Temptations: A Limited Edition Contemporary Romance Collection

by Blue Saffire

  “Alright,” Logan says, hefting his lean, muscular frame off the futon to make his way to the table where he digs around in a pile of what looks like half-chewed computer parts. “I’ll do it.” Coming up with a pair of dark, thick-rimmed glasses, he slips the glasses on before sliding into his chair. “But you’re paying me in breakfast burritos.”

  19

  Silver

  When I get home, Delilah and Noah are sitting at the breakfast bar, eating what looks to be a banana split, made in one of my large mixing bowls while chattering at each other like a couple of magpies.

  Clearly, Lilah has reclaimed her favorite aunt status.

  “Hi, Mom,” Noah chirps from behind a mask of hot fudge and whipped cream. “Aunt Lilah made lunch.”

  Most times I can get past it. How much he looks like Tobias. I can forget how much it hurts when he gives me one of his wry smiles. How hard it is to breathe sometimes when he slips his hand into mine.

  Now is not one of those times.

  “That’s good,” I say, forcing myself to offer him a weak smile. “Can you go wash your hands and face, please?”

  His face scrunches up. “But—”

  “No buts.” I fit my hands under his arms and lift him off his stool to set him on his feet. “Hands and face. Now.”

  He stomps off, muttering something about how pointless it was to wash his hands and face when he was just going to have to take a bath later. As soon as he’s gone, I turn to look at my sister. “You look…”

  “Sober?” Lilah flashes me a quick grin, around a mouthful of ice cream.

  “I was going to say better,” I say, sliding into Noah’s empty chair “Thank you for keeping an eye on him. I owe you one.”

  “You’re kidding, right?” she says, offering me Noah’s abandoned spoon. “I showed up on your doorstep, drunk, at 3AM, ate my way through five pints of strawberries, threw-up and passed out. I think we’re even.” She digs her spoon into the mound of ice cream in front of us. “Want to tell me what’s going on?”

  “What makes you think something is going on?” I say, chasing a maraschino cherry around a pool of half-melted vanilla.

  “Well, for starters, you asked me to watch Noah. Me.” She takes a bite and rolls it around on her tongue for a second. “For enders, I just fed him his own body weight in sugar and all you’ve had to say about it is that’s good.” She points her spoon at me. “Either something’s wrong or you’re a pod person, so spill it.”

  I never told anyone who Noah’s father is and while I didn’t know who he was, exactly, I knew enough to know that telling him he was going to be a father would be impossible.

  Besides, I knew what my father would do. He’s old-school. He’d have hunted Tobias down and, multi-billionaire or not, drag him to the altar by his hair. I didn’t want that. I didn’t want to have to look at him, even once, knowing what he thought of me. That I got pregnant on purpose. That I expected to be taken care of.

  That I could be bought.

  But I can’t hold on to it anymore. It’s too big and Tobias is suddenly too close. I have to tell someone.

  “Noah’s father came into the restaurant today.” I say it to the cherry I finally managed to scoop up with my spoon. When she doesn’t respond, I risk a look up.

  Delilah is staring at me, mouth slightly open, melted mint chip, dripping off her spoon.

  “He’s actually the potential business partner that dad’s friend, Patrick, scored us a meeting with.”

  Still nothing. Just staring.

  “His name is Tobias Bright and he’ll be here to pick me up for dinner in three hours.”

  When I say Tobias Bright, Lilah’s eyes go wide. “Are you kidding?” she drops her spoon and grabs mine out of my hand and drops both into the bowl between us. “Tobias Bright? Are you freaking kidding me right now?”

  When I shake my head no, she lets out a muffled shriek and jumps out of her seat. I watch in horror as she grabs her phone, her thumbs flying over the screen.

  My sister is the undisputed Queen of Twitter. She makes Chrissy Teigen look shy and demure. I imagine her ruining my life in 140 characters, but before I can tackle her, she brings the phone up to her ear.

  “Get your ass here, now,” she hisses before rolling her eyes. “I don’t care if you still have filing to do, Jane—move your ass.” She looks at me, her face grim. “Silver’s in trouble.”

  20

  Tobias

  It took Logan less than fifteen minutes to find out everything I needed to know about Silver Fiorella.

  She was born Argenta Danielle Fiorella in Paris to Davino Fiorella and actress, Solange Moreau—a freakin’ French national treasure.

  She’s basically a French Julia Roberts.

  She also happens to be my neighbor.

  Silver attended an exclusive boarding school in Switzerland from the time she was five until she turned fourteen, when she moved to the US to live with her father. When I met her in 2013, she was a junior at NYU and applying to colleges to pursue her MBA, which she earned from Boston University in 2016.

  Her credit score is 825.

  She’s never been arrested.

  She has four sisters and six brothers, all of them split between her father’s five wives.

  She lives in an apartment in Backbay. The same building as Patrick Gilroy, who also happens to own it.

  Her birthday is June first.

  Same as mine.

  Everything she told me that night was true. She’d been as honest and open as possible, considering the circumstances, and what did I do? I left her a stack of cash on my nightstand and sent Angus in to clean up my mess.

  I knew I screwed up as soon as I came home after Angus gave me the all clear. Ten thousand dollars shredded into ten million pieces and thrown all over your bed has a way of driving a point home. But instead of finding her and apologizing, I rationalized what I did. I told myself it was better to cut my losses because there was no way I was ready for all the ways a woman like Silver would change my life.

  And I was right. I wasn’t ready.

  I’m still not ready.

  Which makes the fact that I’m practically forcing her to have dinner with me a confusing and potentially self-destructive exercise in futility.

  “You want me to keep digging,” Logan asks, leaning back in his chair to look up at me. “I can have Con—”

  Conner Gilroy, the architect’s cousin. I’ve never met him, but I’ve heard stories about the sort of things he can do with a computer. The sort of things that, upon hearing about them, make you an accessory after the fact.

  “No,” I say, shaking my head. “That won’t be necessary.” I look at my watch. It’s heading toward seven. “I have to go.” I turn away from him to retrieve my jacket from where I tossed it.

  When I turn around, Logan is standing next to his chair, scowling at me. “So, you basically just stopped by to sweet-talk me into committing a couple felonies and now you’re going to bounce?”

  “I can’t stay. I’m having dinner with her in an hour, and let’s be honest.” I shrug into my jacket, stifling a sigh. “It didn’t take much sweet-talking.”

  “Yeah,” he says, skirting around me to the kitchen area which consists of a refrigerator half his size, a two-burner stove and a sink. “Whatever, man.”

  It’s not what he says that gives me pause, it’s his tone. He sounds hurt, which make me feel like an asshole.

  So, of course, I have to make it worse.

  “When are you going to move home?” I swore, when he left, I wasn’t going to ask. I was going to let him go. Stop being the micromanaging older brother. Gray and Jase and Logan—they don’t need me to protect them anymore. We left Brighton a long time ago. They can survive without me. But I’ve been looking out for them for so long that it’s been hard-wired into me. I don’t know how to stop. So I ask, because I don’t know how to do this any other way. I’m his big brother. I don’t know how to be his friend.

  I
watch while he pulls a clean bowl from a stack on a shelf above the sink and pours himself a bowl of cereal from an open box on top of the fridge. “This is my home, Tob,” he says, opening the fridge. “Might not look like much but it’s mine.” A well-aimed jab. When he insisted on leaving New York I offered him a job as the head of my IT department at any one of my corporate offices, with all the Bright family perks. Apartment. Car. Expense account. He turned me down flat. Came back to the one place he knows I’d never follow.

  Now, he douses his cereal with milk before scaring up a clean spoon. “You should probably go,” he says digging into what I can only assume will be his dinner. “You’re gonna be late for your date.”

  “Logan—”

  “No,” he says, shoveling a spoonful into his mouth. “I get it.” He nods and chews. “You want to pass judgment from your mountain of money on the way I live my life and what I do, but when it comes to getting what you want, here you are, knocking on my door.”

  “I met with her as a favor to you in the first place.” I don’t tell him that I already know her. That I pulled a fuck and run on her on my birthday, five years ago, because it also happened to be the anniversary of my mom’s death and I went a little crazy for a few hours.

  “Please,” he says around a mouthful of cereal. “I did you the favor, and you know it. You wouldn’t be having dinner with this chick, otherwise.”

  Because I don’t have an argument for that one, I give up. “You want me to pay you?” I say, reaching for my wallet. “Is that it?” I jerk it free from my suit jacket and open it to pull out a stack of bills—has to be at least a couple grand. More than he’ll see in the next month tending bar and whatever else he does that I don’t want to know about—and toss it onto the futon. “There.” I jam my wallet back into my pocket. “Can we stop fighting now?”

  Logan chews his cereal, ping-ponging a glare between me and the money I just tossed at him like it was nothing. And to me, it is. Whatever it costs, it is nothing if it’ll fix what’s broken between the two of us.

  Finally, he sets his bowl down and takes the few steps between the kitchen and his futon. Picking up the stack of money, he leans over to open the window. Retaining a single bill, he throws the rest of it into the street.

  “Hey, Angus,” he shouts and waves out the window while I watch money flutter and fall on the evening breeze. Outside, I hear shouts—neighborhood kids dropping their bikes and jumping off their front stoops. Whoops and excited shouts.

  It’s raining money.

  Logan watches the chaos with a wide, satisfied grin. “Now we can stop fighting,” he says straightening himself from his stoop before flashing me the single bill he kept. “For my breakfast burrito.”

  21

  Silver

  Jane and Lilah sit cross-legged on the foot of my bed, staring at me while I tell them everything. We’re in my room with the door shut so I can get ready, because whether I want him to or not, Tobias Bright is taking me to dinner.

  On the baby monitor I have stashed in Noah’s room, I can hear him. He’s supposed to be asleep but he’s talking to himself, although if I asked him who he was talking to, he’d tell me something different. He’d tell me he’s talking to his friend, Bixby.

  “Are you sure it’s him?” Jane finally says, flashing me a nervous smile when I cut her a withering glare from across the room. “I mean, it was five years ago and you even said he doesn’t seem to remember you. Maybe you just heard the name Tobias and—”

  “He’s Noah’s father,” I hiss at her over my shoulder. “Of course, I’m sure.”

  I’m sure because when he touched my hand, I felt it everywhere.

  “Okay.” Jane holds up her hands in surrender. “… so now what? I mean, you’re going to tell him, right?”

  “You heard the part where I woke up alone, to a pile of money on the nightstand, right?” I shake my head, while rifling through my closet. “Besides, he doesn’t even remember me.”

  I have nothing to wear.

  Nothing.

  I have work clothes and mom clothes. That’s it. I’m twenty-five years old and aside from a few awkward, on-line hook-ups, I’ve haven’t been on a date since Tobias.

  That wasn’t a date. That was a one-night stand. Yeah, a one-night stand, that despite its disastrous and devastating end, became the measuring stick to which you compare every man you meet.

  “Yes…” Jane nods her head. “But you’re pretending not to recognize him either. Maybe he does recognize you and doesn’t know how to approach the fact that he—”

  “Treated me like a whore.” I pull a simple A-line cotton dress off the rod and show it to Delilah.

  She scrunches up her face like I just shoved a day-old crate of Hank’s crawfish under her nose.

  “Obviously, after meeting you and your father, he knows he was mistaken,” Jane says in that logical tone of hers that makes me want to pull out my hair. “Maybe if you admit that you remember him, you guys can move past it.”

  “The guy tried to pay me for sex. There’s not going to be a happily ever after here, Jane.” I pull a button down and slacks combo off the rack and give it a flash.

  Delilah looks at me like she’s wondering if we’re really related.

  “Maybe not,” Jane says, still the undisputed queen of logic. “But at the very least, now that you know who he is, you can tell him about Noah. Try to build some sort of relationship for his sake.”

  I don’t tell her that even though I didn’t know who Tobias was, I’ve always known where to find him. I told myself it was better to do it alone. That I didn’t really know or need Tobias. That he didn’t deserve to be a part of Noah’s life. After how he treated me, there was no indication that he would treat our son any different.

  “Noah and I are doing just fine without him.” I dig up a long-sleeved, high-necked dress I wore as a bridesmaid for a cousin’s wedding. I bet I could re-wear—

  “Stop,” Delilah shouts, jumping up from the bed. “For the love of all that is holy, stop.” She points at my closet. “Get away from there, right now.”

  I know that look.

  That’s the look that got me into that infernal contraption of a dress five years ago and into that VIP lounge in the first place. “If you think I’m going to let you dress me, you’re insane.”

  “Relax,” she shoves me out of the way to commandeer my closet. “I know how to dress for a dinner date with a billionaire and it’s vastly different from the way you dress when you want to pick one up in a club.” She flips through dresses and slacks until she comes to an abrupt halt. “Here.” She thrusts it at me, a simple black wrap dress. “Put this on. We’ll dress it up with shoes and jewelry.” She makes shooing motions at me.

  “And you,” she says to Jane while I get dressed. “Silver is right. She can’t just say, hey, so I know you don’t remember me but here, have a kid. This is Tobias Bright we’re talking about. The man is worth roughly two-hundred billion dollars. I can assure you this is not his first paternity claim. The minute she even whispers the word son, an army of lawyers are going to close ranks around him and start filing injunctions.” She shakes her head, before turning to look at me and nodding her approval. She thrusts a pair of strappy black satin heels I don’t remember buying at me, motioning for me to put them on. “It’s best if she just keeps Noah to herself for now,” she says, while digging through my jewelry box.

  “You don’t know that for sure.” Jane scowls up at her. “Maybe this Tobias guy will—”

  Someone rings the doorbell and I hear Noah’s excited scramble. He was supposed to be asleep.

  Before I can let out a squeak, Jane bolts for the door, attempting to cut Noah off at the pass while Lilah ransacks my jewelry box. I can hear Jane in the hallway—you know you’re not supposed to answer the door by yourself, followed by a protesting wail. A second later, Jane carries Noah through my bedroom door like a sack of potatoes. Jane flips him onto the bed and he cackles wildly.

&n
bsp; “Here. Cash. Cell phone. Condoms.” Delilah shoves my purse at me.

  My mouth falls open. “Cond—”

  “Seriously? You really want to protest about it after what you just told me?” When my mouth snaps shut she nods. “That’s what I thought. Put these on. I’ll go answer the door and stall him.” She’s gone before I can thank her. A few seconds later, I hear the door open, followed by the low murmur of voices.

  “Hi, mom,” Noah says, looking up at me, his face bright red from being turned upside down.

  “You’re supposed to be asleep,” I remind him while, hooking earrings into my ears before working the clasp of a necklace open to loop it around my neck. The large, black South Sea pearl suspended on a diamond chain my father bought me when I graduated from college.

  “I know.” He watches me as I shove a bracelet onto my arm and swipe on some mascara. “Where are you going?”

  “To dinner, with a friend.” I smile, cross the room to the bed before bending down to give him a kiss. “You’re staying here with Jane and Aunt Lilah.”

  He scowls up at me. He’s not used to me leaving once I’m home. “Can I sleep in here?”

  “Of course.” I smile and blow a raspberry on his cheek, so I can hear him giggle again. “You stay here and go to sleep and when you wake up, I’ll be right beside you.”

  22

  Tobias

  The blonde is familiar. Not in an I think I slept with her kind of way but a I think I know her family kind of way.

  Before I can put my finger on it she says, “Probably one of your clubs.”

  “Excuse me?” I watch as she leans against the back of an armchair. We’re standing in Silver’s living room, just inside the front door and she hasn’t offered me a seat. She’s either rude or she doesn’t like me.