Contents Title A Note from the Authors Character List 1. OSCAR OLIVEIRA 2. OSCAR OLIVEIRA 3. OSCAR OLIVEIRA 4. JACK HIGHLAND 5. JACK HIGHLAND 6. OSCAR OLIVEIRA 7. JACK HIGHLAND 8. OSCAR OLIVEIRA 9. JACK HIGHLAND 10. OSCAR OLIVEIRA 11. OSCAR OLIVEIRA 12. JACK HIGHLAND 13. OSCAR OLIVEIRA 14. JACK HIGHLAND 15. OSCAR OLIVEIRA 16. JACK HIGHLAND 17. JACK HIGHLAND 18. OSCAR OLIVEIRA 19. OSCAR OLIVEIRA 20. JACK HIGHLAND 21. OSCAR OLIVEIRA 22. JACK HIGHLAND 23. OSCAR OLIVEIRA 24. OSCAR OLIVEIRA 25. JACK HIGHLAND 26. OSCAR OLIVEIRA 27. OSCAR OLIVEIRA 28. JACK HIGHLAND 29. OSCAR OLIVEIRA 30. OSCAR OLIVEIRA 31. JACK HIGHLAND 32. JACK HIGHLAND 33. OSCAR OLIVEIRA 34. OSCAR OLIVEIRA 35. JACK HIGHLAND 36. OSCAR OLIVEIRA 37. JACK HIGHLAND 38. OSCAR OLIVEIRA 39. JACK HIGHLAND 40. OSCAR OLIVEIRA 41. JACK HIGHLAND 42. OSCAR OLIVEIRA 43. JACK HIGHLAND 44. OSCAR OLIVEIRA Epilogue Banks Moretti - Key West House Also by Krista & Becca About the Authors Acknowledgments Charming Like Us Copyright © 2020 by K.B. Ritchie First Edition - Digital All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced or transmitted in any capacity without written permission by the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review purposes. This book is a work of fiction. Any names, places, characters, resemblance to events or persons, living or dead, are coincidental and originate from the authors’ imagination and are used fictitiously. Cover image © Stocksy Book cover design by Twin Cove Designs www.kbritchie.com A Note from the Authors Charming Like Us is the seventh book in the Like Us Series. Even though the series changes POVs throughout, to understand events that took place in the previous novels, the series should be read in its order of publication. Charming Like Us should be read after Headstrong Like Us. LIKE US SERIES READING ORDER 1. Damaged Like Us 2. Lovers Like Us 3. Alphas Like Us 4. Tangled Like Us 5. Sinful Like Us 6. Headstrong Like Us 7. Charming Like Us 8. Wild Like Us 9. Fearless Like Us 10. Infamous Like Us 11. Misfits Like Us 12. Unlucky Like Us Character List Not all characters in this list will make an appearance in the book, but most will be mentioned. Ages represent the age of the character at the beginning of the book. Some characters will be older when they’re introduced, depending on their birthday. THE OLIVEIRAS Rodrigo & Sônia Oliveira Oscar – 32 Quinn – 22 Joana – 19 THE HIGHLANDS Jack Sr. & Eleonor Highland Jack – 27 Jesse – 17 THE FAMOUS ONES The Cobalts Richard Connor Cobalt & Rose Calloway Jane – 24 Charlie – 21 Beckett – 21 Eliot – 20 Tom – 19 Ben – 17 Audrey – 14 The Hales Loren Hale & Lily Calloway Maximoff – 24 Luna – 19 Xander – 16 Kinney – 14 The Meadows Ryke Meadows & Daisy Calloway Sullivan – 21 Winona – 15 THE SECURITY TEAM These are the bodyguards that protect the Cobalts, Hales, and Meadows. Kitsuwon Securities Inc. Security Force Omega Akara Kitsuwon (boss) – 27 Thatcher Moretti (lead) – 29 Banks Moretti – 29 Farrow Keene – 29 Quinn Oliveira – 22 Oscar Oliveira – 32 Paul Donnelly – 27 Price Kepler’s Triple Shield Services Security Force Epsilon Sinclair (lead) – 40s Ian Wreath – 30s Vance Wreath – 20s O’Malley – 27 …and more Security Force Alpha Price Kepler (lead) – 40s …and more 1 OSCAR OLIVEIRA Ten times a day, I question why I’m the bodyguard to Charlie Keating Cobalt. The sun just set, and I’m already at number eleven. Why me? Because I can keep up. Because despite the fact that he’s actively trying to lose me in a crowd that’s fifty people deep, I’m still six feet behind him. I could lunge and grab his thin, billowing white button-down, untucked from his black jeans. No one has noticed the famous twenty-one-year-old yet. Thanks to the fact that Charlie is moving through a crowd of tourists who are all too enamored with the glittering Manhattan skyscrapers. They’re too unaware that a celebrity just passed them by, with his unkempt, sandy-brown hair that takes flight with the summer wind. Charlie veers to the left, suddenly, and his head disappears behind a group of taller men. If it were my first day on the job, I’d think he was trying to lose me in the crowd. But it’s not my first day. Not even my second. I’ve been Charlie’s bodyguard for over five years. So I don’t think it. I know he’s trying to lose me. Here’s an annoying fact: His success rate is about 50%. Here’s a less annoying fact: Before me, his success rate was 100%. Charlie’s previous bodyguards were making him look like a gold-star Houdini. They had zero shot to catch up to him. If Charlie wanted to disappear, he’d vanish into thin air. With me, he has to try a little fucking harder, and that’s why I’m still on his detail after all these years. Can’t lie, it’s not rose petals and holy water over here. It’s never stopping. Not for a second. It’s stress on stress on stress, and I’m terrified of the day I lose this. Being his bodyguard. Because it’ll be like going from a hundred million miles an hour to being glued to the ground. I’ve been at Charlie’s speed for so long, I don’t know how to stop anymore. I watch him near a department store, and instead of following his footsteps, I keep walking ahead with the throngs. Officially, I lose sight of him. It’s a calculated risk, one with opportunity cost. And as I make the decision, I know exactly what it’s going to cost me…and my client. I hear overwhelmed, elated, shrill screams of a young girl. “Ohmygod Charlie COBALT!” Her high-pitched “oh my gods” are probably echoing down the New Jersey Turnpike. Can I blame her? I grew up thinking the Cobalts walked on water. All three famous families are considered American royalty, but the Cobalts are the gods among the princes, and now that I protect them, I still think it. The difference is, I’m not a teenager envious of their flawless intellect and their arm-in-arm impenetrable bonds…their closeness that made my family life seem unspooled and messy. Because I’m older now, and I’m an incredibly intelligent motherfucker. And I’ve come face-to-face with the Cobalts, who are just as messy, just as dysfunctional, just as chaotic as my family still is. And it made me love the Cobalt Empire even more. So they still walk on water, but I’m one of several men who picks their asses out of a Great Lake when they slip and begin to drown. Call me The Pro. The media already does. More screaming blisters the New York
