OUR LAST FIRST KISS
Heartbreak Hotel Book 1
By Christie Ridgway
Also Available
Our Last First Kiss (Heartbreak Hotel Book 1)
Me and Mr. Jones (Heartbreak Hotel Book 2), Coming soon!
Almost Wonderful (Almost Book 1)
Almost Always (Almost Book 2)
Almost Everything (Almost Book 3)
Almost Paradise (Almost Book 4)
Take Me Tender (Billionaire’s Beach Book 1)
Take Me Forever (Billionaire’s Beach Book 2)
Take Me Home (Billionaire’s Beach Book 3)
The Scandal (Billionaire’s Beach Book 4)
The Seduction (Billionaire’s Beach Book 5)
The Secret (Billionaire’s Beach Book 6)
One Look (One & Only Book 1)
One Kiss (One & Only Book 2)
One Night (One & Only Book 3)
One Love (One & Only Book 4)
Light My Fire (Rock Royalty Book 1)
Love Her Madly (Rock Royalty Book 2)
Break on Through (Rock Royalty Book 3)
Touch Me (Rock Royalty Book 4)
Wishful Sinful (Rock Royalty Book 5)
Wild Child (Rock Royalty Book 6)
Who Do You Love (Rock Royalty Book 7)
Love Me Two Times (Rock Royalty Book 8)
Make Him Wild (Intoxicating Book 1)
Make Him Want (Intoxicating Book 2)
Make Him Stay (Intoxicating Book 3)
OUR LAST FIRST KISS
Welcome to the famed resort, The Hathaway at Dragonfly Beach, where newlyweds come to honeymoon, where anniversary couples celebrate milestones, and where broken hearts find a place to heal.
After her best friend is jilted at the altar, maid of honor Lilly Durand whisks the bride to Dragonfly Beach and its legendary hotel, determined to help her overcome her misery. Lilly won’t admit it, but she’s hurting too. During the few days of pre-wedding festivities, a powerful attraction had grown between her and the handsome and confident best man, Alec Thatcher. Now she’ll never see him again, but she’s decided to consider that a good thing. This way her inconvenient crush can’t turn into something so dangerous as love. But then, to her dismay, she discovers Alec is just a room key away at what some call the Heartbreak Hotel.
Alec Thatcher doesn’t have the time or inclination for long-term romance. Serial dating has suited his confirmed-bachelor status just fine—until he meets Lilly Durand and his world turns on its axis. She claims to be as relationship-averse as he, but when the two of them are together he can’t recall his own reasons against commitment. Though Lilly touches his heart and soul, she’s as cautious as she is sexy. With a stubborn streak a mile long, Alec will have to exert all his powers of persuasion to give Lilly her last first kiss...
OUR LAST FIRST KISS
Heartbreak Hotel Book 1
© Copyright 2018 Christie Ridgway
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
ISBN: 9781939286420
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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Chapter 1
“Maybe we should check into a nunnery instead,” Lilly Durand murmured, taking in the tropical-hued walls, lush greenery, and colorful Moorish-tiled floor of the resort’s indoor/outdoor reception area. Where nuns are dressed in somber black and speak in papery whispers to match our bleak moods.
“What’s that?” her best friend Audra Montgomery asked dully, her gaze vague. She seemed unaware of their surroundings as her fingers plucked idly at the hem of the yoga hoodie half-covering the white lace of the wedding dress she wore. The edges of its short train already appeared tattered.
Lilly placed her fingertips at her temples and contemplated the short check-in line for the famed Santa Barbara hotel, The Hathaway at Dragonfly Beach. Rather than taking her place behind other would-be guests, she continued to hesitate, now yanking on the sleeves of the sweatshirt she wore over her silk organza maid-of-honor gown. Pretty sequined shoes pinched her toes and she decided perhaps one good thing had come out of this disaster—there wasn’t a night of dancing ahead of her in the misery-making heels.
Suddenly, a frisson of awareness feathered down her spine. Her back shot straight and then a wash of heat cascaded over her flesh, prickling all the tiny hairs. It was an unwelcome sensation she’d become familiar with over the past few days, but surely there wasn’t the same cause of it. Not now. Not here.
Pulse tripping, she took a cautious glance around the lobby. Through an archway she could see an elegant lagoon-styled pool in the distance, surrounded by lounge chairs and gently waving palm trees. Over her other shoulder, she caught a glimpse of a courtyard with tables and chairs surrounding a bubbling fountain. Visitors dressed in expensive resort-wear. Employees in starched white shirts and dark slacks bustling about. No tall, athletic figure lurked nearby, upsetting her equilibrium with his confident charm and roguish grin.
Another positive outcome of the disaster, she thought, briskly rubbing her arms to dissipate the goose bumps that invariably followed that rush of heat—she’d put distance between herself and that man.
The assertion didn’t ease the sense of foreboding that seemed to hover over her, though. Lilly decided to chalk it up to the emotional rollercoaster they’d been through that day, but it didn’t stop her from taking an additional wary look about. Across the space, in a huge mirror in an ornately carved frame on the opposite side of the room, she saw her and Audra’s reflections. Even with her face paler than usual, the other woman’s delicate beauty was undeniable. Her champagne-blonde up-do and the pale blue of her eyes gave her the look of a graceful flower in a meticulously planned and very well-tended garden—an iris, perhaps.
On the other hand, Lilly, with her unruly dark hair, blue-black eyes, and pink-cheeked complexion was the brash, stubborn weed that managed to grow between the cracks in a neglected sidewalk.
Despite their contrasting appearances—and all their other differences—they’d been fast friends since their first week in college. Audra
