Romeo: A Payne Brothers Romance

  Romeo

  A Payne Brothers Romance

  Sosie Frost

  Romeo

  A Payne Brothers Romance

  Copyright © 2019 by Sosie Frost

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

  without the express written permission of the publisher

  except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  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 you’d like to share it with. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  Cover Design: Pink Ink Designs

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Romeo - Sosie Frost

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Epilogue

  Also by Sosie Frost

  About the Author

  Romeo - Sosie Frost

  Quint Payne is the sort of troublemaker who makes a girl fall head over heels…

  Right into his bed.

  Rumor has it he can unclasp a bra with a flash of his dimpled smile, and he keeps a collection of trophy panties big enough to rival a Victoria Secret. He’s all fun with no commitments, promising a woman the night of her life if doesn’t have to be there in the morning.

  Quint is the man of my dreams…

  So, pinch me. I wanna wake up.

  It’s bad enough having feelings for a gorgeous player, but keeping a secret crush on the sworn enemy of my family?

  That’s some terrible, small-town luck.

  When Quint approaches me with a plan to end the feud destroying our two families, it’s a perfect opportunity to steel my heart against the sexy bad boy.

  My family says no Payne boy is good enough for a Barlow girl, but they don’t know my Romeo…

  Unfortunately for me, Quint Payne believes I’m his perfect Juliet.

  It was so easy to fall into love.

  How hard could it possibly be to fall out of it?

  1

  Lady

  Was there any easy way to say I love you?

  Just use your mouth, my sister, Contessa, had insisted. Hell, you don’t even have to talk.

  Easier said than done. Especially if Regent, my other sister, was right when she claimed women just wanted to be easily done.

  Far be it from me to critique their sound advice, but I believed confessing any sort of romantic feelings for a man required a bit more finesse and a lot less fornicating.

  Sure, I was old-fashioned. Or maybe my eldest sister, Duchess, knew best when she labeled me a prude.

  But a girl had two choices when it came to love.

  Deny it forever.

  Or rip away those feelings like an old Band-Aid.

  Well, denying my attraction to Quint Payne had done diddly-squat for me, my self-confidence, and every failing relationship I’d had with any other guy.

  Maybe it was time to admit the truth.

  I mean…how much damage could an earth-shattering, life-altering, utterly ridiculous declaration of stupidity really cause?

  “Quint, I’m not sure how to say this…” The words slipped from my lips. Practiced. Succinct. With all the eloquence of a girl choking on her own idiocy. “I think I’m in love with you.”

  I braced for impact.

  But…the sky didn’t fall. The ground hadn’t swallowed me whole. In fact, the universe remained relatively unchanged.

  I’d survived. Who would’ve thought?

  For such a dramatic and potentially catastrophic confession, my heart had taken a beating, but it wasn’t broken.

  As far as first attempts went, I could only do better if I’d actually voiced the words to the man himself.

  Until then, I had the entire produce section of Barlow’s Market, my family’s grocery store, to myself for additional practice.

  The vegetables were as fresh as they were sympathetic. Maybe I wasn’t ready to confront the man I loved, but a dozen, neatly arranged heads of cauliflower were eager to accept my declared affections.

  Nutritious and devoted listeners. If only we stocked copies of Cosmo and boxes of wine on the end-cap displays.

  The grocery store sat silent—the aisles freshly waxed, fruit neatly piled, carts polished and, for the first time in years, free of all squeaky wheels. The customers waited for my family to cut the ceremonial ribbon before bursting inside. In traditional Barlow fashion, my brothers had substituted links of store-made smoked sausage for the traditional ribbon. They’d be expecting me back by the time the links were cut and the grills preheated, but I’d slipped away for a few moments of mission-critical self-reflection.

  Was it love?

  Was it lust?

  Was it simple stupidity?

  Was it just me talking to vegetables?

  Grandma always warned with a tap of her temple that the touch often skipped a generation in our family. I believed her. I must have been crazy to even consider telling that man how I felt.

  Hell, it was crazier to think that I was in love.

  Sure, I’d fawned over him since grade school. Yes, I’d left town for the past two years hoping to get him out of my head. And no, I hadn’t found another man who could ever measure up to his standards.

  But he was Quint Payne.

  Who wouldn’t be attracted to a guy like Quint? Every girl considered biting that forbidden fruit just to see how far she’d fall. He had a perfectly lean and athletic body. Roguish green eyes. Cherry-popping dimples.

  But did that mean I was in love with him?

  Those three little words were far too important to stammer on a hunch, especially when it’d likely be a most humiliating confession.

  But…

  Sometimes the truth was both embarrassing and terrifying. Wasn’t that what made saying those words the best experience of a lifetime?

  It wasn’t worth falling in love if it meant my heart couldn’t be broken as easily as it could be made whole.

  Some girls tumbled head over heels. I cratered into the ground.

  To avoid any further bruising of my pride, it was best to practice.

  “I don’t know when it happened, but I think I’ve always had feelings for you.”

  There. That was a vague enough revelation that could fundamentally change the course of my life.

  I sighed. Eventually, I’d rearrange all the phrases and words into some sort of concoction that wouldn’t feel so awkward. Saying I love you was like the world’s worst jigsaw puzzle, except I didn’t have the bowl of popcorn or Alexa blasting retro eighties music to help spice up my Saturday nights.

  The cauliflower gave me confidence, but I decided to try my speech on the pile of chili peppers awaiting the first of our returning customers. I wasn’t sure what the town of Butterpond had done while our store was closed these past three weeks—though the wo
rd famine had encroached on many people’s vocabularies.

  Rumor had it that since the county went dry, the library had become an unspoken black market for the town’s own brand of moonshine, the Rebel Yell. Since no one ever actually used the library, it offered cover for both the distillery and a new clandestine operation. Without an opened market, Butterpond craved deli meats. A few brave souls had traveled to Ironfield, but cold cuts demanded cold, hard cash. Sandwiches were in contentious supply. A fight had broken out at the municipal meeting over a turkey club.

  Times were worse than usual for Butterpond.

  I peeked at myself in the angled mirrors above the produce. Even my reflection rolled her eyes.

  What was I doing?

  I wasn’t the kind of girl who ever approached a guy. My look was somewhere between wait-my-glasses-are-smudged and I-have-an-overdue-library-book-but-I’m-pretending-that-I-don’t-care. Bookish wasn’t always a bad thing though. My skin was an envious satin cocoa, my waist slim, and my skirt showing a bit of leg.

  Well. Knees.

  I unfastened the top button of my blouse, revealing a hint of dark cleavage that had only developed after high school.

  Nope. Too slutty.

  I re-buttoned it.

  Best to look presentable, not presumptuous.

  I’d already spent a better part of the morning flat-ironing my hair and even more time attempting to master winged eyeliner. After an hour of watching YouTube tutorials and wasting half a jar of makeup remover on do-overs, I’d cat-eyed myself into absolute sensuality.

  Then covered it with my dark-rimmed glasses.

  But it provided a hint of self-assurance. The crisp white blouse was practical and complimented my chocolate skin. The pleated crimson skirt commanded respect.

  And beneath it all?

  I’d slipped on my only thong.

  And if I could get the lace out of a very delicate crevice, I might have been able to concentrate on my speech.

  “I wanted to tell you that…we might be good together, I think,” I said.

  Nope. That sounded terrible. The apples agreed. So much for seeking inspiration from the fruit that represented lust.

  Though now they seemed to represent Quality Produce at Insane Prices!

  With Mom and Dad off starting the new franchises in Colorado, my brother, Duke, had decided to reinvent Barlow’s Market from a mere grocery store into a destination.

  This included squeezing a full-sized covered wagon through the doors, knocking out a newly installed fire-suppression system, and meticulously stacking produce in wooden crates around the display. Duke had also crammed a wishing well into the pharmacy, a sculpted chocolate cherub beside the checkouts, and opened a food demonstration station next to my sisters’ bakery section. All yesterday, the store smelled of muddy straw, powdered sugar, and burnt fettuccine alfredo.

  The smell of progress, Duke had said.

  Wait until they smell the lobsters, his twin, Marquis, warned.

  The only problem? Most Butterpond residents preferred Kraft Singles to artisan cheeses. And no one needed wild boar from our new dry-aged charcuterie when they could take home a perfectly good groundhog they’d smacked with their Chevy. But since Mom and Dad had passed the business to Duke, he wanted the market to be his own. Our quality reflected that.

  So did our prices.

  “This might be out of the blue,” I said. “But I have feelings for you.”

  Apparently, this attempt was brought to me by the Doctor Suess book of love, Horton Hears a Hoe.

  This was ridiculous. Especially when it didn’t matter in the end. Not like we’d have any kind of future together.

  I was a Barlow. He was a Payne. And my family only had two rules.

  #1 – To conduct ourselves with dignity

  And…

  #2 – To never associate with those who did not

  Rule number two didn’t apply to many people. Just one family in particular.

  The Paynes.

  Practicing what I meant to tell Quint was silly. If I really believed I was in love, I needed to first figure out what to tell my family. At least after that revelation, they’d be the ones shipping my butt overseas to Europe instead of doing their best to keep me at home in Butterpond.

  I’d never realized how literal a crush could be. The truth squished and contorted and scrunched deep inside me, bludgeoned by my own heart and smooshed by the weight of the truth. It wasn’t comfortable. It wasn’t logical. It wasn’t even kind.

  And yet everyone acted as though falling in love was some sort of miracle.

  I didn’t know any miracle that turned palms sweaty, stomachs queasy, and forced a girl to talk to vegetables to practice her pickup lines.

  A sudden crackle squealed from the PA system, one late nineties ballad away from an electrical fire. Duke’s voice rang over the store.

  “Welcome to the grand reopening—no, the reinvention—of Barlow’s Market!” The sound system turned his baritone into a tenor. “Let me be the first to say…price check on register three!”

  The microphones garbled everything except the low groans of our awaiting customers.

  I gently stacked a tomato atop its rightful pyramid and backed away from the case before I upset the brand-new price labels across the bins. I hoped the streamers and balloons were temporary. We’d exhaust the state’s supply of helium if Duke planned to keep the festivities running longer than the weekend. At least we knew how to party. Duke and Marquis had arranged for face-painters, my sisters had baked a record-sized two-hundred-pound pound cake, and today marked the return of Mystery Market, the free-for-all in the bargain bin which priced all cans without a label at twenty-five cents.

  Butterpond’s enthusiasm for discounted canned peas and dented cat food never ceased to amaze me.

  Duke entertained—or detailed—the customers at the front of the store. He chattered over the crowd, regaling them with a teaser for what was to come at the end of the grand tour: the state-of-the-art lobster tank that would transform Butterpond from backwoods to gourmand faster than we could boil a pot of water.

  I ignored the festivities, searching for the fruit that would let me say the ideal words to grant me the perfect romance.

  The pears weren’t sweet enough. Lemons far too sour.

  My gaze fell on the cherries.

  Nope. That was my fruit. And I was getting way ahead of myself.

  “I want to thank all of our wonderful patrons for supporting us through this terrible time,” my brother said. He’d practiced his speech on us yesterday. That I could memorize. “With your help, we’ve turned this old family business from a market into a community!”

  I crossed to the next bin and jumped away as my hand grazed the biggest, thickest, most thoroughly obscene eggplant the market had ever put up for sale.

  Perfect.

  If I wanted to confess these feelings for him, I had to admit the truth. Quint had developed a rather scandalous reputation since I’d left town. Polite women called him gregarious with the ladies. Grandma had a different opinion.

  Skirt chaser, she’d say.

  Philanderer, she’d mutter.

  Who are we talking about again…she’d ask?

  It made my feelings for him even harder to comprehend. Especially as our store suddenly stocked a wide range of lewd, phallic vegetables.

  Cucumbers? Obscene.

  Acorn squash? We sold this to children.

  Carrots? That was a whole bag of repression.

  I checked over my shoulder before squeezing the eggplant. “Wanna bang? End this ridiculous crush once and for all?”

  The words mortified me, but it would be easier to bare my breasts than my heart.

  My brother’s speech shamed me away from the veggies. After a round of applause, he turned his attention to the crowd.

  “Mayor Desmond, care to say a few words?”

  I checked my phone. If he took the mic, I’d have another half hour to myself. Mayor Desmond ne
ver missed a chance to speak, stump, or steal votes, especially during an election season when it was my family’s tush he had to kiss.

  He seized the microphone and cleared his throat. “Cleanup on aisle five—” He chuckled. “No, no. I’m only joshing. I have always wanted to say that, but I think I am a few weeks too late. Duke, this market looks amazing. It goes to show how a little hard work and ingenuity can solve problems, rejuvenate a community, and absolutely mend the fabric of our town.” His voice rose. “So, this November, when you’re heading to the polls…”

  I snatched the nearest fruit. A watermelon—just as vibrantly green as his eyes and every bit as sweet as the rest of him.

  “Where’s the family?” Mayor Desmond called over the store, squealing the PA system. “I see Marquis over there. And there’s the triple threat—the lovely Duchess, Contessa, and Regent. All three girls, hard at work in the bakery—I can smell the sugar from here, ladies! And where’s grandma? Ah, there she is. Agatha Barlow, you must be so proud of your grandchildren, coming together after that horrible vandalism—”

  The only thing Grandma disliked more than a public spectacle was false platitudes. And, mayor or not, she declared her displeasure with a swat of her cane.

  The crack echoed from the front of the store.

  So did Desmond’s yelp.

  I lifted the watermelon, balancing the heft in both hands.

  “Anyone ever tell you that you’ve got some great melons?”

  That playful, peppery-spiced voice could paralyze, energize…

  Traumatize.

  My stomach raced to the floor. My feet tripped over it. I squealed, dropping the melon. The fruit split, and a deluge of red, sticky pulp exploded over the tiles, splattering us in squishy flesh and seeds.