Tangled: Contemporary Romance Trilogy Read online

  “We’re a business,” Val reminded me calmly.

  Damn him! He was right. Still. I needed to make my point too. “I’m moving because of her.” I sketched out the events of the last few days. The violation of my newspaper and the constant badgering at my condo. Then I told him she had showed up at my gym.

  He only raised an eyebrow. “See? This is why I don’t date. Look at all the trouble. It’s hardly worth it. I cannot imagine any reason that I would expose myself to that kind of mess. There is not a single woman on the planet worth that kind of trouble.”

  I almost agreed with him. Then I remembered a pair of aquamarine eyes and I couldn’t quite say it out loud. “You know,” I said suddenly. “I actually met a woman who has the same problem that I do. Maybe that’s what needs to happen.”

  That actually got enough of Val’s attention that he looked up from the computer screen. “What are you babbling about?”

  “I’m just saying that if two people have both gone through a bunch of issues with a stalker then they can appreciate the problems. That’s it.” I don’t know what I was actually trying to say. It was almost like my brain was making an attempt to come up with an excuse for me to ask that girl from the real estate office out on a date. That girl. Ha! I remembered her name. I was kidding myself if I tried to believe otherwise. Lena. Her name was Lena. “I’m not suggesting that you go out and find some woman to date that went through the same thing you did,” I assured my brother.

  “Good.” Val grunted. His expression was totally deadpan. You absolutely could not tell what the man was thinking. He is five years older than me. That meant he was thirty-six years old and after all these years I still couldn’t tell you what he might be thinking. Ever. “Because I don’t want to date some girl just because she married her high school sweetheart and then the poor bastard died on her before they’d been married a year.”

  “I hate it when you do that.” I glared at him. “It’s so freaking awkward to say it like that. All right?”

  He gave me the kind of droll stare that a Hollywood actor would kill to imitate. “I’m sorry. Is there a more politically correct way to talk about my personal tragedy?”

  “It was a really long time ago,” I reminded him. “Like really long time. You’re thirty-six. You were twenty-one when that happened. Don’t you think you should make an effort to get past it?”

  “No.” He didn’t shrug or bat an eyelash or anything. “I’m happy being single. Look at all of the drama you’ve got going on. Why would I want to deal with that bullshit?”

  I couldn’t help it. The words just sort of came tumbling out of my mouth. “When was the last time you got laid?”

  “Got laid?” The corner of Val’s mouth actually turned up in a smirk of sorts. “I’m sorry. I don’t know that phrase. What does that mean again?”

  “Really?” I rolled my eyes. “So it’s been so long that your dick has fallen and can’t get up? Is that it? You know they have medication for that now.”

  “Yeah. Little blue pills. Why? Is that why you came in here? To tell me that you’ve been experiencing an erection for more than six hours? Because I’m not that kind of mechanic, kid.” He looked halfway between smug and pissed. But then that was his usual expression anyway.

  I shook my head at Valentino but bit my tongue because it wasn’t like I could really make a point here. There wasn’t a point to make. “I guess I can’t really talk, can I? The cost of sex with Trinity makes her way more expensive than the most expensive call girl in St. Louis.”

  “Wow. Have you actually priced them? I knew your company was successful, but I had no idea you could afford to throw away that kind of cash every weekend.” Val finally gave me a real smile. “I appreciate your concern, kid. But I’m fine. Really. There is nothing a woman can do for me that I can’t do better for myself.”

  “Wow. Dude, I’m not even going to touch that!” I held up both hands. When a man starting making statements like that it was time to quit the conversation. “I really just came in here to tell you that I’m looking for a new place. Something with some serious security. The last thing I need is for Trinity to sneak into my bedroom some night and try to rape me.”

  “Do you honestly believe she’d go that far?” Val’s skepticism did not make me any happier with him, but I could understand it in a logical sense.

  I gave him a nod of my head. “Yes. I actually believe the crazy bitch is capable of that kind of thing. And honestly I don’t like the idea of what she does to me personally.” I wasn’t entirely comfortable saying this out loud, but Val was my big brother. If I couldn’t say it to him, then I was screwed. “She makes me so mad. I feel beyond angry. Then she does something like tries to kiss me in public and honest to God, Val, I want to punch her in the face.”

  “That’s not like you,” he commented slowly. “You’re right. It’s time for drastic action. So you move.” Val shrugged. “Let’s just fix your car and sell it. Maybe you can swap out cars every week. I’ll give you a dealer plate and you can swap it out every week with the car. I don’t know. Hiding from someone who is that determined to find you isn’t easy to do.”

  “Thanks for offering to help at least,” I told him quietly. “I keep thinking to myself that she will eventually find a new target.”

  “Yeah. Can we sign her up for a dating service?” Val joked.

  I didn’t laugh. I was too busy wondering if that was actually possible. What would it take to get Trinity a new sugar daddy? Could I find someone who wouldn’t mind that she was crazy? There had to be an online website for that. There was certainly one for everything else. I had an entire IT department on my payroll. Surely, I could find something.

  “Val, you’re brilliant.”

  He looked nonplussed. “I am?”

  “Today,” I told him. “You’re brilliant today.”

  “Right.” He snorted and went back to his ancient computer. “Today. Got it.”

  Chapter Eight

  Lena

  “Where is he?”

  I stood up and puffed out a huge sigh because I had done something really stupid. This of course involved me telling Eleanor that I had met Damion Alvarez and that he was a new client here at Upscale Realty. Now Eleanor was standing in my reception room with her hands on her hips glaring at me as though she honestly believed that I had hidden the guy somewhere in our office.

  “Eleanor, I’m not even supposed to tell you who our clients are,” I reminded her. Not that this mattered. Confidentiality and all that. The whole privacy thing was pretty much null and void in this business. “You cannot hang out in here and just wait for him to come in so you can interrogate him.”

  “But I need answers!” Eleanor insisted. She marched up to my desk and leaned in. Then she started drumming her fingers on my counter as if that was going to somehow make me more likely to tell her what she wanted to know. “I need to know what company is selling out. It’s important to my work! The rumor is that it’s his. If I can get the scoop on that I can totally snipe all his local hires!”

  “So basically,” I began slowly. “You want me to violate a client’s confidentiality so you can pump him for inside info on his company so that you can then turn around and use that info to hurt him in the local market?”

  She seemed to consider this for a minute. Then she bobbed her head emphatically up and down. “Exactly!”

  “That’s absolutely unethical in so many ways that I’m kind of shocked you suggested it.” I felt like I was looking at her for the first time. “Holy shit, what happened to by-the-rules Eleanor?”

  “She’s desperate to get ahead!” my sister whined the words. She was now leaning over my counter as though she were going to climb over.

  “Stop it.” I sat down and scooted my rolling chair closer to my desktop area. “You’re going to wrinkle that no-nonsense pencil skirt of yours. And oh my goodness, what if you get some kind of crease in your blouse? I think it might crack. You know, because you asked the d
ry cleaner to use the old maid starch.”

  “Shut up.” Eleanor did step back though. She smoothed her hands down her torso to prevent her white blouse or black skirt from showing any possible signs of wear. “You are such a bitch sometimes, Lena. I don’t know how you can call yourself my sister when you refuse to help me out with this one thing.”

  “This one thing? Seriously?” I glared at her because sometimes she is so big sistery that it makes me want to vomit. Then my shoe got stuck under the base of my chair and my glare was totally ruined by my need to not let my leg drag me to the ground. I actually heard my cute little skirt rip as it became a casualty of my chair. “Dammit!”

  “What?” Eleanor leaned way over the counter to try and see what was happening. “Did you actually get your skirt caught in the base of your chair? How do you do this stuff, Lena? Your skirt is knee length. You had to be kneeling on the freaking floor to have the hem anywhere near the stupid rollers.”

  “I wasn’t on the floor!” I snapped at her. This was my favorite skirt. It’s blue and white and the fabric is really nice and flowy without being too revealing or slutty. It’s awesome for these horribly unseasonably hot days in the Midwestern hot box of St. Louis. “I just got my foot caught. Okay? You make it sound like I was crawling around under Bob’s desk trying to earn my real estate license! Was that honestly what you were trying to insinuate? Because I’m getting a little tired of you pretending that you’re not accusing me of getting frisky with my boss when I’m not!”

  “Ahem.”

  Eleanor and I both shut our mouths with an audible click of teeth. I finally managed to wrench myself off the floor. There was another rip as the fabric of my skirt tore just a little further to make the hem totally ragged. Not that it was that style or anything, but I was going to have to consider faking it unless I wanted to go home for the day.

  “Wow. Mr. Alvarez! What a pleasure.” Eleanor launched into what I often call her business barracuda mode. I could hear it in her voice. “What a surprise to run into you here. My name is Eleanor Schulte. I’m head of local recruiting at St. Louis Software Staffing Solutions, Incorporated. You might have heard of us. We’re at the top of the local market here in the gateway city.”

  There was a long pause. I was actually ready to sink back to the floor. Damion was staring at my sister as though he actually found her about as amusing as a toy poodle trying to grab his shoelace. Finally he took the hand that Eleanor had shoved in his direction. “Not quite the top of the local market, but I think I can be gracious enough to let that one slide this time.”

  Eleanor was already pumping his hand up and down. “We call ourselves the top of the local market because we are the local firm that bases its entire revenue stream here in the gateway city. We are entirely located in this region and don’t count on income from offices in other cities to pad our numbers.”

  “Oh, for the love of God, Eleanor!” I groaned. What was my sister’s problem? If I didn’t intervene, she was going to try to start peeing on his leg or something! “Mr. Alvarez, please excuse my sister. She’s not exactly humble when it comes to her employment situation.”

  Damion actually started laughing. He was still shaking Eleanor’s hand so it was a bit odd. “Sister. Got it. I was wondering where the similarity in your features came from.” Then Damion tilted his head and pegged Eleanor with a look that had probably sent more business competitors running for the hills than anything my sister could have a prayer of possessing. “But I have to say that Lena got the lion’s share of the personality and charm in your family.”

  I almost fainted dead away. No. I was going to laugh myself silly. Even standing behind her I could see the red flush creeping up my sister’s neck. She realized that she had made an error that was going to take a whole lot of backpedaling to fix.

  “Mr. Alvarez, I didn’t intend to suggest—”

  “You should really stop now.” Damion let go of her hand and approached my countertop. He looked down at me and winked. “You know, she reminds me so much of my older brother that I would be tempted to set them up on a date except I’m pretty sure that they would kill each other before the appetizers were gone.”

  I laughed. How could I not? The guy was being so cool that I owed him big time. If I’d had one of those edible arrangements handy I would have handed it over to him. “Apparently we have more in common than we originally thought.”

  He gave a slow nod of the head. “You know, I think we could suggest a study. Maybe younger siblings with overbearing older siblings are statistically more likely to get into relationships with crazy overbearing significant others who then turn into stalker exes.”

  “That is a very interesting proposition!” I was having trouble not laughing so hard that I snorted with totally unladylike enthusiasm. “And it would have the dual purpose of making my sister shut up about how I do nothing but mess up my love life.”

  “No shit!” Damion agreed. “You get that too? I swear. If I have to listen to my brother tell me one more time how it’s somehow my fault that I can’t make this girl understand I’m not interested, I’m going to lose my mind.”

  “Hey!” Eleanor said indignantly. “I am standing right here, remember?”

  “Oh right.” Damion flashed her a devastatingly handsome smile. Then he stared at her for a long minute. “Let me guess. You’re trying to get around to asking me if my company is the one about to sell out to some Kansas City firm.”

  “Yes. It’s an important piece of information,” Eleanor insisted. She put her hands on her hips and practically glared at him, which made me glare at her. The guy was our real estate client! Not someone Eleanor had arranged to meet and piss off. “Local hires deserve to know if they’re going to stay local or not!”

  “I have no intention of leaving the St. Louis market.” The firmness in Damion’s voice made me wonder how his stalker chick could ever pretend not to understand what he meant when he said it was over. “I was born in this city and my family lives here. I have no intention of moving my headquarters to any of my satellite offices.” Damion gestured to the Upscale Realty office. “I’m here because I’m shopping for a house. Does that seem like I have secret intentions of selling?”

  “Well, no.” I could see the wheels turning in Eleanor’s head. “Then who is it? You have to know! If you’re supposedly the end-all-be-all in the IT recruiting business here in St. Louis, you must know who wants to get out and who wants to get in.”

  Damion arched an eyebrow at her.

  Eleanor took no time interpreting this. “No. No way. First of all, I would be the first one to know. Secondly, that is preposterous! Our firm is kicking ass in this market. We place more IT support personnel than anyone else!”

  Now Damion shrugged. Then he very deliberately turned his back to my sister and looked at me. “Does Bob know that I’m here? We’re supposed to go look at some properties this afternoon.”

  “I already texted him.” I touched my phone. “You know, when my sister was interrogating you like the headhunting gestapo, I just sent Bob a quick message that you were waiting.” I felt my cheeks heat up a bit. “He’s, uh—he’s in a meeting.”

  “Is he?” Damion murmured. Then his expression grew thoughtful. “Does he have a lot of meetings that involve leaving his fly down?”

  Eleanor snorted, but I was the one who had to answer. I cleared my throat and tried to find the best way to put this. Delicately, of course. “He does have a lot of standing appointments.”

  “Standing, hmm?” There was a definite smile playing at the corners of Damion’s mouth. Goodness, he had a nice mouth. His lips were so… kissable came to mind. He looked like the kind of man who could kiss you until your toes curled up inside your shoes. “And do these standing appointments involve work sessions with other employees here at the office?”

  “Oh, for sure.” I nodded and barely managed not to bark out a laugh. “He really likes to work one on one with his other agents. He feels the need to really dr
ive his point home, if you know what I mean.”

  “The company mission statement, I’m sure.” Damion wasn’t even trying not to laugh now. His low rumbly chuckles were making me need to squeeze my thighs together. That zing was just delicious. Could the man be any sexier? “There are just some managers who feel like they have to be face to face with their employees every single day.”

  “Others have a management style that’s more from behind,” I could not resist adding. “The scenes, of course.”

  We were all laughing now. Tansy finally popped out of her office and came down the hall presumably to see what all the noise was about. She looked at Damion and her eyes nearly bugged out of her head.

  “Everything all right out here?” Tansy’s voice popped out so squeaky that I wanted to slap her on the back.

  I managed to keep a mostly straight face as I nodded to Tansy. “Everything is just fine. Really. We’re waiting for Bob to get out of his morning creative meeting.”

  “Get out of…” Tansy had to press her lips into a tight line to keep herself from losing it. “I see. Is Candace happily receiving his ideas again?”

  I gave up the battle to suppress my laughter. Soon enough all four of us were cackling out in the reception room like people at a comedy show. About a minute later when Bob finally appeared, we were all still laughing. Bob was grinning broadly from ear to ear as though he were in a great mood. Good. And—oh yes. His fly was down again. I’d really have to talk to him about that.

  “Good to see you again, Bob.” Damion smiled at Bob but didn’t offer his hand. Instead, he gestured right to Bob’s crotch. “You didn’t quite finish your meeting there, Bob.”

  Bob did not spare one moment’s thought. He just reached down and zipped up his slacks. Then he passed Damion an oily smile. “Well, Mr. Alvarez, I’m sure you understand how to keep employees in line. Let’s go ahead and come on back to my office for a moment. We can go over the plan and I’ll show you a sampling of the properties I came up with for your consideration. I think you’ll be really pleased with what I’ve found.”