Crush On You
Amelia Wilde
Contents
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
Epilogue
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Also by Amelia Wilde
1
Jenny
My soup is ruined.
Curse the crumbling ceiling above my stove. Curse the landlords who let the plaster get to this godforsaken point where it’s given up on life and flung itself into the boiling pot of my soup. And curse myself for being here in the first place.
It seemed like such a good idea, quitting my job. I’ve always been able to analyze data and figure out patterns and find best practices. You’d think I’d be suited for a career in the sciences, right? Maybe even a medical degree?
Maybe.
My phone buzzes with an incoming text message. Since the soup is a goner, I pick it up and check the message.
Celestia: I swear it’s the last time, but can you float me $200 for rent?
My pulse pounds in my neck. My sister has never been one to go meekly to the office, which is probably good for the world since she’s brilliant in her own way.
It’s just not necessarily with money.
I watch the plaster dumplings floating in the soup and do the complicated math of adding up the balances of my own credit cards and bank account. The responsible thing to do would be to focus on paying my own rent, but it’s my sister. She’s been trying her best. And who else is she going to call? Our parents?
Ha.
Jenny: Of course. I’ll send it today—same account?
Celestia: Yes! TY TY TY!!!
I toss the phone back onto the counter and take a deep breath. I don’t want her to know I’m struggling, too. I don’t want anyone to know.
Would it be any better if I’d gone the STEM route instead of listening to all my mother’s talk about the work of the soul and following my heart and working to live, not living to work?
Would I have an extra $200 to throw at my sister and never worry about it again?
Somehow, I synthesized all of my mother’s wisdom into a plan: get a dual degree in marketing and public relations. All the data you could want. All the gut-wrenching decisions you could want. And so much human connection! So many bonds to create and nurture!
That’s not what I got at my old job. Oh, sure, there were bonds to nurture, if by nurture it meant cutting them off at the knees. That’s what we did at Global. We did defensive PR.
At least fifty percent of me wishes I was sitting at my old desk right now, doing the defensive PR I hated for a paycheck that was at least a paycheck. The apartment I shared with my roommate never became an added ingredient to my soup like this.
The unsalvageable soup is looking worse by the second. The chunk of plaster bubbling on the top is probably rife with asbestos, which is also now leaching into my apartment.
One more glance up at the missing piece of the ceiling tells me that the horror isn’t over yet.
For I notice there is some kind of...insect... crawling out from where the plaster used to be.
My heart zigzags up into my throat. I hate bugs. I hate spiders. And this thing looks like the worst bug on the planet had sex with the worst spider on the planet and the mutant baby is crawling out of the wall.
I grab senselessly for something to battle it with and come up with my frying pan. There’s no room in the cupboards to put it away and hanging it obviously wasn’t a good option, so I’ve left it on the counter since I moved in a year ago. God. A frying pan.
If I can take care of this, I can survive. I brandish the pan, adrenaline singing in my veins.
It’s at that very moment that my phone rings.
It’s been set to vibrate since the first moment I got it, but the sound is enough to jolt my attention to where it buzzes and bounces against the counter. The number on the screen is another horror in itself.
My old boss, Connor Webb.
I hate that guy.
He was such a savant at being evil, and Global loved him for it. Loved him. He shot up past me in the ranks and, to add insult to injury, became my boss three months before I quit for good to strike out on my own and become a freelance success.
I should let it go to voicemail, but his name has an aura of dollar signs, so I answer.
“I’m in the middle of something, Connor.”
“So nice to hear your voice, Genevieve,” he sings. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything important.”
“It’s Jenny, but you know that.”
The bug stops halfway on its journey between the missing plaster and the stove, and I freeze.
“Jenny. Jenny, Jenny, Jenny.”
His voice scratches its claws down a length of invisible blackboard. “Are you calling for any special reason, or just to say my name over and over until my eyes roll back in my head?”
“Hopefully with pleasure,” he quips, and I pantomime throwing up, though he can’t see me. “No, I’m calling with a bit of work.”
To my shame, my entire soul perks up at the mention of work, but I don’t want him to think I’m desperate. “What’s the job? If it’s a temp thing, I don’t know if I can—”
“It’s a temporary position, yes. But not in the office.”
That...seems weird.
“You want me to push paper at a desk that’s not in the office?”
Connor laughs. “This isn’t a paper pushing job. This is an on-the-ground job. I have a competitor who—”
I can’t swallow my groan. “I’m not doing it. If it’s some kind of shady, underhanded—”
“You’d be taking a position at a New York resort. A social media manager position. It’s right up your alley.”
So it is. I’ve hired out for a number of smaller social media positions since I left Global, and all of them have been successful. Just not successful enough to pay all my bills. Or get me steady work.
“Is that all, then? Work as a temporary social media manager?”
I can practically see him smiling through the phone. “Perhaps a little bit of...intel-gathering. Maybe a bit of sabotage, if you can swing it.”
“No. Goodbye, Connor.”
“Wait.”
For some reason, I do. “What?”
“Nothing that would jeopardize your freelance career. Not that you can jeopardize it much more than you already have....”
“If you’re only going to insult me, then—”
“The resort is the Bliss Resort & Club.”
My entire brain goes dark at the mention of the name, then it lights up with the most incredible mix of embarrassment and old desires. I’m gripping my phone a little too tight. “You mean...Roman Bliss?”
“That’s the man in charge,” Connor says lightly, as if he doesn’t know the first thing about my feelings for Roman Bliss. It was one happy hour after a long day two years ago. I had one drink too many. I got talkative, and Connor never forgets. I grind my teeth together. He’s playing to my biggest weakness, and he knows it. “I just need you to do enough to position my clients as New York’s premier resort.”
“It’s not fair. It
’s unethical.” The words ring false in my own ears.
“Well, if you’re booked solid, then I can always look at other—”
“No.”
The bug is moving again, from side to side, taunting me. Should I take a swing at it? That’ll mean holding the phone with one hand and smacking the frying pan with the other, and there’s boiling soup on the stove in front of me. All combined, it looks like the perfect combination for certain death.
But I can’t decide because my frustration is too much to swallow. The last year has not worked out the way I thought it would. More than once, I’ve thought about crawling back to Global and taking the least terrible assignments until I can get back on my feet. Frankly, the data shows that if I don’t get a job now, I’m going to have a tough time renewing my lease in two weeks.
“Is there going to be...” I clear my throat. “Housing?”
“The details of the position say that the new hire will also receive on-site resort housing, yes. One month. Then you’re free to do whatever you want.”
The bug on the wall turns around in a full circle and sprints toward the floor. In seconds it’s behind the stove and my body springs into action.
“Oh—God. Shit.”
“Jenny? You doing okay?”
He is the worst.
I’ve leapt up onto the single chair at my kitchen table, lightheaded, pulse booming. And it’s not all because the floor is now lava. It’s not all because that awful creature could come skittering out from beneath the stove at any moment.
It’s because Roman Bliss is to blame for this predicament.
Not fully to blame. I’m not the kind of girl who never takes responsibility for anything that happens in her life. But partially. He always got more than he deserved. He ignored me in high school. And he was devastatingly, unforgivably handsome.
My cheeks heat up at the memory of him. I’ve been so careful not to look him up. I’ve been so careful never to run into him when I visit Ruby Bay. Now that my parents have retired and taken up residence in an Airstream that they drive around the country, there’s nowhere for me to stay and no reason for me to ever be that close to the Bliss brothers again.
There was no reason.
Until now.
I have two options.
I can burn down this apartment with the bug inside it....
...or I can take the job.
“I’ll take the job.”
“Oh, I’m so delighted to hear it,” Connor gushes. “I’ll send over a contract and the details as soon as we hang up. Get your bags packed.”
“Bags? Today?” Honestly, it’s not a terrible idea. I don’t want to sleep here tonight. I’d rather be driving toward Ruby Bay, away from this bug-infested disaster of an apartment.
“Good news,” Connor says. “You start on Monday. There’s no time to lose.”
2
Roman
The empty pool tells me all I need to know.
Yes, it’s barely crested nine a.m. and it’s still early in the season, but I remember different times. Better times. Times when the pool was humming with activity from sun-up to sundown. It’s not just a warped childhood memory, either. My dad’s old staff schedules for the courtyard pool started at seven. The courtyard pool is the biggest one, set like a jewel into an enormous tiled patio, all of it hugged by the wings of the main building.
The only sound this morning is the gentle lap of the water against the concrete sides of the pool and my own sigh of dissatisfaction.
I’ve been thinking we should up our game when it comes to online advertising and social media for a while now. Hell, I’ve been researching it for weeks. I’ve signed up for three different courses geared toward owners in the hospitality industry. It’s all come to nothing.
I don’t have time to sit in front of my computer for three hours a day taking online video courses. And the handful of posts I’ve managed to put up on our website and the one languishing social media account for the resort have had exactly zero effect.
I stick my hands into the pockets of my dress pants and watch the sunlight play on the water.
The gate leading to the locker rooms and on to the guest room creaks open and the sound gives me a flash of hope. Perhaps the guests just don’t get up as early as they used to. Perhaps—
It’s only Jerry, the guy who cleans the pool. He shoots a suspicious look out of the corner of his eye in my direction as he pulls the gate shut behind him.
“Morning, boss,” he says, and his voice is echoed and distorted by the curve of the building over the gate.
“Jerry. How’s your wife recovering from her surgery?” Knee surgery, two weeks ago.
“She’s good. Doing a lot better.”
“Glad to hear it.”
I don’t have to think too hard to imagine how this is going to play out. Fewer guests having fun at the pool means fewer people thinking this resort is the place to be. An empty resort hotel will mean we sell less of the private homes on the club side. From there, it’s a quick slide into bankruptcy.
“You look pretty solemn for this early in the morning.”
The gravelly voice belongs to Beau, one of my younger brothers. He pads across the tile barefoot, his summer chinos and polo shirt rumpled. His hair matches the rest of his look. To top it off, he is holding a cocktail in one hand.
“You look like shit for this late in the morning.”
He gives this assessment a smiling nod. “Do you always stare out at the pool like a lonely old man?”
“I’m problem-solving. Someone has to do it while the likes of you party all night.” My youngest brother, Huck, is the most likely of us to join Beau in his revelries, but even Huck doesn’t take it to the limit like Beau does.
He looks thoughtful. “I think at this point we should ask ourselves—will I party for the rest of the day?”
“I think we should ask ourselves whether our family business can support your endless social engagements.”
Beau puts his free hand to his chest like I’ve wounded him. “They’re not just social engagements, Roman. You know that. I’m networking. I’m bringing in business. Meanwhile, you’re sulking by the side of the pool.”
“I told you, I’m—”
He waves me off. “Problem-solving never gets you anywhere. You still think you have to do everything by yourself. Frankly, brother, you’re not very good at it.”
I look at him, still drinking, still wearing last night’s clothes. “I think I’ll take my chances. It’s not like there’s anyone else to manage all of you.”
“If managing five people is beyond you—”
“I manage more than our family, and you know it.”
Sometimes, getting all five of my brothers to coordinate their efforts is an impossible task. I have no idea why Dad brought us all on. He’d have done better to poach experts from other resorts. But here we are without him. In years past, the resort and club have made enough money so that we can all live comfortably—even Asher. Half the time, I have no idea where he is or what he’s doing.
“Anyway,” I continue on while Beau drinks. “Dad always said that if you want something done right, you should do it yourself. You don’t have your drunk brother do it for you.”
He nods sagely. “I guess now’s the time to beg forgiveness.”
My heart throws itself headfirst against my rib cage. “Forgiveness for what?”
“For hiring you a girl.”
This is it. This is how I die.
“Beau.” Even my own voice sounds deadly. “Are you fucking kidding me? What the hell are you doing asking strippers to come to the resort? Oh, Jesus. It’s not a stripper, is it? If you hired a call girl—”
Beau doubles over, his laughter echoing across the pool. Jerry looks up to see what’s so funny, shakes his head, and goes back to his work. “I didn’t hire you a stripper. It’s not like that. It’s not like that, I swear.”
“Then tell me what it is like before I keel over.”
/>
“I hired you a social media manager. She’s really good.”
I blink at him. “What do you mean, she’s good? And how would you know? Your specialty is networking.”
“Here’s what I know.” Beau takes a celebratory swig of his mimosa. It’s comically large, in one of the steins meant for a foot of beer. “You’ve been mulling this over and problem-solving it for weeks. You keep bitching about it whenever we have dinner. It is pointless for me to keep hosting events and being the center of attention if all you’re going to post are pictures of the empty front desk.”
He has a point.
“So I went behind your back and hired someone.”
My brain can’t wrap itself around this. “How did you hire someone? You hire event staff. How the hell did you even—”
“She came highly recommended. Can we sit down?” Beau looks around for one of the lounge chairs, but they’re all lined up in the neat rows I insist on. I have the staff come out three times a day to make sure they’re configured in a pleasing arrangement.
“No, we can’t sit down.”
“I’m sitting down.” He goes over to the closest lounge chair and sinks into it gratefully, head tilted backward into the sun. “Anyway,” he calls across to me. “She came highly recommended by—”
“Shut it.” I’m standing by his chair in a matter of seconds. “Don’t shout business details across the pool.”
He cracks one eye open and looks at me. “There’s nobody here.”
“Just don’t do it.”
“Can you sit down? It’s weird to talk when you’re hovering over me like this.”
“Fine.” I take the chair next to him. “Now’s a good time to explain to me exactly what you’ve done and why you did it before I drown you in the pool with my own two hands.”
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