Page 1 of Payback, Penelope

Chapter 1

Penelope

“Knock, knock,” I say as I rasp my knuckles on the white door frame and poke my head into the classroom. It’s the Thursday before students start back at the private school next week, and after missing out on the first three days of prep—getting our classrooms ready for the start of the year—due to a vicious migraine, I’ve come to introduce myself to the new male teacher everyone has been talking about. The hint of a greenish-gray tattoo peeking above his collar at the nape of his neck has put Mrs. Goldstein and Mrs. Martinez in quite the tizzy.

I’m not popping in to get a look at the rumored giant myself, of course, but to warn him about the few who treat their marriage certificates as nothing more than a meresuggestionof a commitment.

Ok, so maybe I want just a teensy, weensy little look. I’m not married anymore, so what’s the harm?

My teensy, weensy little look turns into a head-to-toe perusal of the confirmed giant leaning over his dark wooden desk, sorting through a stack of papers with his impressively broad back to the door. He whips his head up at the sound of my voice. My eyes, immediately glued to the front of his tight black trousers that hug thick thighs, skate up his wide waist and barrelchest to his handsome face when he turns and makes a choking sound. His knees almost buckle, and the papers in his hands go flying in the air.

“Oh my god, are you ok?” I rush into the room as fast as I can in the red fuck-me-heels I bought the day I signed my divorce papers four years ago as a gift to myself. I’ll be back to wearing my sensible sandals and sneakers when the school year officially starts but for now…I’m letting my hair down, so to speak, both physically and metaphorically.

The man wraps his hand around the front of his throat. I must have startled him and made him choke on his gum or something. He’s almost a head taller than my five-foot-six-inch stature plus three-inch heels. He’s also on the heavier side, so I can’t quite get my arms all the way around him from behind when I attempt to give him the Heimlich maneuver, though I try my best after yelling for help. How no one hears me and comes running is anyone’s guess.

If I were chewing gum, I’d choke too when he turns in my hold, drops and wraps his huge arms around my waist, and pulls me in for a hug like I’m his long-lost lover.

It’s weird, to say the least.

“Holy shit, it’s you,” he says with disbelief after he drops his face into my dark blonde hair and—did he justsniffme? “You’re here.”

“You, uh, you ok, now?” My face is smashed against his chest, muffling the question. I’ve undoubtedly smeared my favorite rum-raisin lipstick all over his pristine white button-down shirt and across the bottom half of my face.

“Better now that you’re here,” he rumbles, and my lady parts quiver like I’m a heroine in one of my mom’s 90’s Harlequin romance novels.

I tap his beefy arm totap outof this hug, even as I press my nose into his shirt, inhaling the scent of citrus and sandalwood.Instead of letting me go, the man tightens his hold, one hand sliding down my back and resting just above my ass. Strangely, I’m not outraged by his uninvited hands on me. I find that I quite like the way he wraps me up, holding onto me for dear life. I haven’t been hugged like this since a few years before my divorce, back when I thought I was living happily ever after with my ex-husband.

At least, I had been until I turned thirty, and my husband started complaining that I hadlet myself go. Well, no shit, I no longer look like the twenty-year-old he married, all fresh-faced and naive. That’s how aging works.

It was all fine and dandy when he gained forty pounds, but ten years and twenty pounds—literallytwopounds per year!—on me was enough for him to lose interest. I hung onto him for another three years, doing my best to win back his waning affection, but it was all for nothing.

Oh, what the hell, I think to myself and give into the hug. I turn my head to the side and close my eyes as I lay my cheek against his chest, finally able to take a deep breath, then slip my arms up and up and up until I can loosely lock my hands together behind his neck.

The man—I still don’t know his name—groans as he slides his hands to my ribs and lifts me off the floor so he doesn’t have to continue bending over so far while the hug goes on and on. My heels fall to the floor with a clatter as I dangle, making me wince. I have the impulse to hike my black pencil skirt up, lift my legs to wrap them around his waist, and rock my core against the large bulge I know he has to be sporting if his height is any indication of his size. I’ve always wanted to try that, but my ex-husband wasn’t strong enough to lift me.

But this man—he definitely could. I bet he could throw one hell of a lucky person against the wall and pound into them without breaking a sweat. Of course, that would be highlyinappropriate—more so than this wholly inappropriate hug I’ve found myself in with a complete stranger.

The man pushes his face in the crook of my neck and sways side to side like we’re slow dancing. I’m half a breath from sayingoh, what the hellagain to lifting my legs when I dizzyingly find myself on my bare feet and him three feet away with his back to me. There’s that tattoo peeking above his tight collar, though I can’t tell what it is.

The man shakes out a pant leg, then turns, giving me the full force of his rich, hickory brown gaze, and I part my lips.Bear. That’s the first word that comes to mind when I take in the dark, expertly cut head of hair atop a square face with prominent, masculine features and stubble on the cusp of turning into a beard. Overall, just the sheer size of the man and the intense, swallow-me-up hug screamsgrizzlybearand the promise of chest hair beneath his top. I wonder if he’d let me unbutton his shirt, now blemished by a small lipstick stain, and slip it off his rounded shoulders so I can see how far down it travels.

“Well.” I lick my thumb and swipe it around my lips and chin to remove any smeared lipstick, swaying for a moment until I prop a hand on his desk to steady myself amongst his papers scattered on the freshly waxed floor. “That was, uh, one hell of ahello, nice to meet yougreeting.”

A tear slips down my cheek, and I swipe it away with surprise. The man looks wrecked as he watches another tear slip out. I laugh it off before he can question why I’m crying. “It’s been a while since I’ve been hugged like that.” I plaster on a cheery smile. “Don’t mind me. I’m just being silly.”

He steps closer. “You can hug me anytime you want,” he says huskily, andoooh, boy, it’s so tempting to throw myself at him and ask him to do it again right fucking now.

There’s something about him…I tilt my head to the side, searching his face for a clue as to who he is. “Why do you look so familiar?”

He takes another step closer. “You don’t remember me, Mrs. Jenkins? I sure as hell remember you.”

“That would be Ms. Barlow now. Single and ready to mingle!” I could just crawl into a hole and die of embarrassment at that pronouncement. “And, I’m so sorry, I don’t.” His face falls momentarily, and I feel like a world-class asshole. “You weren’t one of my students, were you?”

“No. I was zoned to the schools in our old neighborhood.” He tugs on his collar and mumbles, “Though I wish I had been.”

“Oh! So we were neighbors? Wait—are you Trudy’s son from across the street? What was it? James? John? Crap, I’m sorry, I don’t remember. The Boy Scout who used to go door-to-door doing fundraisers?”

“Yeah, that’s me. Jacob. Though I’m not a boy any longer.”

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