Table of Contents
Title Page
Rose Red
Copyright © 2017 Jewel Killian
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Epilogue
Contents
Title Page
Rose Red
Copyright © 2017 Jewel Killian
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Epilogue
Rose Red
Once Upon a Happy Ever After
Book IV
Jewel Killian
Rose Red
Abby was at the center of the biggest scandal on The Upper East side, a menage with two men at last year’s Viennese Opera Ball. Her father, the powerful Richard Snow who’d kept her cloistered until she turned eighteen, did everything he could to minimize the media coverage, but Abby still ended up on “Page Six” news.
This year, she’s determined not to embarrass herself. She’s still going to have her fun with two of the hottest, most eligible bachelors in on this side of the river, she’s just not going to get caught this time.
Each book in the Once Upon a Happy Ever After series is a complete standalone, HEA story with NO CLIFFHANGERS and NO CHEATING.
Who doesn’t want a love/lust-at-first-sight experience? Who doesn’t want to be devoured and possessed by a man who simply can’t control himself around you? Who doesn’t want a man to want them so much it makes him a little crazy? If that sounds good to you then this is especially for you.
But just so you know what you’re in for:
The books in this series are quick and dirty twisted fairy tales with dark, dominating alpha males, insta-lust scenarios, and steamy explicit sexiness that’ll melt your panties. If you like extra dirty stories with light BDSM overtones, then this one is definitely for you. And as always, HEA with NO CHEATING!
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Copyright © 2017 Jewel Killian
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or used fictitiously.
This book is intended for adult audiences.
Chapter One
Abby
“Do you think they’ll let me drink? Oh what about the food, do you think we missed the whole meal? Honestly, Abby, I don’t know why you insisted we show up so late.”
I smiled at my sister as she looked out the limo window, eyes wide and talking so fast her words bled together. I envied that about her, the carefree way she enjoyed everything, not minding if she looked silly doing so. Her natural joie de vivre hadn’t been stomped out during adolescence, by mean girls, and rude boys, and rumors, like everyone else’s.
I gazed out my own window, watching the Park Avenue lights roll by, folded my hands in my lap and said, “You might get served, but you’d better keep it at a minimum. You don’t want Dad finding out.” Alicia nodded, face nearly pressed against the glass in her excitement to get to the ball.
The Viennese Opera Ball, held annually at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, was a combination fundraiser, debut for the year’s newly of age debutantes and, if you believed Page Six news, a front for the deviant sexual activities for the perverse elite of The Upper East Side.
Everyone knows the garbage “news” Page Six printed was mostly false. It was the tabloid version of click bait— plaster the faces of the newest it girl, power couple, or bad boy on the front page, without checking the facts of the potentially life-ruining story and watch the money roll in. It’s “mostly false” because no one knew how much my father “donated” to keep my face off the front page last year. No one except the parties involved knew that one of the ridiculous stories printed about last year’s ball was one hundred percent true. A deb really had been caught doing not one but two of NYC’s most eligible bachelors. But even with that juicy kernel of truth, they’d still inflated or flat out lied about the details. It wasn’t in the middle of the ballroom floor, for one. We thought we were being discreet by going to one of the smaller, closed ballrooms off the main one. And the deb in question wasn’t a virgin. I don’t even know how they came up with that angle. But the fact remained, they had gotten the bones of the story right. And I have the magazine’s own shitty reputation and my Dad’s money to thank for the fact that no one believed it.
“You know why we’re so late, Al. You have to make an entrance at these kinds of things.” I pushed the billowy tulle layers of my sister’s gown out of my lap. “And get your dress under control, silly. You don’t want to end up tripping on it.” I smiled as my baby sister rolled her eyes at me and gathered her enormous skirt closer.
Alicia didn’t know about the scandal I was involved in during last year’s Opera Ball. My debut two years ago had been so atrocious, with my date never showing and me spending the night feeling like the last kid to get picked in gym class, I vowed to have fun no matter what last year. And boy did I. So much that I ended up costing my father a small fortune.
Alicia and I shared everything but what happened that night was one secret I kept to myself. I didn’t want her knowing I’d willingly been with two guys at once. I didn’t want her thinking less of her older, supposedly more reserved sister. Honestly, even thinking about it now I can’t quite wrap my head around the fact that it happened. I’d had a few covert boyfriends before that night. Covert because our father was taken with an antiquated notion that his little girls shouldn’t date before they were eighteen. A notion I didn’t agree with so I got really good at being sneaky.
Now, don’t get me wrong. It’s not like I had a ton of experience before that night. Mostly because I wasn’t so easily caught up in the smooth-talking, charming rich boys in my social group. All the refined taste and best schools on the East Coast didn’t actually make you make you interesting, and I refused to spend my time with boring people, even if they were beautiful, filthy rich boys.
Because to me, that’s all they were. Boys.
No, my tastes were a little more esoteric. At least that’s what I liked to tell myself. I needed someone to stimulate my brain. Teach me something, or make me think about something in a new way. Show me you’ve got opinions outside the scope of whatever textbook we all had to read. Show me you know the difference between Fauvism and Expressionism or that you don’t just have a working knowledge of something and then, then you might get somewhere.
I’d been fooled once or twice by pretty boys who knew big words. Mistakenly thinking a large vocabulary meant a large intellect. But, it never took me too long to realize my mistake, and I always ended things quickly and graciously. There was one guy who’d been pretty quick. I could have really fallen for him if he hadn’t moved to L.A. to start his software empire, but we never got the chance. So when two gorgeous, full fledged men approached me at last year’
s ball asking if I had a preference between Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, I was so shocked I couldn’t form a sentence.
But they didn’t skip a beat. They discussed the topic between themselves, adding, “don’t you think’s” and “wouldn’t you say’s” in my direction every so often. They probably thought I was an airhead but when I finally got my brain to function properly and a sentence came out of my mouth, I was delighted by their stunned expressions.
“Not just the most beautiful girl at the ball, is she, Chase?”
“Definitely not, Luca. This one’s the whole package, isn’t she?”
“I’d say so.”
I stood there blushing, gape-mouthed as these two very gorgeous, very smart, and very different men flirted with me to each other. I could barely process the attention, let alone form a response to it. They plied me with sweet words, soft, grazing touches, and sharp wit until I was floating from desire, and so confused about it that I blurted, “Okay, which one of you is actually interested in me? Because I can’t tell which is the wingman.”
Chase smiled at me as Luca stepped to my other side and whispered, “There are no wingmen here tonight, Abigail. We both want you.”
I shivered at the memory, leaning against the cool leather upholstery as the limo pulled up to the hotel.
“You okay?” Alicia asked.
“I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine, Abs. You look kind of flushed.”
“I’m fine, really. Let’s just get you in there,” I said, and pushed at my sister’s ridiculous skirt.
We exited the limo and walked into the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel arm in arm.
I tried to get myself and my hormones under control. I could not afford to be in another scandal. But I knew they’d be here. That was the agreement after all.
Chapter Two
Chase
I took the rocks glass from Luca’s hand. “Don’t drink too much, you know she likes us sharp-witted and even sharper-tongued.” My best friend glared at me but didn’t argue.
He knew I was right.
I didn’t blame him, hell I wanted to join him. I would give anything to drown my nerves in a bottle of, well anything.
“How are you so calm?” Luca asked, shoving his hands into his pockets and giving the ballroom yet another once-over glance.
I wasn’t. I just had a good poker face and Luca knew it.
“Fuck, Chase I gotta get outta here. I can’t take this.”
“What the hell are you talking about? You know debs have to make an entrance. She’s just late. Settle the hell down, all right?”
“Look, man, the way I see it there are only three outcomes. One, she’s not showing. Two, she does show and rejects us— again. Or three, she shows and we live happily ever after.” Luca shook his head. “I don’t like those odds. I’m getting the hell out of here.”
Luca had been my best friend since grade school. I knew him like I knew myself. And right now I knew he needed a kick in the ass. “Get yourself together. She’s coming. You know it, I know it. She’ll be here and she’s going to give us an answer. Now stand there and try to look like you’re having a good time. It’s a party for Christ’s sake, not a damn funeral.”
Luca threw me another dirty look and crossed his arms. He definitely didn’t look like he was having a good time, but at least he didn’t look like a flight risk anymore.
It was absolutely insane that one woman could make us so crazy, drive us so completely mad with desire that we agreed to wait months for her decision. Today was the anniversary of our first encounter with Abigail. It hadn’t been the first time we shared a woman— we’d discovered that in college when we kept coming to blows over the same girls— but it was the first time a woman had stolen our hearts. It was the first time being with a woman had been anything more than physical for us. Abigail was so smart, so beautiful, and so damn incredible in bed, Luca and I knew we were done looking.
So after a few months of covert dating, we asked her, from the comfort of our shared bedroom, to make us the happiest men in the world by marrying us. She shocked us both when she started crying, saying how complicated it would be and that she couldn’t handle another scandal. She left us, ring in hand without an answer.
We were devastated. Luca didn’t come out of his room for days, and I drifted from room to room in a haze for, hell I’m not sure how long. But, the next week she called us, saying she needed space and time to think about what our proposal would mean for our lives and that she would give us a proper answer tonight, at the Opera Ball.
So no, I didn’t blame Luca for wanting to drink or wanting to leave and avoid everything completely. She won our hearts, broke them and now we were about to find out if she was going to break them again.
I snagged two glasses of wine from the passing waiter, downing one while handing the other to Luca. He smirked at me. “I thought you said—”
“Shut up,” I grumbled and scanned the room for Abigail’s face, whispering a curse under my breath when I didn’t see her.
Luca was smirking again. “Now who’s the nervous one?
“You know I hate these kinds of things.”
Luca nodded. “But you’re so good at them.” He was right. We’d both grown up on exactly these kinds of things. Only in Georgia, and especially where we were from people were much more underhanded. Gracious, humble, and cultured to your face, and the minute you’ve turned away they start in with the “did you hear about his latest failed business/cheating wife/divorce” nonsense. It’s one of the reasons we moved to Manhattan. Besides opening an investment firm, we’d heard New Yorkers were just as ruthless. Only they had the balls to say it to your face. Now that I could appreciate.
I could play the game. Better than most if you asked Luca, but that didn’t mean I liked it. At least in New York, they were always honest with you, whether you asked for their opinion or not.
Luca nudged me in the ribs but I already knew. The air in the room got thinner as I followed my friend’s gaze across the ballroom.
“Abigail,” I whispered. There she was in a stunning red gown, arm in arm with her overly animated sister. She took my goddamn breath away. Gliding through the crowd like royalty, it didn’t take her long to find my gaze. Our eyes locked in on each other and she headed toward us. Luca and I stood waiting, still as statues but with each of her steps I found it more and more difficult not to run across the ballroom and sweep her off her feet.
I tried reading her expression, wanting to prepare myself for whatever her decision might be. But I couldn’t. Abigail had a better poker face than I did.
“Damn inscrutable woman,” Luca said, giving words to my thoughts.
Her eyes darted between me and Luca as she got closer and then the worst happened. She took a hard left turn away from us. I stood there staring at her back, wanting to run after her with every cell in my body.
Luca put an arm out in front of me as if he’d read my mind. “Don’t. She’s made it clear what she wants. And it’s not us.”
A waiter passed by. “Champagne, gentlemen?”
“Not now,” Luca rumbled as I watched our whole world walk away.
“But, sirs, I think you—”
“Not NOW,” Luca roared.
“Sirs!” the waiter raised his voice. “Ms. Snow asked me to deliver this to you,” he said nodding toward the serving tray. With the mention of her name, the waiter had my attention. Beneath the only two champagne flutes was a small envelope with Abigail’s handwriting. I snatched it off the tray, apologized to the waiter and tore into the envelope.
Inside were two key cards and a note.
Meet me in room 7438. Come separately.
-Abby
The cement that had been hardening in my stomach dissolved as I read the words over and over again. I handed Luca a key card absently.
“I’m going first,” he said. And headed off to meet our Abigail.
Chapter Three
Abby
&nbs
p; “Stop staring and close your mouth, Alicia, you look like a guppy,” I said smiling at the rapt enjoyment on my baby sister’s face.
I was rewarded with a jab to the ribs. “I can’t help it, Abby. I’m sure you weren’t any better your first time.”
I nodded. “True, but I at least tried to look normal. Quit gawking at everything. People are starting to stare,” I whispered to her, though I knew she didn’t care in the least.
Honestly, I didn’t care either, but a big sister has to poke fun at her little sister, right? I scanned the ballroom for the two faces I’d been avoiding for months. Hoping they’d be here. Hoping I could tell them face to face what I’d decided.
My heart stopped when I saw them. There they were, across the ballroom, both sets of eyes boring into me, bringing a warm flush to my cheeks and butterflies to my stomach. Luca with his gorgeous hazel eyes and full lips and Chase’s sculpted features and stoic expression made warmth spread not just to my face, but across my whole body. Each was was a god in his own way and they both wanted me. And boy did I want both of them.
Rose Red (Once Upon a Happy Ever After Book 4) Page 1