Kittenfish: An Enemies-to-Lovers Romantic Comedy

by Brenda Lowder

  Kya rolls her eyes. “You can bring in the pizza.”

  She holds the door open for me, and I’m half afraid she’s going to grab the box and then clock me in the face with the door, but she lets me through.

  I put the box down on the counter and turn toward her. “I’m sorry, Kya.”

  “So you’ve said.” She stalks around me slowly, silkily, like a jungle cat around its prey. “But what exactly are you sorry for?”

  I sigh and take a seat on a barstool.

  “Don’t sit down!” she says. “I’ve accepted your apology pizza—not your apology.”

  I stand back up. “What was the question?”

  “Do you know what you’re apologizing for?”

  “Yes, of course. I’m sorry I invented Giselle and tried to make Tarek fall in love with her even though I was really, really provoked. And I’m sorry I lied to you and—”

  “No,” she barks. “That’s not why you should be apologizing.”

  “Can I sit down?” What am I forgetting?

  She rolls her eyes again. Some of her exterior harshness softens. “Okay, you can sit. But only because I know how much you hate standing.”

  “I do. I hate standing. I feel like I’m on display.”

  “I know. I know. I said you could sit.”

  I sink onto her couch, and she paces the stretch of carpet in front of me, arms clasped behind her back.

  “Marissa.”

  “Yes?”

  “I can’t forgive you yet. Do you know why?”

  “No, Kya, I don’t.”

  “Like I said, I can’t forgive you yet because you’re apologizing for the wrong things.”

  “What should I be apologizing for?”

  She stops pacing and faces me.

  “For screwing it up.”

  I feel like she’s slapped me. “Screwing what up?”

  “Your relationship with Tarek.”

  “I don’t have a relationship with Tarek.” I look at her carefully. “At least, not in the way that you mean.”

  She drops down onto the sofa next to me. “It can’t be a surprise that Tarek’s in love with you.”

  I scoot to the edge of my seat and shake my head. “A surprise? More like a gut-numbing shock. And I know it to be impossible. He has flat-out stated that there’s no such thing as love. It’s not true. It can’t be true.”

  “Because you don’t want it to be true?”

  “Yes! No. I don’t know.” I squeeze my hands into fists and get up.

  “You don’t believe me?”

  “How can I?” I turn on her. “Kya, he never falls in love. That’s his thing. That’s what he does.”

  “He couldn’t fall in love, Marissa. He was already in love with you.” Her gaze is steady, and I want to cry.

  I cross my arms, clutching my elbows so my arms hug my chest. “Why didn’t he act on it, then? All these years?”

  “You were off-limits.”

  “What changed?”

  “Liam. You were going to marry Liam.”

  “Tarek made sure that didn’t happen.” I think back to Kya getting Tarek’s call at the strip club, my certainty that Liam and I would be together forever crumbling down around me.

  “Yes, he did.” Kya’s eyes pierce mine. I blink first.

  “I’ve gotta go.” I get up without looking at her.

  Kya stands and follows me to the door.

  “Are we okay now?” I throw over my shoulder.

  “Let me count it up.” She holds her hands out and pretends to count on her fingers. “You hurt Tarek. I wrecked your plan. You apologized.” She closes her hand into a fist. “Yeah, we’re okay. Unless the pizza’s got mushrooms.”

  I let myself out before Kya can check.

  ∞∞∞

  I try to call Tarek. Of course I do, though I don’t know what I’m going to say to him besides, “I’m sorry.” I’m certainly not going to say, “Hey, I heard you might love me. Everybody says so—your sister, my mom, Blaire, Dog-boy. Is this true?”

  Um, no.

  The idea of Tarek loving me is ludicrous, ridiculous, wonderful. But after all these years and all the women I’ve seen him with, I don’t let myself believe it, and I certainly won’t trust it.

  And if he ever did really love me, haven’t I just made him hate me?

  So, even though I call him fifty times, I don’t leave a message, and I don’t text him. There aren’t any words for what I don’t know how to say.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  I have to do something. Three days of obsessive calling isn’t working—Tarek is still not answering and is no doubt filing for the restraining order today. I sit on my favorite patch of carpet and lean against the wall. I consider going to his apartment building and camping out in front, but besides the obvious humiliation which is par for the course as far as grand romantic gestures go, it’s also been raining and I can’t see catching pneumonia and dying before he even talks to me.

  Instead I use my connections at the paper—again—to place a really big ad in our print and online editions slightly after the deadline. No one even complains about it either. It seems everyone except me is so thrilled that Blaire’s gone that happiness abounds.

  The ad is hideous, mortifying, and downright ridiculous. And it, just like my kittenfishing, has an audience of just one. But I’m hoping this time it will go to the heart of my viewer, like he has somehow elbowed his way into mine.

  ∞∞∞

  True to form, Blaire’s wedding plans are crazy. Especially crazy in that her wedding takes place merely two weeks after her invitations go out. She told me life doesn’t wait on love, but I wonder if she’s propelling Troy to the altar before he has time to change his mind. Or the fact that she was able to use my credit on Rockmount Hall. My parents generously offered it to her, and she snapped it up with completely un-Blaire-like practicality. Regardless, Blaire’s dramatic flair is on full display—her wedding is a ball. Literally. Her black-edged engraved invitations instruct her guests to wear masquerade ballroom attire and dictate no one will be admitted who is not wearing a mask.

  The ceremony takes place at the top of a sweeping grand staircase overlooking the ballroom. The exchange of vows takes all of seven minutes, then the bride and groom kiss—with far, far too much tongue—and then the real party begins.

  I’ve wondered since I received the masquerade invitation if Blaire was going to end up marrying the wrong person. Not that Troy is wrong for her, but that since everyone is masked, someone might think it funny to switch places with Troy. But then I guess the mystery joker would end up married to Blaire, which would be, in itself, enough of a deterrent against the prank.

  I needn’t have feared. There’s no mistaking the identities of the bride and groom. Despite their elaborate masks, Blaire is obvious in her surprisingly traditional white poof of a wedding dress, and Troy is almost as obvious in his black tux and boutonniere with his wide shoulders and sportsman’s stance.

  Perhaps most obvious of all is Blaire’s grandmother. That towering beehive of blue hair could belong to no one else. Blaire’s brother is kind enough to pretend he doesn’t recognize her, though, and flirts with her outrageously as he spins her across the dance floor.

  I feel less obviously me, though I can’t tell what the rest of the room would say since I know so few people here. I’m wearing a slinky black dress that’s barely on my shoulders and sweeps the floor when I walk, even in my high-heeled silver strappy sandals. My mother loaned me her sapphire necklace that hangs delicately just below the hollow of my throat. My hair is swept up in loose curls with tendrils cascading on both sides of my face, which is obscured by a jeweled black mask my mother ordered from Amazon.

  Dinner is buffet-style, and I’m disappointed to learn there are no assigned seats. I thought maybe Blaire would seat me beside people I know—Kya, Chloe, Tarek. But instead I weave around the room, uncertain whether he is even here.

  Until I’m standing in front
of him.

  He’s wearing a black eye mask, like me, but his is plain. He’s tall and strong and magnetic. He puts a hand to his forehead, messing his hair up in the front, then combs his fingers through until his shiny brown hair falls back into place. His sea-green eyes pierce mine past our masks.

  “Tarek,” I breathe, marveling at the speed of my pulse with the reality of him inches away, his body drawing mine to him without moving, without swaying.

  “Hello, Marissa.”

  So formal. My heart squeezes. I’m not his Duchess of Desire anymore. “I’ve tried calling you.”

  His arms are stiff at his sides. I want to bend them or unbend him. Place his arms around me so he’d have to hold me, have to forgive me. I want to make him pliable. And mine.

  Funny how much I haven’t admitted to myself until he’s standing right in front of me, untouchable through his wall of hating me.

  “I know,” he says.

  “But you didn’t answer,” I mumble.

  He hears me anyway. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other and puts his hand in his pocket, the side of his tuxedo jacket lifting and buckling so that I wonder if he’s not even concerned with the picture he’s presenting. “What did you want to say?”

  What did I want to say? I never figured that out. What do I want to say? What phrases can I conjure so that he won’t look at me like a stranger? How can I rebuild the fire I used to see in his eyes, under all that ice? The fire that I denied to myself was ever there.

  “Did you read the paper this week?” My stomach flutters while I wait for his answer. I think I’ll be embarrassed either way.

  “Your paper?”

  “Yes.”

  “No. Why?”

  “Oh, no reason.”

  “Really?”

  “No.”

  He smiles and my heart speeds up with hope I don’t deserve to feel. “So there was something—some article—you wanted me to see?”

  I bow my head and mumble. “Yes.”

  “Maybe we should go somewhere and talk about it.” He hesitates, then takes my hand. Electricity sizzles up my arm and through my whole body. I take a deep breath, the tight band across my chest that his absence had caused finally falling away. I smile.

  “Okay.”

  I don’t let go of his hand. He leads us through swirls of dancing couples to the edge of the circular room. Then we are through the door and past the music into the quiet, dim hallway, alone.

  He squeezes my hand, and I wonder if he’s trying to bolster my spirits or prepare me for a giant letdown. We wander along the curving hallway lined with pillars outside the main hall until we come to a bench. He sits, letting go of my hand to adjust his tuxedo coat, and then pulls me down to sit next to him.

  “Now what did you want to tell me about?” He reaches behind his head and takes off his mask. My heart double skips as his handsome face comes into my view. The face I have fought against loving my entire life.

  I take my mask off, too, and smooth my hair back into place. “Maybe it’s better if I show you.” I take my phone out of the little black satin purse on my arm and bring up the online edition of my personal ad. Even knowing what I’m going to see, my body flushes hot with embarrassment when the image loads. I hand my phone to Tarek without looking at him and cover my face with both hands. I wait for his roar of laughter. It doesn’t come. I count to five and then peek through my fingers. He’s not looking at the phone—he’s looking at me.

  The expression on his face is kind. There’s a slight smile on his lips and his eyes pierce straight through to my heart.

  “You’ve seen it already,” I say, my dignity sunk somewhere past my knees.

  He smiles, but there’s not a trace of superiority in it. Instead he’s looking at me like he’d do anything to protect me. Even temporarily hurt me to get the wrong guy out of my life. “I’ve seen it.”

  “Oh, no.” I bury my face in my hands again. Tarek laughs.

  “You wanted me to see it, or else you wouldn’t have put it in a city-wide paper.”

  “I know. I couldn’t think of another way to get your attention.”

  “Well, you got it. In fact, you got my whole firm’s attention. I haven’t stopped hearing about it since the first day of the ad. Impossible for me to miss.”

  “Oh, no! I didn’t even think about your work.” Taller waves of embarrassment roll through me.

  Tarek laughs and pulls my hands from my face. “It’s okay. In fact, I think this is the best ad I’ve ever seen.”

  I look down at my phone that he’s holding between us, the image of my ad large on the screen. There it is. The book cover of The Duchess of Desire with my face photoshopped over the face of the buxom cover model. The line above it reads, “Tarek Oliver, I’m sorry! Love, Your Waiting Duchess, Marissa Ryan.”

  “Oh, gosh.” I pull my feet up onto the bench and wrap my arms around my satin-draped legs. It was embarrassing enough placing the ad and thinking about everyone who would see it, but it’s even worse sitting here with Tarek, dying to know if he’ll forgive me.

  He laughs and deposits my phone back into my purse. I raise my eyebrows at him and he pulls me into his arms, hugging me close. He kisses the top of my head and the warmth of it radiates through me. “That’s the biggest, boldest, most embarrassing thing that any woman has ever done to get my attention.”

  “Oh, shut up,” I say, but I’m laughing.

  He’s laughing, too, as he turns me to face him. His gaze goes to my lips and it’s only a heartbeat until he’s kissing them. I pull away before I melt completely.

  He cups my face in his hand and places a chaste kiss on my lips. “It was you,” he says, following that kiss with others. “You must know that. It’s always been you.” He leans away, taking my hands in his, and stares down at our fingers entwined.

  When he speaks, his voice is low and choked with emotion. “When my mother left us, we…” he trails off, and I wait for him, grateful that he’s touching me, talking to me, being with me. I warm at the feeling of his hands in mine, holding us together. “We were lost, broken. My dad, well, you know, he only thought of himself. He ran right out to find her replacement or someone—anyone—to fill the void. He never stopped.” He swallows. “I don’t know. It felt like it was just Kya and me after that, until you and your parents took us in like part of the family. You were. You were my family. I had to protect you like I protected Kya. Even from me. My mother left an emptiness in me and, well, I guess I turned into my dad. There was a void, and I was always looking to fill it.” He shrugs, but his intense expression is at odds with the casual gesture. He tugs my hands closer. “I never could. I’d denied what I’d always known—my feelings for you.”

  “You never said—anything. I never knew.”

  He doesn’t answer at first and instead lifts my hand and kisses my knuckles.

  I gaze into his eyes, my heart overflowing. “I never would have believed it. When Kya said you had feelings for me, it terrified me.”

  “Is that why—”

  I don’t let him finish his sentence. I press my lips to his. He hesitates for a breath and then he’s kissing me back. He pulls me flush against him and crushes his mouth on mine.

  “I was scared, you know. I’ve always wanted safety and security—like my parents have. And you’ve never been safe.” He laughs in admission. “And you were never real. There was nothing real about how you were in a relationship.”

  “I never wanted to be real with anyone other than you.”

  I press my lips to his, my heart too full for speaking.

  “I’m sorry,” I pant as I pull away, my hand spread on his chest. “You know that, right? I’m sorry about all the Giselle stuff.” My chest is pierced at the thought of trying to hurt him.

  “I know.” He takes a lock of my hair and smooths it out of my face. I hurt him, but his tone says there is nothing he won’t forgive. He weaves his fingers into my hair as if he wants to feel me here, keep me h
ere with him. “I’m sorry, too, for how I treated you after Liam. I was so angry you wasted all those tears on that bastard. And all that time.” He strokes my cheek. “And I’m sorry I broke you two up.”

  I laugh. “No you’re not.”

  “Course not.” I can hear the smile in his voice, but he waits, gauging my reaction.

  “It’s okay. I’m not sorry either.”

  He pulls me to him again and nips my neck. A trail of wildfire blazes down to my toes.

  “I lied before,” he says and takes my earlobe gently in his teeth.

  “When?”

  “When I said I didn’t believe in love.”

  “Oh?”

  “I do. I always have. I love you.”

  I feel his love, feel wrapped up inside it in the arms he has around me.

  “I love you too.” And always have but never wanted to admit it because it would mean Tarek had won.

  Instead we both do.

  ∞∞∞

  Thank you so much for spending time with Marissa and Tarek! I hope you enjoyed their story as much as I loved writing it.

  If you liked Kittenfish, you might also like my other romantic comedy novel, Keeping the Pieces.

  Last night Emma Hayworth's crush finally gave her the soul-claiming kiss she's dreamed about since college. Everything is going her way...until he announces his engagement to someone else. Now Emma must join forces with handsome trainer Derek Chase to split up the newly engaged couple so they can keep the pieces for themselves.

  Sign up for my newsletter at brendalowder.com for news about my upcoming books and exclusive content! And read on for a peek at Keeping the Pieces!

  Chapter One

  With her feet dragging in the choppy waves and water saturating the bottom half of her dress, Emma had literally missed the boat. Technically part of her had caught it since she’d managed to hook her arms over the back wall, but the power with which she’d launched herself from the dock toward Cam’s parents’ super yacht with the sea-level deck was not enough to propel her onboard.

  She wriggled her feet underwater and wondered how long she’d be able to keep her shoes on. Laughs and catcalls from the pier were joined by hoots from the onboard partygoers who cast wary looks her way as she struggled to pull herself in. Maybe she should join a gym.