Tainted Love Series Boxed Set

by Lily Zante

  It was a feeling of ease and contentment that Melissa wasn’t used to. It was a feeling she liked.

  As they made their way back into the living room, they heard voices and laughter outside the front door, and the sound of car doors closing.

  Back already? Melissa’s heart sank at the thought of Heather returning so soon.

  “Let me show you my room,” said Melissa, cringing at what Noah might have thought of her poor line but anxious to move him out of here, where it sounded like Heather was about to make an appearance any time now.

  “Oh, okay,” Noah replied, unsure, and then followed Melissa as she quickened her footsteps heading towards her bedroom.

  She wanted privacy and they needed a quiet uninterrupted place where they could at least talk easily, especially now that they had finally managed to get some time alone.

  “Big room.” Noah whistled, his tone one of admiration. Thankfully it was also relatively clean and free from clutter. With the exception of the reading chair in the corner beside her table, there was nowhere else to sit apart from the bed. And so they stood like two gangly teens in the middle of her room, him admiring the dimensions of it and her breathing a sigh of relief that it was in a relatively presentable state.

  They stared at the bed—and avoided staring at the bed.

  “Yeah,” repeated Noah, “it’s a great place you’ve got here, so close to work and all.” He folded his arms.

  “It is a great perk,” she agreed, entwining her hands together.

  “Great,” Noah agreed, and then looked at her. Before she knew it he moved towards her, and she towards him, so that within the next second, their bodies touched. His arms slid around her waist, as hers snaked up his arms, and tightened around his shoulders. “This is an even better perk.”

  “Yeah?” It didn’t matter if he told her that it was raining cats and dogs now, she only wanted to melt into his lips, to capture more of what had been promised to her the last time they’d been close like this.

  But his answer was given to her by the touch of his lips, gently brushing hers, not so much a teasing touch as an inquisitive one, which she answered, by moving her lips to bond with his. She tightened her arms around his neck, and savored the feel of him, this time with the hunger that came from not having finished what they’d started.

  His kiss was firm, and claiming and she moved into it, kissing him deeper, claiming him back. Her fingers tangled in his hair and she pulled him tighter towards her, moaning into his mouth and willing him to move closer still.

  She had no recollection of how their tangled bodies ended up on her bed, both still fully clothed, as they rediscovered the first unsure but hungry touches of each other. She looked at him, at the one who had made her see how much better it could be. When he smiled up at her, she bent down and ran her hands through his dark hair, reveling in the feel of its silk through her fingers.

  She couldn’t say with certainty how things with Noah would work out, but she felt as though she had a pretty good idea. For in the months she’d already known him, he’d always made her feel good inside.

  In fact, he’d always made her feeling pretty damn amazing.

  Having been with someone who had dragged her to despair, she knew it could be better, knew she deserved better, knew she didn’t have to settle for anything less.

  Life with Noah promised all of these things.

  ** The End **

  Embracing Love

  (Tainted Love, Book 3)

  Chapter 1

  Tanya Braun waited alone in the discreetly chic office belonging to Gabriel Valois. Fighting to keep her irritation in check, she swallowed hard and felt her neck muscles tighten before venturing a glance at her watch. She looked around the room, tapping her foot in a poor attempt to stifle her growing annoyance.

  He kept it tidy, she thought, and sniffed, inhaling the scent of cedar wood and spice that hung in the air.

  This was insane.

  She’d arrived on time, and had already waited outside in the reception area for fifteen minutes. He came rushing into the office, apologized for running over on a prior meeting, and called her in.

  But a moment later he excused himself to take a call on his cell and disappeared out of the room.

  She’d been waiting ever since. Should she be thankful that she’d now been given access to his office and was at least a step closer to seeing him?

  Footsteps outside alerted her to his return and she heard him close the door and sit back down opposite her.

  He folded his hands and frowned, making her feel at fault for being here.

  “You wanted to see me?” He narrowed his eyes as he spoke. This was a meeting Nadine had set up having met with Mr. Valois last week. Today, Tanya had come with the intention of putting into place a strategic plan for delivering an ad campaign that Nadine, the executive creative director of the Zimmerman Group, and Russell Trent, the CEO of Flight US, a sportswear company, had already discussed in the US.

  It seemed to her that the man had a problem and if so, he ought to bring this up with Michael Zimmerman, her boss, and Russell Trent, his boss. They both wanted the two companies to work together and Russell had already been blown away by the success and brilliance of the advertising campaign Nadine had put together.

  It was this very advertising campaign that had now been imposed on Mr. Valois, and the man didn’t seem remotely interested in anything she had to say.

  “I’m following up a meeting you had with Nadine Stefano last week,” she started, and then hesitated as Mr. Valois picked up a pen and began to tap it noisily against the smooth wooden surface. “I have some designs based on what you and Nadine discussed last week. Perhaps we could discuss them? I’d be most interested in your feedback.”

  She pulled out the designs Luc had created and spread them out carefully over the desk, all the while telling him of her ideas in order to ensure that this new ad campaign would fit in more closely with Flight Europe’ product line. But Mr. Valois’ continuous pen tapping and the look on his face when she glanced his way, told her he wasn’t paying much attention to her words.

  “Would you please stop that?” This time she didn’t even bother to hide her displeasure. “It’s…somewhat annoying.”

  He stopped, but gave her a cold stare.

  “The conceptual designs,” she said, pushing her mockups towards him. Her gaze met his cold flint-like eyes.

  “And what do you want me to do with these?” He asked, scarcely giving them his attention.

  “You are the client, Mr Valois,” she attempted to match his hostility, in a subtle way. “I am only here at your request.”

  He shook his head and leaned forward before he threw down the pen. “We have been happily working with a local Parisian ad agency with which we have a great relationship. We like their work. Just because our parent company in the US seems to be overexcited with the ad campaign your people have put together, I do not see why it should be imposed on us. We might be the same company, however we are continents apart, we are different countries and it makes no sense at all to change what is already working well.”

  She reined in the desire to answer him back and met his stare with one just as cold.

  This was a major account for the Zimmerman Group and the Flight Europe ad campaign was important. This had become Michael Zimmerman’s mantra and Tanya was already sick of hearing it.

  Nadine had told her that the recent introduction of the Flight ad campaign in Europe had added a further layer of complication to her role. Tanya was well aware of this.

  However, no complication was bigger than the rude man who now stared at her, barely able to contain his contempt.

  She needed to make the Flight campaign here a stellar success—to at least match what Nadine had created in the US. This was supposed to be easier, since Nadine had already done the work. This man, the head of marketing for Flight Europe, only had to agree minor changes yet he seemed eager to prevent the campaign from getting of
f the ground.

  This project was vital not just for the company but for her. Tanya needed to prove that a new life abroad wasn’t just an escape for her— that a new career, a new company, new people and new challenges were what she wanted in order to start over.

  But success was measured by results and she was going to need a boatload of them.

  Inwardly disheartened and feeling as though this was going to be an uphill struggle all the way, Tanya gazed at the obstacle to her goals and attempted another try.

  “I’m sorry you feel that way, however the issues concern you and your boss, not me, Mr. Valois. I am only the messenger. I’m just trying to do my job.” She forced a smile but he didn’t reciprocate.

  This was not going to be easy.

  “How about we take a look at the brochures and decide on the changes you might have in mind?” She sat forward and decided to go through the mockups again. But his cell phone rang and he stared at it briefly before pouncing on it. He answered it on the first ring.

  He stood up abruptly without apologizing for the interruption or excusing himself and took the call there and then.

  With his back turned to her he gazed out of the window, talking in his mother tongue.

  Tanya sat back, she hadn’t realized how much she’d tightened her muscles during her meeting, and now she loosened up a little and felt immediately drained. Unable to understand the conversation, she felt her impatience growing inside her like a hot ball of fire waiting to explode.

  She stared at his back, saw his powerful physique and the V-shape of his torso, the broad shoulders…and looked away.

  It had been a while since she’d had any kind of intimacy with a man and there were moments when her imagination would wander…as it did sometimes with Luc. Not giving in to him was a test of her resolve, which was weakening as the months rolled by. Sometimes, she hungered for the touch of a man’s lips on her mouth, for the feel of a man’s finger on her skin, for a man’s conversation.

  Concentrate, she told herself.

  So she forced herself instead to look at the desk, and then glanced at her wrist. For the length of time she’d been here, they’d discussed pretty much zero. The campaign wasn’t off to a sprinting start at all, and she had a feeling this was what Gabriel Valois wanted.

  He changed to speaking in English just as she realized that she would be late for her next conference call. And her ears perked up, because she now understood the words and also because the tone of his voice had changed. Was he talking to his girlfriend?

  No, he had a child, it sounded like. A son. She hadn’t seen a ring on the man’s finger, not that she’d been looking for one. But all the same she noticed he didn’t have one.

  She seemed to notice these things more ever since she’d taken her own wedding band off. Vincent now had his own life with a new partner and a young child: something she’d been unable to give him.

  Something else she had failed at.

  Tanya stared at the shiny mass of Gabriel Valois’ dark hair and imagined his girlfriend running her hands through it. She wondered what the woman looked like, and guessed that he was the type of man who commanded attention just by the way he stood.

  He was all tall and sharp bones, with a mass of dark hair. She listened to his conversation carefully; understood that his son had been to the dentist for braces and was now being dropped off at school by his mother. She found herself wondering what his son looked like, where the family holidayed, what sort of house they lived in, what they did at weekends. He appeared more relaxed, laughing easily with his son. And Tanya wondered how old the boy was.

  Vincent’s child was sixteen months old.

  Stop it.

  She couldn’t stay here, waiting a moment longer. Mr. Valois had refused to turn around and acknowledge her and had continued to stare out of the window the entire time. Her decision was made.

  She got up and moved to the door, opening it quietly she tiptoed out of his office. Striving to keep her voice calm, to dampen the anger and resentment she felt towards that man, she spoke to his receptionist.

  “Mr Valois seems busy on a phone call and I cannot wait any longer. I have a meeting I need to attend, so if you could please let him know that I had to leave. Perhaps he could call me when he is ready to meet again?”

  The girl nodded and hastily scribbled down something illegible.

  Tanya escaped with a huge sigh of relief.

  Chapter 2

  Back at her office Tanya stared at the photos on social media site where her ex-husband regularly posted pictures of his new family and their wonderful and happy life together.

  The perfect three. One she’d hoped to have been a part of, but she was now sentenced to observing from the side-lines. It gnawed at her, seeing him so happy when she was so miserable without him.

  She wanted to be happy for him, for that was the definition of love, wasn’t it? To make the one you loved happy?

  Misery crept in when she saw he was living his new life joyously and without a thought for the carnage he’d wreaked in hers. Picking up the pieces of the wreck she’d become, had been hard. Was still hard. Hiding it from others, so that they believed she was happily getting on with her own life was harder still.

  “You’re handling this so well.” They told her. “You’re such a strong woman.” They gushed, friends and family admiring her resolve, her getting-it-all-together-ness, her apparent ability to carry on as normal.

  They didn’t know a thing—knew nothing of her pain. Or that her evenings were spent crumpled on the sofa with nothing but wine for company. That she sometimes made stupid choices; bad decisions when it came to men, just because she hungered for a touch, a caress, a feeling of belonging.

  Of mattering to someone.

  She stared at Vincent’s face—which now wore the same expression of happiness he’d had in the early days of their relationship. They’d parted as amicably as possible when the man she’d been married to for four and a half years suddenly left her in order to ‘find out what he wanted’ then later announced he no longer loved her. Oh, and that he’d now met someone else and they were going to have a child.

  Taking all of these things into consideration, her split with her husband could have been worse.

  And she hadn’t really left his life, even though he’d left hers. She still checked his social media pages daily; sometimes more than once a day during the times she felt unbearably sad and lonely.

  He put up photos every other day, of the child, and it was almost as if Tanya had gotten to know the child that she herself was not capable of having.

  A knock at the door broke her thoughts and she looked up to see temptation skulking by her door.

  Luc, tall and with tousled golden brown hair, swept back just above his shoulders, looked like a footballer who had just retired from the game and had accidentally strayed into an office. He was her distraction on really bad days.

  He often stared at her a little too long, and chose to speak to her in person when he could as easily have emailed her or called her or asked somebody else in the office.

  He flattered her, if truth be told, because he was a good many years younger and so good looking and he made her believe that she was still desirable. Even in her early forties.

  “How was it?” He asked, making himself comfortable in the chair opposite hers.

  “The meeting didn’t really start. I’ve got a conference call with Thierry and Mario in the Milan office now. So, if you don’t mind.” She was thankful for the conference call; otherwise Luc wouldn’t move away in a hurry.

  And she could only fend him off, push back on his subtle but persistent interest in her, when her guard was up.

  Right now, she was wide open for company.

  “I’ll leave you to it,” he said, getting up. “I only wanted to know if Flight liked the mockups.” He’d worked with her and Nadine to put them together. As a graphic design artist he would be heavily involved in the ad work for Flight Europ
e.

  Tanya’s eyes rested on his glossy hair and she remembered being close enough to have run her hands through it, back when she’d almost given in, and was about to make another one of her bad decisions. Almost. It had been another lonely night, and they’d been out with work colleagues and were walking home. He was so easy on the eye, and she was so flattered he’d given her his attention. That night something almost happened. But she’d had enough presence of mind to stop.

  “Their head of marketing didn’t get a chance to look through them. I’m hoping we can meet again this week.”

  Luc frowned. “I thought this was an important deal?”

  “So did I.”

  And he gave her another one of his stares, the kind of look that got her pulse ready to race. Yet she was sure he had a girlfriend or someone in the background. It didn’t matter, on days when Vincent’s social media updates caused her more pain, having a demi-God like Luc in the office did wonders for her self-esteem.

  “Are you going to Thierry’s birthday?” His gray eyes rooted her with their intensity, and she heard an invite, unasked yet, but implied, in that request.

  “I’m not sure.” She vaguely recalled the email from a few days ago.

  Thierry stood at her door, waiting for Luc to clear the way, and, catching the end point of the conversation, jumped right in. “Of course she’s coming. How can you not?” he asked as he walked in with a grin.

  “Patrice will be upset, she’s organised a meal at a wonderful new restaurant. And I,” he sat down, placed his folder and pen on her desk, “I will be deeply offended. You must come.”

  Tanya got up and closed the door when Luc left. “Of course I’ll come.”

  “Excellent. How did it go?” Thierry asked her in his gently lilting French accent that had started to rub off on her. She closed the page on her computer and gave him her full attention. “It could have gone better,” she replied. Thierry raised an eyebrow. “What happened?”