Twenty Times Tempted: A Sexy Contemporary Romance Collection

by Petrova, Em

  “Shit, no way…”

  I think I blushed.

  Chapter Twelve

  Tay

  “Settle down, hon, and tell me all about it, from the beginning.”

  For seven in the morning, Cordie sounded put together and ready to face the day. Not like me, not with my bulging eyes and puffy face and aching joints from lying on the scarred wood floor wailing my agony to the sightless gods of torment and misery.

  Hiccoughing to the jingle of a coffee carafe being prepped for her ‘flavorite’ brand, Cordie’s term for the local brew … Mountain something or other, a Pittsburgh staple since before I was born, my imagination went into overdrive, a smellovision of Italian latte sinfulness. One of the many things worth regretting about leaving that ancient land.

  The noises ebbed and flowed: a click said the toast or bagel was set to lightly warmed, the fridge door opened and closed, the shuffling of slippered feet on ceramic tile, Cordie murmuring something under her breath … most likely to the Fink. A distant ‘love you, babe’ and a giggle, and I thought…

  Why not me?

  Why doesn’t anyone want me?

  What’s so wrong with me?

  Me, me, me.

  “Alright, dearest, David’s gone,” that last coming out as a mumble while my best friend chowed down, the chewing oddly loud and clear.

  Asking the obvious, “Did I interrupt your breakfast?” got me an omph and a “Sorry, Bluetooth, picks up everything.”

  Clear as mud.

  “Oh, okay. Are you sure…”

  “Tell me again. What happened?”

  So I launched into the what are you doing here and the mad dash to escape but I didn’t escape, instead he kissed me, sort of and then dragged me to this bar and then he left me and…

  Big breath.

  …and he touched me and then this Paddy Sullivan came in and he’s the one who did all those…

  “Hmm, yes, I do recall some articles he wrote. Asshole.”

  “Not really, he was right about me, about everything.”

  “Just because you’re right doesn’t mean you get to bare everyone’s dirty laundry in front of the world.” Cordie huffed. She only did that when she was truly pissed off.

  “Dirty laundry.” It sounded icky, tawdry, like I was some kind of whore selling my talent out to a snake like O’Brien.

  “What happened next?”

  Trying not to go off message, I babbled about the ladies room and the epiphany and wanting to come clean, but it was too late, he knew, Sullivan spilled the beans…

  “What beans? What exactly did he tell Robbie?”

  “Um, well, I’m not sure. I wasn’t there.”

  “So you don’t know for a fact what was said?” She paused to consider that possibility, then said, “It was a long time ago. Why would he even remember?”

  Interrupting with, “He knew, I saw it in his face,” and brought up his expression like it was etched on the inside of my eyeballs.

  Shut down, closed off, shuttered.

  “And?”

  And he followed me home and he held my hand, even up the three flights, he never let go. And then he pushed me and came at me, raping my mouth and scaring the bejeebers out of me and demanded, demanded…

  “What did he say? Exactly.”

  “He said… ‘That’s why you owe me an explanation.’ And then he said I had to get my shit together, um… get my story straight.”

  “So he gave you until Wednesday.”

  “Yes.” Curious I asked, “Why? Is that important?”

  “Robbie’s a reporter, Tay, a very good one. Whatever so-called facts or rumors your Mr. Sullivan might have spilled, my brother will want to confirm it for himself. He’ll get the whole story.”

  Wailing, “That’s what I’m afraid of,” I nearly threw my cell phone across the room.

  Cordie’s voice slipped an octave, into that soothing, whispery range where I had to listen because what she would to say next was important.

  “First off,” she paused for a heartbeat, “are you listening? My brother may be many things—a doofus, an asshole when he wants to be—but he’s never been one to back away from the truth. The fact he followed you home tells me…”

  “Tells you what?”

  She sipped the coffee, considering her words carefully, though I could only guess at her actions. Visualizing from sound alone wasn’t necessarily conducive to getting the full monty.

  “I watched the two of you at dinner.”

  “So?”

  “Dearest, he was drooling. Robbie doesn’t drool.” She left off the part where a guy with his looks didn’t have to. I reminded her of that fact but she just laughed and said, “That’s exactly the point, Taylor. That’s precisely the point.”

  That was food for thought but it wasn’t terribly clear how I should proceed, let alone think about what had, or hadn’t, happened.

  “He knows I’m still married. At least according to Italian law.”

  “Yes, well, that might be a problem for any relationship.”

  The distress ramped up to Defcon three. “We don’t have a relationship!” And it all boiled down to that. Yes, he’d kissed me softly, tenderly, then like a sailor who’d been to sea for ten years. With so much violence and passion, my brain was still trying to wrap itself around the experience.

  My body, on the other hand, was saying oh mercy, do me, do me now.

  She laughed and said, “So it’s mutual.”

  “Maybe.”

  “No maybes. Girlfriend, you have it bad.”

  “But, he’s your brother, your younger brother.”

  She cleared her throat and went into clinical psychologist mode. “Robert is thirty-five years old, old enough to make his own choices. You’re what…” she ticked a fingernail on the counter, sounding much like a bird pecking a bit of sunflower seed apart on a wood deck, “…three, four years older? That’s nothing.”

  But, but, but…

  “I’m taller than him.” And I’m not pretty, not like those cheerleaders fawning all over him at the game, keeping that bit to myself because it was what it was … a whiny plea for attention and a there, there, there, you’re beautiful.

  Beauty is as beauty does, and I hadn’t come up aces in the doing department for a whole lot of years.

  Not one to dwell on a train of thought, Cordie cut to the chase. “What we need to do is find a way out of your little domestic dilemma.”

  Right, the five year … down to two now, jail sentence. That one year waiting period between filing and granting the divorce was time off for good behavior. Michael contesting it, and me without the funds to hire a decent lawyer who might have navigated me through the labyrinthine Italian divorce laws, had sealed my fate.

  I tried to explain it again but my friend cut me off with, “David’s brother. I’ll call him this afternoon and we’ll see about setting an appointment.”

  I could imagine her holding up a hand to stay my objections: the part about not wanting to be a burden, not having the funds to pursue a legal intervention, not wanting to bring attention to myself and open all those old wounds.

  Thankfully neither of my parents were alive to witness my disgrace and the dirty deeds we’d done to null and void my contract just to satisfy my husband’s greed and overblown ego. That alone was going to ice Robert van Horn’s budding interest. Being still married and not coming clean about it right up front was the nail in the coffin.

  No man wanted a cheat and a liar as a… Girlfriend? Lover?

  But Cordie had the bit in her teeth. I told her, “I can’t go to Boston, I have classes and teaching and helping out at the gym.”

  “Not to worry. Mort has offices in New York City and Washington, DC. We’ll find a time that’s mutually convenient. I’ll fly in and be your backup.”

  There’s a time and place to stand your ground, to own up to your mistakes and to move forward with conviction. There’s also a time to let the people who care about you
into your life and to have your back.

  Cordie not only had my back, she stood next to me armed to the teeth and daring the world to take us … us … on.

  Gulping back the tears, I muttered, “I don’t know what to say…”

  That brought on the usual poo-poo, followed by, “Just tell me one thing.”

  “Anything.”

  “Robbie. What do feel about him, really?”

  Feel? It went deeper than feel. Feelings were for novices and drama queens. I had it, whatever it was, bad and nothing on God’s green earth was going to change that. I fell for Robert van Horn, to the brink of obsession and despair. Call it lust, call it love, call it infatuation—singly or together, none of those came close to how he filled my heart and soul with angel breath.

  The fact that it mimicked what I’d felt for Michael so many years ago was what brought me up short. That sword was two-edged and cut equally well however the blade was wielded. The prospect of being sliced and diced again and again and again made me wonder if I needed therapy instead of indulging my fantasies of happily ever after.

  I was a six foot mixed race, aging has been ex-point guard with small dreams and big regrets and even bigger secrets.

  Not exactly the catch of the century.

  So, to answer Robbie’s sister honestly? “I like him. A lot.”

  Cordie’s ‘um’ told me I wasn’t being convincing but to say more, to admit the depth and extent of my deepest desires, would be to bare my soul.

  If I was going to do that, then Rob was the one who would be the first to hear it, the first to know that I love you meant more than a quick roll under the covers. Like a lot of women, in my youth it had been far too easy to say, much too difficult to execute.

  I knew better now. Loving took time and practice and hard work. If and when he and I were ever ready to take that journey, it would be for all the right reasons.

  For once I had a leg up, I’d found someone worth hanging onto, and I knew … I just knew, like a good melon.

  The instant coffee tasted as rancid as the tap water but I sipped it, feeling content for the first time in years.

  I had until Wednesday…

  What happens on Wednesday?

  Wednesday, I come and get you, Taylor Richardson.

  The envelope from the Fink and Cordie sat on the counter where I’d laid it after Rob had sucked the life out of me and then left me drenched in lust and confusion. Curious, I ripped it open and pulled the paperwork out, laying it carefully on the sticky plastic tablecloth. The instructions were clear. I would need to find a branch office near NYU, which shouldn’t be too difficult. The debit card was shiny with a sticky tape across the signature line informing me I needed to activate it and sign in the narrow blaze of coded dots.

  The second page stopped my heart.

  David Finklestein, MD had deposited ten thousand dollars into a joint account, his signature card already on record.

  Numb from the inside out, I hit redial and when my best friend picked up, the only sound coming from my throat was a grateful moan.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Rob

  The ferry ride from Pier 79 over to Port Imperial at Weehawken had me reconsidering my mode of transportation. A friend of a friend rented me garage space for my vintage ’94 Kawasaki Vulcan 1500 and the more practical Chevy Prizm. The sedan was coming thirteen years old, but I kept it garaged and tuned up, and it rewarded me with decent gas mileage and room for camping supplies on the odd occasion I managed to find time to get out of the city.

  It would be Mother Nature, not the cargo that would be the make or break decision on which vehicle to take. The weather gurus were calling for a storm to roll in off the Great Lakes and lay a swathe of ice and snow along the Interstate 80 corridor. There was the option of going the southern route, taking the turnpike but that ate at my time and didn’t guarantee the roads would be dry. Decisions, decisions.

  Already my teeth were chattering in the brisk wind, despite having dressed in layers. Both duffels were stuffed with enough basics to get me through ten days of researching. The dorm would have laundry facilities and hot showers and WiFi so there was no need for overpacking clothing. What I needed were a notepad, my laptop and enough electronic doodads to keep me from going nuts.

  The shuttle dropped me off a couple blocks from the high school and the old garage on the ground floor of an apartment building absentee landlorded by my buddy’s buddy.

  It had the benefit of being in a safe neighborhood and I could crash in one of the vacant apartments if I decided to stay the weekend and tinker with the bike.

  My first thought was to get an early start on Monday but once I had deposited the check and packed, sitting around picking my nose wasn’t an attractive prospect. So I grabbed the bags, got the 5:10 ferry over and hauled ass to get to my destination before it got too dark and I froze to death beating feet to my vehicles.

  Once there, I checked with one of the elderly residents who asked me in for tea and gossip but I declined when she said that all the units were full. That meant either sleeping in my car or hitting the road.

  Driving through the night wasn’t especially attractive, given I’d had nothing solid to eat since the day before. I was tired and stressed and out of sorts. Anxiety had done an eagle has landed, with my career and my self-respect on the line.

  Worthy concerns. And for excuses, they were right on target for allowing my inner commitment-phobic self to glom onto reasons why missing my Wednesday obligation would be reasonable and not something to take personally.

  Besides, I still didn’t have her phone number so ringing Taylor up and saying sorry, let’s make it sometime in the distant future, there’s no rush, plenty of time to work it out…

  Whatever it was. And there was that eight hundred pound gorilla in the room.

  Why didn’t you tell me up front that you were married?

  Would it have made any difference?

  Well, yeah, maybe…

  That maybe was why I was taking time to see Cordie. If anyone knew the lowdown on Taylor Richardson O’Brien, it was going to be my sister.

  Union City was a nightmare. Stop light after stop light and I managed to hit every single one. As the crow flies, it should be a six or seven hour run to the northern suburbs of Pittsburgh. The southern route afforded me more places to stop, though the truck traffic might be heavier. Either choice was six of one, half dozen of another.

  It took me an hour to find my way to I-78, with every fricking lane clogged with drivers heading west, stopping, starting, and my belly grumbled loudly in protest.

  Living in the city had deadened me to the finer points of a road trip, especially one taken on such short notice. With the newshounds from hell rushing like lemmings from Newark Liberty International to find the same trail that had led me to diarrhea of the mouth and the best comedy act ESPN had seen in a decade, my gut went into spasms over how little time I actually had to make good on the allegations and implied threats.

  Jackson gave me enough resources for ten days. Intuition suggested I had like ten minutes.

  A boat of sauceless hot wings, tasteless fries and a jumbo Mountain Dew staved off the gnarlies, but I forgot to order toothpicks to prop my eyelids open.

  Lead-footing it to a rowdy mix of eighties and nineties grunge and garage bands had me cruising through the turnpike tollbooth at fifteen miles an hour but nobody hot-footed after my Prizm to chastise me.

  Stopping, other than to refuel, wasn’t an option. I had a bad feeling Cordie would be waiting up for me and when I was late little brother caught hell.

  Nobody, but nobody, made me feel five years old better than my older sisters. Especially Cordelia. She was the only one without sprouts at home, the first-and-only-born currently in Europe finding herself.

  Smiling, I thought about my niece, with no small amount of envy. She sent me emails and photos that only a very understanding uncle would appreciate.

  I don’t know where she gets
it from…

  Targeted stare, at me...

  Why is it she always comes to you for advice?

  Angie was currently in Italy somewhere, a fact that had escaped me when I was mulling over what Paddy had told me in the bar about Taylor. Making a mental note to email my niece and ask her to look into newspaper references to Taylor O’Brien, I let my thoughts wander off … When were you going to tell me? … to the less obvious scandal of her being dropped from the A2 roster for unspecified conduct unbecoming.

  Sullivan didn’t offer up a lot of details, only that there was a manager, apparently her husband, involved somehow. Since the team wasn’t top tier, the flurry of fan outrage and the usual fifteen minutes of shame never made it stateside.

  Paddy hadn’t gotten much beyond the basics: she was a pro basketball player, doing a credible stint in the WNBA before being offered a more lucrative contract in Europe, eventually ending up in Milan. Taylor was a point guard, played at VaTech, which is how my sister knew her, being sorority sisters and all.

  She went by Taylor O’Brien because her husband was, still is, Michael O’Brien, whereabouts unknown.

  That I hadn’t really recognized her at dinner the other night wasn’t a big surprise. I hadn’t seen her in years, and the few times she’d been to our house she and Cordie were velcroed together and doing whatever college girls do when they’re on spring break.

  Besides, I was still in high school and not exactly interested in my sister’s friends. I had other fish to fry. Not that we ignored each other, not at all. We shot hoops, hung out a little. Maybe if VaTech had been ranked at that time, I might have basked in the glow of knowing one of their star players.

  No glory, no glow.

  Which was why I ended up at Columbia’s School of Journalism, glowless but with a job offer from the Post.

  Energy flagging, I took the Monroeville exit by mistake, and out of habit. We’d lived all our lives in the Penn Hills section east of the city so it was natural to gravitate toward the ole homestead, except that Cordie and the Fink lived up by Bradford Woods, way to the north and west. If I’d stayed on the turnpike I’d have had to backtrack south in any case.