Sweet Talk Boxed Set (Ten NEW Contemporary Romances by Bestselling Authors to Benefit Diabetes Research plus BONUS Novel)

by Novak, Brenda

  Yeah, okay, she may have done some social media stalking after she got home last night. But is it really stalking when people post it for all the world to see? She liked to think not. Besides, she had a lot of catching up to do on the goings-on of her old friends. When she started dating Nick, her Facebook days slowly diminished over time until she eventually stopped checking her account. He hated social media and said it was a waste of time. But then, anyone he ever knew or cared about still lived in the same neighborhood with them, so he didn’t have a need for it.

  Tony didn’t appear to use his account much, but his mom and sisters tagged him in a ton of pictures. His timeline was one big scrapbook of his life, told through the lenses of others’ cameras. Everything from him playing soccer and baseball, to coaching little kids, to playing with his nieces and nephews.

  The latter ones in particular had tugged on her heart a little too hard for her liking. Her biological clock had been sounding a lot more like a ticking bomb for the last couple of years, but Nick promised they’d have kids as soon as they moved out of the city. Too bad she didn’t know at the time that he had no intentions of moving, making kids a moot point.

  At thirty years old, almost all of her friends had gotten married and started families years ago. It made Trish feel like an old spinster who should hit up the local animal shelters to start obtaining members for her future horde of cats. And wasn’t that the most pathetic thing ever.

  Finally, the hostess led them through the restaurant, and somewhere in the world a record must have scratched. Every customer in the place stared openly at her as she walked by. But they weren’t meeting her eyes; their focus was on the rest of her body. Her clothes? She hadn’t worn anything racy, and without checking, she was fairly certain she hadn’t strapped her bra on the outside of her sweater dress. She felt like one of those celebrities on the red carpet who had unfortunate wardrobe malfunctions and ended up on TMZ and every tabloid known to man.

  As they slipped into the booth in the back of the restaurant Tony smiled and said, “You sure know how to make an entrance.”

  “Yeah, what the heck is up with that?” she asked in a hushed voice. “Do I have toilet paper hanging out of my leggings or something?”

  “You really don’t know?”

  Her brow furrowed in response. She hadn’t a clue.

  “Okay, but don’t take offense.”

  “When someone says that it’s because the other person is guaranteed to take offense,” she said wryly.

  “Seriously, it’s not bad. It’s just that you look...different.”

  “I haven’t even changed my hair in years. Plus, none of these people know me.”

  “No, not different from before.” He nodded slightly to the dining area, indicating the customers. “Different from them.” Then he peered down at his shirt and plucked at the t-shirt. “From us.”

  “Wait, are you saying they’re staring at me because I’m not in a pair of old jeans and a t-shirt?” He shrugged as though to say what else did you expect? “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with what you’re wearing. You look amazing, Trish.” His eyes warmed her from the inside, and the tiny lift at one corner of his mouth didn’t hurt either. “You just went and got citified on us, that’s all.”

  “What-a-fied?”

  “Citified. You adapted to the ways of the big city.”

  “That’s not a thing.”

  He arched a brow. “Looks like it is from where I’m sitting.”

  “I suppose in a month when it’s hot and humid I’ll be expected to wear Daisy Dukes and a plaid shirt knotted between my boobs.”

  Tony’s face turned stone serious. “Dear God, I hope so. Tell me what I have to do make that happen.”

  Trish faked a disgusted sound and threw a few sweetener packets at him. He laughed, blocking his face from the sugar shrapnel. The waitress showed up with coffee and took their orders. As soon as she left, he started arranging their forks and knives in the middle of the table into what the newest generation called a hashtag, and a wave of giddy nostalgia swept over her.

  “Oh my God, I don’t think I’ve done this since high school,” she said, gathering half a dozen pink Sweet-N-Low packets then handing him a few more of the white sugar packets to add to the ones he’d recovered from her attack. She placed one of her packets in a corner space.

  He set a white packet in the center spot. He clearly hadn’t gotten any better at Table Tic-Tac-Toe. “How else did you pass the time in a restaurant?”

  She thought about that for a moment and almost didn’t tell him. Now that she was on the outside looking in, she recognized how disconnected her life had been the past decade. For a city of eight million people, New Yorkers were incredibly isolated people. No one made eye contact while walking down the street or struck up a conversation with the person next to them on the subway. More often than not, they had their heads bowed, looking down at their phones, a book, or newspaper. Trish could describe the people she saw every day during her commute to work by their hair color, a favorite hat, or coat during the cold months. But she rarely saw their faces.

  Trish shrugged and placed another marker. “Not with anything as fun as beating you at Table Tic-Tac-Toe.”

  “You know I let you win, right?”

  “Whatever gets you through the night, DiAngelo.”

  He chuckled. "Nice to see you and Rhi are still as feisty as ever together."

  "Yeah, we're still really close. I don't know what I would've done if she hadn't insisted I move in with her for a while." Trish lifted her coffee with both hands and sipped, reveling in the bold strength meant to help truckers stay awake at all hours of the night. It wasn’t for delicate palettes, that was for sure.

  "You can't stay with your mom?"

  She clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle the laugh trying to shoot coffee out her nose. After carefully swallowing, she said, “I could, but we wouldn’t last more than a few days before driving each other insane. I love my mom, and it’s been nice being able to see her whenever I want these last few weeks, but we do best in small doses together.”

  “I guess some things never change, then,” he said with a smile.

  “No, I guess they don’t.”

  They continued to play their game—Trish won three times out of five—and caught up on the goings on in each other’s lives. Everything that didn’t have to do with relationships, anyway. They shared stories about their families, jobs, and friends, pausing when their massive cream puffs arrived so they could moan around their first bite of pastry heaven.

  Okay, so she was the only one who closed her eyes and moaned like a woman starved. When she came out of her mini-foodgasm a few seconds later, Tony and a few of the men at surrounding tables were frozen in various stages of eating, staring at her like she’d just flashed them her boobs. She felt the flush of embarrassment ride all the way to her hairline and cleared her throat awkwardly before taking a long sip of her water. Thankfully, the men had recovered and went about their business by the time she set her glass down.

  All except Tony whose heated gaze held her in place with an unseen force she couldn’t explain. She’d never seen him look like this before. Like a deadly cat, hunting his prey and content to stalk it for however long it took, to strike only when she would be at her weakest.

  Then, as quickly as it flashed over his face, it was gone in the next instant, replaced by his charming smile and reassuring wink like she’d imagined the whole thing. When nothing like it happened again for the duration of their breakfast date, she decided her mind had played a trick on her. Whether it was a hallucination from the massive sugar rush or her desperation to have a man see her as desirable for the first time in years, she didn’t know. Nor did it matter. The last thing she needed was to get involved with anyone, much less someone from her hometown.

  But Tony’s friendship was comforting and kept her mind off things she’d rather not think about. So un
til she left again, she’d enjoy that as often as he offered, and she hoped he offered often.

  CHAPTER THREE

  It’d been a few weeks of spending time with Trish. School was out, which meant Tony now had a lot of free time, so whenever their schedules allowed, they found something to do together. They went for runs almost every morning. She dragged him against his will to the mall. He retaliated and made her go fishing. They met for coffee, went to the movies, and took her sister’s boxer puppy to the dog park.

  It felt like how they were in high school.

  At the same time, it felt nothing like that.

  Tony told himself over and over again that he was imagining things. That her lingering touches weren’t very lingering at all. That the way she sometimes peered up at him through her impossibly long lashes with a half-grin didn’t mean she was wondering what if or what would it be like. That the times he caught her staring at his mouth didn’t mean she wanted him to kiss the living hell out of her.

  Yeah, he told himself all that. And then the devil on his shoulder—also known as his dick and was nowhere near his shoulder—reminded him he wasn’t an inexperienced kid misreading signs. Whether she knew it or not, on some level, Trish wanted something more with him. How much more, he couldn’t say.

  Maybe just some kissing.

  Maybe kissing and heavy groping.

  Maybe, just maybe, she wanted everything.

  It was that infinitesimal possibility that made him hard more often than not. He wondered if he should seek medical help if his erection lasted longer than four hours even if he’d never taken any pills. It couldn’t be healthy. It sure as fuck wasn’t comfortable.

  But no matter how much he thought she might want more or he ended up with a perpetual state of blue balls, Tony wouldn’t be the one to make the first move. Not because he was unsure of himself or his seduction skills. If Trish were any other girl, he would’ve made his move the first time he caught the hint of her interest. He’d rather get rejected than not try, though he couldn’t think of a time where that’d happened. Not because he was God’s gift to women, but because he wasn’t a douchebag who initiated things where they weren’t welcome.

  But Trish was different. He cared a hell of a lot about this woman, and she was still fresh off a bad break up. No way was he going to ruin what he had with her over an unwanted kiss. Having her as a friend was better than nothing at all. So if she wanted something more, she’d have to at least give him a crystal clear signal.

  Tonight, he’d brought her to the old drive-in. It always showed a double feature and had been a favorite place of theirs to go over the years. He borrowed his dad’s pickup truck and parked facing backwards in the grass lot. After making a cozy lounging area with a few thick comforters, they propped themselves up with several pillows and laid side by side in the bed of the truck.

  It was early June and the perfect time of year for the outdoor theater. When the weather was still decently warm at night, but not too buggy where they had to douse themselves in disgusting sprays. The cloudless night sky was an endless blanket of stars that they’d studied and pointed out constellations in before the first movie began.

  The first movie had been a comedy, one they’d both wanted to see and laughed so hard that their sides hurt. The second was some kind of drama neither had heard of. Since there were no jokes or high-speed chases or massive explosions, Tony didn’t deem it worth his attention.

  He’d rather watch her watch the movie. And, yes, he realized how creepy that sounded in his head, but the reality wasn’t that bad. From her vantage point—her head resting where his shoulder met his chest—she’d have to twist around to even see his face. So he studied her absently and systematically pick at the polish on her fingernails. Saw her bare feet rocking on her heels like metronomes until something in the movie made her tense up and she curled her toes in tight. And he especially loved watching the different emotions play out on her face.

  “Ugh, such a typical man thing to do,” she said to the jumbo-gigantic screen. “What an asshole.”

  “As a man, I should probably ask for clarification so I can defend my gender.”

  “Aren’t you watching?”

  Oh, I’m watching. Just not the same thing you are. “Must have zoned out. Fill me in.”

  “He’s breaking up with her because he doesn’t think he’s good enough for her. But instead of being honest and telling her that, he says shit to hurt her so she won’t want to be with him.”

  She sounded like it hit a little too close to home. Tony wondered what exactly her ex said to her when they broke things off. Did he do the same thing or was it just seeing any kind of break up that set her on edge?

  He wanted her to talk to him about it. He wanted to know how the prick hurt her, but he also wanted her to get it out. According to Rhianna and Erin, Trish never talked about it and changed the subject if they brought it up. She was letting it eat at her from the inside, and the longer she waited to purge that shit, the harder it’d be to get rid of.

  Tony thought about how to respond. Maybe play devil’s advocate and see what happens. “He thinks he’s being noble by sacrificing what he wants for what’s best for her. He only wants her to be happy.”

  Trish turned onto her side and held herself up on her forearm. “Bullshit.”

  In the dark, he made out her narrowed eyes and tense jaw. Things he wanted to soothe into relaxed states with feather-light kisses. But he wouldn’t. He couldn’t. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

  “Okay,” he said. “State your case.”

  “If he truly wanted her happy, then he’d go to her with his worries and insecurities and talk it out like adults. And maybe when it’s all said and done, maybe she does decide that it won’t or can’t work between them, but at least he let her make her own decision. Why do men think they have the right to make decisions for us? Do you truly see us as such feebleminded creatures that we couldn’t possibly know our own minds, our needs, our desires? I mean, how fucking arrogant can you be? It’s not only high-handed, it’s downright insulting.”

  Sparks lit up her eyes, and although her rant ended up including him—accusing him—he knew he wasn’t the one she was truly mad at.

  “Is that what he did, sweetheart?” he asked softly.

  She winced and suddenly found great interest in a loose thread on the blanket under them. Tony lifted his right hand and tucked her hair behind her ear, letting his fingers trail the edge of her jaw before tipping her chin up to meet his gaze. “Did he end things and say it was for your benefit?”

  Tears gathered in the water line of her eyes. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  Hatred for the man he’d never met slithered in his gut. He had to consciously keep his hands from balling into fists that ached to hurt Nick physically as much as he’d hurt Trish emotionally. But Tony wouldn’t get that chance, and even if he did, it’d only make him feel better to make the bastard pay for shattering her heart. The one thing Nick should have protected at all costs.

  But he didn’t, and now Trish was in Tony’s arms, and he’d let her stay in them for as long as she wanted.

  “Then we won’t talk about it.” Tony gathered her closer, situating her back into their movie-lounging position, and kissed her hairline by her temple as though sealing the lid on the topic.

  Her right arm rested along his left side. Turning it so the underside faced up, he ran the tips of his fingers up and down the length in slow, soothing trails. Minutes later, she surprised him by speaking.

  “We were supposed to get married. Move out of the city, away from his overbearing family. Have kids.” She paused. “Well, I wanted kids. He always pushed the topic off, saying we should only work on one part of our lives at a time. In hindsight, I don’t think he ever wanted them. At least not with me.”

  Tony had a hundred things he wanted to say. He was a fool. He didn’t have any idea how special you are. In a hundred years, a guy like him could never be good enough for you
. You deserve so much more.

  Instead, he kept quiet. She wouldn’t be receptive to any of that now, and it’s probably nothing she hasn’t heard over and over again from her family and friends. At this point, it was just noise. So he gave her arm a light squeeze to let her know he was still listening, still there for her, and continued running his fingers over her satiny skin.

  “Then out of nowhere, he sits me down and tells me he decided he can’t bring himself to move out of the city. And not only the city, but he doesn’t want to move away from his neighborhood. The one he’d grown up in his entire life. The one his parents lived across the street from us in the same apartment he’d been raised in. I’d lived across the country from my family from the time I was eighteen, and at almost forty years old, he couldn’t move one goddamn hour away from his.

  “And when I got upset—rightly so, I might add, since we’d been planning this future together for several years at this point—he used it against me, saying things like, ‘See? I’m only holding you back from what you really want. I’m not good enough for you.’”

  Again, she turned into him and raised up on her elbow so her face was level with his.

  “But do you know what that really means?” she continued. “It really means that I wasn’t good enough for him.” Tony opened his mouth to reprimand her for even letting the thought cross her mind, but she kept going. “Because if I was, he would have been willing to at least compromise on things. Meet me halfway or partway or some fucking way. But I wasn’t good enough or important enough...not loved enough.”

  The sparks were gone, replaced by pools of hurt lit by the moon. It killed him that he couldn’t take the hurt away for her.

  “Jesus, come here.” He pulled her in, tucking her face into his neck and holding her tight. Warm tears streamed down his throat and dampened the collar of his t-shirt. He hated that she was crying. Even worse that she was crying over someone who cast her aside like an old pair of shoes that outgrew their purpose. Fucking asshole. “You’re right. About him not loving you enough. But it’s because he loves himself so goddamn much that he can’t see past his own ego long enough to know how lucky he was to have such an amazing woman. His shortcomings are not a reflection of you. They only prove he’s a selfish bastard who didn’t deserve you or your love.”