“Why me?” Vince asked. “Why not Angel, the freaking priest, or one of your real brothers, Luke or Jared?”
“We didn’t choose each other as family, but I’m choosing you now as godfather.”
Vince swallowed visibly and glowered. “Why?”
“Because no one I know holds family so close. I know you’ll look out for him.”
Vince dropped his hands. “Him? It’s a boy?”
“Yeah, it’s a boy.” He grinned. “We haven’t told anyone yet.”
Vince let out a whoop and clapped Gabe on the back.
“So that’s a yes?” Gabe asked.
“Yes!” Vince boomed.
“I’ll teach him books, and you’ll teach him tools and—”
“Sports—”
“And how not to get his ass kicked. I was a late bloomer.”
“Very late,” Vince said.
“So he’ll need someone to teach him how to stand up for himself.”
Vince shook his head, looking at the ground. When he looked up, he had to wipe his eyes. “Oh, man. You got me. Damn. Look what you turned me into. A damn blubbering baby.”
“Sue me,” Gabe said with a grin.
Vince shook his finger at him. “I’ll sue you all right. Don’t think I won’t.” He clapped him on the back and gave him a one-armed hug. “Bro, we’ll raise him up right. This kid is going places.”
“What about me?” Zoe asked with a smile from across the room. “Do I get to help raise him too?”
“You!” Vince boomed. “Of course! You’re his ma. Get over here and give me some love.”
“Not too much,” Gabe put in.
Zoe walked over, and Vince gave her a careful hug, not pressing too close into her belly. Zoe smiled around Vince’s shoulder at Gabe. He smiled back, his heart filled with love for the woman who’d given him everything he hadn’t known he was looking for and now couldn’t imagine living without.
Vince straightened. “All right, enough of this mushy stuff. Let me see the nursery. I want to check the crib. Did you secure the dresser to the wall?”
Gabe and Zoe exchanged a confused look.
“Of course you didn’t,” Vince said, scooping up his toolbox. “Let’s go. Damn, this baby’s lucky he’s got me.”
Vince took off for the house. Gabe took his time walking over with Zoe.
“That went well,” she said. “I think I’ll write a song about it.” She deepened her voice. “The bros who raised that boy right.”
Gabe chuckled. “I like the sound of that.”
And that was just the beginning of a hugely creative period for Zoe, where she wrote song after song that all went onto her first solo album. Her breakout hit had a most peculiar name.
Lima Bean.
Some said it was slang for a new type of dance, some said it was referring to her baby, but Gabe knew the truth. He was her lima bean. And she was his heart.
~THE END~
Get your next FREE book when you sign up for my VIP mailing list.
Get started here: http://www.kyliegilmore.com/freebie/
Click to see all of Kylie’s books on Amazon.
You’ve just read book #5 in the Clover Park series. The books in the series are The Opposite of Wild (Ryan & Liz), Daisy Does It All (Trav & Daisy), Bad Taste in Men (Shane & Rachel), Kissing Santa (Rico & Samantha), Restless Harmony (Gabe & Zoe), Not My Romeo (Vince & Sophia), and Rev Me Up (Nico & Lily). I hope you enjoy them all!
Join the Gilmore Goddesses Readers Group on Facebook to chat about Clover Park books in a non-spoilerly way. Also, man candy. Click here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/GilmoreGoddesses/
Help other readers find this book by writing a review. I would truly appreciate it.
If you’d like to read an excerpt from Not My Romeo, Vince and Sophia’s story, please turn the page.
Not My Romeo Excerpt
The Clover Park series, Book #6
Confirmed bachelor Vince Marino wants nothing more than to win the Clover Park library project and earn partner in his father's construction company. But a last-minute bid by Sophia Capello, the jaw-dropping daughter of his father's life-long rival, throws Vince out of the running.
Sophia has to get Capello Construction back on track after her father left them near bankruptcy. Except she's way out of her league in the construction world, which is why she takes a big risk and proposes a partnership with the hotheaded and handsome Vince. After she wins the project.
Vince's cockiness combined with Sophia's determination forges an alliance filled with explosive and tempting tension. But what will happen when Vince, who doesn't believe in mixing business with pleasure, discovers Sophia has never truly experienced passion? Will he stick to his rule and protect everything he's worked so hard for? Or will he find the temptation of showing Sophia what she's been missing too much?
“So tell me more about this fictional rake you get off on,” Vince said as he drove Sophia home.
She straightened. “I don’t get off on rakes.”
“What gets you off?”
She got mad. He could tell by the way she took a few deep breaths, and her lips were practically a flat line. He suppressed a laugh that he knew would just piss her off.
“I am not having this conversation with you,” she bit out.
It occurred to him that maybe she didn’t get off at all, which was concerning. A beautiful healthy woman like Sophia never experiencing ecstasy.
“Did your last boyfriend get you off?” he asked.
“Simon?” she asked like he knew all about her ex-boyfriends.
“Yeah,” he said just so she’d keep talking.
“Not really.” She said it with such sadness that it really started to bug him. Someone like Sophia never feeling passion. It couldn’t be. She was full of fire. It wasn’t healthy not to get that out.
“What about the guy before that?” he asked.
“Brian?” she asked. Even their names sounded pansy ass.
“Yeah.”
She hesitated. “Almost.”
“Almost?” He let out a huge breath of exasperation. What was wrong with these guys? What was wrong with Sophia that she’d settle for less? “Guy before that.”
“Tim?” Another pansy-ass name. He was sensing a pattern here.
“Yeah, Tim.”
“Not really.”
“The rich donor guy?”
“Anonymous actor. He, uh, plays for the other team now.” She waved a hand in the air. “So, you know, no.”
He bit back a groan. “Sophia.”
“I know, but he said he was confused for a while. It wasn’t me.”
He pulled over to the side of the road somewhere in Clover Park. “Has any guy ever made you feel passion? I’m talking fingers fisting in the sheets, raw, screaming top-of-your-lungs passion?”
She flushed, but she still answered. “No.”
He stared at her. She stared back, a defiant gleam in her eyes, an unquestionable challenge.
“You want me to show you?” he asked.
She turned away. “Like you could,” she mumbled under her breath.
He caught her chin and turned her back to him. “I promise you I can. One night.”
“I don’t do one-night stands.”
“Two nights,” he amended, feeling generous. It was the least he could do. It wouldn’t be fair to show her the peak only to drop her back to the low boring side so quickly.
“If you could hear yourself right now, you wouldn’t be smirking like that.”
“I’m not smirking,” he said. “I’m smiling.”
“Just take me home, Vince. I’m exhausted.”
He pulled back into the street. “Your loss.”
She snorted. “Whatever.” A beat passed. “You ever been in love? I mean really in love, heart thumping, head over heels, can’t even think straight love.”
“Nope. Not once.”
“You don’t sound torn up about it.”
“I’m
not. What about you?”
“No,” she said, sounding very forlorn. “I’ve sort of given up.”
“Well geez, don’t give up if that’s what you want. What are you, twenty-five?”
“Twenty-six.”
“You’re young. I’m sure some pansy-ass guy is just waiting around the corner for you, dying to profess his love.”
She brightened. “Yeah? You really think so?”
“Sure.”
“One of the town council members has a son he wants to set me up with.”
“Who?”
“You know Randy? His son.”
“Out of the question,” Vince said.
“Why? He said he’s in pharmaceutical sales. Stable, good job, looking to settle down.”
“First of all, Randy is a lech.”
“He is not.”
“Trust me,” Vince said. “I know. Second of all, a sales guy is not going to get you off. You can do better than that.”
“Who should I date? Huh? A guy like you? No, thanks.”
“What’s wrong with me?”
“Two nights!” She gestured wildly. “That’s a fucking proposition, not a date!”
His lips twitched. Something about the f-word coming out of her classy mouth gave him hope. Now that she was looking at yet another pansy-ass boyfriend, he wanted a chance to throw his own name in the ring. Nothing pansy ass about him. “You want to go on a date with me?”
“It would’ve been nice to be asked.”
He double checked to see if she was serious. Her arms were crossed, and she was staring mulishly out the front window. “Fine. You want to go to dinner with me?”
“Where to?”
“I don’t know. Wherever.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t think you really want to go. You’re just saying that because I got mad.”
He felt like pulling his hair out. This woman made no sense. He drove in silence, until he pulled up at her house. He glanced at the front door. “You think your dad’s home?”
She clenched her teeth. “I don’t know. He doesn’t tell me when he’s coming and going.”
He pushed a lock of hair over her ear. It was silky smooth. He leaned closer. “I’m getting mixed signals here. You into me or what?”
“Or what,” she replied. She got out of the car and slammed the door.
Guess he had his answer. Still, he couldn’t help watching her hips sway as she marched up the front sidewalk. No way in hell she was going out with that lech Randy’s son. For the first time in his life, he worried if he could ever be the kind of man someone might actually want to be with more than once. Even though he always told the women he dropped off at home immediately after a hook-up to call him if they wanted a second night of passion, they rarely did.
He had a feeling one night with Sophia wouldn’t be enough.
Want to read more? Not My Romeo is out now!
Other Books by Kylie Gilmore
The Clover Park Series
THE OPPOSITE OF WILD (Book 1)
DAISY DOES IT ALL (Book 2)
BAD TASTE IN MEN (Book 3)
KISSING SANTA (Book 4)
RESTLESS HARMONY (Book 5)
NOT MY ROMEO (Book 6)
REV ME UP (Book 7)
The Clover Park STUDS Series
ALMOST IN LOVE (Book 1)
ALMOST MARRIED (Book 2)
ALMOST OVER IT (Book 3)
All Kylie Gilmore Books
Acknowledgments
Big thanks to my most enthusiastic cheerleaders, my boys, and to my husband who encouraged me to follow my bliss in this writing career. Thanks, as always, to Tessa, Pauline, Mimi, Shannon, Kim, Maura, and Jenn for all you do. And thank you dear reader for making it all possible!
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are 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 are not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Restless Harmony: © 2015 by Kylie Gilmore
Excerpt from Not My Romeo © 2015 by Kylie Gilmore
Digital Edition 1.3
Cover design by The Killion Group
Published by: Extra Fancy Books
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the writer, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
ISBN-10: 1942238061
ISBN-13: 978-1-942238-06-5
About the Author
Kylie Gilmore is the USA Today bestselling author of the Clover Park series and the Clover Park STUDS series. She writes quirky, tender romance with a solid dose of humor.
Kylie lives in New York with her family, two cats, and a nutso dog toodles. When she’s not writing, wrangling kids, or dutifully taking notes at writing conferences, you can find her flexing her muscles all the way to the high cabinet for her secret chocolate stash.
Click here to sign up for Kylie’s Newsletter and get a FREE book. You’ll also get new release info, exclusive excerpts, and lots of subscriber-only giveaways. You can also sign up on my website kyliegilmore.com or use this QR code:
Kylie can be found on Twitter @KylieGilmoreToo and on Facebook.com/KylieGilmoreToo. Contact Kylie at [email protected]
Restless Harmony Page 23