Southern Charmer: A Charleston Heat Novel Read online

  Southern Charmer

  A Charleston Heat Novel

  Jessica Peterson

  Contents

  Also by Jessica Peterson

  1. Olivia

  2. Olivia

  3. Eli

  4. Eli

  5. Olivia

  6. Olivia

  7. Eli

  8. Olivia

  9. Olivia

  10. Eli

  11. Eli

  12. Olivia

  13. Olivia

  14. Olivia

  15. Olivia

  16. Eli

  17. Olivia

  18. Eli

  19. Olivia

  20. Olivia

  21. Eli

  22. Olivia

  23. Eli

  24. Eli

  25. Olivia

  26. Olivia

  27. Eli

  28. Olivia

  29. Eli

  30. Olivia

  31. Eli

  32. Eli

  33. Eli

  34. Olivia

  35. Eli

  36. Eli

  37. Olivia

  38. Olivia

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  Jessica’s Charleston Travel Guide

  ROYAL RUIN Excerpt

  ROYAL RUIN

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Jessica Peterson

  About the Author

  Also by Jessica Peterson

  THE FLINGS WITH KINGS SERIES

  Royal. Ridiculously Hot. Totally Off Limits…

  A Series of Sexy Interconnected Standalone Romances

  Read Them All for FREE in Kindle Unlimited!

  Royal Ruin (Flings With Kings #1)

  Royal Rebel (Flings With Kings #2)

  Royal Rogue (Flings With Kings #3)

  THE STUDY ABROAD SERIES

  Studying Abroad Just Got a Whole Lot Sexier…

  A Series of Sexy Interconnected Standalone Romances

  Read Them All for FREE in Kindle Unlimited!

  Spanish Lessons (Study Abroad #1)

  Lessons in Gravity (Study Abroad #2)

  Lessons in Letting Go (Study Abroad #3)

  Lessons in Losing It (Study Abroad #4)

  Published by Peterson Paperbacks, LLC

  Copyright 2018 by Peterson Paperbacks, LLC

  Cover by Najla Qamber of Najla Qamber Designs

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book 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.

  www.jessicapeterson.com

  Created with Vellum

  Dedicated to every woman who’s ever wanted more.

  I hope you go after it with everything you’ve got.

  * * *

  “I feel that having what you want is more important than having it all.”

  – Judy Gagliardi Wagner

  Chapter One

  Olivia

  Taking the exit ramp off I-26, I roll down my windows. Turn up the country song on the radio. A guy with a sultry southern accent is singing about making out in the back of his pickup truck.

  Feels appropriate for my arrival in Charleston, South Carolina. The city I’ll be calling home for the next month.

  While I wait at the light at the end of the ramp, I glance at the duffel bag in my passenger seat. The edges of the jewelry box I’ve stuffed into the front pocket strain against the crisp black nylon.

  My chest tightens. It’s already sore from one thousand, one hundred and thirty eight miles of tears.

  And probably for the one thousand, one hundred and thirty eighth time, I see the image of Teddy in my head. Excitement in his blue eyes dimming when, after an excruciating pause, I replied to his four word question.

  I’m sorry, but I need time to think about it.

  In that moment, I could just imagine my family—my friends—everyone putting their hands on their heads in disbelief and asking what the fuck is wrong with you?

  What is wrong with me, needing time to think about marrying the perfect man who wants to give me the perfect life?

  “But you could have it all!” my mother said, clearly bewildered. “Everyone loves Ted. You don’t run from a man like that.”

  But here I am, running.

  Like a coward.

  Like an idiot.

  It’s the only thing that felt right after the proposal blew up in my face the other night. I wanted to say yes to Teddy. But as he kneeled there, offering me the most gorgeous diamond ring on Earth, I got this awful gut feeling that the whole thing was wrong.

  Which is laughable, considering how picture perfect Ted’s proposal was. He pulled out all the stops: flowers, dinner at a Michelin starred restaurant, flawless four carat diamond. It was so him.

  But was it at all me?

  Lately, I’ve fought this feeling of being suffocated. I don’t understand it. I was raised under the banner of “having it all”, and I’ve worked my butt off to do exactly that: have the dream job, the dream house, the dream guy. It’s all finally within reach. I just had to say yes to Teddy. But I couldn’t. All I could think about as I stared down at the ring was a conversation he and I had had recently. We were talking about my love of romance novels.

  “As a professor of feminism in nineteenth century masterpieces, aren’t you supposed to, like, be opposed to everything those books represent?” he asked, shaking his head.

  Romance is feminist. The reply was on the tip of my tongue. Romance is one of the few genres that explicitly puts a woman’s dreams and desires, sexual and otherwise, front and center. It’s one of the many reasons I love reading it.

  But I didn’t say that. Ted is not at all supportive of my romance habit—I read at least one a week. When I drunkenly confessed my secret desire to write a full-length romance of my own a couple months back, he laughed and said I had better things to do.

  I mean, I get it. Ted has a very specific vision for our future together. As one half of the power couple he sees us becoming—he’s a corporate lawyer, I’m a professor at an Ivy League University—I have to stick to the straight and narrow. Ted’s always polished and put together, and he encourages me to be the same. He likes when I wear expensive clothes—“Dress for the job you want, not the job you have,” he says—and insists we socialize with other well-dressed, like-minded couples that live in the neighborhood we recently moved into just outside Ithaca.

  Being with Ted has transformed me into the successful woman I always thought I’d be. So why does being that woman make me feel so smothered sometimes?

  It’s a very privileged problem to have. I recognize that. But I can’t seem to kick this feeling. Overcome it.

  I start at the sound of a honk behind me. The light is green. I follow the nice GPS lady’s instructions and hang a right onto Meeting Street.

  I’ve never been to South Carolina before. The first thing I notice is how damn hot it is. The air blowing through the windows is thick with humidity and the salty smell of the ocean. So different from the crisp feel of late September in upstate New York.

  My long-ish hair whips in my face, already frizzy. Usually that bothers me. No one appreciates a great blowout more than I do. But right now, hair seems like a
silly thing to worry about. So I just tuck my sunglasses onto my head to keep it out of my eyes.

  The second thing I notice is that the whole city seems to be under construction. There are cranes and the skeletons of half-finished buildings everywhere.

  Fashionably dressed hipsters mingle with tourists in white sneakers and sun hats on the sidewalks. My car trundles over the uneven pavement that shimmers in the heat of a five o’clock sun. I turn left on Calhoun Street, and then right on East Bay, and all that new construction gives way to the historic charm you see in pictures.

  My head is on a swivel as I head south. There’s the famous Charleston City Market on my right. On my left, there’s a hulking cruise ship in the harbor. Farther down on my right, I get a tantalizing glimpse of a narrow cobblestone alley. It’s lined with a series of enormous gas lamps, the live flames like licks of fire. A sign, small and simple, hangs below one of the lamps.

  The Pearl.

  A restaurant?

  I catch a whiff of something delicious. Smoked meat.

  Smoked something.

  My stomach grumbles. It hits me that I’m suddenly hungry—ravenous—for the first time in days. Luckily, I’m in a foodie town. I read a lot about the incredible bar and restaurant scene during a teary Google search last night at The Holiday Inn Express in Harrisonburg. Seeing pictures of shrimp and grits, biscuits and craft cocktails, and fried chicken sandwiches made me feel the tiniest bit better.

  The tourists—and the traffic—disappear when, according to my GPS, I enter the South of Broad neighborhood. It’s leafy and beautiful, and it’s unlike any other place I’ve been. Antebellum mansions line either side of the street. Shutters and porches and enormous window boxes galore. Gardens teem with flowers and mossy fountains behind wrought iron gates.

  Somewhere in the distance, I hear the clomp of horse hooves.

  I’m more than a thousand miles from my life in small town New York. And while the distance is real, I feel like I’m even farther away than that. Like I’m on a different planet.

  It’s terrifying.

  If I’m being honest, it’s also a relief. I feel like I can breathe again down here.

  Longitude Lane is up on the right. My final destination.

  After my freakout during the proposal, I decided I needed to hit the pause button on my relationship with Ted. Take some time to myself after the whirlwind of the past three years. In that span, I’d met and moved in with Ted, published my dissertation, and gotten tenure in the English Department at the university where I teach. I haven’t had time to step back and process it all.

  I also haven’t had time to play around with that novel I’ve wanted to write. No matter how hard I try to quash it, the itch to write this damn thing won’t go away.

  So I’m taking that time now. I’m going to write, if only to prove to myself that the grass isn’t greener and that my life with Ted really is the right life. Then I’ll be ready to walk down the aisle. I’m probably just suffering from a classic case of burnout anyway. Some time away is just the ticket.

  Surprisingly, Ted was on board with the idea. We agreed to take a real break, which means we’re allowing each other to be with other people if that’s what we need.

  Part of me thinks it’s strange that the two of us agreed to such an arrangement. Especially considering the fact that Ted just tried to put a ring on my finger. But he’s clearly eager to give me as much space as possible. I want to give him space, too, after the way I reacted to his proposal.

  Besides. I want to spend my time in Charleston writing. Not hanging out with other men.

  “Go. Sow your wild oats,” Ted told me. “When you’re ready, come back to me wearing the ring.”

  His confidence soothed me a bit. At the end of the month, I will be ready. I will be wearing his ring.

  I will have it all.

  In the meantime, I’m going to enjoy my freedom. The day after the proposal, I called Julia Lassiter, one of my friends from graduate school. She’s a beautiful southern belle who comes from big Charleston money and has a raging crush on early twentieth century female British writers. In true Virginia Woolf fashion, she recently accepted an offer of a room of her own in Barcelona in exchange for teaching at a university there for the year. Ever since, she’s been bugging me to use her vacant carriage house in Charleston.

  “Get away from all those uptight Ivy Leaguers and come hang down south. Charleston’s kind of a wackadoo place. And I mean that as a compliment. It could be just the change of scenery you need to start that novel you know you need to write.”

  Julia was thrilled I finally took her up on the offer.

  Then I called my boss, the English Department Head. She was not happy with my emergency request for a sabbatical. But I was firm in my need for a break. There’s no way I could do my students justice right now. She finally relented when I convinced her my top notch TA, Christine, could handle my class load; Christine had agreed to take over until she has her baby at the end of October.

  So I’ve got almost four weeks to reset, recharge, and dabble in my book.

  I make the turn onto Longitude Lane.

  Right away, I slam on my brakes.

  “What the f—”

  A handful of humungous birds loiter in the middle of the alley like bored teenagers. They look like turkeys. Or maybe they’re geese? They peck at each other. Peck at the ground.

  One of them has the balls to look me in the eye for a full beat. Like I’m the one holding up traffic.

  I wait for them to move, but they don’t. I start to sweat. I mean, what the hell are you supposed to do when you encounter birds the size of beach balls in the middle of a city street?

  I consider honking my horn. But this little alley is nice. I half expect Scarlett O’Hara to come charging out of the house to my left, bottle of bourbon in one hand and a shotgun in the other, telling me she doesn’t give a damn if I’m tired and hot and cranky, people down here don’t honk.

  On to plan B. Maybe if I get out of the car—

  But then a man appears, saving me from what I’m sure would have devolved into a scene from The Birds.

  Not just any man.

  A shirtless one.

  A sexy, shirtless, tatted up man.

  I watch, my mouth going dry, as he strides out into the street, his broad back to me. He shoos away the birds with one arm, urging them to the other side of the alley.

  He is barefoot.

  The sting of cigar smoke fills my nostrils.

  “Don’t be a dick, Dolores,” he says, pointing to the only white bird in the group. “I know you understand what I’m sayin’. Get! I told you to stay out of the street. You wanna end up roadkill? Huh?”

  He’s got a southern accent. More velvety than the guy’s on the radio. I feel that velvet on the underside of my sternum. My heart brushes up against it, purring at the sudden softness.

  The birds finally meander to the sidewalk. Then the man turns to look at me. Our eyes lock.

  I swear to God my normal bodily functions skid to a dead stop. Even my eyes stop blinking.

  He is gorgeous. In a scruffy way. He rocks a full beard. Dark, graphic tattoos. His dark hair is wet, like he just got out of the shower, and long enough to be held back by one of those elastic headband things I’ve only ever seen hot European soccer players wear.

  The stub of a cigar is clamped between his teeth. He squints his eyes—they’re hazel, more green than brown—against the smoke.

  He clearly works out. Thick torso and shoulders, shapely waist. Forearms so sinewy and perfect they make me want to die a little.

  The definition of a BILF. Beard I’d like to fuck.

  They do not make men like this in small town New York.

  He holds a mug of what I assume is coffee in one hand, even though it’s almost dinnertime. I get the feeling he’s just starting his day. What does he do?

  He holds up the other hand to me.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am,” he says around
the cigar. Shit, now I’m looking at his lips. His full, expressive lips. “Damn fowl are always causin’ trouble.”

  Ah. So they are fowl, not geese.

  (Like I’d know the difference. But still.)

  Leaning out the window a little, I say, “No problem. About the, uh, fowls. Fowl. Heh.” I resist the urge to grimace. When was the last time I got flustered around a guy? I’m thirty-two years old, damn it. “Thank you.”

  “Anytime.”

  I watch him make his way to the house on my right. All the while blinking back a strong sense of where the fuck am I? A half-naked guy with a hot accent just saved me from some fowl in the street. He seemed unmiffed about it. Like this kind of thing happens all the time on Longitude Lane.

  Maybe it does. Maybe wild birds and wilder men are common in Charleston.

  If so, this is going to be an interesting four weeks.

  Chapter Two

  Olivia

  BILF climbs the steps to his house. It’s small and old but, from what I can see of it, spectacular. Glossy black doors. Gas lamps. Ivy climbing up one wall.

  Before he opens the door, he glances in my direction again. His gaze—it’s got this intensity. This unabashed pointedness he’s totally aware of.