All This Time: A Billionaire, Bad Boy Romance (Fated Loves Book 3)

by Zee Irwin

  “My daughters could walk the neighborhood delivering the flyers, not a problem.”

  Our plan of action quickly took shape and some of the worry faded away, although I still needed to figure out how to pay for everything, even if we gained a discount. “It sounds like you need a better divorce lawyer. My roommate’s boyfriend is one of the best. Daniel Jones—have you heard of him? Here’s his card. Call him.”

  She thanked me and after more planning together, Analise left the store. I buried my head into my accounting program, trying to figure out how I could afford everything, all in the name of protecting the shop and my livelihood. It all resulted in an evil headache I couldn’t wish away.

  When Frank showed up at my office door, he appeared completely deflated. “Why did this happen to me, Lily, huh? I pay my bills. I work hard. Thankfully, I have insurance.” He slumped in the chair across from me.

  “I can’t believe it either. These robberies are too close for comfort for me. Analise was here and we’ve decided to set up the community watch program.”

  “Really?” His eyebrows creased together. “Do you think it’s necessary?”

  “Yes, it couldn’t hurt. All morning I’ve been researching gates, security systems, alarms, and videos . . . Everything I cannot afford. More eyes on the street would be better than nothing.”

  “Lily, if you need money, you know you can come to me, right? I’ll give you a loan, low interest even.”

  I snorted. “Gee, thanks Frank. But no, I don’t want to owe anyone anything. I’ll figure this out somehow.”

  He picked at the edge of my desk. “Have you ever thought about getting away from here?”

  “Yeah, sure. I dream about taking a trip to Paris all the time.”

  He squinted at me. “Oh yeah. I recall now. You used to draw the Eiffel Tower in your high school notebooks. We can get away, you know. The two of us. You want to go to Paris? I’ll take you to Paris next week.”

  “Don’t be silly. First, I wouldn’t let you spend your money on me like that, and second, I can’t just take off. Who would watch the store?”

  “We’ll hire someone to watch over everything while we’re gone.”

  “It’s a nice offer, but Simon might need me. I wouldn’t want to be away if he got into trouble or needed help.” He caught my arm by the elbow on my way out of the office. “I need to get back to work, Frank.”

  His eyes contained a look I wasn’t familiar with. His usual bravado and overconfidence now came across as desperation. “Lily. Let’s leave. Let’s sell our shops and move away. Simon can fend for himself. We don’t have to stay here for the rest of our lives. We could live anywhere you want, you name the place. What do you say?”

  What the hell was he saying and what had gotten into him? I laughed it off with a joke. This entire conversation with him was getting weird. “It almost sounds like a marriage proposal, but I don’t see a ring.” I heard the front door chimes and saw my afternoon book and tea club ladies entering. “I have to go. Duty calls.” I yanked my arm away and left him there.

  A few minutes later, I saw him leave the shop, only he was red faced and he wouldn’t look at me. Anger maybe? Embarrassed? I shook my head at the biggest reason Frank and I were not meant to be. Dealing with his ego and mood swings wasn’t my idea of fun.

  Granted, a getaway to Paris, even with Frank, was tempting. But I had responsibilities, obligations, things to take care of. I couldn’t just run off. Especially with Frank. I knew long ago he wasn’t the one for me. While I felt bad for him if I hurt his feelings, I couldn’t dwell on it.

  I turned my attention back to my book club ladies, back to reality, back to my life. “Ladies, I’m going to dive into one of my favorite topics. And I know it’ll be yours too. Today’s discussion is All About the Romanticism of Book Boyfriends.”

  10

  A Well-Read Woman

  Jace

  How the fuck did I end up on Lily’s couch? Sifting through the fog in my brain, I couldn’t find the clues of how I started from the doorway with Lily in my arms, and ended up on her couch with a splitting headache.

  Completely hungover, and still in last night’s clothes, I knew nothing more happened than kissing. Or did it? Even that was a little foggy. Visions of Lily straddling me came to mind, but slightly out of focus. If we kissed, it would not win awards for the most romantic kiss of the year. I drew a blank on anything else that happened.

  I reached up to my lips. What did hers feel like? I spied a note on the coffee table.

  Jace, we need to talk.

  Come by the shop today, please.

  Lily

  “Morning.” Daniel’s voice startled me, calling out from the dining room. He and Maddie sat enjoying muffins, coffee, and juice, while reading the paper together. It was the quiet weekend morning I longed to have with someone special, but after last night, I probably ruined any chance of Lily taking up that dream with me.

  “Hi. Sorry for intruding last night. Um, is Lily home?” My cheeks heated on fire when I located my boots and put them on. I hadn’t felt this embarrassed since I did the walk of shame after fucking Becky on the night of Travis’s wedding.

  “No problem. Lily went into the shop early. Want some coffee before you go?” Maddie motioned to the chair next to her.

  “Nope, gotta run. Thanks again.”

  Daniel called after me as I reached the top of the stairs. “Hey, Jace? Hold up. A text came in from Lily. There was a burglary and a fire on her street. I thought you should know.”

  “Yeah, okay. Thanks.” My brow furrowed so tightly it hurt as much as my head. I checked my phone. The battery had died in the middle of the night. I hurried home and plugged it in. Sure enough, there were plenty of messages. The last one from Travis, who wanted to know where the fuck I was. He left details about the robbers targeting Betto’s Pizzeria and setting the place on fire. My heart raced, knowing it was a few doors down from Lily’s bookstore. I showered quick and changed so I could get to the crime scene as fast as possible.

  Something never there before now grew in the pit of my stomach, gnawing at my core like a clawed animal striking to get out. A sudden need to protect Lily tugged at me beyond anything I’d experienced before. Not the same as entering the Marines defending America’s freedom, or entering the police force to protect. Stronger, fiercer, this new determination served one person, because no one or nothing would hurt Lily. Not on my watch.

  When I arrived on Boston’s well-known Prince Street, the tourists and shoppers were out in throngs, enjoying the weekend sunshine and making the one-way thoroughfare crowded. The famous avenue wound through historic Boston neighborhoods, and finished at Boston Common. With an eclectic mix of stores and eateries, the street attracted people from all walks of life.

  The local news vans and police tape in front of Betto’s Pizzeria garnered attention from onlookers. A blonde in a blue pantsuit held a microphone and spoke to a camera.

  “With five burglaries in the past two months, the officials say that clues and prints are minimal and that CCTV on the streets hasn’t turned up anything unusual. So far, the number of complaints from the shop owners has risen. We’ll be talking with the Boston P.D. police captain later today about the Prince Street Burglars and will have the full report on the five o’clock news.”

  Perfect. I’m sure Cap loved having the media to deal with now. I didn’t see Travis around. I caught up with an officer and the fire chief on the scene. After gathering a few of the facts, I noticed Frank walking back to his shop from the direction of Lily’s. When he saw me, he almost mis-stepped but kept going.

  “Excuse me, Frank, do you have a minute for questioning?”

  He shook his head. “You’re a little late for the game, detective. How many questions do I need to answer? I already told the other officers everything I know.”

  It didn’t surprise me that Frank was a dick to me about this. “Fair enough. I can read the reports, but I’ll call if I have more qu
estions. Besides, I want to check in on Lily.” I noticed his jaw tighten as I turned toward her book store. On the way, I stopped at a street vendor and bought a cherry danish big enough for two.

  Bev greeted me warmly when I entered the bookstore. “Here to see Sammie? I think I saw BooBoo in the baskets over there, laying on a blanket. Sammie is likely close to her. They’re practically married now, you know.”

  With all the excitement of the past day, I’d almost forgotten about him. “I’ll hunt him down later. Is Lily around?”

  “She’s back in her office. The poor dear. She’s a bundle of nerves. I was about to bring her tea but there’s been a steady flow of customers keeping my attention.”

  “I can bring it to her.”

  A few minutes later, carrying a tray armed with two cups of tea and the danish split on two plates, I knocked on the office door. “Lily, it’s Jace. Can I come in?” I heard her muffled yes and entered.

  Her eyes widened as she stood and came around the desk toward me. She was stunning. I couldn’t speak. The blue dress she wore hugged her curves, with the tops of her creamy, full breasts visible above her neckline. I wondered how she found a dress so perfectly matched with the color of her blue eyes.

  “What’s this?” She took the tray with a smile, but I detected the worry behind it.

  The sight of her had stripped my voice, but I recovered quickly. “Um, a peace offering? I owe you, for taking care of Sammie, and I owe you a couple of apologies. Hungry?”

  “Starving. I haven’t eaten a thing. It’s been—”

  “One of those days? Yeah, I figured. I won’t have you fainting on me again, so let’s sit and eat, then talk. Okay?”

  She nodded, and we settled in, quiet at first. I noticed she kept her eyes downward as she ate very little, but at least she finished the tea with cream and sugar.

  Fighting hard to tear my eyes away from her chest, the detective in me eyed the contents of her desktop instead. A big spreadsheet took up most of it, a stack of bills from the local hospital and letters from an insurance company sat off to the side, while a flyer announcing a meeting for the neighborhood shop owners sat in the middle.

  “What do you have there?” I pointed.

  “After today’s events at the pizzeria, I think you’re right. A community watch is a good idea. Analise and I are organizing the meeting. Would you come?” Her eyes looked up at me, and holy hell, the depths of her blues. I didn’t know what was different, but seeing Lily today did strange things to me.

  “Absolutely. I wouldn’t miss it. Listen, if you ever see anything suspicious, don’t take matters into your own hands, okay? You call me or call 9-1-1. Got it?” Fuck, that’d be just what I needed, Lily or anyone else going all vigilante.

  “You’d do that for us?” Her eyes met mine with such an intensity, and this time I didn’t look away. Neither did she.

  “Of course. It’s my job, to protect and serve the public, you know. But more than that, I’d do it for you. Um, because I owe you for taking in Sammie, of course. And I’ll bring cans of cat food for you next week as well. This danish doesn’t exactly pay the favor back in full for everything you’ve done for me, though you’ve hardly touched it. Got a thing against a good danish?” I nodded to her full plate.

  “Cherries, actually. I’ll eat the edges, though. I appreciate the thought behind it.” She picked it up and nibbled more, giving me a sweet-looking smile in between bites.

  “No cherries, duly noted. Okay, well, seeing how you have something in your stomach, it’s time for me to apologize. Running out on you last night was not okay. I should have stayed and talked with you.”

  “Yes, you should have. You called me shallow, but I’m not. At least I hope I’m not. I wish you would have given me a chance to prove myself instead of jumping to your own conclusions.”

  “Look, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m scarred, and when I saw you looking at them, I freaked out. I do that, sometimes. For the record, I don’t think you’re shallow. Things were weird. I didn’t handle it well, and that’s on me.”

  She bit her cheek. “At some point, if you’re going to be in a relationship, you’ll have to let that person see the real you, Jace, scars and all.”

  Like a statement reminiscent of my time in therapy, I nodded at it, but wasn’t ready to take that topic further with her. “Sorry for showing up drunk in the middle of the night, too. I rarely drink that much. After I left you, I hung out with my buddy, Travis. His wife is due any day now. I guess one drink led to another. Somehow I got it into my thick skull that I wanted to give you flowers. But all I could find at the store was a pen with a flower on it. I had to give it to you right then.”

  “You mean this pen?” She held up a white capped pen with a red fuzzy ball with two eyes on it. I stared. It looked familiar, but nothing like a flower.

  “Huh? Funny, it doesn’t look like a flower when I’m sober. And about our kiss—”

  “What kiss?”

  I jerked my head back. “Um. I think you jumped on me and I carried you to the couch, and we kissed?”

  Her head flew back, laughing at me with a hearty, soulful sound, and a snort thrown in for good measure. “Jace, you came to the door, stuck this pen in my face, mumbling ‘Lily flower’ over and over. There was an attempt at a kiss, but you almost passed out. Luckily, Daniel was still there. Without him, I’m not sure Maddie and I would have been able to drag you over to the couch. You’re kind of muscled and big and . . .” Her eyes drifted down my chest and arms and lower, and I watched as a rosy hue took over her cheeks.

  I raised my eyebrows. Maybe sweating at the police gym every morning was worth it after all.

  She cleared her throat and turned her attention to admire the pen. “Anyway, it was the thought that counts. And it was very sweet.”

  I scratched the back of my neck and wondered how I imagined the kisses that seemed so real to my memory. “Okay, that settles it. No more drinking for me,” I quipped.

  We both chuckled, and let the pause and smiles between us take over.

  She jumped up and started stacking our dishes back onto the tray. We reached for a teacup at the same time. My hand covered hers and we stayed like that longer than we needed to. Her small hand in mine was like holding something delicate and precious.

  I removed mine and stammered. “I-I should go see Sammie. Plus, there’s more work to do around the crime scene at Betto’s. And, well, I am still on the hunt for some place to live. So . . . I’ll see you later.”

  After a quick exit, I found Sammie occupying a tiny corner in an enormous basket while BooBoo sprawled practically on top of him, taking up most of the room.

  “Hey buddy. Found a friend, huh?” I squatted and reached out to pet his head and scratch his ears when the sound of Lily’s heels clicking on the floor blew past me. I let my eyes follow her as she carried our tray back to the kitchenette. Glancing down at her backside, I settled comfortably on the view of her ass as it curved out from her tiny waist. Man, she was shapely. I didn’t know why, but a petite woman was always attractive to me.

  I was a big man who needed a small woman I could envelop inside my arms. I dated a tall girl once, the captain of the cheerleading squad in high school. It never felt right with her long limbs all over me. But a small girl like Lily? Yeah, I could wrap my hands around her waist while she rode my cock. Or I could lie beside her, with my hand rubbing her clit while she read the steamiest part of a romance novel out loud.

  Shit, what was I thinking? Getting hard for Lily in the middle of a women’s bookstore wasn’t ideal. I tore my eyes away from her as best as I could to focus on Sammie, but I couldn’t help stealing glances at her ass again as she did the dishes.

  When she dried the tea cups and stood on her toes to put them away in an overhead cabinet, it had to be the sexiest move I’d seen on a woman in a while. An entire scenario involving me coming up behind her and pulling her body into mine, helping her put the teacups away, only made me ha
rder. She finished and caught me staring, leaving me with her knowing smile.

  “Maybe I found a friend, too.” Sammie rubbed his nose against my hand in agreement.

  It took a few minutes to calm down, but eventually I walked out of the store and waved goodbye to Lily.

  On the street and overlooking the scene, I noted details of the location. The Cat’s Cradle was in a decent sized building smack in the center of a long block of buildings all connected. A person could walk across the rooftops from one end of the street to the other.

  Standing at four stories tall with an old brick exterior, it didn’t have a historical designation, but certainly looked as though it had stood the test of time like many of the old buildings throughout Boston proper. With black shutters on all the windows on the floors above the shop, the second story wrought iron window boxes sat empty, waiting for attention so flowers could bloom.

  I walked around, viewing each of the other locations of recent robberies. Something struck me as odd. They were all high-end goods, jewelry, old coins, collectible sports items. But the pizza shop? Why would the robbers break in there? Why a fire? I scratched my head as I landed back in front of Betto’s.

  My partners and I often laughed at how stupid criminals could be. Maybe they were hungry and a good pepperoni stick from Frank’s hit the spot? The combination of fire and theft didn’t fit the profile of the other robberies either. Was the pizza shop hit by different burglars?

  Standing outside the Cat’s Cradle again, I took a moment to observe everything, and hunch struck me. As a rain shower started up, I suddenly needed to talk to Lily about it in the worst way. I sprinted back across the street and into the bookstore.

  Lily was at the rear of the shop. The vision of her stopped me hot in my tracks. Lily lounged on a red velvet chaise, reading a book in one hand, petting a white cat in her lap with the other. After she pushed her glasses up her nose and peered at me, it solidified what I suspected. I had it bad for her. A well-read woman turned me on, and now visions of bending Lily over the arm of the chaise fucked with my head.