Tainted Love Series Boxed Set

by Lily Zante

  A few minutes later her order was ready, taking her by surprise. It depended on who worked there on what particular morning. This morning, it was the speedy ponytailed guy working the coffee machine. He was a whiz at it and it was no wonder her order was ready so fast.

  She turned around, having picked up her muffin and skinny latte—it had taken her weeks to get used to drinking skinny milk, but Matt said it was best. Even though he wasn’t here, she still felt obliged to order it, now that she’d gotten used to the bitter taste of coffee when she had it.

  Balancing her muffin in one hand and her coffee in the other, she grabbed a napkin from the side counter.

  “Blueberry muffin day?” A smile and a finger pointed at the package she held in her hand.

  Soft brown eyes, long lashes. It was him.

  “I like blueberries,” she replied, though blueberries were not the cause of the goose bumps that suddenly popped up all over her arms.

  “I prefer chocolate chip.” He held out his own muffin for her to see.

  “Nice but too many calories for me.” She paused, stopped smiling when his face hardened.

  “You don’t need to worry about calories,” he said, his face serious.

  Nice to hear verification that I’m fine the way I am. A guy like this wouldn’t tell her what to eat or how hard to work out. A guy like this…

  She closed her eyes, blinking away the mere possibility of what it might be like.

  It wouldn’t do to dwell on things like that. For now, it was enough to run into him every now and then since it lessened the blow of Matt’s put-downs. She wasn’t sure if she noticed them more as time went on, or whether Matt had become more critical of her the longer she knew him.

  “You don’t, Melissa,” he said, when she didn’t say anything back.

  In the empty gap between them, where words should have come easily but didn’t, she struggled to find something to say. Because she wanted to say something. She didn’t want to move on past him and walk out the door. She’d been thinking about him, in the background of her conscious thought, and here he was. She intended to savor this moment for as long as possible. But the line he was in shifted, and either she took a step backwards to keep up with him—giving him the wrong impression that she was interested in him—or she could continue on her way out.

  “I hope you enjoy it,” she replied, getting ready to leave.

  “You too.” From the subdued tone of his voice, it didn’t seem as though he was too eager for her to go either.

  She dragged herself away. Nadine would be waiting and Melissa knew she couldn’t stay much longer having a conversation with a total stranger.

  Even if he did make her feel happy inside.

  It was only when she crossed the road to head into work that she realized she still didn’t know his name.

  Chapter 5

  Seeing her this morning had been a bonus and he’d been half tempted to jump out of the waiting line to continue talking to her. But it was hard—hard to take a subtle interest without coming across as a stranger who seemed to stalk her. Of course he wasn’t but he still didn’t want to take the risk of her thinking of him like that.

  Maybe next time he’d be better prepared. He liked to think she was single but knew that this was based more on his wishful thinking than on any real evidence.

  Yet she seemed happy enough to want to talk to him. Had he imagined it or had she lingered a moment before she’d left? And what the hell was this about counting calories?

  What the hell?

  A part of him warned him to run. The other part of him seduced him to stay.

  In the end, everything always came back to Bree. Her words, the ones she’d kept from him, the things she’d hidden from him, all the skeletons in her closet—all of these things now haunted him.

  Perhaps he could have saved her if only he’d known.

  They’d talked about moving in together. Second time around they’d been even stronger. It wasn’t a high school romance anymore. This was real.

  Love the second time around, with them in their early twenties, had been stronger, more overwhelming. Real. If it was real how could he have been so blind to everything?

  Only now did he understand how hard it had been for her to be with him as long as she had, to have lived the lie and kept her secrets to herself. That she hadn’t trusted him, meant he couldn’t do a thing to save her. And this truth slapped him with guilt every single day.

  Next time, he told himself. Next time, he’d make a bolder move.

  His thoughts rushed back to Melissa. At first he thought it was only him that was noticing her, but now, the way she blushed each time she saw him, the way she stared and then looked away, the way she lingered, her body language telling him she wanted to stay when her words said otherwise.

  She did like him.

  But he would need tangible proof.

  He figured that the other sex had it easier. Even in these days of equality, women still wanted the guy to make the first move.

  So if she did like him—and he wasn’t even seventy percent sure that she did—he’d have to make the first move. But only when he was one hundred percent convinced that this girl, the one who’d started to make him forget, might be worth making a move for.

  Chapter 6

  All she could do when she returned home was to collapse on the couch alongside Heather.

  “Hey!” Heather admonished her, as she carefully painted her toes while reality TV spewed from the screen.

  “Sorry.” Melissa hadn’t noticed this delicate operation. She watched her friend wipe away the blurred edge which she’d caused.

  “No date with the mysterious Matt tonight?” Heather asked, as she slowly painted fluorescent orange with concentrated precision.

  “No,” replied Melissa. “I had a crazy day.”

  “You have lots of crazy days.” Heather stopped long enough to give her an accusatory glare. It used to be that she and Heather would catch the bus together downtown. They’d been lucky enough to find Diana, a biotech research scientist who had advertised for two females to share her beautiful condo —a place they’d never have been able to afford otherwise, not within such close distance to downtown San Francisco.

  “It’s even worse now that Nadine’s back.” Melissa closed her eyes and let out a long sigh. The gym workout first thing in the morning hadn’t helped.

  “And you thought things would slow down a little when she got back.”

  Relatively speaking. She had thought they might. But whenever Nadine was around, the pace picked up. She’d assumed it would be easier having her boss in the same country so that she no longer had to send documents back and forth and be mindful of Paris time.

  Heather patted her knee. “Don’t worry, it’ll be Christmas soon. Your mom will fawn all over you when you go back.”

  Three more weeks to go. Melissa looked forward to the break. She walked into the kitchen, finding herself hungrier than ever. She’d missed lunch. Not on purpose—she loved her food—but because she’d been so busy, and by the time she stopped to take a breath, it was late afternoon. She’d started counting calories, something she’d never done before, once Matt had put the idea of consuming no more than half her usual intake a couple of days a week. She didn’t diet. But she’d tried this out for a few weeks and it hadn’t been so bad. Coupled with her working out regularly, her body was firmer, less fluffy than usual. The fitness regime was definitely working and she was living proof.

  “I made macaroni and cheese.” Heather’s voice carried over from the living room. The whole downstairs was open-plan with the kitchen separated from the living room by an island. Two comfy buttercream-colored sofas, placed adjacent to one another in an L-shape, also demarcated the start of the living room area.

  “I didn’t know whether you’d come home today, so I ate without you.” A reference to her not always being at home, even during weekday nights. Melissa ignored the comment.

  She contemplat
ed the macaroni and cheese, took the glass lid off and looked longingly at the nicely golden pasta. Screw reducing calories. She touched the pot. It was still warm. She piled up her plate and sat down at the kitchen island.

  Heather walked over, carefully lifting up the bottoms of her lounge pants to prevent her toenails from smudging. She gave Melissa a devilish grin. “When?”

  “When what?”

  “When am I going to meet this boyfriend of yours? I mean”—a tone of exaggerated intrigue peppered her words—“now that things are all serious between you both.”

  Melissa ignored the drama in her friend’s voice and didn’t rise to the bait. She didn’t feel so confident that a meeting was going to take place anytime soon. She’d run the idea by Matt a few times—suggested that he come back to her place since she didn’t always want to end up at his. He shared with two guys she’d met briefly a few times. But Matt’s place was small and cramped. It was a typical guy’s place, his room full of computers and hardware, messy, with clothing and shoes and books and bags strewn all over.

  It wasn’t only that. She liked to think he cared enough about her, about their relationship to at least show some interest in where she lived. She liked to think he’d consider coming over to hers so that she didn’t always have to travel back home late at night. She liked to think he cared about her.

  He always avoided the topic and so far had never taken her up on the offer. He didn’t seem particularly interested in meeting her friends: not Heather, whom she considered her best friend out here, nor her friends from work.

  Come to think of it, Matt hadn’t shown any interest in meeting anyone in her life. “I’m not sure.” Melissa lifted a forkful of macaroni cheese to her mouth. “Besides, things aren’t all that serious,” she replied, wondering how it was possible that macaroni could make her so happy.

  “You’ve spent more time with him than with any of the others. And he got you to go to the gym!”

  Ignoring that comment, she asked her, “When did you make this?”

  “When I got bored waiting for you. Diana’s off in Japan, god knows how long for, so it’s just the two of us for a few weeks I guess and ever since you found love,” she said in a singsong manner, “I’ve got a lot of time to myself.”

  The good thing about Diana was that they hardly saw her. She attended lots of conferences and seminars, not only in the US but abroad too, and she was almost always away. Even when she was here, they hardly saw her. It was as if they had a beautiful home all to themselves.

  “I don’t see him all the time. We can still do stuff together.”

  “He might have a friend!” Heather sat down beside her.

  “That’s the reason you want to meet him?” Heather’s love life yo-yoed up and down and she changed guys with more frequency than she changed her hair styles. “What’s wrong with that? He might have some gorgeous friends.”

  Melissa was in between pushing another spoonful of warm, creamy pasta to her mouth and responding to her friend’s desperate pleas for a romance. The pasta won out. The taste of it, with the creamy cheese and stodgy macaroni that melted in her mouth, was the very thing she needed tonight. Matt had been a bit moody for the rest of the day and luckily she’d had been so busy at work that she didn’t have time to mope around wondering why.

  “He might not,” Melissa said, suddenly feeling uneasy about introducing her friend to Matt. With his moods, which also yo-yoed up and down, things might not go too well.

  “It is pretty serious then?” Heather persisted, taking note of Melissa’s introspective silence.

  “We’ve only been together a few months.” Her going to the gym was in no way an indicator of the state of their relationship. But him taking photos of her and calling the shots was. She’d challenged him a few times, even gone so far as calling him a pervert. He’d taken that as a compliment. She’d tried to find the photos on his phone and delete them but he’d come back into the room when she was going through it, and in the end, in order to not have a fight about it, because he’d caught her red-handed, she’d ended up letting him snap away at her in her underwear. But she refused to take off her top.

  Her chest heavy, Melissa’s mouth turned dry and she pushed away her plate, feeling none too hungry all of a sudden. These were the things that weighed on her mind. And she wasn’t sure any more about Matt. About them.

  “A few months is good going.” Heather droned on.

  Thankfully they weren’t in each other’s hair all the time and managed to see each other a couple of times a week, not counting the mornings in the gym. But sometimes the guy could act like a complete shit, like he had this morning.

  An image of the guy at the coffee shop flashed into her mind just then, and her heart skipped a beat. She almost smiled.

  “When can I meet him?” Heather twittered.

  “Who?” replied Melissa, already making plans to go to the coffee shop tomorrow, gym, or no gym.

  “Matt.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” sighed Melissa, wishing Heather would shut up. She and Matt were supposed to be going out to see a movie at the end of the week. Dinner and a movie on Friday night.

  “I’ll sort something out, I promise. Can I have the rest of the macaroni?”

  Chapter 7

  Melissa came out of the washroom, all made up, a touch of lipstick and her hair brushed to a sheen. She was slowly getting used to her crack-of-dawn drills, and she had to admit, her body felt tighter, firmer. Her skirts and trousers were a little looser, too. She felt more energized, and her skin glowed.

  All thanks to Matt.

  She was slim, but she was no stick insect. Neither did she want to be. But this business of working out was starting to pay its rewards. She liked the newer, leaner, more svelte Melissa.

  “Hey, you.” Ethan had turned up to meet Nadine.

  “Hey, stranger,” she greeted him in excitement. “Long time no see.”

  He hung around her desk. “Nadine’s in a meeting with Michael,” Melissa explained, “she should be out soon.”

  “Thanks, I’ll wait around.” Ethan glanced at her and she was reminded of how gorgeous he was all over again. She hadn’t seen him since the weekend of the marketing convention way back during the summer.

  “How’re things with you?” he asked, hooking his fingers into the pockets of his somewhat fading stonewashed jeans.

  “It’s always mad here; you must know that by now.” Of course he’d know, being Nadine’s boyfriend. He’d know firsthand.

  Ethan laughed. “Oh, I know it. I’m glad to have her back. Her month out there dragged on too long.”

  She glanced at him and smiled, as she tidied her desk stacking the pens, pencils and paper away neatly. “You missed her? I missed her more.” Melissa sat down, powered off her machine and gave him a cheeky grin. She knew this wasn’t true at all—no matter how much she’d missed Nadine being around at work, this guy plainly worshipped her.

  Whatever it was that had caused Nadine to be subdued a few days ago seemed to be fixed between them because Ethan looked his usual cheerful self. He hung around her desk, looking ever cool, ever sexy in his dark blazer and white T-shirt. How did Nadine manage to concentrate at work with a guy like that to go home to each night?

  “I heard it hasn’t been easy for you this month either, and you didn’t even have the luxury of going to Europe. I think you should ask your boss for a bonus.”

  “She protects me from a lot of the politics around this place.” Melissa kept her voice deliberately low, in case Sandra’s hound-like ears picked up her words.

  “You’re looking well—for someone who’s had a hard month at this place.” Ever the charmer, Ethan instantly put everyone at ease. He wasn’t a grimy, sleazy kind of guy, nor was he a flirt. He was easy to be around, and as gorgeous as he was, she didn’t have a secret crush on him.

  If anything, she was thankful that Nadine had finally found someone who rocked her world.

  Melissa brus
hed a lock of hair out of the way. “If you’re planning on taking her out tonight, I think Nadine could do with some bullfrogs.” The pace had been brutal lately.

  “Bullfrogs?” he asked, leaning in. “They did the trick back then.” He laughed at the memory and she recalled the two of them colluding together at the company weekend away where they had gently plied Nadine with a little more alcohol than she could handle.

  “I got to see a different side to her,” confessed Melissa. It had been an eye-opener. It had been the first time that Nadine had brought Ethan and he’d managed to do the impossible: he got her to relax.

  “It was a fun weekend.” Ethan’s face brightened.

  “I hope we can do another one next year.” Although, as an office assistant she wouldn’t be able to bring her partner the way senior management were allowed.

  As things stood, she wasn’t sure she’d want Matt there. Sometimes he could make her feel inconsequential with his sarcastic remarks.

  “It’s been hectic ever since she got back. Back-to-back meetings most days.” Melissa leaned in, as though speaking in secret.

  “Thanks for the advice. I kind of knew,” he replied in as hushed a tone.

  “Are you ready?” Matt’s stern voice cut a gash through their conversation. Melissa turned around and caught his pinched expression.

  “I’m ready.” She jumped up. “She’ll be out soon,” she told Ethan.

  He gave her a reassuring smile. “I’ve waited all month for her; I’m sure I can wait a little longer.”

  She turned from Ethan’s happy face and stared into Matt’s miserable one. An introduction was in order, even though she felt hesitant. “Ethan, this is Matt.”

  Ethan sloped off the desk and shook hands with Matt. “Nice to meet you.”

  Melissa turned to Matt. “This is Nadine’s boyfriend, Ethan.”

  “Hi.” A monosyllabic response. Typical.

  “Maybe we should all hook up sometime. The four of us?” suggested Ethan. “Sounds like we’d need more manpower to help Nadine relax.” He winked at Melissa, who wanted to smile back, but didn’t.