No One Like You
Page 1
NO ONE LIKE YOU
“You should talk up the garden aspect of the chateau in your advertising, if you don’t already. That rose is already my favorite.” Trevor pointed to a peach-colored bloom, barely open.
Brooke walked toward the rose, but didn’t let go of his arm. “Makes sense. The full bloom is a beautiful creamy peach. A lot like Honeywilde’s signature shade. I can check with Laurel, she’d probably let you have a clipping if you want. She loves to share. You could take some back to the inn with you.”
“Brooke Sargent, are you giving me flowers? I didn’t think we were that serious yet.”
Her mouth fell open, followed immediately by a grin. “I don’t know how you do it, but I think we might actually pull this thing off.”
“Because I’m awesome?”
“And so humble.” She smiled, bumping the back of her hand against his chest.
He took her hand, clasping it in place. “I wanted to kiss you yesterday,” he confessed. “Right inside that ballroom, before the prom committee rolled in on us.”
“I know.”
He moved in even closer, and he wasn’t letting go. “I still want to kiss you…”
Books by Heather McGovern
A Honeywilde Romance
A Moment of Bliss
A Date with Desire
A Taste of Temptation
A Chateau Jolie Romance
No One Like You
Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation
Table of Contents
NO ONE LIKE YOU
Books by Heather McGovern
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Epilogue
About the Author
No One Like You
Heather McGovern
LYRICAL SHINE
Kensington Publishing Corp.
www.kensingtonbooks.com
To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.
LYRICAL SHINE BOOKS are published by
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Copyright © 2018 by Heather McGovern
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Lyrical Shine and Lyrical Shine logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.
First Electronic Edition: October 2018
eISBN-13: 978-1-5161-0761-2
eISBN-10: 1-5161-0761-6
First Print Edition: October 2018
ISBN-13: 978-1-5161-0764-3
ISBN-10: 1-5161-0764-0
Printed in the United States of America
Chapter 1
Brooke clung to her menu like it was a full skirt on a windy day. “Coffee,” she said to the Honeywilde waiter.
Her hands cramped, palms sweaty, and the pinching start of a headache worked its way up both temples.
Meeting with Roark Bradley shouldn’t set her on edge like this. Roark was professional and pleasant. All of the Bradleys were nice people.
Trevor Bradley in particular.
Nice looking too, though that was beside the point.
Since Devlin’s wedding in August, she’d seen Trevor only in passing. In town, she’d see him maybe shopping or walking down the sidewalk, but the glimpses were enough to confirm what she already knew—he was still as wickedly handsome as ever.
Her muscles tensed, ready to jump out of her skin, but her nerves couldn’t be because of Trevor.
“I’m back. Sorry to keep you waiting.” Roark took the seat across from her and motioned for coffee. “Anyway, as I was saying, the high school needs Chateau Jolie’s help with their prom.”
Ding, ding, ding.
The prom.
That would be the source of her anxiety.
Didn’t matter that she and her sisters had been running Chateau Jolie for almost a year, the prospect of being the location for the school’s emergency prom had her more wound up than a set of novelty chattering teeth.
Brooke unclenched her jaw. “I believe you were about to ask if we could host the prom at Jolie.” Both a blessing and a curse that couldn’t come at a more inopportune time.
“Yes. The venue they were going to use went out of business last week. With no notification to the school, their prom is just…gone.”
“Gone?”
“No place to have it, no backup plans. Nothing.”
“Those poor kids.”
Taking this project on wasn’t ideal, but how could she say no to a bunch of sad teenagers who would get all dressed up and have no place to go?
Roark sipped his coffee and shook his head. “They lost their money too. That event place in Newton went bankrupt. All of the juniors and seniors had bought tickets, so that’s their hard-earned cash gone. Which means they’ve got no budget.”
Her stomach dropped. “Well, that—” Sucks. “That’s awful.”
And she couldn’t help them without a budget. Chateau Jolie certainly didn’t have the spare cash to fork over.
“The assistant principal came to me yesterday asking—actually, pleading is more accurate—to use Honeywilde. But we’re booked solid for the whole season.”
Of course they were.
Honeywilde was always booked. This season, next season. Every season two years from now. Honeywilde’s success was one of the reasons for Jolie’s lackluster couple of years.
But she wasn’t about to tell Roark Bradley that.
“Then Sophie thought of Chateau Jolie. Thank goodness your ballroom is available.”
She pasted on a smile. “Yes. Thank goodness.”
“That is, if you can host the event. It’s in two and a half weeks.”
Her eyes almost popped out of her skull.
“I know, I know. It’s not much time, but we’re still going to help,” he rushed to add. “You wouldn’t be doing this alone. I’m ready to offer up a donation for food, décor, and other expenses. And some added manpower for the ev
ent itself, since Jolie is…well, we have a larger staff here.”
He was understating to be polite. Honeywilde had the money and people to spare. Chateau Jolie did not.
The throb in her skull got a little bit worse. “I think…”
She didn’t have the luxury of thinking. Chateau Jolie needed to catch a break, especially now that she had to shell out thousands of dollars to keep from losing part of Jolie to an evil a-hole of a man.
Not only was hosting the school’s prom the right thing to do, but a community event and charity might give the hotel the kind of promotion and PR it needed to spark off their slumping reservation rates and make some much needed money.
“We wouldn’t throw all of this on you to deal with alone.” Roark leaned forward, his coffee mug cradled between his hands. “We plan to help out as much as we can. But what the school needs most is a location.”
Brooke flexed her fingers to get some blood into them. Chateau Jolie could easily be the location, but they didn’t have Honeywilde’s financial resources to fund a party.
She wasn’t about to tell Roark Bradley that either.
“We’d love for the school to use our ballroom,” she said instead.
“Great!”
But she couldn’t only offer up a location.
If all she provided was a room, then yet again, Honeywilde would be the hero of the day. They’d swoop in, save the town, and hog all the glory. Again. Chateau Jolie would be the little stepsister who got dragged along to the dance.
Her family’s business couldn’t afford to be the stepsister anymore.
Brooke stiffened her spine. “We’d want to do more than provide a location though. We have resources of our own.” Pitifully few, but po-tay-toe, po-tah-toe. “If the prom is at our hotel, I’d prefer to be the one in charge of coordinating with the prom’s committee chair.”
Roark nodded. “Absolutely. I agree.”
Proms weren’t in her wheelhouse, but she knew enough about parties to handle one for teenagers.
Roark took another sip of his coffee, looking proud as a peacock. “That works out perfectly for us too. With the Blueberry Festival coming up, and peak season, we don’t need to commit to managing more than we can handle.”
Peak season. Must be nice.
She shook off the resentment to concentrate on the possibilities. This prom could be the very thing Jolie needed, and if she could run the show with a Honeywilde income, even better.
She could make this the goodwill event of the year, get on every social media platform, and prove her family’s hotel was every bit as charitable and wonderful as Honeywilde, and she might be able to redeem herself. No, she would redeem herself.
“Hey.” A deep voice interrupted her pep talk.
Brooke looked up, into striking blue eyes and dimples that ought to be outlawed.
Trevor Bradley.
The best-looking man to ever ask her out, and the one she’d turned down the hardest.
Brooke stared, trying to recall the reasons why.
Roark cleared his throat. “Our breakfast started at nine thirty, Trev.”
Trevor checked his wrist, where a watch might be if he wore one. “What is it now? Nine forty?”
“Nine forty-five.”
“Then you’re getting to the good stuff.” He pulled out a chair and sat beside her. “Besides, the first ten minutes of breakfast should be spent enjoying coffee and these biscuits. You haven’t had a biscuit yet?” He scowled at the untouched basket as though it were a sin, then held the basket toward her until she took one.
Roark took one as well. “Chateau Jolie has agreed to be the location for the prom and we were about to discuss your involvement.”
Brooke’s gaze jerked toward Roark. “We were?”
“Like you said, Jolie would head up this project, but we want to lend our management’s support too. Trevor eagerly volunteered. This way, our hotels can partner up and give the school the best prom they’ve ever had.”
No! Brooke bit back the desire to snap at the perfectly nice offer.
“That’s…very generous, but you guys don’t have time to deal with all the minutiae of planning.”
“I love minutiae.” Trevor popped a bit of biscuit into his mouth.
She bet he did.
Last summer, Trevor had wooed her at Dev’s wedding, the likes of which she’d never seen or experienced. She’d darned near kissed him too, until her reality came crashing in.
Men like Trevor were dangerous.
Delicious, but dangerous.
They could not partner, and not just because of his dimples. A partnership meant shared credit, and in the case of sharing with Honeywilde, it meant they’d get all the credit.
Brooke sat up a little straighter. “I can plan the majority and simply call on you as needed. No reason to assign one of your managers to this full time.”
Especially not Trevor Bradley. She couldn’t have him all up in her space, every day for the next two weeks.
Roark pinched his lips together with a thoughtful sound.
Not a good sign. A man like Roark, with a place like Honeywilde, was never going to let her do all the work and refuse his help. He also wasn’t about to throw a bunch of money at the competition and walk away, trusting her to spend it well and wisely.
He didn’t get to be a success by being stupid.
She’d be the exact same way.
“I’m only half-manager,” Trevor argued, a lock of chocolate brown hair brushing his sun-kissed forehead as he leaned back.
Trevor’s casual attitude might work in her favor. Goodness knew she’d never be able to take the reins with the likes of Roark around, but she’d already learned Trevor was easygoing and fun loving.
And charming and insanely good looking…
But the point was, he probably wouldn’t care if she wanted to head up the project while he played second fiddle.
Still, having Trevor around all the time? When it’d taken him only one night to have her swooning in his arms, after years of no swooning at all, not even a sway?
Nothing good could come of that.
His eyes and dimples remained on full blast, like he knew exactly what she was thinking.
“I couldn’t ask you to give up Trevor permanently for more than two weeks. The occasional conferring ought to be enough.”
Roark shook off her objection. “No, he wants to help. He asked me to give him this job.”
“And I want to work full time on this, not as a consultant.” Still leaning back, looking like some Folgers commercial in his blue jeans and soft henley, Trevor drank his coffee.
Meeting with Roark at Honeywilde meant the chances of running into Trevor were high. She’d made peace with that, but she wasn’t physically or emotionally prepared to work with him full time. Particularly not when he insisted on being like that.
Roark sat forward again, his elbows on the table. “I’m with Trevor. Honeywilde needs to be involved beyond consultation. Believe it or not, Trev’s handy, works best under pressure, and he’s become our go-to guy for last-minute creativity. If there’s a lot to accomplish in very little time, he’s your guy.”
Trevor angled himself toward her, hair as dark and tousled as it was last summer, with teeth so perfect they were blinding. “See? I’m handy and available. That’s also his code for saying I’m the most dispensable member of management.”
Roark stiffened. “I didn’t say that.”
“Relax, Roark. Brooke is a friend. She knows I’m kidding.” A mischievous smile crept across Trevor’s lips. “He’s so easy to outrage.”
Brooke grabbed her coffee, focusing on the breakfast beverage as though life depended on it.
Months had passed since Devlin’s wedding. Autumn and winter came and went, but that playful smile of his still made her in
sides flutter more than a migration of monarchs.
He’d been utterly gorgeous the night of the wedding. So guileless and determined in his pursuit, she’d forgotten herself. They’d laughed and flirted, spent almost the entire evening talking and dancing and, near the end of the night, she thought he might kiss her.
She’d wanted him to, even though the idea of letting a man close to her again made her physically ill.
“Dispensable or not, I can’t take away one of your managers,” she tried. “He’ll be needed here as your season ramps up.”
“They don’t need me here full time.” Trevor sat close enough to make out his long, envy-worthy lashes, the complete lack of laugh lines or crow’s feet. “This prom needs to knock socks off. Those Windamere High kids are good kids. They got the raw end of the deal and that’s not okay in my book.”
Heat rushed up the back of her neck. His offer was considerate and kind, and under any other circumstance she’d accept, but this prom needed to be her baby.
“I know. I feel the same way, but—” The words froze on her tongue. She couldn’t tell them all of the reasons why she needed this success to be hers.
Not only for Jolie, but for her.
“I’d prefer to oversee things alone.”
She needed a win. She needed to know she could do something without making a mess and then failing miserably.
Roark frowned, his hackles almost visibly rising. “Wait. Are you saying you don’t want us involved at all?”
Chapter 2
Brooke’s face went blank, except for the flash of panic in her eyes.
Beautiful, bottomless, and so dark they were almost black. He’d thought about those eyes dozens of times since last August.
Even after he’d asked her out and she shot him down with the force of a torpedo fired from ten feet away, he’d pictured how the darkness danced in them when she laughed.
Roark hunkered down. “If we’re donating money, we have to be involved.”
Now her eyes were full of fear.
Trevor’s understanding of why would have to wait for later. First, he had to run Roark interference.
“Of course we do. Brooke isn’t saying otherwise.” Trevor stepped in with a breezy tone before his oldest brother botched things completely. “And of course she wants us involved, don’t you?” He shot her a wide-eyed glance.