Life Shocks Romances Contemporary Romance Box Set

by Jade Kerrion

“Well, seeing how she doesn’t have a brother anymore to look out for her, I thought I’d let you know that she lost her job today.”

  “What?” Shock jolted Cody out of his slouch against the wall. “Is she still there? Can I talk to her?”

  “She’s left. Gabriel Cruz took her home.”

  “Do you have an address for her?”

  Bridgette hesitated.

  “Please, Bridgette. She doesn’t take my calls. I have a West End address for her, but when I went there to look for her two months ago, they told me she’d moved out without a forwarding address. Where does she live?”

  “You’ll do good by her?”

  What the hell was that supposed to mean? “I want to help her,” Cody said. “And I can’t unless you tell me where to find her.”

  Bridgette gave him an address in Hoboken, New Jersey. Frowning, Cody wrote it down. He thanked Bridgette and hung up on her before calling his office.

  Leona, the receptionist, picked up the phone. “Hello?”

  “Leona, darling, it’s Cody. I need a favor.”

  “Sure thing,” she said.

  “I’m on my way to the Denver airport; I’ll probably be there in an hour. I need a flight into New York City, preferably Newark.”

  “So, something noonish at the earliest? I’ll make the reservation and call you back with the details. Why are you going to New York anyway?”

  Cody grimaced. “Family emergency,” he said, and it was the absolute truth.

  ~*~

  A three-hour cross-country flight and a cab ride later, Cody took the steps two at a time and stopped in front of apartment 401. In a glance, he assessed the flaking paint on the door and the thin gray carpet covering the corridor. A woven basket filled with artificial flowers in bright summer hues stood in odd contrast to the dismal surroundings. He recognized Felicity’s artistic touch. A similar basket, perhaps even the same one, had once decorated the Evergreen apartment he had shared with Darrell—a birthday gift from Felicity to her brother.

  Had Felicity taken the basket after Darrell’s death? Cody couldn’t recall. After the funeral, Felicity had come by the apartment. He had not paid her any attention as she walked through his home. In fact, she had not even said goodbye as she let herself out with a small box of Darrell’s belongings. He did not give a damn what she took or what she left behind. At the time, he could hardly think straight. The death of his best friend had ripped a hole in him. Darrell had been more than his best friend. He had been family—the only person who had accepted Cody, flaws and all, yet never stopped pushing him to be more than the adrenaline-junkie rebel he had set himself up to be.

  The problem was, Cody thought, he didn’t know how to be anything else. His work with the Alpine Rescue Team reinforced that image. People saw a man who risked his life heading into the mountains and braving treacherous conditions to rescue stranded hikers and climbers. Most people never saw the man who trudged home at the end of each day, grateful to be alive, grateful to spend another quiet evening by the fireplace.

  Yet both images were him. Sometimes, he was not certain where the real him ended and the illusion began. Cody ground his teeth. He hated existential questions; he felt like the class idiot taking a test where everyone but him had the answer key.

  He shoved the thoughts aside and glanced down at his smartphone to verify the address Bridgette had given him. Felicity. He knocked on the door.

  Moments later, a dark-haired young woman came to the door. She looked him over. “What do you want?”

  “Does Felicity live here?”

  The woman nodded. She searched Cody’s face and her smile turned appreciative. “And who are you?” Her voice lilted.

  He grinned, responding, as he always did, to the flirtations of the fairer sex. “Friend of the family. And you…?”

  “Stacie Harper. Her roommate. I’m an author.”

  “Really?” His grin spread. He had to get past the doorkeeper, and he knew exactly how. “You look like you write hot, sexy romances.”

  Stacie leaned against the doorframe, her body forming a svelte S-shape. “Yeah.” Her tongue darted out to lick her upper lip.

  It was an invitation, if he ever saw one. He looked her over. Her body was trim, with curves in all the right places. Her denim shorts were so tiny he could see the smooth curve of her tanned buttocks. He doubted he would find tan lines. “You need any help doing research?”

  She looked him over from his dark crop of curls to his leather boots, her gaze lingering on the geometric tattoos on his right arm. Her smile deepened. “I’d be happy to get your help. Come on in.” She swung the door wide.

  A half-filled banker box, the lonely reminder of a job lost, sat on the table. Felicity.

  Ignoring the dismayed woman who had opened the door for him, he rifled through the contents of the box. He found several bills from education loan companies printed on bright pink slips of paper. He also found a framed photograph of Darrell and Felicity. The siblings had leaned against each other, their smiling faces beaming with love and joy.

  Cody had taken that photograph the last time Felicity came out to visit Darrell. He wondered if she remembered.

  Probably not. Felicity had never approved of her brother’s friendship with Cody, although she had never said so out loud. Cody, however, was experienced at reading body language. Like everyone else, Felicity thought he was wild and reckless—certainly too irresponsible and dangerous a companion for Darrell.

  And Felicity had been right about him. She—and everyone else—had been right. Darrell had been wrong, and he had paid for his naiveté and trust with his life.

  Cody’s jaw tensed. “Where is she?”

  Stacie nodded toward a closed door. “That’s her room.”

  Might as well get it over with. He pounded on the door until it opened.

  He almost did not recognize Felicity. She was pale; her large eyes, ringed with shadows, accentuated her haggard face. She looked nothing at all like the vibrant person in the photograph twelve months earlier. She stared up at him, her eyebrows drawing together, and started to close the door.

  He put his hand in the gap to keep the door open. “I just want to talk.”

  “I have nothing to say to you.” She pushed at the door, but it was clear that he was far stronger than she was. Disgust flashed across her face and she turned away.

  She could not have dismissed him with any more scorn than if she had actually managed to slam the door in his face.

  What the hell? Cody scowled. Under ordinary circumstances, he would not have forced himself into a woman’s room—he was not much good at obeying rules but he still had manners—but Felicity had a way of making circumstances not ordinary.

  Her room was darkened, but the airy and delicate fragrance he had always associated with Felicity filled his lungs, reminding him that he was in her territory. He blinked as she raised the blinds, flooding the room with evening light and allowing him his first good look around. Her room was as spare as a college dorm room, as if she had cut down on anything that was not essential. Even so, he recognized her touch in the sprays of dried flowers, held together with colorful twine, that she used to decorate the room’s otherwise dull walls. He had been to her apartment once before, when she lived in the city. Back then, she had surrounded herself with live flowers she had enjoyed arranging into gorgeous works of art.

  Apparently, not anymore.

  He tore his gaze away from the shriveled flowers and glanced at his watch. “Come on. I’ll take you out for dinner.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “Then why is your stomach growling?” he asked in his most reasonable voice.

  She sighed. “I don’t have time to go to dinner with you.”

  “What else were you planning to do? Update your resume?”

  Her head snapped up. Her throat worked, but no sound came out.

  Damn it. Don’t cry. I can’t stand it when women cry.

  She didn’t, but he could t
ell it was a near thing. She looked away and pressed her lips together for several long moments until her composure was once again steady. “Please go,” she said. “Before I lose my manners and my temper.”

  “You’ve already made me lose my manners so you’re one up on me.” Did her lips twitch or was he just imagining things? “We can go out to eat, or I can order something to eat here. Your call.”

  “I want to be alone.”

  “That wasn’t one of the options.”

  “I’m not one of your girlfriends you can bully into submission. I said get out.”

  Cody did not move. “You can’t ignore me forever.”

  “Not forever. Just for the next seventy or so years.” She gathered her blond hair into a practical ponytail, before sitting at her desk and raising her computer screen. “I have work to do.”

  Cody sat on her bed to let her know he had no intention of leaving. “I know your financial situation isn’t good.”

  She paused as if he had struck her. “How do you know?”

  Anyone with half a brain and an eye can see how you’ve pared your life down to nothing. “I can give you a loan.”

  She gritted her teeth. “I don’t want your money. I’m fine. I can make it on my own.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Paralegal work. Admin assistant work. Heck, I can wait tables too. I did it back in college. But I don’t need your money.”

  “Maybe you don’t, but they do.” He waved the pink slips in the air. “These are Darrell’s loans, aren’t they?”

  She strode toward him and snatched the bills from his hand. “They are none of your business.”

  Cody’s eyes narrowed. “God, you’re stubborn. I don’t usually have to beg women to take money from me.”

  Felicity smirked. “I’m not that cheap or that desperate. Now get out.” She turned her back on him.

  “I came to offer you a job.”

  She froze.

  Damn it. Think, Cody. Think fast. “My parents are looking for someone to manage their personal collection as well as their foundation’s library,” he lied.

  Felicity snorted.

  Well, yeah, he felt the same way she did, which was why he had done his level best to forget that he was a scion of the Hart family. It was embarrassing to be rich enough to require the services of a personal librarian. The fact remained though that he, personally, did not have enough resources to help Felicity. Only his family could afford it.

  Swallowed pride left a bitter taste in his throat, but he was older and smarter now. Surely, he could walk the fine line and leverage his family’s resources to help Felicity without getting sucked back into his childhood home, without wrecking it.

  “I know you love books,” he continued. Her former apartment had overflowed with them, and even her current room, sparse though it was, had boxes of well-worn paperbacks stacked in a corner. “You’re organized and meticulous. In fact, you’ll be your own boss.” Cody was certain of that fact since his newly invented job was unlikely to include a hierarchy of managers above it. “I don’t know the exact salary, but the Hart Foundation pays above market rates. It’s the perfect job for you.”

  ~*~

  “The perfect job” was something of an overstatement, but not by much. A smile inched across Felicity’s face. Oh, to spend all day surrounded by books—reading, sorting, reading, organizing, reading—

  Her natural wariness of Cody kicked in before the dream swept her away. She stared at him. He wasn’t much changed from the last time she had seen him six months earlier—six feet two inches of tanned skin stretched over well-defined muscles. His chiseled features would have made him look coldly handsome if not accentuated by his rakish grin. His knuckles were badly scrapped, probably from a bar brawl. Crazy punk kid, she thought, even though she was just a few months older than Cody. She gritted her teeth and suppressed her instinctive concern. “Where’s this job?”

  “Boulder.”

  Cody’s home. The Harts’ business empire extended across the world, but it was well-known that the corporate offices were located in Denver, about thirty minutes from Boulder, a location more frequently associated with expensive vacations than a sleek and acquisitive corporate behemoth.

  Cody continued. “The job offer includes room and board.”

  She spun around to look at him. “What?”

  “Room and board is part of the deal.” His jaw tightened. “Not negotiable.”

  “If you think I’m going to move in with you—”

  “Hell, no.” He snorted. “You’re not my type.”

  “What a relief,” she said, for a moment forgetting her manners.

  The corner of Cody’s mouth quirked up, but he said nothing and kept staring at her. She had to resist the urge to look down at her T-shirt and denim jeans to check them for stains. Cody was probably just going out of his way to make her uncomfortable; he had always excelled at it. She refused to let him faze her. She wasn’t going to sink to his level.

  But hadn’t she already done that? Guilt tweaked her. She had deleted his e-mails, unread. She had torn up all the letters he mailed to her. She hung up on him each time he called.

  With good reason.

  Anger and resentment kicked the guilt aside and stiffened her spine. “I don’t want anything to do with you.”

  “Don’t be stupid,” Cody said bluntly. “Do you think your brother would want to see you like this?”

  “Don’t you dare—”

  “He was my best friend.”

  The hurt, locked up in a tight ball in her chest, surged out, the words unchecked. “So why did you kill him?”

  Cody’s face paled. “I—” He shoved to his feet. His presence filled the room and made her take a step back. Pure muscle, pure rage bore down on her. She retreated until her back hit the wall and braced for an attack.

  Cody poked a finger into her chest. “I did not kill him.”

  The mildness of his response stunned her. Where was the uncontrolled and uncontrollable monster she had always believed Cody to be? Still, fury had her snapping back. “My brother doesn’t drink, and he doesn’t do drugs. Next, you’ll be telling me it’s a coincidence that he died with alcohol and drugs in his system after partying with you.”

  “You know nothing about what happened that night.”

  “I know he’d be alive if he hadn’t been with you.” Felicity fought to hold back the tears, but they trickled down her cheeks anyway. “Why couldn’t you have died instead?”

  The pain that flashed across Cody’s face seemed as real as the one that was ripping her apart, but it couldn’t be. It vanished before she could take a second, harder look at him. He turned away and strode to the door. “I’ll make a flight reservation for you.”

  “You can drop that damned alpha male attitude—”

  “Damn it, Felicity.” Cody spun around. “I’m trying to help you. Do you really think your brother would want to see you like this? Selling everything you have to pay his bills? Living here, with nothing?”

  “This is my life, and it’s not nothing! How dare you dismiss what I have just because you’re a trust fund baby—”

  “I’m not a trust fund baby. I earn every penny I make, but this isn’t about my money and me. It’s about you. Your brother wouldn’t have wanted this. If you’re not going to do it for yourself, at least do it for him. He loved you too much to want this for you.”

  Felicity stared at Cody. He was right, but not about the money.

  Darrell would not have wanted her living with that hard ball of hurt in the pit of her stomach. He would not have wished upon her the anger that made her want to strike out at his best friend—the man he had fought so hard to keep on the straight and narrow. Life was simply too short to waste on hate.

  Yet, forgiveness was too hard.

  A muscle twitched in her cheek. “I’ll…think about it.” And even that noncommittal statement had nearly caught in her throat. Her hands clenched into fists, and her headac
he pounded against her skull as if to protest the stupidity of listening to Cody, of trusting Cody.

  It was going to be hard. In fact, it was going to be downright impossible.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Hours later, Cody was back where he had started—at Denver International Airport. The only difference was that the sun had set. The only sleep he’d had in almost twenty-four hours was on planes, cramped into tiny airplane seats. Habit almost had him turning onto I-70 toward Evergreen, but at the last moment, he took the road northwest to Boulder.

  Boulder was one of the most charming and picturesque towns in Colorado, but it had always felt unnatural to Cody. The four-block pedestrian Pearl Street Mall was a prime example; in Cody’s mind, the mall would have fit in perfectly on a “Stepford Wives” movie set. The people walking around might as well as have been movie extras; they certainly looked the part.

  The biggest problem with Boulder, however, was the 10,000-square-foot house on Highland Avenue, Mapleton Hill. To Cody, it symbolized the entirety of what was wrong with the world—the injustice that left most of the world eking out a living while a scant hand few lived off excessive wealth.

  He swallowed hard but could not dispel the sour taste at the back of his throat when he pulled up in front of his family home. His heart pounded as he stepped out of the car and tilted his head back to look at the house. Spotlights highlighted marble columns that framed doors large enough to accommodate Godzilla and his family. The house was huge, but its symmetry of design and detailed accents, made it elegant. The trees and bushes had been viciously manicured into flawless perfection. Not a leaf was out of place. He knew that if he were to run his finger along the exterior window frames, he probably wouldn’t find a speck of dust either.

  His parents did not tolerate imperfections, and unfortunately, he had specialized in them.

  What was the worst they could do? Say no? It wouldn’t have been the first time, and certainly not the last.

  Bracing himself, he rang the doorbell.

  The woman who answered the door wore a black shirt tucked into black slacks. Cody resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Apparently, the staff’s uniform hadn’t changed either. The woman must have been new; he did not recognize her and apparently, neither did she recognize him. “How can I help you?”