Truly Madly Deeply (Forbidden Love, #1)

by L.J. Shen

“Look at her leg.” “Ugh, gross.” “She’s never gonna run again.” “Dot?” The last voice belonged to the present. It also belonged to someone who absolutely despised me. What was Row doing awake, anyway? Did he ever sleep? Was he a vampire? I mean, he was painfully beautiful and permanently sulky. Though he did cook with garlic and wasn’t destroyed by fire. “Are you hurt?” His low, husky baritone rumbled over my head.

“Can you move?” he gruffed. “Are you asking because I’m blocking your path or because you’re worried about me?” I moaned. “Can’t afford to be one server short.” “And they say romance is dead.” My lips moved around the claylike mud. “Plus, you’re on my property and I can smell an insurance claim from miles away.”

“Is it okay if I touch you?” His voice hovered above my head. He sounded like he was standing on a treetop. How tall was this man? “Just wanna make sure nothing is broken.” I am broken, Row. Permanently so. Even if my body is all healed. “Gently,” I croaked, feeling so pathetic I wanted to cry. “Of course.” Row placed his palm between my shoulder blades. It was warm, heavy, and reassuring. A hint of a tremble danced through his fingertips. It wasn’t too cold out, so it gave me pause. Maybe he was an alcoholic. That could also explain his mood swings. “You gonna stay there for long?” he inquired. “Maybe enough for a quick power nap,” I mumbled into the dirt. “I thought you were going to check my leg isn’t broken?” “It’s not your leg I’m worried about.”

“How did it happen?” he asked quietly, his hand still on my back. I wanted him to keep it there forever. I also wanted him to go away and never come back. “I was jogging. My legs kept running when I told them to stop. And then I kind of lost my vision for a moment and my breathing got all weird. I think maybe I’m broken.” My voice cracked a little, and I felt like the tiniest, stupidest creature on planet Earth. “Best if you leave me to die here.” “Your broken is still the most whole thing I’ve seen.” Maybe I was hallucinating, but I could swear I heard McMonster. But of course I hadn’t. McMonster was down in New York, and I’d never even heard his voice. Known his name. This was Row. Infuriating, sexy, my best friend’s brother, Row. “What?” I raised my face from the dirt, peeking at him. “Didn’t say anything.” Row clasped my shoulders very gently, lifting me up to collapse over his broad chest. He was on his knees in the dirt, right there with me. And I wanted to throw a tantrum like a toddler because now I couldn’t even hate him all the way. Underneath his relentlessly cold exterior was a compassionate creature who built the women in his life their dream house and literally pulled people from the mud. God, please don’t let me crush on him again. My heart couldn’t survive season six of This Is Us, what makes you think I can withstand him? I wanted love. I wanted sex. I wanted all the things other people had and I didn’t. But I wanted them with someone I could trust. And th...

He shoved one fist into his front pocket. “So what do you think?” He jerked his chin to the property in front of us. “Tell me while I take you inside and break in that first aid kit.” I blinked the dirt out of my eyes. “Oh. Wow.”

“C’mon, Dot. You used more words than that to describe a tissue yesterday.” He pushed the doors open. “Hey, that was a supersoft tissue. My nose was very grateful. Was it the Costco brand?” “Answer the question,” he chided softly, and I knew what he was doing—taking my mind off my obvious panic attack. Keeping me engaged.

“You visit the restaurant before you pick me up?” “Yeah. I get there at around ten, help with prep and inventory, staff meeting, marketing, then go back home for a quick shower before picking you up.” Then he stayed until we closed shop, at around midnight. “Do you have a life?” I blurted out. “A what?” He feigned confusion, walking over to a beige luxury kitchen and popping open an exotic quartzite drawer. He produced a first aid kit. “You hate the house, don’t you?” “Hate is such a strong word. I only hate political grifters and frosted tips as a hair trend. Even David Beckham couldn’t pull it off.” “Are you going to tell me what you think about this house anytime in the next century?” He grabbed me by the waist and hoisted me over one of the two kitchen islands facing each other. Like a lightning strike, every hair on my body stood on end. To make matters worse, he didn’t let go of my waist while he pulled a wad of antiseptic wipes from a container. I wondered if he felt it too. Like he was brought to life by a simple touch. Calm down, girlie. He doesn’t like you. Just wants to make sure you don’t die on his property. “Should I check you for a concussion?” He scowled. “You haven’t said anything in over a minute. I’m starting to get worried here.” “The house is…modern.” I cleared my throat.

“Gonna sting a bit. Pinch me if it gets to be too much.” He slung one of my hands over his rock-hard shoulder. Swoon.

He wiped my scraped shin with the antiseptic wipe, and I dug my fingernails into his shoulder with a wince. It burned worse than acetone on a paper cut. “Right. You’d go for something Victorian. Lots of arches, iron railings, churchlike steeply-pitched rooftop.” That was freakishly accurate. “Are you able to read people’s minds? Like that Mel Gibson romcom? Is that, like, a medical condition?” “Absolutely not.” He patted my shin clean of blood and dirt with the tenderness of a loving parent, and I dug my nails deeper into those jacked-up deltoids, this time not because it hurt but because I hadn’t touched a man in years and was extremely deprived. “I make it a point not to read anything. Reading might lead to opening my horizons. I like ’em narrow and flat.” “You’re not as bad as people think you are,” I admitted begrudgingly. “More than anything, I think you’re misunderstood.” “You sound like every woman who’s ever tried to fix me.” “Don’t worry, I won’t try to do that. I don’t have superpowers.”

“Why?” He shrugged. “Don’t wanna get comfortable somewhere I don’t plan on staying. I purchased an apartment in Chelsea, though. I plan to stick around in London for at least eight years.” My heart deflated like a balloon, floating aimlessly before crashing in the pit of my stomach. I couldn’t tell if it was because it meant the next goodbye would be morbidly final, or because I was jealous he was in a position to buy a whole-ass apartment when I couldn’t even afford to rent a bike in New York. Either way, the pang of sadness unsettled me.

He leaned against the opposite island, arms idly crossed across his chest, making his biceps bulge. More staring. Zero words. I didn’t move, and neither did he. In fact, we were both frozen in place, waiting for something, anything, to happen. It was just that…it was the first time since he’d taken my virginity that we weren’t enemies, and I liked it. I missed it. Too bad he has better things to do with his time than engage in a stare-off with you.

“Why’d you decide to take up running again?” Row asked when we were going up the stairs to the second floor (his butt was twelve out of ten, by the way). “My dad bullied me into it. Made it his last wish. Can you believe it?” I grumbled. “Guilt-tripping me beyond the grave. That’s some next-level helicopter parent shit.” Row made a hmm sound. He didn’t know what had happened to me that day. Even Dylan wasn’t privy to the entire story. “What’s so terrible about running?” “I kind of have PTSD.” We ambled along the colossal hallway of the second floor, where he showed me the nursery, the guest room, and the laundry room. “From doing something healthy?” he taunted. “From running.” “Why?” “It reminds me of a very nasty injury…and a situation I never want to be in again.” “You won’t be,” he said decisively, stopping by the double doors of the master bedroom. “Know what you are?” “What am I?” I had a feeling whatever he was going to say was going to change my life, so I had to listen carefully. “Beef Wellington.” Okay, maybe not. “I’m not following.”

“All soft puff pastry on the outside, but once you take a bite, you realize the inside is almost always too raw.” “I’m not ra—” “You do the happy-go-lucky schtick, and that’s why you’re stuck. Because you don’t dare. Your father’s right. Running again should be a priority for you. Otherwise, you’re gonna be stuck in the same place forever.” “Thanks for the quick psychoanalysis.”

“You need to start running or you’re never gonna get anywhere worth visiting.” “You saw my panic attack out there.” I pointed at the door. “I can’t.” “Of course you can. It will be hard, uncomfortable, but worth it.” He leaned forward, popping the doors to the master bedroom open. “And if running alone scares you so much, ask your mom to run with you.”

“Maybe I’ll take Kieran.” He paused, his back to me, before pushing the doors open. “Good idea, if you need some deadweight. Fox Sports said his leg is busted.”

Row continued, “And this is the maste—” A blood-chilling shriek left my mouth, drowning out his last word. “Shit.” Row backed out of the room, plastering his palm over my eyes to shield me from the image in front of us. Too late. It was already permanently seared into my brain. “Is it dead?” I slapped his hand away, peering behind his massive shoulder. Violent nausea slammed into the back of my throat. There was a coyote lying right in the middle of the empty room. It looked like roadkill, its eyes open, dead, and empty. Its guts spilled onto the floor. My eyes watered at the smell, and I palmed my mouth to keep myself from heaving. “Unless the tire marks on its body are a fashion statement, I’m pretty sure it’s dead.” Row tugged me by the arm out of the room, turning me in the other direction and forcing me to march out into the hallway. “This is sick.” “Agreed.” But Row seemed more pissed off than surprised.

“This happened before?” “I’ve had people pranking me, but this is some next-level shit. Vandalizing my property is a step too far.” He squared his shoulders. “I’m going to break some skulls.” Well, this was terrible news to me. Because just as he said that, I keeled over, emptying my stomach onto his brand-new lush carpet.

ROW

Row: You okay? Cal: I was a second ago. Now a stranger is texting me and I’m a little freaked out. Who is this? Row: Row. Cal: Oh. Hi, boss. What do you want? Row: To see if you’re okay. Hence my above question. Program me in. Cal: Aww. Casablancas. Are we having a moment? Row: Of regret. You’re my employee. I wanted to know whether you are good for service tonight. Get over yourself. Cal: Boo.

ROW

There were countless things I disliked in this world. A never-ending list of shit that ground my gears. To name a few: overcooked seafood, foreign films that won Oscars, any music made after 2015, the vast majority of humans, and porn that had more than three minutes of plot.

“She’s your ex-girlfriend.” He puffed out his cheeks. “Ex is the operative word here.” But she had never been a girlfriend either. Allison Murray and I had seen each other a handful of times when I’d first moved back. It had lasted barely a couple weeks. She was like a Range Rover. Pure status symbol and unreasonably high maintenance. Her entire allure was that Cal seemed to hate her, and Cal didn’t hate anyone.

I made a Rose Kennedy, double the vodka—her favorite—before trudging my way upstairs. Allison and I had never meshed well. She was the wrong type of go-getter, the kind that ran people over on her way places. She had tried too hard to impress me, to keep me, to seduce me, which resulted in me breaking things off before I’d even had a chance to take her for a spin.

Allison always checked the pulse to see if I might be interested in taking her out for dinner—and having her as my dessert. It always flatlined. Monogamy wasn’t my thing. I didn’t want a family. Didn’t want kids. Didn’t want any dependents. The less responsibility I had, the fewer chances I had to fuck something up. Artem’s voice chuckled in my head, Simple math never lies.