by Lisa Suzanne
INTERCEPTION
LOVE TRIANGLE BOOK ONE
© 2019 Lisa Suzanne
All rights reserved. In accordance with the US Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher or author constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law and except for excerpts used in reviews. If you would like to use any words from this book other than for review purposes, prior written permission must be obtained from the publisher.
Published in the United States of America by Books by LS, LLC.
This book is a work of fiction. Any similarities to real people, living or dead, is purely coincidental. All characters and events in this work are figments of the author’s imagination.
Cover Designed by Najla Qamber Designs
Cover Photograph by Rafa Catala
Cover Models: Albert and Gabriela
Content Editing by It’s Your Story Content Editing
Proofreading by Proofreading by Katie
AUTHOR LINKS
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BOOKS BY LISA SUZANNE
A LITTLE LIKE DESTINY SERIES
A LITTLE LIKE DESTINY (Book One)
ONLY EVER YOU (Book Two)
CLEAN BREAK (Book Three)
THE UNBREAKABLE THREAD DUET
THE POWER TO BREAK (Book One)
THE INVISIBLE THREAD (Book Two)
THE TRUTH AND LIES DUET
IT STARTED WITH A LIE (Book One)
IT ENDED WITH THE TRUTH (Book Two)
TAKE MY HEART
THE BENEFITS OF BAD DECISIONS
CLICK HERE FOR MORE
DEDICATION
For my 3Ms.
I love you.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: GAVIN
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: CHASE
TAKE MY HEART: A PREVIEW
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
AUTHOR LINKS
CHAPTER ONE
The man sitting across from me is my perfect match. He’s hot as hell, he’s successful, and a short while ago, he made me laugh so hard that a little wine went up my nose.
But something’s off. I can’t seem to get my ex out of my mind, and it’s not fair to the perfectly nice gentleman across from me.
I wish I could say I don’t know why my ex has been on my mind so much lately, but the answer is pretty obvious. The little black and gold invitation that came in the mail just two days ago sits on my kitchen counter taunting me.
Mocking me.
Laughing at me.
That damn invitation brought every happy, tragic memory to the surface. It’s been ten years since he broke my heart; certainly by now, I should have moved on...but I haven’t. My heart won’t allow me to when it’s so wrapped up in the past, in every catastrophe that simultaneously collided into me at once.
I hadn’t realized I was still in love with him until that damn invitation arrived in the mail.
“So, Delaney, tell me about your job,” Aidan says, and I can’t help but think even his name is kind of hot. I sigh as I wish I could focus on the potential between us.
“I have a classroom of twenty-seven fourth graders.”
“Fourth grade? What’s that like these days?” One side of his mouth lifts in a smile.
“We just started fractions. They’re basically every fourth-grade teacher’s living nightmare and also the reason why I drink.” I lift my wine glass as evidence to support my statement, and Aidan laughs.
“You know how I learned fractions?” he asks.
I shake my head and raise my brows.
“Baking. I had such a sweet tooth as a kid and I loved helping my mother in the kitchen. She taught me how to measure and double recipes, and I was ahead of the game when they were introduced in class.”
He loved helping his mother in the kitchen? This guy is way too good to be real. “That’s not a bad idea,” I say instead of what I’m thinking, my mind formulating different ways of getting the idea of fractions across to my struggling students. “And I suppose knowing math is essential to your job, too?”
He lifts a shoulder modestly. “It helps to be able to do basic computation in my head, but most of the numbers financial analysts use are generated from spreadsheets and formulas these days.”
“What sorts of finances do you analyze?” I break off a piece of bread from the basket sitting on the table.
“I’m a portfolio manager, so basically I recommend what my company should invest in, but I have to study products and regions and explain my decisions to our board.”
My body chooses that exact moment to bring more oxygen to my blood through a large yawn.
He chuckles. “What I do sounds pretty boring when I explain it that way.”
Pink colors my cheeks. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry. I wasn’t yawning because I’m bored, I swear. I’m having a really nice time, actually.”
“You say that like you’re surprised.” He grins.
“Have you ever had a successful blind date?” I counter.
He purses his lips as he looks up at the ceiling in deep thought, and then his eyes return to mine. “Not until tonight.”
His words are perfect, just like him...and it only has the effect of making me feel about a thousand times worse because as much as I wish things could be different, they just aren’t. I can’t force this to work, and I hate that it’s Chase crowding my thoughts once again as I compare yet another man to the one I’ve held on a pedestal for far too long.
But deep down, I know he’ll be there. That invitation on my counter isn’t just taunting me. It’s there for every single person who graduated the same year I did, waiting to irritate me like a bad case of herpes. Only this feels much, much more painful.
I’d guess.
I don’t know exactly what herpes feels like, but the feeling of knowing my best friend will somehow talk me into going to the reunion isn’t exactly pleasant.
“What are you doing Sunday afternoon?” Aidan asks, pulling me from my reunion thoughts.
I have a standing Sunday morning activity during the school year, but this week’s is sure to bleed into the afternoon. “I’m volunteering with a few of my fourth-graders and their families. It’s our last event of the school year.”
He holds a hand to his chest like he just can’t take it. “Beautiful,
funny, and philanthropic? Be still my heart.”
I giggle. “Why do you ask?”
“Well, season tickets to the Dodgers was on my bucket list, and I got ’em this year. I was hoping you’d want to go to the game this Sunday with me.”
I purse my lips and shake my head in mock disgust. “I knew you were too good to be true.”
His brows furrow. “Why? What’d I say?”
“Dodgers.” I wrinkle my nose. “Now if you would’ve said Angels, I would’ve given you a maybe. Or, better yet, the Rams, but since it’s the off-season, I guess I can let it slide.”
Both his brows shoot up in surprise. “You’re a football fan?”
Now if that’s not the understatement of the century, I’m not sure what is. I’ve always cheered for the Rams, and more recently for the Broncos, but I wouldn’t say I’m a football fan, exactly.
I’m a Chase Camden fan.
As he enters my thoughts once again, I can’t help but think it’s funny that Aidan mentioned his bucket list.
I’ve got a few items on mine, too—things I’ve been thinking about a lot the last couple days. At the top of that list is finding my way back to the boy I fell in love with when I was a teenager. Second on the list is falling in love with a good man who would never hurt me, but I guess that bucket list item completely contradicts the first one since Chase did, in fact, hurt me.
Yet here I sit across from a perfectly good candidate to fill that second role, and I can’t focus on anything other than the fact that this reunion is coming up and Chase will be there.
I can’t keep living like this. As much as I don’t want to face everyone I left behind when I was forced to grow up, I can’t help but think this reunion is exactly what I’ve been waiting for. It’s my chance to see him and maybe even to talk to him again.
Either we’ll find our way back to each other or I’ll finally get the closure I’ve needed for a decade. Because if I can’t figure out how to close the books on him, I’ll never find my way to happiness.
CHAPTER TWO
“How’d the date go?” Rose asks.
“Fine.”
“That’s all I’m getting?” she prods.
“He was perfect, Rose. Hot and funny and sweet. But it just...I don’t know. It wasn’t there.”
She sighs. If anyone knows why, it’s her. She changes the subject. “Did you get the invitation?”
I stare at the gold lettering set against the thick, black paper and run my finger over the text for the hundredth time since it arrived. It’s embossed, I realize, and I try not to roll my eyes. Of course it is. I wouldn’t be surprised if they used actual gold for the lettering. “I did, and I don’t think I want to go.”
I realize just last night that I’d sort of made up my mind that I’d go with the intention of seeing Chase, but certainly there are other avenues to get in touch with him while he’s in town aside from subjecting myself to the cruelty of the people I really have no interest in seeing again.
“Why not?”
I prepare myself for battle with my best friend even though I have a fairly strong inclination I’ll lose. I always lose against her. “Because I don’t care about any of those people. I talk to the only people I care about from that school, and the rest can go fuck themselves.”
“But Beyond Gold is playing a short set. Don’t you want to see Gavin and Liam again?”
I can’t admit to my best friend that Gavin Brooks and Liam Ward have nothing to do with the real reason I’m so set against going to our ten-year high school reunion. “I can see them when they come through the Forum.”
“It won’t be the same,” she says. “It’s not like you’ll get to go backstage, not like it’ll be at the reunion where we can actually talk to them.”
I fan myself with the invitation as I cradle my phone between my ear and my shoulder, and then I open my fridge and grab a can of diet Coke. “I don’t want to go.”
“Because of Chase?”
“No, because of everyone else. You know I want to see Chase more than anything.”
“Then there’s your answer,” she says. “Forget about everyone else. Go and show him what he lost all those years ago.”
“Oh, is that the plan? And I suppose you’re going to show Liam what he’s been missing out on, too?” I toss the ball right back into her court.
“That could be a motivator for me,” she conceded. “Have you seen him recently?”
“Just with Gavin on the cover of every magazine in the check-out stand.” I don’t admit I’ve opened one or two of them to get a glimpse of all the success one of my best friends from high school deserves. “Just admit the real reason you want to go.”
“Fine. I want Liam in my bed.”
“Was that so hard to admit?” I tease. She had a crush on him back in high school but was never able to seal the deal because he had a long-term girlfriend from a different school. Rumor has it that it wasn’t too far into our freshman year of college when he broke it off with her, but by then Rose was dating someone new and they’d lost touch.
“Yeah, it was.” Her voice is soft. She’s still vulnerable even ten years later...and she’s not the only one.
“So let’s see. Since we graduated high school, there was Troy, Max, Steve, Caden, and what was that one guy with the farmer name?” I tick them off on my fingers as I name them even though she can’t see me over the phone.
“Wyatt?” she guesses.
“Yeah, Wyatt.”
“Don’t forget Trevor and Mike.”
I blow out a breath. “And none of them can make you forget about Liam?”
I can picture her shaking her head as she says softly, “He was my first real crush, Dee. Has anyone made you forget about Chase?”
“No. Not even perfect-on-paper Aidan last night. But it was more than some crush.”
“Listen, I need to get back to work,” she says with a sigh. “At least tell me you’ll think about it, ‘kay?”
“Whatever,” I say with another roll of my eyes that she can’t see.
“Delaney...” she prods.
“Fine. I’ll think about it.”
“Love you. See you tonight.”
“Love you too.”
I hang up and eye the invitation one more time.
Prestbury Academy cordially invites you to your ten-year graduation reunion
Saturday, June 15th starting at 7:00 PM
The Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills
A black-tie charity ball featuring dinner, cocktails, auction, and dancing
With a special performance by Beyond Gold
The Prestbury class reunions are renowned for being star-studded events that raise money for both the private school and a local charity. And everyone goes back for the reunions. It’s just the way it’s always been.
The data doesn’t lie; over eighty percent of our graduating class earns over a million bucks a year, my best friend Rose included.
And Gavin and Liam. And Chase.
But one person who doesn’t? Me.
And that’s why I don’t want to go. Everyone else had opportunities I didn’t, and everyone there knows about my family’s scandal. Even after ten years, the cuts are still fresh. I’m hurt, I’m scared, and I’m not ready to face the people who will judge what I’ve become.
I’ve worked my ass off to become a fourth-grade teacher, and most days I love what I do. It may not have been my dream job when I had the means to reach higher, but it’s a good and stable career that mostly pays the bills.
The people I went to high school with would never understand that. They’re not part of the same working class that I am. They don’t know what it’s like to stay in and cook macaroni and cheese for dinner instead of going out to some five-star restaurant without a second thought of the cost. They’re not my people...not anymore.
There. As promised to Rose, I thought about it. That doesn’t mean she’s going to like my answer.
CHAPTER THREE
&n
bsp; “I can’t believe you actually agreed!” Rose says a few days later.
I heave out a breath as I flip mindlessly through the rack of dresses in front of me. I find one that’ll be okay, but it’s not perfect. I check the price tag, and my stomach twists. For that price, it better be more than okay. “For the record, I didn’t really agree. You badgered me until I figured it’d be easier to go than listen to you for another second.”
She giggles. “Whatever it takes. That’s what I always say.”
I pull out a beautiful Oscar de la Renta dress with a six grand price tag. Shaking my head, I set it back.
Next I spot a gorgeous Gucci one with a two-grand tag.
My jaw drops at a five-figure Valentino dress.
None of these dresses would’ve fazed me ten years plus a few months ago. In fact, I wore Oscar de la Renta to my senior prom.
“Can we shop somewhere else?” I ask softly so the boutique owner doesn’t overhear me.
“Like where?” she asks.
“I don’t know, maybe somewhere that doesn’t have price tags with five numbers before the decimal.”
She sighs like I’m being a downer. “Babe, you know I got you.”
I press my lips together. “I don’t want your charity, Rose. I’ve never wanted it, and while I appreciate your generosity—”
She cuts me off. “Delaney. Stop. I want to. I’m forcing you to go. The least I can do is pay for your dress.”
She’s not listening, but when it comes to money, she never listens.
She doesn’t get it, though. She’s always had it. She’s never had to worry about paying bills and having enough left to put food on the table. She doesn’t have to pay off the student loans for the degree that led to her very lucrative position as an event planner—at her own company, no less. One that she’s openly tried to hire me at but I’ve declined because I don’t want her charity.
Sometimes I think maybe I should just take it. She has more than she needs while I’m living paycheck to paycheck.
