Summer Temptation (Hot in the Hamptons Book 2) Read Free Page A

and led me up the stairs and into the house. “I’d settle for Leigh meeting one nice guy for a sweet summer romance.” Storme glanced up at me. “Before you lose yourself in sixty hour work weeks and coast to coast travel.”
    Storme guided me though an exquisite entryway with immaculate white walls, along beautiful dark hardwood floors, to a huge open kitchen toward the back of the house.
    “Yeah,” Kelsey said, pouring a glass of white wine and handing it to me. “We’re not going to be there to pull you out of the library and force you to have a social life.”
    To be honest, that worried me a little bit.
    I took the glass. If I’d refused, my friends would have known something was wrong, because I love my wine. I took a sip. Certainly a few small sips wouldn’t hurt the baby…if there was a baby.
    “What’s wrong?” Storme asked. She could read me better than anyone.
    “Nothing,” I lied, pulling up a chair to take a seat at the counter.
    She gave me that worried look that usually got me talking, but not this time. I would not bring down the happy vibe in the room or take the focus away from our summer of carefree fun and planning for Storme’s end-of-summer wedding by sharing my pregnancy concern.
    And that, in a nutshell, was why I hadn’t taken a pregnancy test. If I didn’t know for certain, then I could cling to the hope I wasn’t pregnant, that the future I’d planned so carefully was not on the verge of falling apart, that I wouldn’t be responsible for finishing off my dad with the news he was about to become a grandpa. No downward spiral of doom and gloom necessary.
    I looked up. Great, Kelsey had concern in her eyes, too. Knowing I had to give them something to explain my sudden quiet, I swirled my glass and took another small sip. “Every time I drink this I’ll think of both of you and how much you mean to me.”
    ‘This,’ of course, being the delicious wine produced by Storme’s family’s vineyard, right on Long Island.
    “I’d say the same,” Kelsey took a sip from her own glass, “except this stuff is too expensive for my budget.”
    “Once you figure out what you’ll be doing after the summer, and where you’ll be doing it, I’ll have a case delivered to you every month,” Storme said, like it was no big deal, because to her, it wasn’t. Sure, she loved her designer clothes and fancy cars, but other than that, there was nothing ‘rich girl’ about Storme. She was the kindest, sweetest, most generous person I’d ever met.
    “To friendship.” I held up my glass in a toast. “Rooming with the two of you freshman year was the best thing that ever happened to me.” Storme, the outgoing life of the party, Kelsey fun but more selective in her friends, and me, the quiet one, happier alone with my Kindle than out at a party or bar. Yet somehow we’d bonded like sisters that year, and our friendship had only grown stronger since then.
    We all clinked glasses.
    “To getting Leigh laid,” Kelsey said.
    “I’ll drink to that.” Storme tapped her glass to Kelsey’s.
    Since the last time I’d ‘gotten laid’ – or gotten close to getting laid — may not have worked out so well for me, I tried to interrupt. “Hey, wait a minute.” But they both leaned in and tapped my glass with big smiles on their faces.
    Storme added, “And to Kelsey finally fulfilling her lifeguard fantasy.”
    Kelsey laughed. “I am all over that.”
    I hoped, with all my heart, that Kelsey did meet a big, strong, sexy lifeguard for the summer fling she’d been talking about for months. She was such a loyal friend, always there for me. After losing her dad in the war, if anyone deserved a little happiness in her life, Kelsey did.
    “And to Storme having the perfect wedding,” I said, holding out my glass. Was it my imagination, or did the soon-to-be bride hesitate before clinking my glass? Did her smile falter? Was that uncertainty I saw flash in her eyes?
    If so, she recovered quickly,