Irresistibly Dangerous : A Marriage of Convenience Romance (Irresistibly Yours Book 5), page 1
IRRESISTIBLY DANGEROUS
J. SAMAN
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Epilogue
Book 1 coming soon…
End of Book Note
Chapter One
“Full house, aces over kings. Read ’em and weep, boys.” Aurelia fans her cards across the felt table, a triumphant gleam and Cheshire grin spreading clear across her face. A collective groan emanates from everyone here. Everyone except for me. I’m too busy focusing on my phone that’s blowing up like a series of grenades.
It’s likely a glitch—no one can get into my Boston place that I don’t want in—but it’s weird that my alarms are sounding all the same.
“Reils, you could let us win one hand,” Asher bemoans, but for real, considering Aurelia has been playing poker with us—and beating us—for more than a year at this point, I don’t know why we bother complaining when we still willingly play each month. “How come you never let us win one hand?”
Aurelia stands up and does a little victory dance, twirling past her fiancé, Zax, and giving him a quick peck on the lips. “Because Goonies never say die.”
My lips twitch at her Goonies reference while I squint at my phone and quickly scroll through camera after camera without finding what triggered the alarm.
“Lenox?” Greyson calls out, snapping me away from my screen. He’s shuffling the cards, his expectant gaze on me, clearly having been trying to get my attention a few times already. “You in, man?”
I stare around the table at my lifelong best friends and then over at Aurelia, who has now become a part of our family, and debate if I should say anything. Instead, all I do is shake my head and move to stand when Ash throws out…
“You know, now that you’re the only single one of us, we really should try and set you up.”
Fuck. Not this shit again. Not them too.
“It’s time,” he persists when I don’t respond. “Even Thor falls in love in the movies, silent warrior. You too can follow in your doppelganger’s footsteps. Every Thor deserves a Jane.”
“Jane dies, bro,” Callan informs him as he bites into a buffalo wing. “Come up with a better analogy.”
I stare blankly at them, not even bothering to entertain the notion when Aurelia jumps in with, “Oh, yeah. Definitely. I mean, not with a Jane, because that was tragic, but we should totally set you up. It’ll be great.”
Only not so much.
“But with whom?” she continues, glancing around at the guys and puffing out an annoyed breath. “Ugh. I need Layla, Wynter, and Fallon in here for this. They’d have ideas.”
Yes, I’m sure my best friends’ women would have lots of ideas, so it’s perfect that they’re down the hall watching a movie and not in here with us.
“It can’t be someone in the fashion world,” Greyson picks up, looking at Zax and Aurelia who own fashion houses. “Could be a musician like me. He plays piano like a god, and women swoon for that. Especially musically inclined women. Could be a tattoo artist like him, but that feels cliché and I’m not sure there are any other people who do that who live close enough to him in Maine to make that work.”
“True,” Asher agrees, pointing at Grey. “That’s a good call, and he does know the industry since we were Central Square once upon a time. I’m not much help. My teammates are all dudes, and there are very few women who work for the Rebels. Not a doctor.”
“No,” Callan states contemplatively. “Unless maybe she works in the ER like Layla and I do, but I can’t think of anyone off the top of my head. Especially since Lenox lives in fucking Maine. Besides, she needs to be—”
“Fiery,” Grey finishes for him as if I’m not sitting here, privy to their conversation and plans to set me up. I want no part of either. I have more important things on my mind currently, like my alarm going off. “And she has to be able to deal with the fact that he rarely speaks unless he has to.”
“Enough,” I shoot out, proving his point. “No one is setting me up.” It’s like they’re taking a page from the town yentas as my assistant Brooklynn calls them. Every woman in my small town in Maine is actively trying to do the same. They all have a cousin or an aunt or a niece or a daughter who is so absolutely perfect for me I just have to meet them.
Never. Going. To. Happen.
“Oh, I’ve got it!” Aurelia exclaims, snapping her fingers in an “ah-ha” way, giving me a coy smirk I don’t like. “What about Georgia?”
“No!” Grey and Zax immediately shout, and ice fills my veins even as my chest clenches at the mere mention of her. I get it. I even deserve it. She’s their cousin, more like a little sister to them with how close they are, and I tested every friendship limit they had. Just thinking about that knocks me with a pang of old guilt. “Definitely not her,” Zax finishes gruffly. “But someone else.”
“Or not.” And just like that, I get up under the pretense of going to the bathroom. No one questions me. Sometimes being mostly mute has its advantages.
I walk down the hall of Zax’s massive penthouse, catching sight of my friends’ women and their kids, and immediately keep going.
My heart picks up a few extra beats as I enter the nearest bathroom and shut and lock the door. I scroll back through the outside cameras, and now that I’m able to give it my full attention, I see it. Movement. A shadowy figure punches in a code only me and the people in the poker room have and enters my house.
What in the absolute fuck?
Did I get doxxed? Did someone I’ve hacked and brought down find me? I shake my head. There really is no way. But that doesn’t change the fact that someone is most definitely in my house. I tap from camera to camera until I find them… sitting on the sofa in my family room without turning on any lights.
Huh?
That’s… weird.
I zoom in on them, and my breath catches in my lungs. The glow of their phone illuminates their face, cast in warped shadows, their green eyes colorless and dark, and their red hair looks inky black.
But it doesn’t change the fact that I’d know those eyes, that face, and that hair anywhere.
What the fuck is Georgia Monroe doing in my house?
Is this some sort of joke? Did Aurelia mention her name because she knew she was going to my house? No. That can’t be.
Speak of the devil, and she shall appear.
I close the toilet seat and sit down on the lid, wiping my mouth and jaw with my hand as I watch her. I haven’t seen Georgia in years, and that has been entirely by design. She comes up to Boston with some frequency to visit Zax and Greyson, but I always—freaking always—make sure I’m at my house in Maine when that happens.
I can’t see her. It’s not good for either of us, but it’s part of the promise I made all those years ago.
And now there she is, sitting on my couch in the dark, doing something on her phone instead of coming here to Zax’s, which would make far more sense. What purpose could she have for seeking me out and not her cousins? Especially after all this time.
My heart gives a painful thud against my ribs. Fuck. This isn’t going to be good.
Rising off the toilet, I exit the bathroom and follow the sound of shouting back into the poker room. Callan is picking at the pile of bar food on his plate, and Grey is sipping on his bourbon, a smirk on both of their lips as they watch Asher and Zax go back and forth with Aurelia over their current hand.
“All I’m saying is if you’re too pussy to bet, then fold.”
Asher narrows his eyes at Aurelia. “Doll, I am never too pussy for anything. You can’t throw shit like that out at a football player, especially a quarterback, and not expect us to play for the win. But when you drop three grand on one hand, unless you have a royal fucking flush, I’d like to know what sort of game you’re trying to play with me.”
“You can’t ask that,” Zax cuts in. “You know the rules. You either play or you fold. You either think she’s bluffing or not. It’s poker.”
“Yeah, fucking Vegas, street-style poker,” Asher grumbles. Sighs. Stares at his cards. “Fuck it, I’m in.”
Fool.
He slides his chips to the center of the table and flips his cards over. And in fairness, he has three aces. But then Aurelia reveals a straight, and everyone breaks out into laughter. Except Asher, who looks like he swallowed a bug.
His arms fly out, hands waving wildly in the air as he shoots to his feet. “Oh, come on. It’s not even possible! You totally cheat.”
Aurelia grins dev ilishly, dragging the healthy pile of chips her way. “Maybe you just don’t know how to poker the way I do.”
“Honey, I may not know how to do a lot of things, but I know exactly how to poker. Every place she wants it.”
And that’s my cue. “I’m leaving.”
Five sets of blinky eyes turn my way. “But it’s early,” Callan exclaims.
“Yeah!” Grey stands. “Can’t you stay a bit longer? Whatever you’re hacking can wait, no?”
I shrug. It’s what I do, and no one challenges it. I don’t speak a lot, hardly ever, and I don’t sleep much because I spend my nighttime hours hacking and my daytime hours tattooing in my shop. I live alone and mostly off the grid in Maine, and that’s exactly how I like it.
But Georgia at my house waiting for me is stirring things, and I need to get to the bottom of it now.
“Are you staying in town tonight or going home to Maine?” Ash questions.
“Staying.”
“Good stuff.” He stands and walks over to me, his three grand loss already forgotten, and gives me a fist pound. “You’re welcome to come over for brunch tomorrow, and if you want to stay through for Sunday Night Football, we’re home against Detroit.”
I think about that. I would actually like brunch tomorrow and to stay and watch him play on Sunday, especially since the shop is closed on Mondays, so I don’t have to race home after. But now everything has changed, and I’m not sure what the weekend holds for me.
“I’ll text you.”
He smacks my shoulder and goes back and sits down at the table, stealing the cards from Grey so he can shuffle. One by one, the other guys and Aurelia come over to say goodnight, and when I fist-pound Zax and Grey, part of me wonders if I should tell them that Georgia broke into my house. That she’s even in Boston because I don’t think they know that either, but I don’t.
Telling them she’s at my place would draw questions. Questions like how does she still know how to get into your house and why would she seek you out and not us? Questions like are you secretly going behind our backs with her again?
I need to figure out why she came to me first when I already know I’m the last person she’d ever want to see.
I throw my friend’s women and their kids a wave and head out the door into the cold Boston night, hop in my car, and drive to my house in Cambridge—the house I grew up in. The house surrounded by neighbors who know me and don’t question how I come or go or even what I do.
They know what I’ve been through, first with losing my twin sister, Suzie, and then my parents.
I pull into my driveway and straight back into my garage, where I turn off the car, already dreading going inside. Dreading having to face her and learn why she’s here and why she came to me specifically. I enter through the backdoor and flip on lights as I go, walking straight for her, not even bothering to pretend I don’t know she’s here.
She knows me. She knows I have cameras everywhere. She knows I don’t fuck around with security.
A point she proves when she says, “I was wondering how long it would take you to leave Zax’s.”
Her sweet, melodic voice and the faint hint of her fragrance in my house are an immediate sucker punch. I hold my breath as she stands and turns to face me, and I force myself not to think about how fucking beautiful she is when I finally get a good look at her. Her emerald-green eyes immediately lock on mine and narrow into slits, as if she too has to mentally prepare herself for seeing me for the first time after six years. Still, her visible hatred of me is more than apparent, and that’s what I cling to.
For a moment, we’re both silent, simply staring at each other, unable to stop. My blood thrums, and my breath quickens. The sight of her still manages to knock me sideways, even after all this time.
“What are you doing here, Georgia?”
She steps around the sofa she was sitting on and approaches me with a familiarity that has my pulse spiking. The last time I saw her, she had tears in her eyes and her broken heart all over her face. She called me a thousand awful names, all of them I more than deserved. Still, I don’t regret walking away.
It’s everything before that I regret.
“You never changed my code.” She points over my shoulder toward the door I came in. The door she came in.
“An oversight. I never thought you’d use it again.”
“I hadn’t planned to. Not ever.”
And yet here she is. I raise an eyebrow at her, wanting her to cut to the chase and go. But then sadness takes over her face, her expression crumpling before me, and I feel like an asshole. She’s been through a hell of a lot in the last six months. She was set to get married—to a total douchebag, I might add—and three days before the wedding, her father’s plane blew up over the Atlantic Ocean. Not just went down.
Fucking blew up.
Foul play was most definitely considered, but without a black box and most of the plane unable to be recovered since a hurricane came barreling through the waters the next day, no one knows for sure. She postponed her wedding, and then the media started relentlessly crawling all over her. Everything from tabloids to news networks.
The celebrity heiress of Monroe Securities and a former child star, who happened to inherit fifty-four percent of her father’s company. I watched it all from the sidelines. I didn’t go to her father’s funeral, though I was insanely tempted to.
She sniffles and wipes at an errant tear. “Sorry. I didn’t expect to cry. Certainly not in front of you. It’s just…”
I nod. I know. It’s been impossible for her. She’s a midwife now after having walked away from acting, not a businesswoman, but she’s also smart enough to hold onto her father’s company with both hands. Especially since she still doesn’t know why her father’s plane blew up. Her mother is an actress and was the reigning queen of Hollywood. Georgia wasn’t too far off, starring in movies until she decided to go to college and step away from it all.
She sucks in a shaky breath. “Anyhoo, I need your help. That’s why I’m here.”
I sigh, shake my head, and leave her standing there, walking into my kitchen for a glass of water. She follows me. I expected that from her, but I still need a second after the way her words hit me. After the way seeing her and watching her cry hits me.
I take a sip of my water, keeping my back to her. “Why didn’t you go to Grey or Zax? They’d help you. They’d help you with anything.”
“What? And ruin poker night? And no thanks, I didn’t want any water, but your offer is appreciated.”
I turn back to her, unamused.
She sets her hands down on the island counter, palms flat, fingers splayed as she levels me with an unrelenting determination I hate on her. Fun, flirty, sexy, sweet, playful—Georgia was all of those things. This is a different woman before me.
“They can’t help me with this. Only you can.”
Fuck.
“You want me to look into your father’s plane?” I had made the same offer to Zax and Grey when it happened, but with all the agencies, both public and private, looking into it at the time, they told me to hold off.
To my complete surprise, she shakes her head.
“If you’re not here for that, and I already know you’re not here for me to ink your skin, then I have nothing else to offer you. You should go. Go to Zax’s or home to your fiancé.”
She laughs, but there is no humor in it. “My fiancé isn’t my fiancé anymore.”
Double fuck. That I didn’t know.
“And actually, he’s part of why I need the favor.”
“You said help.”
She tosses her hands up. “Favor. Help. What’s the difference? I need it all the same, and you are the only person who can do this, Lenox. You have to know, I wouldn’t be here otherwise. I was honestly quite content going the rest of my life without ever seeing you again.”
I grunt.
She makes a strained, nervous giggle. “Before I tell you, you’re not allowed to say no. I mean, you just can’t. You owe me.”
Another grunt because I do sort of owe her in a way.
I used her for two years. I came home after my sister’s death in utter ruins. I was shattered. Broken every which way a person can be. Suzie wasn’t just my twin. She was the better half of me. My best friend. And when she dropped dead from a stroke in the shower, I died too.
