by Ember Leigh
Make Me Choose
Bayshore #4
Ember Leigh
Make Me Choose © 2020 by Ember Leigh
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a piece of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.
This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it to the seller and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.
Published by Ember Leigh, 2020
[email protected]
Cover art: Covers by Combs
Editing: Elisabeth R. Nelson
Proofreading: Leona Bushman
Contents
About ‘Make Me Choose’
Author’s Note
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
Epilogue
Want an MMA novella FREEBIE?
And before you go…
Make Me Lose
Make Me Fall
Make Me Yours
READ THE BREAKING SERIES
Breaking The Rules
Changing The Game
Breaking The Sinner
Breaking the Habit
Breaking The Fall
About ‘Make Me Choose’
CATCH FLIGHTS, NOT FEELINGS.
So says Weston Daly, the playboy backpacker I keep running into around the globe. And I, for one, am sick and tired of tripping over his windblown chestnut hair and that impossible heartbreaker grin every time I leave the country.
First Amsterdam. Then Portugal. And now? Aruba.
He’s Instagram-famous and too gorgeous to trust. I’ve hated him since the day I met him, but on this trip, I have to play nice, even though he makes it impossible. It’s our best friends’ wedding…and I’m the official photographer.
The more this man smiles through my viewfinder, the harder it is to remember why we’ve always butted heads. Before I know what I’m doing, paradise takes on a new meaning, and it involves Weston Daly’s tongue.
His profile might say that he stops for nobody, but when we’re together, time itself freezes. When I receive the offer of a lifetime, Weston wants something that throws my whole world into disarray.
And worse yet? He plans to make me choose.
This book is dedicated to my twenties, which were spent in a constant flux of readying to buy a plane ticket and having just returned from somewhere.
Also dedicated to all of those seat-of-your-pants choices we’ve all made in life that everyone says are bad ideas but end up being really fucking good ideas.
Author’s Note
This book takes place on a real island, but liberties were taken with the geography and, er, inhabitants therein.
Just wanted to throw that out there for anyone who’s been to Aruba recently and is wondering what I’m smoking.
Chapter 1
NOVA
Is this farts or is this joy?
Inside my head, I sing this line to the tune of The Clash’s “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” The plane I’m on is just now cresting the northern ridge of Aruba, offering me a pristine view of the island below. My stomach lurches again—this is definitely joy. Because, motherfuckers, I’m about to be on Aruba!
It’s the same every time I travel. Nervous belly in advance of a new locale. Possibly a foreign tongue awaiting me, though according to my research, I may be hearing plenty of English. This constituent country of the Netherlands (thanks Wikipedia) was not exactly on my Top Ten Next Destinations list, but when my bestie from another chestie told me she was getting married on this twenty mile long hunk of Caribbean goodness (thanks again Wikipedia), you know I put in my vacation request to my supervisor before we’d even ended the Skype call.
My knee is bouncing as I look out the plane window. All I can see is the turquoise water of the sea and the frayed edges of the island giving way to white sand beaches, which is the mathematical equivalent to one week of paradise.
And holy crap, I need the getaway. Travel is in my blood, but I can only afford to donate said blood on strictly scheduled vacations and long weekends crammed around the edges of an uninspiring full-time job. Besides, if I ever tried to do something wild like travel for more than two weeks at a time, I’m pretty sure my family would have a collective heart attack and stage an intervention.
That’s how my family is. They don’t travel. Hell, they don’t even leave New York State. The wildest thing they’ve done so far is name me Nova, which came from my father’s brief obsession with the movie Planet of the Apes. There’s the one fun factoid about my life.
The plane banks as it aligns with the runway. One week. Seven full days of Aruba magic. I’m only assuming it will be magic, of course, since I’ve never been here before. This is my first destination wedding, which either means it will win the best week of my life until I die at age ninety, or some sort of disaster fit for a decently performing rom-com.
I peer out the window, trying to spot which beach my best friend and her fiancée are getting married on. Amelia and I met our sophomore year at Purchase College in southeastern New York. She was a free-spirited art major who loved to travel, which is how she met Rhys Henry Bradford III, her British other half. They figured they’d bridge the distances between their respective countries by heading to an island that felt energetically equidistant from both their hometowns.
I definitely can’t complain once the plane touches down and I catch that first whiff of sea breeze. The plane unloads in the middle of the runway, because island life, and the humid air feels like a salve to all the stressors and dissatisfaction I left behind in upstate New York, which I have categorized into three main areas:
I am a 25-year-old drowning in debt
Who lives with her grandmother in a small shack behind her parents’ house
And uses her high-falutin’ fine arts degree to…take senior high school portraits.
Of all the items on that list, my grandmother bothers me the least. Because my grandma is the fucking best.
But if it seems like things couldn’t be more pathetic for a woman my age, I assure you, they get worse. I also haven’t had sex in so long, I technically qualify as a virgin again. Yep, that’s a thing that can happen.
I don’t expect Aruba to change any of these things about me. No, I just expect a most-expenses-paid escape. Because that’s the American Dream, isn’t it? Quietly pay your bills your entire life and be happy with your one-to-two week ge
taway to a beach.
After I step onto the tarmac, an ocean breeze blows every last bit of my thick, red hair across my face. As I struggle to see the blue sky again, a familiar, feminine voice cuts through the air.
“NOVA!”
My best friend Amelia is jogging toward me, her arms open, pure joy written on her tanned face. Before I know it she’s wrapped me in an oxygen-stealing hug, shrieking with laughter in my ear as she says “You made it, you made it,” over and over again.
“Amelia! I can’t believe they let you this close to the plane without a boarding pass!” We’re laughing and hugging, and I’m already full of so many #vacayvibes I can hardly stand it.
“Yeah, well, I sweet-talked the luggage handler, and he said I could find you if I moved quick,” she says with one last squeeze around my waist before we pull back to look at each other. If the sculpting world had a Hollywood, she would be the It Girl. She’s even dressed like an incognito celeb, with a baseball cap pulled down over a low white-blonde ponytail.
“You should be an international spy,” I remark as she grabs my hand, leading me toward the lone terminal. “Sculpting is the perfect cover for your next career of espionage.”
She tosses her head back and laughs. “What makes you think I’m not already a spy?”
This is how it is with us: easy, fun, a little ridiculous. Exactly the sort of interaction I’ve never been able to strike up with the opposite sex. And trust me, I wish I could just be into women and call it a day. If only I didn’t love the D so much. And the rolling hills of a nice pair of biceps. And the gruff bass of an unexpected “hey, babe.” And, you know, about a million other things that go into the butterflies and frustrations of dating a man.
With any luck, I’ll find that elusive man before I die.
We whoosh through the baggage claim, and she talks with the luggage handler on the way back in as if she’s known him for years, not minutes. That is one of Amelia’s superpowers: she can become anybody’s best friend in minutes. My lime green luggage wobbles past us on the rickety conveyor belt a moment later.
“Let’s go find our driver,” Amelia says with a mischievous giggle once I’ve got all my things. This destination wedding is off to a great start. Ocean breeze: check. Private escort to the resort: check. I can’t keep the silly smile off my face as I follow Amelia onto the sidewalk of the airport arrivals lane. There’s a sleek black van waiting for us that looks like it could double as a party bus or an FBI vehicle. The side door slides open, and Rhys hops out, shooting me a smile fit for the British rag-mags. This is pure party.
“Nover! You made it!” His British lilt on my name never fails to delight. I laugh into his solar plexus (he’s like seven feet tall) as we embrace. “Can I help with your bag?”
“I’d love that,” I say. “Not gonna lie, I packed eighteen times more clothes than I’ll need, so it weighs as much as an iceberg.”
From inside the party van, there’s a little snort. Rhys goes to the back of the van to load my bag.
Amelia says, “So, I forgot to mention…” but I can’t hear her after a certain point because the person who snorted at me has now revealed himself.
First thing I notice is the hair—longish, chestnut brown tresses that are caught between stylishly windswept and bedhead. And then I notice the broad shoulders, dark tee pulled tight over the aforementioned hills of biceps. And once he comes to standing on the sidewalk, I barely notice that two others are following, because I can no longer focus on anything that isn’t this man.
Because the man who stepped out of the van isn’t just a casual hottie.
He’s none other than Weston Daly.
The man who’s made my heart flutter since I first met him four years ago. The living definition of tall, tan, and handsome. A vagabond who has never noticed me even a tenth as much as I have noticed him.
And this marks the third time around the world that he has come to haunt my vacation.
“…and Weston, Elliot, and Keko came along, too!” Amelia is finishing up. My gaze is hopelessly riveted on Weston, and I can’t tell if my face looks like petrified shock—something you’d find on one of those mummies accidentally preserved by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, no doubt—or blatant chagrin. His icy blue eyes return my surprise-volcano-eruption stare, and the smirk that curls at his lips says volumes without him uttering a word.
“Good to see you again, Nover,” Elliot, the other Brit, says. Keko, the final member of their groomsmen bro squad, waves at me. I met both of them during a trip last year to Portugal, which marked the second time I spent too many consecutive days with the gorgeous—I mean, completely irritating—Weston Daly.
Weston hasn’t greeted me, and I won’t be the first one to budge on that front.
“This is great,” I manage to say, smiling brightly at Amelia. I hope she can read the strain in my eyes as Oh, you didn’t fucking tell me that Weston Daly was coming, because that’s exactly what those near-burst blood vessels are trying to convey.
It’s been a year since I saw him last. Each time we’ve met up has been an accident—a misfortune, really—and I should have expected he’d be here too.
Because when I say he haunts my trips, I mean it. He’s like a ghost I just can’t get to cross over to the next dimension. It doesn’t matter how many times I chant “You’re free.” Weston continues to appear at all my international getaways.
Rhys comes from around the back of the van. “I bet they charged you triple for that beastly thing.”
It’s only beastly because I need to justify all my last-minute thrift store purchases by wearing outfits outside my comfort zone at least once. But I’m not high maintenance, no matter what the bulging weight of my luggage suggests. Really, all I need to travel is a few days’ worth of clothes, my cameras, and my travel talisman.
The talisman is important. It’s my good luck charm whenever I leave the country. I’ve never been robbed as a result. I know this doesn’t stand up to the scientific process, but I don’t care. It’s a gorgeous necklace that protects me and has mystical powers, surely. Even if it can’t convince Weston to stop tagging along on my itineraries.
The boys are all clambering into the car, leaving the middle bench seat for Amelia and me. Once the van lurches into motion, the driver nodding his greeting to me through the rearview mirror, I feel vulnerable. Weston is sitting directly behind me, and the fact that we haven’t technically exchanged a greeting but have stared each other down is weighing on me.
He’s holding out, but so am I. And I feel like he knows that I know that.
Reggae music floats through the van while Weston’s existence sizzles behind me. Amelia and Rhys start recounting a funny story about a passenger on their plane from England who insisted on gherkins to the point of requiring an emergency landing in Boston, and I’m trying to listen while also spying on Weston without actually turning to look at him. This is a hopeless task.
“So…no hello?”
The bass rumble of Weston’s voice near my ear sends goosepimples flaring up and down my spine. I catch a waft of his scent—sandalwood and spice. If he were anyone else, and we were anywhere else, I’d be taking my panties off by now. But no. Despite how intolerably good it feels to have his hot breath graze the back of my neck, I will not give in to him.
“Sorry?” I turn slightly, feigning confusion.
“Just was wondering if you’d ignore me for the rest of the day or the entire week.”
I suppress an annoyed sigh. “There was no ignoring. I greeted you with my eyes.”
“Oh. Did you smize?” he asks, which makes me laugh. Almost. “I must have missed it.”
“Don’t let it keep you up at night,” I say, heat and curiosity curling through me.
Because Weston is exactly the type of guy that I have dreamt about for a lifetime and never once considered a possibility. Confident, attractive, impossibly put together men? They never go for someone like me. If I had a warning label, it’d say “
Fat and Sassy”. And then in much smaller font, right below, it would say “And incredibly unsure of herself; please tell me I’m funny”.
But Weston can do whatever he wants in this life, without reassurance. He’s that attractive. I’ve watched with my own two eyes as he sought out and dominated cute backpacker girls in our shared hostel in Amsterdam, like they were doltish gophers and he was an incredibly dapper coyote. He floats around the world unperturbed and totally at ease. He eats confidence for breakfast.
And if he weren’t so annoying, I’d sort of look up to him. Because that confidence breakfast is what I’ve been missing since college graduation. Except this guy is the last person on Earth I’d ever ask for advice.
“…and then we can go surfing!” Amelia wraps up, clapping her hands together.
“Surfing,” I repeat, pretending I’ve been listening.
“The lessons will be free,” Rhys insists. “If you’ve never learned, now’s the time.”
Bless his accented optimism. “I’m not a big…swimmer.”
Though I am big and I know how to swim, I don’t make a habit of flinging myself into waves that could drown me. Rhys doesn’t need to know the details, though.
“Well you could at least sit on the beach with us,” Amelia suggests, just as the van runs over a jagged pothole. I slide out of my seat—that’s what I get for not buckling—and crumple into a pile against the front passenger seat. I catch the annoying twinkle in Weston’s eye as he tosses his head back and laughs.
