by Lisa Shelby
Gorgeous: Book Two
Lisa Shelby
Lisa Shelby Books, LLC
Contents
Quote
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
Epilogue
Preview of Blackbird by Lisa Shelby
What to red next…
Playlist
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Gorgeous
Copyright © 2018 Lisa Shelby Books, LLC
ISBN:
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
businesses, places, events and incidents are either the
products of the author’s imagination or used in a
fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons,
living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be
reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or
transmitted in any form by any means—electronic,
mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without
prior written permission of the publisher, except as
provided by United States of America copyright law.
Except for the original material written by the author, all
songs, song titles, and lyrics mentioned in Gorgeous: Book Two are the property of the respective songwriters and copyright holders.
Cover Design, Interior Design & Formatting by:
Kiss and Tell Design Lab
Editing:
Finishing Touch Editing
For S,
You will always be my favorite song.
Love you more.
“Love. It was the beginning and end of everything, the foundation and the ceiling and the air in between.”
~ Kristin Hannah
1
Olivia
That feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach is haunting me again today. The only time I don't feel it is when I'm alone in my apartment. No, at home I feel complete and utter despair, disappointment, and more alone than I have ever felt before. But I don't feel fear. It took me days to drag myself off my couch. And then days of doing nothing but sleep once the tears dried up.
Seeing my mom for the first time in twenty years and then losing her in the same day, and then losing the only man I've ever loved less than forty-eight hours later, I was truly exhausted.
Exhausted and confused.
Day in and day out I hear the words he whispered in my ear as he held me while I fell apart in his arms. “I love you, Olivia Adams, and I would give anything to take away your pain. Please don't ever feel sorry for leaning on me in your time of need. Your well-being is my number one concern. You are my life, gorgeous, and you will always come first. Whatever you need from me, is yours to take." How could he have said those words and then leave me the next day?
Was my truth and my past too much for him to take once he spent time with his family? Was he reminded of the life he should be living?
The pictures plastered all over the Internet of Ronan and London St. James should be enough to answer my question, but it still doesn't make sense. He can't stand London. At least that's what he told me when he confessed his past and their history together. Seeing his arm around her waist on the red carpet the day after he made his personal assistant kick me to the curb, gutted me.
The first two weeks we were apart, the pictures were everywhere I went. Even though I rarely left the house, I couldn't turn the TV on or go anywhere near the Internet without a barrage of proof hitting me square in the face.
It turns out less isn't always more...at least not for Ronan McKinley.
The pain I felt alone in my apartment, where I used to feel the most content, this was the pain I tried to avoid my entire life. The pain that only comes with trusting another person with your heart and soul. It's only when you love someone that much, that they have the ability to rip your heart to shreds and leave you broken and ruined.
"Okay, here we go. One for you, and one for me." Bryce slides the Guinness over to me, and I am reminded once again why we are just friends and nothing more. I hate dark beer and would prefer a light Mexican beer any day of the week. But, it's a good thing he didn’t get me a light Mexican beer, because it would remind me of the last one I had during my long weekend on Catalina Island with him.
The weekend I started to fall head over heels in love.
"Thanks, Bryce. For the beer and the company."
"I'm just glad I had a reason to come to San Fran and could pay you a visit."
He's in town for a conference but came in a day early so we could see each other. He really is a nice guy, but that's it. I know what it feels like now, when there is more. I didn't know what I was missing the three years I was with Bryce. Now that I do, I could never go back.
This is what I needed, though. A distraction and a reason to clean my apartment and get out into the fresh air. To live my life.
Bryce may not be the one for me, but his visit is what I need to get up and moving again. When he called to say he would be coming to town, my first instinct was to say no, but then I looked around my apartment and realized I really had let that man demolish me.
My apartment was a mess, I mean disgusting. I hadn’t cleaned since he left me, and there were no clean clothes to be found. Pulling myself back together was hard but exactly what I needed to start functioning again. I had break downs here and there and sleep was hard to find, but I’m moving again. Eating. Showering every day. Bryce has no idea how much I need this visit.
He lifts his pint of frothy grossness in the air. "To your new life in San Francisco."
I clink my glass with his and take a small sip so I don't leave him hanging.
"I know you've been here a few months already but it still feels new to me."
"Me too."
Even though it feels like a lifetime.
The loud roar of a motorcycle buzzing by distracts me, and just like before, the rider on the bike looks at me through the bar window, and I swear if he didn't have the helmet on he would be looking me straight in the eye. Like he knows me or something. I can't help but think it's the same bike that nearly took me out the day Evelyn broke up with me—well, when she did Ronan's bidding for him.
My mother's warning fills my head, and I hear her frail voice telling me Dickey was still looking for me and how I would be in danger if he found me. My stomach twists in panic and irrational fear. If that was the same motorcycle, then why would a month have gone by? If Dickey had found me, I wouldn't be sitting here sharing a beer with my ex, right?
“So, how goes the job hunt?”
“No luck just yet, but luckily I got a rather large severance package when I was let go so...I haven't really been in a rush.”
He doesn't need to know that, in reality, it's just in the last week I've been able to even half-way resemble a human being. That I've been wasting away in my apartment reliving the events of my childhood that seeing my mother brought back. Not to mention licking my wounds after having my heart broken.
“That's the least that bastard of a boss could do for you. Olivia, you moved your entire life down here, and after a few months, he just lets you go like that. What an asshole.�
��
Bryce, doesn't keep up on celebrity news and therefore didn't see any of the pictures of Ronan and I as a couple that were plastered all over the Internet. He has no idea there was much more to me losing my job and that's okay. It means I don't have to talk about it.
"He went a different way with the position. It's all good and I'll be fine."
"He's still an asshole." Bryce winks and gives me a smile that says he's sorry things haven't gone so well for me since my move.
"Okay, he's still an asshole." I giggle.
"So, do you think you'll stay in California?"
"I don't really know just yet. I do like it here, but it's so expensive. I think I'll start getting serious about figuring it all out this coming week. I've been a slacker for too long now."
"Hey, you've worked your butt off your entire life. You're allowed to take some time off."
"I know, but it feels strange not to work. It's a first for me."
"Well, you know I vote for you to move back to Portland, but you need to do what feels right for you."
"Thank you. What about you? How's your project at work going? You making progress?"
Bryce, starts what I know will be a lengthy and boring explanation about his project. He has been working with patients with a specific kind of bone cancer. He is literally trying to cure cancer. No wonder he never had time for me. I would say his work is far more important than hanging out with me.
I'm trying my best to focus on our conversation, but my mind keeps going back to his question about me staying here in San Francisco.
Why am I staying?
I don't have anything tying me to this city, but I know I'm not leaving anytime soon. I'm not sure if it's the fact that Evelyn calls me every week to check in on me, leaving me to still feel connected to him somehow, or if it's the fear of going back to Oregon, where my past can easily haunt me. Whatever it is, my gut is telling me to stay put. But why do I want to stay here when every time I step outside, my gut also tells me I'm being watched, and I need to be on high alert?
The motorcycle comes back into my mind’s eye, and I can't help but think that the person on that bike has something to do with my uneasy feeling. I don't think the little can of mace on my keychain will be enough to stop the likes of him. I just need to stay focused on everything around me as much as I can and figure out my life. I need to move on and stop letting assholes like Ronan and Dickey control my life and the decisions I make.
I feel myself sit up a little straighter in my seat, and a determination to move on and not let fear or heartbreak determine my future settles in.
I got this.
I got me.
I will succeed.
The first thing I will succeed in is being a good friend, and that means getting out of my head and my own internal thoughts and listening to my friend talk about his life.
“...so, we're getting close and I'm hoping we can make some connections at the conference this week, and maybe we'll get the additional funding we need to really get somewhere.”
"Bryce, I am so proud of you."
He smiles and puffs out his chest just a bit.
"I have a good feeling about this week, and I know you're going to connect with the right person. I can feel it."
2
It's a beautiful day, if only the pit of my stomach could acknowledge it. Taking a break from running errands and looking for a job, I decide to go for a run, and my feet have taken me to Sidney Walton Park. It’s nice to find some quiet in the middle of the busy city.
I find a bench to stretch out my legs, but it’s also an excuse to take a look around me. My runs no longer bring me the peace of mind they used to. They used to clear my head and bring me the internal strength I needed to feel I could take on life. On today's run, I feel uneasy and under a microscope. I don't know who it is, but I know I am being watched.
I have no proof, but I know… I just know it's true.
At first, I thought I was being irrational, but I know I'm right and today is the day I figure it out. I was hoping that stopping in the park would do the trick because if they are following me that means they must be running too. But I don't see anyone. I try to find different ways to move around on my bench, stretching, twisting and turning to try to get different views to see if I can find him or her, but no such luck. I see a fit man with a black beanie on his head running in place and then stopping to stretch all the way on the other side of the park, but his back is to me, and he doesn't look like a goon. At least, not the goons I remember. There is a couple walking their two King Charles Spaniels and a mom pushing her toddler in a stroller; they don't seem to fit the bill either.
Whomever it is has done this before, and they aren't making it easy. If it's one of Dickey's men, I don't know what I would do, but I feel like if it was one of his men, I wouldn't be sitting here on this bench. They would have snatched me up the first chance they got.
But if not one of his goons, then who is it?
An idea hits me, and I guzzle the rest of my water and start off on a light jog. I leave the park, and before long the street is too busy to run, and I nonchalantly slow to a walk and head in the direction of the little local coffee shop I've been passing every morning on my runs. Today, instead of passing by, I go inside.
The girl behind the counter is adorable and bubbly. Her light pink hair matches her personality perfectly, and I already know this before she says a word to me. Every customer who walks away from her, does so with a smile. It's because her smile is infectious, and even with a creeper following me everywhere I go, I can't help but smile when I approach the counter to place my order.
"Welcome to Callie's Coffee. What can I get started for you?"
"Hi, I'll take two, small black coffees to go, please?"
"Sure thing, hun. Can I get you anything else?"
I love that she's calling me hun when she is clearly younger than me by more than a few years. "Nope, that will do it."
"Great, can I get your name."
"Olivia."
"Olivia, nice to meet you. I'm Callie. That'll be five dollars."
I pay her with my card and make sure to add a big tip. Gotta love and support a young woman running her own business. Girl power and all that.
"Thanks, doll. We'll have that down at the other end of the counter in just a sec."
"Thank you."
I move to the back of the shop to wait for my coffee and to step back where it's darker, and I can watch out the window. Just as I suspected I see him. Right outside the window is the man with the beanie that I spotted in the park but dismissed as my creeper. His finger is pushing on something in his ear, and he's talking into the small wire coming out of the earpiece that he's holding in place. I know a lot of people use these bluetooth ear pieces to talk on their phones these days, but when he looks inside the window and then moves right past me the moment he spies me as if he didn't notice me, I know it’s him. As soon as he saw me, he said something into his little wire and turned back to the street. I can't believe I was naive enough to have bypassed him as my creeper.
"Two small black coffees for Olivia."
Hearing my order being called, I inhale deeply and let it out before I pick up my drink.
I can do this.
If there was ever a place to do this, a busy sidewalk with a ton of witnesses seems like the safest bet. This is what I tell myself as I walk through the shop and toward the exit.
Mr. Black Beanie is standing on the sidewalk with his back to me and doesn't see me push through the door. Digging deep, I muster the courage to tap him on the shoulder. I hear him mutter “shit” under his breath as he slowly turns around, knowing his cover has been blown.
"Here, I got you a coffee. I figure if you're going to follow me everywhere I go, we might as well introduce ourselves."
"I'm sorry ma'am, I don't know what you're talking about," he says, taking the coffee I'm practically shoving in his hand.
"Yes, you do!" Where I'm finding th
e bravery to confront this man I have no idea, but before I know it, I am stepping into him and pointing at him like he isn't over half a foot taller than me. "I saw you at the park, and I know you've been following me. Who the hell are you? Who are you working for and why are you following me? Do you work for Dickey?" I pull my phone out and take his picture. "I will call nine one one. Don't think I won't."
I can hear myself getting louder with each question. There goes my plan of buying him a coffee and keeping the confrontation calm and not drawing attention from others around us unless things went bad.
He tries to step around me, but I step in front of him and block his escape. "I don't think so!" I say even louder, grabbing his arm with my free hand.
Before I know it, Callie from the coffee shop, is standing shoulder to shoulder with me, making it that much harder for him to get away. I should be upset that I've drawn attention to myself, but the adorable shop owner gives me a subtle nod of her head that says she's got my back.
"Ma'am, I think you're mistaken."
Quieter this time, I grit through my teeth when I shove him in the chest. "You don't get to stalk me every day and just walk away. You have been creeping me out for over a month now. I'm done! If you think you are going to intimidate me or try to take me to Dickey, think again!"
He wipes his free hand over his face and pulls the ear piece out of his ear. "Ma'am, I'm not stalking you, and I'm not here to hurt you either. Quite the opposite, actually."
