by Natalie Ann
She lifted her chin. “I’m not sure if I’m offended or not.”
“You want to be called a bimbo?” he asked, his eyes wide.
“Not at all. But I don’t want to be considered an old maid that is your fall-back plan either.” Those damn glasses for looking at the computer.
“I can’t figure you out,” he said.
“Yet you’re in my office right now pitching me this proposition?”
“I am. I must be a glutton for punishment. I’m enjoying this though, aren’t you?”
She wasn’t about to admit it to him. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“What question was that? You’re not like the other women I’m with because you’re real and they aren’t. I like you personally, and don’t take this the wrong way, but I really don’t like most women in general. Not as a person or someone I want to even carry on a conversation with. Is that answer enough?”
She frowned. It was sort of a compliment mixed in with an insult on women in general. “I guess.”
“So you’ll do it.”
She had to be nuts to even consider this. “When is it again?”
“Memorial Day weekend.”
He was rubbing his hands together like he was ready to jump up when she answered so she couldn’t change her mind. “What kind of dinner party?” Little black dresses weren’t her thing.
“It’s more like an outdoor party. Nothing fancy. Casual.”
She could handle that and maybe it wouldn’t hurt to meet some people in the area. Though she was thinking the people she’d be meeting there weren’t going to be anyone she’d socialize with outside of being on Reed’s arm. Thoughts of touching any part of Reed shouldn’t be popping into her head, but there it was like a fly pestering her and not being shooed away.
She had to be crazy right now to continue with this conversation, let alone encourage him, but Angie was going to be with Jack for the whole weekend. Not just Saturday night and coming home Sunday. But since it was a holiday, she’d caved because it was a lesser holiday in her mind and Angie would be gone both Saturday and Sunday night. Best to let Jack spend more time for Memorial Day than, let’s say, Easter.
Two nights without her baby. Two days too. She’d be going bonkers and the party might be just what she’d need to take her mind off of it.
“What time does it start?” she asked. Angie would be picked up Saturday morning and she had to figure out how to do this without giving it away that she had a child.
“Mid to late afternoon. I always show up after it starts and cut out early. I need to make an appearance, shake some hands, and talk to clients. My dad does it all. He’s the desk guy; I’m the builder.”
“Why is your sister going then?” she asked. Rachel, he’d said her name was, didn’t work for the company.
“Because the Brittens also happen to be personal friends of the family and she was invited. She probably would have brushed it off too, but she knew I would be forced to go and this would allow her to keep an eye on me.”
“I didn’t realize your family needed to keep an eye on you.” What the hell was she getting herself into now?
“We’re close and they like to annoy me. Nothing more than that. So I’ll pick you up around three?”
“No,” she said. “Why don’t we meet here?” No way she was letting him come to her house. He could get her address out of her personnel file, that wasn’t the issue. It was that he’d see a child lived in the house and that wasn’t happening. There was no way he’d be the type of guy to let her walk out the door to his vehicle. He’d ring the bell and then nudge his way in like the steamroller that just convinced her to go on a date with him.
He tilted his head and she could see he wanted to argue but must have known better. “That works. Thanks.” Then he turned and walked out of her office not telling her anything else about where they were going or who else would be there.
No Strings Attached
That went better than Reed could have hoped for. He didn’t think she’d agree.
He wasn’t lying either when he said Taylor wasn’t like other women he normally spent his time with. Nor was she anything at all like Whitney.
After he’d found signs of Whitney having an affair in her house, he’d been in shock. He shook his head over that thought too. Not just signs, but clothing. Other men’s clothing. Cards that he didn’t send, a box of mementos that she’d kept from all the men she’d been with in her life. It was a big box. Not to mention the packages of condoms that were all over the place, opened wrappers in the trash. He wasn’t using them; she was on the pill.
The clues were all in front of his face for months, but he just took her word that work was taking up all of her time, that she was tired at night when he wanted to stop over and see her. And he shouldn’t have. He wouldn’t do that ever again. Never take another woman’s word for anything.
He’d never felt such rage when he was going through her things. He’d been a man that was happy. That was always smiling. But knowing he’d been played a fool had just sent him over the edge. And then when they shipped Whitney’s body home...it all built up again those weeks later. He was her fiancé and he had to put up a front and go to the services like everything was fine. Like he was grieving her death when he was actually grieving his stupidity. The last thing he wanted was anyone to know the truth of why she was in Bali. That he was one of those guys that should have seen all the signs of the woman he loved having an affair, but he’d been so blinded by having the girl he’d longed for all through high school.
Unfortunately, it didn’t take long for it to get out. Her place of employment knew she wasn’t there for work and speculation started to fly when two people from the area were listed on the news as dying during the hurricane. Damn local news thinking they had to report everything.
It was too much of a coincidence and people were putting the pieces together. It wasn’t until months later he found out this guy had been in Whitney’s office multiple times.
So he sucked it up and was the grieving fiancé at the services. Yeah, he was devastated—over lost dreams he’d been having for half his life—but the anger really did override everything else. His rage hid his sorrow. It hid how much his heart was breaking.
It’d taken months for the resentment to diminish, and then the depression set in. He’d loved her. He was going to marry her. She was gone. He hated what she did. He hated how it made him feel and he’d never forgive her.
Now she was just gone from his life and there was no sense of closure for him.
From that point on, he hated the world and felt the same about women in general.
When he found a woman to spend the night with, it was exactly as Taylor said. Some bimbo he picked up at a bar just looking to have some fun. Stock in condoms? Yep, he had them in plenty.
After a year or so of that, the boredom set in.
He didn’t want a relationship, but he wasn’t interested in dumb blondes snapping their gum or doing shots with him in a bar.
He wanted someone he could carry on a conversation with. Someone he could spend time with. All those things he had with Whitney when they started dating and he thought they would last forever.
He knew he couldn’t get that and sex from a woman without them wanting more though.
This was a compromise in his eyes. He could be friends with Taylor and hoped to hell he could keep her out of his dreams. Did he want to have sex with her? Holy hell yes.
Was he going to? Not unless they could figure out a way of doing it with no strings attached.
Though it might be easier than he realized since she didn’t seem to want anything to do with men even though she did agree to this date.
Which brought up another question as to why she did that.
“Reed!”
He turned his head when he was walking out of the office building to see Josh pulling into the parking lot. “What’s up? Why aren’t you on site?”
“I was looking fo
r you,” Josh said. “One of the guys said you were coming here for something.”
He wasn’t going to tell Josh the reason he was in the building. Josh loved to gossip and he’d want details that Reed wasn’t in the mood to share with anyone. As much as Josh knew, there were some things Reed couldn’t bring himself to share.
Like his self-loathing every time he let himself back into his house after a night with a woman that only satisfied a physical need.
The party was still two weeks away and there was a good chance Taylor would change her mind or bail on him. Until he knew for sure, he wasn’t letting anyone know about it. Josh was bound to bust his ass one way or another like he always did anyway and Reed wasn’t in the mood.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“One of the homeowners showed up at the development to check on their house and they’re annoyed at the house going up next to them.”
“What?” Reed asked. “Who and what is their problem?”
“The Cotters and they don’t like the house being built on the lot next door,” Josh explained and tried to hide his grin. Josh knew how much Reed hated dealing with these nuisances. That was his father’s thing, but his parents were traveling for a few weeks. His father had been doing less and less work for the business in the past two years and he couldn’t begrudge him that. He’d worked hard for a long time, but Reed didn’t have the tact his father did.
“Sometimes I just want to take a hammer and beat myself silly with it,” he said. “Did they say what is wrong with the house being built next to them? Not that they’ve got any say in it at all.”
“They said it’s too small,” Josh said, smiling now.
Reed rolled his eyes. All new homeowners got to choose from the house plans they wanted. Most were on the larger grand size, but there were a few smaller ones. They were still grand in their own way, but just smaller. “Too damn bad. They could have bought that second lot if they wanted to.”
“No one does that,” Josh said. “Not when you charge so much for the land alone. It’s cheaper to buy the house and the land.”
“Exactly. I’m not in the business to sell land to someone. If they want land that much, they should go out into the country and not live in a development. I’d lose money selling land alone, so I’ve got to make it worth the profit for me.”
“I told them you’d be in touch with them, but they said they’re going to stay on site until you show up.”
“Lovely,” he said. Just what he needed today. “Fine, I’ll head there now and get it over with.”
“What are you going to say to them?” Josh said.
“I’ll figure it out on my way. Don’t worry, I’ll play nice. I don’t need them complaining to my father, but the bottom line is, they’ve got no control over who their neighbors are going to be.”
“Very true. They can fight it out when they all live next door to each other,” Josh said smirking. Probably getting ready for some juicy news to spread to the crew.
“I don’t need that either. I’ve got enough of my father’s smooth-talking skills that I’ll work it out and make sure that the neighbors don’t want to kill each other on top of it. I don’t need any wars in the development over the fact that some retired couple wanted to have a smaller, easier to maintain home. The Cotters knew what all the house plans were and if they chose that plot and the biggest house, that’s their problem. It’s not like they weren’t aware this could be a possibility.”
“There is no accounting for people’s thoughts,” Josh said.
“None at all,” he said, which reminded him of Taylor and their conversation. He still thought she was hiding something from him. He hadn’t missed how quickly she didn’t want him to pick her up at her house. He knew where she lived, so maybe she just was embarrassed?
Since he had access to her personnel file, he’d checked it out before. Just being nosy more than anything, which made him think of it as something Josh would have done. She lived in an older neighborhood. The houses were small and in decent shape, but nothing compared to what his company built.
It didn’t matter and he couldn’t waste his time thinking about that now. Taylor Winston was taking up way too much of his thoughts lately for someone who’d said he didn’t want to get involved with anyone.
Yet here he was trying to find ways to spend time with her.
This Situation
Taylor had spent two weeks trying to figure out a way out of this “date” with Reed.
Instead she was on her way to her office wearing a new sundress that she’d purchased so she didn’t stand out too much.
Not that she’d know if she was going to stand out at all because Reed had barely spoken to her since she was suckered into going with him to this so-called party.
She was starting to suspect he’d kept his distance on purpose all along so that she couldn’t back out.
It was still a possibility in her mind to find an excuse even though she’d purchased this dress. But Jack had shown up to get Angie thirty minutes late this morning and it just set her off. She kept telling herself to stop letting him affect her that way. It was never going to end and she had to remind herself of that.
“You were supposed to be here at ten,” she’d told him.
He was still handsome as ever, but he looked a bit rough this morning, like he’d been out partying and having a good time rather than worrying about the fact he was going to be spending a long weekend with his daughter.
“I lost track of time,” he said, covering a yawn and then rubbing his hand over his face. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask if those were yesterday’s clothes.
“Whatever,” she’d said, knowing that probably was the case. “Call me if you have any problems, please. She isn’t used to being gone this long.”
“It’s two nights, Tay, get over it.”
Jack was the only one that ever called her Tay. She hated it just as much now as she did back then. She suspected he shortened everyone’s name out of pure laziness rather than making a cute nickname. If something didn’t benefit him, he couldn’t be bothered more times than not.
“She only ever spends one night, not two. She might get antsy. You never tell me how she is when she is with you either.”
“She’s always fine,” he said, looking away. A mother knew a guilty face and she was seeing it.
“Does she ever spend the night at your house, or does she stay with your parents?”
“Does it really matter?”
Taylor ground her teeth. “You’re her father.”
“I didn’t ask for this and you know it.”
“Do you think I did?” she shouted back. Now wasn’t the time to get into this, even with Angie in her room playing so they could have this conversation. She’d had to put Mutt in there too because the dog couldn’t stand Jack and growled nonstop when he came over. Good dog.
“I have no idea what you planned or didn’t,” he said, shrugging. But he was lying because he still insisted that she got pregnant on purpose even though he wore a condom every time.
“Well, it wasn’t to be a single parent, I can tell you that much. I figured I’d be married when I had children someday.”
“Guess neither of us got what we wanted, but you’re getting a pretty hefty paycheck out of it.”
“You disgust me.”
“You weren’t so disgusted with me a few years ago when you were all over me in that club the night we met.”
Stupid alcohol. “I’ve got an excuse, what was yours?”
“I never make excuses when it comes to hot chicks.” His eyes lingered over her body some more and rather than feel the arousal that she had at one point, she felt repulsion. How had she gotten into this situation?
“Is Angie spending the weekend with you or your parents? Just be honest with me,” she said. She’d actually feel better if Angie was with Jack’s parents.
“Angela will be with me tonight and tomorrow. My parents are away, but they’ll pro
bably bring her home on Monday morning, just so you know. They’ll be back late Sunday and will want to see her in the morning.”
It wasn’t lost on Taylor that Jack shorted everyone’s name but his daughter’s and she’d never asked why. She wondered if it was just to annoy her. She’d named her daughter and never expected to shorten it, but Angie just seemed to fit her daughter better.
“Fine. Please call me if there are any problems or Angie just wants to talk to me.”
“Just get her. I’ve got plans and I’m running late.”
She crossed her arms. “What are your plans?” She wanted to ask if it was to go home and shower.
“I don’t have to tell you everything I’m doing with my daughter, just like I don’t ask you to tell me everything you do with her.”
“I would if you asked, but you never do,” she said and knew he never would. He’d have to care and she was pretty sure he didn’t.
Taylor walked away and left him standing in the little entryway to her rental home, knowing that Angie was going to someplace much grander than she’d ever be able to provide her.
When they’d moved here, she wanted to see where Angie would be staying during her visitations with her father, but then wished she hadn’t when she saw how Jack really lived. Not in a house, but a condo, one almost twice the size of her little ranch.
At least Jack’s parents had gone in and made sure Angie had a room to herself fit for a princess. She even had a similar room at Jack’s parents. Better than Taylor could offer.
If her pride was bent over it, she kept it to herself, knowing that she didn’t have much of a choice and that if Angie was happy, that was all that really mattered.
The minute her daughter was driven away in Jack’s Mercedes, Taylor went about getting all her chores done and contemplating if she should cancel on Reed. But if she did that, then she’d be stuck in the house with thoughts of what her daughter was doing and if she missed her mother.
This would at least occupy her for now.