Resist You (Unchained Attraction Book 3)

by K. L. Shandwick

  “You dated her back then?”

  Bradley’s eyes narrowed then softened and he shrugged. “Yeah. It took me years to get past her. The girl broke my heart.”

  “But you were only kids,” I stated, in reference to their ages when they’d dated. The thought he may have taken her virginity fucked with my head.

  “From fourteen to sixteen, Tricia Mattison was my first love. You always remember your first.” Fuck.

  “First everything?” I probed, raising an eyebrow like I was teasing him. I had no I idea where the question came from, but I’d had to know for sure. Either that or I’d turned into some sick fuck who loved to torture myself with gory details.

  “Are you asking if I slept with her?”

  I snickered, sheepishly. “Forget it,” I said quickly backtracking, what they were had nothing to do with me.

  “It’s okay, I don’t mind. No… not back then.” My hand tightened around my tumbler and it was a wonder I never broke it. “That honor went to the school quarterback, Donovan fucking Clark.”

  “But you have, just not when you were in school?” I pushed, as I tried to clarify the relationship they had.

  “These days that would be between Tricia and me, and if you want the answer to that you’d have to direct that question toward her.”

  “Her first time was with the quarterback?” Bradley must have thought me a sick fuck, but by then, I couldn’t care less what he thought of me. Anything that explained why Tricia behaved so conflicting had merit.

  “I’d spent the summer in Illinois at my grandpa’s farm,” he began, “summer vacation lasts a lifetime in small-town Ohio, when you’re sixteen and you have nothing to do all day. Tricia… well you know how she is, flirty and bubbly…” He fell quiet and glazed over like he was remembering back to then. I waited quietly until he sucked in a sharp breath and his eyes darted back to mine.

  “She moved on?” I asked, clueing into him being absent and her being home.

  He nodded. “I don’t think it was entirely her fault. According to Alice, her best friend, her crew kept badgering Tricia to go out. Eventually she caved and went to a house party with them. Donovan Clark was her boyfriend before me, obviously at thirteen we all went through girlfriends and boyfriends like candy bars, but he was a bit older than us and I knew he was still sweet on her. They were friends and had been neighbors forever…” He shrugged and shook his head. “And they still had an easy friendship together that used to piss me off. That guy was the only thing we ever fought about.” He paused and looked down at his drink. “Rumors were he plied her with alcohol until she could hardly stand up and they slept together.”

  “Fucker,” I muttered. “That all sounds a bit clichéd.”

  “Right,” he agreed, “but true. She told me herself, she’d slept with him, when she called me a few days after to break up with me. Anyway, going to that party changed her. When I found out I was pissed more with him than with her, but when I went around to her parents’ house, she refused point blank to talk about it.”

  “Not at all?”

  Turning his beer bottle around between his fingers, I knew it still frustrated him all those years later. “The girl totally ghosted me after that. Meanwhile, Donovan acted like he was a king while he trashed her reputation to anyone who would listen. Back in school that fall semester there was even a rumor she was pregnant with his kid, and he started telling us all he wasn’t the only one who’d slept with her. When I challenged him on that he wouldn’t name names.”

  “Pregnant?” I asked, my tone lifted in shock because I couldn’t envision Tricia with children.

  “That wasn’t true either. Being insane with jealousy I even calculated she would have been due a few weeks after Easter. But, as time went on and there was no kid, myself … along with everyone else, realized Donnie had been blowing smoke up everyone’s ass.”

  “What a dick,” I spat, my blood instantly boiling she’d been treated that way. Hearing her story went some way to explaining why Tricia was so independent. My experience with Charlotte made me instantly more empathetic toward her.

  “That he was, the damage he did to Tricia and her relationships with others was irreparable. She stopped going out and soon after graduation she moved away to college in New York. Obviously with her sister deployed all over the world with the military, her parents moved closer to Tricia in New Jersey and they all ended up settling there.” He shrugged, his face registering his resignation. “I guess with her parents gone she had no reason to move back to Ohio after she finished business school.”

  “To look at her you wouldn’t know any of that, she’s always upbeat,” I replied, seeing her for the first time in a new light. It dawned on me Tricia’s behavior might be due to how she coped with her mistrust of men.

  “Shortly after I graduated college, Donovan passed through town on a fleeting visit with a new girl on his arm, still behaving like the big-headed jock. It was weird, because Tricia returned a week later for the funeral of a family friend. Seeing them both again in such a short space of time brought the whole incident back for me. So I found out where she was staying and paid her a visit. We’ve never really discussed that time or what really went down, but we’ve been friends ever since.”

  “But you have a wife?”

  With a wry smile he picked up his beer and downed it in one, grimaced, and placed his empty bottle on the table. “Had a wife. Single dad to three rug rats now, nine, seven and four.”

  “Did your wife know this… about you and Tricia?”

  “She knew the story before we were married and since we decided to live separate lives, she blames my friendship with Tricia as a contributing factor to our marriage failing.”

  “Why? She was jealous?”

  “Emily thinks I never got over Tricia.”

  “And what do you think?”

  Turning his head to look for her again, he cast his eyes toward the dance floor, his face expressionless, then he smirked and snickered as he looked back to me.

  “Whatever, we were kids … and it was decades ago,” he said, neither confirming nor denying his true feelings. “The truth is there’s no bad feeling between me and my ex. Emily and I should never have married. We wanted different things, I was the sensible partner in our relationship, she was the dreamer. She works as a cruise line entertainer, so I have sole custody of the kids and a live-in nanny. When she’s home she shares the house and spends time with our kids. It’s not an ideal situation, but we make it work.”

  “What about you and Tricia?”

  He shrugged, but I felt the weight of his feelings in the look he gave her when he glanced toward the dance floor again. “Sometimes I think we could have something going, but she’s hot and cold, I don’t think she’ll ever settle down.” Something going? What the fuck does that mean? My chest tightened with the implication he’d made. Is he trapped in a no-strings relationship with her… the same kind of relationship I’d walked away from?

  “What makes you think that way?” I asked, somehow managing to sound vaguely interested.

  He shook his head. “Donovan Clark … that douchebag really did a number on her. To be honest, I don’t believe she’s ever fully recovered from how he made her feel. I mean we were all kids, but for a while Tricia really went in on herself because of that slutty reputation he gave her.

  “The girl that left for college at eighteen was nothing like how she is now. Tricia had a heart of gold, back then, now ... she’s damaged. There are very few people she trusts, hence our loose relationship.”

  “Loose relationship?” I repeated, stunned he could talk so casually about that with me, and the thought of Tricia being quantified in such a way made me furious.

  “She dictates the terms. Don’t get me wrong, if she wanted more, I’d give it to her, but she’s not interested in kids and…” He shrugged. “I have three. What more can I say?”

  “Fuck,” I cussed, my anger directed at whatever had happened to change he
r. My thoughts turned to the quarterback and the snippet of story Bradley had given me. Did he force her? Was that the whole story? Could there be something she felt she couldn’t tell Bradley?

  I felt incensed that one careless act could have created a lifetime of hurt in a person as confident as Tricia. Immediately I wanted to hunt Donovan down and beat his ass to a pulp–make him pay for what he’d done to her.

  “Yeah. I know you’re not supposed to speak ill of the dead, but I doubt that guy’s less harmful six feet under.”

  “He’s dead?” My eyes flared wide, shocked by his new revelation.

  “Yeah, died in a snowboarding accident the month he got accepted into the NFL. That’s what I call Karma.” Bradley focused his narrowed eyes on me. “So, as we are sharing, what’s your story with Tricia? Short romance? Hookup? To be honest, Tricia doesn’t mention other dates to me.”

  Other dates? “We met up a few times,” I said, choosing my words more carefully, considering his history with her. “Tricia is my sister-in-law, Billie’s, best friend. We met shortly before she was maid of honor at their wedding.” I shrugged and smiled at the cliché of bridesmaids and groomsmen getting it on again before I said it. “And I was a groomsman.”

  “And you hooked up?” he asked, sliding his gaze slowly from me to the dance floor. His face was passive except for the muscle that ticked in his jaw.

  I shrugged, not wishing to talk about Tricia in such terms with someone I hardly knew, a man with his history who still carried a torch for the woman in question. However, as I felt he’d been straight with me, I tried to be as honest as my conscience allowed. “A gentleman never kisses and tells, but I really liked her,” was all I replied.

  “So you were both caught up in the occasion?” he asked.

  I had wanted to say no, that it was more than that, and over a period of time, but it was hard to explain with the time gaps in between.

  My gut wanted me to deny his suggestion, but instead I nodded. “Yeah, I think so.”

  “You think?”

  I shrugged. “You know Tricia better than I.”

  My response earned me an immediate smile, like I’d given him possession of her, and he looked toward the dance floor again. “Donovan Clark sure fucked her up. Before that … I’d have sworn she’d have been a great wife and mother. We used to babysit for her mom’s friend’s kids, you know?” He sighed and checked out his empty beer bottle. Scanning over the bar he signaled for the cocktail waitress to come back.

  My thoughts turned to Tricia again, and I stared at her acting carefree on the dance floor and thought more on what Bradley had told me. It had shed some light on something Billie and Sawyer had mentioned.

  While Billie was pregnant, Tricia had been the perfect friend and was fiercely supportive of her and Sawyer. She’d also acted like the perfect honorary aunt, to Colby, Billie’s son from her first marriage. Yet, the moment Billie gave birth to their twins, she didn’t see much of her for a while.

  From the conversations with my brother, Billie hadn’t seen much of her for a while, and they had figured since Billie was married and had a new family Tricia had lost interest in her. Sawyer said Billie was devastated because Tricia had been the one person my sister-in-law thought she could depend upon.

  I had been told since Hammer’s party contact between them had improved again, but my brother had said Billie was wary about getting close to her again. After my experience with Tricia, I couldn’t say I blamed Billie for that.

  The cocktail waitress arrived, and fresh drinks were ordered. When she walked away, I resumed our conversation.

  “So what’s the real deal?” I asked, wagging my finger between him and Tricia probing him farther.

  “Me and Tricia, you mean?” He smirked wickedly, his blue eyes immediately brightening. “We have a room.” His words dripped like burning acid onto my heart, the sting immediately corroding it. Narrowing his gaze, he stared at me for a second or two and shrugged. “Wait… were you thinking of…” His eyes darted toward the dance floor again.

  What did I think? I had no idea what to think, the complexities of what thoughts and feelings I had when I looked at Tricia were incomprehensible. If I couldn’t make sense of my feelings, I knew I couldn’t explain them to a man like Bradley, who was obviously in love with her.

  “No!” I exclaimed then shook my head, my voice less clipped when I spoke again. “No, we should never have happened,” I lied, and the moment I did I knew I couldn’t stay with them all evening, only to watch them leave together at some point.

  Glancing at my watch I sighed, it was only approaching 6:00 p.m. and I’d already drunk too much. Deciding the explosive combination of having Tricia, her fuck buddy, and a bar full of alcohol was a bad idea, I stood, stuck my hand in my jeans pocket, and pulled out my cell.

  “Shit, I’ve missed some calls,” I lied. “I need to compose a couple of urgent emails. I’m going to head upstairs, and I probably won’t be back tonight. One of these issues is going to take hours to figure out.” Nodding toward Bradley, I left the bar without one last look at the dance floor.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The sound of my cell vibrating drew me from sleep. Feeling confused and still drunk, I rolled my sluggish naked body from my stomach to my back, on the bed. With my eyes still closed, I patted around until I eventually found my cell phone. The rumblings of a headache flared to life and my heavy arm rose and fell over my head. Through a slit in one heavy eyelid, I saw the light on the screen in the darkened room. The caller’s name was a blur.

  “Yeah?” I croaked, prying open my eyes in the darkness. They stung and for a second or two I couldn’t remember where I was or how I had gotten there. When my mind caught up, I vaguely remembered draining the whiskey decanter in my suite and carrying the last of the whiskey in a tumbler to bed. I winced when I tried to crawl up on all fours and fell back down on the mattress, electing to roll onto my back instead.

  “Where did you go?” Tricia’s sultry sexy voice broke into my inebriated state and my eyes widened, despite my stupor.

  “To bed,” I mumbled flatly.

  “Alone?”

  “Does that matter?” I slurred, thinking on what Bradley had told me about them.

  “Yeah, because if you’re alone at 9:00 p.m. in your bed, you’re not the James Wild I thought I knew.”

  “A handful of hookups and you think you know me?” I shot back, pissed off by her forwardness.

  “Ouch, that wasn’t called for,” she said in a tone laced with hurt.

  “What was it to you, if not that? Shouldn’t you be focusing your attention on Bradley?” The bitter sound of my voice gave away how I felt at the thought of them together.

  “You’d prefer I focus on Bradley after the way you looked at me down here in the bar?”

  “Tricia, you’re here with him,” I stated, bluntly. “I’m here to work, not to play games. Bradley made it clear you’re together, and I’m fine with that. We were just …” I struggled for what we were.

  “We’re still working things out?” she finished for me. “Why did you sneak out that last night?” she asked, quietly.

  “I didn’t sneak. There was nothing to work out. You dictated the terms and I knew the score.”

  “James, I think we both knew the score the first time we met. Neither of us wanted to admit that to ourselves.”

  “True, but what do we have if we take sex out of the equation?”

  “We’re more than sex, don’t you think?”

  “To be frank with you, Tricia, I really don’t know what to think,” I snapped, frustration lacing my tone. “Look I’m tired, I’ve had too much to drink, and I can’t deal with another mindfuck.”

  “Gotcha.” The line went dead, and my heart sank to my stomach. “Fuck you,” I muttered, as I dropped my cell on to the sheet beside me. Being drunk I was more annoyed than depressed by her call, and thankfully the travel to Denver and the whiskey meant I couldn’t think straight. My mind was
too muddled to think and with my eyes still heavy it didn’t take long before I fell asleep again.

  The phone rang again, dragging me out of a deep dreamless sleep. Clearing my throat, I picked it up, answered, and held it to my ear.

  “James, is that you?” my father asked curtly.

  “Yes, sir,” I croaked before clearing my throat.

  “Did I wake you? Damn, I forgot about the time change, it’s 7:45 a.m. here.”

  “I was getting up at 6:00 to hit the gym anyway,” I muttered, which was true. I had put in a wake-up call with the valet when I’d arrived. The clock on the TV flashed 4.45 a.m.

  “Okay, I just wanted to let you know, Deanna Waitland is going to be at the conference. We crossed paths yesterday at a meeting downtown, and she mentioned she was attending. I gave her your cell number and told her to call you, but I’ve emailed you hers. Please make time for her and if she hasn’t called you by 9:00, give her a call. She’s Vice CEO of her father’s financial institution now, so she’ll be useful to you down the line.”

  Deanna was a young attractive woman my parents had been eager for me to know around my thirtieth birthday. Both sets of parents had arranged a couple of country club dinners and invited us both, we had figured at the time they’d all agreed we were marriage material. As for Deanna herself, she was a lovely woman in her early twenties at the time we had met, but I’d thought her too sweet and innocent for the man I was at that time.

  “Got it. Any project you want me to mention?”

  “No, nothing right now, I just thought having a powerful contact in the industry would be a bonus in the years ahead.”

  “Right, I’ll make sure I give her my time.”

  “Thank you, I knew you’d understand,” my father admitted gratefully. “Oh, and, James, don’t make the mistake of bedding her, unless you want to take it further.”

  My chest tightened to think he still saw me like that. “I’m not here to screw women, Dad. I’m here to win friends and influence people.”