Forbidden Attraction: A Contemporary Romance Box Set

by K. C. Crowne

  Sitting on the subway, my head began to clear. My humiliation faded somewhat. I hadn’t been crazy to ask Noah out, really. It had been a fair question given what had happened between us and given that our reasons for keeping emotion out of our relationship no longer existed. On my end they didn’t. I’d been staying away from him because he was a client. I’d assumed that was why he’d wanted a professional relationship as well. But could he have had another reason?

  Maybe it was about Tess. Maybe he was hesitant about bringing a woman into her life.

  That would make sense, I realized belatedly. He did seem like a really good, involved father. Tess was at a difficult age, and I knew she was having trouble. He probably wanted to keep all his attention on her and her needs. She shouldn’t have to worry about her father dating right now. I’d been thoughtless.

  Besides, did I really want to start seeing Noah? Now that I thought about it, Sara had pushed me to ask the guy out in the first place. I’d had reservations. I didn’t want to get into a relationship right now. I’d been hurt before by rushing into things, and I wouldn’t make that mistake again, which was why I’d left the hotel room early in the morning, before he’d woken up.

  Would I have wanted to go on a date with someone who had ditched me after a night of sex? I didn’t think so. Really, it was for the best that it wasn’t going to happen. By the time the subway reached my stop and I got off, I had myself fully convinced.

  When I reached my own front door, my nerves had settled. I pulled out my key and had it in the lock before I noticed the folded piece of paper taped to my door. Was it from the landlord? I pulled it down and opened it.

  Written inside in block letters were two words: FOUND YOU.

  What the hell?

  Who would leave something like this here? What could they possibly want? I went downstairs to the lobby of my building and approached the woman who sat at the desk there.

  “Excuse me,” I said. She put down the book she was reading, irritation written on her face. “I found a note on my door,” I plowed on regardless. “Did you see someone go upstairs? Someone who doesn’t live in the building?”

  She eyed me. “Jenna Robertson, right?”

  “Yeah, that’s right.”

  “A guy was here looking for you.”

  “A guy? What guy?”

  “He said he was the son of one of your clients.” She shrugged like it wasn’t very important. “He was upstairs for a few minutes, and then he came back down.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “I don’t know,” she grouched. “He was a guy. Regular height. Brown hair.” She picked her book up rather pointedly and buried her nose in it once again.

  Feeling numb, I went back upstairs. Josh. That spoiled little prick had been at my apartment.

  And what had he meant by he found me? My address was listed. It wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to look me up. But what had he wanted? If it was to apologize, why not just call? Or better yet, just leave me the hell alone? No, I had the feeling the note was meant to frighten me, which creeped me out. I didn’t want to be alone.

  I didn’t even want to go into my apartment by myself. I leaned against the hallway wall, pulled out my phone, found Sara’s number, and hit call.

  “Hello?”

  “Sara?” I felt like I was about to cry.

  She heard the emotion in my voice. “Jenna? What’s wrong?”

  “Can you come over?”

  She didn’t wait for an explanation. I’d known she wouldn’t need one. “I’m on my way,” she said, and hung up.

  Chapter 17

  Noah

  When Tess asked to spend the night at a friend’s house that Friday evening, I readily agreed. It would be good for both of us. Good for her to go out and have a good time, to get some of the troubles that had been plaguing her off her mind, and an opportunity for me to unwind a bit too.

  I decided to call Eric. We hadn’t spoken since I’d basically hung up on him when I opened the door and found Jenna, and I still needed a sounding board for everything I’d learned about my father and his financial dalliances. Everything I’d been told. I still wasn’t at all sure I believed any of it.

  Eric answered the phone on the third ring. “What’s up?”

  “How come you haven’t been answering my calls?”

  “How come I haven’t what now?”

  “I’ve called you several times,” I explained. “Didn’t you see the missed calls?”

  “I dunno. I guess I didn’t check my phone. You okay?”

  “I…” Was I okay? That felt like a question with a complicated answer. “Are you free tonight?”

  “Reckon so. What’d you have in mind?”

  “Well, to tell you the truth, I’d like to go out.”

  Eric laughed, a hearty, booming ha! “You never want to go out.”

  “That’s because I always run into clients and investors when I do, and they always want financial advice. Maybe if we go somewhere, I don’t know, outside Manhattan? Do you know anywhere?” If anyone did, it would be Eric. He’s probably been to every bar in the five boroughs.

  “There’s a classy little joint in Brooklyn,” he said. “I just uncovered it last week, actually. It’s too new to be trendy yet, and none of your big shot clients will be on that side of the bridge on a Friday night.”

  He was right about that. “What’s the address?” I asked. “I’ll meet you there.

  Eric rattled off an address, and I scrawled it on a piece of paper and ripped it off the pad. Checking my pockets for my keys and wallet, I headed out to catch a cab.

  Riding through the city at night was usually relaxing, but tonight I couldn’t seem to let go of my anxiety. Had my father really been the kind of person LM had suggested he was? Had I known the man at all?

  Maybe he was trying to protect me from whatever nefarious illegal crap he was involved in. But would my own father really have put my name on the company if he’d known it would lead to people threatening me? He’d known I had a daughter to protect.

  No matter how I turned it in my mind, I couldn’t get it to make sense.

  The cab pulled to a stop in front of a black building with a red door and a neon sign. It looked sort of seedy, but that meant nothing. Eric had a habit of finding bars no one else wanted to go to. He favored places that looked like dives on the outside but were surprisingly nice when you opened the door.

  And the bar was exactly that. The bar and tables were dark mahogany and the floor was a clean, well-kept hardwood. Pop music played at a moderate volume on the sound system. A few people were clustered in the back of the room around a pool table under a dim green light.

  Eric sat at the bar, but when he saw me, he got to his feet, collected his drink, and followed me to one of the tables. “Hey, man,” he said. “What’s up?”

  I shook my head. “This calls for a drink.”

  Eric flagged the bartender. “You’ve got to try their microbrew,” he said. “It’s the best in Brooklyn.”

  “This place is a microbrewery?”

  “Yeah, all the stuff is in the back. They do tours during the day. A month from now it’s going to be overrun with tourists and we’ll have to find somewhere else to go.” The bartender appeared and set down a glass in front of me. “So what’s up? You sounded kind of worked up on the phone.”

  “Eric, why have you been MIA for the past week?” I asked, putting my concerns aside for the moment.

  “I’ve been around.”

  “No you haven’t. And when you don’t return phone calls, it usually means you’re on a bender.” I waited until he looked in my eyes. “Are you okay?”

  He laughed. “I’m fine. God, you really haven’t changed since college, have you?”

  “Neither have you,” I told him pointedly.

  “Relax,” he said. “I haven’t been doing anything I can’t handle.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means you worry too much.
Try the beer.”

  I took a sip and had to admit it was good and just the release I needed. Warmth flooded my system, and suddenly the idea of LM and my father doing business didn’t seem so upsetting. “I was contacted by someone,” I told Eric.

  “Oh yeah? By who?”

  I was about to lay out the whole tale, to tell him about LM and his threats and his accusations about my father—but I was distracted by the tinkling of the bell over the door as someone came in. Reflexively, I turned to see the newcomer.

  I almost fell off my chair.

  Jenna was standing in the doorway.

  My mind jumped to the illogical. Had she come here looking for me? Was she going to try again to ask me on a date? If she did, I reminded myself, I would have to tell her no. That had been hard enough the first time, and I definitely wasn’t excited about the prospect of doing it again. But it had to be done. It wasn’t safe for her to date me right now while I was being stalked by a creep with a camera.

  But she looked just as shocked to see me as I was to see her. She hadn’t been looking for me at all. What were the odds of both of us ending up in the same bar in Brooklyn? I didn’t even live in Brooklyn.

  A girl with short spiky blond hair appeared behind Jenna. “What’s the holdup?” she asked, bumping her forward.

  Jenna turned and whispered to her. The girl looked over Jenna’s shoulder, directly at me, and a smile broke across her face. She took Jenna by the hand and dragged her toward our table.

  “Shit,” I muttered.

  “What?” Eric was completely clueless as he turned.

  Jenna and her friend had reached our table. Her friend was nudging her insistently in the back. Jenna smiled sheepishly at me. “Hey, Noah.”

  “Hey. Good to see you again.”

  “You too. How’s Tess?”

  “She’s good. Loving her new room.” I turned to Eric. “This is Jenna Robertson. She redecorated Tess’s bedroom for us.”

  “Hi, I’m Eric.”

  “Jenna,” she said. “And this is my friend Sara.”

  “Hey.” Sara waved at both of us.

  Eric grinned. “Want to go see if we can get in on a game of pool, Sara?”

  I tried to signal him with my eyes—don’t you fucking dare—but it was too late. Sara was already accepting his invitation. Eric held out his arm to her and she took it, and the two of them headed off to the pool table, both looking back over their shoulders at us as if they both knew we didn’t want to be alone together. Even though I did want to be alone with her.

  Jenna laughed ruefully and dropped into the seat vacated by Eric. “Well then.”

  “I can’t believe those two,” I said.

  “That’s pretty standard for Sara,” Jenna admitted. “She’s always trying to fix me up. She was the one who wanted me to ask you to Jessica’s wedding in the first place.”

  “You didn’t want to ask me?” I frowned.

  “No, I did,” Jenna hurried to clarify. “I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just that Sara gave me the push. She does that a lot.”

  “I guess that’s what best friends are for,” I mused.

  She laughed. “I don’t know about that. She was supposed to take me out and distract me tonight.”

  “Distract you? From what?” Had I made that much of an impression?

  “Just some stuff I’ve got going on,” she said vaguely.

  I waited, but she didn’t seem to want to discuss it further. Fair enough. “Should I get us drinks?”

  “What are you drinking?” she asked.

  “Microbrew. Eric says it’s amazing, but I’ve never much liked beer. To tell you the truth, I could go for a scotch.”

  “I’ll take one of those,” Jenna said.

  “You drink scotch?”

  She raised an eyebrow. “I drink it on occasion.”

  “And this is the right occasion?”

  “Let’s find out.”

  I went to the bar and ordered two glasses of top shelf scotch. Hopefully Jenna would be impressed. Then I checked myself. Why was I trying to impress her? Hadn’t I already decided we couldn’t date? Should I even be sitting next to her in the bar?

  I shook it off and carried the scotch back to the table. No one was there to see us. We’d be fine. And we were only there together by coincidence anyway. It wasn’t like we’d planned it. When I’d picked her up for the wedding there had been conversations, an email trail—plenty of ways for LM to hack my life and figure out what I was doing. There was no way he could have tracked me here unless he had me under constant surveillance, which didn’t seem likely.

  We drank our first round of scotch in near silence, but when Jenna came back with the second round, I felt loose and open. “I want you to know,” I said, sipping my new drink, “under ordinary circumstances, I definitely would have wanted to go out with you.”

  She blushed, and I worried for a moment that she might get up and walk away. But she seemed to steel herself. “These circumstances aren’t ordinary?”

  What to say? I couldn’t tell her about LM. “I just have a lot going on right now.”

  “It’s all right,” she said. “To tell you the truth, I was a little hesitant to ask in the first place. Not because of you or anything, but because I’m not sure I’m ready to get into a relationship right now.”

  “Did you just get out of one or something?”

  “Not that recently. About a year ago. But he was a dick. He was really controlling and pushy, always trying to dictate what we did and when we did it. And then he cheated on me.”

  “What a bastard.”

  She laughed ruefully. “Sara says she never expected any better of him. But it’s always easier to see that kind of thing when you’re on the outside looking in, I guess.”

  “Yeah, that sounds right,” I said. “To tell you the truth, I wouldn’t know. I haven’t been with anyone since Tess’s mother.”

  She hesitated. “What happened to her, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “She had cancer.” The words were still hard to say.

  “I’m so sorry,” Jenna said quietly.

  “Thank you.” I took a long drink, composing myself.

  “Do you have any other family?” she asked. “I mean, I know your dad has passed since you inherited the company, but what about your mom? Or any siblings?”

  I shook my head. “I’m an only child and my mom died when I was young. I was raised primarily by nannies while my father worked to build his empire.”

  Or to steal from it, I thought.

  “That’s too bad. I mean, Jessica and I spent a lot of time with our nanny as well growing up. My dad was always hard at work growing the business and my mother was out keeping up appearances. My dad likes to say she acted rich way before she was.”

  “What about your dad? Are you close?”

  She shrugged. “I’m closer to him than I am to my mom, but that’s not saying much. Plus, he still works a ton.”

  “Your mom has never really supported you?”

  Jenna shook her head. “My mom just wants to control my life. Like I told you at the wedding, she thinks design is a stupid thing to try to make a career out of.”

  “She’s wrong. You’re amazing at it. You really do need to make her look at your portfolio. I’m sure that would win her over, if your other projects have been anything like Tess’s room.”

  “Tess’s room was one of my best,” Jenna admitted. “I felt inspired working on it. I don’t know exactly what it was. I just had a pretty clear vision, right from the start.” She blushed prettily.

  “Well, Tess loves it,” I told her. “To be honest, I was shocked when she said she wanted to stay over at a friend’s house tonight. I thought the second coming of Christ would happen before I got her out of that room. She’s been spending all her time in there.”

  “I’m glad she’s happy,” Jenna said, smiling.

  “Should we have another?” I lifted my empty glass.

  She l
aughed. “Maybe we should slow down a little. How about bring back some bar nuts this time?”

  “Can do.” I went to the bar, traded our glasses for fresh drinks, and grabbed a bowl of nuts for our table. When I got back, Jenna was watching Sara and Eric bickering over their game of pool. Sara leaned over the table, grabbed the cue ball, and waved it in Eric’s face as though trying to emphasize a point. Eric looked scandalized.

  “They seem to be getting along,” I said.

  “Well, Sara gets along with everyone she meets.” Jenna smiled. “She’s one of the friendliest, most outgoing people I’ve ever met.”

  “Eric’s the same way,” I agreed. “He’s always up for a good time.” Sometimes a little too much of a good time, in truth, although I decided not to tell Jenna that. Confiding in her about myself was one thing, but it would feel wrong to tell someone so new in my life about my worries that my best friend had a substance problem.

  “Sometimes I wish it was as easy for me to make a good impression on new people,” Jenna sighed.

  I had to laugh at that. “Come on. You aren’t trying to tell me you have a hard time making a good impression.”

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Well, you and I hit it off pretty quickly.”

  “That wasn’t normal for me, though.”

  “I don’t believe it. You made a great first impression on Tess, too. She loves you.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah. She kept signing compliments all night,” I revealed with a smile.

  She straightened and said, “Teach me some more sign language.”

  “Okay.” I thought for a minute, then held my palms out in front of me, pushing them out in her direction at shoulder height, then retracting my arms and repeating the motion about ten inches lower.

  She copied the sign. “What does this mean?”

  “It means awesome, and it’s the kind of impression you made on me and my daughter.” I signed something longer. “There you go. Awesome first impression.”

  She laughed. “You lost me with that one, I’m afraid.”

  “Like this.” I took her hands in mine and showed her how to shape the signs. Her fingers didn’t know where to go, and it was awkward and messy. Eventually I gave it up, dropping my arms to the tabletop, still chuckling, still holding her hands in mine.