Fool Me Once

By Katee Robert

Aubry Kaiser doesn’t like people—actually, that’s not right. She loathes people. With her crippling anxiety, there’s no way she can demo her favorite video game at a convention with five thousand other people. Maybe if she brings someone to act as a shield…

But the only person available is the sexy cowboy she can’t stand.

Quinn Baldwyn is in a mess of his own. He’s been dodging his wealthy family’s matchmaking attempts—and life advice—for years, but with his sister’s wedding on the horizon, he needs of a shield of his own.

He and Aubry can barely hold down a civil conversation, but in bed…fireworks. And the closer they get to Quinn’s sister’s wedding, the more he realizes that he might actually like Aubry.

Now it’s up to him to convince her she might actually like him, too.

Each book in the Foolproof Love series is a standalone, full-length story that can be enjoyed out of order.
Series Order:
Book #1 Foolproof Love
Book #2 Fool Me Once
Book #3 A Fool for You

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: Aug 1, 2016
• ISBN: 9781633757059

Katee Robert

New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Katee Robert learned to tell her stories at her grandfather's knee. Her 2015 title, The Marriage Contract, was a RITA finalist, and RT Book Reviews named it "a compulsively readable book." When not writing sexy contemporary or romantic suspense, she spends her time playing imaginary games with her children, driving her husband batty with what-if questions, and planning for the inevitable zombie apocalypse.

Book preview

Table of Contents

Dedication

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

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

About the Author

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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 © 2016 by Katee Robert. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

Entangled Publishing, LLC

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Suite 109

Fort Collins, CO 80525

Visit our website at www.entangledpublishing.com.

Brazen is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC. For more information on our titles, visit www.brazenbooks.com.

Edited by Heather Howland

Cover design by Heather Howland

Cover art from Lindee Robinson Photography, featuring Chad Demchik and Victoria Morin

ISBN 978-1-63375-705-9

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Edition August 2016

Dear Reader,

I have a penchant for unlikeable heroines. You know the ones—the heroines who make some people crazy while reading, who some readers feel should stop being so difficult and see what an amazing guy the hero is. Aubry falls into this category. She’s snarly and stand-offish and she simply doesn’t have the time or desire to let the hero cozy up to her. The woman is, quite frankly, a bundle of issues. We got to see some of that in Foolproof Love, but getting to really delve into her headspace was a treat for me. She’s a gem, and I hope she wins you over the same way she wins Quinn over.

And Quinn? Well, that man is hotter than he has right to be. He’s got an easy going surface, but beneath that, he’s just as intense as Aubry. They make quite the pair!

To Hilary, the Jules to my Aubry.

Chapter One

A wedding? Might as well be a goddamn funeral for all I’m going to enjoy it.

Quinn Baldwyn grabbed three beers out of his fridge, very carefully not looking at the invitation he’d stuck to the front of it. It was a constant reminder of the sword hanging over his neck—one he couldn’t avoid indefinitely.

His sister’s wedding. He hated running the gauntlet that was his ambitious family during the monthly dinners required to keep them off his back. Having to face the firing squad and all the bells and whistles at this wedding? Even worse. He didn’t have to see the elegant invitation to know that Jenny—and their mother—had pulled out all the stops in the wedding planning or that he’d be expected to put on his monkey suit and play the doting son.

It made him so fucking exhausted just thinking about it.

He’d stopped playing the political games his father demanded of him over a decade ago, and he wasn’t about to be drawn back into that world. Not now. Not ever. He much preferred the quieter life he’d chosen, working on the Rodriguez ranch, leaving the damn oil business to his family. The only reason he hadn’t cut out his old man completely was because of his little sister, Jenny. She lived in that world, and attending the dinners—and the wedding—was a small price to pay to make her happy.

A small price, though one that grated.

You’re taking your sweet time in there, Baldwyn.

He took a deep breath and tried to let the tension out of his shoulders. If there was anyone who’d pick up on it, it would be Adam and Daniel, and then he’d never hear the end of it. As far as they were concerned, Quinn’s father could take a flying leap and be done with it. They didn’t understand that it was easier for Quinn to do the bare minimum to keep his little sister from being torn in her loyalties. If he told his old man where to stick it, he’d be banished in truth, and Jenny would have to openly defy their parents to see him. He wouldn’t put her in that position. He refused to.

The only problem was that the older he got, the more his father started asking probing questions about his plans to settle down and create some more Baldwyns. With Jenny’s wedding right around the corner, there was no one else to focus on pairing off, and as the only son, as far as his father was concerned, it was Quinn’s responsibility to continue the family name.

Quinn?

He turned, forcing a smile onto his face. Hey, pretty lady.

Jules stood in the doorway, a bright smile on her face. The expression dimmed when she took him in. Is everything okay?

Not in the least. But he held up the beers. Just getting my barmaid on.

Instead of being appeased, she frowned harder. That was the problem with women—they saw too much. Oh, his buddies knew that something was chewing at him, but they were more than happy to let him stew over it until he was ready to talk. If he was never ready to talk? Hell, that was okay, too. But now that Adam was married to Jules, she was around a lot more often, and the woman was incapable of seeing a person in need without wanting to meddle. She meant well, but there was no fixing his situation. Jules—

It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it. Adam’s not really a sharer, either. She took two of the beers from him. I’m used to it.

She wasn’t trying to guilt him, but guilt rose all the same. Quinn sighed. Telling Jules Meyer-Rodriguez no was like kicking a puppy—it just wasn’t done. And, damn her, she knew it. Look, it’s complicated.

Okay. She set the beers aside and hopped onto the kitchen counter, swinging her legs like a little kid. I can do complicated. Hit me with it.

What could it hurt to get some of his frustrations off his chest? He leaned over to look out into the living room, but for all intents and purposes, Adam and Daniel seemed engrossed in the Cowboys game going on. I bet that ass sent her in here on purpose. He popped the cap off his beer and took a swig. If I tell you, you’ll leave it alone?

No promises. She’d said it cheerfully. Everything about the woman was cheerful. It’d be aggravating as fuck if she wasn’t so genuinely nice. How she’d become such a good friend with that vicious little redhead, Aubry Kaiser, was beyond him.

He took another drink. My sister is getting married.

Oh, how exciting! She pressed her lips together. Unless you don’t like her fiancé? Because that’s not exciting at all. That’s horrible. She brightened. Are we going to break up their wedding?

Hold your horses. He held up a hand, rocking back on his heels. That little scheme you had going with Adam last year has gone to your brain and made you power mad. And Brad is just fine. A little on the boring side, but fine. As far as he could tell, anyways. The guy loved Jenny and wasn’t scared of their old man. More importantly, Jenny loved him to distraction and he made her happy. Quinn couldn’t ask for much more.

Okay, then what’s the problem?

Here it was. He almost backed out, made his excuses, and took off. But if he’d learned one thing about Jules, it was that she was more than capable of chasing his ass down and pestering him until he told her what she wanted to know. Frankly, he was surprised it had taken this long for her to turn her fixing eye on him and his problems. My old man has decided he’s a matchmaker, and he’s getting more pointed with the women he’s trotting out in front of me like prize dogs.

Jules made a face. Charming.

You have no idea. The last woman had been named Barbie. She was perfectly nice, but her breast size was larger than her IQ and all she’d done through the entire dinner was talk about all the things her new diet wouldn’t allow her to eat. Call him crazy, but if he’d been looking for a woman—and he most definitely wasn’t—it would be someone he could hold down more than a five-minute conversation with.

Well, there’s an easy solution. She grinned. Just take a date. She’ll run off any prospective women your family is looking to hook you up with, and if you can convince your dad that you’re serious about her, maybe that will get him off your back in a more long-term way.

He opened his mouth to tell her that was an insane idea but closed it without the words escaping. It was crazy—committable, even—but she had a point. The only problem with that plan was that he didn’t know a woman he could take to a wedding without her getting it into her head that he was looking for something more serious. He dated casually, and he liked keeping it that way. Hell, he liked his life the way it was. He didn’t want or need the oil money his old man kept wafting in front of him, and he definitely didn’t need a woman intent on him putting a ring on her finger. You know of anyone? He straightened. Hey, you want to go to a wedding with me?

Hands off my woman, Baldwyn. Adam appeared in the doorway and shot them both a look. Whatever you’re planning, sugar, I’m putting my foot down. One zany scheme a decade is more than enough.

She propped her hands on her hips. How can you say that? My zany scheme got me you, didn’t it?

Adam raised his eyebrows. I didn’t say it was a bad plan.

Oh, stop. You two are going to give me cavities. Quinn shook his head. Forget I asked. I don’t need any help with this. He’d figure something out—and fast. The wedding was two weeks away.

More than enough time to find a woman to attend a wedding and pretend we’re serious enough to keep my old man off my back without her getting any funny ideas.

I think you’re wrong, Quinn. Luckily, I’m here to help!

She grinned, a light in her eyes that he couldn’t ignore. Whatever he and Adam had said to dissuade her, the wheels were turning in that pretty head of hers, and he was damn sure he wasn’t going to like what came of it.

…

Aubry Kaiser glared at her computer. Even Ninja Kitteh curled up in her lap, purring like a jet engine, wasn’t enough to distract her. No matter how much she focused her not-inconsiderable willpower, the words on the screen didn’t change.

She took a deep breath and looked around Cups and Kittens, the cat café owned by her best friend, Jules. Life went on, the cats in their usual places, lounging around the tables and in convenient sunbeams, the sole other human occupant reading a magazine and ignoring her completely. Just the way she liked it.

But the problem with nothing being abnormal was that she ran out of things to look at thirty seconds into her perusal.

She gave Ninja Kitteh another stroke and looked back to her computer.

A few years ago, the email sitting in her inbox would have made her elated enough to dance on the ceiling, but that was a few years ago. Right now it just represented all the things that were wrong with her life. She reread it for the twelfth time.

You’ve done it! You’re cordially invited to a closed alpha test of the new Deathmatch in San Diego on June 3rd.

She knew for a fact these invites only went out to a handful of people, and part of her was screaming with sheer, unadulterated joy as a result. The Xbox game, Deathmatch… Well, she wouldn’t be completely dramatic if she said that it saved her life when she was a teenager. She’d lived in that little hellhole of a trailer with her shitty mother and her mother’s equally shitty string of boyfriends, and there hadn’t been a single person in her school whom she’d connected with. She’d been adrift and depressed, and then she’d picked up the game on a whim.

And found her tribe.

Her playing—her interacting with people who shared at least one fandom with her—had given her the strength to pursue her interests, to get the hell out and never look back. When she was sixteen, she would have done bodily damage to someone to secure an invite like the one sitting in her inbox. The intervening years hadn’t done anything but deepen her love of the game and the community.

To say she was a fan was a serious understatement.

And this wasn’t even a demo like the ones they’d hosted for large groups at the con in the past—this was a chance to be one of the first sets of eyes on the new game. Ten people were allowed in. Ten. It blew her mind that she’d been invited at all.

But accepting this invite came with such serious drawbacks, she could barely draw a full breath even thinking about it. She’d have to leave the little town of Devil’s Falls, Texas and drive to California. If that wasn’t bad enough, alpha test or not, she’d still have to go to Deathmatch’s annual convention, DeathCon. Last year, there’d been five thousand people there, all crammed into one convention center.

Black spots danced across her vision, and she struggled to inhale. So many people, all outside her comfort zone. Even knowing how unbearable it’d be, she wanted to go. Good God, she wanted to go. It was more than getting the opportunity to play the alpha version of the newest Deathmatch. It was for bragging rights and prestige and a public recognition of how freaking amazing she was at this game.

It was the chance of a lifetime.

And she was going to have to turn it down.

Ninja Kitteh gave a meow, a sure sign that her best friend Jules—and probably Adam—were back from their football-watching venture. They’d invited her like they always did, but as much as she disliked organized sports, she disliked Quinn Baldwyn more.

He was a big brute of a cowboy, and he liked to poke at her just to get a reaction. She knew that’s what he was doing, but that didn’t stop her from practically hissing every time she saw him. It was bad enough that she had to share Jules now—though she was legitimately happy for her best friend of six years—but to have to share her time with him was nearly unforgivable.

Honey, I’m home. Jules sailed through the back door and smiled. How are things?

Jules’s cousin, Jamie, shrugged. The usual, though Loki is in as foul of a mood as this one. She jerked her thumb at Aubry.

Hey!

Jules pinned her with a searching look. It must be the day for it.

I can hear you. Aubry crossed her arms over her chest, doing her damnedest not to slouch down and glare harder. She knew she was the cranky one, the snarly one, the one everyone in Devil’s Falls gave a wide berth.

Except that asshat Quinn.

Jamie took off like a little coward, leaving Jules standing there watching Aubry with a contemplative expression that she did not like.

What?

Just thinking.

Aubry grimaced. No, I know your thinking face. That’s not your thinking face. That’s your hatching plans face. Don’t try to talk to me like I don’t know the difference.

Jules dropped into the seat across from her. I wouldn’t dream of it.

What are you planning? Aubry asked. Ninja Kitteh rearranged himself, and she held still so

Reviews for Fool Me Once

[arthistorychick · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Fool Me Once by Katee RobertBook #2: Foolproof Love SeriesSource: Publisher/Author/NetgalleyMy Rating: 5/5 starsMy Review: I’m about to make a very bold statement here so hold on to your hats . . . . Fool Me Once may be my favorite Katee Robert book to date!! I devoured this book in just a couple of hours and am already considering a second read through. Let’s just start at the top. What a cover!! I love this thing and feel like it really represents the characters Robert describes in the text. From the tattoos to the smokin’ hot man, this cover has everything that makes me want to pick up a book and dive right in. The premise to this book is kind of crazy, just like the first book. Quinn needs a date to his beloved little sister’s wedding who won’t get attached and Aubry needs a chaperone to a huge gaming convention. Quinn’s family is beyond awful and are pushing him to come home, take up his rightful place as an oil baron, and marry a socially acceptable girl who will make pretty babies. Aubry has a boat load of irrational fears and can’t stand being around real people so going to a gaming convention is a no-go unless she has someone there to talk her off the ledge she seems to constantly live on. Since they absolutely cannot stand one another there’s absolutely nothing that can wrong with this half-cocked plan. From the moment they begin making plans, Aubry and Quinn butt heads. For a variety of purely irrational reasons, Aubry refuses to fly which means and even longer trip in a cramped vehicle. With nothing to do but drive, Quinn begins unabashedly flirting with Aubry, Aubry slaps him down at every turn with snarky little comments and tries to ignore the fact that his flirting is pushing all her buttons in all the right ways. For Quinn’s part, the flirting was meant to be a way to pass the time and rile up Aubry but it quickly turns into a study in insanity and he fights to keep his mind and body in check. Both Quinn and Aubry know that if they had any sense of self-preservation, they would stay the hell away from one another but their chemistry is far too hard to deny and before either knows what’s happening they are shagging like crazed weasels. Outwardly, the two agree that the shagging can only be temporary but inwardly, each is faced with a harsh truth, they genuinely like the other person and have no idea what to do about that. With Aubry’s troubled background, she has a very hard time seeing herself as good enough for Quinn and his uber-wealthy parents and Quinn has his hands full trying to constantly keep Aubry’s vast and sundry phobias and fears in check. When the sh*t finally hits the fan, at his sister’s wedding, Quinn and Aubry both say a lot of things they instantly regret which tears them apart. Admitting their own faults and failings and apologizing will bring them back together but baggage, both past and present is hard to let go of. The Bottom Line: Are you effing kidding me??? Aubry and Quinn are the perfect couple from page one and I loved every single minute of their story. Yeah, the whole 120 minutes it took me to get through their story Aubry is prickly, surly, intelligent, often out of bonds, and completely freaked out by the world in general. For years, she has given into her fears and only allowed a handful of people to get anywhere near her. Quinn certainly wasn’t in her plans but he is a hard man to deny and when the circumstances are right, Aubry sees no reason to deny. Quinn is a master at reading Aubry and pulling her through some of her darker moments. He is steady, kind, sexy as sin, and so very willing to protectively and lovingly help Aubry test her true limits. Quinn unleashes a wildcat which makes the naughty bits in this read some of Katee Robert’s hottest to date. The cherry on top of the awesome sundae is the epilogue which contains one of the cutest, sweetest, and hottest HEAs. Don’t wait, dear reader, one-click this bad boy, now!