I Knew You Were Trouble

by Lauren Layne

  “Hey, Taylor. What’s up?”

  He smiled in pleasure at her presence, all golden good looks and honest-to-God dimples. His dark red tie was perfectly tied, his shirt crisp, his wavy hair perfectly in place.

  Bradley Calloway was exactly the type of guy she should be with—dependable. Predictable. Interested.

  She gave him a slow smile that she was pretty sure didn’t reach her eyes, but she was also pretty sure he wouldn’t notice. Not because he wasn’t a good guy, but because she wasn’t sure he knew her.

  Not like the guy who seemed to know her all too well. And didn’t like what he saw.

  Was she here standing in front of Bradley to soothe her stinging ego? Yes. And it was pathetic. But it was also just smart. Taylor was so tired of being alone.

  Was it so wrong to want companionship?

  To crave it?

  “Have dinner with me?” she asked, repeating the question she’d asked Nick Ballantine just a minute earlier.

  And this time the answer was very different.

  NINE MONTHS AGO

  Taylor didn’t go to the editorial side of the Oxford floor often, so she took a couple of wrong turns before finding the office she was looking for.

  Only the office she was looking for didn’t contain the man she was looking for.

  Taylor froze, her eyes refusing to accept what she was seeing. The plaque outside the door had indicated that it was the office of Lincoln Mathis, the lead editor of the magazine’s women/relationships/sex section.

  But the man sitting behind the desk? Not Lincoln Mathis.

  Nick Ballantine glanced up and blinked in surprise when he saw Taylor. He sat back in his chair and gave a slight smile. “Taylor.”

  She wanted desperately to turn on her heel, but she forced her stilettos to stay put. “Nick.”

  Her voice was even and a little cool—not at all betraying the fact that she’d been actively avoiding him for the past month, and they both knew it.

  Still, she couldn’t stop herself from giving him a quick once-over. He looked…different.

  And it wasn’t just the suit and tie, although that was a first. There was a tension to his face that hadn’t been there before, a vague sadness in his eyes.

  “What are you doing here?”

  He spread his arms to the sides. “This is my gig for the next month or so.”

  “What, being a less good-looking stand-in for Lincoln?”

  He barked out a short laugh. “He’s on leave for a month or so. You need him?”

  She irritably tapped her fingers against the folder she was holding. “One of my advertisers is big into family values. They like to know what the racier articles in a particular issue are going to be before committing to ad space.”

  “Well, then, guess I’m your guy.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Because you said no.

  Nick shrugged. “Fine. Feel free to tell Cassidy that you lost an account because you refused to talk to a temporary editor out of…well, I’m not sure. Why is it exactly you’ve been dodging me for an entire month?”

  “I’ve had no reason to seek you out. Until now our job functions haven’t overlapped. Plus you’re only here half the time.”

  “And the unanswered texts and phone calls?”

  “You make it sound like there were dozens,” she said with an eye roll. “One phone call, no voicemail. Two texts, both vague. How’d you even get my number?”

  “That’s what she wants to know,” he muttered under his breath. “How I got her phone number. Not why I was contacting her in the first place.”

  Taylor wasn’t about to ask him what the phone call and texts to call him had been about. She was too afraid he’d been calling to check up on her, making sure she wasn’t drowning her sorrows in ice cream.

  She wasn’t.

  Her dinner date with Bradley had turned into lots of dinner dates, followed by lunch, brunch, and, well…everything else that went with a relationship.

  A relationship.

  She had a boyfriend.

  The status still felt…odd.

  Not wrong, per se. At least she didn’t think so. She really liked Bradley. He was quick to laugh, he was nice. He never picked on her the way Nick did, didn’t call her an ice princess.

  He also never called her on her BS, and she was pretty sure she liked that, even if other times she wasn’t so sure….

  “Do you know the lineup for next month’s issue or not?” she snapped at Nick, irritated by his existence. And the fact that some ridiculous part of her apparently had missed seeing him, because she had to bite her tongue to stop herself from asking how he was.

  How his girlfriend was.

  “Actually, you know what? Just email me,” Taylor said, then turned and marched to the door.

  Taylor had assumed that Nick Ballantine was the sort of man who always ambled, never in a hurry for anything. But she was wrong. She wasn’t sure how he got across the office so quickly, but he beat her to the door, shutting it before she could escape.

  His palm was braced against the wood, his forearm just inches from the side of her face.

  Taylor’s breath felt a little choppy, but she didn’t dare turn and look at him. “Very mature, Ballantine. Your girlfriend may enjoy when you slam doors in her face to get your way, but I’m not loving it.”

  “I don’t have a girlfriend.”

  She sucked in a breath at that. “Since when?”

  “Couple of weeks.”

  Taylor closed her eyes, just for a second. Crappy timing.

  “You’re seeing Calloway?” Nick asked, his voice gruff.

  She nodded.

  “He’s not right for you.”

  Taylor turned her head to give him an incredulous look, then regretted it, because he was too close. Too much…man.

  “You’ve known me for what, four months? Most of which we’ve spent fighting or avoiding each other? You don’t get to decide who’s the right guy for me.”

  “Look me in the eye and tell me you seriously like him.”

  Taylor didn’t look away. “I like him.”

  His brown eyes flickered with something she couldn’t read. Then he dropped his arm from the door, shoved both hands in his pockets. “Yeah, I bet you do. He probably does whatever you tell him. Irons his underwear. Do you guys go get your manicures together?”

  Taylor rolled her eyes and reached for the doorknob, but he caught her wrist.

  “Answer something for me.”

  She tried to jerk away, but he held her fast. “What?” she snapped, trying to tell herself that her increasing agitation stemmed from annoyance and not something more dangerous.

  “If you weren’t dating him, would you have dinner with me?”

  “I don’t like you,” she whispered.

  He eased closer until his mouth was inches from her ear. “Liar.”

  It was a whisper, and it sent shivers down her spine and then back up again. The good kind of shivers, the kind that made her want to lean into him and beg him to put his mouth all over her.

  Taylor felt off balance and disoriented, and she didn’t like it. She never felt this way around Bradley. She knew what to expect from Bradley. He never surprised her, never demanded more than she wanted to give.

  Bradley made her feel safe.

  Nick Ballantine made her feel anything but.

  She twisted her wrist free and opened the door before he could reach for her again.

  Only when she was safely out of the office did she meet his eyes once more, although she kept her gaze deliberately cool. “Go find some other rebound, Ballantine. I’m not interested.”

  EIGHT MONTHS AGO

  Taylor dropped a pen into her desk drawer and slammed it. The drawer bounced open, and she slammed it again, just because it felt good.

  Nick Ballantine was dating the temporary receptionist. Or at least pursuing her.

  Taylor dropped into her chair and unlocked her computer. She didn’t
care.

  Not in the least.

  Nick Ballantine could go straight to hell for all she cared.

  And Taylor liked Daisy Sinclair. Come to think about it, the pretty temp receptionist could do a heck of a lot better than Nick. Taylor fully intended to tell her so.

  Daisy was too sweet for someone so…so…

  Aggravating.

  And besides, it didn’t matter what Nick did with his love life.

  Taylor and Bradley were doing great. Two months in, and they never fought. They had the same taste in movies and liked their Thai food with the same level of spiciness, and if that wasn’t perfect compatibility, she didn’t know what was.

  She hoped Nick and Daisy would live happily ever after.

  But she opened and slammed her desk drawer shut one more time. Just for good measure.

  SIX MONTHS AGO

  Nick Ballantine rolled his shoulders as he left Alex Cassidy’s office and said a quick prayer of gratitude that the bar where he worked was closed for the day so that the carpet could be replaced.

  Tonight the only person Nick wanted to be making a cocktail for was himself.

  Cassidy had just asked Nick if he wanted a job—again.

  Nick had turned him down.

  There was nobody he respected more than Cassidy, both as a boss and as a friend. And as far as the corporate rat race went, it didn’t get better than Oxford.

  He just wasn’t cut out for nine-to-five. Not every day, anyway. The day Lincoln Mathis had gotten back from his leave a month earlier had been a good one for Nick. A chance for him to get back to his free-form lifestyle of writing when he felt like it, bartending when he felt like it…

  Nick’s footsteps faltered.

  What was that noise? Crying?

  It was after seven, and most every door was locked for the day, the office deserted.

  Acting instinctively, he moved quietly toward the source of the noise, his heart seizing in his chest when he saw there was only one open door in the entire hallway.

  And that the sound was coming from that office.

  From her.

  Nick braced himself for the sight of Taylor in Bradley Calloway’s arms, but what he saw in front of him was even more heartbreaking.

  Taylor Carr sat in her desk chair, bent at the waist, arms crossed across her middle as though trying to physically hold herself together.

  He didn’t stop to think that he was probably the last person on the planet she’d want to see her like this.

  It wasn’t about what Taylor Carr wanted right now.

  It was about what she needed.

  She didn’t notice when he stepped into her office, too wrapped in her own misery. Silently he walked toward her, setting his bag on the floor and going around the desk.

  Only when he was right on top of her did she notice him, rearing back on a gasp.

  He took advantage of her surprise, hauling her to her feet and pulling her against his chest.

  Taylor went stiff for a moment, her hands moving to push him away. But then her fingers curled into his wool coat and her face found the crook of his neck before she let loose with a fresh round of sobs.

  Nick held her as she wept, staring straight ahead at the wall as he stroked her back, cradled her head, and offered silent comfort for whatever was breaking her heart.

  He held her while the sobs that shook her entire body subsided into quiet heaves that lifted her slim shoulders as she tried to catch her breath.

  She sniffled against his collarbone. “Sorry.”

  He resisted the urge to shake his head in resignation. It was typical of this prickly woman to see the most honest of emotions as a weakness.

  Nick turned his face slightly, letting his lips brush against her dark hair. “You okay?”

  “Yes.”

  Her answer was automatic and defensive, and he pressed his palm more firmly to her back, letting her know she didn’t have to be.

  Nick waited, and finally she relented.

  “My aunt died.”

  His heart cracked a little at the simplicity of those three words. “I’m sorry.”

  Taylor’s shoulders lifted in a shrug. “She’d be annoyed with me for crying.”

  Nick continued to rub a hand along her back as he considered this. It explained…plenty.

  “She raised you?” he asked, remembering that she’d once mentioned not having any other family.

  Taylor nodded. “She was only fifty-two. Refused to ever let me call her ‘Aunt Karen,’ because it made her feel old, even when she was in her twenties. Ran marathons, vegetarian, one glass of red wine with dinner, never more. I thought she’d outlive me, but it was a freaking brain aneurysm. By the time the hospital called me she was already in the morgue.”

  Her voice cracked. She took a deep breath.

  “What do I do now?” she whispered after a few seconds of silence.

  Nick gently eased her back and cupped her face in his hands because it felt like the most natural thing in the world. His eyes found hers, that unique gray gaze of hers red-rimmed but no less beautiful.

  “You do what you were born to do,” he said quietly. Firmly. “You fight. You keep living, just as she would want you to.”

  Taylor wiped a tear that had made its way to the corner of her mouth. “Karen would want that.”

  His thumb drifted over her perfectly sculpted cheekbone. “It’s what everyone wants for the people they love.”

  She made a soft scoffing noise that broke his heart. “I forgot you never met Karen. Smartest person I ever knew, but I don’t think love was in her vocabulary.”

  Nick frowned. “Of course she loved you.”

  Taylor gave a fleeting smile. “You’re sweet to say so.”

  Nick thought he knew what he was reading on her face right now, and he hoped to God he was wrong. Taylor Carr thought nobody loved her.

  He didn’t fully know why, but he wanted to figure out how to fix the part of her that was broken—not because she was a project, or even because she was flawed, because they were all flawed, but because…

  “Someone will love you, Taylor. I promise it,” he said at the exact moment the rude buzz of a cellphone jolted them both.

  She pulled away to retrieve her cellphone from the desk.

  She picked it up and stared at the screen for a moment before glancing at Nick. “It’s Bradley.”

  Nick’s shoulders immediately tensed, and he silently met her gaze.

  “I should get it,” she whispered.

  Nick swallowed the urge to ask her why her boyfriend was just now calling. Why he hadn’t been here when Taylor had needed him the most.

  Why, if she loved her boyfriend, she’d let Nick hold her…

  He shook his head. She’d let him hold her because he was the only one around, not because she wanted him. Cared about him.

  Whatever chance he’d had to belong to Taylor Carr, to have her belong to him, had vanished months ago in a vortex of bad timing and worse decisions.

  On both their parts.

  “All right, then,” he said, his voice wooden as he went to retrieve his bag. “I’ll leave you to it.”

  “Nick,” she called, her voice desperate and a little pleading as he was about to walk out the door.

  He turned, and saw the precise moment when whatever she had wanted to say vanished behind her protective shield.

  She merely forced a distant, remote smile and uttered a quiet thank-you.

  He lifted his head in acknowledgment. And walked out the door.

  Chapter 1

  PRESENT DAY

  Taylor might not have been born to wear stilettos.

  But most days it felt like that.

  High heels convey power, and power is everything.

  Karen had probably been correct, at least in that little life lesson, because the sharp, sexy click of stilettos was a sound Taylor never grew tired of.

  Except today.

  Today Taylor didn’t even notice the way her bur
gundy heels tapped against the marble lobby floor of her new apartment building. She wasn’t thinking of power.

  Today Taylor’s mind was full of other sounds.

  The sound of her new doorman saying, “Welcome home, Ms. Carr.” The sound of the old and wonderfully retro elevator clambering down to the lobby floor as she waited.

  The wonderful silence of her key fob allowing her access to her new apartment.

  She pushed open the door to the two-bedroom prewar unit, breathed in the smell of new renovation, and prepared herself for the sweetest sound of all: Welcome home, baby.

  The sound of the start of her new life with the man she loved.

  Right? Yes. Yes.

  Because if Taylor had a niggling feeling that the most important part of her—her heart—was suspiciously quiet on this momentous day, she ignored it.

  Moving in with Bradley was smart. It was time.

  She nodded, as though to convince herself.

  If Taylor had even the tiniest bit of cheesiness inside her five-foot-eight frame, she might have opened the door with the quintessential Honey, I’m home!

  She wasn’t cheesy, though. Or sentimental. Hell, she wasn’t even romantic.

  But she was pragmatic, so she allowed herself a moment—just one quick moment—of asking herself, Are you sure?

  Hell no, she wasn’t sure. But she’d always been a jump-in-with-two-feet kind of gal, so…

  She stepped all the way inside and heard…silence?

  Taylor set the champagne on the counter as she shrugged off her coat. “Bradley? Sorry I’m late. I stopped by Bed Bath and Beyond. Bought a new French press. Not because we need it, but it was gold and gorgeous, and I couldn’t resist.”

  Still nothing. “Bradley?”

  Taylor wandered into the master bedroom. The two-bedroom unit was huge by Manhattan standards—and so was the bedroom.

  Where the hell was he?

  He wasn’t in the bathroom. Not in the walk-in closet. He wasn’t in the second bedroom they planned to use as an office just as soon as they could decide on a furniture style they both liked, which might be never.

  Taylor was annoyed but not surprised. Bradley had taken the morning off to let the movers in, and it wouldn’t be unlike him to head back into the Oxford offices for a couple of hours in the afternoon.