Tangled: Contemporary Romance Trilogy

by Dee Bridgnorth

  “I don’t care what the social conventions of real estate say about this situation,” Damion growled. “I’m not going in there with just Bob Abernathy to represent me!”

  I exhaled a huge breath of air that I had not even realized I was holding. I really couldn’t blame him for being worried about that. At least not when he had the information available that he had. I knew Bob a little better than that. But trying to explain to Damion Alvarez that he needed to trust Bob Abernathy because Bob was so narcissistic that he would never let a closing go anything but perfect was a hard sell. Even in my opinion.

  “Look.” I had to shout at Damion from my bathroom because he had spent the night and now we were trying to get dressed and ready to go in that weirdly awkward sort of way that you do when you’ve been kind of intimate with someone, but not all the way intimate and you’re still kind of weirded out by having them around while you brush your teeth. “I know that you think Bob is a moron. He is. About some stuff. But the man knows what he’s doing when it comes to closing a deal. He didn’t make a million dollars in real estate commissions last year because he’s bad at his job. This is the only part where he shines.”

  “Oh great!” Damion’s voice was drifting out of my guest bathroom where he was attempting to make it look like he had not slept all night in his clothes from the day before and was trying to get yet another day out of them. “So I’m just supposed to hope that he doesn’t somehow blow this deal because his ego couldn’t take the blow?”

  “Yeah!” I spit into the sink and then wiped my face with the towel. My expression was kind of weird. Weirder than usual. No. That’s the wrong word. Relaxed. Yes. I had this expression on my face like I really didn’t give a rat’s ass about anything right now. I was cool with whatever. One orgasm and that was what happened? Sheesh! Who knew? “I’m not actually asking you to trust Bob. I’m asking you to trust me!”

  “Oh, that’s kind of a low blow!” He muttered something else that I didn’t hear all of. “Of course I trust you, Lena! But I would trust you even more if you would just come with me!”

  I really waffled with that idea. It wasn’t kosher. If that was even a word that you could apply here. I quit working for Bob’s real estate firm. That meant I had no business being in his business. This deal was his business now. I didn’t get a say or a cut. But I was also apparently kind of sort of involved with the buyer. Did that technically entitle me to a spot at the closing table? No. It didn’t. But if Damion was willing to go in there and pull rank on Bob and tell him that he was paying one point two million dollars for a house in cash and he could have Mickey Mouse at the closing if he wanted to… Well, who could really come up with an argument for that?

  I stomped out of my bathroom into the bedroom and tried to puzzle all of that through in my head as I found clothes. A skirt. A blouse. Oh my God, my hair was such a mess! I had to smooth it back and stick it up into a ponytail because there was just no way that it was going to be in any kind of order after being squished up against a sofa cushion all night long.

  Clothes. Hair. I finally shoved my feet into a pair of sandals and marveled at the idea of being able to still wear them in October. Then I headed out to my kitchen and found Damion standing in front of my open refrigerator.

  There is something that happens to you when you see a really super hawt guy standing in front of your fridge and you know that his hair is all messy and his clothes are wrinkled because he spent the night holding you in his arms on the couch. It’s still odd. And for a moment I wondered if I should clear my throat and do the excuse me routine.

  “You totally lack anything of substance for breakfast,” Damion said nonchalantly as though he had known I was standing there staring at him the whole time. “How about I take you to breakfast before the closing appointment.”

  “Damion…”

  He turned his head and raised an eyebrow at me as if he were daring me to argue. “Do you have anywhere else to be?”

  “Well, no.”

  “Okay then. So just go to breakfast with me.” He pursed his lips and I could actually see the naughty thoughts running in circles in his head! “And if you really feel like you can’t bear the thought of stepping on Upscale Bob’s toes, you can sit in the car while I go inside and sign away a million dollars.”

  “Oh my God, don’t put it like that!” I covered my face with my hands. “Do you not want to do this? Are you changing your mind?”

  He looked totally nonplussed. “Of course I want to buy the house. I’m just not all that worried about the money. It’s worth it.” He seemed to think that over for a second. “More than other shit I’ve wasted money on. I can promise you that.”

  Okay. That was worth a conversation at some point. Even if it was because I was just curious to know what someone could actually blow that much money on! But for now I wasn’t going to let him bully me into going to the closing.

  But I was hungry. “Fine. I’ll go to breakfast with you. But I’m not going to promise anything about that closing appointment. And I’m not waiting in the car. I’m driving. If I decide to, I will leave your butt there and come back when you text me to tell me it’s over.”

  “You would do that?” He gave me a huge set of puppy dog eyes and batted his lashes as though he were a beauty queen. “You would leave widdle ole me there by hisself? What if big bad Bob tries to take advantage of me?”

  “You’re totally the wrong sex for that nonsense,” I assured him with an airy wave. “Bob just doesn’t swing that way. Now, if Ray happens to be there, you might want to keep your legs closed.”

  His brows drew together and he shut my refrigerator with a little more force than necessary. “Thanks, doll.”

  I picked up my keys and wallet from the hall table. “Shall we? Time’s a wasting if you want to get actual food before that appointment.”

  I did not add anything about the fact that neither of us had heard my alarm because we were on the couch in the living room and the thing was blaring like a rocket in the bedroom. I was probably also suffering from an orgasmic hangover. That’s a thing. Look it up.

  We were still bantering and joking about the merits of my attending the closing of his new home when I opened the front door and the two of us came face to face with our lovely haters.

  I think it’s safe to say that Trinity and Karl were more surprised to see us than Damion and I were to see them. Trinity’s face went pale. Her mouth fell wide open so far that it looked like she might be in danger of catching flies as the saying goes. Then her skin started changing to a mottled red and purple that was highly unflattering with her jade green tube top.

  “Wow. The shorts,” Damion murmured to me. “Is that so they can have sex without taking them off?”

  “I don’t know. Lacking a pair or the desire to wear them I really could not speak to their uses or not,” I whispered.

  I really couldn’t even bear to look at them. Short didn’t cover it. They actually appeared to have been chopped on the ass side so that the hem angled up over the butt cheeks for maximum hangage. If hangage is even a word.

  “You bitch!” Trinity snarled the words and actually started running towards me as though she were going to launch herself like a javelin.

  Good for me that I have excellent self-preservation instincts. I barely managed to sidestep her attack. Of course, this was not good for my already damaged front door. Trinity came flying up the steps and rammed right into the door just as I was closing it. She bounced off the scarred wood surface and would have hit the ground had there not been a short flight of steps in the way.

  “Owwww!”

  Her screams were so intense that I had to cover my ears. I didn’t understand what was happening. The noise was so terrific that I saw my old lady neighbor a few doors down moving her curtains to peek outside. Someone else opened their front door to peer out. It was as if the entire neighborhood had just been alerted to some serious accident.

  “What is wrong?” Damion snapped at T
rinity. Then he pointed at Karl Kitson. “Get over here and pick her up! What’s wrong with you, man?”

  Karl was waving his hands as though he were actually going to try and flee the scene. “She’s not my problem!”

  Trinity had stopped screaming and was now sobbing. She had smacked the steps as she fell backwards. Then she had flipped over and was now rolling back and forth on the cement walkway grabbing her crotch as though she was a guy who’d taken a hard blow to the nuts.

  “Oh my God!” I cried out suddenly. I almost couldn’t get the words out. They were so preposterous. “She racked herself!”

  Damion was looking at me like I’d lost my mind. “What?”

  “The shorts!” I told him. “She must have hit the stairs and shoved those shorts up into her butt crack so hard that it probably sliced her in two!”

  “Whoa, is that possible?” Damion barely got the words out before Trinity rolled over onto her belly right there in front of us. “Oh my God!”

  Yeah. That was about all I could think of to say too. There was a huge red welt right across Trinity’s pale as milk butt cheeks. Her jean shorts had kind of ripped, but not totally. The result was that the taut fabric had been totally shoved up toward her waist as though she were wearing a thong made out of stiff denim.

  “Look what you did to her!” Karl shouted at me.

  I couldn’t help it. I laughed. “What I did? Are you out of your mind? I didn’t do that. She’s the one running around in shorts so short and so poorly cut that they just tried to split her in two!”

  “Assault!” Karl shouted. “They’re assaulting my girlfriend! It’s jealousy. My God, the jealousy!”

  My neighbors were finding this entirely too entertaining for my comfort, but what else was I supposed to do? Trinity was rolling on the ground. Karl was now at her side as if less than five minutes ago he hadn’t been trying to sneak off because she was an embarrassment. It was like the scene from some horrible reality television show. The only thing we needed now was some guy with a tow truck to show up and claim he was repossessing Damion’s borrowed car!

  “Hey,” I said to Damion, almost yelling to be heard over the dramatic noise. “Are you still hungry?”

  He pulled out his phone and then held it up to point to the display. “Yeah. We really have to go.”

  “Let’s go then, shall we?” I stepped over Trinity’s prone body, barely managed to avoid kicking Karl in the face where he knelt beside her, and then grabbed hold of Damion’s hand. “I think I’d rather find a quiet restaurant than hang around here. Apparently, the place really needs better security.”

  “No doubt.” Damion winked at me. “I know this neighborhood where they have stellar security. Would you be interested in answering a roommate ad for a house in that area? I hear there’s a single person moving into a house that’s over seven thousand square feet in size. Surely there’s enough room for a second person in that house.”

  “I don’t know.” I clicked the unlock button for my car and opened the driver’s door. “I’ve never had a roommate.”

  “Never?”

  “Well, not unless you count my sister and I try not to because she was the most awful roommate you could possibly imagine. I swear she spent all of her time making lists and ratting me out to the landlords.” I felt almost giddy. I knew that he was joking. But it was the sort of joking that felt loaded all at the same time.

  “I hear this guy even employs a cleaning lady who packed up his old house for him right before she informed him that no single man needs a house that big and he really needed to find himself a wife and start a family.” He got into the passenger seat of my little car. “You know, maybe you can help smooth things over with her.”

  “Are you trying to get me to manage your staff?” I started my car. Trinity was still on the ground in my yard. The neighbors had finally shut their doors and gone back to their lives. I hadn’t really thought much about moving. I liked this place. But having a little more security didn’t sound like a bad idea at all. “So would you want me to help you find a wife and start a family. That sounds like an awful lot of micromanaging to me.”

  “Nah.” He winked at me and my belly did a flip flop in my gut that put a goofy smile on my face. “I think I’ve got that part covered. The wife part at least. I think even I would have trouble having kids on my own.”

  “No!” I snorted and shook my head as I started up my engine and backed up out of my parking space. “You mean there’s something that Damion Alvarez can’t conquer all by himself?”

  “Nope. Even Damion Alvarez knows he needs someone very special by his side for that.”

  I felt a little thrill from my head to my toes. It was like being on a very strange and fascinating carnival ride. One second I was sure there was nothing going on between us. The next second I was sure I was falling head over heels for the guy. Then I seemed to roll back to being sure this was a bad idea, followed a little while later by an exuberant excitement that I’d found the man of my dreams. Was love always like this? It felt like I had developed a personality disorder or something. But if this was what it felt like to go crazy then I would happily keep running headlong toward that goal.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Damion

  We were a couple of minutes late. Two according to my phone display. I didn’t care. Upscale Bob’s Cadillac was parked in front of the title company. Lena pulled her little car into a parking space right beside the big blue boat. She threw the gearshift into park and then looked over at me.

  I already knew what she was going to say. It didn’t matter. I wanted her in there with me and it wasn’t just because I didn’t trust Upscale Bob any farther than I could pick him up and throw him. Lena needed to be there. Upscale Bob needed to see that I valued her opinion and that people like me—his clients—we knew who had really been doing the work in that office. It was an important point to make. At least I thought that it was.

  “I can’t go in there with you, Damion.” Lena’s expression was flat. Totally unreadable. It was almost as though she had turned it off. “It’s really not my place. And if I upset Bob, that won’t do me any favors in the real estate business.”

  “Lena, you’ve been doing that man’s job. You know more about this closing than he does. I want you in there.” I reached over and took her hand. I lifted it to my lips. I didn’t know how our relationship had managed to escalate past all of those courting moments to this feeling that I had where I was pretty sure I was sitting next to the love of my life. It had just happened and I wasn’t one to second guess my instincts. Not about this.

  She looked at the clock on her dashboard. “Fine. I’ll go in there with you, but only because you can’t be any later and I know you’re going to sit here and argue with me until you get your way.”

  “See?” I chuckled to myself. “You already know me so well!”

  Lena was rolling her eyes. “I shouldn’t have eaten that last sausage link. If I get too nervous I’m liable to really regret it. I’ll blow chunks all over the conference table!”

  The woman said the damndest things. I loved it. As I got out of her car, I tried to imagine another woman of my acquaintance who would have even slightly referenced some kind of digestive issue and could not come up with one name. Not even Zelda. They were all painfully polite and afraid to acknowledge any sort of bodily functions.

  I led the way into the title company. I felt like it was the least I could do since Lena was determined to pretend that she didn’t belong there. The assistant behind the desk looked incredibly relieved when she looked up and saw me enter the building.

  “Oh! Mr. Alvarez. It’s so good to have you here with us. They are all in the conference room. You can go on back. It’s the first door on your left.”

  I heard a slight hitch is the woman’s voice as she made eye contact with Lena. I didn’t pause. I didn’t want to give the assistant one reason to try and detain Lena out here in the reception area. So, I sauntered on back to th
at first door on the left as though I had just bought this place too. And the one next door. And the rest of the complex. Half of everything in life is being able to sell the idea that you belong there and are totally confident in your ability to command any situation. I learned that early and I wasn’t about to let it fail me now.

  “Lena?” the assistant called after us. “Are you… I thought… Bob said…”

  I didn’t hesitate or waste one beat. “Lena Schulte is with me.”

  “Oh, well then… Good luck?”

  I didn’t let that bother me, but I could feel Lena’s tension rising like a palpable thing. Not that my girl wasn’t holding it together beautifully. She looked like a million bucks in her frothy yellow skirt and a matching blouse. Her sandals were low heeled and her legs were slim and tanned and long. She looked very put together with a casual understated elegance that most women tried to exhibit and rarely could. Plus, she was wearing her hair in a high ponytail that made me think of nothing but how good it would be to stop and kiss her neck.

  There were three people in the conference room. Of course I recognized Bob. There was a tall rail thin woman wearing far too much makeup and enough jewelry to break her bird bones. That was the other agent who represented the buyer. The other person in the room was a woman in her late twenties who had a huge pile of paperwork in front of her and presumably worked for the title company.

  “Ah, here he is!” Bob gushed. He half stood up to greet me. Then he plopped back down into his seat when he spotted Lena.

  That moment seemed to stretch into infinity. Bob stared at Lena. Lena met him gaze for gaze. The other two women in the room did that super uncomfortable looking squirm thing where people swap positions in their chair about twenty times while trying not to make eye contact even though you can tell that they’re dying to watch what’s happening in the room with hawk-like attention to detail. Finally, Bob stood up and straightened the jacket of his suit.