by Zoe York
But now…
Ava was every bit the uptight, driven, cool business woman Rudy had told him about. Getting her to let her hair down might be a bigger job than Brian could handle. It would take someone who was really dedicated to the project. Someone who knew the whole situation. And someone who had something to gain from it as well.
Evan wasn’t a complete fuckup, but he didn’t take himself very seriously either. He didn’t forget to pay his bills or anything, but he probably relied too heavily on verbal contracts versus written ones, considering he had a law degree and all. But if a guy couldn’t make a promise over a beer with a handshake and then stick to it, then he wasn’t someone who Evan wanted to do business with anyway. And maybe schedules were more like suggestions than hard and fast rules in Evan’s life. And maybe he preferred conducting business meetings while sitting on the river bank with a fishing pole in hand. And maybe he didn’t mind being paid in handyman services or with pot roast. That was all just fine with him.
And would make a woman like Ava crazy.
Evan frowned, irritated by those thoughts. He could be good for Ava. And helping others was part of being a better man after all. The girl was going to have an ulcer if she didn’t already.
And she could be good for him too. She would make him toe the line and show up on time and tell him when he was failing. It wouldn’t be all about partying and casual sex. It would be an actual relationship. Ish. There were bound to be some ups and downs with her relocating her life, taking on the pie shop, living with her sisters, and navigating the things Rudy wanted her to learn. Evan would have to be there for her through all of that. For six months. Exclusively. Monogamously.
That would be…new.
And maybe when that time was up, he would have changed too and would be ready to be more responsible and committed.
Or I could not pretend. Someone everyone would actually meet. And be wow-ed by.
Wait, Jill replied, there’s a real girl?
There could be. He paused. How much did he want to share with Jill? Well, he was breaking up with her, kind-of. It stood to reason that he’d tell her about the new woman in his life. Met her today. She’s…something. Once she moves to Bliss it might be hard to stay away from her.
Yes, he was thinking of Cori again. Dammit. But he would get his head on straight about the sisters. He was doing Ava a favor. And Jill a favor. And hell, himself a favor. It wasn’t about Cori at all. It couldn’t be.
Great!!!! A second message came almost immediately on the heels of that one. Wait, is it one of Rudy’s daughters?????
Everyone knew that he’d come to New York to meet with the Carmichael triplets. Yes. Ava.
You ALREADY have a crush on one of Rudy’s daughters???????
Evan read the question three times before replying with a completely truthful answer. After hearing everything about her from Rudy for so long, I might have had a crush on her before I even got here. And yeah, fuck, it was still Cori he was talking about.
But Bliss didn’t know that. Jill didn’t even need to know that.
I love this, Jill replied. Then it’s not lying when I tell everyone that you took one look at this woman you’ve been hearing about all these years and fell for her.
Not really lying. Yeah, right. But Evan still responded with, Spread that around, okay? While you’re blubbering into your carton of ice cream over losing me, be sure you drop Ava’s name.
Jill sent him an ice cream emoji, then, Will do. Happy for you! Though now I do wish I was sticking around…seeing you finally fall in love would be entertaining.
Evan felt a kick in his chest. He wasn’t falling in love. With any of Rudy’s daughters. Dammit. Get your ass to Omaha!
She sent him a heart emoji, a car emoji, and a penguin emoji. Evan chuckled and tossed his phone onto the bed beside him.
Then he ran his hand over his face again. That was taken care of. Now he just had to convince Ava that this was a great plan. But he could do that. Probably. Ava wasn’t the type of woman he’d be able to sweet-talk or charm, but she was a business woman. He’d just have to offer her something more appealing than sweet talk.
He’d make her a deal.
Chapter 3
“I can’t believe it. I seriously can’t believe it.”
Cori rolled her eyes and handed Ava another martini. It was her third, but she still hadn’t shut up about how her attorney’s advice had been to simply go to Bliss and do what Rudy wanted.
“All he said was that it was the easiest thing,” Brynn commented, her words soft and a little slurry. She was definitely mellowed out from her one martini. But then Brynn was a lightweight.
It would take another couple of rounds for Ava to start to relax. The woman was so tightly wound that Cori was seriously concerned. Ava had always been driven and worked nearly nonstop, but this whole trust and Bliss, Kansas thing might just be the final straw.
Brynn waited until Ava had taken a huge drink, then said, “I think this could be a good thing.”
Ava lifted one perfectly waxed brow, her glass poised before her shiny Coral Crush lips. She was in loose cotton pants and a tank top just as Cori and Brynn were, but where Brynn never wore makeup and Cori had already taken hers off—shoes, bra, makeup were the first things to come off when she got home, in that order—Ava still looked like she could pose for a magazine cover.
“You think us moving to Kansas for a year could be a good thing?” Ava asked.
Brynn lifted a shoulder. “Why not?”
Ava lowered her glass. “Why not? Why not?” she asked, her voice rising. Again. They’d already done this ranting and raving bit. “I have a company to run.”
“Yes. A pie shop, I believe,” Cori said dryly.
“Oh sure,” Ava scoffed. “A pie shop. Because that makes tons of sense.”
“You know.” Cori shifted on her sister’s custom-made sofa upholstered in the softest leather Cori had ever rubbed her body against. And she intended to do more of that before she left. “Maybe it does make sense.”
Ava shook her head. “No. It doesn’t.”
“Listen, if Rudy wanted to give us each a new experience, something to expand our horizons, then coming up with something that is almost exactly opposite of what we’re doing now makes sense,” Cori said. She’d been thinking about everything a lot while she made dinner, and dessert of course, for her sisters. And she was on board.
She couldn’t believe it, really. It irked her a little to be going along with Rudy’s decree, honestly. But she couldn’t deny that she was curious about Bliss. And her father’s life there. She didn’t know why she would take Evan Stone’s word for it, but he said Rudy had changed, that he was a different guy than the one Cori knew. Cori wanted to see what that was about.
It was like every dare she’d ever taken—which would be any and all ever issued to her. Heading into a house they claimed was haunted? She had to see the apparitions for herself. Taking a bite of a pepper people claimed made grown men cry? She had to feel the fiery burn for herself. Visiting a town that claimed to have changed Rudy Carmichael into a decent human being? Yeah, she was going to have to live there herself.
And she was always up for an adventure. Living in a small town in the same house with her sisters for a year and running a pie shop might be the biggest one yet.
“So, I’m in,” she said.
“For Bliss?” Ava asked, her eyes wide.
Cori nodded. “Yep.” She looked at Brynn. “I think it could be good for us.”
“You? World traveler, never-settle-down Cori? Seriously?” Ava asked.
Cori frowned at her. “Yes. Seriously.”
“But you…you’re…you.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yes, you do.” Ava seemed totally exasperated. “I’m not saying it’s not a good idea in some ways. Lord knows of all of us you could use the most downtime.”
“Whoa. Hang on there. Really, Ms. Workaholic? At least I know how to
have fun and not let everything get so serious. I think you could use some downtime.”
“Of course you know how to not let everything get so serious! Nothing is serious for you!”
“That is not true. I’m getting seriously pissed right now, if nothing else.”
“I’m just saying that Brynn might be right,” Ava said. “You could use some stability.”
“And maybe it could pull that stick out of your butt.”
“Hey!”
Suddenly they both stopped and turned to face Brynn. The sweet one.
Who was now frowning and looked almost on the verge of tears. “Knock it off.”
Cori took a deep breath. “Sorry.”
Ava looked sheepish as well. “Me too.”
“I’m going,” Brynn said. “I’ll go alone if I have to.”
She wouldn’t go alone. But as Cori looked closer at her sister, she had to admit that Brynn looked as serious as she sounded.
“You can’t go alone,” Ava said.
“Oh, yes, I can. And I will. I will work in the pie shop and date the entire town of Bliss and…enjoy it.”
But her hesitation over the “enjoy it” part was what finally made Cori say, “There’s no way I’m letting you date an entire town without me there to help you.”
Brynn looked relieved. “Okay. Good.”
Cori grinned at her. “I have a feeling you’re going to love Bliss.” She gave her sister a wink and Brynn blushed.
Ava was watching them. “I don’t want you to go without me.”
“Why not?” Cori asked. “You can stay here and be miserable if you want.”
Cori expected Ava to point out that they all three had to go to Bliss for it to count. But a little bit of Cori wanted to go anyway.
Instead Ava said, “But you’ll have fun without me.”
Surprised, Cori nodded. “Yep, we totally will.”
“I can’t believe you want to do this,” Ava said to her.
“My therapist thinks it’s a good idea. For all of us, incidentally. She said she thinks Dad knew us better than we realized.” After picking up the groceries, Cori had taken a few minutes to call Karen. Even though she’d already known her shrink would love the idea of Cori making a commitment to her sisters that involved more than a wild weekend.
“You are seeing a therapist?” Ava asked.
“Uh, yeah.”
“Why?”
“Well, shocker… I have issues.”
“And you’ve talked to him about us?”
Cori laughed. “Her. And yes. You’re my sisters. We’re triplets for fuck’s sake. You’ve come up. Especially with all of this.”
“And she thinks we should all go?” Brynn asked.
“Yep.”
“But you’ve…been talking to someone else?” Ava asked, still frowning.
Cori focused on her. “Yes. Why?”
“I just…shouldn’t you be talking to us?”
Cori snorted at that. “To my kick-ass, no-one-tells-me-what-to-do corporate shark sister and my sweet, smarter-than-anyone-I-know sister about my feelings of inadequacy?” Cori asked. “How would that work? You can’t tell me you’re not all of those things and it would just make you feel bad.”
“Like how I feel right now, you mean?” Ava asked.
Cori looked at her for a moment. She’d love for Ava to be someone she could go to with problems and questions. And vice versa. Like it used to be. “Come to Bliss. Be a little out of your element. Be around so I can talk to you.”
Ava swallowed hard. Then she looked at Brynn. “And you’re really going to date the town?”
Brynn nodded, but she looked less than confident. “Sure.”
Ava sighed. “Well now I have to come.”
She didn’t look happy about it, but suddenly Cori felt a surge of anticipation go through her. “I know you love what you’re doing and that you’re good at it. But finding out you’re good at other things, things you didn’t even know about, is empowering. And finding out you’re not good at some things is humbling. And being empowered but humble is awesome.”
Ava narrowed her eyes. “You’re always trying something new and going somewhere new.”
“And I’m empowered and humble,” Cori said. But she shifted on the sofa cushion. That all sounded a lot stronger than she felt.
“But now you’re talking about going somewhere to live and do the same thing for a year,” Ava said.
Cori swallowed. That was a good point. She was curious about Bliss. She felt like this was a dare from her father that she had to take. But doing it for a couple of months would be a lot better.
“Well, I—”
“You’re right,” Ava decided. “We should go.”
Cori blinked at her. “Huh?”
“If I need to shake things up, then you need to…unshake things.” She frowned as if that hadn’t come out the way she’d intended. “You need to settle down some.”
“Hey,” Cori protested. “I’m fine. I guarantee that my blood pressure is lower than yours and when I take ibuprofen it’s because of a muscle strain from climbing a mountain or a back ache from sleeping on the beach all night, not because of a tension headache or eyestrain from staring at a computer screen until two in the morning.”
“You sure the backache isn’t from having sex on the back of a motorcycle or a camel or something?” Ava asked.
“Having sex on the back of a moving motorcycle would be really dangerous,” Cori told her.
“Well, obviously not while it’s moving,” Ava told her.
Cori didn’t say anything. Because there had been this one time…
“Oh, my God, you’ve had sex on a motorcycle?” Ava asked.
“Hey, at least I’m getting laid. I’d highly recommend it for you, in fact,” Cori shot back.
The sound of the doorbell interrupted whatever Ava was about to say. She gave a little humph sound, but set her glass down, tossed off the blanket she had over her lap, and pushed herself up. But the second her butt cleared the cushion, she wobbled and leaned to brace her hands on the glass-topped coffee table.
“Whoa there, princess,” Cori said, coming up from the couch and guiding Ava back down. “I got it. You just sit.”
“Okay.” Ava sighed and leaned back into the thick cushion behind her.
Yeah, Cori really needed to get Ava drunk more often. She was a lot easier to get along with when she had some vodka coursing through her veins.
Cori went to the door and pulled it open.
“I have a plan. Just hear me out.”
“Mr. Stone.” Cori was completely surprised by the way her heart thunked in her chest, seeing Evan on the other side of Ava’s door.
He was still wearing the jeans and white button-down shirt, but it was wrinkled now and his hair looked like he’d been running his hands through it.
“What are you doing here?” she asked him.
“I want to be your boyfriend for the next six months.”
Cori felt surprise, then temptation shoot through her. And then comprehension.
But still, she had to hear this. She propped her shoulder against the doorframe. “Go on.”
Ava Carmichael looked completely hot.
Maybe it was just getting her out of her office, or maybe it was his sudden desperation to make this work, or maybe it was that her long, blond hair was pulled back, her makeup was wiped clean, and she was wearing a tiny, fitted tank top that hugged her breasts…and no bra. Her nipples were prominent against the pink cotton top that also left a strip of skin bare between it and the top of the loose pants that sat low on her hips. Evan was surprised that the pants were covered in bright multicolored stripes. And that her feet were bare. But of course, she’d be barefoot at home. Just because she looked like she’d been born in heels didn’t mean that she never took them off.
Yeah, he could definitely be this woman’s boyfriend for six months. She might be cool and confident and give off a there’s-no-way-I’m-ev
er-going-to-find-you-charming vibe that was, honestly, pretty foreign to him, but if he could keep her out of her pencil skirts and shoes, he might have a chance at not fucking this up. Because this woman? Yeah, there was a lot to like here.
“I fit all of the requirements,” he said as she folded her arms—which plumped up those very nice braless breasts—and propped her shoulder against the doorframe and looked up at him with a mix of curiosity and humor.
Yeah, he could work with that too. If she’d go braless and smile, even every other day, he’d be okay.
“The requirements?” she asked.
“In the trust,” he said. “Your dad said that you never go out with a guy until you know his grad school GPA, his political affiliation, and his cholesterol levels. And he said that you have to date a guy without knowing any of that about him.”
She looked surprised at that, and Evan figured she’d had no idea that her father had been that observant. Evan wasn’t sure how Rudy knew about Ava’s checklist of characteristics for her dates, but he’d said that she made online dating sights look like child’s play.
“I totally fit,” Evan went on. “I’m from Bliss, I’m a nice guy, and there’s no way I’m telling you my GPA, so you can’t make judgments about that. I don’t really have a political affiliation and even I don’t know my cholesterol levels.”
She seemed to take all of that information in. “GPA was that bad, huh?” she asked, a smile teasing the corner of her mouth.
He was surprised at that show of humor, but then he caught a whiff of liquor. Ah, so she’d had a drink to wind down after the long day. Not a bad idea. If she’d go braless and drink in Bliss, he’d definitely be good.
“I passed the bar, that’s all that really matters, right?” he answered.
“Hmm,” she said, noncommittally. “And how about the cholesterol thing? I mean, I don’t need to know exact numbers, but I definitely need to know how you feel about onion rings and cheese.”
Okay, there had to be at least an iota of honesty in their relationship, right? “I’m a huge fan of both. But I also run and take vitamins.”
