“Don’t even think about it.”
Stella froze with her fingers inches from the bottle as his voice filled her ears, shooting him a look. “You need to stop torturing my baby girl like this. What the hell is wrong with you? She’s hungry.”
“You know who else is hungry? People who can’t afford food. You know who can’t afford food? People who don’t make enough money. Know who doesn’t make enough money? People without jobs. Guess who doesn’t have a job? People who gave up when life got too tough, collapsed under the pressure, and let the world swallow them up. Not my goddaughter.”
“She’s ten months old.”
“And just learned to crawl two weeks ago, when it should’ve been two months ago. Already falling behind the pack because we spoil her too much. She needs to learn how to fight and persevere, not to have everything handed to her on a silver platter. When the time comes where she needs to learn how to suck some poor simp dry for every dollar he’s worth, I’ll be sure to send her to you…” A soft smile lit up his face when she scoffed. “Until then… leave her alone…”
Stella’s eyes fell back down to Blue, who’d now realized Stella was in the room and so was blubbering up at her, her tiny fingers splayed wide as she reached for the bottle. The tiny voice that was usually laced with giggles and gurgles was now spiked with tears and babbled pleas. When Stella didn’t move, Blue fell out. Her stomach hit the pile of blankets she’d yet to clear, and she burst into ear-splitting wails.
“You see?” Rocco pointed to her. “She knows you’ll just give her what she wants the moment she starts making enough noise about it. When it was just her and me, she was a fighter.”
“Yeah because she knew she’d starve to death otherwise.”
“It’s a cold, cold world, Freckles. The world ain’t gonna hand her anything for free and neither am I.”
“There’s is something… so…” She took a moment. “Wrong with you.”
“Oh yeah?” he asked, nodding toward Blue with a smirk.
Stella’s eyes flew back to her baby just in time to see that, in the midst of their argument, Blue had made it to the Lego tower, gasping the whole way, and bumped it with the top of her curly dirty-blonde head. The tower collapsed and down came the bottle, plopping onto the shaggy white area rug next to Blue. She snatched it up so quickly that it caused her to tumble back onto the rug, feet in the air. But she didn’t seem worried, too busy guiding the nipple of the bottle into her wide open mouth, sucking savagely even as the tears that had been falling down her cheeks moments earlier were still in the midst of drying.
“Oh my god, Blue!” Stella clapped wildly, hopping up and down and whooping with delight at the sight of Blue sucking on that bottle. “You did it baby—you did it! I knew you could do it!”
“You knew she could do it? You know what—how the hell have you kept your head attached to your body for all these years? Cause you switch up faster than anyone I know. You switch faster than LeBron.”
Stella’s smile fell, and she stopped bouncing, tilting her head at Rocco.
He tried to fight a smile on his own lips, motioning to Blue. “Thanks to me, she’s going to grow up with nothing but character. A warrior. A resilient problem solver. Look at her going to town on that bottle. She would’ve never come out victorious if it hadn’t been for me.”
“Clearly she saw her beautiful mother walk into the room and that was all the strength and inspiration she needed to clear that final hurdle.”
He burst out laughing, a bout so strong that it caused him to collapse onto the arm of his leather desk chair as if his spine had just snapped in half. Hiding his smile in his hand, he jammed his eyes closed. “Okay, Armstrong, whatever you say…”
“Thank you. You’re much more tolerable when you’re able to accept that I’m always right the first time.”
“Or too exhausted to contend with your delusions for another second.”
She rolled her eyes, looking towards the window with a gasp when a horn honked from outside, followed by headlights flashing into the living room windows.
“That’s them!” She threw the blanket off her shoulders and onto the arm of the couch. “Thanks again for watching her.”
He eyes were too busy running her body to respond. From the gold hoop earrings swinging from her ears to the skin-tight, off the shoulder emerald green dress that left not a single inch of her curves to the imagination, and all the way down to the gold strappy sandals on her feet—red toes peeking out— his green eyes shone the entire way. His gaze even lingered on her hair—which she’d curled into loose waves that stopped just below her breasts—before it traveled back up her body. She couldn’t tell if it was the computer screen making his eyes look so extra soft and green at that moment or just… him.
She nodded toward the monitor. “What you looking at over there? Seemed pretty entranced by whatever’s on that screen while you were torturing my kid. You better not be watching any porn with her in the room.”
Just like that, the softness in his eyes was gone. “Who’s them?”
She faltered. “Huh?”
“You said ‘that’s them’.” He nodded toward the window. “I thought it was just you and DJ tonight.”
“Oh… it was. Then Ivy found out we were going to her favorite restaurant and it became me, DJ, and Ivy. Then Ivy’s boyfriend didn’t want her to go without him, so it became me, Ivy’s boyfriend, DJ’s date and…” Something stopped her.
He cocked an eyebrow. “Your date?”
“Like I said…” She shuffled her feet, gripping her clutch bag in front of her body. “You’re not the only one who knows how to swipe right on Tinder.”
“That’s funny, ‘cause I remember you telling me you were too drunk to remember that conversation.”
She felt the heat rising up her cheeks. If she weren’t so brown, she’d swear she’d gone beet red. “This is my first real date since Troy. I actually think I’m ready try it without feeling like I’m cheating on him or something. I don’t cry myself to sleep at night anymore. I can talk about what happened to him without totally losing it. I told Ivy the whole story at lunch a few weeks back and didn’t shed one tear…” She paused when she noticed he seemed to be making a pointed effort not to look at her, his eyes locked to the window where headlights still blared in. “I’ll return the favor with one of your Tinder girls—”
“Since when are you on Tinder anyway?” His eyes shot back to her. “Don’t you have better shit to worry about?”
She faltered. “Just think of it this way, the sooner I find ‘some poor simp to suck dry for every dollar he’s worth’, the sooner you don’t have to help me and Blue stay afloat anymore. Right?” she asked. “Friend?”
He hissed softly and clenched his teeth, muttering under his breath with a shake of his head.
“He’s a CFO. JP Morgan. Makes a pretty penny. Plenty enough to—”
“You just can’t help yourself, can you?”
She paused. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Maybe you’re just… a different breed, you know?”
“A different breed? What am I, an animal now? Just because I can see the value in a hardworking man, who’s capable of providing for Blue and me?”
“Provide for yourself.”
“I can’t do it alone, Rocco, I need help.”
“You have help.”
“Yeah, from someone who doesn’t even want to be here! Someone who once told me I made him sick to his stomach, and he never wanted to see me again. Someone who’s stretching himself to the brim—emptying out every retirement and savings account he’s ever had since he was fifteen—just to keep me and my baby afloat. This is the clean out you’ve been waiting for since day one. I thought you’d be happy—I thought you’d be bouncing off the walls!” She laughed softly as she motioned to him, but her smile disappeared when he didn’t return the gesture. “Why are you acting like this?”
“I’m not acting like anything.”
“So now I can’t date?”
“You can do whatever you wanna do, Stella.”
Their eyes remained locked across the room, silence taking over. His face grew more pinched the longer the silence drew on, and she could feel her own face tightening in much the same way.
She crossed her arms. “You just said the other day that if the FBI gave you another shot, you’d take it.”
“I never said that.”
“Yeah, well you didn’t have to—” She clapped her mouth shut when she heard her voice shaking.
“Since you finally found your next simp, maybe I should take the clean out.”
“Yeah, maybe you should.”
His mouth dropped.
The horn honked from outside again, causing Stella to jolt. She held his eyes over her shoulder as she swiveled on her heel and began toward the door, feeling his gaze burning into her back long after she turned her head away.
Rocco waited for the front door to slam shut behind her before his eyes fell closed. They remained closed for a long while before he grudgingly opened then again and looked back at the computer screen. At the website he’d been perusing seconds before she’d walked in. The website that, according to her, had held him entranced.
The FBI Wants You
Special Agent Application Now Open
With a deep breath, he switched tabs on his browser, to the second webpage that’d been holding him captive. The sound of Stella, DJ, and Ivy’s laughter filtered in from outside just as he lingered the mouse’s cursor over the button he’d been staring at for over an hour. The button that, until that moment, he’d been unable to make himself click.
This time, however, with the sound of Stella’s laughter ringing in his ears, entering his body, and twisting his stomach, he clicked it.
Submit Application
He drew in a sharp breath when a pop-up leaped onto the screen.
Are you sure?
His eyes flew down to Blue, now passed out on her favorite blanket with an empty bottle on the floor next to her. The image above Blue stole his heated eyes next, where a blown-up photo of Troy and Stella kissing tenderly during their honeymoon screamed down at him from the wall, along with many others. And Stella’s voice was in his ears again, flowing in from outside, followed by the slamming of car doors that finally silenced the sound of her laughter.
Laughter she’d soon be sharing with whatever CFO she’d swiped right for on Tinder.
He gritted his teeth and narrowed his eyes back down to the screen once more, cracking every knuckle on his hands before he clicked the mouse for the final time.
Yes
——
For the millionth time that evening, Stella found herself entranced by the New York skyline twinkling at her across the Hudson River, appearing so close to the dinner table she almost felt like she could reach out and touch it. The closest she’d get to touching any twinkling lights, however, would be the ones hanging overhead, hundreds of white bulbs strewn across the ceiling like Christmas lights. The restaurant was one of the most popular in Jersey City, buzzing with residents and tourists alive, talking, laughing and conversation abuzz.
Including at her table.
“You’d better move quick, bud,” Ivy said, catching Stella’s attention from across the circular dinner table. “This one’s got a billionaire after her. Billion. With a B.”
Stella’s shoulders sank in a weary sigh as she looked to her left, where her date, Paul, sat next to her. She'd always found his name so fitting because with his blonde curls, blue eyes, and chiseled features, he reminded her a lot of Paul Walker. Right then, she realized he also reminded her a lot of curly-headed Troy, which sent an uneasy feeling racing through her.
“Don’t listen to Ivy,” she reassured him, reaching out and placing her hand onto the sleeve of his white button-down shirt. “She’s obsessed with that man’s money, but he’s only a client. And I’m a complete professional.”
Ivy’s boyfriend, a tall chocolate man wearing a weathered blue button-down that had seen better days, gave Ivy the side-eye from the seat next to her as she carried on about some other man’s money. Ivy, in a royal blue bandage dress, pretended not to notice, sipping innocently on her cocktail.
“He’s one of the busiest men alive,” Ivy continued. “His phone never stops ringing off the hook with important calls from his important billionaire friends and acquaintances, but every week, like clockwork, that phone gets shut off for Stella. Billionaires never shut their phones off, okay? Just saying, Paul, you better know what a gem you have on your hands before it’s too late.”
Stella tilted her head and widened her eyes at Ivy. One thing she’d learned about Ivy since she’d begun working at the spa was that she had absolutely no filter.
“Oh, I know a true gem when I see one, believe me,” Paul said, his sweet voice drawing Stella’s eyes back to his.
She gave him a whispered thanks but went stiff when he caressed her shoulder. She gave him a tight smile before cutting another look at Ivy.
“Don’t you look at me like that,” Ivy said playfully. “We gotta let these men know they’ve got competition. It’s the only way to keep them in line. And you have some nerve to judge me about my admiration for Mr. Devereux and his pockets. As if Troy wasn’t damn near a billionaire himself.”
Stella clenched her teeth, making a mental note to kill Ivy during their next shift. She had half a mind to correct Ivy and tell her that Troy had been nowhere near the multi-millionaire a cursory Google search had always happily told the world he was. That his love for gambling had actually ensured he’d died deep in a debilitating debt he’d never told her about. Mountains of breathtaking debt that would soon promise to take over not just her life, but Rocco’s too. Debt that had swallowed up every dime he’d left behind in life insurance, trusts, and bonds like it was nothing, with plenty more insolvency to spare once every dime had run dry.
“Troy?” Paul asked, pulling Stella from her thoughts.
“Stella’s late-husband,” DJ chimed in from where she and her date sat alongside Ivy. “He’s dead.”
“Well, this is going fantastically.” Stella slapped her hands against her thighs. “I was planning to save the widow talk for at least the second or third date but, apparently I’m surrounded by a couple of incredibly rude, loud-mouthed friends that are happy to do that for me.”
Silence fell as Stella and DJ shared a look. The kind of look Stella noticed they’d been sharing a lot more often those days.
“Wait… Troy…?” DJ’s date, Tyler, a heavily tattooed man with a black mohawk who appeared to be wearing make-up, looking like he belonged on the stage at a rock concert, motioned to Stella. “As in Troy Armstrong? The columnist? Was your husband?”
“Yep, DJ’s brother.”
“How the hell could you not tell me your brother was Troy Armstrong?” Tyler asked DJ, appearing deeply betrayed as DJ gave a half-hearted shrug.
Stella took a hearty sip of her drink, passively noting that the tattooed-wonder across the table from her was the last person she’d expect to know who Troy Armstrong was.
“Troy Armstrong?” Paul asked again, clearly dying to be let in.
“One of the greatest American journalists who ever lived?” Tyler’s voice flattened as he spoke to Paul. “Died serving our country? New York Times bestselling novel about his time at war? Medill Medal for Courage in Journalism? Not ringing any bells?”
“I’m not big on politics…” Troy shrugged.
Tyler’s eyes grew lazy. “Well, for your information, he’s a war hero. When most media outlets were pulling their journalists from the war, Troy stayed behind. Continued gathering invaluable coverage when no one else would. Even if it meant traveling outside designated safe zones to get the most honest, most gritty representation of the realities of war as he could. He survived kidnapping attempts, IED attacks, ambushes, bombings—”
“Until he finally met the bomb he wasn’t ready for,”
DJ’s mumbled, eyes on her plate, ignoring the horrified look Stella shot her.
“I wrote an entire thesis on Troy for my masters. I’ve watched his Netflix documentary at least a million times,” Tyler said to Stella. “He’s one of my biggest heroes.”
Stella shifted in her seat.
“Can I shake your hand?” Tyler asked.
“No, you can’t shake her hand,” DJ slapped his arm. “Calm down.”
“I’m sorry. Do you mind talking about this?” Tyler asked Stella in a way that made her suspect that she didn’t really have a choice.
She poked out her bottom lip. “Not at all.”
“My god, what a privilege…” He leaned forward on the table, shaking his head at her. “Even if only for a short while, to have had the honor to spend your life with one of the greatest men who ever lived…”
“And now she has the honor of shacking up with his best friend,” DJ mumbled.
“DJ,” Stella breathed. “Really?”
DJ shot her a look, even as confusion crossed the faces of everyone else at the table.
“Wait…” Paul cut his eyes at Stella. “You’re… shacked up?”
“Hold on, is this ‘best friend’ you’re shaking up with the same guy who had you mumbling and bumbling at the spa that one time?” Ivy asked. “When I asked if you were single?”
“Ivy!” Stella cried. “Perhaps you and DJ haven’t noticed, but this is my date!” She motioned to Paul, showcasing him like a model would showcase a brand new car on The Price is Right, praying it would drive her friends to stop embarrassing her.
“I’m sorry. I’m still stuck on the shacking up?” Paul asked.
“It’s nothing,” Stella sighed, looking back at him. “Just a friend of Troy’s who’s helping me take care of a few things now that he’s gone and, oh my god, I can’t believe I’m actually having this conversation on a first date.” She gave Ivy and DJ another set of poisonous looks, neither of which seemed too moved.
Forbidden (War Book 1) Page 18