Decidedly Off Limits

by Stina Lindenblatt

  “But why? Why did you tell us that you were dating them? And why did you bring them to Napa with you?”

  “Because it seemed like a good idea at the time.” I sat next to Erin on the bed. “Trent and I weren’t officially dating, but we couldn’t have you and Holly constantly trying to set me up with other guys. He and I had agreed to be exclusive—”

  “Why would you want to be exclusive if you weren’t dating? What the hell were you doing?”

  I shifted on the bed. When had it become so uncomfortable?

  “Oh, God, you were sleeping with my brother?”

  I flinched at her hash tone. “It wasn’t quite like that, but yeah, I guess so.” I swallowed back the Ben-&-Jerry’s-sized lump in my throat. The one that had taken up residence since Trent ended things between us—because his job was more important to him than I was.

  “Wasn’t?” Erin asked. “As in past tense?”

  I nodded, unable to look at her, and the tightening in my chest tightened some more.

  “Please tell me you didn’t fall in love with him.” When I didn’t reply, she powered on, “This is exactly why I didn’t want any of my friends becoming involved with him. He doesn’t do love, Kelsey. The only thing he’s capable of loving beyond his family is his job.”

  I nodded again, tears leaking from my eyes. Stupid, traitorous tears. “I know.” I wiped them away.

  Erin threw her arms around me and hugged me tight. “I’m so sorry. But don’t worry. I’m personally going to kill him. And once I’m finished with him, Liam will go Navy SEAL on him for ignoring the best-friend code.”

  “Best-friend code?”

  “Yes, the one that prevents guys from screwing their best friend’s little sister.” So, pretty much the same one that Erin had for me when it came to screwing her big brother.

  “That’s not going to happen,” I said with a groan.

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because Liam won’t find out what happened, because there’s nothing to find out. Trent ended things with me.”

  Time for a change of topic. Thinking about Trent was causing my heart to sing cheesy ’80s love songs—especially those by Debbie Gibson (something mom had played a lot of while I was growing up). The last thing I needed was for “Lost in Your Eyes” to play on repeat mode in my head while at the charity event.

  I smoothed the front of my dress with my hands. “How do I look?”

  Erin wiped her thumb under my eyes, no doubt fixing the makeup I’d just ruined with my tears. “That’s better.” She smiled, the gesture genuine. “You look amazing.”

  Then she let out a long slow breath. “So tell me about this.” She handed me the photo and I told her everything that had led to the last time I’d seen Trent—the modeling, the photos, the charity event, and the calendar.

  Once I was finished, her face brightened. “Can I see the other photos?”

  “Are you sure you want to see them?”

  “Why wouldn’t I? I mean unless Trent’s naked? In that case, I’ll pass, thanks.”

  I laughed. “No, he’s definitely not naked.” I grabbed my laptop from my desk, started it up, and showed her the photos I had taken of Trent.

  “Wow, you did this?”

  I nodded.

  “That’s amazing. No wonder they wanted it for the calendar. Women would be willing to drop their panties to see it.” She made a face at the thought, given that we were talking about her brother.

  I then showed her the other photo that Luke had taken of Trent and me together, my naked breasts pressed against Trent’s chest.

  Her mouth opened and she gawked at the photo. “Ohmigod, this is seriously hot. You guys are seriously hot.” She tore her gaze from the laptop and glanced up at me. “And they wanted this for the calendar?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you were okay with that?”

  “I wasn’t sure at first. But it’s not like you can see anything that would cause my grandma to go coffin shopping.”

  She smirked, but then the one-sided smile faded. “What about your job? What will they say? Or are you hoping they won’t see it?”

  “They’ve seen it. I made sure it wouldn’t be a problem. I didn’t want to risk my job over it.”

  “Smart move.”

  “Not that it matters. Trent was against the idea, so no one will see the picture anyway.” I shut off the laptop. “So you’re okay that I’m in love with your brother?”

  Another long exhalation—never a good sign. “To be honest, I don’t know. I love you like a sister, Kelsey. I just don’t want you getting hurt.”

  Too late.

  Possibly seeing those two words stamped on my face, she hugged me, letting me know it would be all right. At least when it came to her and me. When it came to her and Trent, that was a different topic.

  “You don’t have to worry about me getting hurt,” I said, swallowing back the lie. “Trent doesn’t love me, and I never expected him to fall in love with me. I knew better than that. So you can’t blame him for what happened. We were very clear at the beginning that there were no strings attached. What we had was just for fun.

  “And you don’t have to worry about me going all psycho bitch on you,” I added. “That’s not going to happen. Promise.”

  She gave me a sad smile. “I know. So when’s Prince Charming due to pick you up?”

  “Anytime now. I should go downstairs.” When Owen didn’t forget he had to be somewhere, he was always punctual.

  “Okay, I’ll be right down. I have to go to the bathroom.” She patted her protruding stomach.

  Erin joined me downstairs several minutes later, stepping off the final stair as the doorbell rang. Since she was closer to the front door than I was, she went to open it while I slipped on my stilettos.

  “Remember, kids,” she said as Owen entered the house, “no coming home late.” The corners of her mouth then curled up into a smile. Mischief sparked in her eyes. But whatever it was that she suddenly found amusing was something she didn’t care to share with me, and for some reason I was too scared to ask.

  “You look great,” Owen said, ignoring her and smiling like he had the night we got engaged, “but your outfit’s missing something.”

  I glanced down, trying to figure out what was missing. As far as I could tell, I had everything I needed. I glanced at Erin to see if she knew. She looked as perplexed as I felt.

  Owen removed a small box from his pocket and opened it. My engagement ring. I’d recognize it anywhere. It was large and fussy and had never really suited me. “You still have it?”

  “I wasn’t sure what to do with it,” he said, reaching for my left hand.

  Before he could touch me, I pulled my hand away and placed it behind my back. “No, first you’re going to repeat after me, I, Owen Girard, do solemnly swear…” I nodded for him to repeat it.

  He looked at me like I had just inhaled weed…something I might add that I’d never done. Ever.

  “I’m not going through with this unless you repeat what I say,” I said.

  He peered over at Erin, cringed, then repeated my words. I glanced at my best friend but she was smiling innocently.

  “…tonight is not a date,” I continued, “and Kelsey and I are not really engaged.”

  He chuckled and repeated the vow.

  “I now pronounce you and I not engaged, and that we will never be married to each other for as long as we shall live.” Somehow I managed not to laugh at his amused expression.

  The same couldn’t be said about Erin. “Maybe I should toss some rice at you two to make it official.”

  Owen laughed. “Okay, you two have had your fun. Can we go now?”

  “All right.” I let him slide the ring on my finger.

  Erin hugged me. “Have fun tonight.” A secretive smile crept on her face as she stepped away. “You look gorgeous.”

  While Owen drove us to the event, we caught up some more on the past eight months since I’d ende
d things with him. I did my best not to think about Trent and what he was doing tonight. That wouldn’t be fair to Owen.

  But tell that to my heart.

  37

  Trent

  As I turned off the ignition, my cell phone rang. I checked who was calling. It was Erin, not Kelsey. Disappointment clenched my heart in its iron fist.

  But what did I expect after how I had reacted the last time I saw Kels? What we’d had between us had been about more than just the sex. We had been friends—and I missed that.

  I missed her.

  I accepted the call. “What’s up?”

  “So how’s Jillian doing?” she cheerfully asked. Maybe a little too cheerfully.

  Was I worried?

  A tad bit.

  “She’s good. Why?”

  “I hear she likes threesomes.”

  I almost dropped my phone at that as I climbed out of my car. But could you blame me? Most men at some point in their lives get turned on at the idea of being in a threesome.

  That’s just reality.

  And no, I’ve never been in one, in case you were wondering.

  “Not as far as I know,” I replied.

  “So you weren’t screwing her and my best friend while we were in Napa?” There was an edge to her voice that set off alarms in my head. The kind of alarms that blared loudly with bright flashing lights.

  She knows.

  “How could you hurt my best friend like that? How could you hurt the little sister of your best friend?”

  “I didn’t hurt her.” Just the opposite.

  It was my heart that resembled a basketball that had been driven over by a cement truck. Kelsey’s heart was fine.

  “Right you didn’t. You ripped out her heart and didn’t give a damn about it. This is exactly why you should never have gotten involved with her. You don’t do commitments, Trent.”

  “That’s not true. I’ve done commitments. It was the women I’ve ended up with who turned kicking my heart into an Olympic sport.”

  Maybe I could introduce them to the gold medalist in speed fucking.

  They would make quite the team.

  “Why would you think I was the one doing the ripping out of hearts?” I asked. If hope was a food group, there was enough in that simple sentence to feed a hungry family for a week.

  A couple walked past me and the woman laughed. Before I could tell Erin she had it all wrong, my sister asked, “Where are you?”

  “At The Grand Chelsea hotel. I’m participating in a charity event tonight.”

  “Charity event? What kind of charity event?” Curiosity dripped off her words more than I would’ve expected. This wasn’t the first charity event I had participated in.

  I told Erin about it and she laughed. Not the reaction I was expecting. “Well, have a good time tonight,” she said. “And whatever you do, don’t screw things up more than you already have. Despite what you might think, and despite what I would like, Kelsey feels the same way about you as I suspect you feel about her.”

  Before I could ask her what the hell she was talking about, she hung up.

  38

  Kelsey

  Owen and I walked through the plushly-decorated hotel lobby to the ballroom. The large sign, propped on a bronze easel next to the open double doors, left my mouth dropping open in an unattractive way.

  THE ALBRIGHT HERITAGE FOUNDATION

  CHARITY EVENT AND AUCTION

  Holy freaking crap!

  I scanned the area. Why? Because Murphy’s Law clearly stated: anything that can go wrong for Kelsey will go wrong in triplicate.

  Don’t believe me? Read the fine print.

  Which meant that even though Trent wasn’t involved in the calendar and auction, there was nothing stopping him from showing up tonight to lend his monetary support.

  And since he wouldn’t be part of the calendar and auction, it meant he could bring a date. A drop-dead gorgeous date.

  Lucky me.

  When I didn’t see him, I exhaled a relieved breath and allowed Owen to guide me to a group of people on the other side of the room, none of whom I recognized.

  “The woman in the dark blue dress is the one I was telling you about,” he said as we drew closer to them. “She’s the one who set the guy up on all those god awful dates.”

  I hooked my arm through his. “Oh, Pookie, we can’t have that.” I snickered. God, this was going to be fun. Neither of us did pet names.

  “Please tell me you aren’t going to call me that in front of everyone.”

  “But, Pookie, how will we ever convince them that we’re madly in love if I don’t call you that?”

  “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

  “Yep. And that’s what you get for not telling everyone the truth.”

  And the kettle and the pot live happily ever after, as friends.

  “What a beautiful gown,” the gray-haired woman in the navy dress said as we joined the group. A warm smile spread on her face, making me instantly like her. Her dress was modest and elegant, and the perfect backdrop for the large diamonds that adorned her ears, neck, wrist, and fingers. I swear, the woman was a walking ad for Tiffany’s.

  “Thank you,” I replied, smiling back at her. Contrary to what Owen had told me, she seemed perfectly harmless.

  Stepping closer to me, Owen placed his hand to my lower back. “I’d like to introduce you to my fiancée, Kelsey Quade.” He gave me those adoring eyes that I hadn’t seen in what felt like a hundred years—and my stomach turned into a concrete block.

  But not because it was Owen giving me those adoring eyes. It was because they didn’t belong to Trent.

  Except I had seen them before on Trent—when we were posing for the photos.

  He was just acting for the camera, I told myself.

  That’s right, because Trent’s a talented model. If the voice in my head could’ve rolled its eyes, it would have.

  One man in the group, who must have been in his sixties, held out his hand for me to shake. Only instead of shaking it, he lifted my hand to his mouth and kissed it.

  The woman laughed, the sound rich like butter. “Watch out my dear. My husband might be old, but he’s still quite the flirt.”

  I smiled genuinely at her as her husband released my hand. “Thanks for the warning.”

  He laughed deeply and wrapped his arm around her waist. They clearly loved each other. Just like it had been for my parents. Just like it still was for Trent and Erin’s parents.

  “So when’s the big day?” she asked.

  “We haven’t set a date yet,” I said at the same time Owen replied, “later this year.”

  She looked between us, confused at our answers.

  “We haven’t set a date yet,” Owen smoothly said, proving why he was a talented lawyer, “but I was thinking fall is a great time for a wedding due to the beautiful fall colors.”

  I almost snorted a laugh at that. He must have heard his sister say that when she had been planning her wedding a few years ago.

  “Well, you’ll have to let us know once you’ve picked the date,” she said. “But don’t wait too long. The best locations and services book up well in advance.”

  We both just nodded, ready to move the topic to an easier one.

  Like solving global warming.

  A murmur of excited voices near our group captured my attention. I turned to see what had caused it, and was met by the gaze of five college-aged girls, all gorgeous and wearing designer gowns.

  A girl in a silver gown, which had been practically painted on, glided in our direction. Her friends followed. “We just want to know if this is you.” She held what looked like a calendar with Trent on the cover.

  By some large miracle I kept my mouth from flopping open. Oh. Wow. Why didn’t I know about this?

  She flipped the pages and held the calendar up again for me—and everyone in Owen’s group—to see.

  “Oh, my,” a woman behind me said.

  “Oh, my
” was right. The girl in the silver dress was holding up a picture of me and Trent, with my naked breasts pressed against his equally naked chest. Despite how we were posed, the woman in the picture was clearly me.

  Oh. Fuckity. Shit.

  Next to me, Owen stiffened. He’d never even received a heads up about the photo. I hadn’t seen the point of telling him, not when I believed no one would see them—and certainly not at the event he had invited me to.

  “Am I right?” the girl asked. “Is this you?”

  For a second I thought about claiming the woman in the photo was my twin.

  That was plausible.

  If I had a twin.

  But before I could say the words, my body betrayed me and I nodded instead.

  “Can you sign it for me?”

  “You…you want me to sign it?”

  “Well, yes. Trent signed it. All the men in the calendar signed their pictures.” She held it out for me and my brain finally got its crap together. I took it from her and flipped through the calendar. It contained the hottest bachelors in the San Francisco area, but only Trent was half naked in his pictures. The other men were fully clothed.

  Trent’s half-dressed state wasn’t the only thing that made his picture unique from the other months in the calendar. His photo was the only one with a woman in it.

  The girl handed me a Sharpie, and I signed the picture for her, my face heating at the memory of that day…and at being asked to actually sign the picture. The moment I handed it back to her, four other calendars were shoved under my nose.

  “Is he your boyfriend?” one girl asked, but she wasn’t looking at Owen. She was referring to Trent.

  “Of course not,” another girl said, rather sharply. “He wouldn’t be in the calendar and auction if he had a girlfriend or wife. That’s why he’s a ba-che-lor.”

  The first girl rolled her eyes, no doubt used to the other girl’s attitude. All were too busy to notice my heart had stopped beating at the news that Trent was part of the auction.

  “So how come you’re in the picture with him?” The girl in the silver dress sighed, as if wishing herself into the photo instead of me.

  And right now, I was wishing the same.

  “I was helping out a friend,” I simply said. “He needed someone to pose for the picture and…and I did.” I didn’t dare turn around to confirm what I already suspected: the horrified expressions on everyone’s faces, especially Owen’s.