Otherwise Engaged Read online

  Otherwise Engaged

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  OTHERWISE ENGAGED

  By: Nicole Green

  Copyright May 2013 Nicole Green

  Smashwords Edition

  Chapter One

  With his eyes still closed, Rain raised his arms above his head and stretched. He stopped short when his arm hit someone else’s. His eyes flew open.

  Oh crap, he thought. One slipped through. He had a rule against this sort of thing. Letting them sleep over tended to give them the wrong ideas. He sat up in bed and looked down at the blonde lying next to him. Sure, she was cute—round, perky breasts—but he could get another one just like her tonight if he went out looking. That was the fun part. The not-so-fun part was falling asleep before remembering to kick them out of bed.

  She blinked and smiled sleepily at him. “Hi.” Running a hand through her curly blonde hair, she sat up next to him in bed.

  How was he going to get out of this? “Uh, hey.” If you let them stay the night, it was tricky getting rid of them—so much more awkward. If you got rid of them the night of, it was kind of expected. They knew the deal.

  “Last night was amazing.” She tickled his arm with her fingernails.

  Of course it was. “Oh, um, thanks.” He slid out of bed and spotted his jeans halfway across the room. Walking over, he grabbed them and tugged them on. “Yeah, you, too.” What was he supposed to say? See, this was another good reason to get rid of them before any sleeping happened. He never knew what to say the morning after. He didn’t want to encourage them, but he didn’t want to be a total ass, either. It was all in good fun. Everyone got something they wanted out of the deal.

  “I love this bed.” She fell backwards and burrowed deep in his sheets. Well, it was a high quality bed. Only the best for him.

  Yeah. Don’t get too attached. “Well, it’s—a bed.” Yeah, dumbass. That’s exactly what it is, he thought. He looked around the room for his phone as he spoke. He scratched the back of his head, having no clue where he left it.

  This was why partying with Skylar was a bad idea. No matter what they were doing or where they were, Skylar managed to get him in trouble. From getting arrested in Montreal, to hitchhiking in Brazil, to blow-out parties Rain couldn’t remember later, Skylar was usually the common denominator in the bad situations Rain ended up in. The thing was, Skylar was usually involved in the most epic of Rain’s adventures, too.

  “…Breakfast?” she was saying.

  “Huh?” Rain looked up, startled. That was not a word he wanted to hear. Breakfast implied they would be in each other’s company longer. He couldn’t even remember her name. The name thing was another problem with allowing them to spend the night. He rarely bothered trying to retain such details. It wasn’t like he planned on seeing these women again.

  A new voice made Rain jump. He’d forgotten there were two. A woman walked out of his bathroom wearing only one of his shirts. “Yeah,” she said. “I’m hungry.” This one was a redhead. Her bright red hair couldn’t be natural. Now he remembered. He suppressed a grin. Last night had definitely been a good time. No wonder he’d been so tired he passed out afterward. He still didn’t remember either one’s name, though.

  “I think breakfast is a great idea,” he said. He finally spotted his phone on his desk. Walking over to it, he said, “You two can get to know each other better…” Or crap. Were they already friends? He couldn’t remember that, either.

  “Wait, aren’t you coming with us?” the blonde asked with a frown. She got out of bed and stretched her gloriously naked body.

  “I can’t,” Rain said. “I have this thing…I have to do…it starts in—” He stared down at his wrist before realizing he’d taken off his watch last night and left it in some location he couldn’t remember at the moment. He glanced at his phone and pretended to study its face. “Whoa. Starts really soon. I have to get going, ladies.” Hm. He had a new message from Carolina. He hadn’t heard from her in a while.

  “Oh yeah?” Red’s expression told him she wasn’t buying his story. “And what exactly is this ‘thing?’”

  “It’s for my grandma. She needs me to feed her cat.”

  “Oh? That can’t take long. We can wait for you.” Her look went from incredulous to scrutinizing.

  He coughed. “In New York. I have to…cat sit. I’m cat sitting for my grandma. Yep. That’s right. You know. I forgot. I gotta take this train. I’m already late. It leaves really soon. I have to get out of here like…now, ladies.”

  The blonde and Red exchanged glances. Then the blonde asked, “Don’t you have to pack a bag?”

  He was sweating over there even though he hadn’t put on his shirt yet. Couldn’t they give him a break? “I have clothes there,” he said, fully aware of how lame he sounded. “I visit Grandma a lot. And…her cat. Very hungry cat.” He nodded. They stared at him for a moment, and he interjected a “Yep,” into the uncomfortable silence.

  “Don’t you get it?” Red said to the blonde. “He’s trying to get us out of here.” She yanked off the shirt of his she wore, popping a few buttons off in the process, and pulled on her jeans and top.

  “Oh yeah,” the blonde said. “I get it.” She bent to grab her dress from the floor, and he couldn’t help but appreciate what he’d enjoyed last night. She pulled her mini-dress over her perfect bubble butt. “He’s doing a shitty job of it, though.”

  Red snorted. “Asshole.”

  “No, it’s not like that,” he said, but he was dancing a jig of relief on the inside. “I had fun last night.”

  “Yeah,” they said. “We bet.”

  “Let me walk you two out.”

  The blonde pushed past him, followed by the redhead.

  Red tossed him an ugly sneer. “Don’t bother,” she said.

  The two of them walked out together, slamming the door after them. After they left, Rain looked down at his phone again. He smiled.

  Carolina. They’d met in college and dated for a while, but Rain wasn’t the serious relationship type. They’d stayed friends for a long time and were sometimes more. Rain hadn’t heard from her a lot in the past few months or so, but life got busy. He assumed they were both tied up with things and hadn’t thought any more about it. Hopefully, this text meant she was in town and wanted to get together.

  He opened the text and read it. It said that he needed to call her whenever he woke up because she had some huge news for him. He grinned. She knew him so well. She never called before noon on the weekends because she knew chances were he wouldn’t be conscious yet.

  He pulled up her number and pressed the send button. A few moments later, he heard her sexy, throaty voice. He could hear music and loud voices in the background. It sounded like some sort of party was going on.

  “Rain!” Carolina said. “Oh, it’s so good to hear from you. How’ve you been?”

&nbsp
; “Good. I’m glad you called. I miss you,” he said.

  “Let me walk outside. We’re having something at Tia Rosa’s house and these people are so loud. Hold on a minute,” she said, talking so quickly that her words ran over one another the way she usually did. He heard her moving around. When she stopped, it was quieter. “There. That better?”

  “Yeah,” he grinned. His grin faded. If she was at her Aunt Rosa’s, that meant she was in Brooklyn. New York. Nowhere near D.C. But maybe she was coming down to visit soon and wanted to make sure he would be in town. He wouldn’t give up hope yet. “So what’s up?” He sat on the corner of his desk. He scanned the room, continuing a visual search for his watch, as he waited for her to answer. He couldn’t lose another Piaget. Those things were pricy to replace. Not that he couldn’t afford it, but he hated throwing money away.

  “Gosh, it’s been so long since we talked,” Carolina said. “We have so much catching up to do. Are you seeing anybody? Or you still breaking hearts?”

  He grinned. “You know me.”

  She laughed. “Don’t I?” Her voice took on a faraway tone for a moment. Before he could put his finger on what was strange about it, she continued, “Anyway, how’s the job? How’s life? Come on, talk to me.”

  “Everything is good.” Rain was a partner in a small venture capital firm. He’d started the business with a couple of people he knew from business school. He used to work with Skylar—he’d helped Skylar start his company—but they made much better friends than they did business partners. He’d left the business to save the friendship. Carolina had heard plenty of his griping about that, though. “How are things with you?” He was ready—more than ready—to get to the good part of this conversation. “Coming to D.C. any time soon?”

  “No, not really,” she said distantly. “So. Remember this guy I was telling you about? Manny?”

  “Sounds familiar,” Rain lied. “He a boyfriend?” He didn’t care to learn anything her boyfriends. He saw them only as nameless, faceless guys standing between him and good times with Carolina. The only things he ever felt toward them were ambivalence or a vague sort of jealousy.

  “He was. Now he’s a fiancé.”

  “He’s a what?” Rain pulled the phone away from his ear, stared at it a moment, and held it back to his ear.

  Carolina squealed, and he held the phone away again. He put it back to his ear again just in time to hear her say, “I’m getting married!”

  “You are?” He couldn’t have been more shocked. “I’m so happy for you.” He was pretty sure that was the right thing to say in this situation.

  “Yes! January first. We’re starting off our New Year with our new marriage. Isn’t that beautiful? It’s going to be in San Juan, Puerto Rico.” She chattered on with more details—destination wedding, family in Puerto Rico, blah, blah, blah. He didn’t catch most of it. He was still busy trying to comprehend the fact that Carolina was getting married.

  She stopped talking, so he assumed he was supposed to say something.

  “Oh. Great,” he said woodenly.

  “Don’t you think it’ll be beautiful?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ll love Manny.” Her tone of voice changed when she said the man’s name. He’d never heard her say anyone’s name like that.

  “I’m sure I will.” He was still on auto-pilot.

  “My family adores him. He’s here now because Tia Rosa insisted on throwing us an engagement party. I put it off for months, and I kept trying to tell her we didn’t need one, but you know how that woman is. I think she thought I would never get married. She is so excited. You would think she’s the bride.” Carolina went on about her aunt.

  Rain laughed in all the right places, but he couldn’t really concentrate on her story about her aunt. He was trying to remember the last time he’d seen her. What had they done? What had they talked about? Suddenly, it seemed so important, but that last visit melted into all the others in his mind. He’d had no idea it would be the last time he’d see her while she was a single woman.

  “I hope you don’t have plans for New Year’s already. I didn’t get around to sending you one of those save-the-date cards,” she said. “I, you know, things get busy.”

  Hm. That sounded like the sort of lame excuse he might give her. “Nah, nothing yet.” Rain wasn’t the type to make plans that far in advance unless they were work-related plans. New Year’s was over two months away.

  “I know it’s a lot to ask for you to fly all the way to Puerto Rico for my wedding, but it’d mean a lot to me if you were there,” she said, her voice sounding a lot more solemn than it had been when she was gushing about Manny a moment ago.

  “Yeah, I mean, of course I want to be there. For you.” He still couldn’t believe he was having this conversation. He was talking about Carolina—his Carolina—getting married. How was that possible? She’d never even mentioned anything about wanting to get married. And weren’t they too young for this? They’d just graduated college. Wait. Had it really been five years ago that they graduated?

  “Okay, thank you so much! Give me your address so I can make sure I have the right one. I need it for your invitation.”

  He rattled off his address while thinking that something felt out of place about this whole thing. Something seemed really wrong. He finished his conversation with her while still kind of zoning out and not able to focus on what was being said. All he knew was the next time he saw Carolina, it would be in Puerto Rico. And he would be there to see her getting married to some other man.

  No more Carolina? No, that couldn’t happen. Could it? All through college when they’d been off and on, he’d never imagined this. In all the times she’d visited him in D.C., he’d never imagined this. They’d driven each other crazy in good and bad ways, and they’d driven each other away, but they always somehow managed to come together again. She’d teased him about this very thing sometimes, and sometimes the words had taken on an angry tone: some day, you’re going to realize you missed your chance. That’s going to be a bad day for you, she’d said.

  Carolina was a beautiful woman. There was no doubt about that. And spending time with her was mind altering incredible. She was the only one he’d found worthy of repeat sex since his only serious girlfriend in high school—not that high school really counted. He remembered the first time he’d seen her. Tight jeans over lovely hips, a tiny tank top, and a smile a mile wide on her beautiful golden face. He’d felt his lips tug into a matching smile almost of their own accord. Her smile had always demanded a matching one from him. Always. Right from the start.

  He guessed he’d assumed they’d end up together. He should have had plenty of time to get to that end, though. He wasn’t interested in settling down yet. Other things were priorities right now—taking over the telecom industry, seeing the world, just enjoying the single life. Relationships and all that didn’t go with his brand of ambition, and they didn’t seem like enjoying life to him. That sort of thing seemed stifling. Like a trap. He’d seen it suck the life right out of friends of his that had fallen prey to the marriage trap. Friends he rarely if ever saw anymore. He wouldn’t mind putting that whole thing off for a few more years. He needed more time.

  But.

  He didn’t have more time. He was getting closer and closer to losing Carolina forever every moment. In fact, the date had been set for The Loss. New Year’s Day.

  He put his phone down on the desk and stared at it for a moment before it hit him. It bothered him not because of jealousy. Or not only because of it. It didn’t even bother him that she was getting married. Not really. What bothered him the most was a combination of those things.

  Carolina was getting married, and he wasn’t going to be the groom.

  “My God,” he said, shocked and horrified with the realization as it entered his brain. “I think I’m in love with her.”

  Yeah, he’d go to that wedding, but not to smile and nod and throw rice at her and whoever this Manny jerk w
as.

  He was going there to get his Carolina back.

  Chapter Two

  Daphne Moore walked out of the building at the end of her volunteer shift and squinted against the early afternoon sunshine. She spent most Saturday mornings volunteering with Dogs for Vets, a small non-profit organization that paired Iraq and Afghanistan Vets with service and therapy dogs. She helped the organization with everything from editing grant proposals to caring for the dogs to following up with the Vets who used their services. It was a small operation with just a few volunteers, and her volunteer time was spent wherever she was needed. They often needed lots of help in many different areas. Every shift was different, and she never had time to get bored. She loved putting in her hours there.

  Daphne had walked that day because it wasn’t a bad walk from her condo in Northeast D.C. to the location of the non-profit and because she didn’t want to have to drop her car off later. Her cousin, Bettina, had insisted on picking her up after her shift so that they could go to lunch and then go shopping in Georgetown. It was their thing—especially when Bettina had a really hard week at the law firm where she worked as a secretary. In fact, Bettina was waiting in the parking lot for her now.

  Daphne walked up to Bettina’s car and got in.

  “Hi, how’s it going?” Daphne said.

  Bettina quirked an eyebrow at her. Her cousin’s stylish, short, dark brown hair was perfectly curled. Her green eyes stood out in a nice way against her caramel skin. “I was there all morning. That’s all I have to say.”

  As soon as Daphne had both feet in the car and the door closed, Bettina sped off. “What’s the rush?”

  “If I’m not surrounded by designer clothes and jewelry I can barely afford in the next few minutes, I might lose it.” Bettina blended right in with the crazy, pissed off, lane-switching drivers all around them. She zipped down the road much faster than Daphne would have. Bettina usually drove when they went somewhere because Bettina didn’t have the patience for Daphne’s driving. Daphne barely had the nerve for Bettina’s, but she managed.