Twenty Times Tempted: A Sexy Contemporary Romance Collection

by Petrova, Em

  She had Vic drive the three miles back home because she was crying too hard to see. Poor Vic was beside himself, clueless.

  “I’m sorry. This should be a happy day. My brother’s back,” she sobbed into the window. What had happened to ruin such a good thing? Why had Linc left and run into Cindy’s arms? She racked her brain, trying to remember what she’d said to him last, but came up blank.

  They’d woken up, had amazing sex, she’d fixed breakfast, and they’d made a game plan for the day over coffee on the porch. Everything was the same as it had been yesterday, except Vic showed up.

  Surely, he hadn’t jumped to the wrong conclusion about Vic, but if he had, why did he just run like that?

  In the living room, Vanessa looked around, helpless.

  “Is there someone you can call? A girlfriend with ice cream, maybe? I could run to the store and get some, but I don’t know where it is,” Vic offered. She shrugged. He was trying to help, and she appreciated it.

  “I suppose I can call Sam. She might know what’s up with him.”

  “Come here…” Vic’s arms were outstretched, and Vanessa willingly walked into them. She really had missed her brother. All her life, he’d been there, trying to fix things for her. From repairing her bike after she wrecked it, to helping her with her multiplications tables, teaching her chess because women needed to think analytically, to threatening Ian when he’d messed up, before her mother died. She hadn’t seen him since her funeral, and even then, he’d been standing away from everyone so Dad wouldn’t yell at him in front of everybody.

  Then he’d left. And she’d had to deal with Dad alone. She didn’t blame him for it, though. Vanessa had heard the hateful words their dad had thrown at him. Dad had told Vic he wished his son had died in the wreck instead of his wife. He’d murdered her. He never wanted to see Vic again. Stuff like that. Vanessa didn’t blame her brother for leaving at all.

  But she still missed him.

  And now he was back, and Linc was gone. And she had no clue what was happening, but the fact that he could just fall back into Cindy’s arms the same damn day he left her hurt like a sonofabitch.

  Because she loved Linc.

  Maybe she should have told him so he would have thought twice about running the first chance he could. No. It was obvious he didn’t feel the same way about her, or he wouldn’t have run.

  Dialing her phone, she called the only person who might could figure out what had happened.

  “Sam? I need your help.”

  ***

  An hour later, Sam was driving up in her old pick-up truck and stomping up to the door, a gallon of Blue Bell in her arms.

  “What the hell happened?”

  Sam stopped short in the doorway and looked at Vic in Vanessa’s living room. He’d just come out of the shower and had a towel wrapped around his waist as he dug around in his duffel bag for clothes.

  “Who’s he?” Her eyes were glued to Vic’s chest, and Vanessa didn’t miss her brother’s smirk at Sam’s gawking, nor did she miss the set of Sam’s jaw. The one that resembled Linc’s angry expression.

  “My brother, Vic. I haven’t seen him in years, and he showed up this morning. It was a total surprise.”

  “Happy one, I hope?” Vic said, the smirk still firmly planted on his face. “Aside from the boyfriend issue, which if he is already fucking someone else, he’s not worth you, but that’s just my opinion.”

  Vanessa burst into tears again at the mention of Cindy, and Samantha shoved the ice cream in her hands. “I’ll go get some spoons and then you’re going to explain this all to me.” She eyeballed Vic again before she crossed into the kitchen to retrieve the utensils. Vic grabbed some sweats and retreated to the bathroom to dress.

  “We were just having a normal day. Linc was cleaning out the shed, because it was gorgeous and we haven’t gotten to that yet, and Vic drove up out of the blue. I was so glad to see him, I didn’t see Linc leave, and he wasn’t answering his phone, so I drove over to his place. Cindy answered his door wearing nothing but Linc’s shirt and told me he was busy, so I left. I don’t know what happened, Sam. Has he been seeing her?” The tears hadn’t been deep, and they resurfaced at her final words. Could he have been fucking Cindy this whole time? Was it possible he’d never stopped with her?

  Had she been that wrong about him?

  She was such a foolish idiot. She’d been taken, hard, by Linc Ward.

  “Wait a second. How did you greet Vic? Like, what would Linc have seen?”

  Vic had come out of the bathroom and was crowding Vanessa on the tiny loveseat. “She threw herself at me and planted a huge wet one right here.” He puckered his lips and pointed, and if Vanessa didn’t know any better, she’d think he was flirting with Samantha right here in front of her while she was having a breakdown.

  “Well, that explains it. Linc’s a stupidass.”

  Pulling her phone out of her back pocket, she punched a few times before she held it up to her ear. After a pause, she said, “Linc, you’re being a total ass, and you’re fucking things up with Vanessa, big time. Call me back. Or better yet, call her.” Furiously punching with her fingertip, she sighed heavily. “No answer, but I’ll keep trying. I’ll even go by there on my way home.”

  “Don’t bother… I don’t want to think about him with her. Ever.” More tears. Vic tried shoving a spoonful of homemade vanilla in her mouth, and Vanessa accepted, allowing him to feed her like a baby. “I wish I had something harder than ice cream…” she finally acknowledged. She didn’t want to think about this. Not right now.

  “What, like vodka?” Vic rummaged around in his bag and came up with a bottle of something that looked cheap, but Vanessa wasn’t in the mood to argue quality. The thought crossed her mind that Vic really shouldn’t be carrying around bottles of liquor with him with his history, but she snuffed those as she took the bottle from him greedily. He’d had an alcohol problem before, one which had started the downward spiral that culminated in the DUI that had him scared enough to call his mom to pick him up from the party in the first place.

  They passed the bottle around, each swigging off it, and Vanessa watched the door, wishing Linc would just walk in and take her in his arms. She needed him, wondered if he was thinking about her, wondered what had happened to them.

  Everything had happened so fast, and she still had no idea.

  She got drunk.

  She tried to call Linc.

  No answer.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Linc woke up in his bed with Cindy draped across him, for the third day in a row, still drunk from last night’s attempt to forget Vanessa in a brand new bottle of Kentucky Deluxe.

  He watched Cindy sleep, noticing that her hard living was erased in the repose of dreamland. The lines on her face were softer, and with her makeup gone, she had a certain innocence to her that could be appealing if he wasn’t totally in love with a cheater.

  Thinking of Vanessa in those terms didn’t sit well with him, though. But he’d seen it with his own eyes. That’s the only way he could believe it. If he hadn’t seen it, there’s no way it could have been true.

  And now Cindy was pregnant, and she’d gleefully moved in with him when he’d offered yesterday morning. It was sad that all it took was one truck load to get all of her worldly belongings over here. The thought of her raising a kid in that one room in the shittiest trailer she was sharing with some long-hauler gave Linc the heebie jeebies. She probably infested his house with something, just moving her shit over.

  Fuck.

  He needed to talk to his sister. He wasn’t sure why, except Sam had a certain outlook on things that typically cheered him up. He couldn’t really see how she could help him right now, but if anybody could, it was Sam.

  Driving up to her house, he realized all the alcohol he’d drank over the last three days was probably still coursing through his veins because he knew that VW bug. Couldn’t place it. Too tired to care.

  He knocked on
her door before letting himself in and found his sister in the kitchen with that guy. The one who’d kissed his Vanessa.

  That VW Bug. Motherfucker ruined his life and was standing in his sister’s kitchen like he owned the fucking place. Linc’s mind raced, but one thing was clear. He needed to take this fucker down. Now. Before he ruined Sam’s life, too.

  In two steps and a rumbly growl, he had the punk in a head lock and was looking for something to smash it into when Sam got in his face. Slashes of red marked her cheeks, and her vein on her forehead popped out like it did when she was mad.

  “Linc, let him go! Don’t be a dumbass. That’s Vanessa’s brother! She’ll never speak to you if you kill him.” Linc felt the punk swallow under his forearm as he loosened his grip at her words.

  “Her brother?” He’d forgotten about her brother. Vanessa didn’t talk about him much because it always made her sad, and he hated seeing her sad, so he didn’t push it.

  Oh, fuck.

  Her brother.

  Tossing him on the ground, Linc muttered, “Why is he here, then?” He shot a suspicious look to his sister, who blushed under his scrutiny.

  “Her guest room is more comfortable than Van’s love seat,” the punk offered with a sheepish grin, and Linc knew he was lying. There was more going on between the two of them, but he couldn’t deal with that.

  Couldn’t deal with anything. His hand at the base of his neck brought reality crashing back down on him. What had he done?

  “Linc, what did you do?” Mirroring his thoughts, Sam put her hand on his arm, breaking through the haze he had going on. “Why is Cindy at your house?” Her voice was gentle, not judging him. His sister never judged.

  He dropped into a kitchen chair, the weight of every emotion he’d felt in the last three days breaking his knees. “She’s pregnant.”

  “Shit.” Samantha dropped into the chair opposite him. “Is it yours?”

  A snort escaped Linc. “Doubtful.”

  “Then why? Vanessa’s really hurting right now. You can fix things between you guys. If you—”

  “What? If I what, Sam? Call her and tell her that I don’t have any faith that we can actually work?” He dropped his head in his hands, rubbing his face, as if he could scrape it off. “I knew I shouldn’t have done this. She’s so fucking good. Too good for me.”

  Vanessa’s brother snorted. “Got that right.”

  Linc’s head shot up and he forced a glare at the punk, even though he knew he was right.

  “Well, for fuck’s sake! I’m right, aren’t I? She’s my fucking sister, and you’ve broken her fucking heart in to a zillion pieces. Of course I’m going to say that. And I’ll kick your ass if you do anything that hurts her again.” Linc barely registered the words as the guilt slammed into him. It was a familiar feeling—one he knew firsthand how to deal with.

  Trying to keep the peace, like usual, Samantha offered a weak smile. “What are you doing with Cindy? If it’s not your baby, what’s happening?”

  “I’m helping her. I may not love her like she wants me to, but she’s having a baby. It’s not mine, but I fucked her enough that it could be. If nobody else will step up to take responsibility, I’m going to help her. She can’t raise a baby in her situation.” He spoke the words out loud for the first time, and they jarred his already pounding head. He was saying them more to convince himself than his sister. Sam hated Cindy, and nothing he could say would change that. But he kept talking anyway. “I’m going to try to help her get on her feet. Besides, if I’m with her in an official capacity, maybe she won’t fuck anything with a dick on it and keep herself a little healthier. The baby needs a chance at life. As things were, it didn’t have one of those.”

  “You’re going to marry a whore to fix her? You think that’s going to work? And that’s not going to hurt my sister? I should just kill you now.” Fists clenched, the punk started to launch himself at Linc, but Sam got between them.

  “Nobody’s killing anyone today, Vic. Settle down. Why don’t you go for a drive or something? Let me talk to Linc alone for a bit.”

  “Don’t bother.” Linc stood. “I’m done.” It was official. There wasn’t anything anybody could say that would erase the fact he was the lowest of the low.

  ***

  Linc came home to an empty house, thankful for the peace. In silence, he looked at the garbage bags holding Cindy’s belongings. No baby things yet.

  Rubbing his neck, Linc walked into his spare room, the room he’d tossed tools and random things he didn’t use on a daily basis. This would be the baby’s room. As he started mentally clearing it out, the futility of what he was doing hit him.

  Cindy had told him she was four months pregnant, but he had no idea what that meant. Was she going to have morning sickness, or had that already happened? He didn’t even know who the baby’s doctor was, or when they would find out if it was a girl or a boy. And they’d need furniture. Baby shit. They’d probably need a lot of it.

  He felt itchy again, like he had before Vanessa had come into his life. A sense of Harold came over him, the now-familiar scent of gun oil and roses. He knew Harold was telling him to go make up with her. But he couldn’t.

  A sinking weight crushed his insides, and he was suddenly glad he wasn’t with Vanessa right now. He just couldn’t bring this sort of failure down on her head. She was better off without him. Fuck. He couldn’t even take care of himself. What the fuck had he been thinking that he could take care of Cindy and a baby, too?

  He’d just have to do the best he could. He stalked over to the living room table, where he’d left the fresh bottle of whiskey he’d bought on the way back from Sam’s house—the amber liquid calling to him in a way nothing ever had.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Victor looked particularly mussed when he came over to finish up what Linc had started upstairs. His usually neatly-groomed hair was sticking up in black tufts on the top of his head, and he had red marks around his neck. Vanessa figured he and Sam had started something up the other night, and were continuing it at her house, since her loveseat was tiny and her floor was hard as, well, as wood. But hickeys?

  Ew.

  Victor sat on her bed next to her and took her hand in his. “Van, I want to be the one to tell you this because… Well, because it’s pretty bad.”

  Her stomach roiled at his words, and Vanessa got lightheaded. What could he possibly say that would be worse than Linc being with Cindy and not talking to her? Even after three days, she still expected him to walk in her door and kiss the crap out of her, but it still hadn’t happened.

  “Cindy’s pregnant and he’s marrying her, even though he knows it isn’t his.” Victor said the words in a rush, and Vanessa wasn’t sure she heard them right.

  “What?”

  “Linc is marrying Cindy. She’s pregnant, and even though it’s not his, he’s trying to take care of her, because she’s apparently soft in the head and can’t take care of her own shit.”

  Vanessa felt like she was going to throw up. Up until now, everything was fixable, if only she could get Linc to talk to her. She had tossed around ideas to make that happen but hadn’t followed through with anything yet, and now it was too late.

  He was getting married.

  She honestly didn’t think she had any more tears to shed, but they were there. A crushing pain gripped her insides as she clutched her brother’s shirt. She cried big, sloppy tears all over his chest while he held her, making shushing noises. He’d done this for her before, but now it was all so much worse.

  Now her life would never be the same.

  She had really thought Linc was it for her. He was the one. And then suddenly, he wasn’t, and that was harder than she ever imagined it could be.

  Knowing he would be sleeping in Cindy’s bed, holding her, and taking care of her baby—when all she’d wanted was for him to do those things with her—was like a rusty spoon spearing her in the chest and ripping out her heart.

  A soft, war
m embrace enveloped her. Emily was trying to make her feel better, but it was futile.

  Now, the only emotion she could wrap her head around was anger. She was pissed that he’d thrown them away. So much potential for happiness, and he’d tossed it on some faulty perception of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Motherfucker.

  ***

  “Hey, Van, can I get rid of this creepy doll? Or does it have, like, have sentimental something?”

  “Toss it. Good luck! I’ve thrown it away almost a dozen times.”

  “What?” Victor came downstairs with his eyebrows raised. Vanessa was on the couch checking her stats. Stirred was published last week, and the numbers were okay. They weren’t making her independently wealthy anytime soon, but she couldn’t complain. Now, if she could only figure out how to end her current work in progress, she’d be golden. But thinking about a romance with a handyman wasn’t on her list of favorite things to do, even though it occupied every waking thought. The doll was almost a welcome distraction.

  So she told her brother about it, and all the places it showed up while she slept.

  “That’s fucking ridiculous. Have you called the cops?”

  “No, because nothing’s ever missing. What could they do?”

  “Find the bastard who is coming inside your house at night! Jesus, Van, sometimes you can be so damn stubborn. You don’t have to do everything alone, you know.”

  Her brother make a phone call to the sheriff’s Office. Amused, she watched him tugging on his hair, something he’d done forever when he got mad.

  “Vanessa! What sort of horror movie did you move into?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The sheriff will be by later today and talk to you while they search neighboring property for a missing girl again? What the ever-loving fuck?!”