Forever Mine (Providence Series Book 1)

by Mary B. Moore

  “No, it's okay,” she was sniffing and wiping her face, and I just wanted to grab her and hug her. “Shit,” she sobbed just as I was leaning in to do just that.

  “What?”

  “My bag is in my office; I need to go back.”

  “I’ll go with you, and if we see her, we just talk loudly so we can’t hear her.” I was pretty sure I’d strangle the woman if she said anything else to Isla and then start on Luke, but I didn’t want to make Isla wait to escape, so I bit my tongue.

  We managed to walk back into her office without bumping into either of them, but just as Isla picked her laptop up, we heard the air hooker moan. “Oh, Luke!” through the wall.

  Storming out of Isla’s office, I hammered on his door.

  “What’s going on?” My uncle asked, and when I turned around he was looking at me like I was crazy and LeAnne was behind him looking at me wide eyed.

  Before I could answer, Luke’s door was opened by the man himself and he stood there taking all of us in as he said, “Kendal, thank you for stopping by, and I’ll see you later.”

  “But Luke,” she squeaked back before looking at my uncle and sashaying forward with this smug smile on her face. “Mr. Montgomery, it's lovely to see you. You’re looking well." As she went to kiss his cheek my uncle took a step back taking her by surprise making me giggle; guess he didn’t like her either.

  “Luke, when you have a minute come to my office,” he said looking pretty much pissed off and dismissing the hooker. I guess Luke wasn’t in the mood to say goodbye to her either as he turned around and slammed his office door behind him.

  “Who are you?” She sneered in my direction, deciding that I was worth her time and attention. She wasn’t worth mine though so I did what Luke did and went into my office and shut the door in her face. Hearing my phone beeping in my purse, I saw that I had a text from Isla saying that she had left and was on her way home, and she’d see me in the morning.

  Sitting at my desk, I started to rub my temples; so much had happened in such a short space of time and to be honest, I was feeling a bit overwhelmed by it all. When I thought of Ren, though, I got butterflies in my chest, and it all seemed worthwhile, so on a whim I sent him a text after I replied to Isla.

  Me: Dinner at mine tonight? <3 xox

  Again, he replied immediately shocking the hell out of me. With Andy, I’d have been lucky to get a reply by the end of the day, or he’d just turn up; thinking back on it that was probably because he was too busy screwing every female member of staff in the company and my supposed friends. As if the ass knew I was thinking about him, my phone went off in my hand again, and his name came up.

  I figured I’d read his first and then cheer myself up by reading Rens.

  Asshole alert: Maya I miss you. I’m sorry, can’t you just accept my apology and stop sulking? It's driving me crazy! I love you, and you’re the only one I want. I promise I’ve changed so why won’t you let me show you? Call me xxx

  Why did I think it would be a good idea to read it? I never replied to his texts, and I wasn’t in the mood to deal with his crap again. Ignoring it, I read Ren’s text just as my door opened and my asshole cousin stuck his head around it.

  “You seen Isla?”

  The look on my face must have conveyed my thoughts because he came in and closed the door behind him and rubbed his face with both hands. I’ll admit he looked pretty torn up, but I had no sympathy for him at this point, so deciding to say nothing, I looked back at my phone to read Ren’s message.

  Ren: Sounds good angel. Do I need to bring anything with me? xxxx

  Me: Just yourself! ;-) xox

  I’d replied immediately seeing as the dirty bastard was still in my office looking like a lost puppy and I wasn’t in the mood to deal with him. Don’t get me wrong; I love my cousin like a brother, but what he’d done today had struck a chord with me.

  My phone started to ring in my hand, drawing my attention off of Luke. Seeing ‘Asshole alert’ on the screen, I silenced it and put it on my desk before looking back up at my cousin deciding that he was the lesser asshole of the two.

  “Look, it wasn’t what it looked like,” he said, but I’d heard that excuse before from Asshole Andy so all it did was wind me up even more. It was obvious I’d interrupted him and Isla when I’d knocked, but to stand by and let the air hooker kiss him and say nasty things about Isla? Heck no.

  “It wasn’t what it looked like; I promise you. Isla’s…she’s…fuck she’s everything. Kendal’s…” he looked up at me as he gave a sweep of his hand like that explained everything.

  “I don’t know whats happening between you and Isla, but I do know that she was crying when we left here and that you did nothing to help her when that..that…air hooker,” I hissed, “tore her to pieces."

  The little smile that had been quirking his lips fell. “I’m taking her out with us tomorrow night to this Sheeve’s place. If it's the meat market that you all claim it is, she’ll find herself a guy for the night, and I’ll make sure he’s a nice guy because that is what she deserves." I knew that the last bit would piss him off.

  “Like hell you will,” he growled at me with a scowl that, if he weren't Luke, would have made me pause. The guy needed to face facts though and lighting a fire under him might help him.

  “I sure as hell will Luke Ian Montgomery and here’s why: you lost your chance when you let that thing paw you, kiss you and destroy Isla without defending her at all. You lost your chance when you did whatever it is you did very audibly in your office.” God that was disgusting thinking about my cousin with her in the office next to me; thank God I hadn’t eaten.

  Luke had a stupefied look on his face like he had no clue what I was talking about. Again, Andy had done this to me often so it didn’t work on me and I was disappointed that Luke had such little respect for me to use it on me.

  “What? I didn’t do anything with her?”

  “Of course, you didn’t,” I sneered; I’d had enough now.

  “She was looking at a plan that I had on the drawing desk,” he shouted standing up quickly from the chair in front of my desk. “I didn’t touch her! She came in and was talking, and I wasn’t listening because I was too busy thinking about Isla. Then she walked over to the drawing desk and saw one of the plans for that media company and said that when she saw the 3D mock-up.” He was pacing back and forth by this point and kept running his hand through his hair, and then he froze and slowly turned toward me with a look of horror on his face. “Tell me Isla didn’t think that we were…” he whispered.

  The look on my face must have said it all because the next second he was out the door and shouting at LeAnne to hold his calls.

  God, this place was becoming a bit of a mess. Yes, there had been drama and stress in Tampa, but had it been as bad as this? I was trying to remember when my phone lit up again with Ren’s name. There were two messages from him, and I wondered why I hadn’t noticed before and then remembered I’d put it on silent when Asshole Andy had called.

  Ren: I’ll see you at 6.30pm. I have a surprise for you. xxxx

  Ren: Wanna know what it is? xxxx

  He always seemed to be doing little romantic things for me, and I hadn’t done anything for him yet, so at 5 pm when I shut down my computer, I drove the short distance to Scarlett’s.

  14

  ____

  Ren

  I’d been on edge all day. Last night was such a shit storm of epic proportions that I was waiting for Maya to just say forget it and walk away. We may just be starting off, but she already meant everything to me and the worry was eating away at me. I was working under a Camry trying to get the new exhaust as I mulled over last night again, and the next thing I had to move quickly before it dropped on me.

  “What the fuck?” I roared across the garage making everyone stop and stare at me. Throwing my wrench towards the corner of the garage I stormed up to my office, slammed the door behind me and walked to my desk.

  �
��Hey bro, that was pretty impressive,” Cole said walking into my office like nothing was wrong. “Old man Wilkins lost his hearing aid and we’d been shouting at him for five minutes with no luck, but you shouting - I think you fixed his ears,” he snorted laughing, funny fucker! “Listen, if you’re having problems down below I’d be happy to…”

  I launched myself across my desk and missed him by centimeters as he ran out the door to safety, pussy!

  Deciding to clock out early, I stopped off at Fiori, the florist that had been in Piersville almost since it began, to pick up a bundle of cherry blossom branches for my girl and then headed home and had a shower before driving to Maya’s. I pulled in just as she was getting out of Hulk and snorted that I was now calling the damn vehicle that name.

  “Hey, you’re early,” she said with a huge grin on her face and all of the stress weighing on my shoulders left me. Walking up to her, I pulled her in for a hug and stuck my face in her neck where her uniquely Maya scent was strongest, and just breathed her in. “You ok?”

  “Yeah baby, I just…needed that,” I whispered into her neck. There was no one around who could hear us, but this conversation was just for us. I had never in my life felt the need for a female like I felt for her, not even close to it. Before Maya, it was just moments of emptiness that now embarrassed me and made me feel ashamed of myself; every moment with Maya meant something to me though, no they meant everything to me.

  Pulling back from her, I reached for the bags in her hand and saw the shiny one with Scarlett Treasures written on it and groaned. “Is that…what did you get?” I croaked.

  I had been in there before to buy pieces of jewelry for Layla. Granted I could have just got them from Ava as she made most of them, but I was a guy and the shop was filled with sexy shit, so hell yes I went in. I could only just imagine what Maya had bought, which made me groan again.

  “Let's go into the house beast,” she laughed and pulled me towards her door.

  She went into the kitchen and started pulling out pots and pans and shit from the fridge. “Need a hand?” I offered, even though I was kind of scared of her kitchen. It was full of fancy appliances with KitchenAid and Cuisinart written on them and I had no idea what they did.

  “No, you just sit. How was your day?” She asked measuring something out and turning on a mixer with the other hand. Women and multi-tasking was impressive to watch, although I’d deny it if I was ever asked because it just made men look bad.

  Thinking back over my day, I scrubbed my face with both hand. “Shit,” and it really had been. Ever since I opened the shop, I hadn’t lost focus once. Even on the days that I worked the ranch too, or when there were huge problems like missing parts, shipping delays and shit like that I stayed calm and pushed forward. My mind just wasn’t on it just now and I needed to sort that out before there was an accident or I messed up a car and killed someone though.

  “I’m sorry honey,” she turned her back to whatever was being done by the machines and looked at me with a soft expression on her face. “If it helps mine wasn’t much better.”

  “What happened?” I asked not liking that she’d had shit happen too; if I could, I’d protect her from everything and everyone. We spoke about our day while she continued cooking and as she put my plate down in front of me it hit me how normal this was, me coming home to Maya after a days work, talking out our problems, laughing, commiserating, her cooking and me sitting….I loved it.

  “Thanks, baby, that looks fantastic!”

  “There’s a cherry Bakewell in the oven too for dessert!” She said sitting down with a glass of wine and putting a fresh bottle of beer in front of me.

  “A what?”

  “You’ll see!” And when it was served up with vanilla ice-cream I couldn’t help the moan that came out my mouth, it was divine.

  “You like?”

  “I love,” and I did. Oh my, God, it was like almonds with sponge and a bit of pastry with cherries, really it shouldn’t have gone well, but it really did. “Where did you learn this?”

  “When we were posted to London, dad used to take us around the country whenever he could. One weekend, we went to a place called Bakewell,” I nodded seeing where she was going with the story, “that wasn’t too far away from a city called Sheffield. We bought Bakewell tarts, Bakewell cupcakes, Bakewell muffins, Bakewell slices and one of these, and I fell in love with all things Bakewell,” she emphasized her point by taking a huge mouthful.

  “Do you miss it?”

  This was one of the other things that had been bothering me, she’d traveled so much did she even want to settle somewhere or would she get bored?

  “What, traveling?” She asked, leaning back and playing with her wine glass with her sexy fingers. Seriously, everything she did was sexy and she didn’t even realize it.

  I nodded and she looked at the table and frowned. The longer she was silent, the more I started to panic, until she looked up.“Yes and no. Yes, I miss seeing new things and experiencing new countries, but at the same time we were never living in places permanently and it made it impossible to plant roots and settle, ya know?” Her nose wrinkled adorably and I groaned for a whole new reason.

  After a bit more conversation about the countries that she’d visited, I suggested that I clean up in the kitchen while she went for a shower making her laugh. “Do you know how to clean the mixer and the scales?” She gestured toward the fancy machines that she’d used so effortlessly.

  “Tell me what to do and I’ll do it, then take your gorgeous ass to the shower, get clean and come back. You’ve had a long day too.”

  After a quick crash course in cleaning scary looking kitchen appliances, she went to her room, but it wasn’t until I heard the shower go on and realized the huge flaw in my plan. I’d thought I was being smart getting her out the room so that I could focus on cleaning to help get rid of the erection that had been getting impossibly harder since I arrived, but now with the mental image of a naked Maya with soap and water running over her body…I wasn’t going to survive.

  Maya

  I felt much better after my shower, washing off the shitty day. I know I should have been thinking about Ren, but I was worried about Isla and still pissed at Luke so I decided to send her a text to check she was okay. Picking up my phone, I saw I had a message from my GBFF in Miami, Tony, and squealed like an idiot with excitement.

  Sexy T: Hey gorgeous girl, been missin ya! Hows work? Any sexy men? <3

  Me: Hey handsome! Really really missing you too. Works cool, you’d LOVE it here- drama and hot men everywhere x<3x

  I really wanted him away from Tampa and the assholes that used him and threw him away, so I was going to use everything that would appeal to him and hot men and drama were perfect.

  Sexy T: Bitch! Get me photos ASAP lol <3

  Laughing, I put my phone back down with a mental note to call him this weekend for a catchup and then remembered I hadn’t texted Isla so I shot her off a message making sure she was okay and asking if she needed anything. I’d decided to wear a pair of gray jersey pajamas downstairs because the bottoms almost look like workout pants with “Tweetie” written in bright yellow across my ass, and the top had a built in bra; comfortable and cute.

  I got downstairs just as he was switching on the television and settling into my sectional. We’d done this a couple times already so he had his arm lifted and waiting for me to snuggle under.

  “Feel better?”

  My head had been on his chest listening to the soothing rhythm of his heart beat and every word he’d said had been vibrated against the side of my face which I realized that I liked a lot. Yes, I’d been in relationships before, but none of them had the natural ease that I had with Ren only a couple of weeks in.