Tangled: Contemporary Romance Trilogy Read online

  “I’m sorry, Damion.” Dr. Poole spread his hands in a gesture of supplication. “I just don’t have enough information to understand how this fits into your story.”

  How long had it been since I’d been here in Poole’s office? When I’d first started coming, I was here about every other day. At least it felt that way. I believe it was twice a week. Then it was once a week. Then every other week. And now I was supposed to be continuing with every other week except that I got distracted sometimes and forgot to come in. Other times I was just too busy. I think it had been four weeks. That means I needed to bring Dr. Poole up to speed. Damn.

  “Let me start over,” I told Poole. “So about a month ago…”

  I went ahead and took Dr. Poole through some the situations that Trinity Moberly had created for me at work, at home, the business with my newspaper—which still burned me on a deep level I could not explain. And then I told him that I had decided the best thing to do was to move.

  “That seems highly reasonable,” Dr. Poole murmured approvingly. “How goes the house hunting?”

  “Oh, I already put an offer out on a place in a subdivision called Lionsgate with really fantastic security.” Funny, but I was having difficulty figuring out how to work Lena into the conversation.

  “That’s great!”

  Approval. It was such a weird thing really. I don’t know what caused me to seek this man’s approval. It was probably some latent thing where I was still very marginally aware that my parents didn’t necessarily approve of my life choices. They liked success, but they didn’t feel like mine was the kind of success that made sense in their blue collar lives.

  It wasn’t like Dr. Poole was very blue collar. He had a PhD, but that was only part of it. Even the man’s office reeked of good taste and affluence. Why had I started coming to a therapist who decked out his office in Burberry and custom leather? The walls were painted a soothing brown color. When had brown become soothing? The carpeting was the same. There was a thick expensive rug on the floor. My shoes were currently on it. How was it that we paid so much money for things that we stepped all over?

  Two lines appeared between Dr. Poole’s eyebrows. “So how is it that Trinity has started dating someone else that you’re connected to?”

  “It’s the real estate agent’s administrative assistant’s stalker ex-boyfriend.” Wow, that was convoluted.

  “I see.” Dr. Poole scratched his face. He had a very sparse gray and brown goatee. He was now tugging at it. Sometimes I wondered how the guy had any hair left on his face. He generally seemed pretty determined to rip it out. “And how are you connected to this woman?”

  “Trinity?”

  “The administrative assistant.”

  “Oh.” Yeah that was the million dollar question, wasn’t it? “I suppose she’s just been very helpful. She’s the one who does all the work at the office.” That started to burn me up. As I told Poole how Lena worked so hard and got almost nothing for her trouble by sexual harassment and more work, I could feel Dr. Poole staring at me with his tell me more expression.

  “So you’re buying a house that this Lena Schulte person found for you.” Dr. Poole managed to spell that out quite simply. Almost too simply.

  I felt the immediate urge to backpedal. I don’t normally do that. It was awkward as hell. “It’s not like she told me to buy the house. She was just the one to realize that this neighborhood had the amenities that I wanted and needed and would be the best fit for me.”

  “And she does this for all of the clients in her office?”

  Hmm. Interesting. I didn’t actually like that thought very much. I preferred to think that Lena had done this for me personally because it was me. “I suppose she probably does this task for just about everyone. Yes.”

  “You don’t like that.” Dr. Poole was using one long index finger to wave circles in the air. “I can see it on your face. You really don’t appreciate the possibility that you’re just another client to this woman,” Poole observed. “What do you suppose that means?”

  “I don’t know. You’re the doctor and you’re totally about to tell me,” I grumbled. Sometimes therapy really sucked when you didn’t just get to talk and spout your opinions. Therapists also had this horrible habit of pointing out all the stuff that you were deliberately pretending not to see.

  Dr. Poole’s face didn’t show anything of what he might be thinking or feeling, but I couldn’t help but think that he was laughing inside anyway. “I feel as though you’re somewhat fascinated by this woman. Tell me about her.”

  “What’s there to tell?” I almost had to press my lips together to stem the tide of words that wanted to spill out. “She’s an administrative assistant, but she wants to be a real estate agent. I believe she’s hoping that her boss will sponsor her license since it’s pretty expensive to take the class and the test.”

  “It certainly can be,” Poole murmured. Then he waved his hand in an on and on gestured. “Tell me more. What is she like?”

  “She’s funny and extremely down-to-earth.” It was funny, but those were the first two things that I thought of when I thought of Lena.

  “What does down-to-earth mean to you when you say it?”

  That was a stupid question. What did down–to-earth mean? “She’s genuine. And very real. She’s got a psycho stalker ex and she’s managed to handle it with style. The guy is a real piece of work and yet I’ve watched her be firm with him and still manage to be kind when she should be rude. The girl can laugh at just about anything. She can laugh at herself. There aren’t enough people who can laugh at themselves.”

  “Is she pretty?”

  I shrugged. I didn’t want to talk about her looks. “I’m not interested in her like that so I can’t say that I’ve noticed.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Don’t give me that!” I fumed. Okay. I wasn’t fuming. But I was getting irritated. Sometimes I get very irritated with the whole not buying what I say thing. “I’m not interested in her like that!”

  “I didn’t say that you were. But I do find it very unreasonable to believe that you haven’t noticed her looks.” Dr. Poole pressed the tips of his fingers together and made his mouth into a thin line. “That’s just not how you’re wired. At least not in the five years that we’ve been working together.”

  “Right.” I didn’t actually know what to say about that. “I suppose I have deliberately not noticed her looks because I don’t have any interest in another woman right now. I want to get rid of Trinity. That’s my main objective.”

  “I see. So it seems like what you’re saying is that this woman you have no interest in becoming intimate with is someone that you admire on an intellectual and emotional level. You respect her. You enjoy spending time with her. And right now that’s plenty for you. Is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  Dr. Poole made that face. I hate that face. It’s the face he makes when he’s about to tell me something that I really don’t want to hear. “I don’t know about you, Damion. But those are the things that I would be looking for in a relationship partner. Mutual respect. Enjoyment in spending time together. Those are the things that build a relationship. So what is it that you’re trying to find in a woman that those aren’t enough for you?”

  “It’s not that those aren’t the things that I want to find in a woman,” I argued. What was I arguing about anyway? “I just don’t want to find them now. I need some time to figure out how to get rid of Trinity and just be myself.”

  “And how would you characterize your relationship with Trinity? Because it doesn’t seem to me that that you ever had that sort of relationship with her. Would you say that it was ever a real relationship?”

  I actually had to think about that for a moment. What had my relationship with Trinity been like? In a real sense. The woman was a pain in the ass. She always had been. I finally shrugged at Poole because I didn’t really have a word for it. “I suppose you could say that my relationship with Trinit
y was more convenient than anything else. If I needed a plus one for a party or something, there she was, always ready to go out. I think she looked for those opportunities mostly because she felt like it was a sign that she was going to achieve that power over me that she craved. She wanted the ring and the wedding and the honeymoon and the big house in the suburbs and vacations every month to some far flung location. She wanted to shop with my credit cards.”

  “She did that.”

  “Yes, but she wanted the rest of my credit cards.” That one had really been the final nail in the coffin for me. Oh, I wouldn’t buy her something? Well then, she decided to just purchase it for herself—with my money. What kind of person does that? Someone who is really and truly spoiled. Right? “So I suppose if you want to get right down to it, I paid a fee to Trinity so that she was at my beck and call for social functions.”

  “So she was a high-price call girl.”

  “Yes.” Wow. That was disgusting to say out loud. I didn’t like thinking of myself in those terms either. The guy who would hold onto a woman when he didn’t like her just for convenience sake. “Guess that makes me a john. And I suppose that’s why I deserve what I’m getting.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” Poole argued. “Nobody deserves to be stalked. But you can probably understand that from Trinity’s perspective, she’s fighting for that position in your life because she actually liked what the two of you had.”

  “That’s demented,” I informed my therapist. “What kind of person likes that sort of thing?”

  “But that is my point. You don’t. You want more. You were aware that what you had with Trinity wasn’t healthy. It wasn’t even a real relationship and you want something more. So here you’ve found that more with a woman named Lena and now you’re afraid to reach for that. What makes that the case, do you think?”

  Funny, but the answer to that question was right on the tip of my tongue. “Because I’m fully aware that a real relationship that includes intimacy and real interaction with someone takes work.” That made me feel about as low as a snake. “And I’m not actually sure that I’m worth that much work for that poor woman.”

  Dr. Pool sighed. He sat back in his seat and smiled broadly as though I had just gotten a therapy gold star. “The thing is, if you feel like you’re not ready and you’re not worthy, then that usually means that you are. You’re being careful and that’s good. Why not just keep taking things slowly? But I wouldn’t lie to myself about my intentions. Be honest with yourself so you can keep being honest with her. That’s going to end a lot better for everyone involved.”

  Okay. So maybe I wasn’t going to fire Dr. Poole just yet.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Lena

  I was paranoid. At least that was the answer that I came up with when I asked myself why I was peeking out windows and peering through peepholes before emerging from any building into any open public space. There was absolutely no way to know whether or not I could be walking right out into a trap that would wind up requiring me to watch another make-out session between Trinity Moberly and Karl Kitson. The thought was disgusting enough to keep me inside for pretty much the entire day. Not just inside, but hiding behind my big counter desk too.

  “Lena?” Tansy draped her short body over the top of the counter. “What’s up with you? You’re awfully quiet today.”

  I didn’t want to talk about this with Tansy. I didn’t want to talk about it with anyone. “Just a lot of closing paperwork. The offer that Bob made on behalf of Mr. Alvarez got accepted. So I’m trying to put all of the inspections together.”

  “Is he paying cash?” Tansy’s big brown eyes widened to the maximum possible width that left them not popping out of her head. “Good God, you don’t even need inspections for a cash sale!”

  “Yeah, but you want them. My goodness, what kind of realty office would we be if we let the poor guy purchase a house without at least a general building inspection to let him know how old the roof is and how the plumbing and electrical stuff is doing.”

  “It’s Lionsgate.” Tansy was staring at me as though I were an idiot. “How much stuff is likely to be wrong in Lionsgate?”

  “Well, the house has a busted thermal seal on pretty much every window on the second floor. So we could start there?” I didn’t appreciate Tansy making assumptions like she was doing. Except I couldn’t even decide what it was she was assuming. It wasn’t like she’d told me that she thought I should cut corners or that she thought that I did cut them. It was more that she should have known this stuff. “Tansy, I love you. But sometimes I wonder where you got your real estate license.”

  Tansy drew back, stunned. Her pretty features arranged themselves into a mask of hurt. She let go of the counter and just stood on the other side even though she couldn’t see over. “You know, not all of us have made a career out of taking care of this stuff for Bob Abernathy. So I just go with what the buyer or the seller or the title company or the lender says that I have to do.”

  “Tansy, I’m sorry,” I said hastily. “I don’t mean that to be rude. I’m just always surprised that you seem to really not know some of this stuff.”

  “What crawled into your cereal and laid a big juicy turd in your bowl?” Tansy muttered. Then she narrowed her gaze at me. “You need to get laid.”

  “So do you.”

  “That’s totally beside the point.” Tansy was waving her hands in the air. “This is not about me. It’s about you. And yeah. I need to get laid, but until I want to have sex with some Greek guy that my parents import for that very purpose, that’s just not going to happen for me. So I’m resigned to sexual frustration. You don’t have to be.”

  “Did I hear someone say sexual frustration?” Ray Fines sauntered into the reception room from the hallway. “Because I have the solution to that right here!”

  Ray was waving something in the air. It was a brochure of some kind. Ray was tall enough that there was no way Tansy was going to be able to snatch it away from him even though she was bouncing valiantly on her toes trying to grab for the thing.

  I jumped up, put one hand on the countertop, and leaped into the air to grab that stupid brochure right out of Ray’s hands. He drew back and looked totally disgruntled. “Calm down, white lightning! My goodness. You’re going to hurt yourself jumping around like that.”

  I ignored him and stared at the brochure I was now holding in my hands. “Seventeenth annual St. Louis Real Estate Board Fall Festival in Forest Park?” I had heard of this of course. Bob never missed this event. It was always the one thing that he took his wife to. Probably because it had been going on long enough that she expected to go. “How is this going to do anything for sexual frustration?” I narrowed my gaze at Ray. “I was thinking you had some kind of new masturbation technique. You know, so Tansy and I can do a better job of double clicking our own mouses.”

  “Oh ick!” Ray moaned and struck a dramatic pose. “You must be out of your mind! Why would I know anything about touching girl parts? That’s just disgusting.”

  “You know, I think it’s pretty disgusting that you’re a handsome guy who would rather touch guy parts. But hey, that’s just not my thing. I’m not going to judge you for it!” Tansy said indignantly. She propped her hands on her hips and glared at him. “But you don’t have to act like all women are diseased or something. That’s just rude.”

  “Sorry.” Ray did not sound at all sorry. “But you know we have to go to this soiree. If there’s anywhere in St. Louis to find a boyfriend, this will be it. And it’s a masquerade on Halloween! The event of events to kick off the holiday season!”

  “I don’t think I need a boyfriend,” I told Ray and Tansy. “I think I need to swear off men and become a nun.”

  Ray rolled his eyes. “You are so dramatic.”

  “Am I?” When I had grabbed for the brochure I had made the mistake of standing up. I regretted that a lot because right now I was seeing something very awful through the plate glass windows on t
he front of our office. I jabbed my fingers at the outside doors and then looked at my friends. “See? I think I need to be celibate. How about you guys? Doesn’t that just make you want to go find a random partner for a bit of exhibitionism?”

  “Oh my God!” Tansy clapped both hands over her mouth. I watched her head tilt to the right and then to the left. Her eyes were huge. And then she glanced over at me. Her hands slowly dropped from her mouth. “Wait a second. Isn’t that…”

  “Oh yuck,” Ray said with all of the distaste of a gay man for a heterosexual couple’s sex life. “Karl Kitson is disgusting to begin with. The man is orange, for crying out loud! And he doesn’t even realize it. How do you look in the mirror and not notice that your spray tan is sherbet orange?”

  “Wait! That’s—That’s…” Tansy glanced helplessly at me. “Oh, come on! That’s the woman who had to go to the police station yesterday.”

  “What now?” Ray swiveled his head to stare at Tansy. “How did I miss that?”

  “You were at the title company when that happened,” I told Ray. Then I nodded to Tansy. “And yeah. The woman who is so eagerly sucking face with my ex-boyfriend is Damion Alvarez’s stalker ex, Trinity Moberly.”

  Ray frowned. Then he marched right up to the windows. That put him less than ten feet from the extremely touchy, feely, and raunchy couple currently grinding against each other outside the windows. “Good Lord!” Ray whispered. “He is dry humping her against our front windows! I don’t have words!”

  Neither did I. Currently I could see that Karl was grabbing Trinity’s butt. His hands were squashed against the glass. Her butt was squashed against his hands. And of course they were both squashed against each other. There was just a whole lot of squashing going on. Trinity’s hands were grabbing hold of Karl’s head with such force that I could actually see nail tracks across his bald dome-like skull from Trinity’s manicure. She was clutching him as though she were about to have an orgasm right there against our window.