Forbidden Touch: A Best Friends To Lovers Romance - Iona Rose (free ebook reader .txt) 📗

Before throwing them in the washing machine, I held them to my face and sniffed them. They smelled of sunshine, sand and water.

Longing tugged at my heartstrings. But it was pointless to keep going over the memories of Hawaii and what might have been. Being alone was the reality of my life.

My ringing phone pulled me from my thoughts and I frantically searched for it, finally finding it on the couch. Disappointment flooded me, quickly followed by guilt when I glanced at the screen and saw Jenny’s number.

Jenny was my closest friend and like Blaze, we had known each other since kindergarten. Our houses had been next door to each other and though we’d attended different schools, we spent all our free time in each other’s homes.

She’d gotten married to Henry, a rich dude who owned a hedge fund and he seemed as stuffy as his name sounded. A lot older than us, he was a divorcee with grown kids. I suppose that had been one of the reasons why he and Jenny never had kids.

A raw deal for her if you asked me.

I’d never really hit it off with him but it didn’t matter as long as Jenny was happy. Even if she was a full-time housewife, we rarely saw each other but we caught up over the phone. Like me, Jenny was a qualified accountant and I’d always wondered how she had so easily traded a career to be a housewife.

She did the whole rich idle wife thing. She lunched at the club, shopped in designer boutiques and took like ten vacations a year. She seemed to like it and if she was happy, that was all that mattered.

“Hi Jenny,” I greeted her.

Her laugh came over the phone. “That’s exactly the tone I expected to hear from someone who had just come from a vacation that she didn’t want to go on.”

I laughed. “It turned out to be awesome.”

“I want to hear all about it,” Jenny said. “I’m on my way.” She disconnected.

I was surprisingly pleased. I felt glad for some company. She’d seen the new apartment, though she’d thought it a bad idea to buy a place with someone I had feelings for. Jenny was the only one who knew my secret but I’d told her laughingly, like it meant nothing.

Fifteen minutes later and my doorbell rang.

I flung the door open and we threw our arms around each other.

“You look thinner,” I said with a frown as I inspected her.

It had been a couple of weeks since we’d seen each other. She had lines under her eyes and I assumed they were from lack of adequate sleep. She partied too much but then again, she could as she had no kids or other responsibilities. Her job as Henry’s wife was to look pretty and run their house in the suburbs. And even that wasn’t exactly taxing. They had a chef and a housekeeper.

“And you’re glowing. Love your tan,” she said, holding my hands.

“Thanks,” I said bravely. “Come on in. We can sit on the deck and gaze at the woods.”

“Sounds perfect,” Jenny said.

We made some coffee and carried our mugs to the newly constructed deck. It had a wooden ladder that went all the way up to the balcony. I loved it.

“Tell me everything,” Jenny said when we sat down at the table, our chairs facing each other. “How was it? Did you give in to temptation?”

“You don’t beat around the bush, do you?” I said in a dry tone.

“Never found any use for it,” she replied.

“Are you holding onto something?” I asked teasing her.

Her eyes widened and she placed her mug on the table and covered her mouth. “No, you didn’t?”

I giggled at the expression on her face. “I did.”

“You and Blaze had sex?” She pushed strands of her gorgeous blonde hair away from her face.

I told her everything from the moment when we landed in Hawaii to the glorious days we had spent devouring each other.

“Oh, my goodness,” Jenny said and thoughtfully sipped at her coffee. “How can you be so sure that it won’t work?”

“Because I know Blaze. You do too. You know how he is. Women are like a candy jar to him. He has to sample all of them.”

“Was he interested in other women in Hawaii?” she said.

“No, but that’s because we were having sex and I was a new flavor.”

“You seem very sure of yourself Brooke but people are not all they seem to be,” Jenny said in a voice filled with sadness.

Something was wrong. I leaned over the table. “Are you okay?”

She waved a hand dismissively. “I’ll tell you another time. Today, it’s all about you.”

“I need a distraction from me,” I said. “Besides, I’m worried now. Is Henry okay? He’s not sick or anything is he?”

She let out a bitter laugh. An un-Jenny laugh. “Unless you count being caught cheating a sickness.”

It was my turn to be shocked. “No.” I looked away from Jenny’s anguished face and tried to picture Henry cheating. Why would any man cheat on Jenny, an older man at that? Henry had to be in his fifties. Jenny was a catch to any man, let alone one who was so much older than her.

“Yes. I found a jewelry receipt in his pocket. A piece of jewelry that he hadn’t given me. I hired a private investigator.”

It was getting weirder by the minute. “You hired a PI?”

Jenny bordered on being naïve so the idea of her hiring a private investigator struck me as ludicrous.

“I had to. How else was I going to prove that he was cheating on me,” she said as she wiped a tear from her eye.

“I’m so sorry,” I said as I draped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close.

She sniffled. “There’s something I never told you. He cheated on his wife with me but I didn’t know until later.” Her pain was drawn on her face as well as evident in every word she spoke. As soon as she wiped