The One & Only: The One Lover Series Book 1
Page 1
Copyright © 2019 by Maria La Serra
All rights reserved.
Visit my website at maria-laserra.com
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 for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
ISBN-10: 9780995097964
ISBN-13: 978-0-9950979-7-1
Also By Maria La Serra
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Contents
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1. Staci
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2. Staci
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3. Staci
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4. Staci
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5. Staci
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6. Greg
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7. Staci
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8. Staci
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9. Staci
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10. Greg
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11. Staci
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12. Staci
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13. Greg
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14. Staci
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15. Greg
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16. Staci
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17. Greg
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18. Staci
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19. Staci
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20. Staci
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Next In The One Love Series
Also by Maria La Serra
Chapter 1
Also by Maria La Serra
Chapter 1
Stay connected
About the Author
After a terrible breakup, there’s no amount of therapy that can make you feel brand-new like a pair of stilettos. Never underestimate their power, they make you believe you can conquer the world.
“8 Ways to Get Over a Breakup”
by Staci Cortés
1
Staci
“Men are like shoes,” my abuela had once said, feeling compelled to share some of her wisdom. “Take all things into account before committing. What is it going to cost you? Do they go with everything in your wardrobe? But the most important thing is comfort. If you keep buying shoes too tight, where will that leave you? With bunions— so choose wisely.”
Ultimately, my whole adult life, I’d been wearing shoes one size smaller, but what my intrusive grandmother hadn’t understood was singlehood suited me fine. I was at a place in my life where things were great. Why should I compromise that for any man? I’d earned those bunions—it’d strengthened me.
Rushing into the lobby of the ornate limestone building, I’d feared I might be late this morning, but I couldn’t pass up the shoe sale at Barneys. So I didn’t have a guy in my life, but at least I had Christian Louboutin. He was the only man worth making space for in my closet. I was lucky that my salary supported my shoe fetish. At twenty-six years old, I had been a dating columnist for Starlet magazine for the last two years. Ironic, here I was, single and giving other women advice about how to snag the right guy, but I was better at giving advice than following my own. With a journalism degree, my goal was to one day work for the New York Times. If only I could get my foot in the door somehow and build my portfolio to show off my writing prowess. In the meantime, I can’t complain as I was still working for a reputable company. Starlet was a division of Nast Publishing, a large mass media company based in New York. That could give me connections to a plethora of job opportunities if I wanted them—that was, if I made a name for myself.
My heels clicked as I walked through the high-ceiling lobby with my Prada purse over my shoulder. I pushed the button for the elevator, and it instantly dinged open. My stomach turned when I saw the face of the man staring at me.
“Going up?” Greg McAdams asked, holding the elevator door open. “I literally just got in here. No wonder it hasn’t gone up yet.”
I looked down my nose at him as I entered the elevator, flipping the thick locks of my black hair in his face before pushing number twelve. Then I backed into the corner, resting against the railing as I glared at him. “Shouldn’t you be on vacation or something?” I snapped.
“Got back yesterday,” he said, putting his hands into the pockets of his dress pants.
I had to admit, he had a good sense of style in his tailored blue suit paired with a matching tie, but I’d be damned if I ever told him. That smug twenty-nine-year-old flashed a pearly white smile, looking at me with his deep blue eyes. His brown light hair was slicked back with too much product, and he looked like he hadn’t shaved in a few days, yet his facial hair still looked tidy.
He makes me sick— why did he have to be my type?
“Can I help you with something?” he asked in his smooth, deep voice.
“No,” I said, jerking my gaze away from him as I crossed my arms.
We stood there in silence until we had to get off on the same floor. Greg worked in the office across the hall from mine at Avant-Garde, also a division of Nast, doing the same job as me but for male readers. He had the second-biggest office on the floor, but I guessed it was nice when your father owned the company. I, on the other hand, worked hard to get where I was.
I could tell by the sharp look in his eyes he thought he was better than me. Most men who drove a silver 1967 Ferrari 365 Spyder on the verge of being thirty had that aura, like a pre-midlife crisis. He was a playboy in every sense of the word.
When the elevator door opened, I shoved my way past Greg. But before I turned the corner, I looked over my shoulder with a mischievous smile. I assumed he was staring at my tight backside, as most men did when I walked away. I wanted him to stare to see what he could never have. It was probably the greatest revenge I could get without trying.
The central office hub was packed with desks of assistants, writers, and editors with one closed-off office in the corner for the editor-in-chief. As I passed the rows of cubicles making my way to my desk, the phones were ringing off the hook. The staff slowly answered them, some after a giant swig of coffee. As for me, I drank tea. My body was a sanctuary, and I couldn’t put that kind of caffeine into it.
Plopping into my desk chair, I turned on my computer. As I sat there waiting for my laptop to load up, I felt like someone was watching me. My desk neighbor, Jackie, was peering at me with a huge smile on her adorable face.
“Good morning,” I said as she broke into a smile. “What is it? You look like you want to say something.”
Jackie struggled to hold back a squeal while she pushed up her cute glasses with little hearts on them that she used for reading.
She rolled her chair toward me. “You won’t believe what I heard about you,” she whispered, leaning closer.
“Me?” I leaned in, too, wondering what secret we were about to share.
“The phones never ring this much unless one of our writers publishes a huge story and needs to be interviewed, right?” she asked.
“That happens, like,
once in a blue moon.” I chuckled. “We do makeup tips and celebrity gossip, but there’s never anything substantial, except that one time when Julia discovered which young celebrity had an eating disorder. That was a moving piece.”
“Forget about Julia,” she said, bouncing in her seat. “Your article—‘Why the Millennial Woman Should Vote’—is now live online!”
“What? I thought Kate was pulling the plug on the assignment.”
Kate was my boss. The last time we’d spoken, it was about where I saw my career progressing at Starlet. I wanted to write more about things that mattered to me, like what was going on in the world besides how to find the perfect man, but Kate had said the magazine wasn’t ready to go there yet. I’d thought maybe they never would. But now?
“You should be proud of yourself. Starlet has been getting amazing feedback on their website comment section. The public loves you!”
My jaw dropped as I lunged forward to hug Jackie. “Oh, that’s such great news! So, what does that mean? Am I being interviewed? Photo shoot? Getting some woman’s award? What?” I giggled because I knew, as long as I wrote under Starlet’s banner, no one would take my work seriously.
Jackie’s smile faded, as she twiddled her thumbs. “Well … if you’re going to say it like that, my news seems pointless now.”
“Oh, don’t be like that,” I said, chewing on the end of my pen. A huge smile crossed my face, and I hugged Jackie again. “I’m so glad you told me because it means a lot. I know I sometimes complain about not being able to write more political pieces, but moments like this are exceptional.” I logged into the company’s website to read the glowing comments, ignoring the negative ones. I was ecstatic—nothing would bring my mood down.
“Well, I know this isn’t your dream job. You might be saying that for the boss’s benefit.” Jackie’s eyelids drooped.
I waved my hand in dismissal. “You should know me by now. I say nothing I don’t mean—I don’t care who hears it,” I said. “Besides, the only reason I haven’t left Starlet is because I’d miss working with you.”
“Do you mean that?”
“Of course,” I said.
I enjoyed working with Jackie. She was our beauty editor. She’d been covering skincare, makeup, and hair for the last five years at Starlet.
“Do you want to go out tonight to celebrate? Dinner maybe? Or just drinks if you have to tend to your family first.”
Jackie rolled back to her desk, picking up where she left off writing one of her makeup articles. “My kids know how hard I work. I could use a night out at a bar. I just have to call my husband.”
She fluffed her curly brown hair before pulling her cell phone out of her purse. I studied her slim build and gorgeous gray pantsuit, wondering if she’d always been that thin and beautiful. At thirty-nine, she had two kids and job security for life. She always joked about how she’d get replaced by a younger model, but her column was so popular that Kate, our editor-in-chief, would be an idiot to ever get rid of her.
As I listened to her talk on the phone to her husband, saying, “I love you” several times before making smooching noises, I was a little jealous of her high-school-sweetheart romance. I was glad she was with such a loving man, as she deserved to be happy.
I’d only had two serious boyfriends in my life—one back in college, but that wasn’t true love, and Luis, who I had been with for two good years until, one day, his mother showed up at my doorstep.
She’d hugged me while crying, “I can’t believe Luis broke up with you!”
There I was standing, baffled, wearing a fresh yogurt facial mask and flannel pajamas, consoling Luis’s mother about our breakup I had known nothing about. I had no clue this was coming. I thought things with Luis were great. He made me believe we would have a future together. That, at some point, we would get married and buy a fixer-upper somewhere in Brooklyn, remodelling it to look modern chic. We would adopt a dog, a cocker spaniel or two, like Oprah. I even dedicated a whole board on Pinterest labeled Luis and Staci’s Wedding Ideas. I had our lives planned out. Then, the night before his trip to San Diego, Luis told me how much he loved me—how he hated being apart, but then he got his mother to break up with me.
What kind of person did that? Lie about loving someone?
He was an emotional masochist and I’d somehow missed all the clues. For one, we’d lived in separate apartments. He never wanted me to spend the night over at his fancy apartment because he needed his space. If I stayed overnight, then I would be inclined to do it again. I never made a big deal about it because he was never home anyway. Luis worked all those shifts at the hospital. But, really, I had been in a relationship with an emotionally-detached man. That alone should have been a red flag.
Anyhow, that was all in the past. It’d been two years now, and with proper therapy and a closet full of Christian Louboutin shoes, I had grown stronger from it. Who needed Mr. Right? I didn’t know if I ever wanted to find him in the first place, as my career had been my focus ever since I was nine. Who’d have guessed I would become a relationship columnist because I was just as lost as the next girl. Fake it until you make it … whatever that meant.
At the end of the day, Jackie and I packed up our things and headed to Polly’s for drinks, a bar located a few blocks away. I loved walking there, even with the challenge of heels but by the time we arrived, my feet were killing me and I was eager to get a booth. We entered the dimly-lit bar bustling with clinking glasses and endless chatter from people who just got off work.
Sitting in the cushioned booth across from each other, I ordered us wine and nachos.
Jackie looked at me with wide eyes. “Are you serious?” she asked. “Doesn’t that go against your diet? Are you falling off the wagon?”
“I’m not falling off anything.” I laughed, shutting the plastic-covered menu. “I like to have a treat every so often. There’s nothing wrong with that. Six years of going to the gym every day aren’t going to disappear with a few cheesy chips and cabernet,” I said.
But I knew I’d come a long way with dealing with my weight. That was why I didn’t come out often to these kinds of places. It sometimes caused me anxiety I wouldn’t make the right decisions. I realized it wasn’t realistic to think I’d gain all eighty-five pounds overnight, but when you’d lost so much, it was hard to see yourself in any other way. It was a constant fear of going back to what you used to look like. I was a size eight, yet when I looked in the mirror, all I saw in the reflection was the size fourteen girl with big hips. It was an everyday struggle, that I never talked about it to anyone, except for Jackie. I knew she was only looking out for me, so I appreciated it, but sometimes she could be overwhelming.
“If you say so.” Jackie shrugged, rubbing her hands together when the nachos came.
Steam billowed off the top, and I took a deep whiff of the melted goodness. I was the first to dig in while Jackie savored the aroma.
I spat the chip out onto a plate, fanning my tongue. “They’re hot.”
“I can see that.” Jackie laughed.
For a while, our time out was fun. We gossiped about our coworkers and talked about shopping. Jackie told me about her back-to-school troubles with the kids.
“Now that my oldest is almost a teenager, she’s getting really moody. She’s so picky about the clothes I buy for her. Can you believe I’ve had to return half? I guess that’s what I get for going alone, but it’s always been that way. She hates shopping, and trying to figure out what she wants is a nightmare.”
As Jackie continued, I tried to stay focused, but my eyes wandered around the room filled with businessmen and a few attractive women. The front door swung open, allowing the warm breeze to flow inside. It was still light outside, and it wasn’t about to get cooler.
“Oh, hell!” I blurted, and Jackie froze mid-sentence.
“What? What’s wrong?” she asked, looking up at the door.
“It’s Greg,” I groaned, choking on his name. “He just walk
ed in. Now, he’s about to order the most expensive whiskey on the shelf.”
“How do you know?” She laughed.
I peered at her, my eyebrows raised. “I know all about guys like him. The kind that spares no expense or doesn’t think about their actions until the consequences arise. He tries to show people he’s classy but whatever, he’s a fake.”
Jackie blew hard on a nacho before popping it in her mouth. She sipped her wine then said with her mouth full, “Are you sure? He seems charming, though I’ve only seen him a few times in the elevator or at joint company functions.”
“Yeah, the functions he’s forced to come to since he’s the heir of Nast Publishing.” I sighed. “Sadly, one day, he will be our boss. I only hope to move on to better horizons when that happens. Take my word for it; he’s a dog—not the cute, cuddly kind.”
I stared at him, fuming, as he held a beer while chatting with an attractive female bartender. She giggled at his every word, and I knew by the end of her shift, she would go home with Greg. Unfortunately, I stared way too long that Greg saw me and waved. I bowed my head, covering my face with my hand as he headed toward us.
“Crap,” I grumbled.