Hard No: Secret Baby Enemies to Lovers Romance by Hazel Parker (sad books to read txt) 📕

can put you in touch with your heart’s desire. It can allow all manner of arguments and misunderstandings to be washed away by affection and longing.

It can also be picked up by a strangely familiar female voice, who goes on to tell you that Trent can’t come to the phone right now.

Chapter 24 - Trent

Rather than looking as though she had just come in out of the rain, Jamie appears to have stepped fresh off the pages of a modelling magazine. Her hair is down and longer than I remember. She’s straightened it. She’s also dressed casually—black jeans and a black blouse that showcases her slim frame.

“Well?” she says after a moment. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

“I hadn’t planned on it,” I reply. “Jamie, what are you doing here?”

“I heard you were in town and thought I’d say hello.”

“In town? You mean you were already here? In London?”

She smiles. “Photo shoot. It got rained out. No surprise there. We’ve all been sitting around on our hands for days now.”

“How did you know I was here?”

“Trent, you should know that billionaires can’t do anything in secret. The places you go and the things you do are practically public information. Besides, I have a friend who works at this hotel, and she called me.”

I make the mistake of turning around and heading back towards my suite’s bar. Jamie takes advantage of this and steps into the room, closing the door behind her.

“Can I offer you a drink for the road?” I ask her. “A toast to your safe travels as you depart?”

She moves past me and makes a drink for herself and another one for me.

“Cheers,” she salutes, clinking her glass against mine and drinking. I merely hold my glass and stare at her.

“Jamie, why are you here?”

“I told you—”

“No, I know that. I mean, why did you feel compelled to drop by and say hello to me? Did it not occur to you that you might be very far down on the list of people I would like to see at the moment?”

“You’re not still mad that I let it slip about your little kitchen switcheroo, are you?” she asks, sipping her drink.

“Things would have been fine if you hadn’t butted in,” I tell her.

“Oh? So what’s worse—that you did what you did or that you’re able to say you almost got away with it?”

I start to reply, but then stop. The damnable thing is, she’s right. The enormity of my mistake is still becoming clear to me.

“Don’t feel too bad,” Jamie says. “You were only doing what you know. It was just another case of wheeling and dealing.”

Okay, that’s something I can be angry about. “You don’t know anything about me, other than what you hear on the gossip hotline and what little you learned during our three dates, which, if you don’t remember, weren’t exactly heavy with deep conversation.”

She seats herself on one of the white couches and stares off through the floor-to-ceiling windows at the London night sky.

“So,” I say, “one more time, Jamie—why are you here?”

She shrugs. “Maybe I feel shortchanged. After all, our third date was cut short when your cook almost burned the whole place to the ground.” She looks at me. “You don’t think conversation with you is difficult? Look at who you are, the kind of settings you put yourself in. It’s not exactly conducive to small talk.”

Steph managed just fine, I almost say, but don’t. I’m getting the impression that I shouldn’t give Jamie anything that she might be able to use as ammunition against me.

“So if conversation is so hard, then why come looking for me?” I say instead.

She crosses her legs and looks at me frankly. “Often,” she says, “actions speak louder than words. That’s one of the things you learn in my line of work.”

She toys with the top button on her blouse, looking me in the eye the whole time. I can see the upper portion of her chest above the dark fabric, and her skin is lightly tanned. I am somehow sure that she is tanned all over. I am also suddenly aware that she is not wearing a bra.

“We don’t have to discuss philosophy to enjoy each other’s company, do we?” she asks, and that button on her blouse comes undone. Her fingers drop to the next one. “And talking politics is overrated, I think.”

Before I know it, the front of her blouse is open. She stands and shrugs out of it, now nude to the waist. She is a study in cosmetic and surgical perfection, like a beautiful mannequin brought to life. This living mannequin regards me with her green eyes and smiles, unsnapping and then unzipping her jeans.

“Jamie—”

“Shh,” she says softly. “Talking doesn’t work for us, remember? We have to find other ways to fill the time.”

She kicks off her shoes and is out of her pants in a few yoga-like motions to stand before me, completely naked.

“Now,” she says, holding out her thin arms. “Your turn.”

A long moment goes by.

“Yes,” I say, “It is.”

I close the door behind myself on my way out.

Even though the public pubs shut down at eleven o’clock, hotels like mine have taken full advantage of the loophole application that allows their on-premises bars to be open twenty-four hours a day. Thus, I’m able to find exactly what I’m looking for just off the hotel’s main lobby—an open pub that looks deserted.

The bartender is a small young woman with red hair, Molly, according to her name badge. She greets me courteously and takes my order, just as courteously not inquiring what I was doing up and having a drink at this late hour.

I wonder how long it will take before Jamie leaves. Probably not long.