Addicted to You

By Kate Stone

Is it possible to do good, make a profit, and fall in love all in a couple of days?

 

Driven by the loss of her brother to drug addiction, Catalina Breslin secures funding to build a combination trade school and rehab facility to save lives and give hope to her hometown.

 

Andrew Sullivan can't see any profit in the venture and flies out to shut her project down. He thinks there isn't anything she could say or do to change his mind.

 

Until he sees her.

 

Now he has to choose between the woman he has fallen in love with at first sight and the job he's devoted his life to.

 

If you like instalove stories, sizzling sex scenes and people who will fight to do the right thing, then you'll love Kate Stone's novella, Addicted To You.

 

Addicted to You is a SHORT, standalone romance with a happy ending, no cheating, and no cliffhanger.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kate Stone
• Release date: Jun 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201261399

Book preview

Addicted to You

by

Kate Stone

Table of 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

Epilogue

About the Author

Addicted to You

Copyright 2019, Kate Stone

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, transmitted or distributed in any printed or electronic form by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of Yasmin Adler, except in the case of brief quotations embodied within reviews and other non-commercial uses allowed by copyright law.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

For Mr. Stone, who makes all my dreams come true.

Chapter 1

Catalina

S on of a bitch, Catalina Breslin muttered to herself, slamming the phone down. She rested her face in her hands, rubbing her temples with her fingertips. She could feel a headache coming on. Leave it to that corporate weasel to cause a migraine from three thousand miles away.

Sighing, she pushed her chair back from the desk and braced herself for the room full of suits awaiting answers. She prepared herself to be the bearer of the answers they did not want to hear.

As she approached the imposing wooden door to her boss’s office, Lina took a deep breath. She adjusted her clothes, and flexed her fingers a few times, a nervous habit she’d had since childhood. She raised her hand and tapped on the door. Time to rip off the proverbial bandage.

Thirty minutes later, Lina was sitting on the edge of the plush leather sofa, sipping the scotch on the rocks her boss insisted on serving her. The suits were in crisis mode, muttering and swearing under their breaths, searching for some sort of solution. The non-profit Lina worked for, The Atwood Collective, was trying to build a new school, a STEM-based junior technical college for at-risk youth. If a student signed a contract to stay clean and sober, hold a part time job serving the community, and maintain a 3.0 GPA, they would graduate with a technical degree for free. This was a path to success for many local kids who felt disenfranchised, hopeless, and oftentimes helpless. This area had been hit particularly hard by the opioid crisis, and parents, educators, and local community leaders were all seeing an entire generation lost to the wind. Atwood wanted to do something about it.

As the senior marketing manager for her company, it was Lina’s job to promote this project and help attract investors. They had thought they’d gotten a massive bite; a prestigious technical firm on the East Coast had contacted Lina, expressing interest in the project and supporting the notion of setting young people on the right path with science and technical educational opportunities. It seemed like a match made in heaven; Lina’s company got the big fat investment check, and the technical firm got to pat themselves on the back for reaching their annual corporate social responsibility goals. It seemed like a slam-dunk.

That is, until Leonard happened.

Fucking Leonard, Lina thought to herself.

Fucking Leonard! Lina’s boss, Eleanor, exclaimed, as if reading her mind. Eleanor slammed her tumbler down on the desk and poured herself another scotch neat. Eleanor’s theory was that to succeed in business like a man, you had to drink like a man. And tonight she certainly was.

Leonard Haverstrom was the new CFO for Star Investments, the small yet mighty technical firm with whom Lina had been in talks. Those talks ceased today.

Leonard was as old school as they came. A crass, cranky, chain-smoking, rumpled-tweed-wearing WASP-y tightwad who genuinely believed at-risk youth were so for a reason, and did not deserve any help. It was the way nature intended, he told Lina.

God Himself means for there to be the haves, and the have-nots, Leonard lectured in his clipped, upper crust Eastern seaboard tone, and I will not allow this company’s ‘social responsibilities’ — Lina could actually hear him sneer at those words — hinder the delicate nature of our economy. Some win, and some lose, and by giving a free ride to the losers, all you do is hurt the winners.

And with that, Leonard Haverstrom had hung up on Lina, resulting in her sitting on the cognac-colored leather sofa in Eleanor’s office, choking down a ‘man’s drink’ and fighting tears.

Try as she might, Lina couldn’t seem to sink any deeper into the arm of the sofa, though she wished with every fiber of her being that it would swallow her whole. This was her first career fail and she wasn’t taking it well. On top of that, she really, really hated scotch.

Lina was staring at the drink cart across the room, eyeing the top shelf bottle of vodka and wondering how fucked up she could get before they fired her, when she realized someone was talking to her. Lifting her gaze, she realized the whole room was looking at her, expecting a response.

What’s our plan B? Eleanor asked, downing her second drink in one swig. Lina’s throat burned in sympathy. This project was Lina