Forbidden Sin (The Barlowe Boys #2)

Chapter 1

ELLIE

“Drink this.”

I manage to catch the shot glass my cousin sends sliding across the table just before it tumbles off the edge. “Trisha! That almost went all over me!”

She makes a big show of sighing. “Maybe I was aiming for you. If you get tequila on that cardigan you’ll have to take it off.”

I frown down at my baby blue sweater. “What’s wrong with my cardigan?”

“Nothing. If you’re going to a PTA meeting.”

I duck my head so she can’t see my cheeks flush—I most definitely did wear this to a PTA meeting in the not too distant past. Of course, there’s no hiding my reaction from my cousin—we’ve known each other far too long for that.

She smacks her hands down onto the table. “I knew it! I told you to let me dress you tonight!”

“I’m perfectly capable of dressing myself—”

“You’re perfectly capable of dressing yourself in your job as mommy,” she interrupts, leaning across the table to fix me with her sharp, hazel-eyed gaze. “But the entire point of coming out tonight was to remind you that mommy isn’t your only role.”

I push the shot of tequila away and reach for my much-safer glass of white wine. I don’t really want to think about my roles tonight—or ever, if I can help it. Lucas’s mom. Soon-to-be divorced single parent. Unemployed. Homeless.

Pathetic.

“Stop it right now,” Trisha says, her voice harsh. She reaches across the table and grabs my fingers in a death-grip. “Wherever your mind just went, stop.”

I shake my head, trying to ignore my stinging eyes. “There’s not enough tequila in this bar to make me forget what a mess my life is right now, Trisha.”

She scoffs. “Are you kidding me? I don’t know what you’ve been smoking, girl, but the way I see things, you’re totally winning at life.”

I blink at her. “How much have you had to drink?”

She waves away my words. “I’m serious. You left that shit-for-brains jackass. You never again have to cook for that man or pick his dirty underwear off the floor. You’re free, Ellie.”

The stinging in my eyes gets worse. Great. I’m totally going to start crying in the middle of this bar. Way to make an impression on my new town.

Her fingers gentle on my hand, but she doesn’t let go. “I mean it, sweetie. You did a really hard, really important thing. And you deserve to celebrate that.”

I nod, wiping at my eyes, and Trisha sips her Cosmo, politely pretending that she doesn’t notice my tears. We both know that cooking and laundry weren’t the worst parts of that disaster of a marriage. But Trisha would never talk about that part—the truly awful part—in public.

“Ooh,” she says a moment later, her entire face lighting up. “I have the best idea.”

I groan. “Every time you get that tone in your voice, I end up getting into trouble.”

She ignores me. “You should see the man tending bar right now.”

“You going to shoot your shot?” I ask, not sure if I feel relieved or disappointed.

I’ve missed Trisha more than anything over the last six years of being under Kevin’s thumb, and I’m grateful to have this chance to hang out with her.

At the same time, the thought of going home and getting into my PJs does sound kind of nice.

“Not for me, dummy,” she says, and all of a sudden, the familiar smirk on her face looks awfully dangerous. My stomach sinks.

“You don’t mean—”

“Ellie, my dear sweet cousin, I think it’s high time you got laid.”

It’s a good thing I wasn’t taking a drink. As it is, I choke on air, sputtering for a solid minute while she rolls her eyes. “I’m serious!” she says. “How long has it been?” Before I can answer, she holds up a finger. “And I don’t mean with Kevin. God knows that man has never satisfied a woman.”

I can sense the rage boiling under the surface of her words. Trish’s hand clenches against the tabletop, her jaw looking painfully tight. A rush of affection fills me for my oldest friend.

She hadn’t hesitated when I told her I needed a place to stay.

She wouldn’t even wait for me to come to her, instead insisting on meeting me at a gas station on the interstate so she could drive behind my car, just to be sure that no one was following.

There aren’t many single twenty-three-year-olds who would be happy with a preschooler suddenly settling into their house, but Trisha is far better than most people.

I’d managed to keep from breaking down the entire drive out of town, wanting to be strong for Lucas, determined not to scare him anymore than he already was.

But I’d lost it entirely when we finally got to my cousin’s house and she showed my little boy the room she’d prepared for him months ago.

She’d painted it a lurid shade of orange—his favorite color—and bought a dinosaur printed comforter to match the numerous dinosaur posters on the walls.

Apparently, my cousin had far more faith in my ability to make it out than I did.

“Can we put a moratorium on that name for tonight?” I ask.

“God yes,” she says, loosening her clenched fist. “I’d be happy to pretend that fucker dropped off the face of the earth.”

I know pretending isn’t an option for me.

Whether I like it or not, Kevin will always be Lucas’s father.

And that means I’ll never truly be free of him.

I suppress a shudder at the thought. I might be tied to that sorry excuse of a man, but for tonight at least, I’m going to do my best to put him out of my head.

“Since we’re not talking about fuckface,” she says, eyes locked on the bar behind me, “let’s talk about someone far more exciting.”

“Trisha—”

“Seriously, El. You need to see this guy. He’s like, next level hot.” She leans across the table, grinning that mischievous grin. “He looks like Henry Cavill but hotter. I swear to God.”

I roll my eyes. “Come on. No mere mortal is that good looking.”

She just raises her eyebrows in challenge. I sigh, knowing I’m going to take the bait. What can I say, I have a soft spot for Superman. I turn just enough to get a look at the bar—and immediately my breath catches in my throat.

Trisha hadn’t been exaggerating. If anything, she undersold the level of attractiveness we’re dealing with here.

The guy tending bar is the hottest man I’ve ever seen in real life.

I suppose he does look a little like Henry Cavill—the hair and the build is the same.

But this guy has an edge that’s totally unique.

And his eyes. A woman could drown in those dark chocolate depths.

Of course he chooses that exact moment to look up. Our eyes lock across the bar and whatever air was left trapped in my lungs shoots out in a whoosh. He holds my gaze for a long moment, his lips slowly tilting up into a smirk.

I turn away, heart pounding hard. What the hell was that?

Trisha gives me a knowing look. “Am I right or am I right?”

“He’s very attractive,” I manage in a shaky voice.

“And he’s completely into you,” she says, sounding giddy. “He’s been looking at you all night.”

I scoff. There’s no way a man like that has been looking at me. As Trisha so kindly pointed out, I’m wearing a PTA mom sweater, for God’s sake.

“You need to go up there and order us more drinks,” she says.

I look at our mostly full glasses. “We already have drinks.”

She gives me a pained look. “I’m going to have to hold your hand for this entire thing, aren’t I?” My cousin sighs. “I know we have drinks, dummy. The point of going up there is to talk to him.”

“I can’t do that,” I say automatically. “No way.”

“Of course you can! You’re gorgeous and charming and totally hot!”

“I’m awkward and sad and I’m wearing granny panties.”

“Why in the hell are you wearing granny panties?”

“Because I need to do laundry!”

“Why do you even own granny panties? You’re twenty-three, for God’s sake!”

“I have a five-year-old,” I shoot back. “And I’m getting divorced. Lingerie hasn’t exactly been on the top of my priorities list.”

She waves my words away. “It doesn’t matter what kind of underwear you have on. If things go well you can go take them off in the bathroom before you hook up with him.”

I burst out laughing. “I’m not taking my underwear off in a public bathroom. And I most definitely am not hooking up with a stranger.”

“Why not? You’re young and you’re hot. You never got to do the fun casual sex part of your early twenties—”

“Yeah, because I got knocked up when I was seventeen.”

By a man who wanted to trap and control me. But we’re not talking about him anymore tonight.

Trisha reaches across the table to squeeze my wrist. “You deserve to have some fun, Ellie.”

I gesture between us. “I am having fun. Do you know the last time I got to hang out in a bar with a girlfriend?”

“Well this girlfriend isn’t giving you orgasms tonight, so I think you can do better.”

A soft chuckle behind us has me freezing. The sight of my cousin’s eyes widening as she looks over my shoulder has my stomach dropping.

“Sorry to interrupt, ladies,” a deep, rumbling voice says behind me, causing the hair on the back of my neck to stand up. “Just wanted to see if you needed anything.”

I stare at Trisha in horror. I know that if I turn around I’ll see him. The hot bartender. The hot bartender who just overheard my cousin talking about my lack of orgasms.

Naturally, Trisha snaps out of it before I do. She beams at him. “That’s so nice of you,” she says. “My cousin here was just saying she wanted to try something new.”

The man would have to be an idiot to miss the innuendo in her voice. I glare at her but she ignores me, batting her eyelashes up at him.

“Something new, huh?” he asks, sounding amused. Then he shifts from behind me to the side of the table. Damn it. Now I have to look at him. It would be rude not to. My grandmother may have died when I was seventeen, but Shirley Rose’s lessons on proper etiquette will never be easy for me to shake.

“What did you have in mind?”