by Sandy Lowe
Three friends are in for a wild night at billionaire heiress Eleanor McGregor’s twenty-fifth birthday party. Love, lust, and doing the right thing, even when it hurts, turn the evening into one that will change their lives forever.
Sarah Donovan just wants to have fun. After a failed relationship and a string of bad first dates leave her moping into her cosmo, a hot and steamy one-night stand with a perfect stranger is just what she needs to feel desirable again.
Avery Anders can’t seem to forget the long-ago accidental kiss with the one woman she couldn’t have, her friend’s little sister. When they meet again, the flame is hotter than ever, and temptation may be too much to resist.
Kaitlyn Forrester was a hopeless romantic until the love of her life walked out on her. Can she learn to forgive when her high school sweetheart returns to town looking to mend her broken heart?
Party of Three
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Party of Three
© 2019 By Sandy Lowe. All Rights Reserved.
ISBN 13: 978-1-63555-247-8
This Electronic Original Is Published By
Bold Strokes Books, Inc.
P.O. Box 249
Valley Falls, NY 12185
First Edition: August 2019
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Credits
Editor: Cindy Cresap
Production Design: Stacia Seaman
Cover Design by Tammy Seidick
Acknowledgments
No one knows better than me that it takes a village to publish a book. But when that book is mine? It takes a small city complete with round-the-clock emergency services and world-class psychiatric care. Thanks to the whole team at Bold Strokes, from the publisher to the proofreaders. You’re the best in the business and you prove it every day.
Thanks to my ever-patient wisecracking editor, Cindy Cresap. I chose you as my editor because I didn’t think you’d give a damn that I wrote a billion sex scenes. I’m so glad I was right. (How awkward would it be if I wasn’t, though?) You made this book a better version of itself, and I can’t think of a higher endorsement for superior editing than that.
Thanks to Eden Darry for reading the draft and cheering me on. I can’t remember now if the enemy’s fake threesome in the coat closet was your idea or mine, but whatever, it’s brilliant and I’m taking the credit.
Thanks to Carsen Taite for the title and the sage advice that writing a novel in three parts was an insane idea. You were right, of course, but I did it anyway.
Lastly, thanks to Radclyffe. There aren’t words big enough to express the gratitude I have for everything you’ve given me, not the least of which is guidance with this book. I promise to graduate from writing about whiny horny college kids soon, but in the meantime, thanks for the encouragement and mentorship.
To all the readers who buy romance novels for the “good parts.” This one is for you.
SARAH
Chapter One
Wait and See
Sarah Donovan was going to waste the most decadent weather of the year stuck inside, primping and preening for a party she’d resented since the moment the invitation had arrived. Winter released its icy grip on Manhattan, and Mother Nature had blessed the Upper East Side with a perfect seventy-degree day, so rare for the first week of April the sunshine on the back of her neck felt like a gift. Too bad she couldn’t wrap it, or she’d have the perfect birthday present for Ms. I-Already-Have-Everything-I-Could-Ever-Want Eleanor.
“Do I have to go tonight?” She was doing it again, whining.
“Yes,” Kaitlyn and Avery said in unison, neither bothering to glance in her direction. The definition of insanity is asking the same question and expecting a different answer. Sarah had to cut violently to the right as they dodged pedestrians wandering up Madison Avenue. New Yorkers kept their heads down and their feet moving. Strolling was for tourists, even on a day like this one.
“You should’ve just said no in the first place,” Avery said, and not for the first time.
Sarah opened her mouth, then swallowed her retort. She loved her friends, but they didn’t get it. Avery could tell Reginald McGregor no because she had a trust fund and a fashion mogul father who’d buy her a tropical island in the South Pacific if she so much as wanted a place to wear a bikini. Meanwhile, Sarah had Bob, and while she loved her three-legged tabby to death, he was more likely to eat the bacon than bring it home. He who holds the purse strings has the power, and McGregor was using his million-dollar investment in her fledgling gourmet bakery, Cakewalk, to ensure she attended his daughter’s twenty-fifth birthday party.
Eleanor. She Who Must Not Be Underestimated. She probably didn’t have any actual friends to invite.
They stopped outside tall, heavy glass doors with “Expressions Beauty and Spa” stamped in silver cursive at eye level. Kaitlyn slung an arm around her shoulders and squeezed. “Sometimes you just have to suck it up and get it done. Stop being such a baby.”
Sarah smiled. “I love how you give heartless pragmatic advice that no one wants to hear in that adorable sweet-as-sugar tone. If I didn’t listen closely, I’d think you were telling me I should go home and put my feet up. I don’t really have to spend an evening with stuck-up snobby people who are so rich they should be embarrassed.”
“Of course, I’m not going to tell you that. There’s nothing embarrassing about being rich.” Kaitlyn winked and pushed open the door.
Kaitlyn should know. Of the three of them, she was indeed the richest, thanks in no small part to her mother’s tragic death. She was killed in a skiing accident when Kaitlyn was ten. While a ten-year-old mega-millionaire was mind-boggling, Sarah wouldn’t have traded places. Her parents might be elementary school teachers, but they loved her and visited her minuscule studio in Brooklyn every third Sunday like clockwork.
Kaitlyn led the way to a long, thin counter that held up the longer and thinner woman standing behind it. She nodded to the receptionist. “We have an appointment under Forrester.”
The woman smiled at Kaitlyn, no doubt noting her Chanel sunglasses and Tory Burch flats. Avery and Sarah didn’t rate more than a cursory glance. Sarah’s Gap V-neck and skinny jeans didn’t cut it in a place like this. Which was exactly why she never went to places like this.
The receptionist ran a French-manicured finger down a list in front of her, and a small line struggled against the Botox between her brows. “Yes. I’m afraid Genevieve, Marcela, and Bridget are running late today. A wedding party ran over. The bride.” She waved a hand as if that said it all. “It’ll be an hour.”
They stared. “An hour?” Kaitlyn asked with the faintest edge of disbelief.
“There’s a small cocktail bar two doors down if you’d like to wait there,” the receptionist suggested with the air of a woman who really didn’t give a fuck. That was New York for you, over eight million people and Sarah could count polite staff on one hand.
They waited, of course they waited. It took months to get an appointment at Expressions, let alone three at the same time, and, okay, maybe she was secretly glad they’d be a little late. It didn’t make her a terrible person, did it? Every second she sat sippin
g a cosmo now was less time she had to spend talking to strangers and pretending to fawn over daddy’s little girl.
* * *
Cocktail bar was a rather hopeful descriptor for the dark hole in the wall that comprised a scraggly looking bar and a few scattered tables so battered they appeared to have spent a previous life in a high school cafeteria. Even the walls looked exhausted, as if they might just give up the fight and the ceiling would come crashing in. If melancholy were a place, this would be the capital.
“Jesus.” Avery sidestepped a mysterious sticky brown puddle on the floor and slid into a chair at one of the tables close to the bar. “How did this place not get swallowed by the gods of gentrification?”
“The owner believes a real bar should have a bit of character. Unfortunately, his definition is rather limited,” said their bartender as she came sashaying over in tight black pants and a plain white long-sleeved Henley. A woman this gorgeous didn’t need anything but rosy soft skin and deep chestnut eyes to be a knockout.
Avery gulped audibly. “Uh, hey.”
Kaitlyn just sort of bobbed her head, words completely failing her.
“Hey right back. What can I get you?” Hot Bartender said cheerfully, as if she hadn’t noticed she’d reduced them all to prehistoric versions of themselves. Sarah gave her points. Pretty and nice was an unexpected bonus. She wouldn’t have minded a handy cave to take her back to, maybe a wooden club to beat off the competition. Sarah had no idea how to use a wooden club, but for her, she’d be willing to give it a shot.
When the silence lasted a beat too long, Sarah jumped in to save her friends the trouble of thinking through their lust.
“Three cosmos, please.” No one could say she wasn’t doing her bit for the good of humanity and lesbians who happened to be breathing. “The salon up the street is running overtime and we have a bit of a wait.”
Hot Bartender nodded. “That sucks. It’s so annoying when people don’t respect your time, isn’t it?”
“Tell me about it. Have you been working here long?”
“I just started a couple of weeks ago. You know, living the cliché while I audition for commercials and hope to make it to Broadway.”
She wouldn’t be hot and nice for long, but it was fun while it lasted. “I hope you make it. You’re certainly pretty enough.”
“Thank you.” Hot Bartender blushed a little, standing awkwardly and holding Sarah’s gaze for a beat, before turning away to fill their order.
“So, last night’s date was another disaster?” Avery was suddenly back in command of the English language now that they were alone again.
Sarah’s dating woes were constant entertainment fodder and she played it up, embellishing details and stringing out the stories to the delight of her audience. It was all so amusing, and so outrageous, and she was such a good sport about it. The reality fell somewhere between her increasingly serious fantasy of going off grid and joining a commune so she’d never have to think about dating again, and sobbing into her wineglass at the thought of being single and sexless forever.
She smiled humorlessly. “You could say that. Her Tinder profile described her as a twenty-eight-year-old artist from Brooklyn, interested in classic literature and the Post-Impressionist movement. There’s a photo of her at the New York symphony. On Tinder, she’s my perfect dream girl. In reality, she’s an unemployed art major who can’t get her shit together. She does live in Brooklyn, in a walk-up with sixty-seven roommates, a feral cat, and a handful of cockroaches. I’m pretty sure they sleep on air mattresses and smoke pot all day.”
“Seriously? She doesn’t take prescription drugs at least?” Kaitlyn raised her eyebrows before smiling shyly as Hot Bartender placed drinks in front of them.
“Can’t afford them.” Sarah shrugged. “We’re sitting there, drinking overpriced cocktails that I knew I’d be picking up the tab for, and she’s telling me all this like she’s proud to be a stoner. Like collecting unemployment and waffling on about Picasso is something we should all aspire to.”
Avery punched her lightly on the arm. “You’re being harsh. So she smells like moldy socks and is in a polyamorous relationship with sixty-seven people. Big deal. She’s stood outside the symphony at least once. What’s not to like?” Avery’s bottle green eyes twinkled. She straddled the ancient chair with casual confidence and flicked her short dark hair out of her eyes, a little too preppy to be roguish, but sexy all the same. If they hadn’t already been friends for a million years, Sarah suspected she might have had quite the thing for Avery Anders under the right circumstances.
Sarah closed her eyes for a second. She had a brief but fulfilling vision of throwing a temper tantrum worthy of a five-year-old denied a giant ice cream cone covered in chocolate sprinkles. Her life was funny, right up until it wasn’t anymore.
“Hey.” Avery rubbed the spot she’d just punched. “Forget about her. There are plenty of fish in the sea.”
“There aren’t, though. Let’s face it. I haven’t been on a good first date since Melinda.”
“Don’t tell me you’re still hung up on her.” Kaitlyn reached across to take her hand.
“I’m not.” Or at least not exactly.
She was hung up on the comfort of a relationship, having someone to come home to, to curl up on the couch with, to be her date at dinner parties. She didn’t miss the terrible sex. The “hide your face and try to fake a convincing climax so it could be over” kind of bad, terrible, horrible sex. Melinda liked having sex about as much as Sarah liked hiking to the subway in the winter, as in, not at all. It was at best a duty and at worst an aggravating inconvenience. So they’d had less and less until, not knowing how to fix it, Sarah had called bullshit and they’d talked about it. She’d thought maybe Melinda was ace. Melinda didn’t deny it. Not an orientation she was particularly thrilled by, given that Sarah absolutely, unequivocally, wasn’t, but at least she’d had an answer. A reason. She could stop feeling as if she’d failed. Melinda was just wired differently. They’d work it out.
Except it wasn’t asexuality. Not even close. The memory of what was really going on had her shoulders inching toward her ears and her insides going squirmy. She would not think about it. It was over. Done. In the past. She’d moved on. She was dating, getting out there, being a good, well-rounded, mentally healthy human. She wasn’t lying awake at night thinking about Melinda. What Melinda had said. What she’d needed in order to get off. She wasn’t thinking about it at all.
That went down six months ago, and she’d yet to find a woman who was even a remote contender for the role of sexy casual fling, let alone actual relationship material.
“I’m going to be thirty, watching Animal Planet in my pajamas, and eating sesame chicken straight out of the carton every Saturday night. I swear there are no attractive women with decent jobs in the city. She doesn’t even have to be mentally stable. I’m willing to overlook a bit of crazy if she’s hot and has a paycheck.”
“Well, there are,” Avery said, “but they’re all in a pushy-shovey match for the two percent of eligible straight men.”
“I should’ve been straight. I’ve heard a rumor that men aren’t terribly complicated when it comes to sex,” Sarah said.
“You shouldn’t have to compromise at all.” Kaitlyn gave her hand another squeeze. “Your one true love is out there.”
Kaitlyn, ever the optimist. A rare woman who still believed in The One.
“You know what you need? Crazy hot, screw me up against the wall of the nearest bathroom, rebound sex,” Avery said.
Sarah wrinkled her nose and made an obvious display of looking around. “Is the bathroom locale optional? And if not, does it have to be the nearest one?”
“Fine, let’s make it the presidential suite at the Ritz Carlton then, Princess. The point is, you need to get laid without wading through all the dating hoopla.”
Sarah considered it. Casual sex. No, not just casual. Avery was talking about sex with someone she didn’t
know. The irony had her biting back one of those hysterical laughs that always ended in tears. She’d have sex with a stranger the day hell froze over and angels did a jig on the iceberg.
She wanted sex. No, scratch that. She needed sex, like a plant needed water. All her girl parts were slowly withering in the unrelenting heat of her reluctant celibacy. Giving up the fight and curling in on themselves. But a stranger? Not a fucking chance. She couldn’t make it work with a woman she’d loved, a woman who’d said she’d loved her back. What made Avery think doing it with a stranger would be easier? What made her think a stranger would even want Sarah, when her girlfriend hadn’t? Worse than hadn’t.
Avery tried again. “Tonight would be a great opportunity. You know the place will be filled with queers. Elle’s on every diversity board there is.”
Her friends didn’t know what’d really happened with Melinda; her pride had forbidden it. Avery couldn’t know how much the subject hurt. Sarah played for time. “I don’t know. What am I supposed to do, walk up to someone and say, ‘Um, hello, would you please fuck me?’”
Avery laughed. “Oh yes, please say that.”
Kaitlyn shot her a look, and she shut up. “You order her a drink, chat for a bit, and then casually ask if she’d like to go somewhere more private.”
Sarah stared at her. “How do you know that?” It was one thing for Avery to screw strangers, she was a total player, but Kaitlyn?
Kaitlyn suddenly became very interested in her phone. “Never you mind.”
Were all her friends having amazing sex and she was the only one missing out? It didn’t really surprise her, but she hated the way her stomach sank. Why was her life always the one that sucked by comparison?