For Pete's Sake: An Enemies to Lovers Marriage of Convenience Standalone Romance Novel (Tobin Tribe Book 1) Read online

  She reached out to accept the envelope, their fingers touching. “It’s okay. I already know. Thank you.”

  The shock of her words overrode the shock of her touch. Had she actually thanked him? He’d been cursed, threatened, and assaulted. But never thanked. The silver-tongued attorney struggled to form the words that usually slid from his lips.

  Suddenly, the urge to find the nearest bed had nothing to do with taking a nap.

  She coaxed the envelope from his hand. A hand that instinctively sought hers as she pulled it away. A hand he snatched back and balled into a tight fist.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” he mumbled. His planned circular escape route lost in his confusion, he turned around and retraced his steps back to his car.

  CHAPTER 3

  STEPHANIE SETTLED INTO the stretch limo surrounded by the only family she had left: Brian and Deb Tobin and their five sons. The men she had grown up with. The men she considered her brothers. Although the car was designed to hold ten comfortably, the tall, muscular men surrounding her filled it to the max. But instead of feeling crowded, she felt safe and protected.

  Uncle Brian withdrew the rain-pocked envelope from his breast pocket where he’d stashed it after the process server made his retreat. He took Stephanie’s hand with a gentle squeeze. “Do you want me to open this now or wait until we’re in private?”

  Another wave of anguish washed over her. Were there only five stages of grief? No, it was a living, breathing thing that twisted and morphed without rhyme or reason. It attacked with different phases at its sadistic pleasure, changing hour by hour. Sometimes minute by minute. Stephanie had learned that when she’d buried her parents.

  She was over the shock and denial of Smitty’s death, but the twin fangs of pain and anger tormented her, taking turns nipping at her. Torrents of tears had given way to molten rage. Stephanie was at grief’s mercy as she rode the swells of her emotions.

  She squeezed her eyes shut to force back new tears. “You know there aren’t any secrets in this family. I appreciate your discretion, but right now I need my uncle, not my attorney.”

  Aunt Deb took Stephanie’s other hand in both of hers. “None of this would have happened if you and my baby had gotten married like we all wanted you to.”

  Yeah, all the parents. But not Stephanie. Or BJ. As if he would ever get married. To anyone. She was possibly the only straight woman on the planet who didn’t want to crawl between the sheets with BJ or one of his brothers. She considered all the Tobin boys her brothers, if only in spirit. Marriage to one of them would have been...weird.

  But that tall, dark-haired, black-eyed man from the gravesite? What was it about him that had captured her attention? The man was suing her, for God’s sake. He should have disgusted her.

  She caressed the spot where their fingers had touched, remembering the tingle that had shot through her. What the hell had that been about? Except for the ceremonial clumps, Smitty’s casket still sat in its grave uncovered. This was not the time to be attracted to another man. Any man. Especially the man about to drag her into court.

  BJ rolled his eyes. “Mom, stop. I’m not a baby anymore. Besides, I conned Steppie into a bean eating contest when she was seven then taught her how to light her farts. Not exactly the image a man wants on his wedding night.”

  “Ooh, BJ said farts in front of Mom. He’s gonna get it now! No dessert for you, Beejus,” Riley taunted.

  BJ merely shot his brother the bird.

  “Mo-om, he flipped me off,” Riley whined.

  Stephanie shook her head. Riley was nearly thirty years old; would he ever grow up? Would any of them? Probably not.

  “I can’t reach him,” Stephanie said. “Will someone please swat him for me?”

  Like she had to ask twice. Immediately, a mini-riot broke out as four big men turned on the unlucky brother.

  “Boys!” Aunt Deb’s single word froze them all mid-punch. Six men and a woman in the Tobin family and no one doubted for a second which one was the alpha. It was good to be the queen. Stephanie wanted to be the queen with a brood like the one surrounding her. Would she ever get the chance?

  She turned to BJ and stuck out her tongue. The flame-throwing escapade. As memories went, that one wasn’t the most embarrassing, but it was close. She giggled again. The Tobin boys had all inherited their father’s strange wit. “You’re jealous because I shoot pure blue.”

  She and BJ loved each other in their own special way, but not the way either of them needed. Marriage in their world was often more of a corporate merger than a love match, but Stephanie had wanted more. And look where that had gotten her.

  No one had ever touched her heart the way Smitty had. They had liked the same music, the same foods, the same movies. Had it all been a lie? Her grief, her anger, her pain, none of it was for Smitty. He could rot in hell. She hoped he was already there, roasting in its unquenchable fire while she burned in her own version of the living hell he’d left behind.

  The death she mourned was the death of the dream she’d thought they’d shared. The death of the family they’d never create. The death of the love that had never been real.

  Uncle Brian cleared his throat. “The envelope?”

  Stephanie nodded. “Sorry. I can tell you what’s in there. I hired a private investigator a few weeks ago. He emailed his final report to me late last night, so I expected this eventually. In a nutshell, Smitty had a second wife and a baby born the day of his accident. As far as I can tell, Smitty never met his son. The other woman wants child support, am I right?”

  BJ snorted indignantly. “What kind of coldhearted bastard serves a widow at her husband’s graveside ceremony?”

  Uncle Brian scanned the document; his face tightened in anger. He waved the paper in the air. “This one. It’s not the first time Ethan Webb has done something outrageous like this. I’m surprised he didn’t have a camera crew tagging behind. He’s an embarrassment to the legal profession. The man should be disbarred.”

  “Last week, we ran video of a stunt he pulled at some hospital. He’d won a judgment, but the hospital refused to pay up, so he got a writ, rented a U-Haul, and showed up one Sunday morning with a sheriff’s deputy and a camera crew. He pulled out a chainsaw to start dismantling a CAT scan machine before a hospital administrator showed up with a check. It was great TV,” the usually silent Knox said.

  A cold shudder wrapped around Stephanie. A lawyer so hell-bent on vengeance that he would destroy a two-and-a-half million-dollar piece of medical equipment wouldn’t think twice about destroying her. She couldn’t let that happen. It was time to put on her big girl panties and deal with it.

  “Since it was going to happen eventually, today is as good a day as any,” Stephanie admitted.

  Because today, she’d been surrounded by people who had at least pretended to care about her. Not while she was alone or at the office that, after all these months, still felt more like her father’s than hers. Where she was surrounded by jackals waiting for her to fail so they could pick apart the carcass of the company her grandfather had sold his soul to build.

  In a way, Ethan Webb had done her a favor. At least now she had some pity capital to spend. She’d use it, or anything else, if it helped her stay at the helm of Kerrigan Financial Services.

  CHAPTER 4

  ETHAN EASED HIS CAR into the left turn lane and waited for traffic to clear. I’m sorry for your loss. Had he really said that? Yes, he had, and for some unfathomable reason, it felt right. Stephanie Kerrigan had suffered a loss every bit as devastating as Megan’s. She had to be hurting every bit as much as Megan hurt. She was as innocent in this mess as Megan was.

  But she was sleeping. Megan wasn’t. Neither was the baby. Which meant neither was he.

  He tried to fight off a yawn. The yawn won. What the hell had his baby sister gotten herself into? Why hadn’t he listened to his gut the day Megan had barged into his office with Smitty in tow, claiming that he was the one? Yeah, the one who had kn
ocked her up.

  Ethan scanned the still-unfamiliar dashboard for the right button and punched it with more force than necessary. “Call Megan,” he said into the empty car and waited for the call to connect. And waited. And waited. Finally, his sister’s voice mail picked up, and he heard her cheery, sweet voice. Would he ever hear that tone of voice again?

  “C’mon, beep already,” he muttered. “A simple ‘leave a message’ would be nice.” But no, the excited new-mom-to-be liked to leave lengthy updates. He considered calling her back so he could hear her happiness again. Lord knew she hadn’t said this many words since she’d found out about Smitty. The beep rang in his ear. “Hey, Megs, it’s done. I have one appointment this afternoon, then I’m coming home. Please eat some of the soup I made for you last night. It’s your favorite minestrone, and I used that little heart pasta you thought was so cute. And there’s a chicken sandwich next to the milk.” But he knew she wouldn’t touch either. “Anyway, I love you, baby sister. We’ve gotten through worse. We’ll get through this the same way we always have: together. Call me if you need anything.” He hesitated before disconnecting. What more could he say?

  He could have prevented this whole mess. All sorts of alarms had triggered when she’d pushed that self-uniting marriage license into his face and announced her intention to marry Smitty. Right then. Right there. All she’d asked was for him and his personal assistant, Nicole, to sign the license as witnesses so they could file it.

  At least the guy was offering to do the right thing by her and their baby. It was more than his father, or Megan’s, had ever done. Whoever the hell he, or they, was. Were. Whatever. He was so damned tired he couldn’t get his verbs right.

  Why hadn’t he at least tried to convince Megan to wait a few days to give him a chance to have Smitty investigated? It wouldn’t have taken any effort at all to discover the man she was planning to spend the rest of her life with was already married.

  Yeah, the asshole had a wife, and if what he’d read about Smitty’s widow was accurate, the woman was a force to be reckoned with. If only half of it was true, he was in for a bumpy ride.

  That was okay. He hadn’t had a decent challenge in a while. He was more than up for this. Right? All of a sudden, he wasn’t so sure.

  His usual Have a nice day had been ready to roll off his tongue, but something in her eyes had grabbed him. Sadness, yes, but more than that. Anger. That he recognized and understood. Pain. Again, not a stranger in his world. Determination bordering on defiance was there too. The will to survive, to overcome, to soar. Ethan saw himself so many years ago when taking his next breath had required a nearly Herculean effort he hadn’t wanted to make.

  Why had he been reluctant to hand over the envelope? Where had that overwhelming urge to protect her come from?

  He growled, pounding the steering wheel with the heel of his hand. What the hell was wrong with him today?

  Megan, client. Kerrigan, adversary. He sucked in a deep gulp of air and blew it out hard to refocus himself. That was better. Marginally. But his words, his feelings, were too damned close to “Me Tarzan, you Jane.”

  Not a good idea.

  Wrap your head around the case. It had always been easy to lose himself in the law—to intimidate and bully. He’d learned those lessons early in life from the other side. Now, he turned the tables and used his skills to find justice for the weak, like Megan. Justice the strong, like Kerrigan, tried to deny.

  But was Kerrigan all that strong? Wasn’t she Smitty’s victim too? Could the tears, the grief, the pain, all have been for show? Conventional wisdom said the wife was always the last to know, yet she’d claimed she did know. Ethan had been counting on the shock value of being the one who broke the news, planning to use that shock to manipulate her throughout what could become a long, drawn-out process.

  There was the chance she’d been wrong. Was she waiting to hear from the other driver’s family? Expecting them to go fishing for a big payday? Under different circumstances, he would have contacted the family to encourage them to do exactly that.

  But why had Kerrigan assured him it was okay? And thanked him? He couldn’t figure that out. He was used to pitching curveballs, not trying to hit them. She had put him off his game with only a look before she’d uttered a single word.

  Game. The smile he’d struggled to suppress at the gravesite tickled across his face. Game recognizes game.

  But it was more than that. More than perceived commonalities between them. More than...

  Stop it!

  What the hell was wrong with him? He’d only interacted with her for a few seconds. How could that possibly make him an expert on her?

  He shook his head yet again to clear it, but it was no use. His concentration was shot. He needed a distraction. He punched the button to fill the car with music. Barely below the threshold of pain, sound pulsed around him; tension rolled off him as he moved to the beat. The thrash metal he’d loved since he was a teen had provided the soundtrack for his trip to the cemetery. And his life. Angry, hard, loud. But it no longer fit his mood. He cut the volume. “Sirius...seventy-six.” The deep, soothing sound of classical cellos washed over him. Great. I hope it’s not those two idiots who mix Beethoven with Led Zeppelin. Pick one, already.

  Pick one, already? Like he had? When faced with a choice, he had chosen to be... nice? Sympathetic? Decent? He had chosen to be himself, unguarded and unprotected, without the mask. But had it been a choice? It had felt natural. It had felt right. It had felt...

  Whoa.

  Was sleep deprivation warping his mind? Whatever the hell was going on in his head had to stop immediately. He had a reputation to uphold. Falling out of character in front of so many people was bound to have repercussions he couldn’t afford.

  This was not the time to go soft, to expose the tightly kept secret life that kept him sane. If his colleagues found out, his professional life would crumble.

  And that was the only thing he had.

  No, this was time to double down on his trademark ruthless, bloodthirsty public image. This was the time to smash his opponent without mercy. It was what he did, and he did it well. His family was counting on him. He wouldn’t let them down.

  CHAPTER 5

  STEPHANIE STOOD IN the hall outside of Ethan Webb’s office and reached for her uncle’s hand. The connection did little to reassure her. She squeezed her eyes shut, savagely squashing the pain that threatened to drive her to her knees. Again.

  She couldn’t afford a hint of weakness or a whiff of vulnerability. Not today. Today, she had to channel the tough-as-nails CEO who refused to take shit from anyone, to bury the part of her that wanted to cry and kick and scream.

  She’d spent the entire weekend crying and kicking and screaming, but it hadn’t helped. It wouldn’t help now.

  She pulled herself up to full height, steadying herself on the four-inch-man-killer heels that had become part of her daily uniform. At six-foot even, she didn’t need the extra height, but man did it feel good to tower over the stodgy old men her father had stacked the board of directors with. Men who had been her father’s drinking buddies. Men who had been part of her life for as long as she could remember. Men who couldn’t accept that she was now a grown, educated woman more than capable of guiding her family’s business through the rough waters of the current economy. Her father had groomed her for the position from the minute she could hold a pencil. Too bad he’d neglected to let his pals in on the plan.

  A different kind of pain coursed through her. An old grief that stayed buried for the most part but never totally went away. Her father hadn’t expected to die that day. There should have been plenty of time to ease her into the leadership role that was her birthright. But there hadn’t been. Like there wasn’t any more time to start a family with Smitty. The only two things she wanted in this world were slipping away from her, and she didn’t know how to stop it.

  As if he somehow sensed her thoughts, Uncle Brian moved his hand to her shoul
der. “Take a deep breath, sweetheart. You are a strong, capable, intelligent woman. You can do this. Your aunt Deb and I are so proud of you.”

  Aunt Deb. Yes, she needed to become the Queen Bee that lived inside of her—the woman who ruled the roost and could stop a locomotive dead in its tracks with a single glance. She had to find her. Queenie hadn’t been around much lately, but she had to be inside of her somewhere; all she had to do was look.

  Stephanie forced herself into a calm that moments ago had seemed impossible. She closed her eyes, allowing a mental image to form. A slow smile oozed over her face. There you are. She shrugged her shoulders as if stepping into her alter ego’s skin. Courage welled up, filling every corner of her being.

  Tears were for the weak she reminded herself. CEOs weren’t weak. Kicking? The corner of her mouth quirked up, her smile morphing into a sneer, as she imagined what one well-placed kick would do to Ethan Webb. Her smile faded. That would be assault, and being a lawyer, he’d file charges.

  She couldn’t run her company from behind bars. She would have to rely on screaming. Quiet screaming, of course. It would be best to assault him with a few well-placed F-bombs. She imagined him cowering as she blistered him with words no lady should utter in polite company. But then, she was no lady, and this was hardly polite company.

  “What does he think he’s going to get?” she whispered. “Thanks to the prenuptial agreement you and Daddy put together, Smitty’s net worth is pitiful. He had less than a thousand in all his bank accounts combined, and the car he totaled out was a lease. Almost everything he owned is sitting in boxes outside my front door waiting for the thrift store to claim them. There’s nothing.”

  Wedged between filling those boxes and destroying half a forest’s worth of tissues, Stephanie had spent a good part of her weekend scouring the internet for information on Webb.