Read Oh Stupid Heart Online

Authors: Liza O'Connor

Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Humor, #Romance, #Contemporary, #New Adult & College, #Romantic Comedy

Oh Stupid Heart

BOOK: Oh Stupid Heart
9.81Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

 

Oh Stupid Heart

Book
Two of: A Long Road to Love

By

Liza
O’Connor

Copyright Notice

All rights reserved.

Any reproduction of
this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or
other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography,
photocopying, electronic copying, or recording is forbidden without the written
permission of the author.

All characters in
this book come from the imagination of the author and have no relation
whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names, titles or professions.
They are not based on or inspired by any known individual and any resemblance
to a person living or dead is purely coincidental.

Cover Blurb

Carrie Hanson is in
love with a different species: Trent, a pampered, uber-rich socialite who’s also
her boss. Everyone keeps telling her it’s a train wreck looking to happen, but
her heart wants what it wants. So despite the billion and one reasons not to,
Carrie commits her heart to this inter-species relationship. But while she's
off being trained for her new job responsibilities, a beautiful ex-fiancée is
working hard to get him back and Carrie fired.

 

Liza O'Conner writes books that speak to my soul. Carrie is a
character you will not soon forget.

--Rebecca Royce,
author of The Warrior series.

 

Note from Author

I stubbornly use
British logical punctuation instead of US illogical punctuation when it comes
to commas and periods next to dialog tags. The U.S. rule was created before the
revolution, in times of shoddy printing presses, and it’s time Americans revolt
and throw it out. (We threw out the presses long ago. I’ve not idea why we
cling to the silly rule.)

An example of British
logic: He called it a “whirly bird”. (Note the period is after the dialog tag.)
Illogical US punctuation would have it: He called it a “whirly bird.” That is
not logical. The tags are highlighting a specific item in the sentence, while
the period is for the entire sentence. Now the whirly bird has captured the
period and will no doubt feed it to its babies. That is if whirly birds have
babies.

But this goes beyond
whirly birds. This goes to national and personal self esteem. It is time we
drop this silly rule. How can we ever gain international respect when we
punctuate so foolishly?

Dedication

I dedicate this book
to the authors and readers who so generously help me on a daily basis. While
there are too many to name in person, if you’ve passed along a tweet, shared a
Facebook post, critiqued my work, given me advice, left a nice comment on my
blog, written a positive review, or hosted my blogs on your site, then this
dedication is to you. Without you, I would be mute and very sad.

Chapter 1

Carrie Hanson
couldn’t believe it. Her four year sex-drought was about to end. She shivered
in anticipation until a sinking dread over came her.
What if I’ve forgotten
what to do?

Please God, let this
be like riding a bike.

Trent pulled back
from their kiss and studied her, his brow furrowed. “Are you cold?” He reached
across her bed and tugged the edge of the comforter over her, tucking the
fabric beneath her body so she became a human corndog.

She wiggled out of
captivity and scooted across the bed, closer to him. “I’m fine. I’m just happy
our horrible week is over and we can start anew. This time not as boss and an
employee, but best friends who love each other.”

Trent gathered her to
his chest and kissed her. She opened her mouth and met his tongue with her own,
giving as good as she got. His soft groan inspired her to do more.

She unbuttoned the
waistband of his suit pants and slipped her hand beneath his boxers, determined
to move matters along and end her drought forever. He broke their kiss and his
hands captured hers.

He didn’t want her?

She turned away,
mortified with shame…and confused. Why the hell had he kissed so provocatively
if he didn’t want to make love? She tucked her head, so he wouldn’t read all
the emotions bouncing around inside her, but he forced her chin upward, his blue
eyes somber and concerned.

“Carrie, I have
screwed up every relationship I’ve ever been in. I think part of the problem is
I gravitated toward glamour girls with no brains and or personality, which I
would have discovered, if I had taken a moment to talk to them first.”

Worst excuse ever!
“We’ve known each other for two years, in which time I’ve certainly established
I’m not a glamour girl.”

Trent chuckled and
nodded.

Her eyes narrowed and
she growled, “You don’t have to be so quick to agree.”

“But you aren’t.
You’re not an image of beauty, you’re the real thing. While I have no
complaints about your small, perfect body, what makes you special comes from
inside. When you smile I feel like I’m standing before an angel of joy.”

She saw where his
thoughts headed. He didn’t want to make love to an angel. She recalled Elvis
Presley did something this crazy. He refused to touch his wife after she bore
him a child because he couldn’t make love to a mother.

She pulled her hand away
and gripped his shirt as she stared sternly into his eyes. “Do not go Elvis
Presley on me. I am not an angel. I’m a small, catastrophe-prone woman who
wants to make love to you.”

His responding groan
left no doubt in her mind he wanted to do the same. Yet, he resisted.

“We will make love.
Just not yet. I don’t want to rush this. A therapist once told me I keep diving
into the deepest end of the pool without learning to swim first.”

Carrie chuckled.
He
did tend to do that
. She paused, realizing the oddity in his statement.
“You have a therapist?”

“Good God, no! I only
dated a therapist, and honestly I found her comment a bit hypocritical since
she jumped my bones two hours after we met.” He sighed and ran his hand through
her long brown hair. “But I think I do tend to jump in the deep end.”

Carrie nodded.

“Which I’m trying
very hard not to do here.”

Jump?
She’d been his executive assistant for two long years! “But don’t you think we
have taken it slow?”

He grimaced. “Yes and
no. We took the first steps so slow I can’t even pinpoint when I stopped seeing
you as just an employee, but my favorite EA, then my irreplaceable miracle
worker, eclipsed by my critical-to-my-company savior, and finally the one
person vital-to-my-happiness-and-well-being. But I do know when I finally
realized my feelings for you far exceeded what I’d ever felt for anyone
before.”

While Carrie really
wanted some “rain”, she rather liked his longwinded admission of love. “When?”

“The month you ran
off to Taiwan.”

“Which was work
related,” she reminded him. He always made it sound like she ran off to Disney
World, leaving him to handle the worst employees ever by himself.

“I’m aware you were
in Taiwan improving my company, but it didn’t make your absence any less
painful. It only highlighted how important you are to my happiness.”

Now, she understood
his reluctance to move forward. He had just discovered his true feelings for
her, only to have her return to the worst week ever in which each of them at
one point felt betrayed by the other.

She pressed her cheek
to his chest. “You’re right. We do need time to adjust emotionally to this
change and to feel secure before we move ahead.”

He hugged her, then
pushed her back and studied her face. “You aren’t going to allow anyone else to
scratch your two-year itch while I’m taking it slow, are you?”

Her itch hadn’t been
scratched in four years, but he didn’t need to know the details.

“Carrie, you can’t
punish me for doing the right thing.”

She would have
laughed at Trent’s worry that someone would ask to have sex with her, but she resisted.
Trent had insecurities about his ability to “keep” a woman. “Since six months
after you hired me, there’s been no chance for anyone else to seduce me.”

He smiled. “You’ve
wanted to jump my bones for that long?”

Her eyes narrow at
his decidedly unromantic question. “Not how I would have phrased it.”

He stretched out on
the bed, a happy smile lighting his handsome face. His blue eyes sparkled from
beneath black lashes. “You’ve wanted to make passionate love to me for one-and-a-half
years?”

Her lower parts
tightened at his new translation. “Since we aren’t going to do anything yet,
could we talk about work? You’re getting me all hot and bothered.”

He pressed his lips
to her forehead and sat up. “Excellent idea.”

Chapter 2

After hours of
planning a life with future workers who actually did their jobs, Carrie yawned.

Trent poked his
finger into her open mouth. “Wow, even your teeth are tiny.”

She lightly bit his
invading digit in retaliation. Why did he have to tease her about her size? In
some countries four and a half feet wouldn’t be considered abnormally small. In
fact, he would be the freak, towering six feet tall. Unable to stay mad at
Trent, she transferred her anger to where it belonged. Had her parents ever
spoken to a doctor about her inability to eat much, she might have grown to
five feet. An MRI would have shown her stomach had not developed properly,
which meant she needed smaller meals throughout the day. Instead they jumped to
the conclusion that her constant demands for a bottle which she then ceased to
want after a few swallows proved her to be inconsiderate and petulant. Even as
her twin sister outgrew her, they continued to blame Carrie for her size.

Extracting his well-manicured
forefinger, Trent studied it for marks. “Let’s go to sleep. Fatigue evidently
makes you hungry.” He snuggled up to her back and wrapped his arms about her.
“I promise you, I’ll be a gentleman spooner and nothing more.”

“Keep your fingers
out of my mouth and all will be well,” she warned before falling asleep.

At four in the
morning, Carrie’s alarm went off, and she nudged Trent awake.

“What time is it?” he
grumbled and shielded his eyes by laying his arm over his face.

“Four.”

He pulled away his
arm and glared. “Why are we getting up at four?”

“Because you said you
wanted to be at work early. We need to catch the 5:10 train.”

“Wake me up at five.”

She shook his
shoulder. “No! We have to leave in twenty minutes and if we don’t eat first,
you’ll be grumpy by the time we get into New York City.

“And you don’t think
waking me up at four has already made me grumpy?”

She realized she had
a new weapon of persuasion in her arsenal. Turning his head to hers, she kissed
him…with tongue. The moment he woke and tried to pull her into an embrace, she
slipped out of his arms and hurried to the bathroom.

She had just opened
the mirror cabinet and grabbed her toothbrush and paste when he entered. Two
minutes before she’d been on the toilet, so she wasn’t thrilled with him
barging in without knocking.

“Hey! A girl needs
her privacy.”

He pushed by her into
the narrow bathroom not meant for two.

“And a man needs his
sleep. Seems a day of disappointment for us both.”

She laughed. Unfortunately,
doing so while brushing her teeth caused her to inhale her toothpaste. Her body
attempted to cough up her lungs in protest.

Instead of coming to
her aid, Trent remained at the toilet, pissing into the bowl. When he finished,
he flushed and zipped himself up.

“Toilet seat down,”
she said between handfuls of water.

He slapped it down
and frowned at her. “Don’t you have a glass?”

He opened a cabinet
and extracted a not-so-clear-plastic cup. “A real one?” With a grimace he passed
it to her.

“That’s the plant’s
glass.” She cupped her hand and drank more water.

“Does your plant
brush its leaves?”

Water spewed from her
mouth as a laugh burst forth. He could be so silly at times. He grabbed a towel
to dry her slightly wet pajama top. Her heart swelled with love. However, when
he gathered her into his arms, she had to be the responsible one and push away.
“If we miss the 5:10, the next train is at 6:10.”

“Seriously?”

She nodded.

“Now I understand why
you never get into work early.”

“I’m always in before
seven.”

“Yeah, but I
sometimes come in at six.”

Her eyes narrowed.
“Then how come you didn’t know how to open the front doors yesterday?”

“I was under intense
duress. A nightmare from my past had returned.”

His calling the
ex-fiancée a nightmare pleased her. Yesterday, she’d misunderstood his feelings
and thought they’d begun the mating rituals of the
rich and fabulous
species. Believing him enchanted by one of his own kind had been like a knife
in her heart. When the bitch declared herself their new human resource expert,
hired to help them replace eighty percent of their non-working staff, the knife
twisted in deeper.

Still, could her luck
be worse? Carrie had engaged the best resource firm in the city to find them
better employees. First on the list, an HR manager to keep her boss from being
sued while they purged a large majority of their worthless staff.

Of all the millions
of human resource people on Earth, they sent his ex-fiancée, Coco, Queen of
Arrogance.

She stared up at
Trent. “Should I ask Dan Marshal for another HR person?”
Please say yes,
please say yes!

He shook his head.
“No. She’s bringing in fabulous people.”

Carrie huffed. “If
you don’t mind, I’ll work at the office. Unless you’re working in the office.” In
which case she’d sit in Central Park and work from a bench. What she would not
do was be anywhere near the B.I.T.C.H.

“The office still
lacks windows or furniture. I wanted to work out of my penthouse, but a
policeman kicked me out and said if I broke the crime tape again, he’d have me
arrested.” He rolled his eyes. “My chef sidelined as a Russian drug runner, and
I’m
treated like the criminal! Nor did I ask the police to shoot the guy
in my home. Fortunately, Coco found us temporary office space on Madison Avenue
so I won’t have to test my lawyer’s ability to defend my property rights.”

She recalled how
horrified Coco had been of the middle-class working people passing by as she
stood on the sidewalk before Lancaster Chairs headquarters. “I’m sure the
Madison Avenue natives aren’t as repulsive to her.”

He chuckled. “She is
horrible, isn’t she?”

Carrie leaned against
him and nodded. Then she glanced at her watch. “Shoot, no breakfast. Get
dressed immediately, or we won’t be into New York City until eight.”

With a great deal of
complaining from the one with long legs about the unreasonable length of their
rushed walk, they made it to the Denville station just in time to catch the
5:10.

Carrie led him to the
top level of the nearly empty double-decker car and pointed to a seat row. “You
should sit on the inside.”

“Why don’t you want
the window?”

“Well, I’m planning
to sleep, and I normally do so by leaning on the glass pane, but today I intend
to lean on your softer shoulder.”

He moved into the window
seat. Once she snuggled up against him, he released a sigh. “Before you fall
asleep, how will I know when we get there?”

Of course, he’d never
been on a commuter train before. With Sam ready to drive him anywhere he wanted,
why would he? While she had every intention of being awake when they reached
the city, he made such a nice pillow that she did risk falling into a deep
sleep. “They’ll announce New York Penn Station and everyone will get up to
leave.”

“There’s no one else aboard.”

“Trust me, even on a
Sunday, it’ll be full by the time we get to New York. Which is the other reason
I put you on the inside. I’m your buffer from the natives.”

***

Trent spent his time
watching Carrie sleep until a conductor stopped and asked, “Where to?”

“Penn Station,” he
replied, proud of himself for knowing the answer without waking Carrie.

“New York or Newark?”

Gods above! Who the
hell allowed Newark to name their station after New York’s?

“New York.”

“Round trip or one
way?”

“One way?”

Carrie spoke up.
“Make mine a round trip.”

“One way.” He leaned
closer to her ear and whispered. “I want to keep you as long as I can before I
lose you for two weeks. I'll have Sam drive you home late tonight and take you
to the airport in the morning.”

“Thank you.” She
hugged his right arm.

The train stopped and
the conductor left without giving them tickets.

“Where’s he going?”
Trent demanded.

“He’ll be back,” Carrie
assured him. “He has to jump off the train and get the new chicks inside.”

A group of noisy,
grungy teens rushed in, pushing people out of their way, crowding onto a bench facing
a young woman. “Hey, baby. Wanna step in the crapper and join the not-so-high
club?”

Without a word, she
grabbed her purse and hurried to the next compartment.

“Baby, come back. I
was just teasing. We can do it here if you want. I’m not shy.” The other boys
laughed as they took over her seat.

“Someone needs to toss
those kids out,” Trent muttered.

With a glance at the
boys, Carrie resumed resting against his arm. “The conductor will make them
settle down.”

Sure enough, when the
conductor walked down the aisle, he warned the boys to behave, or he’d kick
them off the train. Carrie had called it. She had a talent for predicting what
people would do. One of her many skills was her ability to deduce what her
competitors would do and how Lancaster Chairs should respond.

He recalled the first
decision Coco made upon becoming his HR manager: fire Carrie. Naturally, he
refused. Carrie was the heart and soul of his company. Without her, Lancaster
Chairs would have fallen into bankruptcy two years ago.

When the ice bitch
threatened to walk, they compromised. Carrie would become his change specialist
and Coco would find him a “better” executive assistant. He snorted softly at
the idea. No one could out-EA Carrie.

He initially thought Coco
had made up the job of change specialist, but upon googling, he not only
discovered it to be a real position, but he located a firm in California to
train Carrie. And once Coco hired their new people, he’d send his ex-fiancée
packing and either fire the new EA or let him work for Carrie, whichever she
chose.

As if sensing their
grand future, Carrie moved in closer and a smile stretched those beautiful
lips.

God, he loved her.

The conductor
returned and watched Carrie sleeping. “Two one-ways to New York. That’ll be
$30.00.”

What a ridiculously
high price to sit in a tin can that spent more time loading people than moving.
He reached into his inside suit pocket and pulled out his wallet, handing the
man a hundred.

The guy frowned. “You’re
kidding, right?”

“I don’t carry
smaller bills, they make my wallet thick.”

“Well, I don’t have
change for this yet.”

Did he really have to
do everyone’s job for them? “Then keep the damn change.”

Carrie opened her
eyes and smiled at the conductor. “He’ll be grumpy all day if you do. Could you
bring back seventy dollars once you do have change?”

He returned her smile
and winked as he rapidly clicked up and down a long narrow strip of paper. “Sure.”

Shuffling a bit, she
resettled herself against Trent’s arm and closed her eyes.

He didn’t want her
thinking him a miser. “I wouldn’t have been grumpy. Hell, I gave the doorman
two hundred.”

She bolted up and glared
at him. “The one who had me arrested?”

“Hell no! I’m going
to get
him
fired.” The idiot penthouse lobby guard had not only refused
to let Carrie in the elevator yesterday, but called the police to arrest her
when she refused to leave.

“Then who are you
talking about?”

“One who knows how to
do his job. He’s at the rent-a-office place and promised me he’d let you enter,
no matter how badly you’re dressed, so I tipped him big.”

Satisfied, she calmed
and let him resume being her pillow. “I bet you made his day.”

He stroked her clean-smelling
hair, leaned back, and closed his eyes. “These seats aren’t terribly
comfortable, are they?”

“Nope,” she muttered.

“Why don’t you live
in Manhattan and skip this torture and expense?”

“I can’t afford it,
and I’d miss my garden and fish.”

He frowned. The
garden he could replicate easy enough, but the fish were a trickier matter.
Damn, he wished his penthouse butler would hurry up and recover from his
overdose on the drug Europa. There were several things he needed done and only
Mars would know how to do them. Unfortunately, Carrie's narcotic-laced
chocolate turtles had put both his butler and Lancaster’s only working systems
person in the hospital.

As the train filled
with lesser quality people wearing tennis shoes, all talking on their cell
phones, the noise and body odors began to irritate him. If not for the pleasure
of holding Carrie, he would have demanded the conductor stop the train and let
them off so he could have his driver rescue them. The train barely picked up
speed before it slowed down, stopped, and allowed more people on. They just
kept coming and coming. His glare discouraged a few people from sitting on the
other side of Carrie, but eventually an old, heavyset black woman collapsed in the
seat with a sigh.

BOOK: Oh Stupid Heart
9.81Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Dragon Awakened by Jaime Rush
Over the Misty Mountains by Gilbert Morris
Desperate Measures by Linda Cajio
Access Restricted by Alice Severin
Bound, Spanked and Loved: Fourteen Kinky Valentine's Day Stories by Sierra Cartwright, Annabel Joseph, Cari Silverwood, Natasha Knight, Sue Lyndon, Emily Tilton, Cara Bristol, Renee Rose, Alta Hensley, Trent Evans, Ashe Barker, Katherine Deane, Korey Mae Johnson, Kallista Dane
Dance For Me by Dee, Alice
Sookie 09 Dead and Gone by Charlaine Harris
Ice by V. C. Andrews