Ghosted, p.1
Ghosted, page 1
Ghosted
Sarah Ready
Praise for Sarah Ready
PRAISE FOR FRENCH HOLIDAY
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"Ready (The Fall in Love Checklist) whisks readers to the South of France for a saucy enemies-to-lovers romance...This is a winner."
Publishers Weekly starred review on French Holiday
"Ready has written a tale that deliciously taps into its French trappings...A charming dramedy featuring a promising sleuthing duo."
Kirkus Reviews on French Holiday
PRAISE FOR JOSH AND GEMMA MAKE A BABY
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“Romance author Ready gives Gemma rich and complex motivations for wanting a baby…An unusual and winning read about a little-discussed topic.”
Kirkus Reviews
“A lively, entertaining, romantic comedy by an author and novelist with a genuine flair for originality, humor, and narrative driven storytelling…”
Midwest Book Review
PRAISE FOR JOSH AND GEMMA THE SECOND TIME AROUND
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“In this sequel—which stands well enough on its own—the happily-ever-after moment is merely the starting point…Ready effectively leads readers to wonder if she isn’t going to upend every single one of the genre’s expectations. It’s a testament to her exceptional writing skill that even the most romantic-minded readers won’t be sure which outcome they prefer. A charming and disarmingly tough story of the many ways that love can adapt to crises.”
Kirkus Reviews
PRAISE FOR CHASING ROMEO
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“A fun and sweet love story…”
Kirkus Reviews
PRAISE FOR THE SPACE BETWEEN
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“…emotional roller-coaster, but in the end true love prevails. For hopeless romantics, this one’s got the goods.”
Publishers Weekly
“A touching tale of adult reckonings and reunions with some heart-tugging reversals.”
Kirkus Reviews
Also by Sarah Ready
Stand Alone Romances:
The Fall in Love Checklist
Hero Ever After
Once Upon an Island
French Holiday
The Space Between
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The Ghosted Series:
Ghosted
Switched
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Josh and Gemma:
Josh and Gemma Make a Baby
Josh and Gemma the Second Time Around
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Soul Mates in Romeo Romance Series:
Chasing Romeo
Love Not at First Sight
Romance by the Book
Love, Artifacts, and You
Married by Sunday
My Better Life
Scrooging Christmas
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Stand Alone Novella:
Love Letters
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Find these books and more by Sarah Ready at:
www.sarahready.com/romance-books
Romance is Dead…
Jillian Nejat is the only dating and relationship expert on the planet who is incapable of speaking to men. If they’re living, if they’re breathing, it’s game over.
With her bank account at zero, her career a dumpster fire, and her dating life in a ten-year slump, she moves into a tiny, dirt-cheap NYC apartment.
Unfortunately, the apartment is already occupied.
Daniel (no-last-name) is a sexy, shirtless, six-pack wielding heartthrob who is also…dead.
He isn’t living. He isn’t breathing. He’s a ghost. He’s also the only man on the planet who Jillian can talk to.
Soon, Daniel’s convinced that it’s his afterlife mission to resurrect Jillian’s love life. He knows, if he helps her fall in love then he can move on. Jillian agrees. The last thing she needs is a Lothario ghost haunting her living room.
But then, one practice date leads to another, one confession leads to more, and suddenly Jillian fears she’s falling for the one man she can never have.
W.W. CROWN BOOKS
An imprint of Swift & Lewis Publishing LLC
www.wwcrown.com
* * *
This book is a work of fiction. All the characters and situations in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to situations or persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Any reference to historical events, real people, or real locations are used fictitiously.
* * *
Copyright © 2023 by Sarah Ready
Published by W.W. Crown Books an Imprint of Swift & Lewis Publishing, LLC, Lowell, MI USA
Cover Illustration & Design: Elizabeth Turner Stokes
* * *
All rights reserved.
* * *
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
* * *
Library of Congress Control Number:
ISBN: 978-1-954007-60-4 (eBook)
ISBN: 978-1-954007-61-1 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-954007-62-8 (large print)
ISBN: 978-1-954007-63-5 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-954007-64-2 (audiobook)
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
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Epilogue
The Second Epilogue
Acknowledgments
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About the Author
Also by Sarah Ready
1
If I’d known my new apartment was a sex maniac’s love den, I would never have invited my parents along.
In my defense, it’s not as if the real estate listing explicitly said, “Warning: studio apartment moonlights as center for titillating orgies and acrobatic loving.”
No. It said, “Affordable, quiet studio apartment in Murray Hill, wood floors, street view, unique décor.”
I stare out the apartment’s single, narrow, grime-coated window at the bustling, crowded Lexington Avenue, and watch a city bus chug past. I can almost make out a patch of blue sky between the buildings, muddy and weak, filtering light through the apartment.
Through the open window, the familiar music of buses rumbling, sirens fading in and out, and horns honking swirls to me, carried on the cool spring breeze.
I’m airing out the apartment. When we first walked in it smelled like sensual spicy massage oil, sandalwood, and sex. Now it smells like bus exhaust, city dirt, and stale coffee—courtesy of the coffee cart parked on the sidewalk below.
Which is…better.
For the moment, I avoid looking at the rest of the apartment, at my parents, and at Fran.
I need a minute to regroup.
The key here is to look on the bright side. To look beyond the apartment’s exterior and find the good. You should always look beneath the surface to find the good inside.
So. What’s good?
First, I like quiet. I’m a quiet person. Excessively quiet, some might say. A quiet person and a quiet apartment? What could be better? Nothing, not even erasable pens.
Second, wood floors are lovely. Even the ones that creak, collect dirt between the planks, and are ice cold on your toes—they are lovely.
Third, Murray Hill is close to my office on East 44th Street, which means I’ll save money, because I can walk instead of slogging to work on the subway or the bus.
Finally, it’s affordable. Sensationally affordable. So affordable I don’t have the option to walk away. I just can’t.
The low monthly rent, the location, this apartment is the holy grail of Manhattan real estate.
Which is why I signed the lease agreement and collected the keys from the harassed, jittery real-estate agent, sight unseen.
I mentally run through the amount of money I have in my savings account, my checking, and on that gift card Fran gave me last Christmas, and, yup, I can’t afford to walk away.
So, looking on the bright side, this apartme nt isn’t an orgasmic abomination, it’s a godsend.
There. See? A godsend.
Pasting a bright smile on my face and smoothing my hands over my baggy gray sweatshirt and jeans, I confidently turn to my mom and Fran.
My mom has a deep wrinkle where her eyebrows are pulled together and she’s frowning, slowly spinning in a circle, as she takes in my new home. The old wood floors squeak and moan as she turns.
I don’t look like my mom, she’s willowy, with wispy blonde hair, green eyes, and a gentle expression. She prefers flowy dresses in pastels and quilted vests. Some people think she’s pretty in an airy, delicate way, but most people agree it’s my dad who’s really good-looking.
I don’t take after him either.
He’s robust, rough and charismatic, with dark olive skin, black curly hair, and an energy that sucks you in like an F-5 tornado.
I guess, from my dad, I inherited thick, black curly hair, and from my mom I inherited green eyes the color of spring leaves in the rain. Other than that, I’m just me.
Five foot three, happily curvy, with a heart-shaped face, a nose that’s almost too long, and with, well, I suppose my best feature is my mouth. It’s wide, full, and always looks like I’ve just been kissed. Passionately.
My mom always said, “Jilly, with your beauty and your personality, you’ll have to beat off the boys.” But she’s my mom, and she has maternal blindness to all my flaws.
Fran, our neighbor of thirty years, doesn’t suffer from that affliction. She sees me pretty accurately. A decent-looking twenty-seven-year-old with a terminal inability to speak to men.
Scratch that. Not all men, just men who are interested in sex. Or dating. Or kissing.
Or…breathing.
Fine. All men. Except my dad, my cousin Ari, Michael, and my Grandpa Joe.
But anyway, Fran’s here, in her leopard print and diamonds, and she’s smirking at me with a knowing expression. I know that look. She’s imagining all the fun someone could get up to here.
I casually look around the apartment, keeping my expression placid, neutral.
“It’s bigger than I thought it’d be. Really nice,” I say, nodding at the wide, long room. “I hadn’t expected it to be so big…and the location…”
Fran restrains a smile and nods as I list off the attributes.
“And lights. It has lights.” I walk over to the wall and quickly click on and off the single overhead light, a massive, gaudy, Liberace-inspired golden candelabra hanging from the ceiling.
Fran keeps nodding, her leopard print diamanté-encrusted turtleneck sparkling in the blinking lights.
My mom keeps turning, inspecting the one-room studio apartment, the line between her brows deepening.
“And there’s a kitchen. With a counter. And a sink. And…floors.” I gesture at the wooden floors, and all my cardboard moving boxes stacked in a neat row on those lovely wooden floors. “This apartment has floors.”
Oh jeez.
“Jillian?” My mom finally stops and gives me a confused look.
“Hmm?” I bite my tongue and uncomfortably tug at the neck of my sweatshirt.
“Why are there so many mirrors?” my mom asks.
Okay. Right.
There’s no avoiding it, is there? No matter where you look, there’s a mirror.
The walls, they aren’t painted, or papered, or paneled. No, they’re mirrored.
The ceiling? Mirrored.
The two stairs, leading up to the small elevated platform where your bed goes? Mirrored.
The kitchen cabinets? Yes, indeed, they are mirrored.
The kitchen countertop? It’s not mirrored, but it is stainless steel buffed to such a high shine that it’s like a mirror.
The bathroom? It’s my worst nightmare. Because when I wake up in the morning and stumble to the shower, my hair sticking straight up, my eyes bloodshot, and my face full of pillow wrinkles, the last thing I want is a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree mirrored view of everything.
Fran snorts, then says delightedly, “Can’t you tell, Geeta? It’s for eff-you-see-kay-ing.”
I sigh and rub the back of my neck. “You don’t have to spell it, Fran. We’re all adults—”
“Fucucking?” my mom asks, frowning. “Jilly, are you into fucucking?” She glares at the mirrors, “What is that? A cult?”
“The u comes before the c," Fran sings, but my mom ignores her, frowning worriedly at me.
I shake my head, “No. No, Mom. Not at all. No cults.”
She shrugs and turns back to inspect the apartment—twenty-two feet by eighteen feet of mirrored splendor, chock full of boxes, my brass bed frame and mattress, my white faux-leather couch, my white desk and swivel chair, and my two wooden bookshelves.
From the mess, it looks like it won’t all fit, but it will. My last place was fifty-square-feet smaller.
Fran primps her frizzy blonde hair, the black roots showing, and winks at me in the mirror.
The breeze blows through the window, carrying up the impatient honk of a car horn. I can hear my dad down below, arguing with the moving truck driver. It’s one of those “we drive, you unload” companies. We’re all finished except for my box of Star Trek collectibles which my dad promised to be extra careful with.
“It’s not anything like that. It’s unique décor,” I say, reassuring my mom by taking a cue from the real estate listing. “I like it a lot. All these mirrors really brighten up the space, reflect the light. It’s going to be great for my creativity.”
My mom makes a wincing, disbelieving face, but I don’t blame her. She’s lived in the same Long Island red brick rowhouse for thirty years and the height of her decorating risk-taking is a new lace doily for the TV dinner tray.
“I don’t know…” she says.
“It’s not what’s on the outside, it’s what’s on the inside. Try this,” I say. “Listen to those city sounds, the rush of traffic, the people, even the birds. Smell that coffee and…is that bagels? Mmm. Now, close your eyes.”
Both Mom and Fran close their eyes, so I say, “What do you see?”
My mom sighs. “Nothing, Jilly. You told us to close our eyes.”
Okay. Yes.
“But what do you imagine? Can’t you imagine what it could look like?”
“No,” my mom says.
“I think it’d look incredible if you put mirrors on the floors,” Fran says, rocking back on her heels and humming happily.
“Never mind, you can open your eyes,” I say.
My mom digs in her purse and pulls out a pack of sanitizing wipes, thrusting them toward me. “Here, honey. I noticed the bathroom is dirty. You should wipe it down before you use it.”
I nod. “Thanks, Mom.”
She pats my cheek and I take the wipes and tuck them in my pocket.
“Are you sure you like it?” she asks worriedly.
