Hooked #3 (The Hooked Romance Series - Book 3) Read online

  HOOKED #3

  Book 3

  By Claire Adams

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2015 Claire Adams

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  CHAPTER ONE

  Days passed, and I hardly saw the sun. The October days were growing shorter, and I could feel the cold emanating from the lake through the glass of my windows. I placed my fingers on the cold and leaned into it, as if it was a fresh breath of air.

  Since the destruction of my beautiful building, my mother had called several times wondering about me. About my dance studio. About how I was making it. But I hadn’t answered. My insides felt crumpled, hopeless. I watched my phone buzz and buzz and buzz each time until it shook itself from the table and onto the clattering wooden floor.

  Mel called as well. I remembered the joy I had felt at her apartment, such a sense of family for the first time in my life. She had grown up with Drew; she was his aunt, although because of their parents’ age differences, they had grown up together. It was so insane to think about; that this woman I had known for two years had always had Drew in the back of her mind—as if he were waiting for me.

  Mel’s messages were anxious, worried. She didn’t know what was going on, and she certainly didn’t know Drew had been the one to swoop the dance studio out from underneath us. It had been our only solace from the surrounding world, the only place we could actually dance—be ourselves—in the wake of all that had come before. I had failed as a dancer, and she had given up, gotten married, and had a baby. She had done so many, many decent things in her life. Why wasn’t she allowed a single pleasure?

  “Molly? Molly? You need to call me back, okay. I don’t know where you disappeared to. I had such a wonderful time with you last week, but Drew’s telling me you won’t talk to him. I can’t understand it. Did we do something wrong? Please let me know if there’s anything I can do, Mol. I want you guys to work. You are the best girl that Drew’s ever brought home, and I mean that seriously.”

  I rolled my eyes listening to the message. So even Mel knew about Drew’s womanizing? I sighed, tossing the phone to the couch, serious about not calling her back. Perhaps I could start over on my own, without strings attached to Drew. I reached toward my coat hanging on the coat rack. Boomer, to my left, meowed at me, confused about my strange off-kilter attitude the past few days. I had forgotten to feed him the day before, leaving him to jump on my head and rustle my hair in the morning.

  I pushed my hands through my jacket, thinking about Mel and Drew once more. I was sure they hadn’t been talking this entire time; or had they? I chewed on the side of my mouth, considering. Perhaps Mel had known the entire time that Drew was in the city, that Drew was the one I’d been seeing. Perhaps she’d known the entire time that Drew was planning to buy the dance studio? My heart leaped in my chest; I felt like I was bungee jumping once more. The city around me felt dark and dismal, churning with a sense of foreboding. Was anyone here my friend?

  I couldn’t mope anymore, and I couldn’t consider such thoughts. I shook my head back and forth, trying to cleanse it. If Mel had known, then screw it. It had all happened; it was done. I couldn’t roll over now; not yet. If I went back to Indianapolis because Drew had taken all I had ever known, I would ultimately show Drew I was weak—that I couldn’t handle his prowess, his money. I cleared my throat and stomped to the doorway, thinking about his sleeping form just a few doors down. His incredible body, his furrowed eyebrows. I shuddered. I would go into the world and find a new dance studio. I couldn’t mope anymore; this was the world I was meant to have. And screw Drew for letting him take it away from me—if only momentarily.

  I ripped into the cold Wicker Park morning, looking at my watch for a moment to discover that it was only nine in the morning. Rush hour. People swarmed around me, dressed in business attire and huffing with a sense of seriousness. My eyes were wide as I pushed through them, exerting my stance in their world. I parsed through the Wicker Park streets, knocking on my leasing agents’ doors. “You have a moment?” I asked the secretary each time with my smile gleaming, my teeth white. They always had exactly one moment, and I always asked them detailed information about their properties and their rents. I wrote everything down in a notebook and nodded with a sense of importance as I placed the information on the pad. “Thank you for your time,” I murmured after each conversation before scurrying out into the world, my heart beating fast and my brain knowing that I could never—ever—afford whichever place I’d just been offered.

  After a rough morning, I decided to march back to my apartment and take a hot shower. I thought of the tea bags in the corner, the leftover cinnamon roll from a previous morning. I could have a nice early afternoon with myself, regroup. Catch up on some moping time. I deserved it, after all. I grabbed my keys and flung through my apartment door, inhaling the unique, personal smell of my apartment. Boomer meowed at me with a bit of resentment, and I held him close, allowing him to lick my salty finger.

  I placed a kettle on the stove and walked aimlessly, side-to-side, peering down at my notepad. I tapped my pen against my lip, considering rents and loans. I didn’t know much about that world. In my head, my first instinct was to ask Drew about it. Surely, he knew all about loans, about the unique process behind the dark shades of the bank. But then, I remembered to hate him. I shuddered deep in my stomach.

  The pot of water was finished, and I poured it earnestly into my teacup, allowing the tea to steep for a moment. I had been in contact with a few of my dance students in the recent days, trying to feel out whether or not they’d be interested in more dance classes. Only a few of them—mostly the all-too-serious high school girls, had continued on with other dancers throughout the park. “But the expenses, Molly,” their mothers told me over the phone. “You tell me if you ever get back up and running.” They seemed to assure me like they would assure their own daughters; they would keep me in business if they could.

  I sipped at the tea, feeling the aroma from the herbs emanate over my face. I inhaled, exhaled, allowing my eyes to dip closed. A quick nap, perhaps, before I exerted myself into that world once more?

  Suddenly, there was a tremendous bang on the door. My heart jumped into my throat, and I nearly spilled the tea down my dress. I set it on the counter and looked toward Boomer with furrowed eyebrows, as if to complain.

  My soft feet led me toward the door and I peered through the peephole. There, on the other side of the wooden slate, stood Drew. Tall, stoic; with that hint of a smile peppered on his lips. My heart was pounding faster and faster in my chest, and I felt a strange passion in my body, a tingling in my breasts. Something sexual stirred in me. I cleared my throat and pulled at the handle.

  He stood in his pleasing grey suit. His hands hung at his sides, and his chin was high in the air. “Hello, Molly,” he nearly whispered, gazing at my eyes, at my cheeks, at my breasts.

  I felt so strange, as if I w
ere being assessed at a county fair. Why had he come here? I kept my eyes closed, remembering how he’d looked in that hard hat next to my building, pausing before destroying the eternity of my dreams.

  “Molly. I wanted to say I’m sorry. I wanted to come by here because—” He paused and slapped the back of his neck nervously, gliding his hands over the sweat that brimmed over his skin. “You were the only thing that made me smile, you know? I thought we really started to have something here.”

  My stomach was completely empty. I could feel its sides scraping up against each other in my body. I longed for him to leave, to leave me in my squalor. I could figure everything out myself. I wanted to spit at him. I could do this all on my own, if only he’d just leave me the hell alone.

  A pause occurred between us, our eyes meeting in the center of our heated bodies.

  “Aren’t you going to say anything?” he asked. His voice had lowered an octave; he had broken out of his sentimentality; he had leaned toward a sense of hostility, a sense of regret.

  I didn’t open my lips, choosing only to look at him with my large, orb-like eyes. I couldn’t speak. I felt like if I did, the world would crack open. I had to get back to my work; I had to find my own place for Molly Says Dance. I couldn’t rely on my sexual passions, the feeling in my gut that this man before me was so much more—so much more!

  I couldn’t rely on anyone.

  “You really aren’t going to say anything?” Drew sputtered. He was growing angry. I assumed he wasn’t used to begin ignored. “I come down here, soak up all my confidence to do it, and you won’t even talk to me? You know you’re really putting me through the ringer here. Come on, Mol. Just one word. One syllable, even. Just give me something to go off of, so I can move forward. So I can try to make amends.”

  There was no making amends, I wanted to tell him. There was nothing. I shook my head simply, as if I were speaking with a child who hadn’t gotten his way. He nearly stomped his foot. I could feel the anger brimming in him; it was about to burst.

  Until, finally, he turned on his heel and walked away down the hall. I watched as his neck curved down, leaving his back a bit crooked, a bit aged. The shadow of his body lurked across the wall. I stood in the doorway, watching him until he entered the apartment he shared with Marty—that dismal apartment in which we had fucked on nearly every surface, feeling the tremors of our bodies in such a way that made me squirm.

  It couldn’t be so anymore. Not anymore.

  I backed up into my apartment as well, feeling safe in the shell of my own smell, of the herbal tea. I crashed into the dining room chair and leaned my chin on my knuckles, allowing myself to pause at the strangeness of the situation. I, a poor nothing, was ignoring the most beautiful, the most brilliant man in all of Chicago. And yet, in so many ways, I couldn’t care.

  Thirty minutes passed before I heard another knock on the door. Frowning, I looked down at my empty tea cup and prepared myself for another Drew altercation. Would I speak this time? I bit my lip and peered through the peephole. This time, I didn’t see the tidy smirk of a businessman; instead, I saw the beautiful, timid smile of Mel—my beautiful dance assistant who hadn’t given up on me. My stomach stirred as I remembered, however; perhaps she had known all along that this would happen. Perhaps she had been the root of the problem.

  No one could be trusted.

  I pulled open the door, biting my lip mid-smile. Mel flung her long, ballerina arms around me and held me close to her chest. “My darling, Molly,” she murmured. I felt myself pour into a fit of tears. “Please. Please. Don’t cry.” She pulled her fingers over my hair, allowing me to fall into sadness, into comfort. I felt the morning’s strain pull at my chest.

  I led her into my apartment and pushed the door closed. My face was red, splotched. Mel looked at me, gripping her hands together, her eyebrows high on her face. “Darling. What’s going on over here?” she asked. “I haven’t heard from you in days—not since I saw you and Drew at our place. Darling, what’s going on? Is it that bastard’s fault? I mean. I know how he can be with women.” She punched her hips for a moment lightly, as if deep in thought.

  I shook my head. “It’s not the womanizing thing, Mel,” I murmured. I collapsed into a chair once more. “It’s the—it’s the dance studio. Drew bought the building. That’s why we’re out of business.”

  Mel sat down quietly in the stool next to me. I could feel the worry emanating from her core. She sighed, tapping her fingers against the wood. “Shit,” she murmured. “I have to say, I didn’t see this coming. An affair, sure. Being an asshole, sure. But ruining your entire business? Now. That’s a new low.”

  My throat sputtered with a short burst of laughter. I gazed at my friend—at the tired wrinkles beneath her eyes from her brand new baby. I shook my head. “You know. It doesn’t matter. I knew he was a womanizer, that he shouldn’t have ever cared for me. He was far too rich, anyway. And I—I mean. I live like this.” I gestured around my apartment, at the broken toaster, at the vase in the corner that was filled with dead flowers. “I’m trying to make a dance studio work to my advantage, while he’s able to just scoop it up—eat it, like a big corporate monster—and do whatever he pleases.” I shrugged. “Perhaps that doesn’t make him a bad person. But it makes him my own personal demon, or something.”

  Mel reached toward me and put her slim hand on my knee. “You know he really cared for you, right?”

  I felt a stirring in my stomach, as if this information—spoken directly from my only friend in the city—was ill-formed, false. I wanted to laugh it off, even as I remembered the targeted way his eyes had looked toward mine as we fucked each other, my body moving over his, my breasts bouncing onto his chest. In those moments, we had been one.

  I slammed my fist on the table. My eyes burned like wildfire. “Mel. You know. This morning I was so strong. I walked through this city looking for new spaces to rent. There are places open all over Wicker. I just have to be strong, be selective. I have to be more like Drew, in a way. More like a shark. I can get through this fucking—injustice.” I cleared my throat, standing tall next to the table. Mel stood up as well, a bit shaky on her feet. “This is all I’ve worked for; it’s all I have.”

  “It’s all I have, as well,” Mel whispered toward me. She cleared her throat. “I’ll help you in any way I can.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Mel waited for me to put on my coat and scarf. We skirted out the doorway once more, feeling the cold whip across our faces from the streets below. We grinned at each other, feeling a sense of excitement in this strange new chapter. “Where have you looked already?” Mel asked, turning her head left and right when we reached the main road.

  I pointed to the left, noting that many of the business people from the day had scurried into their businesses and offices; they had left these tired streets behind and found solace behind boredom and glass windows. “Let’s try over there,” I murmured.

  Mel and I walked quickly down the street, peering into the coffee shops and bustling restaurants. Wicker Park was a continuous flurry of activity, of song. I stopped sharp before a restaurant that was called “The Goat,” peering into the window to see a young woman drinking a pint at the bar, a cell phone in her hand. I looked up at the top of the kitsch-y pub, noting that the building had a FOR RENT sign. I peered toward Mel, scratching at my head for a moment—feeling the strange cleanliness of my hair after so many days of wallowing. Mel shrugged, sensing my interest. “Why not try it?”

  I entered the pub door. The smell of greasy food, of musty beer entered my nose, and the comfort made my head spin. Mel and I sat down at the bar, a few seats away from the woman on the telephone. She was speaking with such exactness, with such fortitude, that I understood; she owned this place. I peered around me, feeling the striking masculinity, the power of the cute place. How had she done this on her own? What could I learn from her?

  A young man—a bartender about my age—walked toward us languidly, drying a pi
nt glass in his left hand. “Can I get you ladies something to drink?” he asked us. His smile skirted to the left, then to the right. His black curly hair was wrapped in a handkerchief. I thought about him at home, wrapped in the calamity of guitar music and marijuana.

  “Two pints. The dark—the porter,” I nodded toward the tap system. He nodded back, swiping two glasses from the top shelf.

  Mel shuffled a bit on her seat, looking toward me with a small bit of earnestness. What was my plan? Her eyes wondered.

  The woman on the phone finally said her very loud good byes, huffing a bit as she exerted her finger to the OFF button. She sighed, looking up at the bartender. “Those lunatics,” she said, shaking her head. She turned toward us, raising her left eyebrow. “I’m so sorry about that, ladies. Sometimes working out rent issues can be a bit of a bitch. Chicago rents, you know.” She laughed, showing all of her teeth.

  Mel elbowed me in the side as the bartender set the drinks before us. I felt my heart beating fast in my chest; I had to act now. I took a slow, steady sip, feeling my eyelids dip languidly over my eyes. I cleared my throat, turning back toward the woman. “You know. I saw you had a place open upstairs.”

  The woman laughed for a moment, not taking me seriously. I was, after all, no older than the bartender cleaning her barstools. “Yes. Well, you see. That’s mostly my problem. It’s a wide-open space, one that I can’t seem to do much with. I thought about making it an area for dancing, maybe karaoke on certain nights.” She waved her hand back and forth. “But we’re not really the scene for that, you know. It wouldn’t really work.”

  I nodded expressively. “Well, I’m looking for a space right now. For my dance studio. We were bought out by a corporate developer.”

  The woman’s dark eyes widened. Her lips slimmed dangerously into a grim smile. “Those bastards,” she murmured. “They got you too? It’s not for that bookstore down the street, is it?”