This Crazy Little Thing (A New Adult Billionaire Romance)

by Tamryn Ward

  And then there was Jane. As earthy as her last name, she was everything Monica wasn’t. She was the woman he’d, in anger, shouted to the stars for. Beautiful in body and mind, gentle, intelligent, loyal, trusting, caring, she was the woman of his dreams.

  Monica spoke, “Only you know the answer to that, Jason.” She looked at Jane then at him again. “I think it’s safe to say we both love you, in our own ways. You need to choose.”

  Shit. “I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

  “We’ll live.” Monica reached out and took his hand in hers. “Jason, if there’s one thing I know about you it’s that you’ve always known your mind…and your heart. Trust your instincts. Make your choice.”

  His gaze zig-zagged back and forth between the two women as he tried to sort out the mountain of thoughts and emotions that were clogging his insides. His sense of loyalty to Monica and his wish not to hurt her. His respect for her intelligence and independent spirit. His new and unexplored feelings for Jane. “I can’t do anything. Not now. Not tonight. I need some time to think.”

  “Fair enough.” Monica nodded. “Jane? Can you take me home later?”

  “Sure.”

  “Jason, thanks for coming tonight. You’re free to leave if you want.”

  He shook his head, adamant. “No way. I don’t ditch my dates at parties.”

  “Please,” Monica said. “Go think about things, figure out in your heart what’s best. You need to take some time for yourself. You haven’t had that, thanks to the wedding. I’ll be fine. Jane isn’t drinking. She’s a safe driver.”

  “I shouldn’t…” He slid his rump to the edge of his seat but didn’t stand.

  “It’s fine,” Jane said with a nod. “I don’t mind driving Monica home. I won’t be staying here long anyway. I’ll make sure Monica gets there safe and sound. She can call you when she gets home if you like.”

  “You really don’t want me to stay?” he asked, directing the question to Monica.

  “No. This whole thing is very awkward and uncomfortable and I would just as soon not let it get worse and have all our coworkers know about our personal lives. Outside of Mr. Kaufmann, who’s clearly three sheets to the wind, everyone else looks sober enough to remember what happens tonight. I’m not fond of being the subject of Monday morning water cooler rumors.”

  “Okay,” he said on a sigh. “I’ll go. But only because you insisted. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  “Better make it late. I fear I’ll be slightly hung over,” Monica said.

  He didn’t kiss her before he left. His parting was awkward, tense.

  Wishes, magic, or whatever, things had just gotten more complicated than ever.

  * * * * *

  Throughout dinner there was no mention of Jason. Lori and her boyfriend sat at their table and provided plenty of lively chatter to distract Jane. And three or four Long Island Iced Teas seemed to do the job for Monica. Thanks to the alcohol, Monica became the proverbial life of the party and Jane was hard-pressed to drag her away from it after a couple of hours.

  A handful of party tunes, including the Birdie Dance, Secret Santa gifts exchanged and names revealed, and two hours of Monica at her best…or worst, depending upon how one looked at it, and Jane was past ready to leave. She said goodbye to everyone who mattered, including her half-conscious boss and his charming father then went to gather Monica, who was telling everyone in her path how much she loved them.

  Monica complained the entire way out to the car. She didn’t stop as they drove back to her place. By the time they pulled into her driveway, however, she was thanking Jane profusely for dragging her out of the party before she made an ass out of herself.

  Then she threw up in the front yard and, crying hysterically, begged Jane to stay the night with her so she wouldn’t be alone.

  Jane was in no mood to nurse a barfing grown woman but since she was undoubtedly the source of some of Monica’s misery, she felt she owed her at least that much. She agreed to spend the night on the living room couch. Monica insisted she take the guest bedroom upstairs.

  Naturally, thanks to Monica’s frequent stumbling trips to the bathroom, Jane got no sleep that night. But with Monica’s tongue loosened up, thanks to the alcohol, she learned what she had long suspected.

  “My father’s a bum, running from the law,” Monica confessed sometime in the wee hours of the night. “I didn’t know it when I was a kid, but I learned later he wasn’t the business tycoon I thought he was, but a crook.”

  “I’m sorry, sweetie,” Jane said as she helped Monica get back into her bed. Monica’s face was an odd mixture of crimson blotches on a field of sickly white. Her eyes were red and watery, the lids hanging over them as if they were too heavy to be lifted completely. “There. You just lie down and be still.”

  “I am. The freaking bed just won’t stop moving.” Monica closed her eyes. “My entire life’s a big lie. I’m nobody. The daughter of a fugitive with no money, no future, no fiancé…”

  “Jason hasn’t broken up with you.”

  “Not yet. But he will.” She lifted her eyelids just long enough to look Jane in the eye. “He loves you, you know. He has since the switch. I had to say something. I couldn’t stand it any longer. I’m not you. I can’t pretend to be.”

  “Oh, Monica. You have so much going for you. You’re beautiful and popular. You have a terrific home. Look at this place.” Jane motioned around the room at the expensive furniture. “Not to mention you’re intelligent and have a great career—”

  “I’m alone.”

  “It’s better to be alone than to be with the wrong person…” She gave Monica the same line she’d repeated to herself too many times to count.

  Monica sighed and blinked. A fat tear slipped from the outer corner of her eye and dribbled down the side of her face. “But you’re not alone. You have friends who truly like you, not just want something from you. You have parents who call and leave worried messages on your answering machine if they haven’t heard from you in a while. All I have is a grandmother in a nursing home who occasionally remembers who I am. I pay her bills every month but half the time she screams for the police when I visit, claiming she’s never seen me before.”

  “That’s where all your money goes?”

  Monica’s watery gaze fixed on Jane’s. She whispered, “Grammie is all I have left. Medicaid won’t pay for her to stay at Sparrow Court but I didn’t want her moved. The owner is an acquaintance of mine. I know Grammie gets the very best treatment, isn’t stuffed in a corner and forgotten. It’s the least I can do.”

  “How very sweet and generous of you.”

  “It’s killing me financially but if Grammie knew the truth, that all her money was gone, it would kill her. Years ago, dad talked her into signing over her assets to keep the nursing home from taking it all…and then he cleaned out every account! He even used her money to pay for my graduation gift. I tried to stop him but I couldn’t.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “How could he do that and live with himself? I feel guilty and all I let him spend on me was the money for the trip to Europe,” Monica said, sobbing. Her eyes were even redder now and deep red splotches stained the skin around them. “He stole from his own mother and I couldn’t stop him.” She sniffled and Jane handed her a tissue from the box on the nightstand.

  “Is that why you changed your mind about marrying Jason?” Jane asked, putting two and two together.

  “At first I was ready to smack you for getting involved in Jason and me. I mean, what nerve!”

  “Sorry. I thought I was doing the right thing.”

  Monica nodded and slid her a smile. “I know. Your heart was in the right place. And that, along with the knowledge that if I didn’t marry him, I wouldn’t be able to afford to pay Grammie’s bills any longer, kind of squashed any thoughts of me inflicting any physical harm on you. By getting Jason back for me, you did me a huge favor. You know what those bills are doing to my finances. My house is
near foreclosure. Since Jason cosigned the mortgage for me, his credit will be ruined too if I don’t make the payments.”

  “Have you told Jason about your grandmother?”

  “No.”

  “Okay. I need to ask you then, and maybe I shouldn’t be asking you this now when you’re clearly…”

  “Blitzed?” Monica supplied for her.

  “Yes, blitzed.”

  “Ask away. I’m in the mood to be honest. Ask me about my deepest darkest secrets.”

  “I just want to know about one. Forgetting for a moment about your grandmother, about the money aspect, do you love Jason?” Jane held her breath as she waited for Monica’s answer.

  “That’s the thing. I do love him. Very much. But not the way I should. He deserves to have a wife who is crazy about him, can’t stand to be apart from him for even a minute. Who dreams about him at night. Who can’t stop thinking about him throughout the day…” she mumbled, her voice getting lower and lower. “I do love him. I just can’t…love…him…enough…” A soft snore buzzed from her throat.

  Careful to be quiet so she wouldn’t wake Monica, and lost in her thoughts, Jane tiptoed from Monica’s room and returned to the guest bed. Her thoughts, about Monica and Jason, about Monica’s grandmother, and about wishes and stars, kept her company as she watched night turn to dawn.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The next morning, Jane woke up with a start. Either someone had pulled another switcheroo on her again or she was sleeping in the Arctic.

  She opened her eyes.

  Neither seemed to be the case. There were no icebergs in sight and she recognized her clothes and the room in which she’d dozed off a short time ago. But in that time, it appeared, Monica’s furnace had gone kaput. Either that, or she hadn’t paid her gas bill.

  She knew she had a couple of options. She could go home and let Monica figure it out…but that one wasn’t very nice. Or she could bundle up and do some investigating. It was a chilly alternative, but the better of the two. Already feeling the effects of the cold on her nose and fingers, she wrapped the comforter around her and walked to Monica’s bedroom. After knocking and receiving no response, she opened the door and poked her head into the dark room. The shades were drawn. The room was deathly quiet.

  “Monica?” she said in a hushed voice. “Are you okay?”

  She got a groan for a reply.

  Deciding it was better to wake up a hungover Monica than to leave said hungover Monica in a house with no heat, she walked to the bed and tapped Monica’s shoulder. “Monica, either your furnace died last night or you owe somebody some money.”

  Monica groaned again and slowly lifted a hair-tousled head. “What time is it?” she grumbled, turning her head toward the nightstand.

  “I don’t know.” Jane noticed the clock’s red numbers weren’t lit. “The clock isn’t working.” She went to test the light switch on the wall. The overhead didn’t turn on. “Did you pay your electric bill?”

  “Yes. Two weeks ago.”

  She kept flipping the switch, knowing it probably wouldn’t all of a sudden work but willing to keep trying anyway. “Are you positive?”

  “Yes. It’s winter. I’m not that stupid. I can’t live without lights and heat.” She sat up and dropped her head into her hands. “Ohhh…my head is killing me. That Long Island stuff is trouble.”

  “I warned you.” Jane lifted the blind and glanced outside. From her vantage, she could see the corner of the neighbor’s garage. The motion detector-activated light was on. “Your neighbor didn’t lose power.”

  “I paid the bill. I can show you the check stub to prove it.”

  “Maybe you mailed it too late?”

  “It cleared the bank.”

  “Well shoot! I don’t know what’s wrong then.”

  “I know what to do.” Moving slow, like a zombie rising from the dead, Monica sat up then stood. Her head hung low as she shuffled across the room and opened the top drawer of her dresser. She held out a business card. “Call this man.” When Jane took the card, Monica dragged her miserable frame back to her bed and laid down. “Let me know when he’s coming. Please? Thanks.”

  “Okay. But do you have a cell phone? I don’t think your cordless is going to work.”

  “My purse.” She pointed at the chaise in the corner.

  Jane rummaged through the contents of Monica’s purse until she located the phone then left the room to make the call to Bill the electrician.

  Recognizing the name, Jane introduced herself as the woman he’d met at the club a month or so ago, gave him Monica’s address and explained their dire circumstances. He said he would be over within the hour. She reported her success to Monica, who suddenly seemed to have made a remarkable recovery. She bounded out of bed and ran to the shower, ignoring Jane’s suggestion she wait. As expected, she returned from the bathroom a little while later with dripping wet hair and a scowl. “I can’t dry my hair. He can’t see me like this.”

  Jane chuckled. “I tried to warn you. Just let it dry naturally.”

  “I’ll have icicle dreadlocks.”

  Jane shrugged. “Maybe that’ll turn him on. You said he thought you were too high-maintenance. This oughta prove you’re not.” She tugged on a soggy lock of hair.

  “Hardly. It’ll just make me look scary.”

  “You couldn’t look scary if you tried.” Jane nudged Monica’s shoulder then walked to the door. “Better hurry. According to the clock on your cell phone, he could be here in as little as ten minutes, maybe sooner.”

  “Okay, okay!” Monica ran to the dresser as Jane left the room and closed the door.

  Hungry, she headed for the kitchen, hoping to find something edible. It had been a long time since the switch back, so all the goodies Jane had bought would be long gone. She could only hope she’d find something that would fill her stomach without making her ill.

  The refrigerator was empty.

  The cupboards were empty.

  The freezer was empty.

  Drats! She put on her coat and collected her purse and keys. “Monica, I’m headed up the road for donuts,” she shouted up the stairs. “Want anything?”

  “No, I’m fine. Thanks anyway.”

  “Suit yourself!” She hurried out into the cold, surprised to find almost a half-foot of snow on the ground and more falling. Unlike last night’s snow, these were the big, soggy flakes that accumulated by the inch. The road was covered, with little more than two dirty ruts wandering through the quiet neighborhood. The air was still. It was eerie.

  She got in her car and white-knuckled it to the donut shop where she picked up a dozen donuts and a dozen bagels, just in case she was forced to stick around Monica’s for a while. At least she wouldn’t go hungry. Then she headed back.

  A big white van was parked in Monica’s driveway. She parked her car next to it and went inside.

  It was still freezing inside, and dark. Her arms full of paper bags with donuts and bagels, she walked to the kitchen, shouting, “Monica?”

  “We’re down here,” Monica answered from the basement.

  Jane took a bite of a custard-filled donut before venturing down the stairs at the rear of the kitchen. She followed the moving beam from a flashlight either Monica or the electrician was holding in the rear of the basement. It was dark down there, but not pitch-black, thanks to several long but narrow rows of glass blocks letting in faint daylight. “How bad is it?” she asked as she approached them.

  The electrician’s back was turned toward her, and his flashlight was directed at the circuit breaker box on the wall. “Looks like the main breaker tripped off.”

  “Why would that happen?” Jane asked.

  “Hard to say.”

  She heard a click then the lights in the basement turned on.

  Monica grinned. “Yay! That’s all it was?”

  “Sure looks that way.” Bill the electrician shut the panel door and turned around to face the ladies.

  Jan
e smiled. “Thanks a lot for coming on such short notice.”

  “What about the furnace?” Monica asked. “You wouldn’t leave two helpless women here during the middle of a snowstorm to freeze to death, would you?”

  Jane couldn’t miss the twinkle she saw in Monica’s eyes as she smiled at the hulking electrician.

  “Helpless? Hardly.” He chuckled and returned Monica’s smile. Then he grinned and winked at Jane too. Jane couldn’t miss the fact that there was more than one kind of electricity happening in that basement. The air around her was charged with nervous energy, fed by the looks Monica was giving Bill and he was giving Jane. “The furnace should come on in a minute. The blower can’t operate without electricity.”

  Monica giggled and twirled a soggy lock of hair around her finger. “Oh, how silly. I knew that, of course.” She stepped closer, her wide eyes fixed on his face. “Thanks so much for coming out here so quick. I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you.”

  “Not a problem. Give me some time and I’ll think of something. Two beautiful women…I’m sure there are one or two possibilities.” He smiled at Jane, and growing more uncomfortable by the second, Jane failed to respond.

  Was he suggesting…a ménage?

  Bill was one handsome devil of a man, no doubt about it. Tall and solid, he was built like Atlas, his arms thick and muscular, his shoulders broad, his chest wide, his waist narrow. And his face was ruggedly handsome with deep brown eyes and sexy dark stubble over his chin and jaw. There was a naughty spark in those eyes. That man was trouble with a capital T, perfect for Monica. Not perfect for Jane.

  “How about a donut?” suggested Jane, knowing that was a far cry from what he was looking for.