If I Loved You Less (Pemberley House #2) Read online

  If I Loved You Less

  Pemberley House, Book Two

  Noelle Adams

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

  Copyright © 2019 by Noelle Adams. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  About If I Loved You Less

  About the Series

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from Loved None But You

  About Noelle Adams

  About If I Loved You Less

  SHE'S NOT SUPPOSED to think he's hot.

  Em has known Ward Knightley all her life, and she's never thought he was hot before. He's always been only a family friend—thirteen years older than her and far too bossy. He gives her brotherly advice and lectures her when she does something silly, and the rest of the time he just laughs at her. Sure, he's smart and handsome and funny and kind. But he's not hot.

  He's really not.

  He's not supposed to be anyway. But once Em starts seeing him in a new way, she can't think about him the way she did before. She's usually good at arranging the world around her. She helps her friends find jobs and romantic partners, and she always has herself under control. But nothing is controlled about the way she now wants Ward as so much more than a family friend.

  If only he didn't still think about her as a little girl.

  Pemberley House is a series of modern reimaginings of Jane Austen novels, and the books are set in a historic mansion in Virginia that has been converted into condos. If I Loved You Less is loosely inspired by Emma.

  About the Series

  EACH BOOK IN THE PEMBERLEY House series is inspired by a particular Jane Austen novel, but the books aren’t not Austen retellings. They are original contemporary romance novels featuring characters with (mostly) modern sensibility—including language and ideas about sex. I want to be clear about that from the beginning so you aren’t surprised or disappointed as you read.

  You will find echoes of Austen’s characters and pivotal plot moments in these books, but most of the themes, secondary characters, and scenes from the Jane Austen’s novels do not appear in the Pemberley House series. There have been wonderful true retellings of Austen written in the past twenty years, but these are not those books. The most you will find here are echoes and reflections.

  I haven’t kept the main characters’ names the same as an indication of this fact. Either of the first name or the last name of the main characters are different. And some of my characters take the place of more than one of Austen’s characters. (Riot Berkley, for instance, is acting for at least three of Austen’s characters in three different books.) Some of Austen’s characters don’t appear in my books at all. And Austen’s themes are not my themes—with very few exceptions. But if you love Austen, I hope you’ll find some fun echoes and reflections in the Pemberley House series and enjoy these books for what they are.

  One

  EM WOODSON HAD SPENT most of her twenty-six years arranging the world as she liked.

  She’d done so with a remarkable degree of success.

  Her mother had walked out when Em was a toddler, but her father was rich, indulgent, and completely devoted to her, so she’d never felt the lack of a parent. Growing up, she’d gotten almost anything she wanted as long as her requests didn’t include traveling or leaving her father for more than one night. She was smart and reasonably attractive and good with people, so she could usually convince others to go along with her plans.

  She didn’t consider herself spoiled. In fact, she went out of her way to help others whenever she could. She was simply good at managing her world and the people around her, and she didn’t think anything was wrong with that.

  Her current project was Riot Berkley. Seven months ago, Em had decided that her two best friends’ little sister needed a mentor, and Em had elected herself to that position. Harriet Berkley (who’d nicknamed herself Riot in middle school and had never given the name up) was now Em’s constant shadow.

  And Em was starting to wonder if her world might have been simpler had she not gotten what she wanted in that regard.

  Riot could be a whiner. After several months of mentorship, the whining was starting to get old.

  “I prefer running,” Riot grumbled one evening, tucking a strand of her long, dark hair behind her ears. She was dressed in shiny purple leggings and a matching workout top. She was slim and pretty with china-doll features like her mother and her oldest sister, Jane. Riot was twenty-three and hadn’t accomplished anything in all that time except failing out of multiple college classes and nearly driving her family into bankruptcy by racking up debt.

  “Running is terrible on your knees,” Em said, walking the path that ran the perimeter of the Pemberley House property with long, fast strides. “If you walk fast enough, you can get the same cardio benefits as running but without all the damage to your joints.”

  “I don’t care about my joints.”

  Em shook her head, breathing evenly and trying to stamp down her impatience. Riot had been spoiled by a mother who couldn’t say no to her. Liz and Jane, her older sisters, had managed to grow into adulthood as mature and good-hearted people, and Em counted them as two of her three best friends. But Riot had succumbed to her mother’s overindulgence and was rather silly and immature. She was a lot better now than she’d been a year ago, however, so Em tried to focus on the progress instead of all the work that still needed to be done. “You’ll care about your joints when you’re fifty. Keep pace with me, and you’ll be surprised how much of a workout you’ll get. Or you can go back home if you’d rather.”

  Riot grumbled wordlessly, but she didn’t argue anymore. Being sent home meant going back to her parents’ house on Valley Street, and she wouldn’t want to do that if she could hang out at Pemberley House with her sisters and Em.

  Pemberley House had been built in Abingdon, Virginia, at the turn of the twentieth century by a millionaire named Edward Knightley, who’d wanted to cater to his new wife’s every whim. The mansion had been passed down through the Knightley family for more than a hundred years, but just over ten years ago, the Knightley heir had been forced to convert the building into twelve lovely condos since the estate had become a sinkhole that had swallowed up every cent the Knightleys had ever possessed. Em’s father had snapped up the best unit, and he and Em had lived there ever since.

  The grounds of the Pemberley House estate covered almost fifty acres and were surrounded by a tall stone wall. Em loved to walk the path along the perimeter, enjoying the well-kept gardens and the groves of mature trees. But Riot’s presence with her this evening—complete with huffing and puffing and stopping now and then to fix her hair or socks—distracted her from the quiet beauty of her surroundings.

  Em couldn’t complain. She was the one who’d invited Riot to join her. She hadn’t seen the girl all week, and she wanted to make sure Riot was still on track with everything they’d been working on.

  After about twenty minutes, she was afraid Riot was going to flop down on the grass and give up on the exercise, so Em distracted her with a question. “Have you started another painting?”

  Riot gasped raggedly and wiped some of th
e sweat from her face. She was naturally slender but not in very good shape. “Not yet.”

  “Why not? I thought you wanted to do a scene of Main Street.”

  “I did. I just haven’t gotten it started yet.”

  “Oh. I told you I’d talk to my friend at the gallery and find out if he’ll take a look at your paintings. But you need to have a number of them for him to see.”

  “I know. I’m gonna do them.”

  Em had decided when she’d first started to take an interest in Riot that the girl needed something constructive to pour her energies into. Early this year, Riot had spent other people’s money, pretending to be an expert in antiques, which seemed a clear sign to Em that she was looking for a worthwhile outlet. The girl had a terrible eye for antiques, so that was out of the question. But Em had discovered that Riot was very good with oil paints, so she’d been encouraging her to cultivate that talent in the hope that it might lead to a career.

  Everyone needed to contribute to the world.

  Since Em had no particular talents and couldn’t leave her needy father, she’d long ago decided her personal contribution would be helping the people around her. She’d created a position for herself as a reporter for the (struggling) local newspaper. She was paid almost nothing, but she didn’t need money to support herself. She mostly wanted something to do with her time. Riot needed to contribute in a different way, so Em had decided that art could be her contribution. It was worth a try anyway.

  Em said, “Now that you’ve finished working for the Darcys to pay back what you owe them, you should have extra time to spend on your painting.”

  “Yeah. I guess. Oh, I might get a job offer though!”

  Em smoothed back a few flyaways from her long blond ponytail. Her hair was naturally fine and as straight as a stick, so there wasn’t anything she could do with it but pull it back. She was tall and in good shape because she worked out regularly. Today she wore thick gray leggings and an oversized sweatshirt with a Pomeranian with an askew crown on the front of it. “What’s the job?”

  “It would be working with my friend Holly. Remember, I introduced you that one time? She’s a party planner, and she might be able to hire someone else soon.”

  “An event planner?”

  “Oh. Yeah. I guess events. But she mostly just plans parties.”

  “Oh. I see.” Em arched her eyebrows and tried not to frown. “Is that really what you’d want to be doing?”

  “Why not? I think I’d be really good at it. Holly says that my tablescapes are better than any she’s ever seen.”

  “Tablescapes. Interesting.”

  Riot’s eyes were big and worried. “You don’t think I’d be good at it?”

  “I’m sure you’d be good at it. You’ve got a very artistic eye. I’d just thought you’d want to do something more... substantial. You’re such a good painter. I was thinking you’d focus on that.”

  “Oh. Okay. I will. Yes, of course I will, if you think that would be best. I want to be substantial.”

  Em liked that Riot always took her advice. It made her feel like she was accomplishing something meaningful, which was something she didn’t always feel. “I think that would be best, but you’ll have to make your own decisions about your life. Naturally.”

  “Okay. But I do love painting. And Holly may not even be able to hire someone else anyway.”

  “That’s true. If it’s an iffy situation, you don’t want to put all your hopes into that job offer. Keep your options open.”

  “Yes. Yes, I will.”

  Relieved that the situation had been taken care of so easily, Em focused on walking again. She was still going strong a half hour later, but Riot was sweating profusely, deeply red, and rasping painfully.

  “I’ve got to rest,” she finally gasped. She’d obviously been trying to keep up with Em but couldn’t do it.

  “That’s fine. I’m going to go around once more, but you go ahead and catch your breath.”

  Riot waved as she limped over to a wrought iron chair by the small landscaped waterfall and collapsed into it.

  Em kept walking, pleased to be by herself.

  She tried to never be selfish. She’d been given a lot in her life, and she liked to give back. Because her father was so needy, she’d never been able to move away or establish a real career for herself. She was still living on his money, and she sometimes felt guilty and lazy because of it. Whenever she felt that way, she made more of an effort to contribute in the ways she was able. If she set about to help someone, then she always followed through—no matter how annoying the person happened to be.

  But it was nice to be alone now after Riot’s chatter, with no company other than her own thoughts.

  She hadn’t gotten very far when a sound distracted her.

  She knew immediately what it was.

  Ward Knightley must be blowing leaves.

  Ward was the only surviving heir of the Knightley name and property. The only other Knightley alive was his paternal grandmother. He’d been twenty-nine when he’d converted his family’s mansion into condos ten years ago, and he’d stayed on to manage the property, living in the small cottage in the far corner of the estate. Em’s father had been good friends with Ward’s father, so she’d known Ward all her life. She remembered going to cookouts at Pemberley House when she was in elementary school. Ward was thirteen years older than her, so he’d been in college then and had always teased her about her dolls and her beloved Pomeranian named Belle. She’d always tried to pretend she didn’t care about his teasing, but every time she’d end up losing her temper and yelling at him.

  He’d always laughed.

  A lot had changed since then. She was an adult. Maybe she’d never been able to leave home like most women her age, but she’d purposefully made sure her life was full and meaningful.

  It didn’t matter to Ward. He still saw her as a silly little girl.

  She tried not to let it bother her.

  She slowed her pace as she followed the curve of the path and finally saw Ward blowing leaves out of one of the gardens. There were still some autumn blooms. Ward kept very good care of the property. He hired people to do the major jobs, but he handled a lot of the everyday upkeep himself.

  She’d always wondered why he didn’t leave Pemberley House after the conversion. It must be hard to have owned the place and then be forced to do the manual labor.

  She’d never asked him, however, and the truth was Ward never seemed to mind.

  He was laid-back about a lot of things. He very rarely got urgent or upset.

  She waved at him across the garden, and he turned off the blower. “What happened to your shadow?”

  Em frowned as she walked over to where he stood. “Her name is Riot.”

  “I know what her name is.” Ward was several inches taller than Em’s five nine, and he had a big frame and the easy gait of a man who was used to his body doing what he wanted it to do. He had thick brown hair with a lot of wave to it, intelligent blue eyes, and a slight cleft in his strong chin.

  Em thought he was incredibly handsome, and she didn’t know why he hadn’t remarried after his ex-wife had divorced him six years ago.

  “Why are you always so snide about her?” Em asked, genuinely wanting an answer.

  “Snide?”

  “Yes. Snide. I’m trying to help her. I think I’ve been a good influence on her.”

  “She doesn’t need a good influence. She needs hard work and discipline.”

  “What do you think I’m trying to do? I’m trying to give her something worthwhile to focus on instead of flitting around wasting time and money.”

  “And you think painting a bunch of half-ass pictures is the way to go?”

  Em gasped and stiffened her shoulders. “Her paintings are not half-ass! They’re really good.”

  “They’re okay. They’re not good enough for her to make a living from. And that’s what she needs. She needs a real job. She needs to grow up.” Despite
his words, his tone wasn’t disapproving. It was light and casual, as if he didn’t care very much about the topic.

  Em did care. She was frowning now. “A job isn’t enough. She had a job before, and look what happened.”

  Riot had been working for the Darcy antique store when she’d gotten into trouble. She’d started buying antiques on their credit card without their permission. Because the Darcys were kindhearted people, they hadn’t pressed charges, but Riot had to work for eight months to pay back what she’d spent of their money. It wasn’t common knowledge since all parties had been discreet, but Ward knew.

  He knew everything that happened in and around Pemberley House.

  “I thought you said she’s grown up since then,” he said, shifting the blower from one hand to the other.

  “She has.”

  “So let her get a real job and prove it.”

  “She can get a real job. Nothing is stopping her. But I hope she can find a good one where she can really feel like a productive member of society. She was talking about working for an event planner. Doing parties.” Em shuddered at the thought.

  “What’s wrong with that? She’d probably be good at that.”

  “Parties? Please, Ward. She can do better than that.”

  “There’s nothing unworthy about that kind of work. Why would you think there is?” His forehead was wrinkled in that way it always did when he frowned. He was peering at her with blue eyes that seemed to see everything.

  “I’m not saying it’s unworthy. It’s just... frivolous. She’s already frivolous enough. She needs good, substantial work to do.”

  “Did she seem to want that job?”

  “What does it matter?”

  “It matters because if she had a job she might like and you talked her out of taking it, then you’re not doing the girl any favors.” He was frowning deeply now, in that way he did when he disapproved of her.

  He disapproved of her a lot. As far as Em knew, he was the only person in the world who did.