cranky.” She eyed the bottle of tequila on the table and sighed inwardly. She knew better than to drink with Ben. They laughed and drank and always ended up crashing together—never in the way she wanted, despite the fact that he’d bought her a toothbrush for his house months ago. She wondered how he explained that to his one-night stands. She knew he had them, but in truth, she had no idea if they came home with him or if they always did the deed elsewhere. Her stomach sank.
It was time for this to end once and for all. “We can’t drink tequila anymore,” she said adamantly.
“Okay, next time we’ll get Jack and Coke.”
“Maybe we need to stop drinking when we watch movies,” she said half-heartedly, because she loved their comfy, fun evenings. But being friend-zoned with Ben made her feel pathetic, so she said, “I do have a new apartment to inhabit.”
“For the record, as glad as I am that you found such a great investment, I hate that you’re not right around the corner anymore. And you did it all so fast, Rels. One day you’re driving Flossie home, and the next you announce that you’re moving to Harmony Pointe.”
She’d driven through Harmony Pointe on her way back from taking her grandmother home after her grandfather’s funeral, and when she’d stopped at a red light, she’d seen a FOR SALE sign on the door of the corner bookstore, which was called Chapter One. It had felt like a neon sign screaming at her to move on with her life, and she’d made an offer that day.
“Well, apparently all it takes is one call and I’m right back in your living room,” she said, trying not to make too much of his comment.
“Because that’s what friends do. They keep each other company.”
Friends. The greatest buzzkill of all.
He began kneading her shoulders. He had the biggest, strongest hands. Magic hands. She’d fantasized about them slipping beneath her clothing, caressing, groping, and teasing until she was wet and wanting—
“See? You need this in the mornings to take the edge off,” he said in a low voice, snapping her out of her fantasy.
She turned her head to see his face, and her heart stumbled. Ben hadn’t always had the chiseled face of a model. His cheeks had been a little full until he’d hit his twenties, as if his body had refused to give up that last trace of boyishness, especially when he’d smiled. But he’d kept the hint of dimples, and a playful grin never failed to make its way up to his dark eyes. Those seriously sexy eyes could smolder the panties off a woman as easily as they could command a boardroom. She imagined they made him a master negotiator in the bedroom, too. And don’t get her started on his lips . . .
“You’re all tight again,” he said, still rubbing her shoulders.
Reality hit her like a freight train. What was she doing? Her bestie was a venture capitalist and had gotten lucky with investments when he’d first gone to college, and he’d been getting lucky with random women ever since. Except he’d never tried a damn thing with Aurelia, and he’d had plenty of chances.
Then again, she hadn’t tried anything with him, either, and she was no wallflower. Aurelia didn’t exactly shy away from making moves on men. But with Ben, things were different. Complicated. The Daltons were her second family. Ben’s four sisters were her best girlfriends, and then there was this sizzling, teasing, almost-but-not-really thing between her and Ben. Besties. Drinking buddies. Ben and Jerry.
Fuck Ben and Jerry. She wanted to eat whipped cream off his big cone, but not at the risk of losing him as her friend or screwing up her relationship with the rest of his family.
Aaaand that was why she had to leave.
Now.
�
��I’ve got to go.” She tried to pull away, but he dug his fingers into her knotted muscles, releasing tension and drawing a moan from her traitorous lungs.
“Don’t run off,” he coaxed. “I wasn’t kidding. You are my best friend. I trust you with my secrets, and I love who you are.”
Hope bubbled up inside her, and she closed her eyes, glad he couldn’t see her face. Had their time finally come? “Really?”
“Of course,” he said, and she heard the smile in his voice.
That made her feel all sorts of good, and the truth came easily. “I love who you are, too.”
He leaned his chin on her shoulder, his hard chest pressing against her back as he said, “I especially love who you are when you’re making me breakfast.”
“Ugh!” She pushed to her feet, but he snagged her wrist, giving her the puppy-dog eyes she’d never been able to resist. The ones that said, Please don’t leave me. “Ben,” she warned.
“Relsy,” he pleaded.
“I am not making you breakfast. I have to go.” She yanked her hand away and said, “And I’m busy for the next few weeks. Actually, for a lifetime, so . . .” She shoved her feet into her red Converse sneakers and grabbed her purse.
“I seriously have to make my own breakfast?” Ben pushed to his feet and stretched, six-plus feet of hotness towering over her five-two frame. “But you make waffles better than I do.”
“I do a lot of things better than you. Don’t forget to call Aiden back.” Aiden was his business partner. He’d called Ben last night while they were watching a movie and Ben had made her laugh, causing tequila to come out of her nose, which had sent him into hysterics and rendered him unable to answer the call.
“Shit, that’s right.” He grabbed his phone from the table. “He was supposed to set up a meeting with our legal team.”
“For the hotel chain you’re buying?”
“Yeah. Hey, take my sweatshirt. It’s early. You’ll be cold.”
He pulled his sweatshirt over his head and tossed it to her, revealing a dusting of chest hair over muscular pecs and a treasure trail that disappeared beneath the waist of his low-slung jeans. His sweatshirt hit her in the chest and landed at her feet, reminding her she was staring.
Ben laughed. “Nice catch, Rels. Remind me not to pick you for my baseball team.”
“I don’t want to be on your team. You run the bases too slow,” she mumbled as she picked up his sweatshirt and tugged it over her head, inhaling his masculine scent. Even his smell made her nipples stand at attention. “I’m out of here.”
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