Tangled: Contemporary Romance Trilogy Read online

  TANGLED

  D E E B RI D G N O R TH

  Copyright © 2019

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  BOOK ONE

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  BOOK TWO

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  BOOK THREE

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  BOOK ONE

  Chapter One

  Damion

  Chicks are weird. Yes, I know that saying that will probably make me incredibly unpopular with the sisterhood of the traveling underpants or whatever union women belong to that seems to have cornered the market on making up excuses for bad behavior. But come on. There are times when I am absolutely sure that women will fight for something they don’t even want just because they don’t want everyone else to know that they don’t want it. You know, like when a chick is determined to hang onto a man who isn’t at all interested? Why would she even want to do that? What kind of sense does it make?

  I was looking for my morning paper as I contemplated this rampant gender weirdness. Okay. That isn’t quite fair. Guys will also pursue something that they don’t want. It’s just usually for other reasons. And believe me, I am well aware that this is not a shining reason for me to think that men are somehow better than women.

  I yawned. I hate mornings. I’m a bit of a night owl. I much prefer to be out and about at night. Or not really out and about. I’m actually a bit of a homebody. Last night I had been on a face-to-face call with someone in Texas until almost two in the morning. To say that I was disgruntled when my alarm went off this morning at six o’clock is putting it mildly. I may or may not be accused of assaulting the alarm clock.

  I made it to the front door of my condo still wearing my pajama pants and without any shoes. I could feel my black hair sticking up at all angles. It’s thick and wiry. My family is from Mexico so you get the idea. I probably looked like a homeless person. But it wasn’t like the neighbors were going to care if I ducked outside in my pajamas to grab the paper.

  The inside of my condo was a beautiful sixty-two degrees. A temperature only achieved by the industrial strength air conditioning unit I kept going pretty much full blast from about March to October. I have lived in St. Louis my entire life, which is why I can tell you that the climate sucks. It was now September and that barely mattered to the gods of hot weather.

  Grabbing the handle of the front door, I braced myself for maximum impact of the sticky hot air that I knew lay on the other side of that insulated front door. At least I wasn’t wearing a shirt. Nothing says gross like fitted cotton sticking to your skin. I hate that feeling. Air conditioning, people. It’s the only thing that makes the Midwestern United States tolerable.

  I unlocked the deadbolt and the chain lock and then I yanked that front door open like there was a lava flow on the other side and I had to rescue the last Dr. Pepper on earth from a fiery death. The air hit me like a suffocating haze and in seconds my lungs had sent a message to my brain saying that they were quitting. But of course, the nasty hot box outside was not the worst thing going on in my condo complex.

  “Son of bitch!” I yelped. “Trinity, what the hell?”

  “I picked up your paper for you.”

  Not only had she picked up my paper, the twisted end of the little plastic sleeve was wrapped around her index finger. My paper dangled from Trinity’s fingers as though she were holding a treat out to a dog. And of course, she figured that’s what she was doing.

  “Trinity, you’re not supposed to be here.”

  “On your porch?”

  “Inside my condo complex. Restraining order. Remember?”

  I folded my arms over my chest. My attempt to get the paper and get back inside before the nastiness of the sticky morning weather had utterly failed. My skin was now coated in a fine sheen of sweat and my pajama bottoms were sticking to my butt, which was why there was no way in hell I was going to turn around. Trinity would probably cop a feel. She had zero respect for boundaries. Hence the restraining order.

  She propped her free hand on her hip and gave me a smoking look from beneath her fake lashes. Everything about the woman was fake. There were times when I really couldn’t remember why I had dated her to begin with. Of course, I hadn’t intentionally dated her for long. It had kind of turned into one of those things where I let the relationship linger just because I was afraid of what was going to happen when I broke it off. Obviously, my instincts about
the breakup were right on.

  “Damion, we need to talk.” She huffed out a breath that was calculated to make her very full and surgically perky breasts tremble. She was a total expert at the bosom heave.

  Fortunately, I was immune. “No. We don’t. There is a piece of legal paper saying you have to say three hundred yards away from me at all times.”

  She made a little pouty look with her mouth. “You know you don’t really feel that way.”

  Trinity is one of the fakest women that I know in almost every way imaginable. She’s probably about five foot seven, but it’s hard to tell because she wears heels at all times. I think she actually has platform sneakers. Right now, she was really working it in this pair of open-toed sandals that showed off a pedicure that had probably cost more than it would take to feed a small family in the projects.

  Her legs were kind of orange. She’d apparently spent a little too long in the spray tan booth. The shorts she’d put on that morning were criminally short. I know guys supposedly love short shorts. But honestly, I do not want to think about your ass cheeks getting wrenched apart by a denim wedge when you sit down on a chair. Has nobody ever considering the possibility of a butt disease getting started this way? It’s frightening.

  “Holy crap, Trinity.” I couldn’t hold my tongue any longer. “If you need the front pockets of your jean shorts hanging out just to cover your bush, the shorts are too short! Did you make those yourself? They’re obscene!”

  I pinched the bridge of my nose between my thumb and index finger. I wasn’t about to tell her, but she apparently needed to do some ladyscaping down between her legs because those shorts weren’t actually covering everything. The work ick came immediately to mind.

  “These?” She arched her back and made a little swivel with her hips to presumably show off her barely covered ass a little more. “No. They’re designer. Oh my God. You think I actually cut off a pair of my jeans on purpose? That’s so low!”

  “Right.” I snorted because sometimes her snobbery reaches a whole height of ridiculous. “Because the idea of actually reusing something or wearing something twice is an anathema. I forgot.”

  She shook herself a bit. Her boobs practically bounced right out of her tube top. The only thing holding that garment up were the saline packets from her boob job. Her close cropped platinum blonde hair was held back with a little jeweled butterfly clip and she was wearing enough makeup that I was honestly surprised that she wasn’t melting in this heat.

  That is something I have to give women credit for. They can manage to wear pancake makeup in weather where the heat index is well into the triple digits and still not have a river of the stuff running down their faces. Impressive.

  “Trinity.” Reasonable. I tried to be reasonable. Of course, I snatched my paper out of her hand, but I was still trying to be polite at this point. Sounds idiotic, I know. But polite sometimes avoided the next phase. “I need you to understand that whatever relationship we had is over. How can I get you to understand that? It was over eight and a half months ago.”

  She pulled her phone out of her back pocket and glanced at the display. “Eight months, fifteen days, three hours, and sixteen minutes.” Then she showed me the display. There was an actual countdown going on the screen. “I keep track. It’s important to me. You’re important to me, Damion Alvarez. Don’t you understand that? I keep trying to show you that nobody will ever know you and love you like I do. Nobody will take care of you like I can.” She pointed to the paper. “I even knew you wanted to read your paper first thing in the morning. That’s why I waited here.”

  “The police call that stalking.”

  She heaved a dramatic sigh and her shimmery silver tube top almost gave up. “The police have never been in love.”

  “Right.” I waved the paper in the air. “You’re not in love. You’re insane. Now get off my property.”

  “It’s not your property,” she snapped. Her blue eyes were flashing fire. “This is the condo association’s property and I’m a guest. You can’t tell me to go.”

  “Whose guest?” This was such bullshit. Of course, it was classic Trinity too.

  She shrugged and waved her hand vaguely toward the next building. “Just a friend. I was visiting. It’s not like I came here on purpose to see you.”

  “You’re such a liar. Do you even believe the crap that comes out of your own mouth?” I was getting mad now. I needed to go back inside before I did something stupid. “You’re here because of me. You know it. I know it. And when I call the police, they’re going to know it too. And then they’ll have a nice record of you violating the restraining order that I can use the next time I have to go to court because you do something stupid like smash the windows out on my car, or key the paint, or slash my tires.” Because all of these things had actually happened. Yep. Trinity was that girl.

  She tilted her head and opened those big baby blues for maximum effect. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Damion. I just really don’t. I know that you’re in love with me. I’m here to visit a friend. It’s so sad that you’re just so desperate to be back in my life that you think every time you see me, that I’m here for you.”

  I couldn’t win. Trinity was doing that thing again. My therapist thinks that Trinity has a borderline personality disorder or something along those lines. Meaning that she is actually diagnosably crazy. I have been advised that the best way to handle these people is to just avoid engaging them whenever possible. “Whatever. Get off my doorstep.”

  I took my paper and what was left of my dignity and went back inside my condo. Once the door was closed I should have felt better. I didn’t. I felt paranoid. My pajama pants were sticking to my butt. My paper was still in its wrapper, but it had been violated by a crazy bitch who had probably rubbed poison sumac all over it or something. There was no telling what she was capable of. The woman was absolutely off her rocker.

  It was hard to focus after that. I went back to the kitchen. That was at the back of my condo. It was a pretty simple place. I’m not actually a complicated guy. I like to be at home, but I don’t need a lot of stuff. I like nice stuff, but not tons of it. I’m easy going like that.

  My cereal was still sitting on the kitchen table. I hadn’t poured the milk yet. It was sitting there too. I’m kind of particular about my cereal. I like to eat the same kinds with an almost regimental regularity. I might be a little OCD about some things.

  I sat down at the table. The air conditioning was whirring in the background and my skin felt gross and clammy. I needed a shower. Fortunately, I didn’t have meetings until this afternoon. It was Monday. Not that I was actually a nine-to-five, five-days-a-week kind of guy. I just worked when there was work. I own an IT recruiting firm. It’s not a nine-to-five kind of job. At least not if you want to be successful. And I am. Successful, that is.

  I slipped the paper from its plastic sleeve and tossed the sleeve in my garbage can. I bought the can a few weeks ago because how cool is it that I can open the lid by just waving my hand over the sensor? I’ll admit it. I have a very guy kind of interest in gadgets.

  Pouring the milk made the little snap, crackle, pop noises start up on the puffed rice. I sat down, picked up my spoon, and read the front page of the St. Louis Post Dispatch. Baseball news. Yes. That is often front page news here in St. Louis. We are so loyal to our Cardinals baseball team that it is almost painful to witness.

  I turned to the business section. That was when I noticed that something was wrong. The page didn’t turn. I licked my finger and tried again. Nothing. I set my spoon down and continued to chew my cereal while I poked at the paper. Still nothing. Nothing. Nothing. What the hell?

  Then I saw it. The writing. Not on the wall. It was on my paper. Someone had drawn on it. There were eyes and hearts and flowers and crap doodled all on the edges of the margins of the section I was trying to open. And finally, down at the bottom of the page, there was a cramped little section of handwriting that explained what w
as happening to me right now.

  “Glue?” I whispered the word because it seemed totally improbable no matter how I looked at it. But Trinity had actually written that. The cramped swirling handwriting was peppered with hearts and little stars. I cleared my throat and read out loud because somehow that was going to help it make sense. “Ha. Ha. I know you like the business section. Especially that lame part about the hot new IT firms in St. Louis. I glued the pages together. Good joke!”

  I gritted my teeth. Yeah. She had glued the pages of my newspaper together. This utterly ruined breakfast. Maybe it wasn’t even the loss of my IT community section. It was more than that. This woman was starting to really get to me. In a permanent way. It was hard to explain. She was under my skin. I had to do something.

  “Freaking restraining orders,” I muttered to my soggy cereal. Because everyone knows that you have to eat most of the cereal in your bowl within the first two or three minutes or it turns to mush. “Not worth the paper it’s written on! What will it take to get rid of this woman?”

  Something thwacked the window behind me so hard that the pane rattled and a tiny spider crack appeared. I jumped a mile and spun around to try and see what had happened. A bird? Sometimes birds hit the windows. But this was no bird.

  “Dammit all to hell!” I shouted. I didn’t care if she heard me either. “Get away from my house, Trinity! I’m calling the cops!”

  I fumbled for my cell phone and dialed the Clayton, Missouri, police department. Unfortunately, there really wasn’t much point. Trinity was standing out there in my backyard peeping into my kitchen window and waving as though she thought we were playing a game.

  There had to be something else I could do. Something. Anything. Short of murder of course. But hey. I was pretty well off financially. Maybe it was time to hire a hit man. Where did one even look for a want ad for such a thing? Craigslist?

  Chapter Two

  Lena

  “Uptown Real Estate, how can I help you?” I forced myself to smile. Did you know that it’s possible to tell whether or not the person on the other end of the phone line is smiling? I don’t know who had told me that years and years ago, but I always took it to heart. Even when the person on the other end of the line was a total twit. “Candace Longmeyer is out showing property to a client. Can I transfer you to her voicemail? You are welcome. Have a nice day!”