Hard No: Secret Baby Enemies to Lovers Romance Read online

  I’m fishing for something to say when the shrill beeping starts.

  I’ve never heard it in the five years I’ve lived at this address, but most humans seem to be hardwired to recognize the sound of a smoke alarm. On the heels of that, a single-word thought—fire. Then, a selfish but undeniably relieved realization: I guess I don’t have to soldier on through this evening after all.

  Jamie stares at me, looking anything but relieved.

  “Trent,” she manages. “What—”

  “Stay here,” I tell her, rising from the table and tossing my napkin aside.

  A thin layer of smoke is creeping across the ceiling out in the hallway and there’s a loud commotion coming from the kitchen. I burst into the room to find White, the chef, slapping frantically with a towel at what looks like a blazing jacket beside the stove. She succeeds only in knocking it to the floor. The rest of the counter is already in flames.

  “Look out,” I shout, brushing past her to the open door of the walk-in pantry. There’s a fire extinguisher just inside, and I yank it free from its wall clips. I’ve never used one before, but thankfully they’re mainly idiot-proof, and in a moment, I’m blasting the flames that are incinerating the ingredients of the interrupted meal on the counter.

  “Sir!” calls Curtis from across the room. “I called the fire department…they’ll be here any moment! We should go!”

  I spare a look at the puny extinguisher in my hands and then at the size of the still-growing inferno. He’s right. I turn to White.

  “You,” I tell her. “Get out. Go with Curtis.”

  “But—” she starts. I’m already gone, back up the hallway to the dining room.

  Jamie is no longer in her chair but appears to be rooted to the spot where she stands. You hear the phrase “deer-in-the-headlights” a lot when it comes to situations like this, and I have to say it definitely applies.

  “Come on!” I yell, grabbing her arm and hauling her with me up the smoky hallway to the front door.

  We’re greeted by the sight of not one but two fire engines coming to a screaming stop at the curb and letting loose a whole troupe of firemen. They thunder past us up the steps and into the smoke, which is now billowing out the open front door.

  We are guided a safe distance away from the action and given a quick examination to make sure we’re okay. We make quite a picture, standing in a row on the curb across the street and watching the firemen do their job—the chef, the assistant, the supermodel, and myself. I take off my tie, roll it up, and stick it in my pocket. The occasion doesn’t seem to call for formalities anymore.

  White breaks out of our little formation and approaches me.

  “Mr. Stone,” she says in a trembling voice, “I am so sorry. I had no idea—”

  “When I said the menu was up to you,” I tell her, “I didn’t know that would mean smoked ‘sorry’ with a side of flame-broiled regret.”

  “I’m…sorry,” she stammers. “So very, very sorry.”

  “Sorry won’t de-waterlog what’s left of my kitchen,” I say.

  “And the hall leading to the dining room,” a passing fireman puts in helpfully.

  My internal pissed off-ometer climbs another ten degrees. I’d had some good pictures hanging in that hallway.

  Beside us, Jamie speaks up. “I guess this pretty much brings our evening to a close,” she says.

  “I suppose so,” I reply. “Curtis will drive you home.”

  “Call me later,” she says. “Let me know how things shape up.”

  I tell her that I will, because it’s the correct reply to make, not because I mean it. I could tell well before the smoke alarm went off that I wouldn’t be seeing any more of Jamie after tonight. I may be rusty when it comes to dating, but not so much so that I can’t tell when a meeting has the chemistry of a mud puddle.

  “Sir?” Curtis interjects quietly.

  “What?”

  He glances at White, who is watching the fire crew again. She looks oddly defenseless, standing there in her T-shirt, cook’s pants, and running shoes.

  “Shall I—” he begins.

  “Call Ms. White a cab?” I finish for him. “Yes, please do. Preferably one that can be here quickly.”

  White looks at me, obviously stung, but it’s hard to care about things like that when your entire home smells like wet ashes and soot.

  “Yes, sir,” Curtis replies, taking out his phone and making the call. I momentarily wonder why he has the number of a cab company in his address book, then chalk it up to Curtis simply being the model of efficiency. If nothing else, at least he had never set fire to the place.

  I hope the cab comes before Curtis and Jamie take their leave. I have no desire to make small talk with White out on the sidewalk, much less suffer through another round of “I’m sorrys.”

  Mercifully, the cab arrives in short order. I make a mental note to give Curtis the weekend off.

  He opens the rear door for White, who turns to me.

  “Mr. Stone, I’m—”

  “Sorry,” I say. “Yes, I’ve heard. Goodnight, Ms. White.”

  Her eyes drop and her shoulders slump a bit. Defeated, she climbs into the cab. It pulls away from the curb and disappears around the corner at the end of the block.

  Well, I think, at least that’s one problem gone.

  “Trent?”

  It’s Jamie. Maybe I put the wrong woman into that cab.

  Before she can go on, I flick my eyes to Curtis, who nods almost imperceptibly.

  “Ms. Wells?” he says, stepping forward. “If you’ll come with me, I’ll see you home.”

  She looks at me for a moment, then follows Curtis to the car. Soon, they’re gone as well, and it’s just me and the fire chief.

  “Mr. Stone,” he says, “I know this looks bad, but it could have been a hell of a lot worse. At least no one got hurt.”

  “Yes,” I agree. “At least there’s that.”

  Plus it gets me off the hook with Jamie, I think. Probably the most expensive bail-out of my whole life, though.

  Chapter 3 - Steph

  Slamming doors doesn’t help my anger, but I keep trying—first the door of the taxi, then the front door of my apartment building, then my own door. Each time just seems to limber me up more for slamming the next door shut. Eventually, I’ve run out of doors.

  I resort to slamming cabinets closed. Out comes a glass. Bang. Out comes the vodka. Bang.

  “Ohh!” I exclaim and slam the cabinet door over and over. Bang, bang, bang.

  I am furious on so many levels; it’s like an angry onion. I am angered at life in general for putting me in that situation to begin with, especially when I didn’t want to be there. I am angry at myself big time for making such a stupid blunder. Visions of money swirling down a drain flicker through my brain over a picture of my restaurant falling into neglected disrepair.

  But most of all, I am full of the most scorching fury at Trent “Goodnight, Ms. White” Stone. Packing me off in a cab as lightly as tossing out a bit of trash into the wastebasket.

  To make matters worse, not to mention confusing, I found and, in spite of everything, continue to find him to be incredibly sexy. You’re not supposed to think of the person whom you are completely pissed at as being attractive, but there it is. I had seen little of him during the course of the evening, but I have to admit I had been curious to see more.

  I still manage to blacken the air with rants about Stone, everything from his treatment of me to his stupid, no-doubt-stupidly-expensive stupid tie. I become aware of two things: that I am pacing my apartment in wide circles like a crazy person and that I’m carrying along an empty glass.

  I turn back to the kitchen, meaning to stomp there and retrieve the bottle of vodka from the counter when I catch myself. Now might not be the best time to have a drink. Instead of taking the edge off my seething indignation, it would probably make things worse. Plus, enough trying to take the edge off and I’d just wake up nauseated and with a
headache. That wouldn’t do. I have a feeling that it’s going to be hard enough getting through the day tomorrow anyway. Putting myself at a physical disadvantage doesn’t seem very smart.

  “Smart” makes me think of smart looks and smart clothes, which is Stone in a nutshell, and I’m raging all over again. I have to do something to calm down.

  The vodka goes back into the cabinet (door banged shut, of course), and I go back into the bedroom.

  The room is very minimal—bed, nightstand, lamp, a few pictures on the walls, and that’s it. No television. I have long subscribed to the belief that the bedroom is a place for only two things: sleep and sex.

  I don’t feel at all sleepy.

  I undress down to the skin and lie back on the coverlet, eyes closed. Breathe, I tell myself. In. Out. In. Out. Eventually, my breathing slows and I’m calm enough to register the soft caress of the comforter on my bare back.

  Comforter. That’s a good word. I need comforting. Having no time for dating, though, that means no one around to make me feel better. I would need to do all the comforting myself.

  It’s cool in my apartment—we’re just coming off an unseasonable minor heat wave—and my skin is extra sensitive to the touch. I slide one hand over my belly, up to my breasts. My nipples, already hard in the chill of the air, scrape deliciously across my palm, and I shiver. I pinch one lightly and feel a stab of pleasure.

  My other hand coasts down over the tops of my thighs teasingly. I knead the flesh there, feeling the jumpiness, the tension in the muscles. It’s been a long time since another person has done this, but I imagine that the hand belongs to someone else. It’s surprisingly easy, as it feels so good.

  I’m working my breasts a bit harder as I move my right hand up the inside of my thighs. I think of past lovers and try to put their faces with the situation, but the physical sensations are too distracting and I let the notion go. Faceless hands are on me, moving over me, and ownerless fingers trace a slow path up to the top of my entrance and begin an even slower rotation there.

  I respond at once, my back arching a little. It presses me onto my fingers, and the pressure stirs me even further.

  I move my hand with greater urgency, not wanting to draw it out, wanting to get quickly to the release, but my body has other plans. Instead of a direct ascent, the pleasure comes like a rising tide, swelling in waves. A flush of heat warms my skin, and I begin to twist my body atop the increasingly rumpled bed.

  Once, a thought goes through my head and I almost lose my momentum, but then I recover and am climbing again, up and up. Finally, a starburst of ecstasy blooms, beginning deep inside and radiating outwards through my entire body.

  I fall back against the comforter, breathing hard, spent. I have heard about angry sex and how intense it is supposed to be but have never experienced it myself. Or maybe now I have.

  I lie back and close my eyes again, taking stock of how I feel—shaky yet relaxed, agitated yet soothed. Calm yet still irritated? Yes to all, especially that last one, but why?

  I realize it’s because of that one thought that bubbled up from somewhere in the back of my brain there near the end. A face had materialized in my mind’s eye after all, a face that, while handsome and intriguing, had been worn by someone who had caused me a great deal of stress. Trent Stone.

  Now, why would he pop up at a time like this? Because he had been so much on my mind leading up to the very thing that was meant to make me forget about him?

  “That’s twisted,” I tell myself. Suddenly, I’m tired, too tired for self-psychoanalysis. It takes everything I have to get up, run myself through the shower, and fall into bed, this time to sleep.

  “Hey, wake up!”

  I flinch, my head tapping against the passenger-side window of Tira’s car. I had been seriously drifting there for what could have been miles.

  “You back with me now?” Tira asks, unoffended.

  I nod. I had been seriously daydreaming and don’t even recognize the part of town through which we’re currently moving.

  Tira is unoffended, not just because she’s my best friend, but because she’s also on a sympathy mission to cheer me up following my debacle of the day before. I had been sitting at the kitchen table, alternately grateful that my business insurance would likely cover the damages to Stone’s home and sure that the whole rotten episode was going to be a stake in the heart that ended my career. Burning down a client’s home, or nearly so, was not going to do wonders for my reputation.

  And so Tira had swooped in, scooped me up, bundled me into her car, and now we were on our way to meet up with a few friends for golf, of all things.

  “I feel like I’ve been kidnapped,” I tell her as she pulls into the lot of the club. She’s a member. I’m not. The only thing I seem to be a member of is the destroying-your-future club.

  “You have been,” she confirms. “I had to do it. Otherwise, you would have just moped around your apartment until it was time to go to work.”

  “I knew there was a reason I wanted to be open earlier on Sundays,” I grouse.

  I have always been and continue to be a terrible golfer, but the activity actually helps. Besides the sunshine and fresh air, there is nothing like trying not to embarrass yourself in front of your girlfriends to focus the mind wonderfully.

  All right, I’ll admit it, a few gin and tonics did nothing at all to discourage my lifting spirits. The sky is an unbroken blue, the breeze is refreshing, and the grass blazes an emerald green. It’s about as perfect a Sunday afternoon as you could want.

  I don’t know much about golf, but I know that a low score is good and a high score is bad. I won’t shame myself by revealing how high into the triple digits my own score is today. It doesn’t dampen my still-improving mood, though.

  “There’s the Steph I was looking for,” Tira says at last, smiling widely and nudging me with the handle of her driver. “I knew you were in there somewhere.”

  Not one word has been said about my previous day’s misfortunes. Tira, bless her, must have told Amanda and Jordan to skirt around that one particular elephant in the room. I’m grateful to have it skirted. I’ll have to deal with it soon enough, and today feels like such a welcome break from anger and woe.

  We play through the eighteen holes at our leisure, having fun and enjoying each other’s company.

  “Thanks, Tira,” I say to her as we finish putting on the final green. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been out with the girls.”

  Work, work, work…this had been the litany I tried to use to beg off the outing with Tira when she had shown up at my apartment late this morning.

  “I have a mountain of things to do to get ready for the upcoming work week,” I’d said. “Plus, I already slept in anyway.”

  “No more of that grumbling talk,” she had commanded. “You’re going to enjoy yourself, whether you like it or not. Get your shoes on; we have places to go and things to do!”

  “Where are we going?”

  “It’s a surprise,” she had declared. “All you need to know is that it involves fresh air, sunshine and a few rounds of drinks.”

  Now here I am, actually relaxing a bit. I can almost be said to be feeling cheerful as we make our way to the clubhouse for dinner. Even though I’ve rarely eaten here, it doesn’t take me long to winnow through the items on the menu.

  “You find something you can eat and not bad-mouth too badly?” Tira asks, smiling.

  “Curse of being a chef,” I tell her. “It’s hard to find things to enjoy without being too professionally critical.”

  “You don’t even take a day off when you take a day off, do you?” she replies.

  “You know me,” I say. “Always on the clock when it comes to food.”

  The girls and I are chatting—all right, and enjoying another G & T—when all of my good feelings suddenly have the air kicked out of them. Who should walk in through the door of the clubhouse’s restaurant but Trent “I-don’t-want-your-sorrys” Stone?


  My stomach seems to bottom out, split into two halves, and sink down into my knees. If there’s anyone on Earth I want to see less than Stone, I can’t think of them. What would happen if he spotted me?

  Actually, I have a pretty good idea of what would happen. His eyes would widen a little in recognition, and then the contempt would jet out of them, across the room, and drown me. He seemed like he would be very good at contempt. Probably excels in it like he does with dismissiveness and hard-heartedness.

  Given the number I had done on his kitchen, he would probably follow up that look with some choice words, none of them about the fine weather we were enjoying. I feel sick with dread as I watch him make his way across the room.

  “Are you okay?” Tira asks, concerned. “You look like you’re choking on something!”

  I shake my head, not wanting to make even the smallest sound that might attract attention. I wish that I hadn’t already ordered so that I could at least hide behind the menu.

  At first, it looks like I will be spared Stone’s death glare, as he hasn’t noticed me. He’s too busy being recognized by a host of other golfers, smiling and shaking hands all around.

  His golfing buddy, on the other hand…that’s another story. He sees me almost instantly and does a mega-swerve to head directly towards my table. His name is Jeff, and he was a regular at my second restaurant. He was such a regular that he had felt comfortable enough to ask me out. He had also been comfortable enough to ask more than once, not a bit put out when I declined each time. We were about to entire the murky zone between a date and a formal setting—the casual meeting.

  “Hey, Steph,” he beams. I suddenly remember an unspoken but very real feeling of grace I get by spending the bulk of my time in my third restaurant and away from that beam. “Fancy meeting you here!”

  Fancy meeting you here? Who says that? Who fancies anything these days?