Tangled: Contemporary Romance Trilogy

by Dee Bridgnorth

  The two men disappeared down the hallway leaving Tansy, Eleanor, and I still standing there like second class citizens. I almost couldn’t help myself. I wanted to shout after Bob. I wanted to remind him that I had been the one to go through the MLS and come up with every single property that might meet or exceed Damion Alvarez’s requests.

  Tansy bit her lip and cleared her throat. “Um. Not to pour salt in a wound, but weren’t you the one to do the research for this client?”

  “Yeah.”

  Eleanor shook her head. Then she turned and headed for the front door. “I’m telling you, Lena. You have a job at my office whenever you get tired of that jackass.”

  I couldn’t lie. It was getting more and more tempting with each passing day. But I wasn’t ready to give up on my dream yet.

  Chapter Nine

  Damion

  I was pretty sure that Bob Abernathy was not the man to come up with the properties that the two of us had looked at the previous day. The guy kept having to refer to his MLS sheet every time I asked him a question. It was frustrating. Not as frustrating as having some female real estate agent suggest that we try out all of the bedrooms in each house but frustrating all the same.

  Okay. So I had absolutely no reason to automatically assume that any agent would be anything other than professional just because that agent happened to be a female. I was just a bit gun shy about dealing with women right now. And I didn’t feel like that was out of line. Not really.

  And yet I was sitting here in my loaner car right in front of the real estate office. If I wasn’t mistaken, Bob was gone. Probably for the day. I had told the guy I needed to think about the stuff we’d looked at the day before, so I hadn’t scheduled an appointment with him today. It was Thursday. The office traffic looked pretty slow. I was hoping that this meant my plan was going to work.

  By the time I walked in the front door of the Upscale Realty office, I was already waving my hands back and forth at Lena Schulte in a gesture that I hoped meant stop. She gave me a little frown. The poor woman would probably be risking the loss of her job if she agreed to what I was about to suggest, but I was hoping I could suggest enough monetary compensation to make it worth her while.

  Damn. I needed to make sure I didn’t put it quite like that when I made my offer. It kind of sounded dirty. Which oddly enough didn’t bother me all that much. Lena was an attractive and very nice girl. I could certainly do worse.

  Wait. I could do worse? Seriously? That was what my life had come to? Not, oh yeah I’d really enjoy dating that girl or spending time with her, but that she wasn’t the worst chick I could choose to spend time with? That was more than a little horrible.

  “Hi there, Mr. Alvarez.” There were two tiny lines between Lena’s elegant dark brows. “I didn’t see you on Mr. Abernathy’s schedule today. I can contact him though if you’d like a meeting. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.”

  I was certain that Upscale Bob wouldn’t mind at all, but I was getting tired of his rampant innuendos about screwing women on just about every horizontal or even vertical surface in any property that we looked at.

  “Actually, you were the one I wanted to talk to.”

  Okay. Total deer in the headlights moment for poor Lena. She looked as though I had just suggested she strip naked in the office. Now there was an idea. Wait. No. I wasn’t supposed to be thinking about that stuff. It would make me just like Bob.

  She cleared her throat and looked uncomfortably down at the phone she was holding in her hands. “What can I do for you?”

  She bit her lip. I couldn’t help but notice that she looked really good today. She was wearing a simple straight black skirt and a pale yellow blouse that set off her hair and eyes. She had a nice shape. I remembered that she went to a gym. It was obvious that she at least used the place instead of just camping out on the equipment and using the time to gawk at other people or scope out guys.

  I took a deep breath. I needed to keep my mind on my request. I was starting to have a hard time getting distracted when I came in here. Ha! Hard time. Ugh! Just like Bob. Just like Bob. Keep repeating that and maybe I would stop being such a total douchebag.

  “I wanted to say thank you for spending so much time and energy doing research for my property search.” There. That was a good way to start. Lena finally looked like she was starting to relax. “I could tell that you were the one who put in the effort and the legwork,” I continued.

  She was trying not to grin. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Bob does all his own legwork.”

  “Right.” I smirked. We were on the same page now. “So since he’s such a busy guy, I wondered if you would be available to meet with me for an hour or so to talk about some of the properties I looked at yesterday? I feel like you might be able to answer some of the questions that Bob didn’t seem able to.”

  “Oh.” She looked taken aback. No doubt she was worried that she was about to get herself into trouble. “I suppose I could take a lunch break and we could just chat a little bit. I’m sure nobody would be upset by that if I’m just answering random questions about local property. It’s not like I’m going to steal someone’s commission.”

  “Right.” So apparently offering her monetary compensation wouldn’t exactly go over very well. Okay. I’d keep that in mind for now. Maybe I would just buy her lunch. “Is there somewhere we could go that’s close by?”

  “Sure. There’s a little deli around the corner.” She glanced at the clock on the wall. “It’s one so they probably won’t be that crowded on a Thursday.”

  “Great.” I gestured to the door. “Do you need to tell anyone you’re leaving?”

  “Uh. No.” She scribbled something on a sticky pad and slapped the note on her computer screen. Then she monkeyed with the office phone system and popped out from behind the counter. “We can just walk if you don’t mind.”

  “Sure.” I didn’t mind at all. Well, except for the oppressive heat. But if she wasn’t going to start freaking out about her makeup running or sweating, then I wasn’t going to either. Not that I had makeup that was likely to run.

  We walked left out of the office doorway and I kept to the covered sidewalk next to the building. The weather anchor on Channel Two had assured me this morning that the temperature was going to stay lower than it had been for the last week. I’m thinking that she lied.

  “It’s hot as an oven out here,” I mused as we headed for a glass door etched with the words Aaron’s Deli & Cheese Mart. “I keep thinking that fall will finally get here and I’ll finally be able to breathe again when I go outside.”

  She glanced over at me and smiled. I felt my stomach drop right into my loafers. “You know what I hate? I hate when you get two days of temperatures in the seventies and then on day three it plummets to thirty and the weather people are all talking about the wind chill and ice storms.”

  “Tell me about it,” I grunted. “You know, your sister was bugging me about whether or not I was going to move my headquarters. I keep thinking that I’m crazy for not doing just that. I hate the climate here! It’s horrible. But I like the city. So I pay for a really great air conditioner and just accept that I can’t use the sunroof in my car about nine months out of the year.”

  She was laughing as she reached for the door handle of the deli. It took me a minute to realize that this woman was opening a door for me. What the hell? Where had my manners disappeared to?

  I plucked that door out of her hand and made a sweeping and totally ridiculous gesture with one of my hands. “If my mother ever hears about me letting a woman hold a door for me, she will tan my hide so hard I won’t be able to sit for a week.”

  “Oh. Sorry. I get used to guys being really hyped to promote gender equality.”

  “Gender equality?” This flabbergasted me. I’ll admit that I tend to be a bit old fashioned. But I’d never spent any time discussing this social construct with a woman before to get her take on it. “Are you saying that the men you spen
d time with let you open your own doors and such because they claim this means they’re letting you be their gender equal?”

  “I have actually been told that on a date, yes. And he wasn’t interested in buying me dinner either.” She made a face. “Someone else told me that if a guy buys you dinner or takes you to a show or something, it is an implied contract that you agreed to provide sexual services for him.”

  I walked into that deli with my mouth hanging open. “I might be totally going against some bro rule I don’t know about,” I told her. “But that is despicable behavior. I’m honestly sorry that you’ve dated guys who had that kind of outlook.”

  Lena only shrugged as she walked up to the counter and gave the clerk a wave. “If I want to be honest, I think it’s something that guys just tell women in order to make sure they aren’t expected to outlay any cash for a date with a woman they aren’t really sure that they like.”

  Hmm. It was a very interesting and somewhat valid point. The clerk was now staring at us as though we were the most interesting thing that she had seen all day. Considering she had bright purple tips on the ends of her choppy blonde shoulder-length hair and a huge bull ring in her nose, that was saying something.

  “Chelsea, I’ll just have my usual. And can I get an extra scoop of potato salad? Pretty please?” Lena was standing on tiptoe to give Chelsea, the purple-tipped clerk, a sad puppy dog look.

  “And what about your friend?” Chelsea jerked her chin in my direction and raised an eyebrow. That also happened to be pierced. Kids these days… Yes. Some days I feel totally old. My recruiters tell me this constantly.

  “I’ll have the same thing she’s having,” I told Chelsea. “Including the extra potato salad. And I’ll have sweet tea.”

  “Ew.” Lena made a face. “You’re going to rot your teeth out with that stuff. It’s like syrup.”

  “Yeah, but I grew up here so my teeth are immune to the sugar damage.” This was total nonsense, but after you get used to sweet tea, the regular stuff tastes like bitter witch’s brew.

  Chelsea was laughing to herself as she got our drinks and handed them over. A few minutes later she slapped a couple of baskets on the counter with our sandwiches in them. At least I think they were sandwiches. I recognized the potato salad at least. But the sandwiches were enormous and seemed to be oozing just about every kind of meat and condiment I could possibly imagine.

  We grabbed our baskets and drinks. Lena led the way to a corner table out of the main traffic area. The two of us sat and I stared at the monstrous pile of food in front of me. She was already stabbing a fork into her potato salad and eating with a look of total bliss on her face.

  “Something wrong?” she asked me after a minute.

  I was trying to decide the best way to actually pick up the sandwich. I did not want to wimp out and open face it with a fork. “I think I’m still in shock that a chick ordered this in front of a guy.”

  “Oh. That.” She shrugged it off. “I’m not trying to impress you.”

  Why did that not only make sense but also make me feel better? If she wasn’t trying to impress me, I didn’t have to worry about her getting weird on me. I gave up trying to make a plan to devour the sandwich and just picked it up. The first bite was heaven. Absolute. Freaking. Heaven!

  “Good, right?” Lena was nodding her head and then she licked the outside bottom corner of her sandwich. “They make this special mustard and it goes so well with the ham and the roast beef that I kind of think it’s probably laced with crack.”

  “I don’t care.” I was talking with my mouth full so I apparently didn’t care about that either. For just one second my OCD reared its ugly head and I was tempted to put the sandwich down, wipe my face and hands, and try to reorganize that plan. Then I remembered what my therapist said and I just sort of pushed past it. “This is the best sandwich I’ve ever tasted.”

  “Good.” She was beaming at me. Her smile was incredibly infectious. I felt like smiling back and I knew I probably had mustard on my lips. She bobbed her head and took another bite. We chewed for a few seconds. Then she set her sandwich down and wiped her hands on a paper napkin. “So, what property were you especially interested in. The one out in Lionsgate?”

  “How did you know?”

  She shrugged. “I’m not exactly sure, but a couple of the others were really out in no man’s land. They had pools and hot tubs and they were big and remote and included gates, but Lionsgate is that community that actually has a freaking wall around it.”

  “Not just a wall,” I agreed. “That thing is like seven feet tall with narrow wrought iron bars and brick pillars. The only thing it’s missing is razor wire.”

  Lena laughed and nodded her head. “I think even the residents there would agree that would make it too much of a prison.”

  “Tell me about the other residents.” I scooped potato salad with my fork and nearly moaned. This was so good it was almost better than sex. Is it bad that I could say that? I feel like it’s bad. I needed to get laid as bad or worse than Valentino and that was saying something.

  Of course, poor Lena wasn’t privy to my mental perv talk. She just nodded her head and kept talking about Lionsgate. “The residents are a pretty good mixture. There are some families with kids. Not a lot. Just a few. And I think they’ve had a pretty good success rate at dealing with teenagers who start driving and wanting to have friends over. The HOA is religious about making sure that people who are not on the list at the guard gate do not get inside. There are two St. Louis hockey players that live in there, and also three different baseball players. That means the residents take security pretty seriously. The bulk of the residents are professional types with a median income of about half a million annually.”

  She was talking about this stuff as though it did not impress her or bother her a bit. I don’t know why, but that was really relaxing. I hated the income bracket thing. I hated thinking about it and wondering if other people looked at me and thought I was a snob because of my socio economic status.

  I grew up pretty poor. We were comfortable, but we were blue collar and my parents worked hard. Valentino never went to college. He was too busy working in the garage to have time. I was the only one of us that had any college education. And I don’t think my parents actually intended me to wind up in the IT recruiting business when they suggested I get an MBA.

  Then I realized that Lena’s expression had changed, drastically actually. Her face was pale and she looked in danger of losing the sandwich she had nearly consumed.

  “Lena?” I whispered. “Lena, are you okay?”

  Chapter Ten

  Lena

  I heard Damion saying my name. He was asking me if I was okay, but everything sounded as though it was coming from the end of a long tunnel. I couldn’t even look at him. I could not tear my gaze away from the horrible sight of Karl Kitson standing on the sidewalk on the other side of the deli’s window. He was staring at us. Karl’s expression was absolutely livid. Beyond that I couldn’t tell how he actually felt. That didn’t matter. I knew what would inevitably happen and the thought of it was making me ill.

  “Lena, please tell me what’s wrong? Are you sick?” Damion reached out and lightly brushed the back of my hand with his fingers.

  Oh holy shit! Karl’s face turned so red that his bald head looked like a big angry pimple about to pop. I swallowed the lump that had taken up residence in my throat. I had to respond. So, I cleared my throat and tried to choke out the necessary communication. “My ex,” I whispered. “No! Don’t turn around. He’s standing on the other side of the window to your right.”

  Damion’s eyebrows went up. “Seriously?”

  “Yeah.”

  Damion’s dark eyes smoldered and for a minute I thought he might actually turn and blow Karl Kitson a raspberry just to make some sick point. “Your stalker is standing right outside the window?”

  “Yes.” I barely nodded my head. “I didn’t even think about what would happen
if Karl was doing his usual daily drive by when you and I headed over here for lunch.”

  “Well, you could be here for a business reason,” he pointed out rather reasonably. “There’s no reason to jump to inappropriate conclusions.”

  Wow. If only Karl Kitson were as reasonably minded and logical as Damion Alvarez. “That might work except Karl would never believe that a lowly secretary would ever have a reason to go to a business lunch with anyone.” I exhaled a long breath and wondered how this mess was going to end. “Let me just apologize for any number of things that could happen.” Karl spun on his heel and stomped toward the door. “Oh, for the… He’s coming in here. Brace yourself.”

  Damion was laughing now. As much as I wanted to tell him that this wasn’t helpful, I couldn’t actually say that. His levity was helpful in one way. It actually helped me to feel a little less paranoid and guilty. I don’t know why I had a reason to feel guilty. It wasn’t like I was doing anything wrong. And even if I had been here on a date—which I wasn’t—it’s not like Karl and I were in a relationship. I could date whomever I pleased, thank you very much. Or rather, I could not date whomever I pleased.

  “What an unexpected surprise to run into you here at Aaron’s,” Karl said loudly as he planted himself next to our table. I wanted to die. Sliding right under the table would have been a welcome relief. But I couldn’t do that because Karl wasn’t done. “Did you get the arrangement I sent you?”

  “About that, Karl.” I looked for my backbone. It was there somewhere. I knew I had one. It had gotten me this far, hadn’t it? “Could you please stop sending me edible arrangements? Actually, just stop sending me things at all. I don’t welcome your attention and I wish that you would just get the message. There is no us. There is you and there is me and me really wants you to leave me alone.”