Tangled: Contemporary Romance Trilogy

by Dee Bridgnorth

  “Well,” I said, drawing out the word and feeling sheepish. I hadn’t expected poor Lena to feel responsible. “I suppose I could guess that there was a lot of the bill that came from the second time they fixed the car.”

  “Second time?” Lena raised an eyebrow. Then she frowned. “Wait a second. I think I’ve heard this story. Ah! Yes. You showed up on Sunday and Beau fixed it for you even though the shop was closed.”

  I put both of my hands up to cover my face. “I’m so embarrassed about that!” I moaned. “I didn’t even realize it was Sunday. Can you believe it? So pathetic. I should probably just pay the stupid bill because at least they didn’t turn me away in all of that snow and ice!”

  “Do you have four hundred dollars?” Thayla asked bluntly.

  I could have been offended, but I wasn’t. The truth was that Thayla and Lena were my friends. We all worked in kind of related fields. I was a licensed real estate agent. Thayla Landau worked for a cute little shop in the Tower Grove area and moonlighted as a stager for as many real estate listings as I could find agents that could convince their sellers to hire her. It was good money on the side. And of course, Lena Schulte was going to start her real estate classes in January. She worked for a big real estate office and was being sponsored by the broker in that office. So we were all kind of in the real estate business in one way or another. Which meant that we were all kind of broke in one way or another.

  Except Lena. Her future husband was a cajillionaire. Yes. That’s totally a real number. I swear. Lena pursed her lips. “I probably shouldn’t say anything.”

  “But you’re going to,” Thayla prompted.

  Lena snatched a steamed dumpling off the pile and shoved it into her mouth. “Okay fine. So earlier this evening—in fact right before I came over here—Damion was having a very interesting conversation with his brother.”

  “His brother the asshole?” Thayla practically shouted the words.

  I shushed her and the three of us giggled as several tables’ worth of elderly customers gave us dirty looks. I pointed at Thayla. “If you’re going to say bad words, you have to at least do it at a volume that their hearing aids won’t pick up.”

  “Ha!” Thayla nodded. “Fine,” she stage whispered. “Are you talking about Valentino the asshole?”

  “Yes,” Lena said with a long suffering sigh. “But I’m telling you. He’s not really an asshole. He’s actually a super nice guy. Sort of. It’s complicated.”

  I figured the word complicated fit Valentino Alvarez to a tee. “No doubt,” I told them both with a sense of authority that I wasn’t entirely sure I could back up with facts. “That guy has serious baggage when it comes to women. I swear I think he hates them.”

  “You’re probably right,” Lena agreed.

  Okay. That kind of stunned me. “Wait. I am?”

  “Yep. It would seem so.” Lena was actually looking around as if she were afraid of being overheard by Valentino’s spies or something. It was reflexive. I know that. But it was also hilarious. I managed not to laugh and waved her on instead. “So I guess the family has always assumed that Valentino has remained single since his early twenties because he was so in love with his high school sweetheart and she died about six months after they got married.”

  Thayla snapped her fingers. “I’ve heard this story. I remember your sister telling me a bit of this.”

  “Yeah, but I guess today was the first time that Valentino actually admitted to Damion that he never loved the woman. Her name was Cari and I’m going to guess that she was a real piece of work.” Lena was nodding as though she were trying to convince us.

  I did not need convincing. “I’m not surprised. I told the guy that he was acting like an ass in order to punish me for something that was done by some other woman. Or maybe I said every other woman. I don’t remember. I just know the guy is bitter.”

  Thayla frowned. She stabbed another dumpling with her fork and ate it slowly this time. Three bites. One. Two. Three. “Hang on a second here,” Thayla murmured. “You said that until today. Why didn’t Damion and his family know about the evil Cari until now? Why would Valentino need to keep that a secret and why would he break his silence now?”

  Lena suddenly looked very uncomfortable. She shifted in her chair. She fiddled with her hot tea. She took a sip. She poured some more. And finally she cleared her throat. “Well, I guess until this evening it was just an assumption that everyone had since he had said about a thousand times that he didn’t care to get into another relationship because of Cari. I think the miscommunication was that everyone thought this was a compliment and not because she was such a raving shrew.”

  “So why come clean now?” Thayla pressed again. She was frowning. “There has to be a reason why the guy would suddenly decide to spill the beans after—how the hell long was it anyway?”

  “I don’t know,” Lena mused. “He’s older than Damion. At least fifteen years or more. Wow! That’s a long time to keep a secret, huh?”

  “Yeah, again, why the change?” Thayla was not going to let this go.

  I got the feeling that Lena really didn’t want to speculate about the reason. It was odd. They’d been sitting here talking about the guy’s love life. Right? What was one more detail or tidbit.

  “Well,” Lena hedged. “So I kind of overheard that part. But not all of it. Apparently, Tansy wasn’t the only one who didn’t enjoy the interaction between her and Valentino earlier today.”

  Wait. What? I felt my jaw drop open. “Excuse me? Are you telling me that Valentino told his brother about how awful his dead wife was when she was alive because of me?”

  “Because apparently you remind him of Cari.” Lena’s voice sounded small. Like she was feeling a bit guilty.

  I tried not to be offended. I really did. It wasn’t like Lena was the one saying bad things about me. I mean, she hadn’t had to say anything at all. But it did kind of make me feel bad. Like I had somehow brought up all of these old horrible memories for the guy.

  “I didn’t do anything wrong,” I said stiffly. Then I had to reconsider because there was that little thing where I had made assumptions about the cause of my car’s illness, symptoms, whatever was wrong with it. “I think the only thing I can be accused of is not knowing jack squat about cars and feeling as though everyone is trying to take advantage of that. But lots of people feel that way. Don’t they?”

  “All the time.” Lena bobbed her head. “At least if you listen to Damion and Valentino talk to each other for any length of time. They love to whine and bitch about how customers don’t know anything about their cars and they can’t ever seem to remember to do regular maintenance. How people totally forget about their vehicle maintenance or problems until it all flares up and suddenly the car dies and they have just driven into the ground. It’s pretty endless,” she said breathlessly. “You know, men complain a lot. They really do.”

  “And yet they say that we complain a lot,” Thayla groused. “I say it’s unfair.”

  “Speaking of unfair, how was that date you went on last week?” I asked Thayla. I made a face at her. “Even though I totally saw him first.”

  “You did not. You weren’t even interested in him.” Thayla rolled her eyes at me. “I believe your comment was that he was so tall that he would make you look like a midget.”

  “There was that,” I mumbled.

  Thayla was walking Lena through the day at the model home where she and I had been setting up some staging supplies when this male real estate agent with a huge warm smile, big blue eyes, and the sort of Nordic good looks that seem fake but aren’t had walked in.

  “So you liked him?” Lena looked surprised. “That’s wonderful!”

  I bobbed my head. I needed to be supportive here and not jealous. “Yep. They looked really good together too. He’s broad shouldered and really tall.”

  “But is he a good conversationalist? Do you have anything in common?” Lena pressed.

  “Holy cow, woman!�
� Thayla held up her hands in mock defense. “I’ve only gone out with him once. It’s very promising. Do not act like I’m going to try and crash your wedding so I can make it a double!”

  A wedding. Yeah. Because Lena Schulte was marrying Prince Charming and I got to attend and wear a crazy steampunk theme dress. Well, I was actually looking forward to that part. My dress was super fun. But I wasn’t looking forward to the part where it was starting to feel like everyone else but me was finding Mr. Right.

  “My parents are trying to arrange a marriage for me with a guy from Greece so he can get a green card and come to work in my father’s restaurant,” I said suddenly.

  That had an interesting effect. Silence. Dead silence. And the expressions were rather priceless. Both Lena and Thayla now had their mouths hanging wide open. They were staring at me as though they were almost certain I was kidding and yet could not help but wonder if this was actually just a little bit crazy enough to be true. Because really, nobody made shit like that up. Who would believe it?

  “Please tell me you’re joking,” Thayla whispered. “Your parents don’t really think you should get married just so some young Greek guy can get a green card.”

  I thought about that for a moment. “You know, I don’t actually think that my mother said he was young. I have no idea how old he is. The dude could be fifty for all I know. That’s really not the important thing for my parents. They just think he’s a good cook and they want him to work over here. And they want me married and working there too.”

  “Ick.” Lena made a face. “I’m so sorry, Thayla. I can’t begin to imagine how awful that would be. My parents were a bit of a pain in the butt.” Lena cast a look at Thayla who cleared her throat in a rather obvious fashion. Lena sighed. “Okay, my parents were a huge pain in the butt. Especially my mother. But I can safely say that she was never into the whole idea of arranged marriages. Thank God. I cannot even imagine what she would have picked out for me!”

  “Certainly not a steampunk-themed wedding,” Thayla snorted.

  I wondered if either of them could possibly imagine what it was like to feel this kind of pressure to perform in a social arena like marriage and family and career. Ah, but that wasn’t fair. Both of them knew what it was like. We were just seeing these pressures from a very different set of circumstances.

  “You know who gets a lot of pressure to go out and find a second wife?” Lena said suddenly. “Valentino. Good God, Mr. and Mrs. Alvarez are all over that man to get married again!”

  Thayla snorted. “I wonder if he’ll tell them that he’s a woman hater or not. Now that Damion knows, it’s probably only a matter of time before they’ll find out too.”

  This of course started an argument about whether or not Damion had a big mouth. I happily let my friends snipe at each other for another ten minutes while I finished off the dumplings, poured more tea, and tried not to be too offended that I apparently had the same shrewish personality as Valentino Alvarez’s first wife. It would seem that the woman wasn’t such a bad person after all. At least that was my opinion on the topic.

  Chapter Ten

  Tansy

  Four hundred dollars.

  I could not stop thinking about the four hundred dollars that I supposedly owed to Valentino Alvarez. My brain was running around and around the sum of money just like it was going through each and every penny I had in my checking account, my savings account, and even that jar on top of my refrigerator where I put my spare change. But no matter how I looked at it, I didn’t have enough. I could not give Valentino four hundred dollars and still manage to pay my rent for the next few months.

  My desktop at Upscale Realty blurred before my eyes as my brain went to the next logical solution. I had been sitting here staring at the pristine no longer cluttered surface for nearly the entire morning. I don’t think I had ever been this organized before in my life. When Lena worked in the front office here, she would do her level best to organize me. But that’s really just not my style.

  I absently picked up a file and sat it down. There was an offer on Stella Stein’s house. Mostly that was due to Stella’s desire to get out of the house and the fact that she had owned it for so long and owed so little money that the house was worth a great deal more than she was probably asking.

  I felt bad about that. It was why I hadn’t actually taken the offer to her yet. I kept hoping there would be another offer and then we would have a bidding war. That way Stella would at least get a little bit more for her house than she was currently going to manage at this price point. And then there were the two couples that I had picked up as clients at the open house the other day. They were both super motivated to purchase. We were scheduled to look at houses the following weekend. In the meantime I was sending them information on potential properties so we would have a list of places that they really wanted to look at.

  But none of that was getting me the four hundred dollars I needed to pay my car repair bill.

  “Psst.”

  I looked up to see Ray hanging around the door of my office. He was suggestively wagging his eyebrows. “You want to go get some lunch?”

  The shaky sigh that I exhaled probably didn’t make any sense to him. That was okay. I knew what it meant. “Actually, Ray. I would love to go with you, but it turns out that I have something I need to do. I’ll be gone the rest of the afternoon.”

  “Oh. Okay then. Be careful out there,” Ray told me with a knowing smile. “The weather people swear it’s going to warm up enough to melt all of that ice lingering on the pavement, but that probably means snowmageddon is coming.”

  I smiled at him. For all of his foibles and his totally snobby attitude, Ray is actually a really nice person. “No doubt.” I patted his arm on my way out of my office. “See you later.”

  “Uh huh.”

  I could feel his gaze boring holes into my back. I pulled my coat on as I left the office. It was so freaking cold outside and so toasty warm inside that I was a little surprised we didn’t have some kind of weather anomaly like a tornado going on at the entrance every time someone opened the door.

  My boots crunched on the icy pavement. I hurried to my car and got inside. Then I did the same thing I’d been doing ever since Valentino Alvarez had alluded to the fact that my car wasn’t exactly healthy.

  “Okay, baby,” I told the little old compact car. “I need you to be a good boy and start. Got it?” I put the key in the ignition. “Ready? One. Two. Three. Start!”

  Turning the key, the little car chugged once, twice, and on the third time the engine turned over and the car sputtered to life like some automobile version of Frankenstein. I quickly turned the heat off so the blower would not continue to douse me in frigid air. Then I carefully made my way out of the Upscale Realty parking lot and out onto the two-lane highway. I didn’t have much time if I wanted to get to my parents’ restaurant before the noon rush was over.

  Four hundred dollars.

  The amount just kept running through my head. It wasn’t a lot of money. Not in the scheme of things. But it seemed so astronomical to me right now. I could not stop thinking about what it felt like to stand there and tell that man I couldn’t give him a penny right now. It made me feel awful. Embarrassed even. That wasn’t the kind of person that I was. I did not expect special treatment just because I had picked a career where the pay was entirely commission based and as unreliable as the weather.

  Speaking of weather. The sun had finally come out and the way it bounced off the icy pavement made it nearly blinding. I got onto the big highway and headed for Tower Grove and the tiny slice of the neighborhood’s eastern corner where the Greek Maiden was located. I knew this route by heart. I could probably have found my way to this restaurant from anywhere on the planet. It was like I’d been born with a homing device of some kind.

  Soon enough I was there and pulling into the crusty parking lot behind the building that served the restaurant employees. The front lot was reserved for customers since pa
rking space in the neighborhood came at a premium. The back lot was hideously tiny with narrow spaces and barely enough room for a full-sized vehicle to get down the alley between the building and the fence.

  I maneuvered my way into a spot in the very corner and was gratified to see that there weren’t that many cars in the employee lot. That was good. It meant that my parents’ proverbial problem was still in effect. This meant they would need an extra hand. At this point in my life it didn’t matter if they needed someone in the kitchen, the bar, or waiting tables. I’d been doing all of those things long before it was probably legal. After all, who would even think to wonder if your bartender was only seventeen?

  “Hey! Tansy!” The thickly accented voice belonged to my uncle Theos. He raised both of his hands and did a little dance step in front of the grill. “What are you doing here, girl? I thought you were tired of the restaurant business, eh?”

  “I need money, Uncle!” I told him baldly. “You got any you want to give away?”

  He put his hand over his heart even as he was tossing steaks onto the grill with the other one. “I have four daughters of my own! You think I have money? I’m flattered! Your father doesn’t pay that good. You know that!”

  I heard my father’s blustery voice from behind some tall metal shelves covered in cook pots. “Don’t you be talking to me about how much money you make!” I could actually see a shiny sharp-edged knife waving up and down as my father used it like a pointer. “I told you before. You need to cut that woman off! Her and those girls! They spend too much money!”

  They started arguing then but switched to Greek, which can make even the ugliest argument sound like a song. I rolled my eyes and grabbed up a black apron on my way past the front of the kitchen. This place was old hat to me. Most of the staff had been here for decades or at least their families had been working for my family for decades. Staff was made up of the high school and college-aged children of my parents’ Greek friends. Their daughters-in-law who wanted to go back to work after the kiddos went to school, the usual parade of people who never stayed more than a month or two before they rotated out and someone else rotated in.