by Lola Finn
“Oh my God,” she says. “Just like that? You can transfer and work at a different hotel like nothing happened?”
I nod. “It means I’ll have to spend most of my week in the city and fly back here on the weekends to see you for the next few weeks, but I think I can make it work.”
She slowly starts to smile. “You think you can make it work?” Her mouth falls open, and she playfully bats at me. “I just had the entire staff see my tits, and you—”
My lips drop down on hers, and I kiss her slowly, knowing I can do this any damn time I want to from now on.
“Almost.” I pull back so my lips hover in front of hers. “They almost saw your tits, baby.”
“But what about Isabelle?” she asks.
Fucking Isabelle.
I knew she was the one posting the pictures as soon as Brent told me she’d recently asked him what happens if an employee is caught sleeping with their manager.
“Isabelle is about to find out what happens when you piss off a Cabot,” I tell her. “Brent’s not a fan of people starting drama at his businesses. Especially if that drama involves screwing over someone he cares about.”
Palmer smiles up at me, and I tuck my fingers under her chin, lifting it higher and leaning closer.
“Now there’s only one last problem to solve.”
Her face falls. “Oh no.”
“Oh yes. It’s a big problem too.” I brush my lips over hers, mine turning up. “I’m in love with you, Palmer. I’m so fucking in love with you, and I have no idea what to do about it.”
She breaks into a huge grin, her cheeks blazing. “I love you too.”
Our mouths collide, and Palmer moans, throwing her arms around my neck. When she pulls back, her eyes twinkle.
“So, Isabelle’s gone?”
“She’s gone, baby.” I push the hair off her forehead.
“And I still have my job?”
I nod. “Your job and the rest of summer to impress the Verse chick.”
Her entire face lights up at that one.
“And you’re coming to New York with me?” She pushes onto her toes to kiss me without letting me answer, but I nod anyway.
“I’ll be in New York. Or the Heights. Or the bottom of a fucking volcano if that’s where you are.”
And I will be. Because fuck having all the pieces. They can be ripped, torn, missing. I only need the one, and she’s currently scrambling into my arms.
Palmer laughs, climbing me like I’m a damn tree and kissing me like nothing else matters.
Because it doesn’t.
Epilogue
Palmer
Okay, so let me start right off the bat by saying Exposed kept going even after the tech guys got me access back. I took down all the pictures of Briggs and me—well, almost all of them, but a few that Isabelle cropped were hot. Her captions, though? They needed work.
Briggs was right about her. Not only that she had the personality of a sponge, but that she learned a very valuable lesson about what happens when you mess with Brent Cabot or someone he cares about. Or someone that someone he cares about cares about in my case.
Security went straight to her office after Briggs talked to Mr. Cabot. They helped her pack her things and escorted her off the property, accidentally damaging a few things in the process. Namely, a framed photo of Briggs they found in her desk drawer, her phone—oh, and her career.
Mr. Cabot promised to black ball her from every job on the East Coast. And something tells me when that man makes a promise, he keeps it.
He certainly did when it came to Briggs.
I was a little bummed to lose our daily staff meetings, but I adjusted. Mr. Cabot actually promoted Traci, the evening shift receptionist, to interim manager. She asked for a new desk, understandably, but other than that the transition was relatively seamless.
Briggs flew back and forth between the Cove and NYC for the rest of summer. He helped with the finishing touches of the hotel and staff training, and by the time it opened, people were calling it the Cove of the city. The first six months straight were booked solid, and they’re already looking at expanding the gym.
Which I’m personally against, but no one asked my opinion.
Briggs and I spent the rest of the summer sending dirty texts and videos when he was away and spent every second we could together when he was in Seaside Heights. And then at the end of summer we moved to New York. As soon as I finish my first year at Columbia, I’ll be moving in with him in the penthouse of the hotel. It’s funny how we went from sneaking around a hotel lobby to…well, we still might sneak around this hotel too.
We were the buzz of the resort for a short while, but I really do mean a short while. Because if there’s one thing about Haven Cove that you can count on, it’s another scandal to wipe the last one off the map. We were all but forgotten by the end of the season when everything went down with Cole and the guest who showed up in the middle of the summer, holy hell…let’s just say no one saw that shit coming.
As for my internship, Jessica was actually thrilled when she found out I was behind Exposed. It turns out, she’d been following the posts all summer. She said the posts were everything she loves about women embracing their sexuality and taking what they want into their own hands.
Even better than loving it? She asked me to help her start a similar blog for Verse where women can send in images and share their desires. The site goes live next month, and the number of women flooding our inbox with posts is incredible. Women know what they want. Men just need to listen.
And then shove panties in our mouths while they fuck us from behind.
Just kidding.
Kinda.
The ride’s not over yet. Saylor might just be getting to Haven Cove, but she plans to end the summer with a bang. Check out a sneak peek of her and Cole’s story in Fast, book six in the Haven Cove series.
He’s the bad boy townie everyone wants.
I’m the guest no one dares touch.
“If only you were eighteen,” he always says.
Well…now I am.
And it’s time he finally breaks the rule.
Chapter One
Saylor
Everywhere has a status quo—different surroundings or people, sure, but a hierarchy exists. Schools, businesses, even a nightclub. The animal kingdom has them naturally, and humans have perfected them. We’ve learned to claw our way to the top and shove others to the bottom or game the system to our benefit if we can’t manage to get up that next rung.
I was born so far at the top that it takes work to see the bottom. That’s not me being a spoiled brat about it or anything. Just a fact of life. And I fully understand I could have just as easily been born in the back of a suburban as opposed to the private maternity suite in one of the country’s best hospitals.
Unlike my friends beside me on the loungers by the pool, Stacia and Vanessa, who honestly think the hierarchy is a statement on the person and not their luck in the genetic lottery.
“And you heard Asher Ramirez is dating a townie,” Stacia says, enough disgust in her voice to make me roll my eyes. “A fucking townie, Saylor.”
She really hits the word, as if that somehow makes it matter more. But regardless of how much stock we put into our statuses, the heart couldn’t give a shit about our opinion.
“Technically,” Vanessa chimes in, relaxed between us, “She’s an ivy, going to Princeton in the fall.”
Stacia tips her sunglasses down her nose, giving a squint. “Please. No one knows her family or anything about her. For all we know, she’s just a townie, posing as an ivy like that chick screwing Knox Cabot.”
Vanessa opens her mouth like she has a comeback but snaps it shut when Stacia drops back onto her lounger.
They’ve been filling me in on the gossip I’ve missed the past six weeks at Haven Cove. Every season always has its share of excitement, and it sounds like this year hasn’t disappointed. And us
ually, I’d be all over it—my mouth gaping at the salacious details of who’s been caught with who…and on who.
Watching the Haven Cove staff is the equivalent to a sexy soap opera drama playing out in real-time all summer long.
But this year, I’m coming in midseason. While my friends have been here, wasting away by the pool and having daily spa treatments, I’ve been basically living in the studio I’ve danced in since I was four. I probably should still be there, prepping for our final showcase, but instead, I’ll spend the next five weeks at the Cove, using one of their gym studios to practice because I couldn’t give up my entire summer at the resort.
Not after two years of sexy glances and hardcore flirting that always ends with a deep, raspy, “If only you were eighteen.”
Because I am eighteen now, and I have every intention of reminding Cole Scott of that fact every damn chance I find.
My eyes flit around the pool the way they always do, waiting for him to come onto a server shift. I don’t even know if he’s working today or been assigned to the poolside bar this summer, but anytime someone is running around in one of the sand-colored polos, you can bet I check.
“Oh my God,” Stacia coos, sitting up in her chair. “And here’s the entire reason we even bother coming to the pool.”
Vanessa pushes up on her elbow, too, but I sigh, barely rolling my head in the direction they’re looking. She likely means the lifeguards coming back on duty—Jerome and Rhett, two of the douche bag ivies who descend on the resort like wolves. Last year they both hit on me relentlessly, trying every angle possible to get in good with me so they’d have a golden ticket straight to my father and his hedge fund firm.
It was never their attention I was after, though. Don’t get me wrong; the two of them are worth the drool most girls lose over them. All of the Ivy League staffers are gorgeous—it’s not a debatable topic. But not a single ivy in a teal polo turns as many heads as Cole.
Screw the fact he’s a Seaside Heights local. He has dark hair you want to thrust your hands through, sexy tattoos peeking out from the sleeves of his pale beige polo, and those fierce gray eyes. God, those eyes. I’ve spent the last ten months aching for those eyes to be on me again.
But then my gaze locks on a dimpled grin I’ve memorized over the past two summers. It’s like my soul settles a little deeper inside me, being in the same space with him again.
Only when I look lower, my brain misfires, trying to figure out what I’m seeing. And not because he’s lost an ounce of perfection. His square jawline, and the way his tattooed biceps stretch his Haven Cove polo still have me pressing my thighs together on my pool lounger.
It’s the polo itself that has me confused because Cole Scott is wearing teal. This might not be a big deal to anyone unfamiliar with the Cove, but the color is reserved for the ivies, working to impress the wealthy guests, not the townies the owner hires to work as servers and in housekeeping.
Then the entire Haven Cove hierarchy scrambles in front of me as I realize Cole’s not waiting around the bar to serve drinks, he’s behind it.
He’s a bartender?
He flips a glass in his hand as he reaches behind him to a shelf for a bottle and pours a drink before nodding at the server who grabs it off the bar top.
“Oh, now she’s interested,” Vanessa says, and I look over, just remembering she and Stacia are even here. Or the rest of the people on the pool deck surrounding me.
“Told you he was gorgeous.” Stacia has a smug smirk aimed at me.
“The bartender?” I ask. “That’s who you’ve been coming to the pool to see?”
She nods, her expression saying, uh, yeah.
Something tells me she’d have a different reaction if she knew he’s been all along. Oh, that something was her reaction not even five minutes ago when she was offended an ivy would even consider dating a townie.
Which is why I’ve never mentioned Cole to any of my friends at the Cove. We only really hang out three months out of the year, anyway, while we’re all spending three months at the elite resort.
Otherwise, they might know my interest in Cole extends far beyond the beach and these stone walls. And definitely isn’t isolated to one season.
“Isn’t he perfection,” Stacia asks.
“Perfection that won’t give you the time of day.” Vanessa snorts but cuts off when Stacia’s head jerks toward her. “What?” she says. “You’ve tried to talk to him how many times so far and never gotten past a hey and him asking if you need more soda.”
Stacia pulls her copper hair over her shoulder and sinks into her lounger. “Like either of you could do any better.”
Except I can do better. I have done better. I even have the DMs to prove it. Some from as recent as last week when he was at a bar with his friend.
Chances are, Stacia and Vanessa drooled over him that day, and I was messaging him that night from the floor of the dance studio.
When I glance back at the bar, Cole has stopped pouring the drink in front of him. His smokey gray eyes aren’t passing over the swimsuit-clad guests surrounding the pool like I’ve seen them do once already.
No, right now, Cole Scott is staring right at me.
The gaze I’ve been aching to have on me ever since I told him I’d be back for him last summer, stays on me.
In all fairness, though, I did warn him.
Releasing August 20th
Buy it HERE!
Haven Cove Series
Addictive
Brazen
Complicated
Destructive
Exposed
Fast - August 20th
About the Author
Dirty-minded, wine-drinking procrastinators extraordinaire, and writers of the sexy words. Lola Finn is an 8/9 enneagram author duo, ready to let out their wild sides.
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