by J D Worth
Haven
Haven Series 1
J. D. Worth
Haven
Copyright © 2020 by J. D. Worth
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, redistributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the copyright owner, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
ISBN: 978-1-7352208-0-2
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
www.jdworthauthor.com
For my sun and my moon who fill my true haven
with sparkles every day. Shine on.
Love is a place.
— e.e. cummings
1
I rush into the posh lobby of the North Carolina beach resort like a hurricane on a mission. The bellhop extends his white glove, ready to relieve me of my carry-on bag. All I’ve wanted is a hiatus from my life, but my late arrival is already jeopardizing my stay here. Even though the resort sits on sand and the ocean is yards away, the familiar Manhattan opulence of the lobby shines. It’s hard to get away from New York.
“Thank you, Tyrell,” I say, noting his nametag, “I can manage.”
He pulls back as though he didn’t hear me right. Bellhops have bags shoved at them all day while their job description is to remain invisible. “Here at the Aster Resort, we pride ourselves on providing the most relaxing stay possible,” he says with caution, “while we take care of all of your needs. Mrs. Aster wants her guests to enjoy their time here. Let me take the bag for you, ma’am.”
“I only need to check-in. Thank you.” Proper bag handling etiquette is delaying my safe retreat from the empty lobby. My grandmother, the infamous Lilith Aster, may pounce through the lobby at any moment, ensuring preparations for tomorrow are on track and find me sneaking in at one in the morning. I forge ahead, making up for lost time.
Tyrell mirrors my pace, pleading, “Ma’am, if I could please have your bag.” The look of desperation in his eyes makes me come to a jarring stop. Lilith has already made her rounds, and the staff are paying the price. Even if everything is perfect, she’ll still find fault. My shoulders sag.
“Ma’am, your bag looks heavy.” His voice softens, offering his gloved hand again.
“Is there a problem?” The question drifts from a rugged newcomer, emerging from the fitness center down the hall. Alluring green eyes stare at me as he nears. Searching for a hue that perfectly matches his irises, my mother’s artist palette comes to mind. Stumped, it takes me a moment to move past his captivating eyes to catch the intense expression covering his handsome face. He’s a few years older me, yet the scruff on his unshaven square jaw makes him look in his mid-twenties. His brown hair is damp from a recent shower and a faded gray T-shirt pulls across his expansive chest and built arms. He has no problem filling out a worn pair of baby soft blue jeans. Black boots and a black leather duffle bag round out his rougher look.
As he nears, his solid frame fills my visual field. He’s much larger than the pretty boys back in the city, who spend more time primping and working out than I do. I’m five nine. With my two-inch heels, he’s almost half-a-foot taller when he halts in front of me.
“Miss?” His husky voice stirs my insides as I gaze into a sea of green. His commanding presence fills the room. Very few men possess this compelling quality. On occasion, I’ll come across a head of a Fortune 500 that grabs my attention, but nothing quite like this.
“Ah, no,” I manage to say. “I was in a hurry to check-in, but everything is fine now. No rush. I was about to let Tyrell know Mrs. Aster has retired for the evening. She’ll come crashing through here at five in the morning like a drill sergeant. She never sleeps more than four hours. It’s a cardinal sin if you’re an Aster to sleep longer than that.” I snicker to myself. His green eyes remain on me for a long moment, and the corners of his mouth lift a fraction of an inch.
Without taking his eyes off me, he says, “Tyrell, why don’t you let Mary Jo know she’s got a guest.” Tyrell nods at his authoritative request and rings a bell. A woman in a black business suit flies through the office door. Her eyes widen as her fingers dash over the keyboard. The computer beeps, and she grimaces. A pink sheen warms her face as she tries again.
The newcomer pans over my long curly ebony hair pulled high in a messy ponytail and my private school uniform before taking in my heels. “You gotta be Audrey.” He drawls my name out slow and sexy in a rich Southern timbre. My stomach swishes into unfamiliar territory, spreading a burst of fluttering excitement through my body.
“And you must be coming off a security detail. Two Secret Service agents already patted me down and searched my bag out front.”
“Yeah, security is gonna be a nightmare for the next twenty-four hours.” Green Eyes slips his fingers around the strap of my carry-on bag. I hold my breath as he takes his time moving the strap down my arm until the bag rests in his grip. “Let’s not get too wild. The party isn’t till tomorrow night.”
I bark out an unladylike laugh as the tension within me implodes. Remaining close, his eyes darken. The bellhop reappears, retrieving my bag from his grasp. Tyrell seems relieved when the bag is finally in his possession.
“Miss?” Mary Jo offers me a welcoming smile. I glance back at Green Eyes who is already out the door. My legs feel heavy as if wading through water towards the counter and away from his magnetic pull. Why was Green Eyes so quick to leave my side? I thought we were sharing a moment—a real moment—not something manufactured because of who I am. I’ve only experienced a few of these authentic encounters with men in my life. The way my body reacted to Green Eyes, he tops the list.
“Welcome to the Aster Resort. I’m Mary Jo, your guest service attendant for the evening. You can ring the front office if you need anything at any time.” She fumbles over the new high-tech computer setup again. I offer a polite smile as she shifts in her spot. “There was no car service scheduled to the airport for a late pickup,” she remarks, more to herself than to me. “My apologies,” she says, parting a hand off her chest, “I was under the impression all the guests were checked-in for the evening.”
“I don’t need to show up until five tomorrow afternoon, so no hurry. Did Mrs. Aster have you check the guest list?”
“Yes, I doubled-checked myself. All guests arrived.” Great. Lilith knows how tardy I am. Mary Jo takes in my white Peter Pan collar and red plaid skirt. “Oh, you must be meeting your parents.”
“My father is already checked-in. I must be as well. I have my own suite. I’m Audrey Aster.”
Her hands freeze on the keyboard. My name alone imposes a startling amount of fear. I always detest the moment I lose my anonymity. For me, it’s as though time and space crashes, sucking me into a gigantic black hole. The weight bears upon my shoulders as she steals another glance at me. A reminder of the magnitude of the Aster Empire I’ll be running one day. The blanketing silence that follows steals my breath away.
Green Eyes leans on the snowy white marble counter beside me. “You were just popping your head ’round the lobby like a nervous groundhog. Now you’re stiff as a dead possum?” I bump against the counter as if a riptide has come over me, knocked over by the intensity of his green eyes again. I take a clumsy step back. “Boy, oh boy. What do we have here?” He smirks, tipping his head close to my lips and inhaling.
Blinking at his odd behavior, my mind races for a comeback.
“I see you lost your leather bag. The Secret Service must’ve seized it.”
“Nah. I needed both hands free ’cause I knew you were gonna be a handful.”
“A handful?” My neck stiffens. “I beg your pardon?”
Mary Jo swipes the key card machine and receives a malfunctioning beep. My heart jumps in panic. I swing my head, scanning the lobby for Lilith’s stalking presence, once again.
“Ah, there’s a problem.” She taps the screen. “The key card to this room has already been issued.”
“I’m sure my grandmother snagged the key. My luggage went ahead of me.”
She swallows hard. “For security purposes, I’ll need to see ID before I can proceed.”
Green Eyes knocks his knuckles on the counter. “Sorry, Mary Jo, I swiped the Aster family dossier to show Cal. This here is Audrey Aster. The new system is complicated. Tyrell can give you a hand. You gotta clear out the old key card before you can issue a new one. We’ll be in the back. Grab us when you’ve got things situated.”
I must share the same shocked expression as Tyrell and Mary Jo when he tugs my hand to follow him into the back employee room. My feet shuffle under me while his rough calluses brush against my soft skin, causing tantalizing waves to work up my arm. We pass through a small employee lounge with a beat-up green sofa. He grabs two waters from an old almond colored fridge fading to a grayish tan. Shoving the manager’s door open, he motions for me to enter the back office.
The buzzing fluorescent ceiling fixture fills the cavelike room with a dim flickering light. He places the bottles on a gray industrial metal desk in the middle of the room. An older desktop and a stack of papers rest on each side. Taking a seat on the desk, he spins the old metal chair towards me, anchoring his heavy black boot on the edge of the seat cushion. “Sit. This will give us a chance to chat.”
The metal base creaks as I sit down. When I ease back, he drops his boot to the floor. The chair flies backward. I grip the arms, holding on for the ride. He yanks the chair forward and braces both boots on the edges of the wide cushion, locking the chair in place. I wind up halfway between sitting and reclining, trapped between his legs.
He plants his elbows on his thighs and stares into my eyes. “Oops. Guess your grandmomma forgot to replace that broken chair when she remodeled. You wanna tell me what’s going on?”
I glance around the manager’s office. The big boxy computer monitor looks ancient compared to the sleek streamlined flat screens on every desk at my father’s Wall Street brokerage firm. I scoot up as much as possible. “Thanks for pointing out the obvious when I have no say on the remodeled features. I was under the impression my grandmother was updating the entire resort.”
“I meant with you.”
My eyebrows lock together. “Whatever Lilith portrayed in that dossier is wrong.” I run my hand over the dented metal desk. “This desk must be from when my Grandfather Warren turned his summer home into this resort.”
“When was that again?” He turns his ear to me, already knowing the answer. This resort is the largest property located in Haven, a sleepy little coastal town. Haven, Harbor Bay, and Hearth are all part of the poor rural fishing community that make up Bell Peninsula.
“The late eighties.”
“Right. That was when good ole Warren Aster was raking it in, yet still outfitted the offices with surplus army furniture.” He drops his feet from the chair. I fall back again, my body comes to a stopping jerk. I blow out a breath, taking in the old-fashioned popcorn acoustical ceiling tiles.
I push to a sitting position by leaning forward and placing my hands on the edge of the seat. “What is my grandmother doing here? I thought she did a complete overhaul for tomorrow’s circus.”
“The only thing your grandmomma is doing is terrorizing her employees.”
“She’s like a vampire always sucking the life out of everyone around her.”
His head goes back as he fires off a laugh. “Is that so? How come you’re so late to the party?”
“Pushy, aren’t you?”
“I’m saving your ass, aren’t I?”
“Are you? You’re giving me an awfully hard time.” Stealing a breath, I share, “If you must know, I had a detour on the way down.”
“A detour that caused you to show up at one in the morning?” He leans in close and sniffs me again.
I lurch back. “What the hell?”
“You smell like minty mouthwash, and your eyes are bloodshot. Were you bar hopping or clubbing?”
“I wasn’t doing either! I happened to inhale a large quantity of sugar on the way down—”
“Sugar? Is that what you kids call cocaine in the city?”
“Try Twinkies instead.” I melt into a pile of snorting laughter. “Inhale was totally the wrong word to use. Well, technically not, I did go to town on those babies, but you don’t want that image in your head. It wasn’t pretty.” I make the motion of shoving Twinkies in my mouth and stop midair. Lifting his brows, he stares at my gaping mouth. I drop my hand along with the unintentional sexually explicit game of charades. I straighten my back, tuck my errant hands together in my lap, and relay, “Sugar. As in sugar. Mouthwash helps counteract cavities. I’m probably overdosing on Twinkies right now, so shh…” I put my finger to my smirking lips.
“You’re totally lit.” He tamps down a grin by whistling under his breath. “Friday night away from your daddy and grandmomma, big city at your fingertips...”
“Ooh, my…” I rock back in the chair and smile up to the ceiling. “I see you’ve had the pleasure of meeting Georgina. I’m sure she’s been partying nonstop since her arrival.”
“Yup. She told me she’s your role model who’s teaching you everything she knows.”
A fire bursts in my belly. I sit up way too fast, choking on a thick gulp of air. I start coughing hard. He passes me a bottle of water. “You need something a little harder? I’m afraid the drinking age in North Carolina is the same as New York.”
“No matter what you’ve heard from Lilith and Georgina, I don’t have to explain myself to you, even if you run security here.” Replacing the cap, I slam the bottle on the desk.
“You know the protocol. We gotta meet with each member of the Aster family and have a friendly little chat so we can keep you safe. I get to know your vices and drag your ass back to your room before you pass out. Lucky me.” He picks up the receiver of the bulky tan business phone. The tangled coil stretches when he cradles the phone against his shoulder and chiseled cheekbone, pressing the button for the front desk. “Shall we let Grandmomma know you arrived?”
I spring forward, slapping down the receiver on the phone base. Caught in an undermining position between his legs, the warmth of his body seeps into the left side of mine. A smoky hint rolls off his T-shirt as his other leg lands against my back, pinning us together.
“You wanna try again?” Hanging up the phone, he plants his hands behind him and stares me down. He widens his legs, breaking contact when he readjusts his feet on the chair.
I slide back. Losing his warmth sends goosebumps over my skin. “I made a stop at the National Gallery of Art in D.C.”
“You think I’m gonna buy that?”
“I needed a breather before tomorrow.”
“Then take a load off.” He swings the chair so that it reclines all the way back. “You’re at the Aster Resort, the lap of luxury.”
“You literally take your job too seriously.” I blow out a weighted sigh. “Are we almost done here? I’m crashing from a sugar high and sheer exhaustion. Now I wish I had something for you.” I giggle. “You seem really tense.”
Narrowing his eyes, he pops his ridged jaw. “You know I gotta ask. There’s gonna be lots of alcohol flowing tomorrow night. Do I need to worry ’bout drug usage while we’re discussing matters? Pills you pop for fun? Things get messy once you mix alcohol.”
I chuckle. “Despite what Georgina may have told you, she is
not my role model. She blew off college, and I’m going to Harvard in the fall.”
“Well, she and I have that in common.”
“Wow, such a go-getter. You were chasing rich guys to marry before setting your sights on a married man too?” I giggle again. “Hopefully, your motives for blowing off college were vastly different. You should see the pills Georgina pops on a daily basis. She shouldn’t be a role model to anyone, even if her social feeds have millions of followers.”
“Her gaggle of friends worship her.”
“Yes, I’m aware of her position in our social circles.” I shift to a sitting position, rubbing life back into my cheeks.
“What ’bout your social standing?”
“You heard I’m the wild child and provocateur of my family. I must keep my badass image up by visiting art museums.” I tap my head. “Obviously, I’m a dangerous woman.”
