Loved None But You (Pemberley House, #3) Read online

  Loved None But You

  Pemberley House, Book Three

  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 Loved None But You

  About the Series

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from Carpool

  About Noelle Adams

  About Loved None But You

  ANNE LOST ROBERT FIVE years ago when she said no to his proposal, and there's no going back now. Even though rejecting him was the hardest thing she's ever done. Even though she's never gotten over him. Even though he's moving right upstairs.

  He's back for at least a month, recovering from an injury before he returns to the Navy. And he hasn't forgotten or forgiven the way she chose her career over him. But there's no sense in trying to work through their raw feelings—in or out of the bedroom—because if they get close to each other again, the same painful parting might happen a second time.

  But getting close to Robert is exactly what Anne can't stop doing.

  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. Loved None But You is loosely inspired by Persuasion.

  About the Series

  EACH BOOK IN THE PEMBERLEY House series is inspired by a particular Jane Austen novel, but the books aren’t 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 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

  ON A THURSDAY IN MARCH, Anne Elliston was having a very good day.

  She had an entire month without a business trip, and she was looking forward to the break. She’d been working at a small but successful marketing firm in Abingdon, Virginia, ever since she graduated from college six years ago. For the first few years, she’d loved her job, but gradually constant travel and a boss who refused to listen to her concerns had drowned out her previous satisfaction and fulfillment.

  For the past year, just the thought of her job had made her stomach churn. On the edge of burnout, she’d used all her ingenuity to negotiate with her boss for a month without a business trip.

  Anne really hoped the month would be enough of a break to keep her from constantly daydreaming about new jobs.

  When her boss, Krystal, called Anne into her office at ten in the morning, she assumed it was to give the final report on the project she’d spent the past two months working on, so she grabbed her notes and mentally sorted her thoughts into an organized overview.

  She was pleased with the results of the campaign, and the client was very happy, so Anne wasn’t nervous or reluctant as she walked into the office and sat down in the leather chair across from Krystal’s desk.

  Her first sign that something was wrong was when Krystal gave her a sympathetic smile.

  That wasn’t the appropriate expression for the conversation she’d been expecting.

  Anne smoothed down the fabric of her black trousers over her thighs before she looked up again. “Did you want a report on Paxton?”

  “Sure. I’ll be happy to hear your thoughts on how it went. But I wanted to tell you about your next job.”

  Anne knew Krystal well by now. Six years of working under her meant she’d learned how to read her face and intonation. She could see a reluctance underlying her words. Something bad was about to happen here. “Okay. What’s it going to be?”

  Krystal’s marketing firm had had only a local reach when Anne had joined the team, and a lot of their income was still from local and regional businesses. But Anne had been a knitter all her life, and through her connections in online needlework communities, they’d slowly started working with small shops and businesses around the country that specialized in needlework and other crafts. One of their clients who did custom high-end embroidery projects had taken off in a major way a couple of years ago, and since then their marketing services were in huge demand with similar businesses.

  Krystal had been a fine boss early on when their reach was small. But the stress from the quick escalation had brought out all her bad habits as a supervisor—namely moving her employees around like chess pieces instead of treating them like human beings and then hiding the manipulation beneath a veneer of niceness.

  Anne kept hoping that Krystal would eventually catch up to her success and settle into a more relaxed management style, but it hadn’t happened yet.

  Krystal handed Anne a couple of sheets of paper—a printout of the introductory information form they had all new clients fill out.

  Anne read it over quickly. The farther she got down the first page, the heavier her stomach felt.

  When she looked up, Krystal was giving her that sympathetic smile again.

  It was all Anne could do not to snap her teeth in annoyance. “This is a great thing for us. It’s one of the biggest campaigns we’ve had. And if we can hold off on starting this until the end of April, I’ll be happy to work on it.”

  “They want to start right away.”

  “Then Cath and Becky can work on it. They’re just as good as I am. You promised I wouldn’t have to travel for at least a month, and this would require me to spend half the month in Portland.”

  “They asked for you specifically.”

  Anne swallowed over a pressure in her throat. This wasn’t the first time she’d been promised some downtime and then had it taken away.

  It was the seventh time in six years.

  And it was more than just the travel. It was the absolute proof that she was working for someone who didn’t care about her well-being in any real way.

  She kept her voice calm as she said, “I really don’t want to do it, Krystal. We’ve talked about this over and over again. I didn’t take this job to do so much traveling. We have plenty of local clients I can work with for a while.”

  “I understand. But I need you this time.”

  “That’s what you say every time. And every time I’ve given in and agreed to do it. But I think I’m
going to say no this time.”

  Saying no wasn’t something Anne was good at. She’d been raised by a father who was used to being the center of attention and two older sisters who had similar qualities. They were all smart and opinionated and successful and craved the limelight. Her mother died in a car accident very young, and now Anne was the only one in her family who was different, so she’d gotten used to working behind the scenes to make things run smoothly. She hated conflict so much that she usually just accepted what other people told her as long as it was something she could live with.

  But she wasn’t sure she could live with this.

  She didn’t want to wake up every morning and dread going to work. She didn’t want to look forward to nothing but her few days off. She didn’t want to spend another night in a generic hotel room, take another uncomfortable flight crammed into a tiny airline seat, or eat another meal alone at her laptop. She didn’t want to be so tired at the end of every day that she couldn’t even summon the energy to knit.

  She didn’t want any of that.

  Maybe she wasn’t good at standing up for herself. If she had been, she would have left this job a long time ago.

  But this was evidently the breaking point for her. One more work trip.

  She simply couldn’t do it.

  Krystal said, “You can’t say no, Anne. I’m sorry, but you can’t. I need you.”

  Anne breathed heavily, staring down at the paper in her hands.

  The only things that had made her happy in the past year were her friends and the hope of having one month without traveling.

  It wasn’t enough.

  She might always be a nonconfrontational person, but there were limits even for her.

  She wanted to be happy.

  She wanted to live a life that gave her genuine satisfaction—both personally and professionally.

  She wanted to stand up for herself even if no one else would.

  She closed her eyes for a few seconds and made up her mind.

  “Okay,” she said at last, looking back up at Krystal. “I’ll work on this campaign for the next month. But I’ll be giving you a resignation letter by the end of the day. This will be the last project I work on for you. I’m quitting at the end of April.”

  FIVE WEEKS LATER, ANNE was a free agent. Nothing to fill her time except a part-time job at a local antiques store and the first steps toward her own business.

  Maybe it was foolish. Her family had spent the past month telling her how stupid she was for giving up a great job and a promising career and trying something as risky as starting her own company.

  But she’d spent too much of her life following other people’s directions. Right now she wanted to be her own boss.

  She’d been living with her sister Mary and her brother-in-law since she’d graduated college, since they had a large condo in Abingdon with an extra room. In order to conserve money, starting this month, Anne had made an arrangement with them to live rent-free in their condo by doing most of the chores and housework. It was the only way she could afford to give herself six months to focus on building her own business. It wasn’t fun to be at her sister’s beck and call, but she’d always done most of the housework anyway, and it was worth it to be given this chance.

  Anne was happier than she’d been since college. She was excited about waking up in the morning. She was looking forward to the future.

  She hadn’t lived like that in so long that she’d forgotten what it felt like.

  So she was in a good mood on a Thursday evening in early May. She already had a promising start on her business, and tonight was her favorite part of the week—hanging out with her best friends for their weekly pink champagne on the terrace.

  Lately, their weekly ritual was meaning more to her than it used to since she didn’t see her friends as much as she had before.

  Em had gotten married last month, and Liz was engaged, her wedding coming up in a couple of months. Both their lives had adjusted with their new relationships, leaving a lot less time for hanging out with Anne.

  That was what happened in serious relationships. It was inevitable, and all of them were making an effort to maintain their friendship at the same level as before.

  But things were different. Anne could feel it the most because she wasn’t in a romantic relationship and probably wouldn’t be for a long time. Since everything else was promising in her life now, she tried not to dwell on her occasional loneliness.

  But she loved their pink-champagne Thursdays a lot more than she used to. It was the one time of the week when things felt like they did before.

  Anne had met Em and Liz (and Liz’s sister, Jane, who wasn’t here this evening) six years ago when she’d moved into Pemberley House, a historic mansion in Abingdon, Virginia, that had been converted into condos. Her marketing job paid perfectly well, but she didn’t earn enough to afford a nice place to live on her own.

  Nice was her father’s word. She’d have been happy for a little one-bedroom in a generic apartment complex. But she’d have been nagged endlessly by her father and sisters had she moved into such a place, and it simply wasn’t worth the suffering. So she lived with her sister and brother-in-law. It wasn’t an ideal living situation, but it had introduced her to Em, Liz, and Jane, all of whom also lived in Pemberley House.

  And her life would have been much emptier without them.

  “Okay,” Em said after they’d been sitting on the terrace of Liz’s condo for a half hour. “We’ve talked about my honeymoon for long enough. Ward and I had a wonderful time, but it’s not the only interesting thing happening in the world. Someone talk about something else.” Em couldn’t seem to stop smiling, proof of how happy she was with her new husband.

  “I don’t have anything new to talk about,” Anne said since Em was looking at her. “But I got another campaign—a five-hundred-dollar one from a woman who does jewelry—so that’s good news.”

  Because of noncompete clauses in her previous job contract, Anne couldn’t just set up her own marketing firm and poach clients from Krystal, even though a lot of her old clients had signed up specifically to work with Anne and would have happily moved their business to her new company. So instead of shooting for major campaigns, Anne had set up her business around smaller packages that consisted of various degrees of branding, social media support, and online advertising for smaller businesses. The packages ranged in price from $100 to $5,000, so they were within reach of very small sellers.

  Anne had tapped into all her contacts in the needlework world and had already lined up three months’ worth of work. If she did a good job with those clients, she would hopefully have some of them sign up for regular monthly packages and get some good word of mouth with new clients.

  “Another one! That’s amazing! Definitely cause for celebration. Here’s to many more clients to come.” Em raised her glass of bubbly pink wine, and they all toasted with her before they sipped. “What about you, Liz? Any excitement with the wedding plans?”

  Liz had been looking down at her phone, but she raised her eyes at that. “No. Not really. Things are pretty smooth on my end. Thank God that Mom is so focused on poor Jane’s wedding that she hasn’t had time to worry about mine yet.”

  Jane was Liz’s older sister, and she was getting married next month.

  When Liz glanced back down at her phone, Em frowned. “If you’d rather text than chat with us...”

  “No. Sorry.” Liz was pretty in a piquant way with a slightly upturned nose and chin and a thick mane of brown hair. “It’s Vince. He says...” She glanced over at Anne in a strangely nervous way.

  Anne straightened. “What?”

  “It’s his brother. Robert.”

  Anne didn’t need the qualification. She knew Robert Darcy well. She’d dated him for three years in college. He’d asked her to marry him. “What about Robert?”

  “He was injured, I guess. Some sort of accident on his ship.”

  Robert had been in the ROTC pr
ogram in college and had joined the Navy immediately afterward. Anne hadn’t seen him since graduation when she’d rejected his marriage proposal.

  “Is he okay?” Her voice broke slightly as her heart jumped in her chest. She’d spent the past six years working on putting Robert behind her for good, but she still felt emotionally attached to him and the thought of his being injured was painful.

  “I think so.” Liz was studying her phone. “It’s his leg, I guess, so it’s not life-threatening, but he’s been in the hospital for several weeks and didn’t tell his family until today. And it must be bad enough that they put him on medical leave.”

  Anne tried to compose her face. Didn’t exactly succeed.

  Em reached out and put a hand on her forearm in a silent, supportive gesture.

  “He’s coming home,” Liz said softly.

  Robert wasn’t raised in Abingdon like Anne was, but his family had been moving here when he was starting college. It was his first point of connection with Anne when they’d first met during freshman year. “Home to Norfolk or home...”

  “Here,” Liz finished for her. “He’s coming here. That’s what Vince says.”

  Anne was having trouble breathing. “For how long?”

  “I don’t know. Vince doesn’t say.” Liz tapped out a message and sent it before she looked back up. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes. I’m fine. I’m the one who broke up with him, remember?”

  “I don’t know it matters much who did the breaking up. You haven’t seen him since, and it seems like feelings are still...”

  Anne didn’t like feeling vulnerable like this. Even with her friends. She wasn’t usually a big sharer. She’d learned not to be since growing up in a family of prima donnas meant there was no attention left for her. But she wanted to tell Liz and Em the truth, so she forced the words out. “Raw. They still are. It was really hard. And sometimes I’m not sure it was the... the right decision.”