Foolish Hearts

  Praise for Synithia Williams’s Jackson Falls series

  Careless Whispers

  “Williams’ ability as a writer makes you believe in her protagonists’ ability to overcome their differences and love deeply.”

  —Frolic, a “Book of the Week” pick

  Scandalous Secrets

  A Publishers Weekly Buzz Books 2020 Romance Selection!

  An Amazon Best Romance Book of the Month!

  A Woman’s World Romance Book Club Selection!

  “Fans of second chances, reconnecting friends, friends-to-lovers, and political romance stories will enjoy this book.”

  —Harlequin Junkie

  Forbidden Promises

  “The perfect escape. Forbidden Promises is a deeply felt, engrossing, soapy romance that manages to both luxuriate in its angst, while also interrogating something far more wide-reaching and universal than the admittedly sexy taboo appeal of its central conceit.”

  —Entertainment Weekly

  “Emotions, relationships and business are tangled in this soap opera-esque tale, and readers will find themselves unable to look away from Williams’ well-drawn and larger-than-life characters. It’s impossible not to enjoy this entertaining glimpse into a world of wealth, political ambition and familial loyalties.”

  —BookPage

  “A romance for readers looking for equal parts passion and family drama.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Fans of Elle Wright and Jamie Pope will be seduced by this charming and passionate family saga.”

  —Booklist

  “Politics, passion, and family drama combine to make a deliciously soapy second-chance, brother’s-best-friend romance. Readers of Alisha Rai’s Forbidden Hearts series or Reese Ryan’s Engaging the Enemy will be tantalized and surprised by the many twists and turns.”

  —Library Journal

  SYNITHIA WILLIAMS

  Foolish Hearts

  To everyone looking forward to a brighter tomorrow.

  Acknowledgments

  Writing a book is hard. Writing a book during a pandemic is excruciating! Thank you to KD and Dren for our Monday-night sprints. That dedicated time was just the boost I needed to kick-start my writing mojo for the week. I don’t know if I would have been able to push as hard as I did without you two motivating me (and convincing me to buy way too much stuff online between sprints). I have to thank Ashley, Jada and Cheris. I started this book around the time we dealt with COVID-19 at home. Thank you, ladies, from the bottom of my heart, for everything you did to make that time easier. I love and appreciate you! Also thanks to all of my family and friends who texted, called and checked in to make sure we were okay. Thanks to Michele and Errin at HQN Books and my awesome agent, Tricia, for your support during those difficult days in 2020 along with your love for this series. Finally, to my readers.

  OMG, I love you all so much! Thank you for every email and social media tag telling me how much you enjoy the Robidoux shenanigans. They were a bright spot during a difficult year.

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  EXCERPT FROM FORBIDDEN PROMISES BY SYNITHIA WILLIAMS

  CHAPTER ONE

  ASHIYA SCANNED THE numbers on her computer screen and grinned. Another profitable day for her consignment store, Piece Together. Another day that she’d kept the store she’d opened on a whim from being considered a contender for best dramatic performance by a Robidoux family member. Another day she’d taken that whim and turned it from “that little store,” as her mom referred to it, into the place to shop in Jackson Falls for quality, preowned designer clothes, with a healthy helping of fashion tips and perfect accessories on the side.

  She shimmied her hips in the chair as she hit Enter to save the day’s profit numbers in her bookkeeping software. Six years ago, when she’d decided to open her store, she hadn’t believed she’d be here for this long. Honestly, she hadn’t believed she would be able to make it work. She might have grown up in the mix of the Robidoux family with all their drama, fighting for control, and business acumen, but she’d never wanted any of that. She wanted to live life on her own terms with little interference from her family.

  Piece Together was something she’d known her mother, cousins, and uncle wouldn’t care about. They’d let her “play around,” and she’d get peace and quiet. Who knew she could actually run a business successfully?

  A knock on the office door snapped her from her internal celebration. She glanced up from her computer to the door of her office in the back of the store. Lindsey, the store’s assistant manager, stood there. She’d been one of the first people Ashiya hired to help run Piece Together when she’d opened. Lindsey, with her no-nonsense personality, straightforward style, and keen eye for fashion, had stayed by Ashiya’s side through those early, lean years when Ashiya hadn’t been sure the store would survive. Short, with a cute face, and an upturned nose that reminded Ashiya of a pixie, Lindsey could easily pass for one of the college kids in town despite being thirty-one.

  “Hey, I’ve finished straightening up the front of the store. How much longer will you be here?” Lindsey pulled back her normally brunette hair, which was now colored a soft pink, into a ponytail at the base of her neck.

  They always tried to walk out together. Downtown Jackson Falls wasn’t a dangerous town, but that didn’t mean they liked to tempt fate. Their parking lot was behind the building, poorly lit and after eight p.m. served as the overflow parking for a few bars in the area. They preferred to be safe rather than sorry.

  “I just finished up.” Ashiya hit the Save button one more time just to be sure she cemented the success of the day. “I’ve got to get out of here anyway.”

  “Hot date?” Lindsey asked with a wiggle of her eyebrows.

  Ashiya barely stopped herself from rolling her eyes. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a hot date. Not since she finally came to her senses and told her on-again, off-again boyfriend since college to get the hell out of her life. Every time she thought about the time and effort she’d wasted on that relationship, the good things she’d let pass her by, she wanted to slap herself. She would pay whoever invented a time machine all six years’ worth of Piece Together’s profits for the chance to go back and tell twenty-two-year-old Ashiya to stay away from that manipulative asshole and to remember that good sex did not equal love.

  She pushed aside thoughts of her wasted years and sighed. “No hot date. My cousin Elaina’s celebrating her engagement.” Ashiya powered down her computer and stood.

  Lindsey crossed her arms and tilted her head to the side. “So she’s really getting married, huh?”

  Ashiya barely contained her chuckle at Lindsey�
�s dubious tone. “She is, and I actually believe she’s happy.”

  Lindsey raised her brows again. “Good for her.”

  “I know, right?” Ashiya said. “I’m happy for her. I hope this marriage works out better than her first one.”

  Lindsey crossed her heart, pressed her hands together as if in prayer and lifted them to the sky. She wasn’t overly religious, but Ashiya appreciated every bit of good vibes for a better relationship for her cousin. “I hope so, too. She can be...intense, but everyone deserves to be happy.”

  Ashiya walked across the small office, which was actually a former storage room that she’d converted into an office for her store, to the coat rack, where she’d hung her purse. A small black Louis Vuitton bag she’d found at a thrift store in Charleston the year before and today had paired with a simple white T-shirt and gauzy leopard print A-line skirt. She lived for finding deals like that.

  “Now that she’s engaged and happy,” Ashiya said, putting the strap for the purse over one shoulder, “she’s also making an effort to hang out with the family more. Tonight is ladies’ night to toast to her good fortune.”

  “Sounds like fun,” Lindsey said with what came across like forced enthusiasm.

  Ashiya grinned. “It will be. I haven’t gotten a chance to hang with my cousins in a while. I’m looking forward to it.”

  “I’m waiting for the day your family convinces you to quit running the store and start working at that huge corporation they own.”

  “I wouldn’t abandon you like that.” Ashiya flipped the lights off in her office.

  “I wouldn’t consider it abandonment. Just remember if you ever decide to go and start making big deals instead of scouring thrift stores for premium goods, I’ll understand and take over the store for you.”

  Ashiya wrapped an arm around Lindsey’s shoulders as they walked toward the front of the store. “Not gonna happen, but if I ever change my mind, I know I’ll be leaving this place in good hands.”

  They did one more check of the front before locking up the store. This wasn’t the first time Lindsey teased her about potentially leaving Piece Together to work for Robidoux Holdings. Lindsey believed Ashiya would take the skills she’d utilized to turn Piece Together and use them for bigger payout working for her family’s larger holding corporation. Ashiya appreciated her friend’s support, but she wasn’t about to deceive herself into thinking she was smart enough to run anything bigger than this store.

  She and Lindsey said their goodbyes as they left the store and got into their cars. As always, Ashiya waited until Lindsey had driven off before exiting the parking lot. She made a left and eased into the late afternoon traffic toward the Jackson Falls Country Club for ladies’ night.

  Honestly, she wasn’t sure how much fun this would be. She didn’t dislike Elaina, who was remarkably more pleasant now that she’d taken over control of Robidoux Holdings and found happiness with herself and in her love life, but that didn’t mean Ashiya immediately thought of Elaina when she wanted to go out and have fun. Thankfully, India, Elaina’s younger sister, was going to be there as well. Ashiya refused to turn down any opportunity to hang out with her favorite cousin. Byron’s new wife, Zoe, would also be there. Ashiya liked Zoe well enough and believed she was the reason Elaina had agreed to the night out in the first place.

  Ashiya was happy for all her cousins. They’d found love and were living their best lives. She, on the other hand, was single again for the first time since the age of twenty-two. She didn’t know what to do about her relationship status. Well, she knew what and who she wanted, but she’d burned that bridge, and there was no turning back.

  She blasted the latest Megan Thee Stallion song on the radio to get her mind right for a night of fun, but her ringing phone interrupted the beat. A number she didn’t recognize popped up on the car’s console. She considered ignoring it, but she’d learned her lesson the hard way about ignoring phone calls. Even from unknown numbers.

  Ashiya pressed the button on her steering wheel to accept the call. “Hello?”

  “Hello, I’m trying to reach Ashiya Waters?” a woman’s cool, professional voice asked.

  Ashiya rolled her eyes. Telemarketer. Hadn’t she put her number on that list that told them to leave her the hell alone or something? “Sorry, I’m not interested.”

  “Ms. Waters, this is Brianna Winters. I was your grandmother Gloria Waters’s personal assistant,” the woman said in a rush before Ashiya could end the call.

  Ashiya frowned at the screen. Her Grandmother Gloria? Why would her grandmother’s assistant call her? Ashiya hadn’t had anything to do with her father’s side of the family since they’d disowned him for marrying her mother. Resentment about her mother pursing her father to gain access to her grandmother’s then-growing beauty company went long and deep. Ashiya vividly remembered being eight or nine and overhearing her Grandmother Gloria telling Ashiya’s mother that she wasn’t going to get a red cent of anything that would have gone to her son.

  Ashiya kind of understood her grandmother cutting ties after learning the truth behind the reasons her mom pursued her dad. That didn’t stop Ashiya from being hurt when her father’s family didn’t want anything to do with her. She loved her father and knew the estrangement hurt him, too, but she also loved her momma. Ashiya couldn’t imagine ever wanting to be close to someone who hated her mom. As she’d grown, and the animosity festering from her parent’s bad marriage and unresolved issues infected Ashiya’s life in ways that still hindered her.

  “Okay,” she said slowly. “Why are you calling me?”

  “Because you grandmother died two days ago.” Brianna spoke in a direct manner with only the barest hint of sympathy.

  Ashiya sucked in a breath. She squeezed the steering wheel. Every single memory she had of her grandmother involved her telling her dad he never should have married that raggedy whore in the first place whenever they visited. Eventually the visits stopped. That didn’t mean Ashiya had wished her dead.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” she said truthfully.

  “I’m calling you because the reading of the will is this Friday.” When Brianna spoke this time, her voice was warmer. “You’ll need to be there?”

  “Why would I need to be there? I’m pretty sure I’m not listed.”

  Brianna cleared her throat. “Actually, you are.”

  The thought of being in her grandmother’s will was so absurd, Ashiya laughed. Probably not appropriate after receiving news of a deceased relative, but she didn’t believe anything her grandmother left for her required her to attend the reading of the will. “Okay, so she left me a clock, or my dad’s high school clothes. Can’t you just mail them to me? I don’t have to show up for that.”

  There was a pause before Brianna spoke again. “You’re getting a lot more than a clock. Ms. Waters, your grandmother left you her entire estate. You are now the majority shareholder of the Legacy Group. If you’d like to avoid having your cousins contest the will, I’d suggest you be here.”

  * * *

  ASHIYA SAT IN her car in the Jackson Falls Country Club parking lot. She’d driven there on autopilot while listening to her late grandmother’s personal assistant talk about everything she was expected to inherit. Not only the shares in the company, but a home in Hilton Head, South Carolina, multiple properties throughout the Southeast, all her grandmother’s money and worldly goods, and a vintage Jaguar vehicle.

  The information whirled around in her head like clothes during the spin cycle of a washing machine. She didn’t believe a word of it. She’d said as much while on the phone with Brianna. How could her grandmother’s assistant know what Ashiya was getting if the will hadn’t been read yet?

  “I was with your grandmother when she made the changes with her lawyer, and I served as the notary. Believe me. You’re getting it all.”

  Inheriting her grandmother’s mo
ney made absolutely no sense. She hadn’t seen her grandmother in years. Decades. Her grandmother hated when her dad married her mom and wanted to keep her mother from having access to even a penny of the money the company made. Ashiya always assumed her grandmother didn’t want Ashiya to gain access to the company either since Gloria Waters never made any attempt to reach out to her or form any type of relationship with her. Now she was supposed to believe the company, money and property were all hers?

  She had to get to the bottom of this. She couldn’t go inside and celebrate with her cousins. She wouldn’t be able to focus on anything. Yet, she didn’t want to outright snub Elaina.

  Ashiya got out of the car and dialed India’s number. Her cousin answered quickly. “Hey, are you here?”

  “Umm...yeah, but I can’t stay. Can you meet me at the front door? And don’t tell Elaina.”

  “Sure, let me step away so I can hear you better,” India said, not asking for more information. “I’ll be right back,” she said not quite in the phone. Ashiya assumed she spoke to Elaina and Zoe.

  Ashiya arrived at the front of the clubhouse and slid through the door. India came around the corner at the same time. Her cousin slid her phone into the pocket of her pink sundress. Her curly hair was twisted into a cute puff at the top of her head, and worry clouded her brown eyes.

  India immediately came over and placed a hand on Ashiya’s arm. India was two years younger than Ashiya, but they were more like sisters than cousins. “What’s going on?”

  Ashiya let out a humorless laugh. Where would she even start? There were so many unanswered questions she was afraid to even try to begin to unravel.

  “Something came up,” she said. “I really need to go talk to Mom and figure out what’s going on?”

  India frowned. “Is everything okay? Did my dad do something?”

  Ashiya shook her head. “No. For once this doesn’t have anything to do with your dad.”