Some Like It Sizzling, page 4
“How about you?” she threw back. “When was the last time you went on a date? And I don’t mean screwing your ex on the couch.”
Ah, now she was getting somewhere. Luke didn’t blush, but when he got embarrassed the tips of his ears turned red. “I do all right,” he muttered.
“Maybe I should fix you up,” she taunted. “There’s a new adjunct professor in my department. Unless, of course, you and Jenna are a thing again.”
“We’re not a thing,” Luke bit harshly. A dark cloud came over his face. “This was a one-time mistake. Jenna’s not in my life.”
The urge to counsel Luke gripped her like an iron vise, but she knew enough about her ex-husband to keep her mouth shut. He was so far in denial-land, he needed a bus to get back.
“I really do need to get home. Hey, E!”
She could hear the loud bounce of Eli’s footsteps even before he burst into the living room. “Give me a hug.” He ran into her arms and she held him tight for a minute. This was always the hardest part of dropping him off, but she’d agreed to joint custody because it was best for her son. “Be good for Dad.” She kissed him once, twice, three times on the nose, until he grinned. “Love you.”
“Love you, too, Mommy.”
As she left Luke’s apartment, she wadded up Tim Kelley’s number and tossed it in the garbage.
…
“Open up! We know you’re in there.”
Jenna gripped the blanket on her lap, deciding between lifting it off to answer the door for Chloe or pulling it over her head to hide.
The decision was taken out of her hands when Ashton’s voice came from the other side of the door. “Are you really going to make a pregnant woman stand here all day? Because we’re not leaving.”
With a long sigh, Jenna heaved to her feet and padded to the door. Chloe and Ashton had changed out of their bridesmaids’ dresses and carried several boxes of pastries.
“I know,” Ashton said as she waddled her way inside, “you don’t eat carbs. Most of these are for me. I might let you have one if you give us a damn good explanation for bailing on us at the church.”
“We were worried sick,” Chloe chimed in.
“Didn’t you get my text?” As soon as she’d gotten home, before taking a long hot shower, she’d texted her family and Ashton and Chloe to let them know that she was okay, but needed to be alone. She should have figured Ashton and Chloe would ignore the second part. In their place, she would have, too.
Chloe came back from the kitchen carrying plates. “We got the text. It said ‘come over now and bring dessert’. That’s what you read, too, right, Ash?”
“Absolutely.” Ashton fell back against the sofa and put her feet up on an ottoman. She balanced a plate on her belly and reached for a chocolate cherry croissant.
“Admit it, you’re just here for the food.” As crappy as the day had been, it felt good to tease. Jenna sat beside Ashton and reached for a small macaroon.
“Have you heard from Hal?” Chloe asked from the side chair.
“Nope.” Jenna stuffed the macaroon in her mouth. “He’s gone, his stuff is gone, just like Ty said.” She grabbed a brownie and ate it in two bites.
“Wow,” Ashton said. “That’s the most I’ve ever seen you eat in one sitting. Maybe even in a week.”
Jenna looked down at the cinnamon bun she was about to stuff in her mouth with horror. She didn’t even remember picking it up.
Chloe grinned and popped a truffle in her mouth. “Damn, I’m good.”
“That rat bastard.” She dropped the pastry back on the plate. “I hope Hal knows that he’s paying for every bit of this wedding and for the liposuction I’m apparently going to need.”
“So, what happened at the church?” Ashton asked, picking up the cinnamon bun Jenna had just discarded. “We lost track of you after the fire alarm went off.”
“I heard a fireman say it was a false alarm and that someone had intentionally pulled it,” Chloe said between bits of a chocolate ganache éclair.
Jenna looked down at her feet.
“No!” Chloe exclaimed. “You didn’t.”
“I had to get out of there,” Jenna defended weakly. She lifted her legs against her chest and hugged her knees. “I saw Luke.”
Ashton’s eyes widened into saucers. She’d gone to high school with them, so she knew their whole sordid history.
But Chloe didn’t. “He’s that hot fire guy you used to go out with, right?”
“They dated for almost four years,” Ashton corrected. “All the way through high school. The night we graduated, he proposed. But instead of answering, Jenna left the next day for Italy without even telling Luke she was leaving.”
“Poor guy,” Chloe cried. “He must have been heartbroken.”
Jenna shook a finger at her. “You’re my friends, so you have to side with me.” She took a deep breath and continued softly. “I was young and I wasn’t ready to make a lifetime commitment. Okay, yes, I was too big a chicken to tell Luke to his face—”
“She sent him a postcard three months after she left,” Ashton whispered loudly to Chloe.
“But it was a long time ago, and he and I are both over it,” Jenna added, glaring at Ashton.
“So you ran into Luke,” Ashton prompted as if the last minute of conversation hadn’t happened.
“We went back to his place.” She took a deep breath before relaying the whole humiliating story.
The looks of shock on their faces were almost comical. “That story is so horrifying,” Chloe said, “that you ate a white chocolate toffee cookie without even realizing it.”
“Damn it,” she muttered, wiping the crumbs on her Lululemon yoga pants. She looked at Ashton. “Did you know Luke had gotten married, had a kid?”
She shook her head. “I lost touch with him after high school. What about your family? Wasn’t Luke tight with your brother?”
“Yes, but Tanner and I don’t talk about Luke.” The one instruction she’d given her family when she’d left for Europe had been to never mention Luke to her again. And they hadn’t.
“What is his wife like?” Chloe asked.
“Ex-wife,” Jenna corrected. “And I don’t know. We didn’t spend much time chatting.” As she reached for another cookie, she dropped her hands and groaned. “Ugh, do not let me eat anymore.”
“If you want to keep your hands busy, you could massage my feet,” Ashton mentioned hopefully.
Jenna tapped her lap. “It’s the least I can do for making you stand around all day.” She pressed her thumbs in the center of Ashton’s feet, who leaned back with a contented sigh.
“What are you going to do now?” Chloe asked.
“Go back to my life,” Jenna said. “And try to forget I ever knew Hal.”
…
“I’m broke?” Jenna asked the question calmly, even as a tsunami brewed in the pit of her stomach. Three days had passed since the non-wedding. Jenna had filed a missing person’s report when Hal hadn’t shown up, but the police weren’t optimistic. After all, Hal hadn’t simply disappeared. His clothes were gone, his cell phone service cut off, and his computer missing.
And apparently, he’d taken his money with him. And her money, too.
Jenna stiffened her spine, refusing to let her accountant see her panic. Jim was a friend of her brother Peter and, if she broke down, she knew it would get back to her family. As things stood, her four brothers wanted to go Braveheart on Hal. Peter most of all. He’d been the one to introduce her to Hal a little over three years ago, when Hal had been a new associate at the accounting firm where Peter had worked at the time.
She’d managed to get Peter to return home to Cincinnati with his family, where they’d relocated last year. Adam, too, had left to report back to the Navy base at Coronado. So, at least for the moment, she only had to worry about two brothers, Cliff and Tanner, drawing and quartering Hal if he showed up.
“I’m broke,” she repeated, letting the words—and the implications—sink in. Since she’d seen that first eviction notice hiding under a pile of unpaid bills on her father’s desk as a teenager, her life had been about gaining financial security. Now she was right back where she started, right where she’d worked so hard to avoid being.
“Yes and no,” Jim unhelpfully clarified. “Hal cleared out all joint accounts, which were the majority of your liquid wealth. If he turns up, you could try to get it back.”
“If there’s any left.” Bitterness filled her voice.
Jim nodded apologetically. “That’s right.”
“What about our other investments?” Jenna asked. “There isn’t much, but we did buy some land we intended to build a summer home on, stocks—”
“That brings us to the other problem.” Jim took off his glasses and pinched his nose. Jenna didn’t know Jim well; she’d just been introduced to him two days ago by Peter. Hal had handled their financial portfolio. But from the way sweat glistened on the middle-aged man’s forehead, she could guess he wasn’t about to deliver good news.
“The FBI is investigating Hal.”
“What?!” Posture be damned, Jenna sank forward. She gripped the edge of Jim’s mahogany desk. “Why?”
“They believe Hal was doing accounting work for the Mangino crime syndicate and using his clients at the accounting firm to hide and launder mafia money.”
Jenna shut her eyes as a wave of dizziness sent her off-kilter. That couldn’t be true. Hal wasn’t working for the mafia. He’d been busting his butt for years to make partner. She snapped open her eyes. “Is the firm under investigation, too?”
“No, they’ve been cleared. But they’re pissed to find out Hal was using them and their clients for illegal activities. They’re cooperating fully with the investigation.” Jim swiped at a bead of sweat making it down the side of his face. “The FBI will be investigating you as well, to make sure you weren’t involved.”
She leaned back in her chair, sinking even lower. “The hits just keep on coming.”
“I’m sure they’ll clear you, but meanwhile, anything jointly held with Hal that he hasn’t already taken has been frozen. And it could be some time before you have access to it.”
The dizziness was back, only this time Jenna wished she could pass out and wake up in someone else’s life. “I have a savings account—nothing big, but it was in my name only. Is that account frozen, too?”
“No, just what was connected to Hal. I know this is bad news, Jenna. But you’ll be fine. Be thankful you kept the restaurant completely separate from Hal. You’ll still have that source of income.”
She didn’t say anything, although she knew part of what Jim said was true. When she, Ashton, and Chloe had gone into partnership and opened Sweet Home, Ashton and Chloe hadn’t been comfortable with Hal as their accountant and so they’d used Peter instead. Even after Peter had taken a job with the IRS, they hadn’t asked Hal to step in.
But having the restaurant as a source of income wasn’t going to pull Jenna out of the sinkhole of debt she was currently in. For one thing, she only owned one-third of it. Plus, the ownership dynamic had changed in the past year. Sweet Home hadn’t always been a success. The restaurant had struggled to the point where closing had seemed one of the few viable options. She and Chloe had convinced Ashton to compete on a cooking reality show in a last-ditch effort to earn prize money and gain publicity. The plan had worked, but not in the way they’d expected. Although Ashton hadn’t won the show, she’d won the heart of celebrity chef and head judge Ty Cates.
After they were married, Ty had bought Chloe out of her shares so she could pursue her dream of opening a bakery. Now he wanted to expand. Jenna had agreed to put their profits toward buying the land next to the restaurant for an addition. If she backed out, she’d have to admit she was broke, and she couldn’t do that. Not even to her best friends.
Some people thought that she made a lot of money because a reality show based on Ashton and Ty’s marriage was partially filmed at the restaurant. The truth was, Jenna was barely on the show, so she was only paid when she appeared. And although the restaurant received some money for allowing the crew to film there, she’d long ago agreed to add that to the expansion fund.
What if Ty offered to buy her out? Then she’d have nothing. Sure, they might take pity on her and let her stay on as general manager. But then she’d be just another employee, instead of one of the owners.
Worrying about her job title seemed ridiculous in light of the fact that she was broke. Added to that, the wedding had gone over budget by more than double. Hal had insisted this was a business opportunity to impress his bosses, so she’d agreed to unnecessary extravagances and a bloated guest list. While deposits had been put down, most of the bills hadn’t been paid.
“Jenna, are you okay?” Jim asked, and she realized she’d gone quiet for a while.
“Fine,” she answered, though they both knew that was ridiculous. “I should be going.”
Jim stood and held out his hand. “If you need anything, please let me know. I’ll help in any way I can.”
“Thank you.” Jenna shook his hand and then exited the office. In a daze, she hailed a cab to take her home.
Jenna slouched against the car cushion and closed her eyes. How could she not have known what Hal had gotten himself into? Since moving in with him three years earlier, he’d had a lot of “client” dinners, and she’d just assumed they were from the firm. Sure, they always seemed to have extra money for vacations, and both of them wore only designer labels, but that was because they worked hard.
Except, most of the other junior executives that Jenna had met hadn’t lived the lifestyle she and Hal had. Had she really wanted financial security so badly that she’d lived with her head in the sand for the past three years?
She was saved from examining the issue further when the cab pulled to a stop. “Fifteen bucks,” the cabbie said gruffly without turning his head.
“For ten blocks?” Jenna stared at the meter in disbelief. She’d never realized how expensive cabs were; she always just swiped her credit card without looking. Having no alternative, she ran her credit card through the machine. When a “decline” message popped up on the screen, her pulse jumped. Dammit, all her credit cards were held jointly with Hal; the accounts must have been frozen.
With shaking hands, she opened her wallet, praying she had enough money. Her sigh of relief when she spotted the twenty quickly turned into panic. This was the last of her cash. Would she be able to get more?
She paid the cabbie and then stepped out of the last taxi she’d be taking for a while. As the doorman opened the front door of her building, she stiffened her spine and held her head high.
“Ms. Rawley, there’re some people—” he started as she passed him.
“Sorry, in a hurry,” she called over her shoulder. Yeah, it had been rude, but she didn’t want to answer any questions about where Hal had been for the last few days, or why they weren’t on their honeymoon.
As she stepped off the elevator on her floor, she noticed a crowd of people near her apartment. “What the hell,” she yelped, when she realized they weren’t near her apartment, they were standing in the open doorway. She charged down the hall and tried to get into her apartment before getting barred by two very burly men.
“FBI, ma’am,” one said. “You can’t enter the residence.”
“This is my apartment,” Jenna protested. Don’t cry. Crying won’t solve your problems. She inhaled deeply and swallowed back tears. “What’s going on?”
“Ma’am, we have a warrant to search the premises.” He shoved a piece of paper in her hand.
She glanced at the warrant, but it might as well have been written in Chinese. She was too enraged at Hal, and really too scared, to read clearly. Stuffing the warrant in her handbag, she stepped back until she hit the wall and then slumped to the floor. She thought about calling a lawyer, until she realized she’d have no way to pay one.
“I don’t know how long we’ll be,” the agent warned.
“It doesn’t matter,” Jenna whispered, her gaze cast on the floor. She had nowhere to go. And no one to call.
Because the only thing worse than the latest in a long line of humiliations was for anyone she knew to witness it.
Chapter Four
“Pop, I’m here,” Luke called as he stepped through the doorway of his childhood home. His mother had called earlier and asked if he could come over and spend the day with his father. “Hang out” was the code they’d used in the past several months for the times Patrick Kearney liked to pretend he didn’t have a weak heart. Luke would visit under the guise of hanging out so his mother could run errands without having to worry about coming home and finding her husband unconscious again.
Three generations of Kearney men might have been firefighters, but the greatest influence on Luke carrying on the family tradition had been his father. Hell, if the man hadn’t had a heart attack six months ago, he’d probably still be on the ladder.
“Pop,” he called again when he didn’t get an answer. His chest tightened as he walked through the house, peeking into each room, praying he wouldn’t find his father lying on the floor. When he entered the kitchen, he spotted his father through the window, sweeping the back deck.
“Sit down, Pop. I’ll do that,” Luke said as he opened the screen door and strode through.
“I’m not an invalid,” Patrick Kearney growled, tightening his grip on the handle. “I can sweep the damn deck.”
Luke knew he had to tread carefully. After a lifetime spent in action, retirement didn’t suit his father. Especially since his wife had been hovering over him like a mother hen. But Luke also knew that his mom only called for him to come over when his father had a bad day.
He was about to make a play for the broom again when he heard a voice behind him. “Don’t bother. I already tried and he threatened to sweep me off the property.”
