Chapter 1
CHAPTER ONE
AIDEN
Considering how my week had been going, it shouldn’t have been a surprise that I was standing in the resort’s parking lot, wearing a suit covered in glitter, while trying to corral three rolling cases filled with dildos.
It was my fault, really. I was the one who double-booked the resort’s only party room. As if that wasn’t bad enough, this also happened to be my third fuckup this week. That was par for the course for my youngest brother, Levi, but not me. Never me.
I didn’t make mistakes. And I sure as hell didn’t fuck up to the extremes I’d done this week. I did what needed to be done when it needed to be done because I handled shit.
Except lately, I hadn’t been handling shit well. Or at all.
“Sorry about the mix-up, Mabel,” I said, pushing one case ahead of me while pulling the other two behind. I didn’t claim to be a sex toy expert, but Jesus Christ, that was a lot of dicks. I just hoped like hell the inventory was secured and I wasn’t leaving a trail of vibrators in my wake.
“Oh, don’t you worry about it.” Mabel swept a hand through the air, brushing away my concern.
The older woman wore a pair of hot-pink sweatpants and a matching sweatshirt with I need a cocktail…
hold the tail written in glittery lettering across the front.
She was Starlight Cove’s surrogate grandma—if your grandma didn’t have a filter and was horny 24/7—as well as the town’s self-appointed news broadcaster and co-owner of the town’s only newspaper.
Meaning she had her nose in everyone’s business and got away with it because she was “reporting” the goings-on in Starlight Cove via her infamous Facebook Lives.
“I actually appreciate the switch to the parlor. All that natural light will better showcase the gemstones in the butt plugs I’m featuring this month! ”
No longer at all shocked by the things that came out of this woman’s mouth, I gave a short nod. “Happy to help.”
“You let me know if I can ever show you anything, honey. Using toys as a part of one’s repertoire is totally normal and makes for a very healthy sex life.
It can even help loosen up some of the more…
reserved menfolk.” She shot a glance at my suit-and-tie combo, proving I was exactly the “reserved menfolk” she was talking about.
“In my opinion, if more men looked at toys as teammates rather than the competition, a lot more women would be able to reach climax right along with their partners. Orgasms aren’t just for men, you know. ”
I couldn’t agree more. But I knew better than to tell Mabel anything, least of all that my stance was if a woman didn’t get off at least five times to my one, I wasn’t doing my job. So instead, I gave a noncommittal hum and kept walking.
“I really love this look, by the way.” She gestured to me where I sparkled in the setting sun. “Makes me miss the strip club I used to visit back in the day.”
“Thanks,” I said dryly. “The high schoolers celebrating homecoming glitter bombed me when I asked them to keep it down.”
“Is that why all these hideous vans are here?” She tutted and shook her head. “Never thought I’d see the day that kidnapper vans were the preferred transportation method for homecoming. Kids these days…”
I actually didn’t know why all those fucking vans were here, only that they were taking up much-needed real estate in our already small parking lot, and we had nothing on the schedule to account for them.
Maybe Mabel was right, and that was what teens did now.
What the hell did I know? I hadn’t been in high school for more than a decade and a half.
After getting Mabel squared away in the parlor and waving off her offer for a quick demonstration of her most powerful vibrator, I headed to find my sister.
Better to get this reaming over with. And Addison was definitely going to dig her claws in.
She was already pissed off because of what had happened earlier this week, and my double-booking the party room was going to tip her straight into banshee territory.
Except when I turned the corner into the front room, Addison wasn’t alone. The space was filled with more people than the small area could comfortably hold. Especially when several of those people held equipment. Video cameras and microphones and—
Oh, fuck me.
Fuck. Me.
It took barely a second for all the pieces to click into place.
The vans in our parking lot housed the crew and equipment for a wedding documentary series featuring engaged couples as they selected every aspect of their wedding as voted on by the viewers.
Our resort had been lucky enough to be chosen as the location for this season’s couple, and Addison was sure it was going to catapult us to the next level.
It had been our second break this year, and things were on the upswing for Starlight Cove Resort.
Although with a fuckup like this, I wasn’t so sure it would last.
As I stared at the chaos in front of me, I had a vague recollection of the production team contacting me to schedule a cake tasting on the very day my personal life had imploded.
While going viral earlier this year had worked wonders for the resort, the same couldn’t be said for me.
It had opened doors I’d never thought would be opened for me, but it had also knocked me on my ass.
I’d been so distracted with calls and emails and DMs that day that I’d taken the appointment for the cake testing, but I hadn’t actually put it on the calendar.
Which meant Beck hadn’t prepared for it, which meant we had an entire production crew ready to film and an engaged couple ready to taste test, and we didn’t have any fucking cakes.
And it was one hundred percent my fault.
“I’m so sorry for the mix-up,” Addison said to the production crew, smile firmly in place, though I could read her tells from a mile away. And the twitch at the corner of her eye said she was about to hand someone their ass.
And that someone was me.
“If you’ll give me just a second”—she glanced around, her attention snapping to me as soon as she noticed I was in the room, and her lips flattened into a thin line, her eyes narrowing—“Aiden and I will get this sorted out.”
Oh yeah. I was totally and completely fucked.
With a murderous glare directed up at me, Addison stabbed her finger into my chest and read me the riot act.
She was short—just an inch or two over five feet—which meant she was at least a foot shorter than me and our brothers.
Despite that, she was a force to be reckoned with…
a dictator and a fucking tornado all rolled into one shrimp of a package.
And God help any idiot who was in the path of her destruction.
Today, unfortunately, I was that idiot.
“What the hell happened, Aiden?” she barked, and thankfully, we were in a back room, away from guests.
“Seriously, what is going on with you lately? As if the seven hundred cartons of paper towels instead of the luxury bath towels I asked you to order weren’t enough—” She gestured around us to the stacks of boxes currently taking up space in every spare room we had.
“Then you put in the wrong price on the booking site, which meant we had five couples reserve their week-long stays for a whopping fifty bucks per night because you forgot a zero. Mabel is currently in our parlor showing off bejeweled anal plugs to any guest who walks through because you double-booked the party room.” She ground her teeth together, her eyes narrowing into slits as she pressed her finger harder into my chest. “And now you’re telling me you forgot to write on the schedule—your precious schedule you won’t let anyone else touch, by the way—that a fucking camera crew and the bride and groom we’re trying to impress were going to be here for a cake tasting?
A cake testing that Beck is not prepared for, nor even aware of? ”
I scrubbed a hand over my face, barely restraining a growl of frustration. “Yes, that’s what I’m telling you. Look, I get it. I fucked up.”
“You didn’t just fuck up,” she hissed. My sister was a tyrant on the best of days, and she didn’t have any problem putting people—especially her five older brothers—in their place.
When one of those brothers screwed up? The barracuda came out, and she didn’t pull her punches.
“You may have cost the resort the opportunity of this decade. Of the whole fucking decade, Aiden!”
“I got it, Addison,” I snapped, no longer able to keep even a modicum of cool as I shoved a hand through my hair in frustration. Except that only made glitter rain down on me, reminding me of exactly how shitty this day had been from the start.
“What the hell are we supposed to do now? We have a whole-ass camera crew in the foyer waiting for something we can’t give them. It’s not like Beck can magically throw together a wedding cake in the next fifteen minutes!”
“I’ll handle it.”
She barked out a humorless laugh and shook her head. “Uh, no. Absolutely not. I’m handling it, and you’re leaving.”
“I’m leaving?”
“Yep. While I figure out a solution to this situation and save our asses, I want you gone. I don’t want to see your face, or I might claw it off. That means no going upstairs to sulk in your bedroom. Get out, and don’t come back until you’ve gotten your shit together.”
With that, she stalked out of the room without a backward glance, and I bit back a litany of curses as I scrubbed a hand over my face.
I’d never been the guy who needed to get his shit together, but if these past couple months had shown me anything, it was that I couldn’t have it all.
I was one hastily pulled Jenga block away from crashing.
I hadn’t yet figured out how to balance having personal success while also managing a now-successful resort.
Especially because the success was totally new for us.
When my siblings and I had taken over running the resort ten years ago after our mom had died at sea, it had been struggling.
For a long damn time. Then, several months ago, a viral video sent it soaring.
The power of mass interest wasn’t lost on me. It’d taken me—or my pseudonym, anyway—from obscurity to damn near a household name in a couple short months. Suddenly, I had everything I’d ever wanted…everything I’d ever dreamed about…at my fingertips. Amazing opportunities that were all mine.
And my family knew nothing about it.
Even though Addison had told me to GTFO, I ran upstairs for a quick shower and to change out of my sparkly suit before heading into town in jeans and a T-shirt. I’d had enough humiliation for the day, and the last thing I needed were catcalls wondering which strip club people could find me at.
As much as I hated receiving a scolding from my baby sister, I couldn’t deny any of what she said.
I had been a mess. And I hadn’t been pulling my weight at the resort.
Not like I usually did anyway. It’d been my baby for a decade.
My older brother Brady might’ve been the eldest McKenzie, but he’d already had a career as a police officer—now sheriff—when our world had caved in on itself.
The twins, Beck and Ford, had been away at college, my youngest brother Levi’s only interest had been in boats, and Addison hadn’t even graduated high school yet.
So, I’d stepped up. And eventually, with the help of the rest of my siblings, we’d made it work.
But now, I had a whole other aspect of my life pulling me in the opposite direction. I’d been arrogant to think I could juggle it all. That I could accomplish everything thrown at me from all directions. And that I could do it all without my family or this town finding out anything about it.
But if this past week had taught me anything, it was that I was living in a dream world.
I physically couldn’t do it all. I already wasn’t sleeping much—though that was nothing new.
If I got more than four hours a night, it was a miracle.
And I couldn’t ask for help at the resort without my siblings wanting to know why I suddenly couldn’t manage what I’d been doing for the past ten years.
So, yeah. I was totally and completely fucked.
I sat at the bar in One Night Stan’s, nursing a bottle of beer and contemplating how the hell I was going to make this work. The smart thing—the easiest thing—would be to give up everything else and just focus on the resort.
But I wanted something more.
I couldn’t remember the last time my life was just for me.
For the past ten years, everything I’d done had been done with my family’s well-being in mind.
But now, I had a glimpse of more. Of something that was just mine.
And I wasn’t quite ready to give up on that. I just didn’t know how to make it work.
I must’ve been giving off an exceptionally shitty vibe because no one but the bartender had approached me. I was aloof on the best of days, but today, that was cranked to eleven, as proven by the empty spaces on either side of me.
No sooner had the thought passed through my mind than a woman swept in through the front door and strolled straight toward me, dropping her bag on the floor next to the stool on my left.
The bartender lifted his chin at her in greeting. “What can I get you?”
“The best fruity drink you know how to make. And do you have food in this place?”
As the bartender slid a menu her way, she tossed a book faceup on the bar top and settled onto the stool.
Out of habit, I glanced over at it, my eyebrows shooting up when I saw a familiar cover.
It was the dark romance book everyone was talking about right now.
And it was dark. And dirty. And definitely depraved.
Something most people would probably hesitate to read in public.
Most people, but not her.
A small smile tugged at the corner of my mouth. It was clear this woman did not give one single fuck what people thought. And I had to admire her for that. I took a swig of my beer, wondering what that would be like. I couldn’t even tell my family I—
She turned toward me then, her whiskey eyes pinning me in place, a devilish smirk on her full pink lips, and a riot of red hair surrounding her like the best kind of distraction. She was stunning, but that wasn’t what had me choking on my drink.
I coughed and sputtered as I stared at her chest where her T-shirt proudly proclaimed, Buy me books and tell me to STFUATTDLAGG.
Jesus Christ, who was this woman?