by Ali Parker
Aaron
Casanova Club #7
Ali Parker
BrixBaxter Publishing
Contents
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Description
Introduction
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
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Copyright
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Description
Here we are. The halfway mark.
Halfway to what, you might ask?
Well, halfway to me blindsiding twelve amazing men all to get my hands on a decent chunk of cash, of course.
My intentions are good, remember? I need the money to save my parents from their crippling debt and to spare my little brother the very bleak future that lies ahead of him if he can’t escape the family business and go back to school. But with every passing day I can’t help but wonder if what I’m doing is right.
I’m messing with the lives of twelve men who are in this to find their wife. Not to be jerked around by a selfish woman with a secret mission.
Aaron Morris is the sixth bachelor who receives me on his doorstep when I’m too spent to take another plunge into love. I’m done with it. My heart is too sore from all the goodbyes I’ve already had to say and I can’t wrap my head around the fact that there are still six more to go.
It’s only a matter of time before my mind starts to crack.
For all I know maybe it’s already happening here and now. Maybe that would explain how I’d somehow ended up caring for all of these men so strongly.
Ha. Yeah right. If only the answer was as simple as insanity.
It’s so much more complicated than that.
Love. Money. Secrets.
Even though we’re already halfway through I feel like there is still so much to go.
And I’m scared that I won’t be able to handle it.
Introduction
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Chapter 1
Piper
“Oh, dear God, why?” I groaned and rubbed at my aching eyeballs. All my crying last night had riddled me with congestion in my nose and in my brain and in my heart. It felt like I’d been pulverized on the inside before being vigorously shaken and then expanded like a carbonated drink, pushing at my skull and ribs.
It hurt to open my eyes. The bright glare of the sun streaming in through my bedroom window wasn’t helping my headache, and neither was the clattering of dishes down the hall in the kitchen, where Janie must have been cooking up a storm.
Despite my grumbling stomach, I wasn’t tempted to leave the solace of my room. Not yet. My heart was too heavy and full of dread to leave the warm comfort of my bed.
Last night had been awful. After staying up and talking to Janie, who’d done her best to offer me words of encouragement after I confessed how terribly I was doing with this whole Casanova endeavor, I locked myself in my room to muffle my sobs in my pillow while I pined over Jeremiah. It was impossible to think of anything but him, and I found myself wondering what he was doing while I cried my heart out.
Did he miss me like I missed him?
Was he lying awake, staring at his ceiling, wishing the empty side of the bed beside him was occupied by me for just one more night? Was he grieving over the end of our time together, too?
Part of me hoped so.
No, that was a lie. All of me hoped so. I desperately wanted him to miss me as fiercely as I missed him, which was a selfish, greedy, childish desire to have. I loved him. I should want him to be happy.
But I was so far past that.
When the clashing and clanging in the kitchen became too loud to endure, I tore my blankets off and padded across my bedroom floor to the bathroom outside the hall.
Janie called for me. “Pipes, you up?”
I left the bathroom door open a crack as I sat down to pee. “Yes. I’ll be there in a minute.”
“I made pancakes! And eggs. I tried to do over medium, but you know me.”
Yes, I did. Janie couldn’t cook to save her life. But it was the thought that counted. After I relieved my bladder, I braced myself above the bathroom sink and stared at my ragged reflection.
“Shit,” I breathed, studying my pink, puffy eyes and swollen lips. With a tired sigh, I ran the sink and splashed cold water on my face before dabbing it dry with a hand towel. Then I slapped on some face cream and pulled my hair out of its messy bun to give it a quick run through with my brush.
I emerged in the kitchen still looking rough as hell and feeling equally terrible.
Janie looked over her shoulder at me from where she was stirring pancake mix, and I sat down at the kitchen island. She arched an eyebrow. “Did you manage to sleep at all?”
I shook my head and rested my chin in my hand. “No. Maybe a couple of hours. Tops.”
“Sorry, babe. A good sleep would have done you some good.”
“Are you saying I look rough?”
“No,” Janie said a little too quickly.
I smiled weakly. “I know it’s bad. Nothing a hot meal and a shower won’t fix.”
“And a bit of makeup.”
I laughed softly. “Don’t worry. I wouldn’t show up to see Aaron later today looking like this. I’m not a psychopath. Although…” I paused, cocking my head to the side thoughtfully. “I might repulse him enough for me to guarantee that there is no chance of either of us falling for each other, and I can finally have a month of emotional peace.”
Janie poured giant circles of pancake batter over our pan. “You’ll be fine. What better way to get over Jeremiah than to throw yourself at another man?”
“Janie, I don’t—”
“I know. I know. It was just a joke. You don’t want to get over Jeremiah.”
I swallowed.
It was true. I didn’t want to get over him. And I didn’t want to forget a single minute of our time together. After spending just one night away from him, I was painfully aware of how special he was to me—and how far away he was, too.
“I don’t know what I want anymore,” I muttered.
Janie spun around and pointed our old red-plastic spatula at me. “I can tell you what you want, Pipes.”
“Please don’t.” I buried my face in my hands.
But Janie was on a roll now, and she’d taken it upon herself to rouse me from my sorrows. She still wielded the spatula the way my sixth-grade teacher used his ruler to point out the kids who were fucking around in the back row with their friends. Mr. Bishop’s tactic was, of course, to humiliate rather than inspire hope, but I couldn’t help but picture him and his bushy black eyebrows as Janie planted her free hand on her hip and drew in a breath in preparation.
“You want to find the love of your life to settle down with. You want to find your passion and pursue it without the guilt of walking away fr
om your mom and dad’s restaurant. You want a good life for your family. And above all else, you want your bestie to marry a man equally as wealthy as yours so we can do fun shit together. Am I close?”
I giggled and let my hands fall from my face. “Yes. That sounds dreamy.”
“See? All you need is a little bit of direction. Something to strive for.”
“You’re burning them.”
“What?”
I nodded at the pancakes now simmering on the pan. “The pancakes. You’re burning them.”
“Shit!”
Janie whirled back to the pan and began frantically flipping the pancakes over. They were only slightly black on the cooked side, nothing copious amounts of butter and maple syrup couldn’t fix.
My best friend frowned at me. “I’m sorry, Pipes. I wanted to make you a delicious breakfast.”
“It’ll still be delicious.”
“Don’t coddle me.”
I laughed. “All right. They’ll be average. But average pancakes are still pretty great.”
Janie lifted her chin and gave me a cute little smile. “Thanks.”
She poured me a glass of orange juice and dropped a single ice cube in it—just how I liked it—before plating all the pancakes and eggs and sliding onto the stool beside me at the kitchen island. We buttered our pancakes, drowned them in syrup, and dug in.
“See?” I asked with my mouth full. “Still delicious. Definitely above average.”
Janie scrunched up her nose. “You’re full of shit, and we both know it.”
We ate in silence for the next few minutes, which gave my mind time to wander. Wandering thoughts hadn’t been kind to me since the start of the year, where my life became infinitely more complicated. At the end of last year, my biggest concern was my parents’ mounting debt, but now, I was burdened by my father’s worsening heart condition as well. To top it all off, I’d fallen in love with four different men, all of who would be perfect for me, but I couldn’t have.
Because I needed the money.
Correction. I needed the money for my parents and for my brother and for my education.
What I wanted was simply out of the question.
Janie ran her finger through the leftover maple syrup on her plate and popped it in her mouth. Then she twisted around in her stool to face me, crossed one leg over the other, and leaned one elbow on the counter. “So, have you reconsidered your decision not to see your folks before you leave this afternoon?”
“No.”
“You’re sure you don’t want to pop in and say hi quickly? You’re not going to get the chance for a whole other month. You might regret it as soon as you get to Kingston.”
I shrugged one shoulder. “I’m afraid that if I see them, I won’t be able to keep this Casanova Club thing a secret.”
“Well at some point or another, they’re going to find out.”
“I know. But I want to control it as much as possible. You know. To lessen the blow.”
Janie arched an eyebrow. “Explain.”
“Well, I figure it would be best to tell my folks what I’ve been up to when I have the cash in hand at the end of the year. That way, there’s an immediate payoff, and neither of them have to fret over me spending every month with a different man in order to earn said money.”
“I guess it makes sense that you wouldn’t want your mom and dad to think you’re a slut.”
I gaped at her. “I’m not a slut.”
Janie sipped her orange juice and made wide, innocent eyes at me over the rim of the glass. “Did I say slut?”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “Bitch.”
She laughed. “You’re the one hooking up with all these dudes. Not me.”
“It’s part of the deal,” I grumbled.
“Not really, though.”
“Shut up.”
Janie snickered. “I get it, Pipes. You’d rather not say anything until your dad is in the clear with his heart, right?”
I nodded.
She put her hand over mine. “It makes perfect sense. Why stress him out?”
“Exactly.”
Janie patted my hand before sliding off her stool and clearing away our dishes. “Just be careful, okay? I worry about you and this process, you know.”
“You do?”
Janie nodded as she ran water over the plates. “Definitely. Your heart is getting pummelled, Pipes. And on top of that, you’re dealing with all this stress at home. Sometimes, I almost wish I’d never told you about the Casanova Club.”
I studied my friend. She had her back to me. It was a classic Janie move. If she felt guilty or uncomfortable, she’d never look me in the eye.
“Janie,” I said, keeping my voice even. “I don’t have any regrets over throwing my name in the hat. I’m glad I did it.”
She turned the sink off and looked at me. “You mean it?”
“Absolutely. Sure, it sucks. Big time. And I’ve never cried so much in my entire life. But as shitty as I feel right now, I wouldn’t change it.”
Janie bit her bottom lip. “I hope Aaron is a tool.”
I laughed in surprise. “I think I’ve already mentally checked out. I can’t fathom meeting another man I could possibly care about. This month will be different. I’m going into it hoping for a chance to unwind and refuel. Take a breather.”
The corner of Janie’s mouth twitched.
“What was that?” I asked.
“What?”
“That little smirk.”
“Nothing,” Janie said.
“Liar.”
“It was nothing,” she insisted.
“Just tell me.”
“No.”
“Janie,” I said sternly.
My friend rolled her eyes in defeat. “All right. Fine. I just wanted to warn you.”
“About what?”
“About Aaron.”
“What about him?”
Janie shrugged and dried her hands on the floral-printed towel hanging off the handle of our stove. “He’s a writer, Pipes. He’s got a way with words. And you pair that with his good looks and charm? I don’t know. I guess I just don’t see how you’ll be able to stay… uninterested.”
“Easy,” I said, waving her concerns away.
Because I’m head over heels in love with another man.
Chapter 2
Aaron
Four hours.
It had been four hours since I hit send, firing off the first six chapters of my new manuscript to my agent, Marcy Irving. She was a hard ass. A real “I’m going to fuck your work up with so much red ink you’ll think I bled all over the place” sort of hard ass.
And she was exactly what my work needed. Honest, real, brutal feedback.
But she was usually so much faster than this. Her turnaround time for her best writer and money maker, yours truly, was usually pretty exceptional. The longest it had ever taken her to get back to me for such a short chunk of work was about an hour.
We were far past that mark, and it was making my insides itch.
Did she hate it?
Fuck.
Did she think it was trash?
It probably was trash.
I pushed away from my writing desk beneath my open window. The sounds of the city down below wafted up and into my apartment on the temperate afternoon breeze, carrying with it the smell of the bakery down on the sidewalk below; fresh baked bread and pastries, ground coffee, and spices.
As I rocked back in my chair, I clasped my hands behind my head and closed my eyes.
It’s not trash, I told myself. It’s just different.
I’d spent the last eight years of my writing career pumping out romance book after romance book. Boy meets girl. Girl meets boy. They fall in love. The end.
But this project? This was something else entirely.
This was mayhem and death and adventure. And it was a story I’d been carrying around in my head for the last two years. Now that I was finally putting it on paper, it
was turning into a much bigger endeavor than I ever imagined it could be. It had gone from being a tiny idea rolling around in my brain to a trilogy just after writing the first six chapters and scrawling a loose outline in my notebook.
And with the expansion came unbridled excitement on my end. I hadn’t felt so called to write in years. Years.
I’d only kept pumping out books for the last four years or so because Marcy was on my ass about it all the time. Two book deals a year left my bank account pouring over and bulging at the seams. I had more money than I knew what to do with, and the fact that I’d earned it off my art was still mind-boggling to this day. It had been the dream for so long.
And now that it had been realized, I was coming to the conclusion that I wanted more. More worlds. More characters. More tension and drama and conflict and gore and—
My phone rang.
I swept my cell off the counter and answered the call without even checking the screen, expecting Marcy’s drawl to fill the line.
“So, what did you think?” I asked, leaning forward to grip the edge of my desk and pull myself upright once more.
“Aaron?” A familiar male voice spoke my name into the phone.
I frowned and glanced at the caller ID. Jackson Lee. Why the hell was he calling me?
