Now That I've Found You
~ The New York Sullivans ~
Bella Andre
Contents
Copyright
A Note From Bella
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
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Epilogue
Bella Andre Booklist
About the Author
The New York Sullivans
Drake & Rosa
(c) 2016 Bella Andre
[email protected] https://www.BellaAndre.com
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Millions of readers have fallen in love with the San Francisco and Seattle Sullivans. Now, get ready to fall head over heels for the New York Sullivans!
World-renowned artist Drake Sullivan doesn't paint women. Ever. Not when he knows all too well just how destructive the painter/muse relationship can be. But on the day Rosa Bouchard walks onto the cliffs outside his Montauk cottage, Drake is so captivated that he can't stop himself from bringing her to life on canvas.
Shocked and horrified by the nude photos of herself that have just hit the Internet, reality TV star Rosa's every instinct is to run from her Miami home and hide. After driving all night, she ends up in Montauk, New York, where she doesn't know a soul. She plans to lie low until she can figure out how to deal with the media firestorm--and her own mother, who seems all too happy to sell out Rosa's happiness for more fame, more fans, and more money. The very last thing Rosa expects is to find, and to fall for, a sinfully sexy man like Drake Sullivan.
Drake has never felt this way about anything he's painted...and he's definitely never felt this way about a woman. When they kiss, everything melts away but sweet, breathless desire. But can he convince Rosa to trust--and to love--again after such a devastating betrayal?
A Note From Bella
Now that the San Francisco and Seattle Sullivans have all found love, it's finally time for their cousins in New York to get their own happily-ever-afters. As soon as I began writing Drake Sullivan's book, I fell head over heels in love with him and his heroine, Rosa--along with his three siblings Suzanne, Harrison, and Alec. I absolutely cannot wait for you to read Drake and Rosa's love story!
Happy reading,
Bella Andre
P.S. If this is your first time reading about the Sullivans, you can easily read each book as a stand-alone--and there is a Sullivan family tree available on my website (https://bellaandre.com/sullivan-family-tree/) so you can see how the books connect together!
P.P.S. Suzanne Sullivan's story--Since I Fell For You--will be released in Fall 2016. Sign up for my newsletter (https://bellaandre.com/newsletter) to be contacted as soon as the newest Sullivan book comes out.
Chapter One
There was someone out on the cliffs. His cliffs.
Drake Sullivan watched as the person crossed the cliffs just beyond the trees surrounding his property. In the six years he'd owned this cottage on twenty acres at the northern tip of Long Island, few people had ever trespassed. Sure, his siblings and cousins often showed up out of the blue, but most people didn't know the lone private parcel in Montauk Point State Park existed--even locals. The trails dead-ended a mile from the edge of his property, and even sailors out on the water couldn't see his small cabin through the trees.
A black cap flew off the person's head, and long, dark hair blew out. She didn't try to catch the cap, didn't actually seem to notice it was gone. Instead, she kept her head down as she walked along rocks that could be treacherous when wet. One wrong step and she could slip and fall on the sharp, unforgiving slate that rose up from the sand below.
The closer he looked through his cottage's living room window, the less steady she appeared. The wind had kicked in big-time earlier that morning, and he could see her legs were shaking. Not just her legs: all of her. Anyone else out in this biting wind would have been wearing a jacket--a heavy one. Her T-shirt and jeans weren't much better than being naked out there in the elements, especially now that the rain had started coming down in sheets.
Surprise shifted to concern as he realized she might not just be a hiker who had somehow found her way onto his property. Someone out to enjoy the outdoors would actually have been enjoying it--the growing swells of the surf, the violent dance of the storm clouds as they took over the sky, the golden beach such a surprising contrast to the dark gray cliffs that jutted up so abruptly. But this woman obviously wasn't having a good time--barely seemed to notice where she was, in fact.
Was she trying to hurt herself by going out on the wet rocks when the wind was kicking up like this? Or did she just not know any better?
He was already heading out to see if she needed help when she suddenly dropped down onto the rocks. His innate protective urges had him flying out the door and crunching quickly through the pine needles on the forest floor to go and help her.
But as he got closer, he realized that though she was definitely crying, it didn't seem to be because of a fall. From what he could see, she was sobbing the way his sister, Suzanne, and his numerous female cousins did when their hearts had been shattered. Sitting in a little ball near the edge, the woman's arms were wrapped around her knees, her head tucked against her legs as she wept.
Though he still wanted to make sure she didn't come to any harm, Drake made himself stop where he was, hidden in the trees. He knew enough about women to understand that when one was crying like this, the very last thing she wanted was for someone to witness it.
Especially a stranger.
As he watched over her from the forest, Drake finally noticed all the things he hadn't seen when he'd thought she might be about to harm herself. The way her slightly wavy hair went from light brown at the roots to a darker bronze at the tips. The elegant curve of her neck. The long line of her spine as she hugged her legs. And, most of all, the surprising strength in her slender arms.
Sobbing this hard should have reduced her in some way. Should have diminished her. But she had such strength--a magnificent power that only seemed to magnify as he watched over her.
The last thing Drake expected was to feel something stir in him. Something that hadn't stirred in a very long time: an urge to paint.
Since he was a kid, he'd always carried a small sketchbook in his pocket to make sure he could capture inspiration whenever and wherever it came. It wasn't until he reached into his back pocket and came up empty that he remembered he hadn't touched it in weeks, his dearth of inspiration having already killed his longstanding habit of slipping it into his pocket.
Most people came to Montauk for the wide-open beaches or to be seen in the Hamptons. But Drake came for silence. And inspiration.
Two months. That's how long he'
d been waiting for some damned inspiration to strike. Instead, he'd reached the point where he could barely see a reason to open a sketchbook or set up his easel. All this beauty around him, an ocean that seemed to stretch on forever, old fishing buildings throughout town that had more soul than any modern buildings would ever have--and still nothing sparked.
Until now.
Until her.
As Drake stood in the thick copse of trees, he had only his memory with which to capture the image of the woman on the cliffs. His visual memory had always been borderline photographic, yet despite his ability to remember fine details that most people never even saw, he still wished she were sitting in his studio now so that he could stare, learn, discover.
His brain skidded to a halt. What the hell was he thinking?
Drake didn't paint women. Ever. It was his one hard-and-fast rule. Oils and acrylics, pastels and watercolor--he was open to it all. But he had never brought a woman into his studio, and he never planned to.
Besides, even if he didn't have a hard line about painting women, he shouldn't be thinking about work right now. He should be concentrating on making sure this woman didn't decide to leap from the rocks during her crying jag.
At first her grief had rivaled the storm. But the storm within her seemed finally to be subsiding, calming by degrees. As if she controlled the weather, the wind that had been whipping the ocean and the forest into a frenzy just moments earlier suddenly died away, the storm clouds parting to reveal blue sky--and a stream of sunlight that landed on the woman like a spotlight.
When she lifted her head from her knees and turned to face the sun so that he could finally see her profile, Drake's heart stilled in his chest--stopping as surely as it might if a knife stabbed it, or a bullet pierced it.
He needed to paint her.
*
Rosa Bouchard--not Rosalind, no matter how much her mother insisted on using her legal name because it sounded "classier"--hadn't cried in years. Not since her father had passed away when she was ten and she'd lost one of the most important, loving people in her life.
But today she couldn't stop.
There was so much water around her already--waves crashing, salt water spraying up onto the clifftop to soak her shoes, her clothes, her skin. What was a little more salty liquid to add to it? Especially when her tears were barely a drop in the bucket compared to the huge, wide ocean in front of her.
It was almost a relief to let the tears flow through her so hard and fast that she couldn't concentrate on anything else. Rosa didn't want to think right now. Didn't want to have to make any big decisions. Didn't want to keep remembering what had happened. Not just the horrible pictures, but all the awful comments from strangers that had followed. And, worst of all, the things that the people who were supposed to care about her most had said.
Unfortunately, nothing could stop her mother's voice from playing on repeat inside Rosa's head: "That horrible man who hid those cameras in your hotel room and took those pictures of you won't stand a chance against our lawyers. They'll nail him to the wall for sneaking and selling those pictures. But you shouldn't feel bad about what people are seeing, honey. Your body isn't anything they haven't seen before. Why don't we let the lawyers go after him while we look on the bright side--we've gained over a million followers on every single social platform in just a matter of hours!"
In the end, that was what had cracked Rosa's heart in two--realizing that her body had been nothing more than a trade for a few million new social media followers for her family's brand. That her pride, her privacy, her utter lack of consent to the nude photos were simply a good way to increase their worth to advertisers who wanted the Bouchards' endorsements for their makeup and fashion lines.
As a new wave of misery rose within her, Rosa could feel the rips and tears clawing at her heart. The ocean crashing on the rocks swallowed up the sound of her tears, but instead of continuing to be glad for the cover, anger suddenly flooded her.
She was so tired of being muted. So damned sick of always being told what to say and how to say it by the cable network's publicity team.
A roar of fury was rising in her throat when she was jolted by a sudden flood of unexpected warmth. Lifting her face from where she'd had it buried on her knees, she was shocked to realize that the gray clouds had parted and a beam of sunshine was coming through.
Shining straight on her.
For one blissful moment, both her brain and her heart cleared so that she could appreciate the sound of the waves crashing and feel the warmth of the sun on her wet face and arms.
But the moment passed way too soon, and when it did, everything that had happened in the past twenty-four hours came crashing right back.
Rosa hadn't thought about where she was going that morning. She hadn't awakened at four a.m. and had her bags packed with a clear destination in her GPS. She'd simply had to get out. Had to get away from everyone and everything that was hurting her. So she'd snuck out of the house to her car. Not one of the fancy ones the car companies gave them to drive for the free publicity, but the old car she'd bought with the money she'd saved up from babysitting in the years before reality TV made her life completely unreal.
She'd driven through the night and kept driving as the sun rose, until she'd found herself in Montauk, a town nicknamed THE END. It was the perfect description for how she felt--all the way at the end of her rope.
She'd been to Montauk once before with her dad on one of their special yearly father-daughter trips. Rosa remembered driving past the long stretches of beach and wondering when her dad was going to stop so that they could go outside and play. But she'd trusted him to know the best place--she'd trusted him about absolutely everything--even when he'd pulled into a forest instead of the beach.
They'd hiked a winding trail, laughing as they'd skipped over some puddles and splashed through others, then come to what looked like a skateboarder's big concrete half-pipe. Her father had told her that it was an old storm drain that was no longer used, but that it would take them to one of the most spectacular places he'd ever seen, one hardly anyone knew about. As they'd walked together along the cracked concrete, she'd been so excited by the adventure that when the trees suddenly opened up to reveal dark gray cliffs and the endless ocean beyond, she'd gasped in wonder.
Rosa always had fun playing in the sand and surf, but it was the turbulent ocean that had always touched her most deeply. Though she hadn't ever said the words aloud to her father, he'd understood.
That special day so long ago, he'd taken her hand and told her they needed to walk carefully over the slick clifftop because he couldn't stand the thought of her falling and getting hurt. She still remembered the warm, steady grip of his hand, how sure she'd been that he'd always be there to take care of her, to make sure she was never hurt. And how excited she'd been when he promised that they could come back to this spot the following year on their special trip.
A month later he was gone in a helicopter crash that took the lives of his entire radio traffic reporting team, and she'd never come back to these cliffs that she'd always thought of as their special place. But on that one perfect afternoon, he'd told her all about the currents, the tides, the marine life. And then, for a long time, they'd simply sat quietly together and appreciated the beauty all around them.
Her dad had been so good at being quiet, and letting her be quiet too. Rosa hadn't needed to be the pretty one with him. The bubbly one. The fun one. The exciting one. The risky one. She could just be herself.
Whoever the hell Rosa Bouchard was now...
Just that quickly, the sun disappeared, its warmth gone as if it had never been there at all. The wind picked up again too, but strangely, she wasn't cold. Or maybe she'd just been cold for so long she didn't notice it anymore.
The rain came again, pouring down so hard that it stung her eyes, her skin. She wished it could wash her clean, but after all she'd consented to during the past several years as a reality TV star--and the horrible
pictures she hadn't consented to--she was afraid nothing would ever wash her clean again.
She'd turned off her cell phone hours ago, but she could still feel the unyielding weight of it against her hip in the back pocket of her jeans. She always had her phone with her and would have felt naked without it.
Naked.
She still couldn't believe that the whole world had seen her naked on their phones.
Again, she didn't think. Didn't plan. Just jumped to her feet, grabbed her phone out of her pocket, and threw it as hard, and as far, as she could.
Despite the countless hours of yoga and Pilates she'd put in to keep her naturally curvaceous figure in line, her phone barely made it to the sharp edge of the cliffs. Still, she could see the screen had shattered as it teetered back and forth, back and forth, back and forth...before finally falling over the edge.
Disappearing, just like her.
Chapter Two
She was leaving.
When the woman on the cliff had hurled her phone against the rocks in obvious fury, for a moment, even with the heavy rain drenching her, she'd almost seemed relieved. But then her shoulders had slumped again, her long, wet hair covering her face as she walked back along the clifftop toward the forest.
Despite the rain pelting her, she moved with innate grace, like a dancer or a runway model. And though there was no audience to impress, and she was still clearly upset, it was impossible to miss the sensuality in the slight sway of her hips. She was drenched from head to toe, and her jeans and T-shirt clung to her like a second skin, revealing a figure that would have made the hands of Rodin himself burn with the desperate need to sculpt her.
But the sex appeal that fairly dripped from her wasn't what drew Drake, wasn't what made it so hard to stop staring, to stop itching to paint her. He'd been with plenty of gorgeous women, and he'd never felt like this before.
Light seemed to surround her, follow her, cling to her, even beneath thick gray clouds and pouring rain.
Jesus. He was starting to lose it out here in his remote cottage, had obviously been staring at a blank canvas for far too many weeks. But even after he shook his head to clear his vision, that halo of light continued to surround her as she headed for the old storm drain that must have been her way in.