BLISS: A Wedding Enemies to Lovers Alpha Bad-Boy Billionaire Romance Read online

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  “Darlin’ we’ve been doing this for what? Five years now?”

  I pull the towel from my hair. Cheryl is perfectly coiffed, looking like the billionaire businesswoman she is, not like she just spent the last three hours rolling around getting wonderfucked.

  “Five years in two months.”

  “Which means . . .” Her words drift away. My lips thin. She’s asking me about Susie’s death. The anniversary. “This still workin’ for you?”

  I pull on my jeans and don’t answer. Every year around this time, Cheryl asks me a similar question. I don’t know if it’s her way of assuaging some guilt about never asking about my mental well-being at any other time, or if she really cares about me and my life.

  “Doesn’t it seem like it’s working for me?” I quip. A way for me to avoid her obvious question.

  “I mean, it always seems to work for you,” she walks over to me. Her hand grasps my cock through the denim of my jeans. Damn, she can make me hard fast. “But darlin’, there’s more to life than fucking, even I know that. You’re a young, and there are women who would be very pleased to have you as their full-time man.”

  “You don’t want me part time anymore?”

  “Oh, I’d take you full time if I could get away with it.”

  I press my lips to Cheryl’s. She’s perfect for me in many ways. Sexy. Self-confident. Successful. And aside from this question every year, she’s as uninteresed in a committed relationship as I.

  “I’m good,” I whisper. I care about Cheryl. Not a romantic, knock-you-on-your-knees love, like the kind I had for Susie, but a genuine caring from companionship, shared unapologetic sexual chemistry, and physical compatibility.

  The concern in her eyes makes me uncomfortable. Do I believe my own words? Wonderfucking has worked for me. It’s been my salvation and my sanctuary. A way I can feel without feeling. I can’t be emotionally vulnerable. I don’t have enough in my heart to give to another person, not in the way I gave all my heart, all my love, to one woman once upon a time.

  “Got you a little something.” She nods toward the nightstand.

  A tight feeling works my ribs. Gifts? This isn’t our style.

  “Open it.”

  I lift the lid. The face of a blue Patek Philippe nestled on velvet. A gift with a statement. I’ve never worn a watch, but if I did, this would be the one any man would want to wear.

  “They call it grand complications.” Cheryl says.

  She refers to the ability for this watch to show month, and day and seconds and even phases of the moon. This watch. . . this watch is worth more than my car and I have a fantastic car. I look into her eyes. I want to ask why, but that would be rude, instead I say words that every polite person is trained to say, “Thank you.”

  Cheryl smiles and kisses my cheek. She steps back and picks up her bag.

  “See you in a couple weeks, darlin’,” she says. Then she’s out the door and out of my life until the next time she makes my Wonderfuck phone buzz.

  Chapter 7

  The next day my muscles are sore and my need is sated. I sit in the home I grew up in, next to Mom. Sun streams through the back slider. My sister sits on the couch near my niece. Lily has three dolls, a teddy bear, and six tea cups set up on the floor.

  “Richard, when will Jakey be home from soccer?”

  Rachel’s lips thin into a line. My mother grasps my hand. Her blue eyes are so focused and honest in her question, wondering when my twelve-year-old self will return from soccer. I wish I were that kid. Life was easier when my biggest question was whether to play my Nintendo or watch hours of Saturday morning TV.

  Life was good at twelve.

  I sigh. I smile. I clasp Mom’s hand a little tighter. Really, why not? Why can’t I be Richard, my dad, for a little bit?

  “Anna, I think he’ll be home around three.”

  “Oh good.” She smiles and nods.

  Rachel shoots me a grateful smile. We don’t argue with Mom anymore, trying to get her to remember. No point. Her mind is a hodgepodge of facts. Some memories from years ago sharp and in focus, while others, like who Rachel is, seem to have faded into a distant ether. They bounce around like a bucket of ping pong balls dumped onto a cement floor, with little attachment to this time and place where the rest of us remain. We talk to her and we bring her everything she needs and she watches Lily play with dolls and sometimes she plays with Lily, but we definitely don’t tell Mom that I’m not Dad and that Rachel is her daughter and that Su—

  “When will Susie get here?”

  Shards of glass knife through my chest and into my belly.

  I clear my throat and swallow. “Mom, Susi—”

  “Mom? Did you see Lily’s new doll?” Rachel nods toward my niece. “Lily? Show Nana your new doll.”

  Mom is mesmerized by Lily, but she often thinks my little niece is my sister Rachel. I breathe. I stand. I scrub my hands down the front of my jeans and head out the back slider while Mom and Lily talk about Lily’s latest doll, who is named Mackenzie.

  Sunlight cuts through the branches that rise up above the backyard. In the quiet, I can almost convince myself I’m anywhere but Los Angeles. A place other than with my Alzheimer’s-riddled mother in my childhood home.

  The pool is crisp and blue. A light breeze ripples the surface. Deep breath in and deep breath out. Susie loved this pool. She loved Mom. I have fond memories of being in this pool with Susie. That long lush blonde hair, white bikini, sun-kissed skin.

  My eyes sting. Too early for fires in the hills. What could possibly be in the Los Angeles air to make my eyes water? Smog? Maybe. Or maybe it’s simply that the woman I loved is dead.

  “You okay?”

  I turn toward Rachel. She crosses her arms over her chest. Concern laces her tone and touches her eyes.

  “Never better,” I say. “It’s been almost six years.” My words aren’t to Rachel, not even to me. Really, to no one in particular. Just to state the fact, to reconfirm to my heart what my head already knows.

  “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “Fuck if it wasn’t.” I’m Rachel’s little brother, and she wants to believe that I wasn’t the asshole that caused Susie to die. But she’s wrong. Just as wrong as Mom is about my identity. Neither one of them really knows who I am. Can’t. Because I won’t let them. Nor do they really know how hard I pushed Susie to get what I wanted.

  “How was brunch?”

  “Good.” Rachel sits on a chaise lounge beside the pool. “What’d you do all day?”

  Fucked. “Had ice cream with my neighbor,” I say.

  “Tracey?”

  “Tara.”

  “Isn’t she getting married soon?”

  “It would seem not,” I say. “Watched her give back the ring the other night.”

  “Wow.” Rachel’s tone conveys more than simple surprise. “How’d that happen?”

  “Heard the arguing, looked out the door, she said ‘sayonara, sucker’ and handed him the rock.”

  “Should’ve kept it for her trouble.” Rachel looks at her left hand. Her fingers are ringless and slim. She squints. “Did you know?”

  What is big sis really asking? I feel like her question is loaded with innuendo.

  “I mean, you said you went for ice cream . . . were you two . . .”

  “No Rachel, I wasn’t fucking my engaged neighbor.”

  “Right. Right.” She sighs. “Of course not. I mean she’s cute.” Rachel smiles, attempting to make her words into a joke. “Not sure if I’d be mad at you or happy.”

  But they’re not a joke.

  I replay my self-righteous tone in my head and I realize that my ability to compartmentalize is nearing sociopathic levels, because while I haven’t been fucking my engaged neighbor, I don’t have the moral high ground as far as fiancée-fucking is concerned. No. Not at all. Because I fuck. I fuck a lot. I don’t ask questions.

  Some women come alone.

  Some women come with engagement rin
gs.

  Some with divorce stories.

  And some with bands of gold.

  I don’t care. We fuck. No hearts involved. No emotions except for those traded in the room. That’s the beauty of the encounter. The physical connection, the endorphins, the serotonin boost to my brain—not enough to engage my heart. Not enough to engage any part of me but my cock. We fuck and then we’re finished, because I no longer have a heart, or the desire to be slapped around by that bitch named Love. Nope. Never. I gave Love my all, and she tore me to shreds when my heart, my love, my Susie jumped from the thirty-second floor.

  Chapter 8

  Liquor is a salve. Or it can be. Right after Susie, I climbed into a bottle for a while. Until I discovered an addiction of a different kind.

  Wonderfucking.

  I sip my whiskey and look up at the Dodgers game. I’m in a bar around the corner from my building. A dive. A place I used to frequent, but don’t come to often anymore.

  I kept this seat warm for a couple months when I couldn’t bear to go home. I glance out the window just in time to see a flash of brown hair go by. I know that profile. I know that hair. The bell above the door jingles, and in walks Tara.

  She looks way too good for shithole like this. She wears a tank top and jean shorts. Every pair of eyes in this place latches onto her, including the women’s. She’s curved and round and really beautiful. It’s obvious this can’t be her normal watering hole. Her eyes adjust to the darkness and she scouts the bar. I lift an eyebrow when her gaze lands on me.

  She smiles.

  I smile back. Why not? I’m a guy, and a beautiful woman that every guy in this place wants to bang just smiled at me. I’m not interested in Tara, but I’m not an idiot. She walks past the barflies, and their necks swivel to tag her ass with their eyes. Go ahead fellas, take a look.

  “Hey, neighbor.” She’s a little bit breathless. Her cheeks are flushed.

  My cock grows hard.

  A breathless woman with dilated pupils turns a man on. It makes us think of fucking.

  “Hey. Wouldn’t have pegged you for a Taggert’s type of woman.”

  She sits on the barstool beside me. Joey, the bartender, arms covered with eagle tattoos from the Vietnam War, ambles over and graces Tara with his smile.

  “Haven’t seen you in a while, Tara. Want a martini?”

  “Yes, please.” She turns to me. She lifts a corner of her mouth. “What exactly is a ‘Taggert’s type of woman’?”

  Obviously my neighbor comes to Taggert’s often enough for Joey to know her and what she drinks. But then again, what man in this place wouldn’t remember Tara’s name if she told it to them? She’s top shelf where Taggert’s is concerned.

  She doesn’t wait for me to answer. “My old boss at the Post used to come here,” she says, as if by way of explanation. “Besides, I like dive bars. I especially like knowing about places and things other people don’t.”

  “It’s convenient.” I glance at her hand. Still no rock. Huh. Wonder if that will stick.

  Joey drops off her martini. I notice it’s dirty, with an olive.

  She takes a long pull on her drink. When she sets her glass back on the bar, the damn thing is half gone. Tara means business. Her eyes sparkle. There is a fire.

  “Did you see your Mom today?”

  I nod. Tara and I had talked a little about Mom over ice cream on our walk in the park. Lily and Rachel had also come up. I know there were uncomfortable questions about me that she didn’t ask, and right now I wonder if I’m meant to return the favor, or if she wants to discuss the absence of a giant diamond on her left hand.

  “He’s fucking his co-worker,” she says and takes another drink. “I walked in on them Friday. On my way home from the office.”

  “With the dress?”

  “With the dress.”

  Ouch. “That sucks.”

  “Yeah.” Tara finishes her drink and waves to Joey, who starts another martini for her. “The no-fucking-other-people rule applies even before the wedding, don’t you think?”

  “I think every couple makes an agreement, and if monogamy was part of your agreement, then he fucked up.”

  “He absolutely fucked up.” There is venom in her voice.

  I sip my whiskey. She’s pissed. I get it. Guys fuck and fuck up. It’s what we do. It’s who we are. Trying to end the pussy patrol after being a single man is like kicking an addiction. Hard-core habits are fucking hard to break. You try. You fail. You try. You succeed. You fall off the wagon. It sucks. I know. You can fucking destroy people when you fail.

  Destroyed me.

  I don’t say any of that, because it’s not what Tara wants to hear. No woman wants to hear or know or accept that even though, yes, men choose whether to actually fuck a woman, our dicks, man, our cocks, wow, they’re like weathervanes in a storm, homing devices set to find, fucking drones loaded to explode.

  I could go on.

  “We’re done.”

  It’s been less than forty-eight hours. They were engaged to be married. They’re not done.

  I take a deep breath. “Sucks about the dress.”

  “Yeah. I put it on eBay.”

  “Maybe a trip to Hawaii.”

  “With that dress? Maybe a trip to Paris.” She rolls her gaze toward the ceiling. “My parents are pissed.”

  “I bet.”

  “Not the way you think.” She flattens her palm onto the bar. “My mother actually asked me if I was sure. If. I. Was. Sure. This is after I told her I caught him with his penis in another woman’s vagina.”

  There’s nothing for me to say. I can’t defend Mom. I also can’t bag on Mom either, because then I’m the asshole who says shitty things about Tara’s mother. Nope. Best to sit still and enjoy the scenery. And there is some excellent scenery. The swell of Tara’s breasts peek out the top of her shirt.

  She leans forward.

  She notices me noticing.

  Oh, yeah, Tara is DTRF: Down To Revenge Fuck. She throws back martini number two and waves for her third. Tara is tall, but she’s not a starting lineman for the Rams. Three martinis in less than thirty minutes? Another half hour and she’ll be praying to the porcelain god.

  “Did you hear us?” She rips tiny pieces of her cocktail napkin from the edge. “Arguing?”

  I nod.

  “Did you watch?”

  “I did.”

  That seems to sit well with her. I don’t know if it’s the watching or the honesty, but she obviously likes what I just said.

  “My sister thinks you should’ve kept the ring, for your inconvenience.”

  “She’s a judge, right?”

  “Good memory. She’s also the recipient of a similar gift, courtesy of her ex-husband. She didn’t walk in on him. He left her a note and took a permanent vacation to Costa Rica with his secretary, sans family.”

  “Bastard.”

  “She was five months pregnant with Lily. So in her opinion, she thinks you got lucky.”

  “Maybe. But she has Lily.”

  “Yeah, but Lily has an asshole for a father who she never sees. She wouldn’t trade Lily, but I think Rachel thinks that finding out about his affair five years into her marriage means it might not have been the first time. We tend to be repeat offenders. Recidivism rate is pretty fucking high when it comes to our dicks.”

  She laughs. “That’s funny.”

  I smile. “Glad I could help.”

  The smile softens and so does her gaze. “It does help. Thanks.”

  I nod. I know. I remember. When you lose the person you love, no matter how it happens, every laugh helps.

  Her gaze remains locked to mine. She’s examining me with that half smile on her face. I know what she wants. I’m a port in a storm. I’m her neighbor. I’m good-looking. She doesn’t know what I could do for her because she has no idea who I really am, but she does know I’m an alternative. I’m an alternative to feeling like a piece of shit, an unattractive woman who’s been duped
and betrayed by the man she loves. She’s afraid, and she wants to feel attractive and sought after and wanted. Most of all, she wants me to want her.

  And I do.

  But I can’t.

  I could if I was Wonderfuck. But I can’t as Jake. I won’t as Jake. I don’t ever as Jake. Not anymore. Not in five years. Not since Susie. No. No more.

  The heat is intense, but I don’t make a move. She breaks her gaze from mine. She spins on her bar stool and stands. “What about pool? Know how to play?”

  “Of course.” I leave cash on the bar for Joey and head toward the back of Taggert’s. As if I’d miss the opportunity to watch Tara bend over a pool table in a tank top and jean shorts?

  “Wager?”

  “Name it.” I walk toward the table, stop, and lift a pool stick from the rack.

  “Twenty a game.”

  “The lady is flush.”

  “Naw”—her gaze locks to mine with heat and desire and need—“the lady feels reckless.”

  I could use those feelings, if I were inclined. I could totally use what she’s feeling right now toward her ex, Mr. Douchediaper: the pain, the anger, the betrayal. I could use every ounce of that and be in her bed, with those perky tits bouncing above me and my hard cock in that blazing wet heat, within the hour.

  They’re fucking awesome tits.

  I could have her after this martini and one game of pool. Hell, I could have her now. She’s so angry. So hot. So down to fuck. I could, but I won’t.

  Will I?

  Chapter 9

  The sun is gone and a warm wind rushes down the street. The ocean is miles away, and yet the scent carries to us on the wind. Tara is drunk. Not drunk in a wasted-can’t-walk way, but drunk in a tipsy, everything-is-funny sort of way. She’s a good drunk. A happy drunk, the kind that gets a little loud and laughs. I can hang with that kind of tipsy person. I’ve never understood the morose or aggressive or teary drunk. What’s the fucking point? Life is depressing enough. If you’re going to get gloomy or sad or fight when you’re drunk, then save yourself the money and the hangover and stay sober.