ChanceforLoveKobo
Chance for Love
A Gansett Island Novella
The McCarthys of Gansett Island, Book 10.5
By: Marie Force
Published by HTJB, Inc.
Copyright 2014. HTJB, Inc.
Cover by Kristina Brinton
ISBN: 978-0991418206
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook 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. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. To obtain permission to excerpt portions of the text, please contact the author at
[email protected]
.
All characters in this book are fiction and figments of the author’s imagination.
The McCarthys of Gansett Island Series
McCarthys of Gansett Island Boxed Set
Book 1:
Maid for Love
Book 2:
Fool for Love
Book 3:
Ready for Love
Book 4:
Falling for Love
Book 5:
Hoping for Love
Book 6:
Season for Love
Book 7:
Longing for Love
Book 8:
Waiting for Love
Book 9:
Time for Love
Book 10:
Meant for Love
Book 10.5: Chance for Love,
A Gansett Island Novella
Author’s Note
Were you wondering how I spent my Christmas vacation? Wonder no more! I was on Gansett Island with heartbroken billionaire Jared James. We got to know Jared in
Time for Love
, when David and Daisy befriended David’s elusive landlord who’d come to the island seeking refuge after his girlfriend turned down his marriage proposal. We saw him again in
Meant for Love
, when he reconnected with Wharton classmate Jenny Wilks. Readers were eager to know more about the woman who’d broken Jared’s heart, and they wanted to know what I had in store for him. The more I thought about his story, the more I realized what I needed to do. I hope you’ll enjoy this brief visit with some Gansett Island friends as well as the introduction of a new couple.
I’m blessed to have the most amazing “Team Jack” in place, so when I finish a novella over Christmas vacation I can turn it around for readers two short weeks later. A million thanks go to Julie Cupp, CMP, who runs my business so incredibly well; Lisa Cafferty, CPA, my longtime friend and new CFO, who helps me sleep at night; Holly Sullivan, my dear friend and cohort in childrearing; Isabel Sullivan, my adorably wonderful niece, and her baby, Harper, who makes me smile like a loon every time I see her; Nikki Colquhoun, Julie’s BFF, who has become my friend, too; and Cheryl Serra, my friend of more than twenty-five years, who is now handling public relations for me with her trademark good humor. I love you all, and I’m thrilled to be working with many of my favorite ladies every day. Thanks also to my awesome Beta readers, who are so good to me: Ronlyn Howe, Kara Conrad, Anne Woodall and Holly Sullivan.
In addition to my personal team, I’ve gathered a group of wonderful, amazing contractors who drop everything for me every time I need them. Thanks go to cover designer
extraordinaire
Kristina Brinton; fabulous copy editor, Linda Ingmanson, who has been with me since the first of my nineteen self-published books; and Joyce Lamb, my new and truly outstanding proofreader. You ladies are the BEST, and I’m delighted to work with you.
Special thanks to my family, Dan, Emily and Jake, and my dad, George, who laughed at me for coming off a brutal deadline on December 20 and deciding to spend my “vacation” having “fun” writing a Gansett Island novella. Every minute I get to spend on Gansett is a joy for me, and I’m so very grateful to the readers who continue to come back for every new adventure I dream up. Much more to come from Gansett in 2014!
Stay tuned at the end of Chance for Love to check out Will and Cameron’s first kiss in
All You Need Is Love
, Book 1 in the new
Green Mountain Series
, which is out on February 4, and the cover reveal for
Fatal Jeopardy
, Book 7 in the Fatal Series, which is out on March 24.
Happy New Year!
xoxo
Marie
Chapter 1
It’s high time to end the pity party
. That was the thought Jared James woke up with on the fortieth day after the love of his life turned down his marriage proposal.
On that Friday morning in late July, Jared woke to the sound of seagulls and surf pounding against the rocks that abutted his property on Gansett Island—and to this somewhat major development in the midst of his retreat from real life. As he did every morning, he thought of his girlfriend, Elisabeth
—“with an S,”
she always said. His ex-girlfriend now…
He’d called her Lizzie, a nickname she’d always hated until he decided she was
his
Lizzie. Over time, he’d convinced her she loved the nickname as much as she loved him. As he had every day since it all went so bad, he thought of the night he’d taken her to a rooftop restaurant in Manhattan, which had been reserved just for them. He recalled his carefully planned proposal and the look of utter shock and dismay on her face when she realized what he was asking.
She’d shaken her head, which meant
no
in every language he spoke.
She actually said no
. That was the part he still couldn’t believe more than a month later. He hadn’t seen that coming. It hadn’t occurred to him for a second that she’d say no. When he’d gotten down on one knee, he’d pictured an entirely different outcome. He’d imagined a tearful acceptance, kissing and hugging and dancing.
There’d been champagne chilling for the celebration that hadn’t happened. He’d had the company Learjet waiting at Teterboro to whisk her off to Paris for a romantic long weekend. She’d always wanted to go there, and he was set to make all her dreams come true, starting with that one.
She’d said
no
.
He hadn’t heard much of what she said after she shook her head in reply to his heartfelt question. The movement of her head in a negative direction had hit him like a fist to the gut. There’d been tears, not the happy kind he’d hoped for, but rather the grief-stricken sort, the kind that come when everything that could go wrong did. He knew about those tears. He’d shed a lot of them over the last five weeks.
In all his thirty-eight years, he’d never shed a tear over a woman until he’d finally given his heart to one, only to see it crushed to smithereens after the best year of his life. He had vague memories of standing up, of staring at her tearstained face as she continued to shake her head and tried to make him understand.
But he hadn’t heard a word she said. It was all noise that refused to permeate the fog that had infiltrated his brain. He’d walked away and taken a cab to the garage where he kept his car. He’d driven for hours to get the first ferry of the morning to the home he’d bought on Gansett Island a couple of years ago and had barely seen since. He’d been too busy to spend time on the island.
Now he had nothing but time after taking an indefinite leave of absence from work.
Lizzie had called him a couple of times since that night, but he hadn’t taken her calls. What did it matter now? What could she possibly say that would make a difference? He’d erased her voice-mail messages without listening to them. The last thing he needed was to hear her voice and be set back to day one when he’d honestly wondered if he was going to be able to continue breathing without her.
Yeah, he was a mess, and he was sick to death of being a mess. He was sick to death of himself. He got up and pulled on shorts and a tank, shoved his feet into an old pair of Nikes and headed out to run on the beach, something he’d done nearly every day he’d been here. What the hell good was owning waterfront property if you didn’t take advantage of the chance to run on the beach?
He hadn’t taken the time to appreciate most of the perks of making a billion dollars before his thirty-fifth birthday. He’d been too busy making more money to enjoy what he’d already accomplished. Those days were over, too. In the weeks he’d spent on Gansett, he’d been able to
breathe
for the first time in longer than he could remember. Without the constant pressure of work, work and more work, he’d discovered he had absolutely no life away from work.
He didn’t have a single hobby, and he didn’t have many friends who weren’t affiliated in some way with his job. His clients were among his closest friends. How screwed up was that? Lizzie had been the exception. He’d met her at a benefit for the homeless shelter she ran for women and children in crisis. One of the guys from work had talked him into sponsoring the event, which was how he’d ended up in a monkey suit on a Wednesday evening, working the ballroom in the Ritz-Carlton at Central Park.
If he lived forever, Jared would never forget the first time he saw her. He’d been talking with some friends, guys he knew from the financial rat race, while his gaze swept the room and landed on her. She’d worn black—slinky, sexy black—that showed off her subtle curves.
However, her curves, as captivating as they were, hadn’t been the thing that made him walk away from a conversation mid-sentence. No, it had been her smile and the way it lit up her entire face that had him making his way across the crowded room, like a magnet drawn to the most precious of metals.
“Why am I thinking about that?” he asked himself as he pounded his footprints into the sand. “I’m done thinking about her, reliving every minute I spent with her. It’s over, and it’s time to accept that and stop acting like a pussy-whipped, pathetic, ridiculous fool. She doesn’t want you. Plenty of others do.”
Except… He didn’t want anyone else. He’d never wanted anyone the way he wanted her, and it was going to take a lot more than forty days for the yearning to subside. Still, that didn’t mean he had to walk around like a lovesick dickwad in the meantime.
He barely noticed the gorgeous scenery that unfolded before him as he hit the mile mark and turned back, a plan forming as he went. He’d invite some people over for dinner. They’d have a cookout like normal people did this time of year. David and Daisy would come, and he’d ask Jenny Wilks and her fiancé, Alex Martinez. He’d tell them to bring others who’d like a free steak and a couple of beers.
People
, he thought. That’s what he needed. David and Daisy had been exceptionally good friends to him, dragging him along on many a date night and letting him be their official third wheel. The least he could do was make them dinner to thank them for their extraordinary compassion as he nursed his broken heart.
He came to a halt at the stairs that led to his house, bent at the waist to catch his breath and then walked slowly up the stairs and across the lawn, past the inground pool he’d never used. A guy came out from the mainland every week to tend to it. Perhaps it was time someone actually swam in the crystal-clear water he paid a small fortune to maintain.
Grasping the hem of his tank, he brought it up to wipe the sweat off his face. When he let the shirt drop, he noticed David coming down the stairs from the garage apartment.