Famously Mine: A Contemporary Romance Box Set Read online

  “Did you just move?” Stella asks as she wanders into the kitchen, and starts opening cabinets.

  Stella, it turns out, is a horrible snoop.

  “No,” I answer. “I’ve been here for a year.”

  “A YEAR?” Stella asks, and for some reason it comes out accusatory.

  “Yes,” I say. I shift from foot to foot. “Why?”

  “Because there’s nothing in it! You’ve got a couch, and a tv, and a coffee table that was probably old and scuffed in the eighties. And that’s it! No art. Nothing.”

  I think that’s a little unfair. I have some very attractive wedding invitations on the fridge.

  Stella waves her arms like a very sexy windmill. “You’ve got this amazing house and there’s nothing in it.”

  “Look who’s talking,” I say.

  “That’s different! I’m saving up for a drum set! You’re not saving up for anything. There is literally no reason for this house not to be gorgeously furnished.”

  “Sure there’s a reason,” I say.

  “And it is…?” She asks, eyebrow raised, hands on her hips.

  “I don’t like shopping,” I admit.

  Stella puts a hand to her chest like she’s having a heart attack.

  “Oh come on, Duke says you don’t like shopping either,” I say, and then wish I hadn’t, because I don’t want to think about Duke today.

  But the Duke mention doesn’t throw Stella at all.

  “I don’t like shopping with my mother. There’s a difference. And I will admit, it’s not much fun when you’re broke either. But this …” Stella rubs her hands and looks around my house with a look that would alarm any southern man with survival instincts. “This will be fun.”

  “What do you mean ‘this’?” I ask, trapping Stella against the counter in what I already know is a futile effort to distract her.

  Still, a man’s got to try.

  I lift her hair, and kiss that spot on her neck she likes, and when she gives a little gasp, I nudge her legs further apart with my knee.

  “Wade, that’s not going to work—”

  I cup her breast, scraping my thumbnail across her nipple, and she sucks in her stomach.

  I bend down and take her mouth like it’s mine to take. She whimpers, and for a minute there I think I’ve won.

  Then she leans back into the counter, breaking the kiss. I try to follow, but she places a finger over my lips.

  “Wade St. George,” she says, and her scolding is breathy enough I feel it in my dick. “I do not care how hot you are, or how well you kiss. You need furniture. Plus, you owe me a bed, so we can kill two birds with one stone …”

  Her words trail off as I gently bite her finger.

  “You know, you were right,” I say. “I’m not wearing any underwear.”

  Her mouth parts and her eyes darken.

  Huh. I thought the no underwear thing was only hot on women.

  There is no end to the amount of things I’m learning from Stella. I dip my head to her wonderful, needy breasts, but Stella places a palm on my forehead and gives me a gentle shove back.

  “No. Furniture shopping. Now,” she says, sternly. And—as I’m sure have many men before me—I concede that Stella Harrington has won.

  “Fine,” I grumble, heading toward the stairs. “Let me put some real clothes on. Then we can go furniture shopping.”

  “It’s for your own good!” she calls, and I make a yeah, yeah, yeah gesture with my hand.

  “And, Wade?” Stella asks when I’m at the base of the stairs. I look over my shoulder, half expecting her to be holding up a shopping list already.

  “Don’t bother with underwear.” Her smile is wicked, and half the blood in my brain relocates.

  Something tells me furniture shopping with Stella is going to be a vast improvement over every prior shopping experience I’ve had.

  “Oh. This is the one,” Stella says, flopping down in a giant wing-backed leather armchair. She hits the arm of the chair for emphasis. “This. Is. The. One.”

  Normally I avoid antique stores like the plague—even less efficient than normal shopping, plus all the furniture is for people way smaller than me—but Stella dragged me to High Point, which is apparently known for its antique shops.

  So many antique shops.

  But according to Stella, if I buy all my furniture at once in one place, I will look like “one of those douchebags who thinks a catalogue is a home.”

  The obvious solution, to not buy a house worth of furniture in one day, does not seem to have occurred to her.

  The chair swallows Stella up, so who knows, I might actually fit in it.

  I scoop Stella up, and settle us both back into the chair in one fluid movement, with her on my lap.

  She laughs and slaps my chest, but she makes no real effort to escape my arms.

  “This is an antique! We’ll break the chair!”

  “If it can’t hold us both, I don’t want it,” I say nobly, and she gives me a playful shove again. I capture her hands and kiss each wrist, and she softens sweetly in my lap.

  I love the way I can make her soften. I love the way I can make her laugh. I don’t know if it’s knowing her for years, or sharing a hometown, or working side by side for weeks, or if it’s just her, just Stella, but it’s never been this easy with a woman.

  It’s like I’m in one of those montages from those Home Sweet Home romantic comedies, and everything is suspiciously perfect, until the other shoe drops.

  I shake the thought out of my head. There is no other shoe to drop. Stella really is this perfect. This fun.

  And that’s all this is. We’re having fun. Discreet fun, so I don’t lose my best friend, and neither of us loses our professional reputations.

  And hell, if at the end of it all I’ve got real furniture, and she’s got her dream job and higher standards for the next man she dates, then so much the better.

  Of course, the thought of her dating someone else after me makes me want to hit something, but I shove the instinct away.

  Don’t go being a caveman, I tell myself.

  Unless I want to ask her to stay, I have no business getting jealous of whoever Stella dates next.

  Even if it’s some fascinating, artsy rock musician who shares all of her interests and wouldn’t give a fuck about getting his picture in the paper with her.

  Or worse, some boring guy in a pink polo shirt who never left home and has no idea how to appreciate a woman like Stella, and who will expect her to host teas and make small talk with his colleagues instead of fucking up his presentations.

  I’m getting mad just thinking about it.

  “Hey,” Stella waves a hand in front of my face. “We don’t have to get the chair if it makes your face look like that.”

  “No, I like the chair,” I say, and I do. I can picture sitting in this chair for years to come. Especially if Stella’s in it with me.

  Jesus, I’m a mess. Stella is not sticking around for years to come. Even if it weren’t for the Duke thing, and the working-for-me thing, Stella hasn’t indicated she wants anything long term. From everything she’s said, she’s focused on her career, setting up this new life of hers, that kind of thing.

  I get the feeling trying to hold onto Stella is like trying to cage a bird.

  It definitely says something ugly about me, that there’s a very small part of me that’s tempted to try to cage her, if it meant I got to keep this easy happiness we have right now.

  “Here’s an idea,” I say, mostly to get my mind back under control. “Why don’t we call it a day on the furniture shopping, and grab dinner?”

  Something shutters in her face.

  “I don’t think that would be a good idea,” Stella says, carefully climbing off my lap, and for a second I’m confused, until I remember how our last dinner in public ended.

  “I should probably get home,” Stella says.

  “Wait,” I say, rising and catching her hand. “What about take out
? My house. You haven’t seen my bedroom yet. I’m sure you have lots of judgey things to say about the decor.”

  “Wade,” she says helplessly. “This isn’t a good idea. Don’t you think we should come up for air?”

  “Do you want to?”

  Stella looks down at her hand in mine, then up to my eyes.

  “No,” she says, and I let go of her hand, disappointed, but understanding. We’re not 22. We’ve got lives. People our age don’t blow off the world to spend 48 hours straight lost in each other. Especially when they have to turn around on Monday and see each other at the office.

  “No, I don’t want to come up for air,” Stella continues, and my heart leaps.

  “Okay then,” I say, grabbing her hand, feeling a little more grounded just because I’m touching her again. “How do you feel about Thai?”

  “Yes and always,” she says, and I laugh.

  We buy the chair, and for another 24 hours, everything is right in my world.

  9

  Stella

  I skip into work, lighter than I can remember being in a long time. I’ve been seeing Wade for a few weeks now, and the world feels as light and fresh as the pink shirt I’m wearing.

  It’s a shirt I dug out of the depths of Wade’s closet this morning. I normally don’t stay at his place on weeknights, but we were cuddling on the couch watching another one of the Home Sweet Home romantic comedies last night. Wade started critiquing the hero’s kissing technique, so naturally I challenged Wade to show me how he’d do it, and the next thing you know we were upstairs and I was quietly losing my mind while Wade showed me just how well he could kiss, and where.

  Unfortunately, neither of us have any idea how the G-rated holiday romcom with awkward kissing ended, so I make a note to watch the rest of it today and fill Wade in, in case it comes up in his meeting with Ms. Covington.

  I whistle as I walk into work and hang up my things. Wade’s at an offsite meeting, so I let myself spin in a happy circle just because I can.

  It’s not that I’ve never been this happy. It’s just that I’ve never been this happy for so many days in a row. If this is what love is, no wonder people are always chasing it.

  I freeze in the act of hanging up my jacket. Not that I’m in love.

  I’m definitely not in love. It would be the height of foolishness to fall for a man who assumes our relationship is ending.

  I know Wade assumes whatever we are has an end date on it, because he still wants to keep it a secret from Duke.

  I lean over to turn on my computer. That’s when I see it.

  A single yellow marigold lying next to my computer.

  Oh. Oh. I lift it up, and run the petals over my cheek. They’re so incredibly soft.

  That’s what Beverly sees when she walks into the room: my dreamily running a flower over my face like a fool.

  I snap out of it and drop the flower on my desk. “Hi! Beverly. How can I help you?”

  She looks at the flower with raised eyebrows, but I don’t say anything. I like to think we’ve bonded since that first leadership meeting when I got Wade to show up (mostly) on time, but I’m not about to tell her I’m fucking the boss.

  My eyes stray to the flower on my desk. Although if he’s leaving flowers on my desk, it’s more than just fucking. Right?

  “I just wanted to see if you had a spare copy of the WS5 contract from yesterday’s meeting, before I go printing more.”

  “Absolutely,” I withdraw the contract from one of the piles on my desk, and pass it over to her. She takes it, and I shove my sleeves up.

  “That shirt’s a lovely color on you,” Beverly says. “Is it new?”

  “Oh, no. I’ve had it for a long time.”

  “That’s funny, I could swear I’ve seen…” suddenly her eyes widen, and she looks from the shirt, to Wade’s office, to the flower on my desk. “Oh honey. Tell me you aren’t.”

  “Aren’t what?” I say brightly, flashing what Wade calls my toothpaste smile.

  Inside, I’m swearing. I picked this shirt specifically because I’d never seen Wade wear it, and it was shoved so far back in his closet I almost didn’t find it. I was sure no one would recognize it.

  Beverly sighs in a way that manages to be both supportive and disappointed at the same time.

  “How long?” she asks.

  I chew my lip.

  Beverly looks stern. “Look, I know you’re both adults, and I’ve always respected Wade, but if he pressured you, in any way, I don’t care how much of a golden boy he is, and I don’t care if I get fired, you don’t have to put up with this—”

  “No! It’s like that,” I say.

  She looks at me skeptically. I don’t want to spill our secret, but I can’t have Beverly thinking the worst of Wade either.

  “It didn’t start until after I got another job offer. I signed the contract and everything. But it doesn’t start until September.”

  Beverly doesn’t look convinced.

  “Also, I made the first move.” Honesty makes me add, “And the second, and the third.”

  Now her concern has turned to exasperation. “Why the hell would you do that? Either of you?”

  “I didn’t plan it! He’s just …” My eyes drift to the flower. I think of his kindness, and his goofiness, and the way he responds to every problem by rolling up his sleeves, and digging in.

  “He’s just Wade,” I say helplessly.

  “Oh honey,” she says, sympathetically. And now she sounds like a teacher, watching her two favorite students self-destruct. “Is he as far gone as you?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say, and Beverly sighs and shakes her head.

  She looks at me for a while like she’s making up her mind. And then she takes off her own black cardigan and passes it to me.

  “Button it up and hide as much of that shirt as you can,” she says. “He only wore that shirt once because we all made fun of him so much. Someone else might remember it too.”

  “Thank you,” I say, buttoning it up. “I’m so sorry to put you in the middle of this—”

  “Oh I am not in the middle of this. You two figure out your shit fast. And if I were you, I’d see if there’s any way you can start at that new job earlier than planned.”

  I nod eagerly.

  Beverly sighs and turns to go. But she hesitates at the door.

  “Out of curiosity. Why a marigold? Why not a rose or something?”

  I blush. “Oh. Um. Silly joke. You know that movie Princess Marigold?”

  Beverly’s eyebrows shoot up. “You mean the most romantic movie of all time?”

  I snort. “I think you’re remembering it wrong. I’m pretty sure it’s a comedy action flick—”

  Beverly waves me to silence. “To the rest of the world, yes. To geeks, it’s basically their Romeo & Juliet, but with a happy ending. I should know. I’m married to one. He can quote that movie backwards and forwards.”

  “Oh.”

  She turns to leave, but this time instead of looking worried, she’s got an unholy gleam in her eye. I can tell she’s already planning our wedding in her head.

  Which is ridiculous. It’s just a movie. It doesn’t mean anything.

  Still.

  “Beverly?” I ask. “What does If you wish it mean? In the movie?”

  She bites back a smile. “It’s how the hero says I love you before the princess is ready to hear it.”

  I sit down in my chair with a thump.

  “You ok, honey?” she asks. And now she is blatantly struggling not to laugh.

  “He can’t … it’s just a movie.” I look up at her, pleading. “It’s just a movie.”

  He doesn’t want to tell Duke. He thinks we’re going to end.

  “Sure,” Beverly says. “Whatever helps you sleep at night.”

  She strolls down the hall, whistling the theme to Princess Marigold.

  That night I blow off getting takeout with Wade to go jogging. I tell him it�
��s because I need to exercise, and get some lesson planning done for the fall, which is all technically true.

  But it’s not the reason I cancel on him. Beverly’s conversation has me a little freaked out. Not because I think Wade is in love with me. He’s definitely not in love with me.

  No, it’s freaking me out, because I’ve realized I want him to be.

  Which is why I’m out jogging by myself, instead of eating pad thai and making out with the hottest man in the world.

  I just need some space. Time to breath. Re-center. Get excited about the parts of my future that do not center around or include Wade.

  I’ll get my head on straight, and then I can go back to having the most fun I’ve had in a long, long time, without worrying about the future.

  I also need to figure out a way to get Wade to stop saying if you wish it. Because that’s what he said when I canceled on him, and instead of rolling my eyes and calling him a geek like I normally do, my stomach flooded with butterflies and when he hung up I spent an embarrassingly long 30 seconds staring at his face on my phone screen, before I shook myself out of it and put my jogging clothes on.

  I run and run, trying to get Wade St. George out of my system. It’s not a dignified running; I’m not very athletic, and there’s lots of stopping, and gasping, and walking, before I take a deep breath, think of Wade saying if you wish it, and run farther away.

  My phone rings, and I swipe to answer it. “Hello?” I gasp.

  “Stella? Are you dying?” Duke asks.

  “No. Just exercising.”

  “Uh oh. That’s not like you,” Duke says. “Is the job going ok? I know data entry isn’t exactly glamorous, but Wade’s a good guy, and he’s got a reputation for treating his people well.”

  I flash to last night, and Wade telling me how well he was going to treat me, before going down on me. And let me just say, he’s a man of his word.

  Nope, not thinking of that now.

  “Yeah, no complaints,” I say briskly.

  “Really? None? It’s data entry,” Duke says, in the same way other people might say death.

  “Actually, I’m Wade’s administrative assistant.”