Secrets of a Shoe Addict

by Harbison, Beth

She felt the heat climb into her cheeks. “Thanks.”

  He pushed the elevator button, and they glided upward to a suite on the top floor. One entire wall consisted of windows that overlooked the aurora borealis–like glow of the Las Vegas strip. It was enchanting.

  Loreen was standing in front of the window, looking for the big guitar they always showed in movies, when Rod came up behind her and put his arms around her. “Like it?”

  “I love it. I could look at this view every night for the rest of my life.” As soon as she said the words, Loreen had the horrible feeling that maybe this handsome stranger was a serial killer who was about to murder her, and, though he would be the only one to know, her final words would echo ironically through time.

  There was a knock at the door, and Rod went to get it, murmured some things, and came back into the room with an ice bucket, a bottle, and two champagne flutes.

  As he poured the champagne, Loreen noticed the label: PIPER-HEIDSIECK. Oh, shit. Rod hadn’t been calling the bartender Piper; he’d been asking for the champagne.

  But then, like an idiot, she’d proceeded to call the guy “Piper” and, worse, feel really clever doing so.

  Fortunately, Rod seemed to think she was joking, and even said she was adorable. So . . . she’d go with that.

  “That was nice of Piper to send up some more Piper,” she said, knowing it was pathetic, but at the same time at a complete loss about what else to say.

  Rod moved over to Loreen and smoothly took the glass from her hand and set it on the end table by the sofa. “I can’t wait any longer to do this,” he said, then lowered his mouth down onto hers.

  He didn’t give her time to work up some nervousness. He just went for it.

  Never—never—had she been kissed like this. Everything in her tingled, from her head right down her spine and into the center of her being. Rod undressed her slowly, so slowly that even the fabric running across her skin felt like a caress.

  He was an expert at touching a woman, pushing buttons she didn’t even know she had, bringing her to the crest of ecstasy over and over again, then backing away just long enough to make her nearly scream with need.

  By the time he finally got down to business, she wanted it more than she’d ever wanted anything in her life.

  She couldn’t say how long it lasted. Maybe an hour, maybe five, but the time Loreen spent with Rod was so intense that his abrupt withdrawal at the end of it came as a shock.

  “Oh, shit.”

  It wasn’t exactly the romantic conclusion she was expecting. “What’s wrong?”

  “The fucking rubber broke.”

  “What?”

  “I said the fucking—rubber—broke.” Suddenly Rod sounded like a seven-year-old who’d struck out at bat.

  So much for ol’ Rico Suave.

  But Loreen’s first reaction was one of relief. The “Oh, shit” wasn’t because he’d just realized what he’d done, with whom, and regretted it. “The rubber broke?” she echoed, trying to get a grasp on what he was actually saying.

  “Yeah.” He threw up his hands. “Fuck.”

  She swallowed the urge to say, I believe we just did, and instead asked, “Are you sure?”

  He nodded. “I’ve done this enough to know when there’s a problem, and this is a problem.”

  A moment of heavy silence dropped between them.

  “Have you been tested?” Loreen asked, her former relief replaced rapidly by panic as she realized the implications. She’d just had sex with a stranger and the condom had broken, spilling all kinds of potential diseases and bacteria right into her most vulnerable parts. Short of slashing open her wrist and rubbing it on a petri dish, she couldn’t do something more bacterially dangerous.

  “I’m tested every month,” Rod said. “What about you?”

  “I haven’t had sex in about a year.”

  He nodded like that was unsurprising. “Yeah. But have you been tested?”

  That yeah was insulting. “My doctor did that test,” she said, “along with every other medical test, last year when I couldn’t shake the flu. It was negative.”

  His shoulders lowered slightly with relief.

  She waited a moment, then, when he didn’t volunteer the information, prompted him with “And your tests?”

  He waved the question away like it was silly. “Negative on all counts. We have a really good doctor here who checks us out really thoroughly.”

  “Heck of a medical plan you have.”

  “It’s the law.” He shrugged. “What about pregnancy? Are you on anything?”

  For the past year? On the remote chance that she’d have sex with someone without taking the time to plan? Not likely. Good thing she couldn’t have more kids. “After my son was born, I had my tubes tied,” she lied. It was easier than explaining that she just wasn’t able to get pregnant, that a couple of years of trying with Robert had proved that beyond a doubt, and that it made her hang on to her only son’s childhood like it was a life raft in the ocean.

  “Good thing.” Rod gave a dry laugh. “I’m sure the last thing you need is a pregnancy.”

  “Right,” she agreed, because she was polite. But . . . what did he mean by that? The last thing she needed? Even though it was true, what was it about his words that sounded distinctly detached? No, they didn’t know each other, and no, she definitely wasn’t going to get pregnant from this, but still. . . . What a dick.

  Nah, she was probably reading way too much into this. She’d had a weird night—a one-night stand! The first time in her life! That was so unlike her. And she was still out even though it was—she looked for the green glow of the digital clock by the bedside—11:36 P.M.

  Good Lord, she had to leave. Everyone was probably wondering where she’d disappeared to.

  “I’ve got to run,” she said, meaning it literally. She threw back the sheets and started running around the darkened room, collecting her clothes.

  “Are you sure? I’m still available for a few hours. And I had a great time with you,” Rod said, and back was the mellow, sexy tone that had drawn her to him in the first place. Then he grabbed her wrist, pulled her to him, and kissed her deeply. If it weren’t for the time, she would have fallen right back into bed with him.

  “I did, too,” she said, wishing she could come up with something more clever—more memorable—than mere agreement.

  “Maybe next time, then.” He ran his hands down her back, sending tingles along the trail of his touch.

  “I don’t come here often,” she said to him as she pulled back. She had to get dressed and leave, no matter how great his hands felt on her.

  “Well, if you do,” Rod said, pulling up his jeans and turning to her with the button tantalizingly undone, “you know where you can find me.”

  She nodded and gave a laugh. “At the bar downstairs?” She was joking.

  He nodded. He was not joking. “Unless I’m already working.”

  “Oh.” Okay, so he hung out at the bar all the time? And he could say, absolutely, that he’d be there at some nebulous time in the future?

  Something here wasn’t adding up.

  “You can just leave the money on the dresser, sweetheart.” He was buttoning his shirt, and didn’t have so much as a hint of a smile when he said it.

  But Loreen laughed. Because . . . it had to be a joke.

  “Shouldn’t that be my line?” She was trying to keep the mood light, but still . . . ew. She didn’t like this joke. It wasn’t really funny, no matter who said it.

  Rod looked at her, confused. “I’m sorry?”

  “Oh, nothing, I was just kidding.” Too.

  Right?

  He gave a vague smile and gestured with a hand that suddenly seemed a little limp. Something less masculine than it had seemed just a couple of hours before. “Yeah. So, the dresser right over there.” He gestured and went into the bathroom. “And tag on a hundred and forty for the champagne.”

  Oh, God. He wasn’t kidding. He was . .
. She’d just . . . Oh, God, she’d just hired a male prostitute. How the hell had this happened? She thought back over their conversation, trying to figure out just where the breakdown in communications had occurred.

  Are you looking for company tonight, Loreen?

  What had she said? Oh. Are you offering? An innocent question. Flirty. Not really a proposition.

  Yes, as a matter of fact, I am.

  What an idiot! How had she not seen this before?

  “Loreen?”

  She snapped back to attention. “Yes?”

  “Is something wrong?”

  “No!” She said it too quick. “I was just . . . I just realized we didn’t discuss . . .”

  He narrowed his eyes at her. Suddenly he didn’t look so sexy. “We didn’t discuss what, Loreen?”

  “Price.” It sounded like a question. From a tiny little person. She could barely eke the word out.

  His brow relaxed fractionally. “Right. When you didn’t ask, I thought you were a regular, and that for some reason I just didn’t remember you.”

  Great. Not only had the whole flattery thing been a game, but he actually thought she seemed like someone who regularly paid for sex.

  From him.

  The guy actually thought he’d fucked her before—perhaps more than once—and forgotten. And he thought that didn’t really matter. Like . . . her feelings wouldn’t be hurt?

  She felt sick. “No,” she said coolly. So much for looking at her like she was a swimsuit model. But it was stupid to be upset with a prostitute for not telling little white lies to be polite. This was all so confusing.

  She had to get out of here.

  “It’s one g.” He put Rembrandt Extra Whitening on his toothbrush and started to brush vigorously, presumably to remove all DNA traces of Loreen so he’d be fresh and clean for the next pathetic loser who came along.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t . . . How much is that?”

  He spit a foamy toothpaste mess into the sink, then swished water in his mouth and spit again. Less attractive by the second. “A thousand dollars,” he said, taking the hand towel from the chrome rack and blotting his face. “Plus the champagne, like I said.”

  Her heart leapt into her throat. A thousand dollars.

  These three hours were going to be $333 an hour. She hadn’t had a therapeutic massage since Mother’s Day six years ago because she couldn’t pay the sixty bucks an hour. There was no way she was going to have to pay $333 an hour, times three, for having sex with this guy. Good Lord, she’d even gone down on him.

  He had to be kidding.

  But this wasn’t a guy who was into kidding around.

  He was a businessman.

  And somehow she had to come up with a thousand bucks quick.

  Chapter

  2

  Abbey Walsh—wife of the sweetest Methodist pastor in Maryland—never dreamed she’d run into anyone she knew in Las Vegas, much less an old boyfriend, with blackmail on his mind, who she’d thought was behind bars.

  With the band competition over and the children hopefully asleep, the night began peacefully, for her, with a glass of champagne. Bubbly, toasty, with notes of oak and yeast . . . It had been a long time since Abbey had enjoyed a glass of good champagne.

  She used to drink it like water. In fact, she used to drink it instead of water sometimes. She was young then, and so foolish, though at least she’d had good taste. Jacques Selosse, Charles Heidsieck, Bollinger . . . back then they were her frequent companions. Every once in a rare while, she missed it.

  Tonight was one of those nights. After she’d gotten off the elevators with Tiffany and Loreen to go to the bar, the heel of her shoe had wobbled and broken off. With promises to catch up with the others later, she went back up, got a new pair of shoes, resisted the kids’ pleas to go back and make the babysitter leave, and went back down to some blissful solitude.

  It wasn’t a big deal. Abbey was perfectly fine with the idea of having a little alone time. Besides, she knew the others always felt a little stifled around her. It was partly because of the fact that her husband, Brian, was a clergyman, but she suspected it was also partly because she herself was so straight and narrow. Had been for years now.

  But tonight some wind had shifted, just for a moment, and she went to the bar and ordered a single glass of their best champagne.

  It was every bit as good as she remembered.

  She let the bubbles sit on her tongue for a moment, then swallowed, imagining she could feel them go straight to her head and tickle away her troubles. For a moment, anyway.

  “Abbey!”

  Oh, no. It was Deb Leventer, dragging and practically dangling her daughter, Poppy, into the bar behind her.

  “Deb.” Abbey set her glass down and looked from Deb to Poppy, who was clutching her hand and looking around with wide—though distinctly fascinated—eyes. “What are you doing in here?” What was she doing here? Most of the other band parents were staying at more expensive “name” hotels on the strip, several miles from this out-of-the-way hotel and casino.

  “Poppy and I were just on our way up to our room to get some shut-eye before we leave tomorrow.” Deb arched an eyebrow and looked pointedly at the bar behind Abbey. “Are you drinking?”

  “Yes.” How had she managed to miss the fact that Deb Leventer was staying in the same hotel? “I was just having a glass of wine.”

  “Oh.” Disapproval rose off Deb like a stench. “I see. Well, I won’t tell your husband.” Abbey supposed that Deb was trying to sound like she was joking, but there was a hard edge to her voice.

  “No need to worry about that—he’s the one who suggested I come down here and treat myself to a little champagne.” It was really hard not to give Deb the snark slapdown she deserved. Instead, Abbey tried to take the high road. “I’d ask you to join me, but I’m sure you’re eager to get Poppy up to bed. And out of the casino atmosphere.” She couldn’t help but add, “Especially since it’s so late for a child that age to still be up.”

  Deb looked simultaneously embarrassed and judgmental. It was quite a feat. “You’re right. This isn’t the proper environment for children. . . . Where is Parker?”

  “In our suite. With a sitter.” Abbey cringed inwardly saying the words, knowing that Deb Leventer would perceive this as the height of bad mothering and wouldn’t hesitate to tell anyone what she thought.

  Abbey didn’t particularly care what the woman thought, but she didn’t want word getting back to Parker and embarrassing him.

  “A sitter! In a Las Vegas hotel! You’re braver than I am.” Translation: You’re a fool and your child has probably already been sold on the black market by the desperate junkie you hired so you could come down here and get soused.

  Abbey smiled mildly. “She’s a delightful older woman. I’m sure the kids are already tucked away asleep.” She shook off a mental image of the kids whooping and hollering and swinging on the drapes while the sitter used a skeleton key to open the minibar and take all the little fifteen-dollar bottles of Skyy Vodka.

  “Oh.” Deb’s expression tightened. “Well. Come on, Poppy. We have to get up early tomorrow to fly home. Good night, Abbey.” She looked again at the glass in Abbey’s hand. “It was . . . nice chatting with you.”

  Abbey resisted the urge to raise her glass to Deb—that would have been deliciously obnoxious—and instead set it down. “If I don’t see you two before you leave, have a nice flight.” Broomsticks came to mind.

  Deb walked away, tugging Poppy along after her. Abbey watched them go. But her surroundings had lost their luster. Deb’s presence, or more specifically, Deb’s negativity, had made Abbey’s feeling of freedom start to feel like a wet towel.

  So she decided to go somewhere else. There was no way she was going to let Deb Leventer spoil her night. She set her glass down and walked purposefully through the lobby and out the front doors into the balmy night air.

  All around, the sky was bright with the reflected glow of neo
n. Abbey couldn’t tell if it was overcast or not, but she couldn’t see even one star in the sky, because the town itself was so bright.

  The sidewalk was more crowded than she would have expected at this hour, but she was glad of it. It was so easy to become anonymous in the sea of milling people. There were a lot of young couples, a fair representation of middle-aged middle-class people, and a surprising number of oddballs.

  One craggy-faced older man, with skin the color of seared beef, put a hand on Abbey as she passed, and said, “God blesses the weak and the strong.”

  Abbey was startled by his touch, and could feel the alarm showing in her face as she turned to look at him. “I’m sorry?”

  “He watches.” The man nodded, to himself, not her, and worked his jaw like a cow chewing its cud. “He protects.” He wasn’t looking at her anymore, and he started on his way down the sidewalk.

  Abbey stood for a moment, watching. There weren’t actually a lot of Bible stories that particularly touched her, but there was a passage she remembered from childhood about angels in disguise. She couldn’t remember exactly what it was—Brian would know—but it said that sometimes the most unlikely people who pop into your life are actually angels in disguise, bearing a message, or comfort, or whatever.

  To her knowledge, it had never happened to her, but hope sprang eternal. Maybe the man wasn’t just an old crazy person, but an angel telling her something she needed to know.

  God blesses the weak and the strong.

  He watches.

  He protects.

  He was, actually, kind of like Santa Claus.

  She wanted to believe it. She’d wanted to believe it for as long as she could remember, as long as she’d known the story. But she didn’t believe it.

  And when she saw the man stop in the distance and speak to another woman, this time one who reached into her purse and handed him money (which he took), she dismissed him as a nut. His words didn’t have any significance at all.

  She walked on, a little disconcerted. When she turned a corner toward the main strip, thinking it might be a shortcut, the sidewalk was almost bare. This was no place for a woman to walk alone. Just as she was turning to go back, something on the ground caught her eye. A casino chip. She picked it up. It was a ten-dollar chip embossed with the name ALADDIN’S CAVE.