Quarantales: The Complete Contemporary Romance Box Set Read online

  Quarantales

  The Complete Contemporary Romance Box Set

  Theodora Taylor

  Contents

  CYNDA AND THE CITY DOCTOR

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Epilogue

  BILLIE AND THE RUSSIAN BEAST

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Epilogue

  GOLDIE AND THE THREE BEARS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Epilogue

  REINA AND THE HEAVY METAL PRINCE

  I. Episode 1: I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER

  1. I Should Have Known Better

  2. Wow. L.A. Really Changed You

  II. Episode 2: NEW MUSIC

  3. New Music

  III. Episode 3: WAY TO OLD FOR THIS

  4. Too Old For This

  5. Way, Way Too Old For This

  IV. Episode 4: JUST FRIENDS

  6. Just Friends

  7. Today is the Day

  V. Episode 5: TRUST ME

  8. Trust Me

  9. There’s A Lot You Don’t Know About Me

  VI. Episode 6: MISTAKES & REGRETS

  10. Mistakes & Regrets

  VII. Episode 7: FALLING

  11. Father

  12. Falling

  VIII. Episode 8: BEAUTIFUL MUSIC

  13. Beautiful Music

  IX. Episode 9: GO BACK INSIDE

  14. Go Back Inside

  X. Episode 10: I COUNT MY BLESSINGS

  15. I Count My Blessings

  16. Masterpiece

  XI. Final Episode: HOW ‘BOUT IT

  17. How ‘Bout It?

  Epilogue

  Sneak Peek at HOLT: Her Ruthless Billionaire

  1. HOLT: His to Take

  Also by Theodora Taylor

  About the Author

  CYNDA AND THE CITY DOCTOR

  You're fired.

  When my father died and my stepmother cut out, leaving me with two stepsiblings to raise, I figured that would be the biggest surprise of my life. But then the pandemic hit, and my big city ex showed up in my small Missouri town to take over my father’s practice.

  What’s the first thing he says to me after three years?

  “You’re fired.”

  Sooooo…it looks like he totally didn’t appreciate the way things ended between us, and now he won’t settle for anything less than cold, hard revenge.

  But as it turns out, I’m the only person in our small town with a rental unit available. And without a job, I’m desperate for a renter.

  So now the extremely bitter ex who fired me is living in my backhouse. Way, way closer than I want him to be.

  But everything will be fine. I hate him, and he hates me. So nothing’s going to happen between us, right?

  Right?

  The first story in the QUARANTALES series is one steamy romance. Perfect for those who love forced proximity, bitter exes, and second chances that can’t be denied.

  READER NOTE: The QUARANTALES series starts off steamy and gets hotter with each read before its sweet finale. So make sure to check out all of the stories in this ultra-modern, special quarantine take on some of your favorite fairytales:

  To all of my fellow St. Louis natives who moved away and never stopped missing our super special version of Chinese food.

  Once upon a time

  (three years ago to be exact)

  Dr. Prince was dazzled

  by an unexpected princess.

  He fell for her hard.

  But she departed without warning.

  Leaving behind only

  one glittery Dansko slipper

  Chapter One

  “Mabel’s dead. She’s going to die!”

  “Mabel’s fine. She’s not going to die,” I assure my stepsister, Erin, as I crawl into the fireplace. Then I mutter under my breath, “Not unless I kill her.”

  “What did you say?” E demands, her voice an indignant screech.

  “Here, Mabel, Mabel,” I croon up the chimney instead of answering. “Please come down so that E can go to school.”

  I shine my phone into the dark fireplace, hoping the sound of my voice will get the kitten to come down. But she doesn’t so much as mew.

  Please don’t be dead, I silently beg. If this animal went up into the chimney to die, I’m never getting E out the door.

  “She’s dead!” E wails. “She’s dead or she would have come down by now.”

  I sigh. “Why don’t you go get all your things ready for school so that you don’t miss the bus?”

  “Who can think of school busses at a time like this?” E demands, her voice on the verge of tears. “Does Mabel’s life mean nothing to you?”

  Okay, I am incredibly proud of E for getting into the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama early decision. It’s a super competitive program and I respect her dedication to becoming a high-caliber actress.

  But mornings like this make me really wish she could tone down the dramatics.

  “Mabel’s life means a lot to me,” I answer. “But considering this is the third time she’s gotten stuck up the chimney, I’m not sure her life means a lot to her. Now could you please make sure you have your backpack so that I don’t have to drive you to school?”

  “Cynda! Cynda! Where’s my tuba? I can’t find my tuba! And I know I left it by the door!”

  I don’t have to scoot out of the fireplace to figure out that this voice belongs to my stepbrother, Aaron.

  Yes, seriously. His name is Aaron. He and Erin are twins. My stepmother, Rachel, was married to the drummer of an R&B cover band, and not my practical father when she had them. And she’d thought it would be cute to name both twins after their father.

  It wasn’t. Rachel and her first husband divorced after signing their kids up for a lifetime of confused second takes whenever they introduce themselves. And now everyone who knows them just refers to them a
s A and E to avoid confusion.

  But as bad as I feel for A about his full name, I don’t believe his claim for a second. I know for dang sure that kid is not responsible enough to leave his instrument by the door.

  “Where was the last place you used it?” I ask him before calling up to Mabel. “Here, kitty, kitty. I’m going to need you to come down because everybody’s got to get to school and work.”

  “The last time I had it was in the garage,” A answers. “But it’s not in there.”

  I can see the bottom half of his cargo-pants covered legs walking back and forth in front of the fireplace. He paces like a chubby tiger whenever he gets agitated.

  “Did you check just to make sure, A?”

  I should have known better.

  The legs abruptly stop pacing. “I told you it wasn’t in the garage! I put it by the door. Why don’t you ever believe me?” Puberty isn’t quite done with him yet, so his voice cracks with all sorts of shrieky indignation.

  “Your stupid nerd horn doesn’t matter, A! Mabel’s dead!” E yells at him.

  Apparently, E looked at our disaster of a morning and thought to herself, you know what this situation needs? A sibling fight. Inside the fireplace, I sigh and scrub a hand over my face even though all the coronavirus experts have been advising people against touching their faces for months now.

  “My horn’s not stupid. You’re stupid!” A immediately shoots back. Good thing he plans on becoming an engineer. If that’s the best comeback he can muster, any job requiring debater skills is not in his future.

  “At least I’m not heartless,” E replies. “Don’t you care anything about the innocent kitten we promised to nurture in our home?”

  “Mabel please come down, I can’t take much more of this,” I beg up the chimney.

  “Yeah, that’s why you’re the stupid one,” A answers, his voice triumphant. “Mabel’s in my room, hanging out with Dipper.”

  “What?!” E and I say at the same time.

  “E, tell me…tell me Mabel was not in A’s room this whole time!” I growl, scrambling out of the fireplace.

  “Let me just check,” E answers, her pretty light brown face crinkling with a grimace. Funny, her voice doesn’t sound nearly as self-righteous as it did before.

  I start picking up our two-story brick colonial’s living room while I wait. The floral patterned furniture I grew up with is still in use. But I don’t keep my childhood home nearly as tidy as my mother did when she was alive. Though to be fair, I spent most of my free time rehearsing for beauty pageants when I was a teen.

  Whereas A and E seem to be in a never ending contest over who can leave more stuff laying around. Today’s winner is A. I pick up empty junk food packages and Mountain Dew cans, along with a recent AP Biology test he didn’t do so hot on.

  Sure enough, by the time I come back from depositing the trash in the kitchen trashcan where it belongs, E’s emerging from her brother’s room. And who’s that curled up in her arms? That would be Mabel the smaller of the two gray tabbies she and A had named after their favorite boy-girl twins from the TV show, Gravity Falls.

  We adopted the kittens last December, back when I thought for sure that A would be going to the University of Missouri-Rolla for Engineering and E would be enrolling in the Performing Arts program at Washington University in St. Louis. I’d wanted them to have pets to come back home to every weekend and for all their breaks.

  But never underestimate the co-dependent power of twins. They both managed to exceed my expectations by earning scholarships for one of the few schools in the nation that had both an exceptional engineering program and a well-respected school of drama.

  However, Pittsburgh was far away and the twins could barely take care of themselves. So I’d decided to move there with them, which would mean finding a nursing job in Pittsburgh and securing an apartment for the three of us that’s okay with multiple pets.

  I’d seen a few listings near CMU, but they weren’t cheap, especially compared to Guadalajara, Missouri where we currently lived. No matter how I crunched the numbers, it looked like I’d have to sell the house to make this Pittsburgh plan work.

  I’d been cool with that before. Especially since I knew that Dad’s dying wish was to bring up his stepkids as well as he and my mom had raised me. But right now, all those sacrifices I’ve been planning to make to advance their dreams taste like bitter food in my mouth.

  “Mabel was in A’s room the entire time?” I ask E. “You didn’t even check there first?”

  “I thought I saw her run up into the fireplace!” E insists. Her eyes fill with tears. “Please don’t be mad at me, Cynda”

  I want to be mad. God, I want to be. Especially since I know crying on demand is on E’s list of questionable talents, along with applying fake lashes in under 30 seconds flat and convincing boys to dump their girlfriends for the chance to hook up with her.

  But then I remind myself of all the reasons she’s so desperate for attention from boys, why she hides her natural beauty under a shell of perfect shellacked makeup, and why she has such easy access to her pain.

  We’re all still reeling from Dad’s sudden death three years ago. And their mom is who knows where right now—though if I were taking bets, it would probably be in St. Louis, spending this month’s life insurance payout at the casino riverboats. She’d walked out a couple of months after my dad’s funeral, and only swanned in for random visits which she never announced.

  For all intents and purposes, it’s just the twins and me. Which is fine. Now that we’ve all lost my dad, I’m determined to love and provide for them just as true blue as he would have if he’d lived.

  “Guys we’ve got to remember. We’re all in this together, and we have to help each other. So right now please go find your stuff so that we can get out the door.”

  “But…” they both start to protest in twin unison.

  I lift both hands, already knowing what they’ll say. I’ve only been their main caretaker for three years, but I swear sometimes it feels like a lifetime. I assign them duties before they can start whining about how they can’t do this or that.

  “You two get your backpacks while I go check in the garage for A’s horn.”

  “It’s not in the garage!” A yells after me, his round light brown face turning red with indignation.

  “Guess what! Your horn’s in the garage!” I call back over my shoulder less than a minute later. You know, after I find his case open on top of my hood and the tuba sitting bell side down on the concrete. The former marching band member still lurking inside of me, shudders at the sight.

  “Sorry,” A has the good grace to mumble when he comes slinking out to the garage.

  But unfortunately his apology isn’t enough to get us to the school bus in time.

  It drives away, even though I’m pretty sure Mr. Greiner saw us running to catch it. He’s the same driver who drove the bus when I was a student at Guac High. Guac High is what the locals call Guadalajara Senior High School. It doesn’t make much sense if you’re not a small town Missouri resident who’s only ever seen Mexico on a map, but due to our Spanish-language name, we’re weirdly obsessed with guacamole. We call ourselves Guacs not Guadalajarians, which is short for Guacamoles. And yeah sure guacamole can’t be pluralized, but none of us care. We also tack Guac to the front of all of our institutions, and our high school mascot is an avocado.

  Unfortunately, Mr. Greiner doesn’t have nearly the same sense of humor as the rest of the town. And it doesn’t matter how many parents complain, he never waits for the kids who aren’t standing right there when he pulls up to the curb.

  The twins and I end up coughing on fumes as he speeds away.

  “Sorry,” they both say this time.

  I sigh and pull my sweater a little tighter around my scrubs. “C’mon, I’ll drive you.”

  When we get back to the house, I notice that the flag on the mailbox is down. So we’ve had letters sitting in there since last night.
It’s A’s chore to bring in the mail. But he forgets more often than he remembers. I grab the pile of letters on our way to the garage and shake it at him.

  “Sorry,” he says for the third time in the same morning.