Forever Starts Now

by London, Stefanie

  “It’s not necessary,” she protested, but her hands came up to his chest as if her body was the one at the control panel of her brain. His chest was hard and sculpted beneath her palms and she had to stop herself from rubbing against him.

  Out of the corner of her eyes she saw a flash of movement. Loren.

  “Okay, they’re still watching us.”

  “Siblings,” he said with a chuckle. “Always so nosy.”

  One hand came up to cup the angle of her jaw, and his thumb brushed the edge of her lip. He was waiting, holding himself in that delicious space of anticipation, looking for a green light. That was the arrangement; she was the one who had to demand the kiss. Not him. She hadn’t known at the time that she was setting herself up for a trap. Taking away plausible deniability. Taking away the option to blame the kiss on him. Because they didn’t need to kiss right now—her family had bought the act already, hook, line, and sinker.

  But she wanted to kiss Ethan…and that was a problem.

  “This is purely for maintaining our cover,” she said, knowing that every word of it was a lie. A self-serving, self-protecting lie.

  “Of course.” His lips brushed the space next to the corner of her mouth, so close and yet the distance felt like pure, unadulterated torture. “Why else would we do it?”

  “No reason at all.”

  “Are you going to hate it?” he asked, his lips so close to hers now that she felt the whisper of air between them as he spoke.

  “Every second of it,” she whispered. “You’re repulsive.”

  Liar, liar, pants on fire.

  He let out a rough, dark chuckle and the sound skittered along her spine, lighting up every part of her. He knew she was talking complete garbage, but thankfully he didn’t call her out on it. Instead, he angled her head, tugging on her hair so that she was tilted up to him. As his lips brushed against hers, she sighed and curled her hands into his sweater, almost losing the ability to hold itself upright. Every nerve ending in her body sparkled like Fourth of July fireworks.

  The first kiss was brief. Teasing. And she wasn’t going to settle for wasting a lie on something that was over so soon. She released his sweater, winding her arms around his neck and keeping his head in place so he knew this wasn’t over. Not yet. She pressed her lips to his and the moment his tongue touched hers, her mind went blank. His fingers thrust into her hair, pulling her head back so he could take more, demand more. Taste more.

  Unable to stop herself, Monroe pressed her hips against him, rocking back and forth until a wonderfully primal sound came from the back of his throat. He was hard against her and he wedged a muscular thigh between her legs, forcing an echoing sound from her lips.

  “Maybe you are a good actress,” he murmured against her lips, pulling away from the kiss with a dark fire in his eyes, “because you don’t seem repulsed at all.”

  “I am.” The crack in her voice betrayed just how much she wanted him. “I’m going to sneak off to the bathroom and throw up now.”

  “Sure you are.”

  A small gasp came rushing out of her as he slipped a hand under her sweater and palmed the bare skin at her belly. If they’d been alone her restraint would have shattered like a wineglass thrown at a wall.

  But alas, they were not alone.

  “We should finish the dishes,” she said, forcing her voice to remain steady, to yank control back into her grip. “The kiss did what it was supposed to.”

  “I’ll say so.” When he smiled, it was like staring into the face of a wolf. “I’m going to need a clipboard or something to make it back to the dining room.”

  She did not need to think about that. Nor did she need to think about how she was going to be twisting and turning in her bed tonight without the object of her fantasies there to deal with her increasingly unbearable desires.

  “That sounds like a you problem.” She wriggled out of his grasp and began stacking the remaining dishes into the dishwasher.

  Mercifully, Ethan only laughed in response. But Monroe knew that she hadn’t exactly gotten out of this situation unscathed. It was already hard enough not to fantasize about Ethan Hammersmith, but now she had some reality with which to color those fantasies.

  Don’t think about his hammer, don’t think about his hammer.

  Luckily Loren chose that moment to enter the kitchen, since it must have been clear that the intimate moment was over. “How about some coffee?”

  “Great idea,” Monroe said. “I’ll go and take everyone’s orders.”

  And with that, she scurried out of the kitchen, quite sure that she resembled a tomato. Next time she and Ethan were alone, she’d make a note not to get baited into kissing him. Because she had no idea how much longer her willpower would last.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Ethan was convinced that he would make a terrible private investigator. Not because he didn’t have a nose for sniffing out a lie, and certainly not for a lack of determination. Not to mention that he loved solving puzzles. Nothing gave him greater pleasure than finding the last missing piece of something that brought the glorious entirety into illumination.

  But the two steps forward and one step back dance of investigation frustrated the hell out of him.

  Every time he thought he had something solid in the search for his father, it felt like the past slipped through his fingers. He had been sure the Cape Cod connection would turn something up…but so far? Nada.

  There was no record of his mother ever being there, even though he knew she had. And there was no record of a Matthew Brewer being there, either. Damn the 80s and their lack of internet. How did people find anybody before Facebook? And as much as he loathed the selfie-driven, filter-heavy behavior rampant on social media, it sure did make figuring out people’s whereabouts a whole lot easier.

  And really, grumbling over his lack of progress was better than thinking about the very thing his brain wanted to focus on—the kiss he shared with Monroe two nights ago.

  That’s not your brain wanting to think about the kiss, buddy.

  True. But Ethan made it a rule that nothing below his belt buckle got a say in any decisions. Especially now, when there were important issues in his life. Still, that didn’t make it easier not to remember how she tasted like champagne and chocolate cake and smelled like a dewy spring garden. Nor did it make it easier for him to forget that her hair was like silk and her body was warm and soft and needy.

  “Stop it,” he muttered to himself as he locked up his room at the inn. The place was silent—which was strange for a morning.

  Lottie was an early riser and she liked to get work going around seven a.m. Ethan usually woke to the sound of her banging around on whatever her latest project was, too impatient to wait for his help. But not today.

  Today, the big, old building was eerily quiet.

  He made his way along the hallway lined with guest rooms, the old carpet worn under his feet. He’d been working on sanding back the railings for the staircase and landing—preparing it for a fresh coat of paint. He’d suggested white, to liven things up, but Lottie wanted a more traditional British racing green. Trailing his fingers along the second set of balustrades that were now bare and smooth, he jogged downstairs.

  There was a noise coming from the front of the inn. Reception area, perhaps? He followed the muffled sound out to the front desk. The door to the office was ajar, and through the sliver of space he could see Lottie sitting at her desk, crying. The soft sobs shook her shoulders as she looked at something in her hands, an old photograph perhaps.

  There was something about seeing an old person crying that was like a punch to Ethan’s gut.

  He wasn’t sure why, but it always filled him with this overwhelming protective urge, even if he didn’t know the person that well. That was something ingrained in him—that if he saw someone struggling, he should lend a hand. Or
a shoulder to cry on. Or just an ear.

  Knowing full well that Lottie was liable to snap the aforementioned ear clean off for intruding, Ethan walked up to her door and knocked. Her head snapped up and she brushed the tears away with the back of her hand.

  “What?” she snapped. “Are you spying on me, boy?”

  “No, I’m not. But I heard you crying and…”

  “You thought you would stick your nose in my business?” She shoved something into the top drawer of her desk and then closed it.

  “I wanted to make sure you’re okay, that’s all.” He leaned against the door frame and nudged the door open a little farther. “I can’t imagine you’re crying without good reason.”

  Lottie leaned back in her chair and looked at him. Her eyes were red-rimmed and her cheeks had a pink sheen to them—but otherwise her demeanor still embodied the brittle, steel-spined attitude she’d had ever since he had set foot on her property. There was nothing soft about her.

  “Grief is a strange beast,” she said. “You think you’ve slayed it, and then out of nowhere it rears its ugly head to take you by surprise.”

  “So you’re telling me I’ve got years of that feeling ahead of me?” His eyes lowered to the ground. It was difficult to grieve his mother when his feelings were so mixed up.

  “I’m afraid so,” Lottie replied with a nod. “No sense lying about it, I don’t think. Better to know what you’re up against.”

  “I agree.”

  She stared at him for a moment, like she was trying to figure something out. There was something sharp and perceptive in her eyes, like she was slotting puzzle pieces together. “So, are you going to tell me why you’re really here? Because I’m not sure I buy the story about the letters.”

  He wasn’t surprised. Lottie seemed sharp as a tack. “Why not?”

  “Usually that question would be followed by ‘it’s true’ and yet you’re looking to sidestep saying it.”

  “Ah, but if I protested too much then you’d pin my guilt on that.” Ethan shrugged. “I know better than to try to change anyone’s opinion of me.”

  Lord knows he’d spent way too much time and energy on that in his youth—trying to fit in with his dad and brother, trying to lose his computer nerd label in school, trying to shake the “entitled millennial” title when he’d first entered the workforce and started climbing the ranks.

  “You’re smooth,” she said. “Too smooth.”

  “I’m not anything,” he replied. “Just a man.”

  “A man with a mission.”

  “Sure.”

  “And you really think people will believe that you upended your entire life to look for some letters?” Lottie massaged the back of one hand with her thumb. “I’ll only believe that if there’s something specific you’re looking for in the letters.”

  For a moment Ethan felt the weariness and exhaustion of the past twelve months seep into his bones. Lying and searching and disappointment was hard work. In the early days of his travels, he had played things very close to his chest—because if he did find the town his father lived in, he wanted to be the one to decide if people knew Ethan was Matthew Brewer’s son.

  But now, after so many false leads and dashed hopes, Ethan felt himself—and his resolve to keep things private—slowing down.

  “I’m trying to find out if Matthew Brewer had an affair with my mother,” he said. “An affair which resulted in a son.”

  “You think he might be your father.” The hardness drained from Lottie’s face, leaving pure shock in its wake.

  “What were your suspicions then, if not that?”

  “I thought you were after money. Matthew owed a lot of people a lot of things.” She stared at him, eyes roaming over him as if she were seeing things for the first time. “I figured you were here looking to sniff around his mother’s estate, see if there was anything of value. Wouldn’t be the first time someone had come poking around.”

  “He had a lot of enemies?”

  “Enemies is a harsh word. More like he was indebted to a lot of people—some bad, some stupid. A few men have come around looking for him, not always knowing he was dead.”

  “Do you know anything about the time he spent in Cape Cod? My mother was there for a summer and I think that’s where they met.”

  “I don’t know anything about that.” She shook her head. “He was always flitting off here and there. Not even his own mother could keep track of him.”

  “Do you know if he had a kid or a relationship with an Australian woman?”

  Lottie was quiet for a moment. He could practically hear the cogs turning in her head and even though her face gave nothing away, Ethan had a strong tingling intuition in his gut. She was hiding something. Or thinking about hiding something.

  How did he know? Maybe it was spending the past year analyzing every little detail he came across. Maybe it was because he’d become the kind of person who hid things and now he recognized it in others.

  If only you’d developed that skill earlier.

  “He had a few relationships here and there—almost married some poor lamb of a girl in his twenties. But she was from Arkansas. As for the kid thing…” Lottie shrugged. “I wouldn’t have put it past him to knock a girl up and leave her to deal with it on her own.”

  That didn’t really answer the question.

  Yeah, Lottie was definitely being cagey. But why? If she wasn’t related to Matthew in any way, why did she care to hide anything? Maybe he was just being paranoid.

  His phone buzzed with a text from Monroe.

  I have news! I’m on the early shift so I’ll be home by 2 p.m. Come see me after that.

  For some reason the text was like a balm to the wild, stirring feelings he was doing his best to swallow down. Seeing Monroe would lift his spirits and maybe she’d be able to shed some light on the Lottie situation. Was the older woman more connected to his potential father than she was letting on?

  He texted Monroe back, confirming he’d head over that afternoon. When he looked up, Lottie was still studying him. She didn’t trust easily—he understood that. These days Ethan didn’t trust easily, either. He gave information away when it suited his needs, but trusting someone? Well, there was a small, dark part of him that wondered if he’d ever be able to trust again.

  …

  After a rather frustrating and fruitless day—where he’d tried to get in contact with the guy from the metal workshop, only to find out he was visiting family out of town for the week—Ethan headed to Monroe’s place.

  Part of him was curious to see the inside of her apartment. He had always thought you could tell a lot about a person by the things they included in their home and how they kept the space. What would Monroe’s place reveal about his complex fake girlfriend?

  Main Street was busy and he ended up parking almost a block away then walking along the street toward her apartment. He approached the Polish bakery and stopped at the small door he’d seen Monroe disappear into the day he’d dropped her off. Inside was a narrow staircase that led up to the top floor, which was stuffy and smelled like cabbage. At the top there was a tight landing with two doors.

  Monroe had told him to come to the apartment marked 104b. He knocked and footsteps sounded inside. A few seconds later the front door was pulled open.

  “I’m so glad you’re here!” Monroe crackled with energy and she all but yanked him into her apartment. She was wearing blue jeans and a silky top with a colorful apron over it.

  Inside, he found a cozy place that was a contradiction of things—much like Monroe herself. Her living room and kitchen was one small area, and there was a bathroom at the back and a closed door which he assumed was her bedroom. In the kitchen, a hot pink stand mixer sat on the middle of the countertop along with bags of flour and other various baking ingredients and implements. All her utensils were pink
and befitting of the woman he’d seen on Sugar Coated.

  But then she had a poster on the wall in the living area that said: only dead fish go with the flow.

  Ethan liked people who didn’t fit squarely into one box, and Monroe was certainly that.

  “What are you baking?” he asked, wandering over to her kitchen.

  “I’m testing out a new recipe for some Thor-inspired cupcakes.” A sly grin spread over her face. “Salted caramel and pecan, with a marshmallow and pretzel stick for the hammer. I don’t know, but something tells me Thor would be a salted caramel kinda guy.”

  Ethan narrowed his eyes at her. “And why exactly are you making Thor cupcakes?”

  He wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer to this. He should have known that Monroe wouldn’t just drop the Thor thing because he’d said no.

  “Well…” Monroe got her phone out of her pocket and pulled up an app. Instagram. “This is a post from the Chris Hemsworth, stating that he is currently in Byron Bay, Australia, with his wife and family. Categorical proof that you are not, in fact, a Hollywood movie star.”

  “What does it have to do with the cupcakes?”

  “You don’t need to worry about blending in. So I figured, Thor cupcakes would go with a Thor costume, right?”

  He rolled his eyes. “You’re persistent.”

  “Like a zit on a teenager.” Monroe smiled gleefully.

  Ethan laughed and the sound came from somewhere deep and real inside him. Monroe was…something else. She was pushy and willful and irritatingly attractive.

  “I promise, if you help me with this,” she said, “I will do everything in my power to help you find out if your dad was the Matthew Brewer that lived here. You have my word.”

  And wasn’t that all that mattered in the end? Finding out whether this was the town his father was from or not?

  “Do I have any hope of saying no to you?” he asked, shaking his head.

  “I don’t think so.” Her eyes sparkled. “It’s probably best not to fight it.”

  “Can I taste some of your baking treats, at least? You know, as a consolation prize for being bullied into giving up all my dignity.”