Seeking Mr. Wrong

by Natalie Charles

  Mindy’s dark eyes softened, and I knew she understood. We were both in love with men we could never have.

  We sat there and finished our drinks and our appetizer. From the way Mindy kept glancing at the bar and then looking down at the table, I got the sense she felt strange being around Chase. It was only a couple of blocks to my place, and when I suggested we head there to watch a home improvement reality show, she looked relieved.

  The night was chilly and the moon was bright enough to light the path. I tucked my fists into the pockets of my jacket and shivered against a breeze. “So what do we do? We’re lusting after the forbidden spinach-artichoke dip. What’s the answer?”

  She pouted her lips as she thought about it, and I could nearly see her heartache. She had a thing for Chase, and she had it really bad.

  “I still think my first instinct was the right one. Have a love affair with a bad boy. Feel sexy and desirable and hot. And then flaunt it.” She shook her dark curls. “Too bad you’re not writing erotica anymore. Heidi spanked the desire out of you.”

  I looked at her. “Heidi? Is that Miss Hunter’s first name?”

  “Miss Hunter? Her name is Heidi Griswold.” Mindy laughed softly.

  I licked my lips. They still tasted salty from the pita chips. Secretly, I was still writing erotica, but it was strictly for fun. It was a healthy outlet for my fantasies, nothing more. “No more erotica,” I said. “Can you imagine if Brunhilda found out I was publishing smut?”

  “Or bonking her right-hand man.”

  “Right. Or eating the administrative salami.” I kicked a pebble down the sidewalk. “Miss Hunter—Heidi—spanked me, and it was weird, and oddly therapeutic, if that makes sense? But then James called me and told me he’s getting married, and I sort of lost any self-esteem I’d recovered—”

  Mindy stopped short and grabbed my arm. “Hold on. He did what now?”

  “I didn’t tell you?” I rubbed at my forehead. “I don’t even remember who I tell things to anymore. Yeah, so he’s getting remarried. He’s engaged like, three months after we split.”

  She whistled softly. “Good Lord. What a slap in the face.”

  “So, yeah.” My shoulders sagged again. Something about saying painful things out loud made them seem more real. “When I was in college, I went on spring break and reinvented myself for the week as this cool girl. Someone who was disengaged and carefree, looking for a good time.”

  We started walking again, and turned the corner down my street. “How did that feel?”

  “Awesome. And artificial, but who cares? For that week, I experienced what it was like to be someone who slept with a guy and didn’t expect anything more. Maybe I should try that on again.”

  “Be the bad girl.” Mindy lifted her handbag higher on her shoulder. “I’ve slept with a lot of guys. I don’t put it on billboards, but you and I are friends. You know how it is. Sometimes I hope it will turn into more. Like I’ll get lucky and find the man who makes me forget about Chase.”

  I grinned. “The billionaire who has a soft spot for Chinese American teachers with purple hair.”

  “I don’t think that’s asking too much, do you?” But she was smiling. “You know what? I know this bar downtown. It’s edgy and hip. They have a singles’ night coming up. You and I should go and just, you know. Window-shop.”

  “That sounds like a wonderful idea.” I linked her arm with mine. “So we’ll look for my Mr. Wrong and your Mr. Right.”

  Odin barked excitedly as we walked up the path to my front door. “He may jump on you. I apologize in advance.”

  “It’s all right. I love Odin.” Mindy’s smile tightened. She gripped my arm tighter and lowered her voice. “Is it wrong to think I’ve already found my Mr. Right?”

  My heart ached as she struck the same note I’d played so many times myself. God knew that after James left me, I’d wondered whether I even had a Mr. Right.

  “No, it’s not wrong, hon.” I wrapped my arm around her shoulders. “But until he comes to his senses, your life is waiting. We’re open to possibilities, remember? Trusting the universe.”

  “Oh, wait, I said that, didn’t I?” Her hand flew to her face. “Christ. Sometimes I’m so full of crap I can’t even stand to listen to myself.”

  I WASN’T SUPPOSED to be writing erotica anymore, but two weeks later I was at my kitchen table, typing away—and not on lesson plans. Odin was sleeping with his head on my feet. Every now and then he’d get up to stretch, and then he’d plant himself right where he was.

  “Is this what you do all day?” I said. “I always thought you were guarding the house.”

  He gave his tail two heavy thumps and rolled over onto his back.

  It was Columbus Day, so school was closed. I was working on a new writing project, the one about the girl who gets spanked in the hayloft. It had started off as another BDSM, like my first, but it was changing tone and becoming a book about star-crossed lovers. For some strange reason—no idea why—the idea of loving someone you shouldn’t held me captive.

  She couldn’t forget about him. Even years later, his touch lingered on her skin, and the feel—

  I paused midsentence. On the days that I wrote, I also binge-snacked. It was something about sitting at a table, so close to my cupboards. Snags in my writing meant snack time. I rose and headed for the fridge. I was poking through a selection of low-fat yogurts when my cell phone rang. My heart skipped when I saw that it was Marcy, my editor. “Hello, this is Lettie.” I tried to keep my voice level.

  “You dirty little bitch.”

  I pulled the phone from my ear and checked the caller ID again. “Hello? Who is this, please?”

  Immediately, Marcy broke into peals of laughter. “Can you please tell me where you’ve been hiding all of these dirty thoughts? Whips and chains, and all I keep thinking about is Sweet Pea’s birthday party.”

  I turned up the volume on my phone and started pacing the room, figuring my signal was bad. “Marcy? Did you just call me a name?”

  “Yes, it’s me. Sorry. I didn’t mean to call you a dirty bitch. That wasn’t nice of me.” She giggled. “But I just finished your manuscript, and I love it. I want to buy it.”

  My hands started shaking from a combination of excitement and absolute terror. “You’re going to buy my manuscript? Th-that’s great.”

  “I’ll send the rest of the advance, and there are a few provisions in the contract we should talk about and agree to modify, considering we’re now publishing a novella instead of a children’s book.”

  Marcy kept talking while I nodded numbly. I was going to get paid. My smut was going to be published. It was all sort of a thrill.

  “So you liked it, then?” I asked meekly.

  “Lettie, I loved it. I had my doubts,” she added, “but you pulled it off.”

  Victory. “Hey, Marcy? Can you hold on a second?”

  “Sure thing.”

  I set the phone down calmly on a windowsill and broke into my full-on happy dance, which is a cross between running in place and having a seizure. Odin jumped up and started barking at me. “Shh! Down! Mommy’s fine!” I patted him and lifted the phone again, slightly out of breath, but trying to put on a professional voice. “I’m so pleased to hear that.”

  “I’m delighted to work with you again. So listen: We should talk about branding. You wrote the Sweet Pea books as Aletta Osbourne. You may want to think about a pseudonym for erotica so your readers aren’t confused.”

  A pseudonym. Of course. “That makes sense.”

  “Something sexy. Have fun with it. Now, I have a few suggestions for revision. I’ll send them to you, but if you have a few minutes—”

  My stomach dropped. Notes from my editor. On my smut. I swallowed and slumped onto my couch, my buzz definitely evaporating. “Yeah, I have a few minutes.”

  “
I love the character of Piers, the war-ravaged hero who’s addicted to anal sex but won’t give himself fully to Jasmine. But I had a few thoughts on character development. Oh, and before I forget: You use the words cock and prick a lot. Maybe you can come up with some other terms.”

  I heard her words, but my brain was buzzing and my scorching face was buried against a throw pillow. “Uh-huh.”

  “You can go classic here. Shaft. Dick. Manhood. Rod. I’ve always liked thrusting rod, but that’s a personal preference.”

  I wanted to die. My head was so far down in the pillow that I was practically upside down. Somehow I’d forgotten that writing smut necessarily meant I’d be receiving edits on smut, and I was not psychologically equipped for that.

  “Sure. Sounds good.”

  “Just thoughts. Oh, and I despise the word moist, so I’m going to strike it from the manuscript and ask you to come up with something else. Same with panties. Can’t stand it. Makes me think of my childhood. Give her a lace thong instead.” There was a shuffle of papers and Marcy paused to clear her throat. “Now. When Piers returns from the war and becomes fixated on doggy-style, we don’t get a real explanation for that. Is it something to do with PTSD or what?”

  Gosh, I didn’t have an answer. I’d written the whole thing in less than two weeks. But Marcy was waiting for an explanation, so I gave her one. “It has to do with his belief that life is transient, and he associates, um, intercourse with procreation, but he can’t risk becoming a father because he thinks he’ll screw up his kid because he saw his friends get killed and he has those, you know, nightmares.”

  It was all nonsense. I may as well have said that Piers liked anal sex because he’d once been probed on an alien spacecraft. It made no sense. But Marcy only said, “All right, well, now that you explain it, I understand, but that’s not coming across in the manuscript. Take a look and see where you can clarify that.”

  “Okay.”

  “But overall, I think it’s fun and sexy and there are some real points made about war and the damage it does to our men and women in uniform. I’ll send you my corrections and the revised contract, and you can give me your pseudonym later.”

  The burn on my face had started to subside, but only slightly. I righted myself on the couch and glanced at an old advertisement for hot cocoa that I’d framed and hung on the wall ages ago. Coco. That was kind of a cool name. And for a last name, I could modify my own a little. Os-something. Or something-bourne. Coco something-bourne. You know where my mind went, don’t you? Clayman. Coco Osman. Coco Osclay. Coco Claiborne.

  “How about Coco Claiborne for my pen name?”

  “Hmm. Coco Claiborne,” Marcy murmured. “I like it. So all right, I’ll include that in the contract. We’re going to call this Broken Arrow.”

  “But I thought we could call it—”

  “It’s part of a larger marketing scheme. So Broken Arrow, by Coco Claiborne. Great. I’ll get everything over to you soon, and listen: I’d love to have more. Like I said, the schedule’s open, so if you’re looking to make a name for yourself and earn a little extra money . . .”

  I promised Marcy I’d think about it as we disconnected the call, but I didn’t have to think. Having a book accepted meant financial security. I was already working on another manuscript, and the prospect of another advance was all the incentive I needed to finish.

  CHAPTER 12

  ON SATURDAY NIGHT, Mindy came over to my place early to eat some popcorn and get ready to go out. We were heading to Bar Harbor in downtown Westborough. I’d never been, but that wasn’t saying anything. James didn’t drink, and he preferred spending weekend nights reading on the couch.

  “No offense,” Mindy had once said, “but I can’t see you as the type of person who would never want to go out.”

  Frankly, she had a point. It had been kind of dull, now that I thought about it. I was looking forward to dressing up and going out with my friend. I was so excited that I’d made Parmesan popcorn drizzled with truffle oil. It was a special occasion.

  Was I thinking that I would see Eric? I may have considered the possibility. It may have set my nerves tingling all day, even if seeing Eric was not the point. Mindy had suggested the bar. She didn’t know Eric worked there sometimes, and I didn’t tell her. There was a certain appeal in proving to myself that I could flirt with another man in Eric’s presence. It was all part of Convincing Myself I Wasn’t That Into Him—even though he was starring in my latest erotic novel.

  The dilemma was deciding what to wear. My first choice of clothing had been jeans that Odin hadn’t chewed yet and a black T-shirt with a scoop neck. I thought I looked casually hot, but when I asked Mindy, she inhaled deeply and was silent for a long period of time. “I had a feeling,” she said, and handed me an armful of clothes from her closet to try on.

  Three wardrobe changes later, I had settled on a tight black skirt and a shimmery, sleeveless silver top. Once I threw on a pair of silver heels, I was Coco Claiborne: a sultry temptress with a mind for sex. Hot, dirty, sweaty sex. At least, this is what I told myself as I stood in front of the bathroom mirror and curled my hair before Mindy and I went trolling for men in a bar.

  I couldn’t speak for my friend, but I had no plans to actually go home with anyone. That was not my style. But maybe flirting a little with a man who was dangerously sexy but all kinds of wrong for me would be enough to pull me out of my relationship funk. If I were truly lucky, it would get me over my crush on my boss, which was not one of my superior life choices.

  Hair curled, makeup applied, perfume sprayed, I exited the bathroom and saw Mindy scratching Odin’s belly. She saw me and gave a low whistle. “You look hot, Lettie!”

  “You too,” I said, and tugged at the hem of my skirt. “Are you sure this isn’t too short? I don’t want to send the wrong message—”

  “No, no. This is all about sending the wrong message.” Mindy rose and grabbed her car keys. “Let’s hit the road before you change your mind.”

  We took her blue Civic. As I sat in the passenger’s seat, I told myself that this was nothing. Not a thing at all. No commitment, not a date, not any kind of rebound. Just a potential conversation and a willingness to be open to new experiences. But try telling that to my hammering heart and clammy hands. My stomach was performing contortions.

  When we stepped into Bar Harbor, I immediately liked the atmosphere. The music was modern rock, but it wasn’t so loud that Mindy and I couldn’t hear each other. There were bar-height wooden tables polished to a sheen and set around a sleek, black bar, behind which was one of the largest selections of liquor I’d ever seen. I caught a glimpse of the bartender and panicked for a second. But he was someone else, and not nearly as attractive as Eric, sadly.

  “I’ve already spotted some marks,” Mindy said as we approached the bar. “Check out those guys over there, by the mirror.”

  I followed her gaze and shrugged. “Sure. I guess so. Should we go over there?”

  “You really are out of practice,” she said. “No. We’re going to find a table and shoot them a few looks first.”

  We grabbed cocktails at the bar—she a rum and Coke and I a martini—and then found the only empty table left, which happened to be across from our marks. They looked to be about our age, maybe a little older. They both had short brown hair, and one had a visible neck tattoo. Some kind of swirl or something. Could’ve been a cult symbol. He looked over and caught me staring at him, and I looked up at the tin ceiling as if something there had caught my attention. Then I leaned into my drink and said, “I don’t think I can do this.”

  Mindy edged closer and dropped her voice. “You can do this. I know you can.”

  “He has a neck tattoo.”

  “So? Maybe he’s an artist.”

  “Or a felon.”

  Mindy stole a furtive glance at Mr. Wrong and then shook her head. “That’s
not a prison tattoo. It looks expensive.”

  “Oh, okay. He’s probably an investment banker.” I took a fortifying sip of my cocktail. “Why am I here?”

  “To flirt a little without getting your heart broken again.” Mindy reached over to pull my hair away from my face. “You are a sexy bitch, and that man with the neck tattoo wants to get up in your business. I can tell. He’s totally undressing you with his eyes.”

  “In that case, he knows I’m not wearing matching underwear.” But I was. I’d made that much effort, at least.

  Mindy slid off her stool and grabbed her handbag. I sat bolt upright. “Wait. Where are you going?”

  “I’m going to take a walk. The felon isn’t going to come over while both of us are here.” She lifted her drink off the table. “Don’t worry, I’m not going far. Remember: you’re a sexy bitch who’s open to possibilities.”

  And then she left me alone.

  I’d been single for a few months, but being alone in public still felt awkward. I hadn’t managed to work up the self-esteem to dine alone in a restaurant or even grab a drink at a bar by myself. Basically I didn’t know where to put my eyes. Should I stare at the empty seat across from me or at the other patrons? Was it proper etiquette to watch my drink or meal closely, as if I half suspected it might wander off? I didn’t know. So I settled on examining my own fingernails for a bit after Mindy took off. Yup. Still there.

  “Hi there.” The man with the neck tattoo was right there in a flash, pulling back the third stool. “Haven’t seen you here before.”

  Was that a question? I kept my face pleasantly neutral and reminded myself that I was open to possibilities. This could be the man of my dreams, for all I knew. “I haven’t seen you here, either.”

  He grinned like I’d said something cheeky. That’s when I noticed he was missing a front tooth. I helped myself to another sip and felt a headache coming on.