by Emelia Blair
There is a gleam in her eyes that is making my instincts scream at me to run. However, there is no place for me to go and I don’t know what is going on. But for some reason, I want my friends in the apartment to be able to hear me.
“Well, I don’t live here all the time. I have another apartment downtown.” She gives me that smile again, the one that makes a shiver run down my spine.
“That’s still something you bring up. I thought we were friends.”
She tilts her head, her dark hair falling over her shoulder. “I thought we were friends, too.”
I narrow my eyes. “What do you mean?”
“Are you going to marry Ian?” she asks simply.
I feel a jolt at the words. “What? What kind of question is that?”
“It’s just a question. He got you a ring.”
The spurt of happiness that rises inside me is quickly dampened. “How do you know that?”
The way her lips are curved is almost unnatural. Her eyes are glittering and don’t match that off smile.
“I ran into him just now at the office, and I saw the ring. So, I came to ask you.”
“You found out that Ian might propose to me and you decided to come to my apartment and ask me what I would say? You feeling okay?” I say, slowly, trying to make sense of her actions. “That’s a weird thing to do.”
“You shouldn’t say yes.”
“Excuse me?” I find anger stirring in my soul. “What the hell? Why not?”
“He’s not good for you. Men are just tools, you know. You use them to get to the top. In the end, it’s just us women. I thought you knew that.”
Her words chill me to the bone. “Please tell me you’re joking.”
Jenna’s smile fades. “He’s not good for you. You deserve much more than what he can give you.”
“Are you drunk, Jenna? Why are you behaving like this?”
“You can’t say yes to Ian.” This time there is a hint of veiled fury in her tone, and it makes me grit my teeth.
“You’re being a bitch. Maybe you should go home.” My words trail off as I stare at the door at the end of the hall. This time I speak carefully, “I thought it was odd that somebody was dropping envelopes right at my door, but nobody in the lobby saw a stranger walking in.”
She watches me, not saying a word.
I open my mouth, struggling to say the words. “You’ve been doing it. The letters, the gifts. You tried to kill Ian.”
I wait for her to deny it.
I want her to deny it, but a slow smile curls on her lips, and suddenly I understand Sarah’s devastation from a few months back when her dearest friend turned out to be her worst enemy.
Jenna had been my roommate in college. She was there when I built this business from scratch. We spent almost every waking moment together when I was setting this company up. She is one of my closest friends.
She turned down my offer to have a stake in the company and refused to take a proper position, choosing to be my assistant.
“Jenna.” This time there are tears in my voice. “Tell me that’s not true.” When she doesn’t say anything, I grab at the door frame to steady myself, overwhelmed with grief. “Damn it! Just say it!”
“I love you,” she says, and my heart breaks.
“No. No. You can’t. We’ve known each other for ten years. You can’t. You wouldn’t do this to me. Tell me you didn’t do this!”
“I had to look out for you,” she says, simply. “You and I make sense together.”
The pain in my chest intensifies, my heart hurting with the betrayal and loss as I whisper, “But we’re friends.”
“I’ve loved you since the day you moved in. You were so beautiful. And so kind. You had such a harsh tongue, but with me, you were always so gentle. I knew that you loved me back but when I saw you with Dylan from the hockey team; you remember that day? I realized that you were trying to come to terms with your feelings for me.”
I am trying to think through this haze.
I lean against the door, and I end up walking backward into my apartment.
Jenna follows me inside.
There is no one there.
Just me and her.
The shock of all this is so much that I can’t even wonder where Charlotte and Sarah are.
Jenna continues, “I was willing to wait. And then last year, you stopped dating. And I understood that it was time. But you never said anything. I mean, I kept sending you gifts, dropping hints, but it was like you refused to see.”
She makes a disgusted noise, and I see her take out a small handgun that was tucked in her jeans. “Then, of course, I found out that you were pining over Ian. I never understood what you see in him. At the time, I thought he was just another fling, but then he moved in with you. And that was the last straw. You upset me, Agatha.”
There is movement in my peripheral vision, and it hits me that there is more at stake here right now.
Charlotte is, in fact, here, and she is pregnant, and Jenna has a gun. The bitch is crazy enough to shoot my very pregnant friend.
“I care about you, but I don’t love you like that.” I try to keep my voice steady.
“You belong with me.” There is such conviction in her words that it frightens me.
“Jenna, I have never led you to believe that I held feelings for you.”
She points the gun at me, making me freeze. “Stop lying! I know you love me! What were all those hugs and the way you told me that you couldn’t survive without me? What was all that, huh?”
“Because you’re my friend and I appreciated what you did!” I try to be reasonable, to make her see some sense.
She shakes her head, a crazed laugh spilling from her lips. “It’s not your fault. I don’t blame you. It’s Ian. He’s the one who got into your head. But don’t worry.” She waves the gun in the air. “Once I deal with him, you and I can be together. Forever.”
I can’t bear the idea of Jenna pointing a gun at Ian, and I blurt out, “You’re crazy. I don’t love you like that, and I never loved you that way! Ian’s got nothing to do with this. I cared about you as a friend! I have never led you to believe it any different.”
“You’re lying.” This time there is a hitch in Jenna’s voice.
I clench my jaw. “I’m not. I love Ian. It has always been him.”
This time when Jenna points the gun at me, a hard look in her eyes, I know she means to shoot me.
“Well, if that’s the way you feel, then I can’t let that happen.” Her words are broken, her voice choked.
Something moves behind her, but I don’t let my focus waver as I take a step back. “Jenna?”
She steps towards me. “I can’t let him have you.”
“You can’t be serious,” I breathe. “You’re going to kill me?”
“I gave you ten years of my life!” Tears pour down her face, hate growing in her eyes. “I gave you everything!”
I see her finger move over the safety, as if in slow motion, and I find myself ducking just as Charlotte swings the metal bat at Jenna’s back, her face white with fury.
Jenna crumples to the ground, and I see Fergus’s petite fiancée make a grab for the gun. Sarah grabs the weapon and tosses it to the other side of the room, holding up a butcher knife in her hand, trying to look threatening.
“Charlotte, are you okay?” I gasp when she grabs the back of the couch. She nods.
“Yeah. Yeah. I’m fine. Didn’t take into account how heavy that bat was going to be. Oh, I need to sit down.” She collapses into the chair, one hand over her prominent belly. “This baby’s going to kill me. Are you okay, Agatha?”
Jenna is curled up in a ball on the ground, crying loudly, and I stare down at her, feeling my heart harden. “I’ll be fine.”
She tried to kill Ian.
Sarah glances at me. “We should call the boys. And the police. We should probably call the police first. Am I holding this knife right?”
Charlotte chokes
over her laugh. “Don’t stab yourself.”
Adrenaline is rushing through our veins, but I am not smiling. A part of me feels empty and cold as I look down at the woman who had been such a close friend to me.
We all look up when Ian rushes in, followed closely by Fergus and Henry. They take one look at the situation, and Henry moves to pull a sobbing Jenna to her feet, taking her outside.
Ian wraps his arms around me. “Agatha. Are you—”
“I’m not okay,” I say, quietly. “Don’t ask me that.” I sit down in the nearest chair and try to make sense of what has just happened, feeling bewildered. “She said she was in love with me. How did I never see it?”
It’s Charlotte who speaks up. My childhood friend gives me a sad look, “She hid it really well, Agatha. Whatever she felt for you was something twisted, inside her head. You are not responsible for any of this.”
“She’s right,” Ian tells me. “I’ve known her as well, and I could never imagine this.”
Fergus comes to stand beside Ian. “She has a history of mental illness in her family. Henry ran a deep background check on her.”
“She tried to kill you,” I murmur to Ian, and he kneels by my side, forcing me to look at him.
“I survived, Agatha. I’m fine. So are you.”
Sarah’s voice makes me look at her. There is old pain in her eyes as she says, “It’s going to take a long time to wrap your head around this. But you’ve got your family and friends to get you through this. Focus on what you’ve got. That helps.”
I give her a small smile and nod, wrapping my arms around Ian’s neck and breathing in his scent. “Yeah. I’ve got you.”
The trauma of the event is nothing that is going to go away anytime soon.
Philip is dealing with Henry, who has Jenna in custody.
Everyone is trying to shield me from the details; everyone except for Zayn, who is the only one not walking on eggshells.
Jenna’s obsession with me transcended beyond anything I could have imagined. It turns out that Nick started to suspect something and he wanted to tell Ian, but the man held complicated feelings for Jenna, and that stopped him.
As far as my company is concerned, it turns out that George had been pushing company budget limits to keep dropping by to oversee the project. One quick call to his main office had them replacing him with a more level-headed person who isn’t aiming to get into my pants and isn’t that much of a control freak.
I had tried to deal with the whole mess by throwing myself into my work, but Ian hadn’t let me. He had told me to find another coping mechanism, one that didn’t make me exhausted, irritable and cranky.
I am lucky to have friends like these who are so adamant about protecting me from myself. Even Charlotte and Sarah will drag me off to lunch every other day to make sure I eat.
A few weeks have passed, and the sense of grief that had my heart in knots is slowly fading.
It’s a Saturday, today, and Ian is out for a meeting.
I haven’t told him about what Jenna mentioned about him wanting to marry me. She has taken out all the joy of that knowledge and until Ian speaks up I am not breathing a word about it.
I organize my closets.
Zayn is supposed to come over and watch the game that is on, but his live-in housekeeper took a nasty fall, and he has taken her to the hospital.
I offered to drop by to the hospital, but he grumbled at me about not wanting two women who couldn’t keep their traps shut.
So, I am alone at home, cleaning my cupboards.
My eyes fall on a piece of black lingerie that is as comfortable as it’s alluring.
A quick glance at the clock tells me that Ian will be home any minute now.
My wicked thoughts urging me on, I slip into the delicately crafted piece and study myself in the mirror. It’s a black see-through baby doll nightie; its sheer material is not really hiding a damn thing.
My lips curve.
Ian had been so careful with me even when he held me at night, his arms tender, as if I would break at any moment.
It is starting to piss me off.
I flip my golden curls over my shoulder and get back to work.
Let’s see him stay in control with this on.
Cupboards sorted out, I throw another glance at the clock, vaguely annoyed that Ian still hasn’t shown up, when the buzzer goes off.
Frowning, because Ian has the keys, I glance in the screen and see Fergus and Zayn standing outside.
Eyes widening, I grab a robe before buzzing them in.
“What are you guys doing here?” I hiss when Philip trails in after them, keeping my robe closed with one hand. “Aren’t you supposed to be at the hospital, Zayn?”
“Henrietta tore a ligament in her knee, so she’s staying overnight. She kicked me out,” Zayn flops onto the couch, eyeing me. “What the hell are you wearing?”
“It’s a robe!” I give them an intense look.
He shrugs and picks up some crackers, stuffing them into his mouth.
“We came to check up on you,” Fergus tells me as Philip kisses my cheek.
I wipe it off, glaring at him. “Stop doing that.”
My brother grins at me, satisfied. “I’m showing affection. God knows one of us has to.”
The robe I am wearing doesn’t have a belt, and I find myself annoyed. “Couldn’t you guys have called?”
“Why?” Fergus opens my fridge to check for food. “You never inform us when you come over.”
I grumble under my breath at that accurate statement.
“So, when are you moving in with Ian?” Philip asks, lounging on the arm of the couch and stealing a cracker form Zayn’s hand.
“Fuck you, man.” Zayn steals it back.
“Ian can move in with me.” I narrow my eyes. “And it’s none of your business.”
Fergus moves towards the living room, holding a tub of chocolate ice-cream in his hands and a spoon. “We beg to differ. Besides, he has a house. And you’ve just got this small place.”
I don’t tell them that I am considering moving, especially after finding out that Jenna had been my neighbor for so long.
“This is between Ian and me. Stay out of it.”
It doesn’t surprise me when they aren’t the least bit deterred by my temper.
“I think she should move in before the baby comes,” Philip says to Fergus, taking his spoon to eat a huge bite of the dark ice cream.
Zayn’s head is on the arm of the couch, and he turns on the television. “While you’re at it, update the magazine collection in the bathroom. It’s last month’s edition.”
I scowl at him. “Stop reading Cosmo in my bathroom. What is wrong with you?”
“It helps,” Zayn shrugs. “Besides, I now know how to keep my skin pimple-free.”
Fergus glances at him. “The cucumber treatment?”
“Potato,” Zayn corrects him idly.
“Dear God! Get out.”
As usual, I am ignored as Philip looks around. “Where’s Ian?”
My hand clenches around the lapels of my thin robe, which just reaches my upper thigh.
I can go and change, but I want them out so that I can seduce my man when he gets home.
The sound of the door unlocking has us all looking up.
Ian sounds tired. “Agatha, I brought Chin… What the hell is going on here?” He sounds annoyed now. “Didn’t I just kick you guys out of my office?” He shrugs out of his coat and puts the containers on the kitchen table. “Do you guys not have jobs?”
“It’s Saturday,” Fergus informs him.
Ian eyes him. “Yeah. And you run a restaurant.”
“Several restaurants.” Fergus corrects him. “And it’s called delegating.”
“I’m trying to get them to leave.” My brow knits in frustration. Ian shrugs.
“Well, it is pretty early and—” I turn to face him, my back to everyone else, and I hold my robe open for him to see. “Everyone, get the
fuck out.”
“Don’t flash him in front of us!” Philip scowls.
I close my robe again and give him a sweet smile. “Then stop barging in like this.”
Getting rid of them is easier when Ian is physically forcing them out.
Philip carries the ice cream out with him, and I roll my eyes.
Once the door closes behind them, I drop my robe to the ground, watching Ian’s eyes darken. “So, how was work?”
He stalks me around the room, loosening his tie. “Getting better by the second. Where did you get that?”
My lips curve. “You hardly let me wear anything in the house, so you never get to see me model for you.”
I can see the bulge forming in his pants, and it pleases me to have such an effect on him.
He corners me against the door, his larger frame covering mine, pressing against my curves in a way that has my lower muscles clenching.
“I think you should model your lingerie for me all weekend long.” His mouth moves against my neck, hot.
I give a wicked smile. “Sounds like a good idea to me.”
The square box in his trousers presses against my hip as he holds me close to him and I feel a blooming warmth in my chest.
This is the man I want to spend the rest of my life with. And as he presses his lips against my forehead, I know he will be the one to put back the pieces of my heart that had just been broken.
Being surrounded by him and my family and friends, I couldn’t be more content.
UNFORESEEN DADDY
BOOK 4
1
Zayn
I am not a huge fan of hospitals.
Staring at the dour gray ceiling, I try to imagine my neck in imaginary nooses. Philip swore that I wouldn’t have to visit the hospital.
I mean it wasn’t as if the baby couldn’t be born without me here.
“Scowl harder, Zayn. You’re not looking quite miserable enough there,” Agatha tells me pleasantly without even looking up from the magazine she ripped from my hands a few seconds earlier.
I don’t spare her a glance, instead raising my middle finger at her.