Falling for the Fling Read online

  Falling for the Fling

  A Bliss River Novel

  Lili Valente

  Contents

  Also by Lili Valente

  Book Description

  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

  Sneak Peek: Falling for the Ex

  About the Author

  All Rights Reserved

  Copyright © 2020 Lili Valente

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. This romance 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. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners. This e-book is licensed for your personal use only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with, especially if you enjoy hot, sexy, emotional romantic comedies featuring alpha males. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  Previously published as Betting On You (c) 2013 | Dating Dr. Dreamy (c) 2020. This new edition has extensive revisions and newly added content.

  Cover design by Violet Duke. Photo credit Wander Aguiar.

  Also by Lili Valente

  Hot Royal Romance

  The Playboy Prince

  The Grumpy Prince

  The Bossy Prince

  Learn more here

  * * *

  Laugh-out-Loud Rocker Rom Coms

  The Bangover

  Bang Theory

  Banging The Enemy

  The Rock Star’s Baby Bargain

  Learn more here

  * * *

  The Hunter Brothers

  The Baby Maker

  The Troublemaker

  The Heartbreaker

  The Panty Melter

  Click here to learn more

  * * *

  The Bad Motherpuckers Series

  Hot as Puck

  Sexy Motherpucker

  Puck-Aholic

  Puck me Baby

  Pucked Up Love

  Puck Buddies

  Click here to learn more

  * * *

  Sexy Flirty Dirty Romantic Comedies

  Magnificent Bastard

  Spectacular Rascal

  Incredible You

  Meant for You

  Click here to learn more

  * * *

  The Master Me Series

  (Red HOT erotic Standalone novellas)

  Snowbound with the Billionaire

  Snowed in with the Boss

  Masquerade with the Master

  Click here to learn more

  * * *

  Bought by the Billionaire Series

  (HOT novellas, must be read in order)

  Dark Domination

  Deep Domination

  Desperate Domination

  Divine Domination

  Click here to learn more

  * * *

  Kidnapped by the Billionaire Series

  (HOT novellas, must be read in order)

  Filthy Wicked Love

  Crazy Beautiful Love

  One More Shameless Night

  Click here to learn more

  * * *

  Under His Command Series

  (HOT novellas, must be read in order)

  Controlling her Pleasure

  Commanding her Trust

  Claiming her Heart

  Click here to learn more

  * * *

  To the Bone Series

  (Sexy Romantic Suspense, must be read in order)

  A Love so Dangerous

  A Love so Deadly

  A Love so Deep

  Click here to learn more

  * * *

  The Rebel Hearts Series

  (Emotional New Adult Romantic Suspense.

  Must be read in order.)

  Rebel Hearts

  Savage Hearts

  * * *

  Lover’s Leap Series

  A Naughty Little Christmas

  The Bad Boy’s Temptation

  Click here to learn more

  * * *

  The Lonesome Point Series

  (Sexy Cowboys)

  Leather and Lace

  Saddles and Sin

  Diamonds and Dust

  12 Dates of Christmas

  Glitter and Grit

  Sunny with a Chance of True Love

  Chaps and Chance

  Ropes and Revenge

  8 Second Angel

  Click here to learn more

  * * *

  Co-written Standalones

  The V Card (co-written with Lauren Blakely)

  Falling for the Boss (co-written with Sylvia Pierce)

  Click here to learn more

  * * *

  The Happy Cat Series

  (co-written with Pippa Grant)

  Hosed

  Hammered

  Hitched

  Humbugged

  Click here to learn more

  Book Description

  The day of my best friend’s wedding, I’m the one rocking the strapless red taffeta and chef’s apron ensemble, running on zero sleep. Being both the event caterer and a bridesmaid is crazy, I know. But, I’m a pro. This is my seventh wedding after all—as bridesmaid, that is. Pretty sure that’s some kind of town record.

  * * *

  Still, no amount of my trademark meticulous planning could’ve possibly prepared me to see him again. The prodigal Doctor Dreamy himself, Mason Stewart. My first (and only) love who disappeared without a word literally the day after proposing to me.

  * * *

  What the heck is he doing back in Bliss River? And how is it at all fair that he looks this good? Also, holy crap, why is he coming this way?

  There she is. Somehow even more beautiful than I remember. This overdue apology is one I’ve rehearsed since the day I left, pulverized by my own family, positive I'd never be good enough for the only girl I've ever loved. Took a lot of both time and therapy, but I finally managed to fix what they broke. And now I’m here to repair what I broke.

  * * *

  I know Lark. She’ll see this second chance I’m hoping for as a no-strings fling so we can each get closure and move on. Right. Like it’s just that easy. You don’t move on from a woman like Lark. And I’m pretty sure a clothing-optional arrangement will make that feat infinitely more impossible.

  * * *
/>   Still, it’s a start—a way for Lark to see the man I’ve become. A man who isn’t looking for a fling, but rather, matching rings, kids, the whole nine yards.

  The Bliss River Series

  falling for the fling

  falling for the ex

  falling for the bad boy

  To the indie romance community.

  Thank you for making so many of my writer dreams come true!

  Chapter One

  Lark

  The night before my best friend Lisa’s wedding—and my seventh turn as a bridesmaid—I have all of my weirdest anxiety dreams.

  Every. Single. One.

  Babysitting my sister Aria’s baby and I lose the eight-month-old in her stuffed animal collection?

  Check.

  Crawling through a miniature Dutch pancake house with doors too small for me to squeeze through while “It’s a Small World” plays on endless repeat?

  Check.

  Getting knocked over the head, blacking out, and waking up in the middle of the early church service my Nana hasn’t missed in thirty-five years, wearing nothing but a fine layer of caramel corn stuck to my body like a bad cat suit and a bubblegum bow in my hair?

  Check and check.

  (I have that one twice, because apparently one “naked and covered in candy in front of old people” dream wasn’t enough for my subconscious.)

  As a result of all the panicked dreaming, I wake up exhausted.

  Exhausted, on the biggest day of my best friend’s life, not to mention the biggest catering job of my career. Ever After Catering has been growing steadily since I started the business three years ago, but I’ve never handled an event like Lisa’s reception.

  There will be a twenty-foot appetizer buffet, a sit down steak or salmon dinner for three hundred people, and a dessert spread featuring a five tier wedding cake, three different kinds of groom’s cake—Lisa’s soon-to-be husband and his two brothers all have very strong, but very opposing, views on cake—cupcakes with sprinkles for the kids, chocolate pie for Lisa’s Gran, an edible ice sculpture, and a white chocolate fountain.

  And, of all that, the ice sculpture is the only thing my two sisters and I aren’t making ourselves.

  Even knowing the cakes are mostly done and waiting at the venue, the salmon is marinating in my industrial fridge, and the salad is sitting in giant containers, just waiting to be tossed with homemade honey-lemon dressing, my hands are still shaking as I shove a change of clothes and my lucky apron into a duffle bag and snag my bridesmaid’s dress from the closet.

  I’m always a little nervous before a big job, but today is worse than usual. Today has to be perfect, not only for Lisa, but for all the guests attending the reception.

  At least six of Lisa’s successful friends from college are planning weddings in the next year. Booking even three more big budget receptions will take my business to the next level, allowing me to compete with more established catering companies based in Atlanta and proving there’s nothing small town about my operation.

  Except, of course, that I’m based in a small town.

  But not just any small town! Bliss River, Georgia, is as cute as they come, a never-met-a-stranger-we-wouldn’t-pour-a-glass-of-sweet-tea place where the pursuit of wedded bliss is practically a town-wide pastime. If I can get the city folk out here to visit, I’d bet my favorite vintage mixer they’ll be lining up to hold their weddings in our adorable old barns, historic churches, and generally cute-as-a-button downtown.

  Expanding my business could lead directly to expanding the prosperity of the place I’ve called home my entire life. It’s just another reason I have to pull this reception off without a hitch.

  There is no room for error, and certainly no time for a nap.

  Three cups of coffee sustain me through the epic beauty salon appointment, and crying like a baby as I watch my best friend since preschool get married keeps me conscious through the receiving line and the wedding party pictures. But by the time I arrive at the venue—a lovely old home on the historic register about five miles outside of Bliss River—I’m pinching myself to stay awake.

  Thankfully, as soon as I walk through the door to the new, super-sized kitchen the owners added onto the home when they decided to rent it out for events, the job-in-progress adrenaline kicks in.

  “How are the potatoes? Are they cooked through and ready for the warmers?” I ask as I bustle into the room, tying my lucky apron on over my bridesmaid’s dress.

  I was too nervous to take the time to change before heading over from the church. I’m just going to have to cook in floor-length red taffeta and a strapless bra I’m pretty sure is trying to murder my boobs.

  “Are they done?” I ask again, squinting at the stove. “We’re going to need the oven for the last minute apps in less than ten minutes.”

  “Hello to you, too,” Aria, my older sister, grumbles from the far corner of the kitchen, where she’s bent over the wedding cake with a tube of frosting, adding a few last minute iced tulips around the edges.

  At five-seven and barely one hundred and twenty pounds, Aria is the slimmest of we three March sisters, unreasonably scrawny for a pastry chef, and, lately, about as sweet as a packet of damp Sweet’N Low. Ever since she separated from her husband and moved back to Bliss River five months ago, she’s misplaced her sense of humor.

  I’ve learned to put up with Aria’s new and unimproved personality transplant, but I admit I miss the big sister who used to organize elaborate pranks for us to play on our parents during family vacations and stay up all night giving makeovers and telling silly stories about the guys she dated.

  “Lark, you’re here!” Melody, my younger sis, bounds across the room with a squeal, clapping her hands. “How was the wedding? Was it amazing and romantic and all around fantastic? Was Lisa beautiful? Did Matt cry? Did you cry?”

  “It was perfect. Of course, a little, and of course,” I say, laughing as Melody pulls me in for a giddy hug.

  Melody loves weddings almost as much as she loves to cook and only slightly less than she loves to eat. Her commitment to all things culinary means that she graduated from culinary school only one year behind me, even though I’m two and a half years older.

  My little sis and I share a love of preparing food, the same long, sandy blond hair and brown eyes, and nearly identical rounded figures that give testimony to the fact that we hit the cheese board more often than the gym. When we were younger, people mistook us for twins, until Melody hit a growth spurt and left me behind.

  Now, at five-foot-two, standing between my taller sisters, I’m a short, squatty novel—probably a cozy mystery, with a punny, food-themed title, like Murder and Marinade—wedged between two mismatched bookends.

  No one knows where Aria’s red hair and green eyes came from. There are rumors of a ginger great-grandmother on our father’s side, but they remain unsubstantiated. If Aria didn’t have our dad’s nose and super long fingers—or if all three of the Bliss River postmen weren’t actually postwomen—I’m sure the jokes from Dad’s poker buddies would have been never ending.

  “I hated to miss it,” Melody says with a sigh as she releases me. “Did you tell Lisa I was thinking of her? And wishing her the best day ever?”

  “I did, and she said thank you for holding down the fort here so I could be her maid of honor.”

  “Of course!” Melody waves a hand in the air. “You had to be her maid of honor. It would have been a sacrilege if she’d picked anyone else.”

  “Though it might have been nice to give someone else a turn,” Aria says, ducking between us as she heads for the sink. “You know what they say about the March girls and weddings…”

  I wrinkle my nose. I know exactly what “they”—the town gossips, the women in our mother’s book club, Nana’s friends at the DAR, and all the been-married-forevers who have nothing better to do than predict who is, or isn’t, going to get married next—say about the March girls.

  Too many times a bride
smaid, never a bride.

  Between the three of us, we’ve been part of a wedding party no less than twenty-seven times. Melody holds the record, with ten bridesmaid appearances and three turns as maid of honor, all before her twenty-third birthday. At this rate, she’ll have a dozen plastic bins full of hideous old dresses in our parents’ garage before she’s twenty-five. Aria and I aren’t far behind her, tied with seven stints each down the aisle in scratchy taffeta.

  “Well, I think it’s nice that so many people want us in their weddings,” Melody says. “It means we have a lot of good friends.”

  “Besides, you already proved them wrong, anyway,” I say to Aria’s back. “One March girl has been married, even if it didn’t stick. There’s still hope Melody and I will have weddings of our own someday. And you’ll get a second chance with someone truly fabulous.”

  Romantic, happy-ever-after-dreams do come true, I think, a little wistfully. I see it all the time, and there’s going to come a day when I won’t be on the outside looking in at the romance while clearing the appetizer spread and wondering if we’re going to need more mustard.