Hard No: Secret Baby Enemies to Lovers Romance Read online

  Please, don’t hang around, I silently will. Please take the hint and keep on keeping on.

  Contrary to my desperate mental commands, he drags over not one but two chairs.

  Oh, no.

  I have to get out of here, and fast. I’m not going to go so far as to excuse myself to the ladies’ room and go out the window, but I definitely need to make a speedy exit before—

  “Trent,” Jeff calls to Stone, waving to him. “Over here, buddy.”

  Stone disengages from the small posse of business partners that seem more like admirers and walks over. To his credit, when he sees me, he doesn’t snatch up a roll from the basket on the nearest table and peg it at me like they would throw stones at witches in the old days, but his pace definitely slows.

  Clearly, he is looking forward to this little reunion every bit as much as me.

  Chapter 4 - Trent

  (12 hours earlier)

  Although I do own more than one property, the rest of them are in other cities. Workaholics mostly have colleagues as opposed to friends, and you don’t ask a colleague if you can borrow their couch for the night, even if a significant portion of your own residence has gone up in smoke. Money, however, solves all kinds of problems, including the issue of being able to rent a more-than-adequate hotel suite at this late hour.

  In spite of it being well after midnight, the first thing I do after going up to my room is summon up room service. Not for food, though. I’ve had enough of that for one day, thanks very much. Rather, I order some workout clothes. This hotel has a gym on the second floor, and I intend to take full advantage of it.

  You might think that the first thing I would want to do would be to flop into bed and sleep for twenty-four hours. That’s a laugh. I have to be at work in seven hours. I’m going in early so that I can get in a round of golf with a client later.

  “Later this afternoon,” I tell the empty penthouse. I could cancel one or both activities, but you don’t get to where I am through cancellations or even reschedulings. Things get done when I say they get done.

  The concierge delivers my workout clothes in short order, even though I’m sure it must have been a scramble to get them. I tip him heavily for both his effort and the time.

  The gym is, understandably, deserted. That’s okay. I’m glad for the solitude. It means there won’t be anyone around to see me fume.

  You can’t really get your anger out with free weights, so I settle for battering the collection of exercise machines, one after the other.

  “‘I’m sorry,’” I mutter, hauling the military press bar down to my chest. “Sorry,” I snarl, letting it zip back up before jerking it down again. “‘I’m sorry I torched your home?’”

  I’m sweating now, pulling too much weight, knowing I’ll be feeling it later.

  Later today, I think, and that makes me angry all over again.

  The thing is, White had been well on her way to a glowing review from me. It didn’t matter that the dinner with Jamie was fizzling when all hell had broken loose. That hadn’t been her fault. That had been my own fault entirely, unless you want to count that of meddling matchmakers.

  What had been hers had been the quality of the meal, which had been fantastic. For a moment, in the kitchen, I had thought that her using the gold leaf had been a crack about how much of my money she was spending on the evening. That suspicion had disappeared when I had first seen, then tasted, the final product.

  In the kitchen. That’s where I remember her the most vividly. Not out on the sidewalk, watching as the firemen went about their business of dousing White’s accidental handiwork.

  While her feet had remained planted, from the waist up, she had reminded me of a dancer. She had reached out with ease for everything she needed, using it, then returning it back to its proper place, just so. Confident. Wholly concentrating on what she was doing.

  Again, it had given me time to study her in motion. Her skin was pale—she must spend a lot of time indoors because of her work—but not unhealthy-looking. Quite the opposite, it looked like powdered marble. It was the kind of beautiful, ivory-white flesh that made you long to touch it. Her neck was graceful, her hands long-fingered and agile. If not for the curves that were visible and those that were hinted at, she could have passed for a Renaissance maiden.

  I find myself comparing her with Jamie. Jamie Wells, the supermodel. Jamie, who had graced the covers of the best fashion magazines in the world. Jamie, whose comings and goings were the bread and butter of the worst tabloids in the world.

  Jamie, whom I had found as interesting as watching paint dry. Had she been beautiful? Gorgeous, even by what must be industry standards. Had she been attractive? That was trickier. She had been, but in the way that a beautiful vase was attractive—wonderful to look at, but with nothing inside, really.

  I haven’t dated much since my divorce last year. I hadn’t planned on getting back into the dating game in my mid-thirties, but I hadn’t been planning on the divorce, either. Melanie, my now long-departed ex, had made that surprise decision for me.

  I don’t want to say that I’m a king who’s looking for a queen, but I want someone who understands what it means to be committed to one’s work. The only reason I had pursued things with Jamie had been because she is famous in a profession where beautiful women are a dime a dozen. She worked hard to reach the top of a very glitzy mountain.

  Unfortunately, by our third date, I had come to the realization that drive didn’t matter so much when you aren’t that interested in the driver.

  It wasn’t that she was stupid. Rather, she gave an impression of emptiness, like when she wasn’t on a modeling job, she was only waiting for another one.

  Going from one work opportunity to another? my internal critic asked playfully. That sounds familiar.

  “It’s not the same thing,” I tell the weights, who clack their agreement. I let them fall back into place, hard. The sound is very loud in the otherwise still, quiet gym. I wince a little. That had been careless. Bad form.

  No, I think, bad form is burning down your employer’s house!

  I shake my head. I have to stop thinking about this, or I’ll be sore in addition to still being furious.

  I throw my towel around my neck and head back up to my suite. I stay in the shower a long time, letting the hot water do its work on my back. By the time I emerge, I feel moderately better. Maybe I can even catch a few hours of sleep before I have to be dressed and ready to head to the office.

  Sleep has a way of springing surprise home movies on you, though. I had thought that I was going to sleep the sleep of the dead after the trials of my evening and early morning hours, but I was wrong.

  I’m back in my dining room. Jamie is there. Her evening dress, on the other hand, is not. She sits at the table, naked down to her bare feet. Her hair, which had been done up in a fashionably messy bun, is now down around her shoulders and upper back. A single rogue lock has drifted across one delicate collarbone and curls towards her small, high breast.

  “You have a call coming in,” she declares, looking sidelong at me.

  “I don’t have my phone,” I tell her. I don’t seem to have anything, including clothes of my own.

  “Doesn’t matter,” she says, rising from her chair. “You’ll always have a call coming in.”

  “You don’t know that. You don’t know me.”

  “I don’t have to. That’s all right. You don’t have to know me. We’re a great match, you and me.”

  She crosses the room. Her skin looks bronzed in the warm glow of the candles in the middle of the table. No, that’s not right. That’s not where the light is coming from. Where—

  She kneels in front of me, placing her hands on my thighs and looking up into my eyes. The tips of her breasts brush against my knees, and I feel myself responding. The room is getting brighter as she dips her head towards me, taking me into her mouth.

  It should be an indescribable sensation, but I can describe it anyway—it
’s like being taken in by smoke. There’s no substance to the experience. If I were to close my eyes, it would feel like I was being caressed by empty air.

  Her hands reach around behind me and pull me forward, deeper into her mouth, but still there’s nothing there, not really. And besides growing brighter still, the room is getting warmer. A light sheen of perspiration has broken out across Jamie’s golden shoulders and brow.

  I finally realize where the light is coming from. Fire. The entire perimeter of the room is in flames at floor level. The flames are licking upwards, consuming the walls as hungrily as Jamie is consuming me.

  Something…something is tugging at my brain, but I can’t grab hold of it. All I know is that it’s somewhere else, somewhere other than in this fire-blasted room.

  I put my hands on Jamie’s thin shoulders and shove her away from me. She disengages without protest, tumbling backward onto the floorboards. She looks up at me with empty, hollow eyes.

  “You don’t have to go,” she says, and her voice has the monotone of someone talking in their sleep. “You can stay this time; it’ll be all right.” She begins to advance on me on her hands and knees, her long red hair swinging before her. “You don’t know what you want, but I do.”

  I back out of the room and into the hallway. The flames are here, too, crawling up from the baseboards like glowing tongues.

  Up the hallway now, to the kitchen. White is there, at the counter, chopping and slicing at the cutting board even as the room is going up in flames around her. She isn’t wearing her chef’s jacket—and why would she? It went up with the rest of the kitchen, didn’t it? Her olive-colored T-shirt is damp with sweat as she works, oblivious to what’s going on around her.

  Barely missing a beat, she bends from the waist, uses the point of her knife to hook her burning chef’s jacket off the ground, and holds it up at arm’s length like a torch. Flaming bits of fabric fall away like tiny meteors. I can hear them sizzling.

  “I’m sorry,” she says, flipping the blazing garment into the sink, where, improbably, a huge ball of flames then erupts.

  “No!” I shout, starting forward. To do what, I don’t know. The entire room is in flames, burning completely out of control. Rather than joining in with the blaze, White’s T-shirt appears to be melting into great, gaping holes. One freckled shoulder comes into view as she turns back to the cutting board and her knife begins to move again.

  “No,” I say again. “I don’t want your—”

  “Sorry,” I croak, half-sitting up in bed. For a moment, I don’t know where I am. Everything in the room is unfamiliar.

  It’s the panoramic view coming in through the windows that grounds me, brings me back to reality. Beyond the floor-to-ceiling glass panels are the lights of the city, my city, which is just as much my home as the one that burned earlier. I know every building that’s worth knowing, know what’s going on under the lights that still illuminate every floor. That kind of knowing is one of the ways I stay ahead.

  If this were a movie, there would be a lingering smell of smoke in the air. As it is, though, the only thing I can smell is the fresh linen I got tangled in while I dreamt the night away.

  Some dream, I think. And some night. Pretty poor night, all over the place.

  I take up my phone and check the time. I’ve been asleep for only a few hours.

  I groan. Too late to go back to sleep and too early to get up. Sleep is like a bad taste in my mouth, so I opt for getting up. I can’t believe I let myself get roped into golfing with Jeff later today.

  Standing by the window, I look out over the city. Somewhere out there, White is sleeping the sleep of the content.

  Why is she still in my thoughts when I know full well that to have her there will only stir up my anger and resentment? If I never see her again, as the saying goes, it will be too soon.

  But I have seen enough to know that life is more than capable of throwing you curve balls. There’s still every chance that I’ll indeed cross paths with her again. If that happens, what will I do?

  The thought follows me back to bed, where, for the next couple of hours, I fail to sleep.

  Chapter 5 - Steph

  “What’s with you?” Tira asks quizzically. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost!”

  “More like someone who wishes I was a ghost,” I say, my eyes riveted on Stone as he continues to thread his way towards our table. I wonder if I’m smiling. He, notably, is not.

  “Hey,” says Jeff when Stone finally reaches us. “Trent, this is Stephanie White. She’s a chef over at—”

  “We’ve met,” Stone says…well, stonily. “Ms. White,” he says to me, nodding once slightly.

  “Mr. Stone,” I reply, just barely catching the apology rising in my throat before it can escape my lips.

  Jeff looks from his friend to me and back again. He is expecting further exchange based on our mutual acquaintance. He’s going to be waiting for a long time. Stone says nothing.

  “Well, sit down,” Jeff laughs. Stone looks at him as though he had suggested a trip fly-fishing for lobsters, then takes the other of the two chairs Jeff had lugged over from a neighboring table.

  “Trent tells me,” Jeff says, “that he had a real adventure yesterday. As a chef, you’ll probably be interested in this. His kitchen—”

  “I know,” I say, twisting my hands miserably in my lap.

  “You—” Jeff starts, then glances at Stone. “How—” he tries, then his eyes widen. “Oh, no, you can’t mean…I mean, what are the chances that—”

  What are the chances? In my experience, Jeff old boy, the chances would be one in one, and now here we are, prophecy fulfilled.

  There is a long silence around the table. Tira finally breaks it by introducing herself and the others, following it up with the declaration that she can’t believe she actually got me out here for a day off.

  “Yes,” Stone says icily. “I would think you’d be tired. You had quite the busy day yesterday.”

  The silence spins out again. Everyone is looking at me. This is my cue to say something witty to defuse the tense situation.

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” I announce, rising from my seat.

  “I’ll join you,” Tira says, taking my arm as I stumble away from the table.

  “Is he—” I say to her in a low voice as we go.

  “Staring daggers at you?” she finishes, also in a prison-yard whisper. “Girl, if looks could kill.”

  I close my eyes briefly against this communication, then force them open again. Crashing into another patron’s table would only make me even more conspicuous.

  This is ridiculous, I tell myself. You’re a grown woman and a professional! You have nothing to be ashamed about. It was an accident, for god’s sake! Are you going to let him intimidate you in front of a whole roomful of people? No way! You’re going to go back there and show him what you’re made of!

  “You can’t hide in there forever,” Tira calls to me through the closed toilet stall door.

  “I don’t have to hide forever,” I tell her. “Only for another fifteen or twenty minutes. Time enough for the two of them to get bored and go away.”

  “I hate to break this to you, but Jeff isn’t going to get bored, and Trent Stone will probably stick around, too.”

  “Only to heap more scorn on me,” I moan.

  “Want me to kick his ass?” Tira asks kindly. She’s been taking kickboxing classes and has been dying to try out her roundhouse kick on something other than the gym’s sparring dummy.

  “No.”

  “Probably a good idea,” she says. “He doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who gets his ass kicked around much. That, and he could probably pay to have me killed several times over.”

  “I don’t know…I think my name would come up on his hit list a lot sooner than yours.”

  “Come on,” Tira cajoles, tapping on the stall door with her nails. “He’ll have a new solid-gold kitchen before the end of the week, I guarant
ee. The only question is, are you going to stick your head in the sand or are you going to show him that while you may be sorry, you’re not going to grovel?”

  “If I stay in here,” I say, “I won’t have to be sorry or worry about groveling. Eventually, the problem will go away.”

  “The problem,” she says, “is going to think that you’re constipated or something.”

  “Who says I care what he thinks?” I protest.

  “The same person who’s talking to you through a bathroom stall door. Put on your big girl panties and let’s get back out there. What’s the worst thing he can do?”

  “I think you may have been onto something with your talk of him hiring assassins.”

  I can almost hear Tira rolling her eyes. “I don’t think he’s going to have you set upon by thugs at the country club.”

  She’s right, of course. What’s Stone going to do? Stare me to death? And no matter what he might think, I had never said anything less than the truth—it had all been an accident. Everyone makes mistakes, and while mine had been more than a little costly, it had been a mistake all the same. I’m not going to be tortured over it, either by myself or by anyone else.

  I open the door, noting with a small smile that I had locked it after myself upon entering. Had I really thought that little thumb bolt would keep out my own sense of mortification?

  “Okay,” I tell Tira. “Back out into the lion’s den we go, then.”

  “It’ll be all right,” she says. “And hey, I’ll go first. If they want to get to you, they’ve got to shoot through me.”

  “I think,” I reply, “Stone would feel that’s letting me off too quickly. More likely, he’d be happier if I were set on fire.”

  I’m not going to get a definitive answer to this bit of morbid supposing, though. Jeff and Stone are both gone as Tira and I approach the table.

  “The tall one got a call,” reports Jordan. “He left. The other one went with him—” She smiles at Tira and sips her drink. “—when it looked like Steph wasn’t coming back.”