Can't Stop the Feeling (Whispering Bay Romance 6)

Chapter One

Jenna Pantini knew she had a bad temper. She’d inherited it, along with her red hair from her Nana. But over the years she’d learned to master it. She could be calm, cool and collected under the most grueling of circumstances. It was one of the reasons that at the tender age of thirty-one she’d earned the much-coveted city manager position in Whispering Bay, a well-established beach community in Florida’s growing panhandle region.

She stopped writing mid-sentence and laid down her pen. Her fingers felt oddly numb. This newest development in the Earl Handy estate had to be a coincidence. Because fate couldn’t be this cruel.

“Did you say the attorney representing Earl’s daughter is named Ben Harrison?” It couldn’t be her Ben Harrison. Although, technically, he’d never been hers.

“Why? Do you know him?” asked Pilar Diaz-Rothman, Whispering Bay’s attorney. As the new city manager, Jenna had worked with Pilar for almost a month now. The Cuban-American lawyer was petite with chin-length dark hair and fierce brown eyes. Before Jenna could answer, Pilar said, “Of course you know him. Everyone in Florida has heard of Ben Harrison.”

The mayor, who up to now had been silent, leaned back in her chair. “I’ve never heard of him.” With the palm of her hand, Mimi Grant began to rub soothing little circles over her beach ball of a belly. Being seven months pregnant with twins in the late September Florida heat had to suck.

Jenna reached across the table and poured her a glass of water. “You need to stay well hydrated. At this point in your pregnancy, your body has fifty percent more blood to circulate.”

Lifelong friends, Mimi and Pilar exchanged a look. “How on earth do you know that?” Pilar asked Jenna.

“Yeah,” Mimi said. “This is my third pregnancy, and I couldn’t have quoted that as easily as you just did.”

“I must have picked that up somewhere.”

Where she’d read (or heard) that little pregnancy tidbit, Jenna couldn’t say. She only knew that she knew it. As a child, she was always blurting things out without thinking. Growing up, she’d learned to curtail her instinct, but every once in a while, her inner-know-it-all escaped to create some damage before she could lock her back up.

Mimi repositioned herself in the chair, then let out a long sigh.

“Why are you making that face?” Pilar eyed Mimi like a protective mama cat would her kitten. “You’re not having contractions, are you? Because it’s way too soon for that.”

“Nope. No contractions. It’s just that ever since the twins have declared themselves, it’s like they’re trying to one-up each other. I can’t tell who’s on top and who’s on the bottom.”

In what had been the most talked about event in Whispering Bay history (at least in the past month), Mimi and her husband, police chief Zeke Grant, had hosted a gender reveal party only to discover that they were having not one, but two babies. A girl and a boy, bringing their brood up to four children.

Jenna inwardly cringed. It wasn’t that she didn’t like children. She had two nieces that she adored more than life itself. Children were perfectly wonderful. As long as they behaved and belonged to someone else. Maybe one day she would have a child of her own. If the circumstances were right. But she wasn’t one of those women who believed her life would be incomplete without a husband and kids. Nope. Her personal happiness would never depend on someone else.

“It’s a good thing you’re not having contractions because we need to keep those babies in the oven for a couple more months,” Pilar said.

“That’s the plan,” Mimi said serenely. “Now, back to city business. Who is this Ben Harrison? The way you say his name makes him sound mean.”

“Mean isn’t exactly the word I’d use to describe him. More like he’s a total bloodthirsty shark. No emotion involved. The guy functions on pure cold instinct. He’s a partner with the Miami branch of Martinez and Martinez and he’s rumored to never take a case he can’t win.”

Mimi frowned. “You mean the law firm with all those scary billboards along the highway?”

Jenna knew exactly which billboards Mimi referred to. Their trademark ads featured Jack Martinez, the founding partner’s son, wearing an expensive-looking coat and tie over a pair of boxer shorts while he glared down at the little people of Florida with slogans like, Let’s Sue The Pants Off Everyone!

“But isn’t Martinez and Martinez a personal injury firm?” Jenna asked, genuinely confused.

“Traditionally, yes,” Pilar said. “But Jack Martinez has been branching the firm out into a bunch of different things, including wills and probate.”

Earl Handy, the elderly grandson of one of Whispering Bay’s founding fathers, had passed away a couple of months ago, leaving the bulk of his estate, which included miles and miles of pristine, white-sand beachfront property, to the city to be used solely for public access. It was an extremely generous gift. One that his only daughter, Nora, and her husband, Vince Palermo, were now contesting.

“So what do we know about this Ben Harrison person?” asked Mimi.

Jenna tried not to show anything more than a mild professional interest in Pilar’s answer.

“I don’t know him personally. It’s not like all the lawyers in Florida know one another, but Ben Harrison was in all the papers and a bunch of legal articles last year when he represented Tiffany McAdams.”

Mimi sat straight up in her chair. “The woman whose dead husband supposedly had the airtight prenup?”

Jenna was vaguely familiar with the case but she’d been too wrapped up in work to pay attention to what had basically been a

reality TV show. If she’d known Ben had been the attorney, she might have been interested in reading an article or two. Only because it was good to keep up with the news. Right?

“That’s the one,” Pilar said gloomily.

“Refresh our memories,” Jenna said.

Pilar went on to give them all the juicy details of the case. Tiffany McAdams, a former Playboy centerfold, had married south Florida billionaire Arthur Clendenin at the respective ages of twenty-four and seventy-nine. Clendenin might have been an old fool, but he’d made sure to have a supposedly airtight prenuptial agreement limiting the amount of money Tiffany would inherit in the event of his death. They’d been married a little over a year when Arthur had his now famous heart attack while dirty dancing with Tiffany in a Miami South Beach bar. The whole thing had been caught on cell phone video and replayed on TV dozens of times.

Afterward, a beautifully tearful Tiffany had claimed that Arthur had changed his mind about the will and that he wanted her to have half his estate. No one believed her. Especially Arthur’s two grown children from his previous marriage. So Tiffany hired hotshot attorney Ben Harrison and after two years of legal battles, she’d done the unthinkable, or rather, he’d done the impossible. He’d broken the prenup and gotten Tiffany not only half the estate, but he’d also sued Arthur’s children for all the legal fees. And won.

“Oh my God,” Mimi said. “I remember that case. That’s who we’re up against?”

“I’m afraid so.” Pilar shuddered. “I still have nightmares of that video showing poor Arthur dancing and having his heart attack.”

Jenna had never seen the video. “It’s pretty graphic, huh?” she asked sympathetically.

“I’ll say. There should be laws against eighty-year-old men twerking in public.”

The three women sat around the table looking at one another dejectedly. Jenna was the first one to speak again. “Let’s not panic. Just because this Ben Harrison was able to break some Miami billionaire’s will doesn’t mean he can do the same thing here.”

“True.” Pilar perked up. “I have more than enough witnesses to claim that Earl was perfectly lucid when he had his attorney write up his will.”

Mimi looked at Pilar thoughtfully. “Is that what you think Vince and Nora are basing their case on? That Earl wasn’t in his right mind when he had his will made out?”

“You tell me. He was your cousin. Or was he your uncle?”