Simone (The Ciprianos of Kellington Book 2) Read online

  SIMONE

  The Ciprianos of Kellington Book 2

  Jamallah Bergman

  Erotic Romance

  Secret Cravings Publishing

  www.secretcravingspublishing.com

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  A Secret Cravings Publishing Book

  Erotic Romance

  Simone

  Copyright © 2013 Jamallah Bergman

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-61885-933-4

  First E-book Publication: October 2013

  Cover design by Dawné Dominique

  Edited by E. L. Felder

  Proofread by Stephanie Kinne

  All cover art and logo copyright © 2013 by Secret Cravings Publishing

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  PUBLISHER

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  www.secretcravingspublishing.com

  DEDICATION

  I want to thank my good friends Jane White Pillatzke and Anya Kelleye for loving the idea of The Ciprianos and also for being such great and supportive friends. I love you both very much ladies.

  And to my fans……I want to thank you the most of all. Without your gratitude, constant great reviews and wonderful support of my work, I don’t know where I would be. I thank you all from the bottom of my heart for being there for me and enjoying the work that I know I was destined to do……letting imaginations run wild.

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  A war is brewing, a war that could destroy an entire vampire race if left unchecked, and Julian Marino has been requested to participate in it. He stops his search for a long time friend to go home and discovers there is more at stake than just his wants.

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  SIMONE

  The Ciprianos of Kellington Book 2

  Jamallah Bergman

  Copyright © 2013

  Chapter One

  Simone was looking out the window of his office that afternoon when a knock rattled his door. Looking over his shoulder, he saw his secretary Beverly coming in with a couple of files in the crook of her arm. Honestly, he didn’t even know why he had come to work today. Quickly he snapped out of his funk when he heard her talking about the files she had brought him. Letting out a deep sigh he took off his glasses and rubbed between his eyes.

  “Here are the Samuelson and Peters cases you wanted.” He looked out the window in frustration. “What’s wrong, Simone?”

  Beverly had been his secretary for going on five years now and throughout that time she had been more than just a secretary to him. She had also been a confidant as well as a good friend. Beverly even considered him like part of her family, sometimes including him in family things like cookouts at her house or even one time inviting him to the lake house during the summer that her husband Fred owned. Even her children considered him more like a big brother often sometimes calling him up about certain things they thought their parent’s wouldn’t understand.

  “I’ve just been doing some thinking about the past. When I went to visit Mom and my brothers a couple of months back, I ended up running into someone who brought back some memories that I had completely forgotten about. But since I saw her, I’ve just been doing a lot of soul-searching.”

  “She must have meant a great deal to you if she’s put you in the mood you’ve been in lately.”

  “Yeah, at one time I meant a great deal to her, I was her very first crush.” Simone smiled, remembering the day when he’d found out that interesting fact.

  “What’s her name?”

  “Delia Whitney, she’s my best friend’s sister.”

  “Whitney? You don’t mean Andrew Whitney, do you?”

  “The one and only, and she’s working over at an antiques store in Kellington with my brother’s girlfriend.”

  “Well, why not ask her out
for lunch or dinner sometime? Then you can see if the sparks fly.” Beverly smiled.

  But all Simone could do was chuckle a bit as his expression quickly grew solemn.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “There’s one big problem with that Bev, she’s already with someone else right now. They seem very much into each other, too.” He remembered that night at the party, watching them dancing and laughing together. The smile she’d given that Rodger guy was the same smile that she used to give him when they were young.

  “Simone, Earth to Simone” Looking up, he saw Beverly staring at him, puzzled. A smile spread across her face when he smiled too.

  “Sorry about that, you said you had those files I needed.” Putting his glasses back on, he answered her questions and then started thinking about how it all began.

  “I know something that you don’t know.” Andrew had said to Simone.

  It was 1989 and they had all been at Andrew’s house for the weekend. It was something that he and his brothers would often do, spending the night over at each other’s house. While they waited for the pizza to be delivered, they began playing basketball outside in Andrew’s driveway. Both he and Andrew were watching Gianni and Federico playing one-on-one after he had gotten beaten by Andrew.

  “What is it that I don’t know?” asked Simone.

  “Someone has a huge crush on you and has had one for a number of years now.”

  Raising a brow, Simone chuckled because honestly, it could have been any girl from their school who had a crush on him. Most of the girls in school had feelings for him and his brothers. So what was one more crush? “Who is it?”

  “You have to guess, man, and all I can say it’s someone who you honestly would never think it would be.” Andrew’s smile was devilish so it must have been good.

  “Lord, man, that’s a big as hell list of girls to be thinking about. All right, answer this, does this girl go to school with us?”

  Andrew nodded, still smiling.

  “Is she a freshman, sophomore, junior or senior?”

  “This girl is a sophomore.” His smile got even bigger.

  Going through his mental rolodex he tried to think of every sophomore girl at their school. The only problem was, he didn’t know that many of them in the first place. “I don’t know, I give up, man.”

  “Hey guys, Mom wanted me to bring you some water so you don’t fall out.” Delia told them while carrying two bottles in each of her hands.

  “Just…leave our bottles there Delia…with the guys!” shouted Gianni while he blocked Federico from making his shot.

  “Well, here you go guys, drink up.” Handing them each a bottle of water, she smiled sweetly at Simone before leaving the other two. And that’s when the laughter erupted from Andrew.

  “What?”

  Looking at him wide-eyed, Andrew’s gaze shifted toward the garage door as they both looked back to see Delia going into the deep freezer, pulling out a bag of food before walking inside. Simone looked back at Andrew who was trying not to snort up a storm but failed and fell back against the car before he quickly jumped away from the scorching metal. “Are you serious? No fucking way!” Simone told him.

  “Yes, way, man. I swear to God. She is in love with you big time.” He chuckled while opening up one of the water bottles to take a swig.

  “What are you guys laughing about over here?” Gianni asked, grabbing the water from Andrew’s hand while Simone threw one to Federico.

  “Delia is in love with our boy Simone over here.”

  “All right, Sherlock, how in the hell do you know all of this?” Simone inquired.

  “About two days ago, I was trying to find some clean socks and Delia had the basket of clean clothes in her room. I went to get a pair and saw a leather-bound book on her nightstand. I thought maybe it was a new book she might have been reading and I wanted to see what it was. Well, it wasn’t a library book, it was her diary. So since no one was home except for me, I went ahead and read it. I swear, every single entry was about you, especially the one about how she wants you to be her first date, her first kiss and her first time with a guy ever.”

  They all had a good laugh except for Simone who was kind of embarrassed by what he had just heard. “How can I believe you anything you are telling me, man? You could be making all this shit up.”

  “All right, if you don’t believe me, tonight I will show it for all of your eyes to see. I hid her diary and she’s been trying to find it since that day she left it out. So tonight we will have a little show-and-tell in my room.” As soon as this was said, the pizza guy pulled up so they paid him and grabbed the pizzas and went inside.

  During the entire time they ate, Simone would look over at Delia. She was always smiling and talkative with everybody. She didn’t act like she was completely shy. For as long as he had known Andrew, he had always known Delia to be just as fun. Always laughing and joking around with the guys. He couldn’t believe it when he heard that she had a crush on him and that she had thought of him being her first everything. Nah, he thought, this whole thing was a big fat lie.

  Boy was he in for a shock later that night.

  Once they all settled in for the night, Andrew locked his door and went into his closet to look on the top shelf. He had a compartment in the wall behind a loose board where he kept a box for his weed. But instead of retrieving the weed that night, he pulled out the infamous leather-bound book. Opening it, he flipped a few pages while the others around him looked on in wonder. “Friday, September seventeenth,” Andrew whispered as he sat down on the bed next to Simone. “I went to lunch today and my girlfriends have been pestering me about which guy I like the most? I honestly try my best not to let them aggravate me about who I like. I know who I like but he doesn’t know that I care for him so deeply. Di, you are the only one who knows how much I care for Simone Cipriano. Today was no exception as I was at my locker to get some of my books when they fell out just as he happened to walk by with some of his friends and he saw what happened. He came over and helped me get my books back into my locker. Once I got the books I needed, he asked me where I was going next. I told him I was headed to Mr. Randolph’s class and he took my books for me and walked me to class. He was just the sweetest Di, especially when he smiled down at me with that amazing smile that always makes me catch my breath because my heart can’t seem to stop beating so fast.” Andrew snickered while Gianni and Federico poked Simone.

  Simone couldn’t believe what he was hearing and he was kind of angry, not because what he had heard might have embarrassed him but because of the simple fact that Andrew had invaded his sister’s privacy. He knew that he would have been really mad if he was a girl and one of his brothers had gotten into his diary.

  “Now, here is the entry that I told you about. ‘Dear Di, The other night at the football game, Simone did great. He tackled five players and ran two touchdowns to help win the game. I think I almost lost my voice from all the screaming and cheering I did. Later on, my brother and I along with the rest of the brothers met up with some of his friends down at Stokey’s. We all got a booth and guess who I got to sit with? You guessed it, my darling Simone and he put his arm around my shoulder while he kept picking on me about something silly. I honestly didn’t care because I was finally sitting with him, even though we were squeezed so close together. I was just happy to have him near me like that. To see him smiling at me from time to time, just to hear that wonderful throaty laugh of his. I have to say that when I got home and went to bed, I had a dream that he ended up taking me home. When he took me to the door, he told me how happy he was that I came to cheer him on. And that was when it happened for he bent down and gave me a kiss on the lips. My very first kiss from a guy and it was from him. He had some of the softest lips or at least that’s what I imagined he did.’”

  Simone had had enough of listening and quickly grabbed the diary from Andrew as he heard the groans of disappointment from his brothers. “What the hell, man, why’d you tak
e the diary away?”

  “Because we are wrong, man. This is wrong. Reading a girl’s personal thoughts and dreams like this. We are assholes for doing something so stupid like this, she’s going to regret even having it out now and she’s going to beat your ass for taking it. So get up because we are going to let her know.”

  “Are you insane, man?” asked Gianni.

  But the look he projected at the group only let them know that he meant business and soon they all left the room and headed toward her bedroom door. Once he knocked, they waited for a second until they saw the door open and she standing there wearing nothing more than a pink robe. “Hi guys, what’s up?”

  Simone handed her the book and her eyes lit up when she saw her diary in his hand. With a trembling hand she took it. Her small voice cracked when she asked them, “Where did you find it?” She never looked at their faces and he could feel just how embarrassed she must have been.

  “I’m sorry Delia but I found it a while ago when I went into your room to grab some socks out of the basket. I saw it and read it and decided to keep it for myself. I told Simone about what you wrote and I read a bit just now. I’m sorry Delia but I was just having fun with the guys.” Andrew shuffled his feet uncomfortably.

  She didn’t say a word for a moment but when she looked into their eyes, it said just enough for them to totally understand how wrong they had been for doing what they had done. Her eyes welled up with tears while she clutched the book in her hand. “I hope that you all had a good laugh at my expense tonight, guys. I hope you enjoyed the laugh a minute after reading my diary!” And with that, the door slammed in their faces and they could hear the sobs and wails from behind the door. They walked down the hallway back to Andrew’s room in silence. All of them felt so bad for making her cry like this. “Damn,” Andrew said, sitting down on the bed.