Hamptons Heartbreak: A Sizzling Summer Romance (A New York City Romance Book 4) Read online

  HAMPTONS HEARTBREAK

  A New York City ROMANCE

  Tara Leigh

  Contents

  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

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  EPILOGUE 1

  EPILOGUE 2

  BOOKS BY TARA LEIGH

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Vivienne

  “Sweetie!” I’m pulled forward into my mom’s enthusiastic embrace before I can offer any resistance, every muscle in my body clenching at her tight hold.

  I don’t want to be here right now. In fact, I’d rather be anywhere else.

  My father arrives a moment later, his booming baritone frightening a pair of robins nesting under the eaves and sending them skyward in a frantic flutter of wings. “Welcome back! How was traffic? That construction right off the exit can really slow things down. Sometimes cars are backed up all the way—”

  She swats gently at him. “Hon, Vivienne is home. We don’t need to worry about road conditions.” Glancing over my shoulder, I see her brows knit with confusion at the empty driveway. “Where is this mysterious boyfriend of yours? I can’t wait to meet him.”

  My stomach twists. Richard and I decided that my parent’s anniversary party was the perfect opportunity for him to meet them. He was supposed to be here with me, and I thought it was a step in the right direction for us.

  Now . . . there is no us.

  There is only the rental car I parked across the street, which is practically bursting with everything I own.

  “Ah, he’s not—I don’t think—”

  After a few awkward moments, understanding smooths the disappointed creases running across my mother’s forehead. “Maybe another time then.”

  I manage a jerky nod. “Yeah. Another time.”

  “Let me help with your things,” my father says, jumping in.

  I lift the small overnight bag in my hand. “No need. I’m all set.”

  He suppresses a frown. If there’s such a thing as past-lives, I’m convinced my father was once a Sherpa. He’s always happiest when he’s carrying groceries or suitcases or simply moving enormous pots of flowers around the backyard. “Well, all right then. Let’s get you inside.”

  I cast a last, longing look down the street for a man I know isn’t coming, or maybe for the life I’ve somehow lost. Yesterday, I had my dream job, lived in an amazing apartment, and was wildly in love with a man who made me feel like the luckiest girl in the world.

  Today I’m jobless, homeless, and single.

  Neither of my parents have any idea that I’m not just here for the night, or even the weekend. The prospect of moving back into my childhood bedroom feels like admitting failure. It is admitting failure. But I don’t have a choice.

  I step inside their house, postponing the conversation I know I need to have. Tomorrow is soon enough. “What time are you expecting everyone?”

  My mom checks her watch. As an event planner, she approaches every party like a general going to war. “About forty-three minutes. The invite said seven, but I’m sure the Russells will be here at least ten minutes early, and the Millers will arrive just afterward. Everyone else should be here by half-past.”

  Pausing, her eyes skim over my messy bun, frayed jean shorts, and the tank top I slept in last night. As she does, a thought bubble takes shape over her head, the question clearly visible. You’re not wearing that, are you?

  I save her the trouble. “I’ll just go get cleaned up. Be down in a bit.”

  The stairs creak in all the same spots I remember from years ago, the polished wooden bannister warm and familiar beneath my hand. Nothing in this house has changed.

  Nothing except for me.

  The doorbell rings just after I slip into the living room. While my parents greet their first guests—the Russells and Millers, I’m sure—I head for the bar arranged on a sideboard spanning the length of the far wall. It’s styled to perfection, of course. Apothecary jars filled with bright, unblemished lemons, lit candles flickering from mercury glass votives, and neatly labeled decanters of liquor and mixers. Before influencers on Instagram (before Instagram, actually) raked in thousands for turning their homes into product placement ads, my mother mastered the art of precisely organized closets and enticing tablescapes.

  It’s probably where I got my love for interior design. Our house isn’t very big, or particularly fancy, but it is always inviting and elegant. There’s a place for everything and everything in its place.

  It’s perfect. On the surface, at least.

  I fill a highball glass with ice and vodka, adding cranberry juice more for color than anything else. The strong cocktail splashes over my lips and down my throat, leaving a welcome burn behind.

  At the sound of footsteps falling on hardwood floors, I make a last-minute decision to take my cocktail to the pantry, a small alcove tucked between the living room and kitchen. I could pretend I’m just checking out my mother’s impeccably curated collection of snacks, staples, and sparkling appliances.

  But that would be a lie. The truth is, I’m hiding. Not from my parents, or their friends—most of whom I’ve known since I was riding around the neighborhood on a hot-pink ten-speed with skinned knees and a mouth full of braces. It’s their questions I’m avoiding. How’s your job? Where’s your boyfriend? What are your plans for the summer?

  On second thought, maybe it’s my own answers I’m avoiding. What job? What boyfriend? Your guess is as good as mine.

  The bell rings a few more times, more voices joining the chorus now assembled in the living room. When there’s nothing left in my glass but ice, I exhale a resigned sigh and open the door of my hiding place.

  “There you are. I was about to go looking for you.”

  “Savannah!” For the first time since arriving home, a genuine pulse of joy flares inside my veins. Savannah grew up just down the street, the two of us practically inseparable until we left for college. “Oh my God, what are you doing here?” I wrap my arms around Savannah’s back and squeeze. We both live and work in Manhattan, but I don’t see my oldest friend nearly as much as I’d like. As a research assistant for a true crime writer, her schedule is almost impossible to pin down.

  But I’m just as much to blame. I get absorbed in my work, too. Buried u
nder fabric swatches and wallpaper samples and furniture catalogs. Sometimes the rooms I’m imagining feel more real to me than the ones I’m in.

  “I stopped by Mom and Dad’s on my way out east for the weekend. They said your parents were having a party and that you would be here, too, so I decided to crash.” She adds the last bit with an irreverent smirk, knowing she’s always welcome. “I called you a few times today, but you never answered.”

  My shoulders drop, a wedge of tension settling between them. “It’s a long story.”

  “I’ve got all night.” She glances down at my glass. “What are you drinking?”

  “Too much. But I need another.” I pour more vodka into my glass, although this time I fill it halfway with club soda.

  Savannah selects a Chardonnay from the half-dozen bottles carefully arranged in a silver ice bucket. “So, this long story—I’m guessing it begins with Richard?”

  I nod, rattling the ice in my glass and taking a quick sip. “It ends with him, too. We’re over.”

  Savannah blinks, but I don’t see a trace of surprise on her face. “Will that make things awkward for you at work?”

  I work for Richard’s mother in the design firm his parents own, Abbott Interiors. Well, worked. The company is a true family affair. His father is an architect, and his mother is an interior designer. Richard manages the office, which includes several other architects and designers as well as support staff.

  When Richard and I started dating a couple of years ago, we kept our relationship a secret. I insisted on it, actually. I didn’t want things to be weird in the office, or for his parents to think I used my position to get close to their son.

  The Abbotts are old money Manhattan aristocrats, their name spoken in the same breath as Astor, Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, and Morgan. Unfortunately, by the time it was their turn to inherit, most of their wealth was gone. Lost to generations of mismanagement and overspending.

  Abbott Interiors was born of necessity, a way to capitalize on their network of high-society friends and natural talents. To their credit, Anne and Erik have been incredibly successful, building a business from the ashes of their greatest embarrassment.

  I clear my throat, take another slug of vodka. “That’s over, too.” And I had loved my job. Abbott Interiors’ clients are among the wealthiest individuals in the city, with enormous budgets and a sky’s-the-limit approach to design. Luxe fabrics, priceless art, custom lighting, hand-crafted furniture. Working for them was a dream come true. “I walked away from it all. Richard, Abbott Interiors, even—”

  Savannah’s features pinch together in a horrified wince. “No. Not the brownstone?”

  One of Abbott’s latest projects is the gut renovation of a six-story brownstone. After a pipe in the fourth floor burst, destroying nearly six months of work and six hundred thousand dollars of custom cabinetry and woodwork, the client insisted that someone live there during construction. I volunteered, using the money I saved on rent to pay off the last of my school loans.

  I nod morosely. “Turned in my keys, along with my phone and laptop. That’s why I didn’t get your calls.”

  Savannah and I wade through the sea of my parents’ friends and neighbors, eventually making it out to the backyard. It’s clear my mom expects the party to spill out here, too. Gently glowing Edison bulbs are strung between trees and exterior beams, and smaller fairy lights glitter from inside lanterns scattered around the patio.

  Out of habit, we walk to a back corner of the yard, to the tire swing suspended from the sprawling branches of an old oak tree wider than the two of us put together. It’s darker here, but the shadows feel comforting. Savannah and I have spent hundreds of hours in this swing, and we manage to get into it without spilling a single drop of our drinks.

  “Even I might have put up with Richard to live in that brownstone. What happened, Viv?”

  Savannah has never been a fan of Richard. No surprise, though. Her taste in boyfriends is eclectic, to say the least. Starving artists, tatted bikers, burly construction workers. If a man owns a suit, he’s immediately disqualified.

  “Anne was in talks with a potential client about their new oceanfront estate in the Hamptons and she asked if I wanted to run lead on the project if we were hired. I said yes, of course. She sent out a firm-wide email announcing the date of our upcoming pitch, what we needed to put together, and my expanded role.”

  “That’s amazing. Good for you.”

  “It would have been. I never got to see the house or find out who the clients were.” I ease the tightness in my throat with a gulp of my drink. “Richard responded, questioning whether I was the right person to represent the Abbott brand on such a high-profile project.”

  “Ouch,” Savannah says with a groan. “But how did you . . . ?”

  “He accidentally hit REPLY ALL. Everyone in the firm saw what he thinks of me.”

  “Idiot.”

  “It was humiliating. At first, I thought it was Richard’s knee-jerk reaction to finding out I’d be spending so much time away from him this summer. Kind of a caveman ‘I can’t live without you’ move.”

  “Caveman?” Savannah scoffs. “More like selfish, self-absorbed narcissist.”

  “That too.” I shake my glass, ice cubes rattling as a heavy sigh leaves my lungs. “Anyway, I told him that I didn’t appreciate him sabotaging my career for his own reasons. That if he was upset about me taking on a project outside of the city, we needed to talk about it. Come up with a plan for our future together.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Not much.” I can’t bear to tell Savannah the truth.

  That Richard had laughed. As if the idea of us having a future together—or at least him having a future with me was so far-fetched as to be ridiculous.

  And that’s when I realized that, although it had been my idea to keep our relationship under wraps, Richard had never once suggested otherwise. That horrid email, the jarring sound of his laugh, had finally ripped the adoring curtain from my eyes, allowing me to see Richard for who he really is. Not charming, but condescending. Not poised, but pompous.

  Richard was just stringing me along. Waiting until someone better came along, preferably someone with blood as blue as his own and plenty of green in her bank account. I was never his girlfriend; I was an employee he happened to be sleeping with.

  Looking back, I’m not sure he ever cared about me. I was just . . . convenient.

  “To hell with Richard. He’s a dick—pun intended,” Savannah mutters. “And you deserve better.”

  A noncommittal sound makes its way out of my mouth. “Either way, my job with Abbott is going to be pretty tough to top.”

  “You are crazy talented, Viv. You’ll find something else—something great—in a heartbeat.”

  I lob an appreciative smile her way. “It might take a little longer than that. And longer still for another Hamptons project or Upper East Side brownstone. In fact,” I finish the last of my drink and gesture toward the patio, “I think this will be my view for a while. I’m going to ask my parents if I can stay with them until I figure things out.”

  “If you just need a place to crash, you know you can stay with me.”

  “Thanks, Savvy. But I think I need more than just a few nights on your couch.” I explain my precarious financial situation. How I’d been so certain Richard would ask me to live with him after the brownstone was finished and the owners moved back in that I hadn’t kept enough in savings to afford the requisite first and last month’s rent, plus security deposit, for anything decent. “It’s going to take me a while to get my life together. At least a couple of months. Maybe the whole summer.”

  Her face transforms with a mischievous smile, her eyes lighting up with an idea. “Nope. You’re spending your summer in the Hamptons with me.”

  I choke on a sliver of an ice cube. “Please. I can’t even afford a shack in the Hamptons right now.”

  “You don’t have to! I went in on a weekend summer share
house, and apparently, the person they hired to live there full-time to take care of things quit. As far as I know, they haven’t found anyone else to replace her yet.”

  “Wait—that’s a job? Living in the Hamptons all summer long, rent-free, to take care of a house that’s mostly empty?”

  “Pretty much. And isn’t that almost exactly what you were doing in Manhattan?”

  Savannah has a point. “Okay, explain things to me. I’ve never stayed in a share house as a guest, let alone a caretaker.”

  “There’s not much to explain. Someone gets a bunch of people together, collects a set amount from each of them, and rents a house for the summer. Each person is considered a share.” Savannah lifts a hand to make air quotes. “Most of the houses have someone living there full-time, rent-free, to take care of anything that comes up—no one wants to show up on Friday night, ready to party, and have to deal with an air conditioner on the fritz, or dirty pool, or garbage that hasn’t been taken out.”

  “Makes sense, I guess.” I pause, letting it sink in. “I could get a second job too while I’m out there, right? One with an actual paycheck?”

  “Of course. You won’t be chained to the house, Viv. You can come and go as you please, as long as you’re there when you need to be.”

  “Who are the other shares?”