Table of Contents
Prologue
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
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Epilogue
Prologue
Chapter 1
Tempting Sophia
a steamy romantic comedy
Jessica Prince
Copyright © 2017 by Jessica Prince
All Rights reserved.
Visit my website at www.authorjessicaprince.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 locals is entirely coincidental
Contents
Other books by Jessica
Prologue
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
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Epilogue
Enticing Daphne Excerpt
Prologue
Chapter 1
Find Jessica at
Other books by Jessica
THE PICKING UP THE PIECES SERIES:
Picking up the Pieces
Rising from the Ashes
Pushing the Boundaries
Worth the Wait
THE COLORS NOVELS:
Scattered Colors
Shrinking Violet
Love Hate Relationship
Wildflower
THE LOCKLAINE BOYS (a LOVE HATE RELATIONSHIP spinoff):
Fire and Ice – Griffin and Pepper’s story
Opposites Attract – Richard and Delilah’s story
Almost Perfect – Collin and Devon’s story
THE PEMBROOKE SERIES (a WILDFLOWER spinoff):
Sweet Sunshine – Derrick and Chloe’s story
Coming Full Circle – Ethan and Eliza’s story
A Broken Soul – Quinn and Lilly’s story
DEADLY LOVE SERIES:
Destructive
Addictive
CIVIL CORRUPTION SERIES
Corrupt
Defile (Declan and Tatum’s story – coming 2018)
CO-WRITTEN BOOKS:
Hustler – with Meghan Quinn
STANDALONE TITLES:
Nightmares from Within
Chance Encounters
Seducing Lola
Tempting Sophia
Enticing Daphne (coming January, 2018)
Dedication
To my sister,
my best friend in all the world.
There isn’t a day that will pass when I won’t miss you with every breath, but I know you’re in a better place.
And sugar, you went down swinging.
Prologue
Sophia
Growing up as the only daughter of a single father who was a career firefighter hadn’t always been the easiest. My mother, in her infinite wisdom, had decided that parenthood just wasn’t for her shortly after giving birth to me and bailed. Dad had done his best after she took off, but as the years passed, it became glaringly obvious that raising a little girl on his own was seriously uncharted territory. I loved him to death, but he didn’t know the first thing about females, and there was no denying that a lack of female influence had seriously impacted my behavior as a child.
When I got my very first period, I came home freaking out that my internal organs had ruptured and I was bleeding to death. After blanching white as a sheet and locking himself in his study for a good thirty minutes, my dad came out with a stack of printed papers, slapped them down on the kitchen table, and told me to read every page word for word. That was how I’d learned about the dreaded menstrual cycle.
When I sprouted boobs seemingly overnight, going from an almost nonexistent A-cup to a full C, he’d tried locking me in my room until I agreed to wearing a sports bra two sizes too small and duct taping those puppies down. Was his reaction slightly overboard? Yes. But I was his baby girl, and he just couldn’t deal with me growing into a woman.
And let’s not even talk about my first foray into dating. I still had nightmares about that. It was bad. And when I say that, I mean in the sense that word spread no boy in my high school would come within thirty yards of me for fear of losing a beloved appendage.
But all of that was beside the point, which was that my life would’ve been much less complicated if I’d had a woman schooling me on how to behave like a lady, or the types of boys to steer clear of once I got older.
Case in point: In elementary and middle school, I was more of a tomboy than a girly girl. The other girls in my class liked to make fun of me, but having a father who was the very definition of a man’s man had taught me a few useful skills. Instead of being hurt at the teasing and name-calling, I handled it like a guy would. Meaning I got myself suspended for a week for cutting one of Lucy Alexander’s pigtails off in retaliation.
It wasn’t until I reached high school that I really started to become interested in boys. Well, one boy in particular.
Dominic Abbatelli, the older brother of one of my best friends, and the most gorgeous man to ever walk the planet.
He was four years older than me, already out of high school by my freshman year. But that didn’t stop me from falling, and falling hard. I wanted him to look at me the same way he looked at all the other girls I saw him around town with. I wanted that passionate, sinfully heated gaze of his directed at me. I wanted to be the one he shared those secret looks that spoke of naughty things with. I wanted to catch his attention. So I enlisted the help of his sister Lola to take me from tomboy to glam. I gave up all my bo
yish ways—the sports bras, duct tape, and sneakers—and embraced all things girly like my life depended on it. Makeup, clothing, hair, shoes—you name it, I went all out to catch his eye.
I thought my father was going to have a heart attack the first time he saw me in a skirt.
I spent the next few years mooning after my best friend’s older brother like a lovesick puppy. I’d finally started to give up hope until one day shortly after my graduation, he finally noticed me.
It was one of the best nights of my entire life that led to a handful of blissfully happy years. That was until I surprised my boyfriend during a long weekend by returning home from Seattle. I hadn’t seen him in way too long. The separation was taking a serious toll on both of us, causing petty fights and stupid arguments, and I wanted to make things better. I was missing him like crazy, so I spent what meager savings I had on a plane ticket back to New York.
And what did I get for all my troubles?
Well, I got to walk in on the love of my life giving the business to a chick who was not me while he had her bent over the back of the couch.
It wasn’t one of my finest moments, but I was thankful some of my father’s lessons came back to me right then, because the only reason I was able to walk away from a nearly four-year relationship was because I’d left one of them with a bloody nose and the other with a huge bald spot.
After that fun little experience, I decided that it was my lot in life to save other women from a fate such as mine.
That was how my two best girlfriends and I came to be three of the most popular women in Washington and the surrounding states.
We learned from past experiences and doled out relationship advice on the top-rated talk radio show geared toward women, aptly named Girl Talk. We did our parts for the sisterhood in the hopes of saving as many broken hearts as possible.
And I discovered that it was much easier and a lot less messy to keep a handful of men on my hook as random bed partners than it was to ever get into another relationship.
Don’t get me wrong, I never judge other women based on their relationship choices, but I’d been there, done that, and gotten the cheap-ass T-shirt. I didn’t need to take that trip again.
Besides, I had great friends, a killer job, and an income that most men would envy. My life lacked for nothing.
No way in hell was I letting a man barge into my world and complicate the bliss I’d created.
I was just fine on my own.
Chapter One
Sophia
What had I been thinking, letting Daphne and Lola talk me into doing a bachelorette auction? Sure, it was for charity, and the money would go toward a worthwhile cause, but as I stood on that stage with a bright spotlight shining down on me as the MC talked me up to potential bidders, I couldn’t help but feel like a slab of meat being picked over by hungry vultures.
I tried not to roll my eyes as the lanky guy in an ill-fitting tux spouted off my winning attributes like I was a prized show pony—most of which weren’t even correct. “The beautiful Sophia loves long walks on the beach…” Wrong. I hate sand with a passion, and seagulls can go to Hell for all I care. “… horseback riding…” The hell I do. Horses scare the shit out of me. No animal should be that tall. “… and spending her free time with family and friends.” Well at least the moron got one thing right.
I pasted a plastic smile on my face as I tried my best to see the faces in the crowd with that godforsaken spotlight blinding me “Let’s start the bidding, shall we? Can I get—”
“Ten thousand dollars,” I vaguely familiar voice called out.
“Fifteen,” someone else spoke. Just like that the bidding was off, but I was too busy trying to place the first voice to pay attention.
“Twenty!”
“Twenty-five!”
“Thirty!”
The man’s voice countered every bid, and I found myself squinting in the direction it came from.
“Forty!”
“Forty-five!”
As the bidding continued, I shoveled through my memory bank, trying to place where I’d heard that voice before. Obviously the dude wasn’t hurting for money, but something about his tone seemed determined.
“Fifty thousand!” another man said.
Then…
“One hundred thousand dollars!”
What in the sweet hell?
Gasps rang out through the room as my skin started to prickle.
“Going once… going twice… sold! Sir, why don’t you join us up here on the stage? Let’s give this charitable gentleman a round of applause!” the MC cried into the microphone. Everyone clapped at the guy who’d just won a date with me for a whopping hundred grand while my insides began to knot and the tiny hairs on my arms stood on end.
Then it dawned on me. All I could think as the guy with a familiar voice got closer was nononononono… because I knew, I just knew who that voice belonged to. But it wasn’t possible. Was it? I mean, Lola would’ve said something.
The second his foot hit the first step, the spotlight shifted off me and on to him. My entire body froze, my lungs seized, and all the blood drained from my face.
The MC’s voice sounded like it was coming from deep inside a tunnel as he asked for his name. His response echoed inside my head like a gong.
“Dominic Abbatelli.”
Fuck. My. Life.
“Well, congratulations, Dominic! Thanks to your generosity, you’ll be going on a date with this beautiful woman right here!”
All of a sudden, the MC’s jubilance grated on my every nerve. I wanted to punch him in the throat as his hand hit the center of my back and pushed me off to the side with Dominic in order to continue the auction.
The plastic smile remained on my face as I allowed Dom to lead me down the stairs. The only reason I let him was because my legs were so shaky I feared I’d fall if left to walk on my own.
Once I was on the ground at the side of the stage, I quickly put distance between us, shaking off his touch like it burned me. “What the hell are you doing here?” I hissed out of the side of my mouth.
“Careful, butterfly. Pull back your claws. People are still watching.”
Emotions were a funny thing, really. I never would’ve thought I’d want to cause someone bodily harm at the exact time I wanted to burst into a deluge of tears. But there I was, clenching my fists to keep from throttling my ex while my eyes stung at the sound of my nickname on his tongue.
I hadn’t heard that name in years. I should’ve been over it, but hearing him call me “butterfly” again after almost a decade still caused a lump to form in my throat. Memories were fickle like that. They’d sat stagnant in the back of my mind for so long I’d nearly forgotten about them, but with just that one word, they were shoved to the forefront of my brain. It played like a video clip in my head: me standing in Dominic’s bathroom, leaned over the sink as I brushed mascara on my lashes; him leaning against the doorjamb with a content smile on his face as he watched.
“Why don’t we just stay in tonight?” he asked, his eyes hungrily skating along my body clad only in panties and a bra.
“Because we’re going out! You promised to take me dancing. I want to see those famous Abbatelli moves,” I teased, blowing him a kiss in the mirror.
“My little butterfly,” he said softly, coming to stand directly behind me. “Always flitting around, never content to stay in one place for long.”
His arms wrapped around me, and I shoved the mascara wand inside the tube and turned to place my hands on his shoulders. “That’s just not true.”
“It’s not?”
“Nope.” I shook my head, standing on my tiptoes to place a kiss on his lips. “I’ll always be content wherever I am as long as you’re there with me.”
God, I hated that nickname even while another part of me treasured it. He crowded my space, forcing me to keep moving. I gave a sidelong look at Lola’s table, hoping to burn her alive with my eyes, but she wasn’t there.
/> Not surprising, really. She’d been having an on-again, off-again relationship with a man named Grayson Lockhart, a guy who just so happened to be our boss’s boss, for the past several weeks. She’d been falling for him even though she denied it every step of the way, but seeing as she’d just stood up on that exact same stage minutes before and professed her love to him, the two of them were probably getting it on in a coat closet or something at that very moment. I was going to murder her so dead the next time I saw her. The least she could’ve done was warn me that her big brother had crashed the charity event our station sponsored every single year.
She had some serious explaining to do. And a whole lot of groveling.
“Oh no. No way. Huh-uh.” I shook my head and attempted to dig my heels in when I caught sight of where he was leading us. The French doors loomed ominously before me, leading out to a terrace far from the rest of the party. No way was I allowing myself to be trapped on an empty, dark terrace, with nothing but the romantic view of the lake glowing in the moonlight as stars filled the sky. Nope. That chick-flick romance bullshit was not happening.
“Keep walking, butterfly,” he whispered in my ear, sending a spark of electricity across my skin. “I won’t hesitate to throw you over my shoulder and carry you if I have to.”
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