Filed to story: Once Upon a One Night Mistake Book PDF Free by Simone Shirazi
“Do I look like I would wear that?” Sebastian shot Jacob a dry look before snatching the ring from him. “It belongs to the girl I had here last night. I only remember that because she cut me with it.”
“That’s not the only place she got,” Michael mused, eyes scanning Sebastian’s bare back. “It looks like you got mauled by a tiger back here.”
“Like I said, it was a rough night.”
“No kidding.”
Sebastian turned the ring over in his hand once more, wondering if the girl had yet to notice she’d left this precious item behind in his suite.
“Dude, that girl must be freaking out right now,” Jacob said, reading Sebastian’s mind.
Marcus nodded in agreement as he shoved a stray curl out of his eyes. “I know I would be. This thing is priceless.” He raised a hand to touch the sparkling creation, but pulled back as if he thought better of it. “We have to get it back to her.”
“Yeah, and how do you propose we do that?” Sebastian scoffed, closing his fingers around the ring. “I don’t remember her name, and I definitely didn’t get her number. She was gone by the time I woke up.”
“It couldn’t be too hard,” Marcus reasoned. “I mean, there was a strict guest list so you know exactly who was at the party.”
He had a point. “True.”
“So all you have to do is go through the guest list and…try to remember?”
Sebastian gave him a light shot to the shoulder. “Wow, huge help.”
A shy grin finally found its way to his face. If there was one thing Sebastian was jealous of, it was the guy’s ability to have a smile that innocent.
“It could work,” Michael said. “And, really, do you have any other options?”
Well, there was one. “I could just keep it.”
“You can’t do that!” Marcus exclaimed, obviously appalled by his suggestion. “I’ll bet you this girl is desperately looking for it. You really going to let her down?”
Sebastian let out a groan as his shoulders slumped forward. “Oh god, don’t start with the ‘do the right thing’ speech.”
“Come on, you know you have to do this.”
He paused momentarily to think it over, but Marcus was right. What other option did he have?
“Get me the guest list.”
The Lost and Unfound
The interior of Jude’s car was all black leather, dark wood, and reeked of that new car smell. If Taliana had the choice, she would’ve stayed in the air-conditioned cabin for the rest of her life, especially if it meant she didn’t have to face what was waiting for her at home.
“This isn’t going to end well.”
Currently, said car was idling in front of Taliana’s home in the heart of Georgetown, and she was silently debating whether or not she wanted to enter the place. Her father was probably throwing a fit inside, prepared to ground her the instant she set foot in the foyer. Had she still been living with her mother, Taliana could have slipped in unnoticed since Andrea was rarely home anyway. But this was Charles Avilla, the man who’d blown a gasket the day Taliana had been expelled from Georgetown Trinity Day School and sent her packing to live with mommy dearest as punishment. Taliana wasn’t sure what she would do if this situation had the same outcome.
“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Jude said soothingly, patting Taliana’s arm.
In the fifteen-minute drive from the hotel to her house, she and Jude had gotten to know each other. Jude now knew Taliana was seventeen, had moved back to D.C. after spending six years in LA, and absolutely despised geese. In return he’d told her that his birthday was on Christmas Eve, he’d moved there from Miami a couple years ago, and that he’d once been hit on by an honest to god pirate.
Though they’d hardly spent any time together, Taliana felt like she’d known the guy for ages. Maybe it was the fact that their personalities just clicked, but she was glad it looked like she was making a friend-her first back in D.C.
“I don’t know,” she murmured hesitantly, glancing once more at the brick structure. “He’s called me like a hundred times, but I’m too afraid to listen to any of his messages. I bet you he’s going to flip the second I walk in there.”
“Maybe, maybe not. Charles seems like a pretty chill guy.”
Taliana shot him look that said otherwise. “You should have seen him the day I got expelled from Georgetown Trinity back in sixth grade. I thought he was going to turn into the Incredible Hulk.”
Jude snorted. “That was a totally different situation. All you did this time was miss curfew, not try to kill a kid.”
Taliana wasn’t surprised that Jude knew what had gotten her kicked out. She was sure her baseball bat wielding had landed her on a list of Trinity’s infamous troublemakers. “I didn’t try to kill him,” she corrected, folding her arms across her chest. “It was just self-defense. That kid punched me; what else was I supposed to do?”
“Self-defense?” Jude tossed his head back and laughed. “You broke his arm in three places and reduced the boy to a sobbing mess. Now, I’m not exactly taking my cousin’s side, but do you really think he deserved all that?”
Taliana opened her mouth to respond, but her jaw snapped shut when his words fully registered. “Wait, did you say? cousin?”
“You didn’t know?” he questioned, obviously surprised. “Sebastian’s my cousin. I thought my last name would’ve given it away.”
“You never got around to telling me your last name, Jude.”
“Well, it’s Phillips. Now you know.”
I shook my head, shocked by this revelation. “I can’t believe you two are related. You’re so sweet and he’s so…”
“Egotistical?” Jude offered as Taliana trailed off. “Stubborn? Bossy? Vain? Melodramatic?”
“I was going to say annoying, but those work, too.”
“You really are too cute,” he laughed. “We need to hang out again soon.”
Taliana nodded in agreement and tugged on the hem of her still damp dress. “We do. I’ll call you tomorrow after I talk to my dad.” But knowing him, Taliana would probably be six feet under in the next ten minutes. “If I’m still alive.”
After thanking Jude for the ride, Taliana slid out of the car and made her way to the front door. She sent a quick prayer to every deity she could think of before slipping inside the house and bracing for the ambush. After a few tense moments of nothing happening, her tired eyes swept the foyer, and she let out a sigh of relief when she realized her father was nowhere to be found.
But her luck ran out a few seconds later.