One Little Dare Read online

  One Little Dare by Whitney Barbetti

  Copyright © 2020 by Whitney Barbetti

  All rights reserved.

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  Cover design by Najla Qamber

  Editing by KP Curtiss, Elise Martin

  Formatting by Whitney Barbetti

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  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, 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, actual events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The use of any real company and/or product names is for literary effect only. All other trademarks and copyrights are the property of their respective owners.

  Also by Whitney Barbetti

  One Little Lie

  One Big Mistake

  Hooked

  Ten Below Zero

  The Mad Love Duet

  Six Feet Under

  Pieces of Eight

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  Love in London Series

  The Weight of Life

  The Sounds of Secrets

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  The Bleeding Hearts Duet

  Into the Tomorrows

  Back to Yesterday

  * * *

  He Found Me Series

  He Found Me

  He Saved Me

  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

  Epilogue

  Coming Soon

  Read Chapter One of One Little Lie

  Acknowledgments

  More Books by Whitney Barbetti

  About the Author

  For every bold woman in my life

  The very first moment I beheld him, my heart was irrevocably gone.

  Jane Austen

  1

  “For the love of God, please don’t get arrested.” My mom took the top I had shoved into the side of the suitcase and folded it neatly before placing it in a much better position than I had.

  “How would I end up arrested?” I asked as I carelessly rolled up a t-shirt and tossed it into one corner of my luggage before it was rescued by my mom. It wasn’t that I particularly enjoyed wrinkled clothes, but I traveled enough to know that my clothes would get wrinkled whether I took the time to painstakingly fold them or not. I grabbed a pair of jeans and placed them into my mom’s waiting hands before I could shove them in an odd nook in my carry-on.

  My mom sighed, taking a second pair of jeans and folding them neat enough to give them temporary creases. “Who knows with you, Tori. It wouldn’t be the craziest stunt you’ve pulled, I suppose.” She raised one eyebrow my way, pinning me with her knowing mom eyes. “Like when you went streaking down Main Street.”

  I shrugged nonchalantly. “It was eleven at night, practically no one was out.”

  “Uh-huh. If that was true, then how did I find out about it?”

  She had me there. “Touché.”

  “Or when you acted out Meg Ryan’s When Harry Met Sally deli scene on the subway, while we were on vacation in New York City.”

  I raised a finger. “In my defense, James dared me to do that.” My brother delighted in taking many opportunities to embarrass me. And since I was well-known for never turning down a dare, that had topped one of my more public embarrassments.

  “But did you have to do it while your father was there to witness?”

  She had a point. “Well, I’ve grown up a bit since then.”

  “Mm-hm.” She ran her hand over my folded t-shirt. “Don’t think I didn’t hear about the time you jumped off a waterfall in Washington a few summers ago.”

  “I can’t help it when people dare me, Mom.” I popped a kiss on the top of her salt and pepper hair and shoved a handful of earrings into a jewelry organizer. “And how do you hear about these things, anyway?”

  “I have my ways,” she said and for the briefest of moments, her knowing smile fell, her eyes taking on a faraway look. I swallowed, guessing just what she was thinking about. The event that had nearly split my parents’ shaky marriage was still a scab on her heart—and, because I’d been in the middle, it had left mine a bit scarred too.

  “I’ll be good, Mom. I promise.” In an effort to get her mind off of the thing that we both didn’t like talking about, I held up my crossed fingers in front of me as I said it. It was our joke—that if she couldn’t see my fingers when I promised her, she didn’t know if I was just appeasing her or not.

  “Okay.” She blew out a breath, giving me a preoccupied smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes as she busied herself with my suitcase. “So, you’re not going to get arrested.”

  “I mean, I’m not a fortune teller. Things happen.” I tucked away my grin before she could see it and bent over, shaking my loose blond hair into a ponytail.

  “Don’t get arrested,” she repeated and held up a finger. “Don’t do any sketchy drugs.”

  “No sketchy drugs. Just the mainstream ones. Okay.”

  She sighed but continued. “Don’t go streaking down the strip.” I couldn’t argue that one, as evidenced by Main Street shenanigans of years ago. “And, above all, please don’t get married.”

  “Married?” I straightened and tossed a few makeup bottles, pencils and brushes into a cosmetics bag. “Who am I going to marry in Vegas?”

  “I don’t know. One of your girlfriends?”

  “They’re girl friends, Mom.” She took the makeup bag from me and reorganized my suitcase to squeeze it in. “Not girlfriends. And it’s just a quick trip.”

  I looked around my bedroom. Well, it was my bedroom for the time-being, but the contents of these four walls felt no more like home than the confines of a hotel room.

  A few months ago, I temporarily moved back to my parents’ retirement home while I sorted out what I was going to do with my life. My roommate and best friend, Hollis, was getting married and had moved in with her fiancé. As someone who loved being surrounded by people, I didn’t relish the idea of having a two-bedroom apartment to myself nor the prospect of having some random roommate move in with me. So, back home to my parents’ I went—albeit reluctantly, as any twenty-four-year-old independent woman might.

  Of course, how independent was I really, since I moved back in with my parents? I spent most nights in front of the television, listening to my mom drone on about behind the scenes details about whatever movie we watched together.

  “You ready?” my mom asked as she hefted my suitcase off the bed and to the floor, smoothing the coverlet as she went.

  Nodding, I took the suitcase from her and carried it down the hallway.

  “Victoria,” my mom said, in that voice. The voice that she used only when speaking my full first name—a name which no one called me by.

  “What?” I set the suitcase down and turned to her in the hallway, taking in her annoyed but still amused expression. “Oh,” I said, kno
wing immediately.

  “When did you do this?” she asked, tsking as she pulled the frame off the wall. She gazed at the photo of Keanu Reeves I’d framed and hung last night.

  “I still maintain that he’s better to look at than James.”

  She grazed a finger down the side of Keanu’s face. “I’ll admit, Keanu is pretty. But I made your brother, so I’m a bit biased toward him.”

  “At least leave Keanu up until James notices?” I asked, putting an arm around her. Down the hallway, my mom hung photos of me and my big brother from kindergarten all the way through high school. Often, I swapped out James’s photos for whatever actor my mom was subtly crushing on that week or month. Having just completed a fifteenth re-watch of Speed, I figured Keanu deserved a shining place where James’s dorky third grade photo had hung for the last sixteen or so years.

  James was the apple of my mom’s eyes—of everyone’s, really. Except me, of course. Because though we were just a couple years apart, we nurtured a sibling rivalry that would likely last until one of us was dead. And he’d be the first one to go, obviously. I had the advantage of being a female and younger. Statistics were on my side.

  “Fine,” she said, placing the frame back on the hook. We set my luggage by the front door and I rubbed the waiting cat behind the ears. Ignoring his answering hiss, I rubbed my face on top of his head. Squeaker, our one-eyed orange tabby, had turned into quite the grumpy grandpa since being hit by a car a year before. I couldn’t blame him; if I got hit by a car so hard that my eye popped out of its socket and my jaw was broken for weeks, I’d probably be more than a little temperamental. I glided my hand down his back, and he stopped hissing to roll over and expose his belly. But I knew better than to take that bait—I’d been bitten far too many times by that beast.

  “Leaving?” James asked, coming out of the kitchen with a bowl of vegetables in his hand. He was on a vegetarian kick ever since meeting his latest girlfriend, but when she wasn’t around, he wasn’t afraid of eating our dad’s famous smoked brisket.

  “Yep.” I set my luggage down on the rug by the couch and grabbed my water bottle off the kitchen island, sniffing at his bowl of things even I couldn’t identify. “Did you go digging in the compost bin for a snack?” I teased.

  James frowned at me and picked up a bite of something slimy and extraterrestrial-looking. “Did you pack enough condoms to ensure you don’t end up knocked up in Vegas?” he countered.

  “Don’t shame your sister, James,” our mom said with a gentle swat on his arm. But then she looked sideways at me, eyes narrowed. I knew her well enough to know that James’s question had only encouraged her.

  “‘Don’t get arrested, don’t do drugs, don’t go streaking, and don’t get married,’” I repeated back to my mom, ticking off four fingers as I went. “Where was, ‘don’t get pregnant,’ in that list?” I wiggled my thumb.

  “It was implied.” She looked up to the heavens, summoning patience for her disobedient children, no doubt.

  “I packed lots of condoms,” I said. “Big ones. For big dudes.” I said it mostly to gross James out, but it had the added benefit of driving my mother from the kitchen with her hands in the air as if she could wave away what I’d said. Our mom still kept James’s many girlfriends in separate bedrooms when they came to visit; the concept of her children having a sex life was a bit too much for her.

  James set the bowl on the counter and poured himself a coffee. “How long are you going to be gone?”

  I shrugged, stabbed something phlegmy in his bowl, and dropped it back into his bowl, disgusted. “A handful of days, probably. Who knows?”

  “Ah,” he said, pulling milk from the fridge. “Must be nice not having responsibilities.”

  “Oh, it’s great,” I said, taking a long swig of water. “You’re missing out.” It was our age-old argument. I was flighty and irresponsible; James was boring and predictable. Siblings were often the best at pitting their flaws against each other and James and I reigned supreme in that regard. “But I guess your girlfriend Alabama would disapprove.”

  James rolled his eyes. “Her name is Alaska, not Alabama.”

  “Her real name?” I asked, though I knew the answer was no. His latest conquest—Suzy—had adopted the name Alaska because she felt it represented her more. “Because I’m one with the earth,” she’d once explained to me.

  “Maybe you’d understand it if you actually cared about something other than yourself,” James retorted. “While you’re jetting off to Vegas, I’m spending the weekend helping Dad rebuild the back deck.”

  “First of all, jetting off implies I’m flying—which I’m not. And secondly, do you really want me wielding a hammer around you?” I mimicked hitting his head with my water bottle as a hammer, which he swatted out of the way.

  James didn’t need to think about it for very long before he shook his head.

  “Exactly,” I continued. “Besides, this isn’t necessarily a vacation. I’m going to a bachelorette party.”

  “Which we all know you just loathe,” he said scornfully—obviously referencing the many bachelorette parties I’d attended over the years.

  “I barely know the bride. I think I was invited to be the buffer between her and her overbearing sister.” I hadn’t said as much to Bekka when she’d hinted at including me in the wedding party, but considering that my entire friendship with Bekka was based on the one summer we interned together two years ago, and remembering my interaction with Bekka’s sister, Katy, at the engagement party—and how firmly I’d put her in her place, much to the shock of everyone else—I was more than a little suspicious that my invite was to keep Katy in line. And truthfully, I didn’t really care that I was invited as a buffer. I spoke my mind—it was a well-known fact. And when Katy asked Bekka, in front of Bekka’s future in-laws, if Bekka was going to lose her belly weight for the wedding, it’d been my sincere pleasure to ask Katy if she had just passed gas. While waving my hand in front of my face for effect.

  “Well, I’m sure you’ll steal the show regardless.” He didn’t say that with praise, but rather with the annoyance that an older brother held for his younger, much more fun sister.

  “I don’t steal the show,” I said. “I’m already the entertainment.”

  “The same thing,” he said, dropping his bowl of phlegmy veggies into the sink. “But when you mooch off Mom and Dad on their beautiful deck, remember it’s only there because of me.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll appreciate the hell out of it.” I popped some vitamins and then poured a few more into a sandwich baggie to take along. I’d learned long ago that the best remedy for a hangover was water, greasy food, and a bunch of vitamins. And considering that I’d be in Vegas, I’d need enough vitamins to drown in. “What’s Arkansas doing this weekend while you’re doing manly man things?”

  “Alaska,” my brother repeated, shaking his head. “She’s camping with her family.”

  “And you didn’t join in?” I asked, digging in the fridge for some road trip snacks. “Maybe you too could become one with nature. Then we can call you Jersey.”

  “For New Jersey? No thanks. And her family is, well, they’re nice.”

  “Ah,” I said, digging into the last mozzarella stick in the fridge. James tried to snatch it from me, but I elbowed him and ducked under his arm. “They’re nice. Yes, I can see why you wouldn’t want to camp with nice people. How awful.”

  “Shut up,” he said, shifting his weight as I pushed him aside to grab ice from the freezer. “They are nice. But different. I don’t know. They don’t believe in fire.”

  I straightened, furrowing my brow at him. “Excuse me? They don’t believe in fire? As in the thing cavemen discovered two million years ago?”

  “I mean, they don’t like to use a campfire when they camp. Just tents, raw food—but nothing destructive to the environment.”

  “Nothing destructive… Like Arizona’s giant, old truck she drove to get to the campground, right?”r />
  James groaned. “Why do you like ragging on my girlfriend so much?”

  “Girlfriends,” I corrected. “It’s not like she’s the first one you’ve brought around. And because I like to watch you squirm.”

  “Just wait. The first time you bring a guy home, I’m going to tease you so hard you’ll never want to come around again.”

  “And that’s why I don’t bring dudes home,” I said with a cheery smile, tossing food into my mini cooler. That wasn’t the reason why, but for the sake of not having a heart to heart with my brother, that was the easiest explanation.

  “Yeah, because you can’t keep a guy interested in you long enough to be your boyfriend, right?”

  “Ouch,” I said, mimicking pain with my hands folded protectively over my chest.

  My brother had his opinions of me and most of them were right. But despite growing up together in the same house, with the same parents, we had completely different experiences. He didn’t have the slightest clue to some of the biggest events of my life over the last ten years, things that made me who I was: flighty and unpredictable, with an inclination for dates and not boyfriends.

  James pulled out his phone—thus dismissing me from his thoughts and this conversation.

  I debated saying something to him. Telling him just how little he really knew about me. About the family that existed within these walls—the dad he worshipped, the mom he poked fun at. But these things were my burden to carry. James didn’t know the real reason I’d moved back home, but it was easier for him to call me a child than for me to tell him the things I was privy to that he wasn’t.