Table of Contents
Title Page
Books by Rachel Blaufeld
Copyright
Dedication
About the Book
Prologue
PART I
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
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
PART II
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Stand Alone Titles
Break Point
To See You
Heart Stronger
Wanderlove
Love at Center Court Series
Vérité
Dolce
The Electric Tunnel Series
Electrified
Smoldered
Tinged
Crossroads Series
Redemption Lane
Absolution Road
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Love Disregarded
Copyright © 2020 Rachel Blaufeld
All rights reserved
ISBN: 978-1-7340017-2-3
Edited by
Pam Berehulke
www.bulletproofediting.com
Content Read by
Virginia Tesi Carey
Cover design by
© Sarah Hansen, Okay Creations, LLC
www.okaycreations.com
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Without limiting the rights under the copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the above author of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
Warning:
This book is intended for mature audiences.
Interior design and formatting by:
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For Michelle R., a beacon of light in the reading community.
Michelle, who tirelessly supports, advocates, and champions the romance genre. For all your yelling from the rooftops, taking time away from your family to help, and always listening.
Here is to the next time we can drink wine and eat pizza in NYC . . . the best city in the world.
Thanks for being with me on this journey.
When I first met Aston Prescott, I thought I’d be able to let go of him.
I was naive.
He belonged to the country club where I worked, and despite the vast difference in our social status, I still fell for him. I thought he fell for me too, and that our love would overcome any obstacles.
But our relationship was discounted by everyone around us. Our families didn’t support us, and our friends avoided us.
So we moved on with our lives, but then everything fell apart.
The man who once abandoned me is now seeking comfort in my arms, and this time, I’m not sure if I can give in.
Because if I do, I may never be able to let him go again.
Bexley
Present day
I sat waiting, my butt crammed as far into the bench of the window seat as it could go, flush against the windowpane. With my chin resting on my bent knees, I stared out the bay window into the night, hoping for a sign that I wasn’t wasting my time.
My kids had been asleep for hours, but something kept me up. A niggling, maybe . . . I didn’t know what you’d actually call the feeling. A premonition, my grandma would have said, but she’d been gone since I was in grade school.
Most people would dismiss it as black magic or voodoo, or simply plain crap. Yet here I was.
Fourteen years later, I was still in tune with a man, thinking he was going to appear out of the blue, even though he hadn’t shown his face here in years. Not just any man, but the man who’d changed me, forced me to love, and then left me—not for something better, but for the life he was destined to live.
If I squeezed my eyes tightly enough, I could feel he was close. Even after so many years, warmth still blanketed my skin when I thought about him.
Nerves flitted in my belly, tickling and scratching, making me uneasy, but I couldn’t move from the window seat. I’d waited a lifetime for this night. In this moment, I wasn’t a single mom with an overactive imagination, sitting awake in the middle of the night, thinking about a man who wasn’t going to show. No, I was a recent high school graduate, waiting for her guy to come by and make me his.
For whatever reason, I was convinced he was coming back to me tonight, and no one could tell me otherwise. Not that I’d dared to share this with anyone.
Afraid to move, I’d waited so long in the window seat, I’d fallen asleep. My hair was stuck in the crook of my neck, drool running down my chin onto my knee, when the sun fully came up. The first rays shone through the crack in the blinds from where I’d been peeking all night.
He didn’t show.
I wasn’t shocked or surprised.
Not wanting to leave the window, I watched as a kid on an old-fashioned beach cruiser tossed a newspaper onto my lawn and sped off. Guilt had forced me to subscribe; the kid loved his job.
The sound of giggling came from the kitchen, knocking me out of my reverie. Over the hum of the television, I could hear spoons scraping cereal bowls.
Shit. I messed up.
After a long inhale, I swallowed a large lump of humiliation and brushed the hair out of my eyes. Standing on wobbly knees, I decided to grab the paper first.
Pleased for the first time that I didn’t drop my subscription for the paper edition, I popped open the door, desperate to stretch my legs, gulping big breaths of fresh air before meeting my reality this Saturday.
As the desert breeze smacked me square in the face, I came to a conclusion . .
.
Aston Prescott was never meant to be mine. He was a dream I should have let die a long time ago, right along with my right to forever happiness.
He was married and had a family with another woman. In fact, he was probably sitting with them at some fancy-ass brunch at this very moment, at his fancy-pants country club with his snotty friends and his pain-in-the-ass controlling father.
In a world where I didn’t belong.
Bexley
Back then
Three days after my eighteenth birthday, I met the guy.
You know . . . the one.
Not to disappoint, but it was your typical girl meets boy, insta-lust, I’m going to wither away and die if I don’t date him type of thing. The kind of meet-cute story straight out of the movies. The second I saw him, all the mushy feelings swept over me like a sandstorm in the desert.
That particular day was no different from any other, the sun burning hot as hell in Nevada, where I lived and was spending my last few months before college. In a last-ditch effort, I was trying to make some major moolah before school loans knocked me on my ass. Lord knew I needed it.
This was meant to be my last hurrah in this desert oasis before I got the hell out of Dodge, and then I met him.
The very moment he laid eyes on me, I knew one thing for certain—he was the gold standard I’d compare every man to moving forward.
That summer, I’d gotten a job working as a sandwich girl at a fancy golf club in our small town outside Reno. My good friend, Milly, and I had been put in charge of making close to 250 sandwiches on any given day for the pickiest, most obnoxious bitches in Reno.
Look, I know, you shouldn’t call women bitches. But damn if they weren’t to us poor, less fortunate girls.
“One Cunty Tuna and two Bitchy Bacon, Lettuce, and Tomato, hold the mayo, Bexley . . . on whole wheat, of course,” Milly called to me from the counter.
I was in the cold locker grabbing some more turkey bacon, the kind we referred to as Bitchy Bacon, and without even looking up, I knew she was rolling her eyes. The women who ate this ridiculous bacon substitute were even bitchier due to caloric deprivation.
“God, don’t these women ever have fun? I’m going to dab a little mayo on her damn dry tuna and see if she notices,” I muttered to myself, slapping the bacon on my prep counter.
It was stifling in the small kitchen, and I swept a few stray damp hairs off my face with my forearm and set about making the sandwiches. Milly was busy taking an order. She was way better than me at the face-to-face thing, which was why she was stationed at the counter.
“Bex, double that order, but make the last Bitchy open-faced on rye.”
I rolled my eyes and yelled, “Okay.”
My lackluster dark blond hair was braided to the side, and I could feel it curling in the desert heat. It would be one hell of a mess to comb out later. Sweat dripped down my back and into my thong under my ridiculous polyester uniform.
After Marcus, the waiter, ran our latest sandwich rush out to the tables shaded by a sea of red-and-white-striped umbrellas, I called out to Milly, “I need a breather.” Blowing out a breath, I untied my apron and looked to see if she heard me.
Of course, Milly was hanging out of the window flirting with Mike Richards, so I didn’t wait for her to answer.
By the way, Mike was a major asshole, and I hated him for her.
“Yeah, go,” she finally hollered back as I elbowed the back door open.
I stepped out and took a long swig of my iced green tea before holding my face up to the sun. I let the vitamin D rain down on me and took slow breaths, thinking of how much money I was saving between tips and the cushy salary I was being paid. I was pretty sure the club didn’t want us going around and spilling their dirty little secrets, so they overcompensated in our paychecks.
What happened at Sun Rock Golf Club, stayed at Sun Rock Golf Club.
I was occupied with running the chilled bottle down my neck, allowing the condensation to drip down my clavicle into my cleavage, when a deep voice interrupted my moment of solitude.
“You cool?”
I opened my eyes and moved my face out of the sun. “Um, yeah, I’m cool. Can I help you? Milly’s around front taking orders,” I said, squinting in the bright sunlight.
When I finally took in the person behind the voice, my legs went weak—literally. Conflicted and embarrassed by the jolt I felt from looking at this dude, I swallowed my impure thoughts.
Yes, he was a pompous ass, but his eyes were perfectly blue (like the sky, of course), his skin golden from spending time in the sun, and his face was complemented by a mane of light blond waves.
“Nah, I’m not hungry. I saw you sneaking around back, and I came to introduce myself. Aston . . . Aston Prescott.” He said it with authority like he was a senator or something, his voice deep and confident as he arrogantly extended his hand toward me.
“Oh,” was all I could croak out. Immediately, I cursed myself like in the movie Dirty Dancing, when she carried a watermelon.
“And you are?” Aston asked, staring me down with his heavenly blues.
For the briefest of moments, I felt naked, laid bare in a way I’d never experienced before. I’d never understood what the expression meant, but I did now as I came undone under his gaze.
Feeling my heart in my throat, I swallowed it back down. “Bexley,” I said, practically whispering.
“Nice to meet you, Bexley . . . ?” His voice rose at the end as he stuck out his hand again.
I wasn’t sure what he wanted me to do. I was a poor girl from the wrong side of the tracks, not a socialite, not even middle class.
“Bexley, I’m waiting for you to shake my hand.”
His statement was borderline rude, again pompous, but it made my body quiver.
I stuck my smaller hand in his large mitt. His hands were soft, not a callus anywhere that I could tell, unlike any of the other hands I’d shaken before, which were usually rough and coarse.
“Nice to meet you,” I said, my hand still swallowed by his.
“What’s your last name, Bexley?”
“Rivers.”
“That’s quite an interesting name, Bexley Rivers.”
“Yeah, it is. I mean, yes, sir. Nice to meet you.” I tried to recall some of the training we’d had at the beginning of the summer on how to address and interact with members.
“Oh, you have no idea what that does to me, hearing you call me sir, Bexley, but it’s not necessary. Now, tell me about your name.”
I gulped down whatever emotion he’d stirred up in me and answered to the best of my ability. After all, my job could be on the line.
“I know, it’s a bit much. My mom’s maiden name was Bexley, and she was at a loss for what to name me. She thought she was having a boy,” I said, rambling, “and was set on Frankie Junior. My dad was Frank Senior, and so when it was time to leave the hospital, she just scribbled down her maiden name and then her married name . . . and that was it.”
His mouth formed a small smirk, and his left eyebrow rose the tiniest bit. It should have felt like he was making fun of me, but he wasn’t. At least, I didn’t think so. Although I had absolutely zero experience in this area, I could tell Aston was being genuine.
God, this guy—a club member I should not be fraternizing with—made my heart speed up and my body feel hotter than it already was from standing inside the sweltering kitchen.
“I didn’t mean to go running off with the details, and . . . I should probably get back to work.” I motioned behind me, my thumb making me look more like a homeless hitchhiker than a cool girl.
That’s when I realized he was still holding my other hand.
He squeezed my hand tight, not letting me go. “No worries on your running off with details. You should do it some more. Like tonight, we’re having a party on the seventeenth hole. Why don’t you come by? We can talk more.”
“Me?”
He winked. “Yes, you.”
“Why not? You have a better offer?”
I shook my head. Of course I didn’t have a better offer. “Can I bring Milly?” Knowing I’d need a wing woman, I pointed back to the snack shack. We weren’t supposed to socialize with members, but she was already breaking that rule, so she’d have no problem going with me.
“The more the merrier.”
Gulping back my fear, I asked, “What time?”
“Eight.” He winked again, squeezed my hand again before releasing it, and walked off.
Anything I’d ever wanted, ever thought I needed, didn’t exist after those ten minutes.
After one handshake, all I wanted was Aston Prescott.
Bexley
“Do you think Mike will be there?” Milly asked me for the fourth time in the last thirty minutes.
After finishing our shift, we’d cleaned up, eaten our staff meal, and freshened up in the staff locker room. We couldn’t afford to waste gas, schlepping back and forth to home and then back to the club. Taking time to freshen our makeup, pulling combs through our hair, and doing the best we could with what we had at our disposal, we tried to appear like we fit in. Of course, there was no mistaking us for richies like the ones who lived along the golf course.
“I’m sure, Mill, but there’s probably going to be a lot of people, and I’m not even sure why we’re going. Promise me you’ll stay near me, and if we feel out of place, we’ll leave, okay? I don’t even know why I said yes,” I said, my hand shaking the slightest bit.
Milly didn’t answer. As we traipsed through the rear parking lot and onto the golf course, she kept her pace steady and a smile on her face, totally excited about the party. My friend acted like she belonged there, but me? I thought about offering to help clean up.
“Listen to me, Bexley.” She grabbed my hand and stalled our pace. “We’re going because some hottie asked you, and whether you admit it or not, you like him. Plus, we’re already out and should have some fun before we drive home to our shit places. Come on.”
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