by Mia Madison
Past & Present
Love at First Sight: Book Six
Mia Madison
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
About the Author
Past & Present
Love at First Sight: Book Six
Copyright © 2017 by Mia Madison
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, businesses, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, actual events or locales is purely coincidental.
Each book in the Love at First Sight series can be read on its own, but if you’d like to check out the previous books in the series, just follow the links below.
Touch & Taste (Book One)
Work & Play (Book Two)
Protect & Serve (Book Three)
Wants & Needs (Book Four)
Bend & Break (Book Five)
1
The four men lingering in the doorway of the break room scrambled to get out of the way as I barreled toward it. I ignored their muttered greetings, heading straight to the fridge in search of my lunch.
“Uh-oh. Here comes trouble.”
Even if the incoming sound of heels clicking on the tile floor wasn’t audible, the round of snickers and the low whistle that followed made what the guys were referring to pretty damn obvious. My jaw clenched and I closed my eyes, counting to ten in my mind before spinning around and fixing the group with a glare.
The snickering stopped immediately.
“Shut the fuck up, Jerry,” I growled, barely able to resist the urge to slap him on the back of the head. “Or are you trying to land the company a sexual harassment lawsuit?”
“N-No, sir.”
“I didn’t think so. Now sit down at the table or get the fuck out. All of you,” I said pointedly, snapping my fingers in Jerry’s direction as he tried to flee the room with the others. “Not you. You stay.”
The others shuffled around the room, quickly grabbing their lunches and evacuating before I started laying into Jerry. As soon as the room was empty, I opened my mouth to chide him for his behavior—but the return of clicking heels in the hall made my mouth snap shut.
“Knock, knock.”
I blinked multiple times before smiling at the woman who leaned against the doorway and tapped lightly against the wood.
At the same time, my annoyance at Jerry’s cat-calling morphed into anger. He must have sensed the shift in my mood because he fled the room while I was distracted by the new presence.
“Whoa. Where’s the fire?”
“Don’t ask,” I muttered before allowing the smile to return. “What are you doing here?”
“Taking you to lunch, Ethan. My treat.”
“Well this is a pleasant surprise,” I drawled as my eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Did your husband put you up to this?”
Layla grinned. “Nope. This was all my idea.”
It didn’t surprise me. My brother had never been very good at remembering dates, but his new wife apparently was. While I was touched by her concern for me, I was simultaneously irritated for the reasoning behind it.
“While I appreciate the offer, it really isn’t necessary. Today is a day like any other,” I said as I turned back to the fridge.
I knew better than to expect that to be the end of it. When Layla and Mason first moved to Miami together, they lived with me for nearly four months while looking for a place.
It was a little touch and go at first, but Layla turned out to be one of a handful of women who weren’t at all afraid of me. She learned that my size made me look a lot scarier than I really was and I learned that—despite her petite little body—the woman was a fucking hell raiser.
A stubborn one, at that. So it wasn’t a surprise when she huffed and stalked over to me, placing a dainty hand on my shoulder and tugging until I looked back at her.
Layla scowled as she said, “Don’t try to pull that shit on me, Ethan. We’re going to lunch.”
“I have food—”
“We’re going to lunch!”
“Jesus—all right. Just tone it down a little, okay?”
The last thing I needed was for some of those chumps to overhear this tiny slip of a woman giving me orders. She gave me a smug smile before spinning on her heel and strolling out of the room, leaving me with nothing to do but shake my head to myself and follow.
“Women.”
We ended up at Edelman’s, one of my favorite restaurants. Even though she invited me as her treat, I decided not to let her pay after we ordered our lunches. Not only due to my sense of chivalry, but because I ordered three times the amount of food she did.
“Fuck. I’d ask where you put it all, but uh…” she raised her eyebrows as she trailed off, her lips twitching with barely contained laughter.
“Yeah, yeah. I’m a fucking giant,” I said with an eye roll.
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
She might not, but others sure did. Between being a former bodybuilder and standing at six-foot-seven, I frequently felt like one.
Being nicknamed ‘The Beast’ in my twenties certainly hadn’t helped either.
Layla sobered up quickly and her smile turned sad. Fuck me, but that was the exact reason why I didn’t want to come to lunch with her. I’d much rather have her continue to tease me. That I could handle.
“How are you?”
“Peachy,” I grunted as I inspected the dessert menu, my stomach growling with hunger while we waited for our meals to arrive. “Think I’ll have some of this cake after lunch.” There was a tense pause and I added, “Or maybe not. Ice cream sounds better.”
“You don’t have to do this, you know.”
“Do what?”
“Act like you’re totally fine. It’s okay if you’re not.”
“I am fine.”
“Ethan—”
“Did it occur to you that I would be fine if not for the reminder?” I asked, cutting her off. “What makes you think that I even spared a moment to think about what today is?”
She stared straight into my eyes, her expression softening even more as she said, “If you hadn’t thought about it, you wouldn’t have known why I came by.”
Well… fuck. She got me there. My shoulders slumped as I ran my hand through my hair. I was trying to figure out a way to dodge the comment and shift the conversation, but Layla spoke again.
“Mason says you haven’t even gone on a date since your divorce.”
“Been busy. And this is kind of like a date.”
“Lunch with your sister-in-law is not a date,” she deadpanned, rolling her eyes. “Don’t you think it’s time to let it go?”
“I did let it go,” I snarled. I took a deep breath to control my anger before I calmly said, “I let her go when I served the divorce papers.”
“I didn’t mean her—I meant the anger and the heartache and everything else you must have felt. The real reasons why you haven’t dated since th
en.”
“You think I haven’t tried?” I whispered, aware of just how crowded the restaurant was and feeling pathetic for having my dirty laundry aired here. “And couldn’t this conversation wait for a day that wasn’t my anniversary once upon a time? I’m in a shit mood already.”
Layla smirked. “At least you admitted it.”
“If you start talking about the stages of grief or whatever, I’m walking out. Been there, done that.”
“Then why are you still alone?”
I was about to snap out another excuse about being busy when the waiter returned with our meals. Thank fuck.
It was depressing enough to wake up knowing that on this very day seven years ago, I had been happily getting married. Layla badgering me about my loneliness was just making me feel worse, even though I knew she only had good intentions.
But everyone knew the expression about the path to hell...
“You gonna eat that?”
Her fork was stabbing at my steak fries before she even finished the question and I snarled as I playfully swatted at her hand with my fork. She pouted and I rolled my eyes, lifting the plate to dump some of the fries onto her plate.
“You know if you ordered an actual meal instead of a salad, you wouldn’t need to steal my food.”
“I didn’t realize how hungry I was,” Layla said with an apologetic smile. “My bad. Have you seen the waiter?”
We looked around the restaurant, our waiter nowhere in sight. She seemed content to wait patiently until the man reappeared, but I had no intention of keeping her waiting that long. The man could have gone on break for all we knew.
“Excuse me,” I said as a woman came out of the double doors of the kitchen, looking down at her waist as she tied on her apron. I rose from the chair and called, “Miss?”
Her head snapped up, her ponytail bobbing and lips parting as she gazed up at me. Everything seemed to freeze all at once—my mind spaced on the reason I called out to her in favor of frowning at her heart-shaped face and pink cheeks.
“I...”
The tint on her cheeks darkened and my forced attempt to find words failed. I cocked my head to the side as I studied her closely, unsure of what the hell was happening to me. My only saving grace was the woman seemed to be in a similar state of shock.
I had no idea why the moment was so weirdly tense, but the awkward moment was broken by Layla as she made it worse.
“Excuse my brother-in-law,” she started, stressing the words pointedly. “But our waiter seems to have vanished and I’d like to order something else. Would you mind?”
The woman blinked a few times before dragging her gaze from me and offering a kind smile to Layla. She dug into her apron and pulled out a pen and pad of paper as she softly said, “Of course not. What can I get you?”
Layla prattled off an order almost identical to my meal while I cleared my throat and sat down, hoping I didn’t look as uncomfortable as I felt. The sound of her voice had snapped me out of my trance while simultaneously making the blood in my veins heat to a fucking boil.
I wanted her. I hadn’t wanted a woman like that since...
“Ethan?”
“Yeah?”
Layla raised an eyebrow and gave me a look that clearly said ‘what-the-fuck-is-wrong-with-you?’ as the waitress’s attention shifted back to me.
To her credit, Layla plastered on a smile and asked, “Did you want that dessert?”
“Oh. Yeah. That sounds... good.”
The waitress was giving me an uncertain smile and Layla groaned before grabbing the dessert menu and showing the woman what I had pointed out earlier. She jotted it down and walked off, leaving me with nothing to do but stare at her back with a confused kind of awe.
Until Layla plucked a crouton out of her salad and tossed it at me. It bounced off my forehead as she accusingly asked, “What the fuck was that?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that sexual tension,” she whispered with an over-exaggerated waggle of her eyebrows. “So thick you could cut it with a knife. Damn. You better ask her for her number when she comes back.”
“I’m not doing that.”
“Why the hell not?”
I ground my teeth together and refocused on the pain that still made my chest ache as I hissed, “Because the last time I touched a woman that young, I ended up marrying her. Then she tore my fucking heart out.”
Layla was quiet for a long moment, staring at me with expressionless eyes before she eventually shrugged. Though she seemed disappointed, she understood well enough to not push me.
“Guess I can’t argue with that.”
“No. You can’t.”
“Though I could say—”
“Please don’t.”
“She’s not Sarah.”
“Damn it, Layla,” I growled. “What part of ‘don’t say it’ was unclear?”
“The part where you expected me to do what you told me to.”
Like I said, a stubborn little hell raiser. I couldn’t even imagine how Mason felt. She wasn’t giving it up either.
Layla waited until the waitress walked back into view and hissed, “Ask for her number, you idiot.”
“No.”
“I’ll do it if you don’t.”
“Don’t you fucking—”
“Miss?” Layla called, completely ignoring my growled threat. I started to panic as the woman walked over and gave Layla an expectant look. “I’m sorry to keep calling you Miss. I didn’t get your name.”
The waitress let out an adorably nervous laugh as her eyes flickered to mine before straightening up so her name tag was visible. I read it myself before she announced it to Layla, rolling the word around in my mind.
Juliet.
A pretty name for a beautiful woman. I was no Romeo—I was nowhere near young enough to be so idealistic—but I’ll be damned if I didn’t want to pretend that I could be. Just for a little while.
A hard kick landed on my shin beneath the table and brought me back to reality. I suppressed my irritated growl as I looked to Layla. I could see her eye twitch before her head minutely tilted toward Juliet.
I cleared my throat and choked out, “Hey.”
Holy fuck I’m such a moron. Layla was right.
The poor girl looked bewildered, like she was waiting for me to place yet another order on top of the dessert I had coming. I realized I had no idea what Layla had said to make her stick around, but whatever it was had clearly directed their attention to me.
This was the kind of situation that would have made me blush twenty years ago. Thankfully, I was way too old for that shit now.
Pretty Juliet was not, however. The reminder of the obvious age difference as I took in her pink cheeks put me off a little, but not enough to keep me from what my gut—among other things—was screaming at me to do.
“Would you…. Can I get your number?” I asked, clearing my throat when her eyes went wide. “If you’re not seeing someone, of course. I…. Fuck, I probably should have asked that first.”
Juliet recovered from her surprise quickly, shaking her head as she said, “No, no. I’m single. I…. Yeah. Yeah, sure.”
There was a brief pause where we both clearly didn’t know what to do, but she thankfully took the lead and dug the pad back from her apron. She jotted down a name and number and handed me the paper, her cheeks flaming.
“I’ll call you,” I said quietly, ignoring the smirk I could see on Layla’s face in my peripheral vision.
Her eyes flickered to my sister-in-law for a brief moment before her mouth parted to say something else. There was a moment of hesitation during which she licked her lips and I nearly groaned at the sight.
I really wanted to be her Romeo.
But it was far more likely that I’d end up being the beast to her beauty.
Before she could speak, her name was called by a man I presumed to be her manager. She muttered an apology before she turned away, pausing only to ask, “I’l
l talk to you soon?”
“Yes.”
I watched her disappear into the back and finally looked to Layla, frowning at the look on her face. Her lips were pursed and her nose was scrunched up like she tasted something sour.
“What’s with the look?”
“I’m trying very hard not to crack a joke about your complete lack of smoothness.”
I scoffed and rolled my eyes. “Got her number, didn’t I?”
“Only because you’re handsome,” she replied with a grin. “I totally want to be there when you call her to arrange the date. I can already imagine the awkwardness.”
“You want to chaperone as well?”
Her eyes lit up with delight. “Hell yeah!”
“I don’t know how Mason puts up with you,” I groaned as I reached for my water.
I was chugging down a few gulps when she said, “With a great deal of patience and a lot of spankings.”
I had to cover my mouth to keep from spitting my drink out.
2
During the next few days, I thought of nothing except for the mysterious Juliet and the phone number burning a hole in my pocket. I had yet to program it into my phone—the temptation was too strong—so I simply carried the slip of paper with me every day, toying with it during my lunch breaks and debating on whether or not I really wanted to go through with it.
It’d be more precise to say I was debating whether I could handle going through with it. I knew I wanted to, but that didn’t necessarily mean I should.
Layla didn’t make it any easier to decide. She pestered me every day with a text or a phone call, inquiring whether I had called her yet and mocking me when I admitted that I hadn’t.
Damn woman was going to be the death of me. It was almost shocking how easily my brother was able to put up with her. I’d seen them together countless times and to witness his passive expression as she ranted and raved and raised hell for all those around her was truly astounding.
