Bliss Brothers: The Complete Series Boxed Set Read online

  Bliss Brothers

  The Complete Series Boxed Set

  Amelia Wilde

  Contents

  Crush on You

  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

  Stuck on You

  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

  Epilogue

  Hooked on You

  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

  Epilogue

  Crazy on You

  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

  Epilogue

  Love on You

  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

  Epilogue

  Wish on You

  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

  Epilogue

  Connect with Amelia

  Also by Amelia Wilde

  Crush on You

  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. It looks like 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 sunup 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.