Tainted Love Series Boxed Set Page 7

  She gave him a silly grin—and the Zoe that he knew, the sarcastic flat-mate Zoe, was back. “Because…it’s a girl thing. I’m just curious.”

  “You sound as though you care,” he replied gruffly. “Seeing as you can’t seem to stop talking about it.”

  “I’m fascinated by that whole seedy escort world.”

  “It’s not really so seedy. It’s actually quite sad, when you break it right down. All these lonely women who just want a bit of company. Even Ethan got sucked into it.” He had to throw that in to watch her reaction at golden boy doing something that seedy.

  “I don’t think he slept with anyone.”

  Tyler peered at her closely. “Don’t be so sure.” Her eyes glittered dangerously and when shock twinned with bewilderment streaked across her face, he knew he had achieved his goal.

  “Ethan would never stoop so low. I know.”

  Tyler arched an eyebrow. “You know? You mean you know Ethan? That dreamy little fantasy thing you’ve got going on in your head is just that—a fantasy.” He knew it was wrong to taint Ethan’s character. Tyler didn’t want to, but he had the hunch that women threw themselves at him.

  But he also knew that a guy like Ethan would have looked the other way—and gotten the hell out. Even if he’d had an appointment with vulnerable, beautiful, normal Bailey. That’s the kind of guy Ethan was. And to see Zoe still pining after him, goddammit, it just made his blood simmer.

  “Fantasy? There’s no fantasy thing going on in my head.” She looked at him icily. “He’s just a good friend. And Ethan would never, I just know.” She wasn’t budging from her opinion and he let it go.

  He was still sitting facing her stool and now took advantage of the fact that he could observe her from the side. He wanted to see her reaction carefully. “And now he’s engaged. When are they getting married?” He could have sworn he saw her chin tremble.

  “How about you ask him when he comes over?”

  Tyler tried to discern her mood.

  But all of a sudden, she let out a squeal and pointed behind his shoulder—he was forced to turn and see what had riveted her attention so fully. There was a poster on the wall behind him.

  “Speed Dating?” He looked back at Zoe.

  “It’s at the Sugar Hut Club, some bar in SOMA. Next week,” she said slowly, as if she was thinking about going. She looked at him. “Are you game?”

  “Speed dating?” he repeated, this time in a questioning tone. “You’re not serious.” Maybe she was choosing to forget Ethan. Just as well he hadn’t given in to her just now, otherwise…

  But she ignored him and was busy reading the poster again. Suddenly overcome by a wash of excitement, she almost knocked her bottle over.

  “It starts at seven. I’ll try to start my shift earlier that day. Come on, where’s your sense of humor? Let’s do it, as a joke, you know, not take it seriously. We’re two young twenty, thirty-something—”

  “Twenty-seven.” Her assumption that he was in his thirties annoyed him but if she was game for it, so was he.

  “Okay, let’s do it.” He agreed, “Shall we go now? I think it’s time to stop drinking.”

  Zoe held onto her beer bottle. “But this is kind of fun, and I was just getting to know you better.”

  “Why would you want to get to know me better?” he asked, getting ready to put his jacket on.

  “Because we’re sharing an apartment, for one thing.” She put down her bottle and started to put her jacket on too.

  They left the warm smokiness of Rocco’s and set out in the cold night air, which soon sobered them up.

  “You never did tell me her name.”

  “Bailey. Her name’s Bailey.”

  “Bay-lee,” mimicked Zoe slowly. “Pretty name.” After a long pause, she asked, “Is she?”

  He finally replied. “Yes.”

  They walked the rest of the way home in silence and once inside, he went to his room and Zoe disappeared into hers.

  Chapter 14

  She slept right through the sound of her alarm going off. And also hadn’t heard her cell phone ringing.

  The sound of Tyler pounding on her door roused her a little. But when she tried to lift her head up, it throbbed. And when she looked up at the ceiling, she felt as though she were lying on a roulette wheel.

  “Zoe!”

  Shut up!

  Her parched mouth felt like weather-beaten leather and the urge to down a glass of water consumed her. Tyler pounded on the door again and this time she put her hands to her temple as the pain worsened.

  He stuck his head around the door and glared at her. “It’s the people from your programming course. Get up!” He hissed. She jerked up and scowled when it felt as though someone had taken a baseball bat to her head.

  He walked in with the phone and said in his best voice. “Just a second,” before disappearing again.

  She looked up, barely registering what was going on. But the words about the programming course jolted her into action, even though she could only just sit up and try to swallow.

  Tyler reappeared, this time with a glass of water in one hand, the phone in the other.

  He pressed the phone to his chest, muffling out all sound. “Drink,” he ordered and gave her the glass of water she’d been desperate for. When she’d downed it in one, he handed her the phone. She took it and steadied herself. When she looked up, Tyler was watching her. His cheeks turned red. He mouthed a “good luck” to her, then vanished.

  “Hello, Zoe Carter,” she said in her normal voice now that she’d been hydrated.

  Ten minutes later she slammed down phone and whooped for joy so loudly that Tyler came running in.

  This was the news she’d been waiting for.

  “And?” He eyed her suspiciously as she stood in the middle of the living room, her arms spread out as she fought to contain the excitement that bubbled inside her.

  She glanced up at him, overjoyed, and then her gaze registered his shorts and drenched T-shirt and she almost let out an audible gasp of surprise.

  No man deserved to look that sexy first thing in the morning.

  “And?” he repeated, moving past the door still staring at her.

  She moved her gaze up from his chest, met his slate-gray eyes and swallowed. “They want to see me.” She grinned widely, looking like an idiot, she was sure. The news had been totally unexpected—she’d written it off. He stood with his hands on his hips, smiling back at her.

  “Why’re you smiling?” she asked suspiciously, taking stock of the pain that had come back in her head.

  “Because I’m happy for you. This is what you wanted.” He was breathless and she wondered again what he’d been up to.

  “They want to see me in an hour.” The thought sparked immediate panic and she leapt forward, ready to spring into action. But her head throbbed, and the room seemed to move slowly around her. She almost tripped but Tyler grabbed her around her waist as she almost sailed past him.

  His strong arms steadied her and didn’t let go as she caught a scent of his smell, sweat and mint all mixed up.

  If sexiness could be bottled, it would smell like this.

  “Hey,” he whispered, “I’ve got you.”

  She looked at him weakly, praying she didn’t have any sleep in her eyes and all the while, her legs felt weak. She tried to steady herself but the way her heartbeat was racing, she didn’t trust herself to steady anything.

  “This is it. I can’t mess this up.”

  “No, you can’t.” He still had his arm around her waist, and she was no more than a few inches from him. The way he held her, excited her, and she felt like a raggedy doll in his arms. Images of last night at Rocco’s vied for attention with the pressing urgency of her imminent interview.

  “I’m ready. I think I’m ready.”

  “Of course you’re ready. It’s yours, if you want it,” he told her. She grabbed his bare forearm, falling further into the mix of sweat and mint that surround
ed her. She wondered how long she could stay like this, this feeling of being so close to him already had her aroused.

  Oh shit! She looked down and saw that she had on nothing but her panties and a vest top. No bra. And she knew he could see, as clearly as her body was alerting him, that she was excited by this closeness.

  She blushed and pushed away, flailing her arms in front of her, trying to hide her telltale arousal and to shoo him away.

  “Sorry.” Tyler averted his gaze as he let go of her. It was only then that she saw he was holding a skipping rope in his hands.

  So that’s how he got his body into that shape.

  He closed the door, then shouted out to her. “I’ll put some coffee on,” then as an afterthought, “and make you some dry toast.”

  She felt a tingle of excitement rush through her. But right now she couldn’t be sure if it was from getting an interview that she had only dreamt about, or from seeing Tyler’s lean, sweaty body and knowing he’d seen her half undressed too.

  An hour later she sat anxiously in the dull brown waiting room of the place where the Programming Bootcamp Intensive course was held.

  She’d felt nervous as soon as she got there. There were other interviews taking place—a fact she hadn’t even thought about and which added to her growing sense of unease.

  She watched as yet another guy turned up for his interview and was quickly ushered into a different room to take the twenty-minute aptitude test she had just completed.

  She heard her name called out, and a guy wearing glasses, kind of nerdish if it wasn’t for his sharp-looking hairstyle, greeted her with a smile as she got up, half hesitantly.

  “Come right on in, Zoe.” He beamed at her and she instantly felt a million times better.

  “I’m Hugh Richmond.” He shook hands with her firmly.

  “It’s great to see a woman applying for this course,” he began, as she sat down and crossed her legs. “How did you get interested in doing this course? You say you have no programming experience.”

  She couldn’t help but notice how young he seemed; he looked only a few years older than her. How come he was taking the interview?

  “Do you teach on this course?” she blurted out, completely forgetting that he’d asked her a question. Her nerves were getting the better of her; she’d felt a sense of trepidation when he’d called her name out.

  “Yes, I teach part of the course. I teach Ruby and JavaScript. I’ve been in this industry for over a decade ever since I graduated.”

  The way he’d just answered her questions told her he’d been asked about his young looks before.

  He’d already lost her at the Ruby and JavaScript part. Billy used those languages and she’d stared at some of his lines of code when he’d shown her. But now that she was confronted by Mr. Geek, her doubts crept back in again.

  “Coming back to my previous question, where does your interest in this come from?”

  How could she give him a worthy answer without unraveling her life story and her sudden mid mid-life epiphany?

  “My boyfriend, my ex was a—is a games programmer. I found what he did to be fascinating. Sometimes I’d look over his shoulder at his coding assignments when he brought work home and I found I could follow some of the logic.”

  Hugh nodded his head encouragingly.

  “What did he program in?”

  “Ruby, JavaScript, sometimes Python and C++, I think.” Billy had often muttered these terms to her, when doing a lot of his stuff and she now remembered them.

  Hugh smiled at her and she wondered if he was going to tell her that she had no business being here.

  “You scored extremely high on the aptitude test. Extremely high, and for someone who has no programming experience, I find that most encouraging.” He flicked a glance at what looked like a printout of the test she had just done. “That’s very impressive.”

  Her heart surged. She felt the urge to cry because she felt so happy. Just like that.

  “Are you sure?” she asked, sitting forward and trying to peer at the form without him noticing. She wanted to check it really was her application form he was looking at.

  “Zoe”—he sounded more than serious—“you show real potential for programming. And I’m going to offer you a place. Your application form tells me what I need to know about your experience and work to date. And the test tells me what you’re capable of. It’s an intensive course. You’ll be expected to turn up every weekday for the next four months. It’s more than a seven-hour day, from nine to four in class, but your assignments and coursework will require extra hours daily. It might sound like a long time, but this course is going to be over before you know it. Most of our students find work once they leave and many go on to find really good placements—but you have to work hard. Real hard and keep up with the assignments.”

  “I know, and I’m prepared for that.” She could answer confidently, for she had been prepared for that. After all, that was the whole reasoning behind her finding a part-time job in the first place.

  “Do you have the finances in place? It’s not a cheap course. Ah, yes, we’ve been contacted by the grant office. I see you’ve already applied for the Women In Programming grant.” He flicked through her application form again. “You’ll be pleased to know that you’ve been approved for that,” he said, beaming at her.

  Zoe felt herself shaking with excitement. “Really? That would be a huge help—I do have some savings and I’ve got a part-time job. So anything extra on top really helps.”

  He looked up at her, encouraging her to continue and for that moment, she forgot her earlier hesitation about him being such a young-looking tutor.

  “What sort of work?”

  “As a waitress, at the Pancake House.” She tried to shrug it off as something light, something that wouldn’t get in the way.

  “Great pancakes,” he said, before turning serious. “Will you be able to juggle both?”

  “It’s a part-time role. Four hours a day.”

  He frowned. “It’s going to be a very long, busy day for you.”

  “I can do it.” She almost jumped at him. She didn’t want him to take it away from her, now that he’d set her up.

  “What does this course mean for you, Zoe? How badly do you want it?”

  She didn’t need to think about it. “I’d do this course if I worked eight hours a day, and I wouldn’t tell you I worked eight hours. I’d just make sure I made the hours fit. Why do I want it? I always figured I could use my brain, that I had other talents and skills. Too many people told me I wasn’t good enough. But I’ve known I could do more. And this is my chance to prove it to myself.”

  She’d lost the smile and looked at him with a grim determination.

  He seemed to be thinking things through. “I’m also going to recommend you for our discretionary discount—based on your aptitude results. That will give you a further twenty percent off, which, I think, with your other grant, will make a substantial reduction to you in the cost of this course.”

  “Thank you so much. It will make a huge difference.” She resisted the urge to jump over the table and throw her arms around his neck.

  Hugh got up and held out his hand to her. “Congratulations, Zoe. Course starts next week. We’ll send out emails and letters by post today. Well done.”

  Chapter 15

  He’d already worked out in the backyard by the time Zoe left. Good job that he’d woken early; otherwise there was no way that Zoe would have heard the phone ring.

  As he headed out, Tyler’s thoughts were with Zoe and her interview. He wanted her to nail it—though waking up with that hangover wasn’t going to help.

  She was obviously determined to change things and he hoped she’d get the opportunity to do just that. He understood wanting more. It was the embodiment of what his father wanted. But his father seemed hell-bent on acquiring more and more and more, to the detriment of everyone who loved him. Tyler didn’t want to end up like that. Yet he wasn
’t doing any better either, following his own path.

  Not choosing to dwell on his father, his thoughts drifted back to the morning and waking Zoe up. Just thinking about her in her tight gray vest, so thin it might as well have been transparent, sent blood rushing to more than just his face.

  It was the first time that cute had ever gotten him hot and bothered.

  He shook his head, not wanting to get hot and bothered right now, not when he was seeing Bailey. She’d called him last night, in response to his text about Chrissie firing him, and she’d been outraged. He sensed that something akin to guilt lay under that veneer of anger and he wanted to confirm his suspicions about how Margaux had known things that were only between him and Bailey. He had a feeling he wasn’t going to like the answer.

  He turned the corner and headed for the coffee shop nestled among the row of eateries.

  Bailey sat right up close to the window. He couldn’t miss her if he tried, not with her dressed up like a Christmas bauble in her bright red polo neck. She waved at him excitedly.

  He walked in and headed in her direction. She rose and threw her arms around him—they could be girlfriend and boyfriend meeting for coffee. Not an escort and client who had slept together.

  She dropped back into her chair, a smile on those deep red painted lips. She looked the picture of voluptuousness, with her translucent plumped skin, not a wrinkle in sight.

  Sleeping with a client was not something he’d intended to do, but he’d fallen for her story—a love affair with a man who didn’t take her seriously and had left her heartbroken. After a couple of appointments, a few dinners, a couple of drinks, talking, driving her home, talking some more, drinking some more…he couldn’t fight the attraction, neither could she. She was a textbook temptress, with bountiful curves in the places he loved. Their time together ended up feeling like a real date.

  How could he resist?

  When she’d turned up at the first appointment in a halter neck dress that almost had her falling out of it, he’d done well to resist her then. Barely. Chrissie’s rule had been firmly ingrained in his mind.