Not the One (Spring Grove Book 1) Read online

  COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE INFORMATION

  NOT THE ONE

  Copyright © 2017 Toni Aleo

  2017 Edition

  Cover art: Dana Leah

  Editing: Lisa Hollett of Silently Correcting Your Grammar

  Formatting: Deena Rae —E-BookBuilders

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any informational storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This book is available in print from most online retailers

  2017 Edition License

  This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment. This e-book may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to the appropriate retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Table of Contents

  Not the One

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Epilogue

  A Note from Toni Aleo

  About the Author

  Not the One

  Genevieve Stone got her first taste of passion as a teenager on a road trip to Kentucky with the bastard bad boy of the country club. Everyone agreed he was not the one for a girl from her station in life.

  Ten years later, she's a successful romance novelist and is engaged to be married to the appropriate sort of man. But something is holding her back from finishing her latest book and from joyfully walking down the aisle. On impulse, she takes off for Spring Grove, the site of her youthful indiscretion and the location of most of her happiest times.

  What she thought was just a short walk down memory lane quickly becomes much more as Gen reconnects with friends from her youth and is welcomed back into the quirky arms of small-town Kentucky. And it isn't long before she starts to realize that the man who was supposedly so wrong is really oh-so right.

  Dedication

  To whiskey. You always seem like such a good idea.

  At the time…

  Not the One

  Prologue

  Blue lights were flashing like mad, giving her a headache as she leaned against the police car.

  Genevieve’s body was shaking with fear, but a little bit of excitement was also bubbling deep inside of her. She knew damn well her family was going to flip. Once word got back to the country club, everyone would be talking about how the precious Genevieve Stone, daughter of the prestigious Murray Stone of Stone Masons, was caught trafficking drugs. The disappointment would ring loud in her father’s voice—he’d probably take her credit card away. And her poor mother would probably wring her hands, steeling her nerves with a healthy dose of vodka in her morning juice.

  Too bad Gen didn’t care.

  This trip was supposed to be the time of her life. She was going to see the world, but he’d said they had to stop back in his hometown first. What she didn’t know was that he had been planning to bring a whole bunch of drugs back for his buddies to sell down in Lexington. When she found out, by opening the trunk to put her bag in, the smart part of her brain told her to run the other way. But then he looked at her, his blazing blue eyes burning into hers as her lips pressed together in an “oh shit” kind of look. She should have taken that as a sign even he knew he was doing wrong, yet she just shrugged, threw her bag in, and went to the front seat.

  She wasn’t sure what she was doing, but she knew she wanted to go on this trip with him.

  But after only three days in his hometown of Spring Grove, where she fell in love with small-town life and learned more about herself than she had in her whole life, Gen found herself leaning against a cop car with her hands cuffed behind her back.

  Well, shit.

  Terms were being thrown around—some she knew, some she didn’t. But as she watched two cops from a neighboring town investigate, since Spring Grove only had one sheriff and a deputy, she knew she was in deep shit.

  “I never thought I’d find you this hot with blue lights flashing on your skin, but I do.”

  Gen looked up, her eyes meeting his extra blue eyes since the lights were flashing directly into them. “Yeah, neither did I.”

  His lips pulled up at the side. “Probably should have stayed at home. Maybe my big brother would have taken you to the formal.”

  She scoffed. “Pfft. Like I wanted to go anyway.”

  “You did. You’re made for that life.”

  She laughed, shaking her head. That was the furthest from the truth. She was actually more trailer park trash, like her mom used to be before her father found her and settled her in at the country club with diamonds hanging off her. “You must not know me.”

  “Not as well as I want,” he said, making her heart flutter. He had that power, the one that made her whole body feel like it was tingling. Her mother said it was because she was young and naïve, but she was convinced it was just him. Theo. His thick shoulders, his darker than night hair. It was such a contrast, his eyes to his hair, and she loved it. She did. Even now, as she stood cuffed, knowing that serious charges could be coming her way, she still found him alluring. “But I know that formal would have been better than this.”

  She shrugged, looking away. “Says you.”

  He grinned over at her, and she met his grin with a smile. Things were easy between them. Since Gen had struggled her whole life, she enjoyed being with someone and not having to try so hard. She didn’t have to be proper; she didn’t have to make sure she had her manners turned on. She could just be her, burp if she wanted, and he would burp along with her. He was everything she had never experienced, and she couldn’t get enough.

  “Man, this sucks.”

  “Surely it’s not a big deal. It’s not like you’re selling the stuff.”

  “I’m moving it, though,” he confessed, shaking his head. “I just wanted to get my mom out of here.”

  Gen smiled. “She doesn’t want to leave.”

  He laughed. “Yeah, but maybe I could have given her a better life than working in the damn diner.”

  “She loves the diner, though,” she tried, but he wasn’t listening. “It’s all over with anyway. We were caught—”

  “No, listen—” She looked up, her heart still in her throat as his eyes held hers. “I’m taking all the blame. Those are my drugs. I didn’t tell you about them, okay?”

  Her brows pulled together. “But I knew.”

  “Gen, really. This is going to be bad. You aren’t this girl. The one that goes to jail for drugs—or anything else for that matter. Just trust me. Keep your mouth shut. Don’t even talk to them.”

  “But—”

  “No but, Gen. I’m this guy. You’re not. This has been fun, but you gotta trust me. Let me take the fall. You act oblivious to everything, okay?”

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