Unhinged (Unhinged #1) Page 4

  “You could say that,” he answered.

  “And you are?” I asked, needing to snap out of it and get on with the reason I was there. I had a job to do, and Mr. Trovato would be expecting me back in the office before he left for his afternoon meeting with one of the senior vice presidents.

  “Name’s Sebastian. Don’t worry, Angel, I’m sure she’ll be back after class.”

  Crap. Crap. Crap.

  That wasn’t going to help me now. It wasn’t like I could sit around and wait for her to get back just to ask if she had her father’s phone.

  “Would you know if…,” I glanced over at the front door, “if anyone else is home? I’m supposed to pick up Mr. Trovato’s cell phone. He told me Aaliyah would be here to give it to me.”

  “Nope. No one else here,” he said confidently as he slung the red rag over his shoulder and thrust his hands into his pockets, the muscles in his thick arms bulging, the black designs that twisted around his arms flexing and moving.

  He was breathtaking.

  But that wasn’t why I was there.

  I cocked an eyebrow as I contemplated my next move. I had seen the butler/man standing on the front porch, so I was pretty sure someone was home. When Sebastian didn’t seem to want to change his answer, I knew I’d hit a brick wall.

  Damn. Damn. Damn.

  This day wasn’t getting any better; that was for damn sure.

  When I squinted up at Sebastian one last time, I found his gaze had drifted down to my chest. Feeling incredibly exposed, I immediately covered my breasts by crossing my arms. “Hello-o-o.” I made sure he heard my annoyance. “My eyes are up here.”

  “Sorry,” he responded with a smirk, looking not at all sorry. “You’ve got a stain on your sweater.”

  As though I didn’t know the stain was there, I glanced down at my chest, realizing that by crossing my arms, I’d thrust my boobs up, increasing the amount of cleavage peeking out from the very modest V-neck of my sweater.

  “Coffee,” I said inanely.

  Sebastian met my gaze and grinned before glancing over his shoulder. “I guess I should get back to work.”

  I nodded, not sure what else I could do. If this guy insisted that no one was home, I couldn’t just walk right in even if I suspected otherwise. And I seriously doubted the Trovato’s wanted their mechanic traipsing through their house looking for Conrad’s cell phone.

  Without so much as a goodbye, Sebastian turned and walked away.

  That’s when I realized that the earth-shattering impact of seeing him for the first time was suddenly overshadowed by the vision of him walking away. Although his jeans were loose, I could still see the shape of his perfect ass behind the soft denim.

  On hearing his sexy, gruff chuckle, I immediately looked up and that’s when I realized he’d caught me ogling his ass.

  At least now I didn’t have to worry about Mr. Trovato firing me.

  It wasn’t going to matter since I was surely going to die of mortification anyway.

  Chapter Six

  Sebastian

  Holy shit.

  That was her.

  That was the girl from my dream.

  As I walked back to the garage, I did my best not to turn around and watch her drive away.

  I had to give myself a little credit. I think I handled myself pretty damn well considering I’d been shocked as soon as I saw her. She was the girl I had been dreaming about for the last few nights.

  Stepping into the shadows of the garage, memories of my dream came back with a vengeance, and I stopped moving as the vision replayed inside my head.

  I knew I was asleep. I had to be. Even knowing that, I was having a hard time deciphering the dream from reality. There was no way this could be real. Could it?

  I didn’t want to wake up. I didn’t want to lose this moment.

  She, whoever she was, she mesmerized me, drew me in. I couldn’t pull my eyes away, couldn’t break the spell she had on me. Something in the way she walked, talked, moved.

  Breathed.

  So familiar, yet not.

  I felt like I knew her, like I’d met her before, but for the life of me I don’t remember any such encounter. Had we met? Was this my mind conjuring up the image of something from my past? Or was this some sort of vision from the future?

  Either way, I didn’t want to open my eyes. Didn’t want to face reality if she wasn’t in it. I wanted to get closer, to look into her eyes, to know what she was thinking.

  I was unabashedly staring, unable to look away.

  Whoever she was, there was something about her…

  Something that unhinged me.

  Unfortunately, every time the dream got that far, my eyes would come open, the dream drifting off into nothingness. No matter how hard I tried to call it back, it never worked. Just that morning, I’d lay motionless in my bed, my chest heaving, my heart pounding while the first rays of the early morning sun peeked in my bedroom window. After getting my breathing under control, I had glanced at my alarm clock. Groaning, I then rolled over, refusing to get up at six.

  But I was awake now. Completely. Payton Fowler, she was the girl from my dream. And she’d been standing right there in the driveway, looking just as she had in my dream.

  Well, save for the outfit. She hadn’t been wearing that prissy skirt when I’d dreamed about her. No, she’d had on jeans and a T-shirt, her cute little feet were bare. Her long, dark hair had been pulled back in a ponytail, not hanging loosely over her shoulders. But her smile, the smoothness of her alabaster skin, her pert little nose, those full lips and the way her hazel eyes had lit up when she looked at me… It had all been the same. Every last detail.

  “Do I work here, she asked?” I was grumbling to myself as I made my way back to the truck where the stupid ass engine was waiting for me. “Yep, Angel, I work here all right,” I mused aloud.

  From the moment I laid eyes on her, I’d nearly tripped over my own two feet. It had been surreal, and for a brief moment, I’d wondered if I were asleep again.

  I pinched myself, the pain ricocheting up my arm.

  Nope, not dreaming. She was real.

  And now I was smiling. Even as I resumed my place in the garage where I spent most of my time, — in my world, eight bays, air conditioning and a kickass sound system equaled a garage — the smirk was still plastered on my face.

  I thought maybe the muscles were stuck or something. I didn’t spend much time smiling these days and certainly not today.

  Until I’d heard the guttural purr of the Mustang pulling up, I’d spent the better part of the last three hours fiddling with the damn engine on my cherry red, ‘63 Chevy truck, yet it was still idling too fucking high. Since the engine was a prototype that I was working on in my spare time, I was used to the minor quirks from the damn thing, but for the life of me, I couldn’t get the bugs out of this one.

  “Stupid ass engine,” I groaned loudly.

  After that interruption, I doubted I’d be able to get my mind back in gear. That woman — Payton — had single-handedly knocked me for a loop there for a second. From the moment I saw her walking toward me in those killer fucking heels, I’d had a damn hard time keeping my boner at bay.

  I felt like I’d just stepped into a bad porno — the kind where the hot, young executive woman meets the mechanic and things get hot fast.

  Yeah, that hadn’t happened.

  I had reined in my instant primitive reaction to her, but my lust had been quickly replaced with confusion.

  At first, I thought I’d met her before, but when I heard the lyrical sound of her voice, I realized there was no way. I would have remembered her. But there had been something niggling in my head. I may not have met her, but I’d certainly seen her before. That was when I remembered the dream.

  That chick was fucking hot, even if that outfit didn’t do a damn thing for her. The way her glossy brown hair sparkled in the sunlight... It was the first thing I noticed, but certainly not the last.


  “Did I work here?” I repeated, grinning.

  Thrusting my hands into my hair, I stared at the engine that was hell bent on dissolving my patience.

  And still I was smiling.

  Conrad’s new assistant, huh? Interesting.

  My amusement still didn’t die off even as I accepted the fact that, by working for Conrad, Ms. Fowler was technically off limits to me.

  My grin widened.

  Right. Like that had ever stopped me before.

  It wasn’t until she mentioned her name that I realized who she was, but that hadn’t quelled the notion that I’d seen her before. For the last two weeks, Conrad had been going on and on about the new assistant he had, but it wasn’t like I’d been introduced to her yet. Needless to say, Conrad didn’t make a habit of introducing me to the women in his office. I doubted that was going to change anytime soon either.

  While I’d stood there studying her, I tried to convince myself that the only reason she sounded familiar was the fact that Conrad had been talking about her for the last couple of weeks. I think he was still trying to convince himself that she would work out, eventually, but he had plenty of concerns regarding her ability to do the job.

  She was an assistant for chrissakes. How fucking hard could that be?

  Not that I’d asked him. I didn’t really give a fuck, truth be told.

  The only time I’d uttered a word had been when he admitted that he missed his old assistant, Jasmine. I, personally, was grateful that the snooty bitch was gone, and I’d told him as much. If anyone could make me feel like a two-bit reject, it had been Jasmine.

  Then again, that’s what happened when you were in the shadows, pretending you were nothing more than an employee who was paid extra to make house calls. Right. Like I’d willingly work for Conrad if there wasn’t something in it for me.

  Retrieving the grease rag from my shoulder, I carried it over to the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren that I’d been tinkering with the last few days. Some hot shot millionaire that Conrad knew was willing to pay an absurd amount of money to have the damn thing supercharged. As if half a mil wasn’t enough to drop on a car already, now he was willing to pay my price to make the damn thing go faster — in a way only I knew how.

  Like the asshole could handle the speed in the first place.

  While I grabbed my tools, I let my mind drift back to my brief encounter with Payton a few minutes before.

  Yeah, I know. I should have probably told her who I was, but she seemed to have drawn her own conclusion already. I didn’t want to disappoint her.

  The mechanic.

  That actually made me laugh.

  Technically, it was true. But I wasn’t the family’s mechanic. I was the brains behind the stupid Trovato fortune, although Conrad would never willingly admit as much. He took full credit and I pretended that I wasn’t bothered by it. Hell, he was the one responsible for convincing the media that I was nothing more than a lowly employee of Trovato, Inc., but I certainly hadn’t tried to correct him.

  Little did they know.

  It would probably blow their fucking minds to know that if it weren’t for me, Trovato, Inc. would still be moving along at a snail’s pace, trying to come up with a performance engine that all the damn car manufacturers were looking for these days. Then again, there were even bigger secrets that they’d latch onto if they had the chance.

  But, I wasn’t looking for glory or acknowledgement.

  In fact, I preferred to spend my days entangled in an engine or screwing around on the computer away from the cogs of the company. Even if I wanted to, I would never fit in there. Hell, I barely fit in here.

  So, Conrad and I had come to an agreement, he would leave me the hell alone, and I would, in turn, make him more money.

  As for me, I wasn’t hurting.

  At twenty-five, I had enough that my grandkids would never have to work. But that was only one of my secrets. You see, I happen to be the heir to the Trovato fortune… Conrad Trovato’s illegitimate son. So, yeah, lowly mechanic I wasn’t.

  “You’re a dumbass, Trovato.”

  Yep, I’d gotten used to talking to myself. Today was no exception.

  I could’ve let Payton in the house because I happened to live here, too. Although I didn’t live in the main house. That wouldn’t have been pleasant for anyone involved, just ask my stepmother — the woman who despised me probably more than Conrad did — or my half-sister Aaliyah.

  No, I chose to live on my father’s estate, in the guest house, of course. The guest house was four-thousand square feet, mind you, so I certainly wasn’t slumming it. I wasn’t there because the prospect of family made me leery to leave either. No, I was there for convenience. Pure and simple.

  The chirp of my cell phone across the room had me ducking out from beneath the hood and wiping my hands again. Seeing that it was my father, I was tempted to ignore it. I knew without answering just what he had to say.

  “Yo,” I greeted after putting the phone on speaker.

  My father hated that.

  “Where are you?” he asked, the frustration in his tone echoing through the cavernous space.

  “Garage. Why?”

  “Where’s Aaliyah?”

  “School.” Not that I was her keeper or anything.

  “Why the hell did you tell Payton that no one was home?”

  “I didn’t know her from Eve,” I lied. “What was I supposed to do? Let her in to rummage through the house?”

  In case I hadn’t mentioned it, I lived to torment my father. We had a love/hate relationship that we’d perfected over the last few years — ever since I was introduced to him.

  You see, I’m Conrad Trovato’s dirty little secret. Or my mother was anyway.

  Needless to say, we didn’t particularly like each other, although he’d insisted on taking me in when my mother died. I’d been fourteen at the time, and since I didn’t have any other family willing to take in a wild kid with a growing juvenile record, I hadn’t had much of a choice.

  I was still wild, more so now. The only difference was that I didn’t get caught anymore.

  Conrad didn’t appreciate my wild living, and I didn’t appreciate how he had treated my mother. Or the way he talked down to me. We’d come to an impasse before I was twenty-one and the years hadn’t improved our relationship one fucking bit.

  “I need my phone,” he groused.

  “Come and get it,” I snapped.

  “Sebastian,” Conrad chastised, drawing my name out in way too many syllables.

  I didn’t say anything.

  “You need to grow up, Sebastian,” he finally added.

  And you need to go to hell, I thought to myself.

  “Was there something else?” I asked, pretending my head wasn’t about to explode.

  “Actually, there is,” he stated.

  Damn.

  I bit my tongue, knowing he would eventually say something.

  “We’re having a party tomorrow night.”

  “Great. Have fun.”

  Unfortunately, Conrad and his wife Lauren had a penchant for throwing parties all the damned time. They claimed they were for charity, but I knew better. My stepmother loved the limelight. She loved to show off her riches and inviting other affluent assholes to their home was the easiest way for her to do that.

  “We’re announcing the new concept car.”

  Fucking shit.

  “I want you to be there.”

  “Not a chance in hell,” I told him firmly. Rather than argue because I know the next phase, I simply added, “Look, I gotta work.” With that, I hung up on him.

  I’d hear all about it the next time I saw him, I was sure. The old man lived to bust my balls, which didn’t make me want to do him any favors.

  Chapter Seven

  Payton

  “Party?” I stared back at Mr. Trovato, praying my mouth wasn’t hanging open while I tried to comprehend what he’d just asked me.

  I was pretty sure my jaw
was on the floor.

  I’d been back in the office for all of an hour, eating my turkey sandwich at my desk while Mr. Trovato left to attend his lunch meeting. He’d been gone less time than I figured he would be and when he returned, I had been filing some paperwork that had been signed last week. I had greeted him as soon as he reached the top of the stairs, and on his way to his office he had mumbled something about a party.

  Yes, a party.

  Maybe I was hearing things because it sure sounded like Conrad had invited me to a party at his house.

  He stopped in the doorway, his hand on the frame as he turned back toward me. “Tomorrow night. Seven o’clock. Black tie. My house. I’ll make sure you’re added to the guest list,” Mr. Trovato clarified.

  Yep, it was official. I wasn’t hearing things.

  I nodded, purely because I had no idea what to say.

  As much as I liked my job, despite the bizarre encounter I’d had with Mr. Trovato’s mechanic, or the peculiar expression I’d been met with when I explained to Conrad before he left for lunch — for the second time — what had happened, I wasn’t all that interested in going to a party.

  “Mr. Trovato?” I greeted when Conrad answered his office phone after Maude so kindly transferred me to him.

  “Yes, Payton?”

  It sure sounded like Mr. Trovato had been expecting me to call, but I pretended not to notice. “I wasn’t able to get your cell phone, sir. Aaliyah had already left for school and your mechanic said that no one was home.”

  “My mechanic?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Umm… Okay. Just come back to the office, Payton.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I thought I’d heard a hitch in my boss’s voice when I called to inform him I wasn’t able to get his phone as I was driving back to the office. But the look on his face when I told him in person was… priceless.

  In fact, he probably looked a lot like I did right at that moment.

  What was I going to do at a party at his house? Certainly he wasn’t expecting me to assist him. Was he?

  Oh, crap. Now I was even more worried.

  Between that and trying to figure out what to wear…