ROMeANTICALLY CHALLENGED Read online

  “Of course not,” he said, doing a piss-poor job of hiding his disappointment. “I was referring more to the day of the wedding.”

  Annie had worked with Clark for six years, lived with him for three of those, so she knew his moods and quirks. Knew by the long, soft pauses between words that renowned surgeon Dr. Clark Atwood wasn’t providing options. He was delivering a prognosis.

  Whatever hopes Annie had about the possible outcome of this conversation were beside the point. Clark had weighed the possible scenarios, come to his decision, and nothing was going to get in the way of his wedding. It was moving forward regardless.

  Any rational person would shout a resounding “Fuck off” to the universe, Clark, the inventor of carrot cake, and—she popped another eyehook—all of Victoria’s rib-crushing secrets. But anger wasn’t a luxury Annie had ever afforded herself.

  “Clark, it doesn’t matter what I think or even what I say. It’s your wedding, you’ve made up your mind, and I’m no longer the bride.”

  Her heart gave an unexpected and painful bump, followed by enough erratic beats to cause concern. Not with resentment or jealousy. Not even anger. She’d learned long ago that resenting other people’s happiness didn’t lead to her own.

  No, the familiar ache coiling its way around her bones and taking root was resignation. Resignation over losing someone who had never really been hers to lose.

  Too tired to hold on any longer, Annie released her grip on the silk and the dress slid to her hips, leaving her with only a matching corset set, heels, and an overwhelming sense of acceptance, followed by acute loneliness.

  “I know,” he said gently. “But you’re still my friend. When we broke up, we both promised to do whatever it took to keep our friendship. I don’t want to lose that.”

  “You convinced me you weren’t ready for marriage, and not even a month later you were Instagraming love sonnets about another woman.”

  “That was shitty timing on my part. I should have handled it better.” He released a breath, and she could almost picture him resting his forehead on the heel of his hand. “I don’t even know how to explain what happened. Meeting Molly-Leigh was unexpected and exciting, and I know it seems completely insane but . . . suddenly everything made sense, the pieces all fell into place, and I couldn’t wait another second to finally start my life.”

  Annie expelled a breath of disbelief, which sent Clark backpedaling.

  “God, Annie, I didn’t mean that how it came out. But when it’s the right one, when it’s your person, you know it. And there’s this urgency to grab on and hold tight. No matter what.”

  That’s exactly how Grandma Hannah had described meeting Cleve. A single spin around the dance hall and—bam—they were in love.

  “And when you said you loved me? Was that a lie?”

  “No. I meant every word I said, and I still do. But over time it became clear that we were better as friends. You and I both know that.”

  Yeah, she did. But the rejection was still raw. Her best friend now belonged to someone else. And that hurt most of all.

  “Good to know,” she said. “Because I expect all my money to be Venmoed to me by tomorrow.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” he said, then did the whole hand over the mouthpiece while talking to a make-believe secretary. “What? Okay, I’ll be there in one second. Prep OR—”

  “—Seven,” Annie said in harmony with him, and he went silent. “Remember I was there when you invented OR seven to get off the phone with your ex?”

  “Which is why I’d never be stupid enough to use it on you. I really am needed in the OR,” he lied. “Gotta go.”

  “Don’t you dare hang... up on me,” she said the last few words to herself because he’d already hung up.

  Annie dropped the phone on the couch and wondered, not for the first time, when it would finally be her time to belong. She wasn’t greedy. One person would be enough.

  Her grandparents had belonged to each other. Her parents, to their patients. Which was why she’d been so understanding of Clark’s late hours, his dedication to his career. Because in that world, she knew where she fit. Now she felt like she was in a free fall, spinning out of control, unsure where she was going to land.

  Chapter 2

  If Annie didn’t come up with an escape plan—and STAT—she was going to be stuck in wedding hell. A ridiculous thought, since she was no longer even a bride. But the universe didn’t seem to care.

  Kicking off her shoes, Annie reached back for the next eyehook. Either her arms were too short, or the hook was too low, but she was willing to bet her last piece of pepperoni and green olive pizza that even Houdini couldn’t liberate himself from this dress.

  Gripping the cream silk and lacy cups with both hands, she pulled the bodice to the side. It didn’t budge. She gave a hard tug while sucking in her belly, then again while jumping in the air.

  “Shit!” The stupid thing had been so easy to put on and now she was afraid she’d have to cut herself out. “Shitshitshit!”

  She’d relocated far away from everyone she loved and everything she knew to steer clear of Clark’s wedding. Cut her long black hair—much to her mother’s horror—into choppy layers that framed her face. Worked thirty-six-hour shifts to avoid answering the phone and reassuring her parents that she was fine—and her mother that she did not look like a boy. Which meant reassuring herself that she was fine.

  And there she was, so not fine, stuck in some other person’s wedding.

  Even moving one hundred miles from her past hadn’t changed the trajectory of her future. It was as if she were still back in Hartford instead of making her fresh start in Rome—Rome, Rhode Island not Italy. Which explained the missing four thousand miles on her travel itinerary.

  Sadly, when the temp agency e-mailed her a job offer in Rome, Annie had been head deep into a pity party for one—hosted by none other than Jose Cuervo. So she’d responded with a resounding yes. Which was how she’d arrived at this remote cabin on the banks of Buzzards Bay in historic Rome, Rhode Island, instead of a villa on the River Tiber.

  Yup, Annie was living in the one state that was shockingly less diverse than Connecticut. Her ex-fiancé wanted her opinion on what lighting would make the first kiss most romantic. And her wedding was moving forward with a replacement bride.

  “I guess if the medicine route doesn’t work out, I could always start my own business,” she said to the moose head that hung above the fireplace. “I’ll trade in my PA for a PPA, Professional Practice Fiancée, and give men lessons on being a proper husband.”

  She’d make millions. She was already five for five in the happy-couples department.

  Huffing her hair out of her face, she bent at the waist and tugged the fabric toward her head while making a shimmying motion with her torso. Finally! With a small tearing sound, which she’d feel for years to come, the dress fell to the floor.

  Sweaty and overheated, she closed her eyes and let her hands dangle toward the floor. “What is up with my luck?”

  “I’ve been asking myself the same question. In fact, I’ll give you twenty bucks if you promise not to stop,” an unexpected male voice said—from inside her house!

  A lump of terror materialized in her throat as every horror movie Annie had ever watched came rushing back.

  Telling herself it was still Clark on the phone, she opened her eyes and squeaked.

  A big, broad figure loomed behind her—in her bedroom doorway. Even from her upside-down between-the-legs view, he looked mean and menacing, and very ax-murderer-esque.

  Her heart pounding as if it were going to shake apart, she gripped her stiletto and whirled around. As a weapon, it wasn’t quite as lethal as she’d like, but she leveled him with her most intimidating glare. A glare, Clark had said, that could scare small children, ward off vampires, and cause even the most impatient of patients to take a seat.

  Clearly, ax murderers were immune. Or hers was, because he lifted a single brow
and she swallowed—hard.

  Huh. Simple, but effective.

  “Who the hell are you?” She took in his bare chest, boxers, and bedhead—no sign of the ax. “And why are you sleeping in my bed?”

  His eyes took in her attire while his lips kicked into a crooked smile. “I was about to ask you the same thing, Goldilocks.”

  Chapter 3

  Emmitt Bradley was exactly two days out from a three-week stint in Shenzhen’s finest ICU, and already he was experiencing some disturbing symptoms. Hallucinations being the most concerning.

  She was certainly the sexiest little hallucination he’d ever conjured. He’d take it over the blinding headaches any day. Hell, maybe he was still overseas, and waking up to find nothing but cream lace and toned skin traipsing around his house could be some kind of medically induced wet dream.

  No, he remembered the explosion, the crushing force of the blast that had leveled both him and the subbasement of the concrete factory he’d been covering. The ride to the hospital and following few weeks were a bit fuzzy, but the cold sweats and stabbing pain as the cabin pressurized on his flight home would be forever branded into his memory.

  The doctor had warned him about flying before he was ready. Even gave him a strict list of things to avoid upon being discharged:

  Work.

  Whims.

  Whisky.

  Women.

  Okay, the last had been his addition, because without bossy women he wouldn’t be sidelined while someone else covered his story. Something he didn’t want to talk about just yet, which was why he’d kept his homecoming on the down-low.

  Maybe he’d gone to the local bar and invited some barfly back to see if his bed was too big, too small, or just right. In his condition it was doubtful, but not out of the realm of possibility.

  He sized her up with a single glance. Nah, a woman who looked like this one didn’t hang around the Crow’s Nest looking for one-night flings. And guys like Emmitt never offered more.

  He was back to the coma theory. And if there was one thing Emmitt knew how to do better than anyone, it was testing a theory.

  “Normally, I’d say the more the merrier.” He ran a hand through his hair and—damn—even his follicles hurt. “But tonight’s not good for me.”

  Her fear was immediately replaced with contempt. “I’m so sorry to intrude on your precious man-time,” she said, then slung her heel at his head. “Now, get out!”

  “Jesus.” He ducked, because hallucination or not, that thing looked dangerous. Bright red, pointy toed, and sharp enough to pierce steel, or—he looked up at the spot on the wall where his head had been two seconds earlier—wedge itself into sheetrock.

  “Seriously, who put you up to this?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “It was Levi, wasn’t it? All self-righteous about dating, telling me my luck was bound to run out and I’d end up attracting one of those Crazy Cuties.” He took his time giving her another once-over, paying extra-special attention to her panties—cheeky cut, if he were a betting man. “You don’t look like one of those. But I’ve been wrong before.”

  “Crazy?” She snatched the remote control off the coffee table.

  “See now, Goldilocks, you’re missing the whole cutie part.”

  She stood there, straddling that threshold between retreat and retaliation, remote poised and aimed for complete castration, and contemplating her next move.

  Emmitt stepped closer, dwarfing her with his size, then leveled her with a Come at me, I dare you look that would scare most grown men shitless.

  This woman was neither scared nor intimidated. Stubborn, narrowed eyes met his and made him wonder where the meek people-pleaser he’d heard on the phone had disappeared to. There was nothing meek about the woman standing in front of him. She looked like a genie who’d broken free from her lamp. Not that blond babe who granted wishes either. No, this genie looked as if she had a thousand years of anger stored up and ready to unleash on some poor SOB.

  “My name is Anh Nhi Walsh. Or Annie if that’s too cosmopolitan for you to manage.”

  He was about to inform her that his passport had more stamps than a philatelist when she decided he was the poor SOB.

  Clutching the remote for all she was worth, she pulled back and smiled. Emmitt knew that smile well. He’d invented that smile.

  In fact, he was the grand fucking master of smiles, with double-barreled dimples that he’d hated as a boy and exploited as a man.

  Emmitt Bradley was a certified chameleon who could comfort, intimidate, or seduce with a simple twitch of the lip. But her particular smile promised war—painful and bloody.

  So he took that smile and raised her a grin—Cheshire with a just enough How you doing to make her pause—and that was his window. Without giving her time to react, he did some quick maneuvering, pressing her against the adjacent wall, her hands pinned above her head.

  With a startled gasp, she looked up at him with eyes that had to be the darkest shade of brown he’d ever seen.

  “Let go,” she shouted, her breath coming in erratic bursts. With every breath she took, the lace of her corset brushed his chest, reminding him that, between the two of them, they were barely wearing enough fabric to floss their teeth.

  “You done?” he countered. When she narrowed her gaze, he took the remote from her hand, then tossed it on the chair. He gave her wrist one last warning squeeze. “We good?”

  She nodded.

  “I’m going to take your word for it.” He studied the stubborn set of her chin, her full pouty lips, and those dangerously dark and tempting bedroom eyes that could make a man forget his good sense. She was trouble. And, damn, he loved trouble—almost as much as he loved women. “You break that trust and try to throw anything other than panties my way and I’ll pin you to the floor. Got it, Anh Nhi Walsh?”

  She froze the moment he spoke her name. And yeah, it had been good for him too. Kind of slid right off his tongue, coming out more a promise than the threat he’d intended. But hey, he’d go with it. Everything behind his boxers was demanding he rethink that no-women rule.

  “Annie’s fine. And my panties aren’t going anywhere.”

  He stared her down for a long minute, then let her wrists go. He didn’t back up though. He could pin her to the floor, but he was pretty sure he was sporting a woody and didn’t want to bring any more attention to it.

  She must have noticed, because her cheeks turned the sexiest tint of pink.

  “Annie it is.” He glanced at his home security panel. The light was blinking a steady red. It was armed. “Now, you want to tell me how you got past the security system?”

  She opened her mouth to shout again—he could tell—so he put his fingers over her lips. His head was one word from the jackhammers breaking the rest of the way through his skull. “Quietly. Tell me quietly.”

  “I punched in the pass code,” she said through her teeth. “Now you. How did you get in?”

  “By unlocking the door I installed when I bought this house.” He jerked his chin to the key ring hanging by the door, only then noticing the starlit sky beyond the windows. It was just as dark as when he’d closed his eyes earlier. “What time is it?”

  “Eight-thirty.”

  He’d barely slept a few hours. No wonder he felt like crap. He was thirsty, tired, and needed to pee. Time to tell Goldilocks to start looking for a new bed, because even if his was just right, it was closed for the summer.

  “Look, it’s been fun,” he said, running a hand down his face and coming to a hard stop when he reached his jaw. He touched it again and felt the days-old scruff against his palm. “What day is it?”

  “Wednesday.”

  “Jesus.” He’d slept twenty hours—not two—losing an entire day.

  Slowly, he made his way to the kitchen, where he opened the fridge and grabbed a beer.

  “You’re Emmitt Bradley?”

  “Never heard my name sound like an accusation before, but yeah.”
He popped the cap, took a long swallow, then contemplated spitting the liquid back in the bottle.

  Whoever thought—he read the label—kiwi paired with hops should be fired. With a grimace, he lowered the bottle and found her standing in front of him, her earlier outfit covered by a blue scrub top.

  “Emmitt of the ‘Hey Emmitt, this is Tiffany,’” she said in a perfect barfly voice that was three parts helium, one part phone sex operator. “‘You’d better call me when you get back in town. I had to hear it from Levi that you’d come and gone without so much as a kiss hello.’” She rolled her eyes and her voice went back to the deep, throaty one he preferred. “That’s Tiffany with a Y. Not to be confused with Tiffani with an I, who won’t be back until the leaves start to fall but wanted you to know she was thinking of you.”

  Fighting back a smile, he wiped the back of his mouth and set the bottle on the island. “And you know this how?”

  Her bare feet shuffled over to the telephone. There was a stack of sticky notes posted next to it. She flipped through them, then held up exhibit one. “This is Tiffany with a Y.” She walked over and smacked it on his bare chest. “This is Tiffani with an I.” Another smack. “Then there’s Shea, Lauren, and Jasmine.”

  Slap slap slap.

  “Rachelle and Rochelle.”

  He grinned down at her. “That was only one slap. Which was it, Rachelle or Rochelle?”

  “Both,” she said dryly. “When your mailbox here filled up, they stopped by. Together.” As his grin grew, her lips pressed together until they resembled a single line. “Then there’s Chanelle, Amber, Ashley, Nicole, Sweet P, Diana”—she looked up—“who made me promise I’d write down ‘Dirty Diana.’ Said you’d know what that meant.” That one got a big smack.

  “Ow,” he said, but she didn’t look concerned.

  “Here.” She handed him what was left of the stack.

  He pulled them off one by one, looking for the only message he cared about. He dropped them to the floor as quickly as he disqualified their importance. The further he went, the worse his head ached, until squinting only made things unbearable.