AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It wasn’t that I didn’t want him knowing I was a custodian. It was that I wasn’t going to remain in that occupation forever.
As soon as I hit the five-year mark of working for my stepmother, I could get my educational stipend. I was going to school in New York. I would be leaving. There was no sense in letting anything between Hawk and me start, not when I would be leaving Vermont after Christmas.
Staying wasn’t an option. Ihadto leave Westville, my family— everything—behind.
I refused to have any ties to that place, and that meant not creating any connections with handsome, flirtatious billionaires.
Gabby whispered with Adrian for a few moments, and then she skipped inside our room, closed the door, and pulled me into another gigantic hug. She smelled like wind and something fruity.
“You came! How was the flight?”
It was almost like she’d held back her excitement in front of the guys, and now that we were alone, it gushed out of her. I couldn’t help but mirror it.
She’d been friendly and perky like this from the minute she first contacted me several months ago. I’d liked her instantly, and the feeling hadn’t changed.
The smile I’d been withholding on the flight broke free.
“Good,” Addie said as Gabby swept her into a hug, too.
“Hawk’s jet is amazing,” I said.
She slid her inquisitive glance in my direction. “Just the jet? Anything else?”
Fire. In my face.
“The pilot was really nice.”
“I liked the leather seats,” Addie added considerately. “It was so posh.”
Gabby rolled her eyes and flung back her shoulders. “You’re killing me here. Ella, what did you think of Hawk?”
Adelie giggled. She’d known Gabby and her bear had been trying to set me up with Adrian’s best friend from the start, and she didn’t mind in the least.
Being more reserved, Addie said knowing he wasn’t intoherput her more at ease.
“He’s okay,” I said, wishing my body would act as unaffected as I wanted it to.
My only advantage here was that Gabby didn’t know me all that well yet. Undoubtedly, Addie could see right through me, but I hoped I could remain stone-faced enough tofool my cousin.
“Are you kidding? Comeon. You were on the flight with him for hours—and that’s all you have to say?”
“What else do you want me to say?” I said with a little laugh.
That he was flirty, attractive, well-built, and beautiful? That his direct gaze made me feel as though he were exactly the kind of quicksand I didn’t want to wander anywhere near?
Gabby smiled at the two of us for a minute more before she gasped and grasped our wrists. “We have about an hour before the rehearsal dinner. Do you want to see my dress?”
Something told me she wasn’t talking about her getup for that night.
No, she was talking aboutthedress.
Adelie squealed. I was excited too, but she was lapping all of this up.
From the time we were small girls, Addie was the one who dreamed of a prince charming and being completely swept off her feet. Not that I didn’t want a hero, but I’d learned that you couldn’t rely on anyone but yourself—including a man.
Every man in my life had let me down and then some. I was pretty sure the ones I hadn’t met yet or the billionaires I was getting to know would all be the same way.
I was tempted to warn Gabby away, but based on the stars in her eyes, she wouldn’t listen anyway.
