Maid of Dishonor

by Heidi Rice

  ‘Yes, but...’ Gina stammered to a halt, totally lost for words in the face of Cassie’s objective reasoning. ‘I can’t believe I’ve done this again. It’s like I’ve got a genetic compulsion to screw up this friendship.’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ Cassie said, taking the statement literally as always. ‘To determine that you’d have to examine the cause and effect.’

  ‘The.... Well, it wasn’t planned, if that’s what you’re asking.’ Because who knew what the heck Cassie was on about now? ‘I went to his hotel to apologise to him.’

  ‘What for?’ Cassie cut in, looking shocked for the first time.

  ‘For the failure of his marriage.’

  ‘How was that your fault?’

  ‘Apparently it wasn’t,’ Gina added, suddenly keen to end this topic of conversation. Because the apology excuse for seeing Carter again was sounding less and less valid, even to her. ‘Do you want to hear the rest or not?’

  Cassie’s eyebrows rose fractionally at the tone. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Fine, well, then, after he’d told me his divorce was none of my concern, we had a few drinks, one thing led to another and before I knew it we were tearing each other’s clothes off in his very nice corner suite overlooking the Hudson.’ She sighed. ‘The views really are spectacular from that hotel, by the way.’

  ‘What view are we talking about?’ Cassie said, so dryly Gina choked out a laugh, the burden of guilt lifting for the first time since her meltdown at the salon.

  ‘It’s not funny,’ she replied. ‘It’s disastrous. I know that. But the good news is, it won’t happen again. I told him in no uncertain terms this morning that we’d made a mistake.’ Well, the terms hadn’t been that uncertain, but still.

  ‘How was it?’ Cassie asked.

  ‘How was what?’

  ‘The mistake?’

  ‘You mean the sex?’

  Cassie nodded.

  ‘Honestly?’

  Another nod.

  ‘Fabulous.’ Why lie about it? ‘As I believe I mentioned ten years ago, the man was a gifted amateur. He’s more than lived up to that early promise.’ Which she was beginning to realise only made the mistake of sleeping with him all the more enormous—because her ability to conjure up an image of him naked and ready with complete clarity was not helping.

  ‘Maybe that explains it, then,’ Cassie mused.

  ‘Explains what?’

  ‘Why you slept with him, despite your misgivings. Studies have shown the release of endorphins triggered by orgasm—which for the purposes of this discussion we’ll call fabulous sex—can impair your cognitive skills. They certainly impaired mine when I had sex with Tuck the first time. And the second. And the...’

  ‘I get the picture,’ Gina muttered. Trust Cassie to come up with a scientific solution—that made perfect sense to her and no sense in the real world. ‘Cass, what you and Tuck have is not the same as what Carter and I have. Frankly, having sex with Carter could turn me into Dumbo, but all it would ultimately prove is that Marnie was right about me all along.’

  Cassie gave a pensive hum. ‘Are you sure you’re giving Marnie enough credit? Why don’t you ask her whether she cares about you and Carter getting back together.’

  Gina choked on her coffee. ‘Are you on crack or something?’ she whispered furiously. ‘Carter and I are not back together, because we never were together. This isn’t a relationship. It’s one night of madness.’

  ‘Two now, actually.’

  ‘All right, two,’ Gina conceded. Trust Cassie to be pedantic about the maths. ‘But now it’s over.’ Of that much she was certain.

  ‘Did you tell him about the baby?’

  The blood drained out of Gina’s face and slammed into her heart. ‘No, of course not. Why would I?’

  ‘I just thought...’ Cassie began. ‘He’s not married any more—so why would you need to keep it a secret still?’

  ‘Because it’s ancient history. Because there would be no point in telling him all these years after the fact.’ She coughed, trying to lower her voice, which had become a little shrill in the face of Cassie’s passive-aggressive interrogation techniques. ‘And anyway it was never a baby. It was a miscarriage.’ And she’d spent a great deal of time, not to mention money, making herself believe that.

  It had taken her years to repair the damage she’d done to her sense of self-worth and self-esteem. And even longer to become a more stable, sorted person—a person who could actually look at herself in the mirror every morning and like what she saw. She’d had to get over the insecurities of her childhood, the recklessness of her adolescence and the horror of what had happened when she’d returned to England with Carter’s child growing inside her womb, harbouring some idiotic notion that she’d fallen in love with a man who was totally unattainable.

  But none of that had really had anything to do with Carter. She’d latched onto him, because he’d listened to her that night, he’d been sensitive and sweet and the few things he’d told her about his father had made her think they might be kindred spirits. But the truth was, he’d just been the catalyst.

  Unfortunately, last night proved that she still had a ways to go before she could rely on herself to resist all temptations. But last night had no real bearing on her past. It had been nothing more than a biological urge. An irresistible biological urge. Which meant the decision not to see Carter again, and stir up any more irresistible biological urges, was the mature choice. And if Cassie would just back off, and stop making ridiculous suggestions, she might actually be able to embrace it.

  ‘Okay, if you say so,’ Cassie interrupted her panicked revelry, her calm grey eyes fixed on Gina’s face.

  ‘I do say so, because it’s the truth.’

  Cassie looked doubtful—what she wasn’t saying hanging in the air between them, like a huge pulsing neon sign. And Gina knew exactly what the sign said.

  You’re in denial.

  She could see Cassie believed it wasn’t panic over screwing up her relationship with her friends that had Gina steering clear of Carter now. It was all the messy, unfinished business between the two of them that she didn’t want to confront.

  And it was hardly surprising Cassie had that misconception.

  Because during those months after Gina had left Hillbrook—when she’d discovered the pregnancy and a few crucial months later lost the baby—Reese and Cassie had been there to help her pick up the pieces, at the end of a transatlantic phone line. They’d let Gina rant and rave, and cry and carry on and finally come to terms with her loss and her grief, but there had been one thing her two best friends had disagreed with her about. They both felt Gina should have contacted Carter. That he should have been forced to share some of the emotional burden, because he had been as responsible as Gina for that short, helpless little life.

  Gina placed her fingers on Cassie’s arm and squeezed. ‘It’s not what you think, Cass. Honestly. I’m not a basketcase any more. I’m all grown up. I got over it. I couldn’t be more different from that girl. And Carter’s a completely different guy too. Give or take the odd super power in the sack,’ she added wryly.

  Cassie sent her a tentative smile. ‘Maybe you’re right.’

  ‘I know I am.’

  ‘But if that’s the case, it does pose another question.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘If all the variables have changed, and Reese and Marnie never need to know about this—what’s preventing you from availing yourself of Carter’s super powers again?’

  EIGHT

  Cassiopeia Barclay, I want to throttle you.

  Gina took her eyes off the phone, punched her computer’s start-up button and lobbed Carter Price’s card into the waste-paper basket—for the fiftieth time in the last seven days.

  The big digital clock above
her kitchen counter clicked from 10:59 to 11:00 as she struggled to focus on the screen and ignore the residual hum of heat pulsing in her abdomen.

  Ignore it. He’s probably already on his plane to Savannah. You did it.

  Why she didn’t feel particularly thrilled with her powers of resistance was neither here nor there.

  She dragged her gaze back to the blog she was designing for an organic farmer’s community up in Westchester. It was a new commission and she’d been toying with different basic designs for two days. She punched keys, finally picking a beautiful leaf green for the background to complement the community’s logo.

  At last, progress.

  Business had been painfully slow recently—people generally didn’t think too much about social-media marketing campaigns when they were struggling to pay their bills—and she needed to make an impact with this commission. She’d promised the co-operative at least fifty thousand unique visitors in their first three months, which meant putting together a blog package with the wow factor.... And achieving that when the majority of your subject matter was organically grown potatoes was no mean feat.

  Once she’d finished the preliminary designs, she began to rough in some of the copy they’d sent her for the launch. And pretended not to notice the insistent punch of her heartbeat every time she glanced at the clock—and another minute had crawled by.

  * * *

  Carter leapt up the steps to the loft apartment two at a time. He had exactly an hour till check-in closed on his flight to Savannah. With a major board meeting scheduled for five this afternoon in Georgia he couldn’t miss his plane. So what the hell was he doing getting his cab driver to detour to Brooklyn?

  He guessed he was about to find out as he reached the second floor landing and pressed the door buzzer marked Carrington Web Designs.

  If she was out, that would be all the answer he needed. He’d left it up to her to call and she hadn’t—but he figured she owed him an explanation. She’d approached him, she’d made the first contact, and then she’d blown his mind in that damn hotel suite, leaving him tense and edgy and unfocused for the rest of his trip when he should have been concentrating on business.

  He’d drifted off during more than one important negotiation in the last week—eventually making the trip a wash with the Chinese clients he’d been pursuing for months, who now thought he was the next best thing to a narcoleptic.

  He could have happily lived the rest of his life never having stirred up this hornet’s nest again. But she’d insisted on stirring it up, and then figured she could just unstir it again at her own convenience. Well, to hell with that.

  He thumped on the security door, drew back his fist to thump again, when the door swung open. And the muscles in his gut cinched into a tight knot.

  It was eleven ten on a Friday morning but she looked as if she’d just rolled out of bed. Her hair fell around her shoulders in big, fluffy, unkempt waves that made him want to plunge his fingers in and ruffle it up some more. Her clear, pale skin glowed, scrubbed clean without the benefit of the carefully applied make-up she usually wore, while the loose robe gave him a painful glimpse of a lacy camisole barely covering firm breasts.

  ‘Carter, what the...? You’re supposed to be in Savannah!’

  She tightened the tie on her robe, and her breasts plumped up, threatening to spill out of the lace altogether. The knot in his gut sank lower, loosening muscles that had been too tight for days.

  He dragged his gaze away from her cleavage—and suddenly knew the answer.

  This wasn’t over, not till he said so. Not this time. But from now on he was playing the game on his terms. Not hers. And that meant getting the upper hand right from the get-go.

  ‘I’m on my way to La Guardia now, but I’ve got a proposition for you that I wanted to deliver in person.’

  ‘What proposition?’

  He stroked a finger down her cheek, enjoying the way her lips parted and a sob of breath came out.

  She was no more immune than he was to this thing. And it was a thing, however you wanted to call it.

  ‘I want you to come to Savannah for a couple of weeks.’

  She blinked, the movement slow and tremulous, as if she were trying to process the invitation. ‘I can’t do that, Carter. We’re not kids any more and I don’t think...’

  He pressed his finger to her lips, silencing the protest. ‘Now don’t go getting your panties in a twist again—that’s not the kind of proposition I’m talking about.’

  ‘Oh?’

  He felt the surge of satisfaction at the catch of disappointment in her voice and the pucker of confusion on her brow.

  You’re not the only one who can play hard ball, sugar.

  ‘As great as it was on Friday night, this is a business proposition.’ Mostly.

  ‘What kind of business proposition?’

  The pucker got more pronounced, but he could see the spark of interest lurking behind the caution.

  ‘I’ve been giving it some thought.’ At least ten seconds anyway. ‘And I’d like to commission you to work on a social-media campaign for the mill. We’re expanding into a number of new markets and we need to up our profile—social media is a way to do that without breaking the bank.’

  ‘That’s... Really?’

  ‘Yeah, really, at the moment we only have a website—which we’ll need you to redesign—but we’re also looking to build a more comprehensive strategy across all the appropriate social-media platforms.’

  ‘That’s an excellent idea—over two billion people use the web. But I should warn you that it doesn’t necessarily translate into sales straight away. The idea is to...’ She stopped suddenly, pushed the door open, the enthusiasm sparking in her eyes almost making him feel guilty. But then he remembered it was a real job, he’d got the funding approved by the board months ago—and he got the final say on who to hire, so he could hire her if he wanted. ‘Why don’t you come in? We can discuss it further.’ She glanced at her clothing. ‘I’ll get dressed and we can...’

  ‘No need to get dressed on my account.’ He let his gaze drift down the shorty robe past long, toned legs to bare feet, and toes painted cotton-candy pink. And imagined himself nibbling on that cute little pinkie. He let the innuendo heat the air, before returning his gaze to her face. Her breathing had speeded up, making her cleavage rise and fall against the confining lace. ‘I can’t stop to discuss it now. I’ve got a plane to catch. That’s why I need you to come to Savannah.’

  ‘But I don’t have to be in Georgia. Everything can be done online and we can correspond via email.’

  He smiled—he’d definitely heard the disappointment that time. And the way her voice had lowered to the throaty purr that signalled her arousal.

  ‘I want you to see the mill, talk to the folks that work there, get a clear picture of who we are and what we do.’ Damned if he hadn’t almost convinced himself by the time he’d finished outlining all the elements of the operation he wanted her to get acquainted with.

  ‘Well, I suppose...’

  He leant in and pressed a quick perfunctory kiss to her lips, heard her sharp intake of breath. ‘Great, that’s all settled. I’ll get my PA to negotiate a contract and email flight details. Can you make it down early next week?’

  ‘If you’re sure you need me to be there.’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘Then I guess that settles it.’

  He stepped back, cursing the fact that he’d be riding an erection all the way to the airport as his lungs filled with the sunny scent of her hair. He let his gaze wander over her figure. ‘As much as I like that get-up, you might want to pack a few more clothes. But keep them light—it’s hot and sticky in Savannah at this time of year.’ And even though his house in the city’s Victorian Historic District was well air-conditioned, he had a fee
ling it was going to be even hotter and stickier there once she was sleeping down the hall.

  The smile she sent him made him suspect she wasn’t going to play all that hard to get. But then neither was he. ‘Okay.’

  ‘See you later.’ He nodded, the words more than a little husky.

  But as he turned to go she touched his arm. ‘Just a second, Carter. Did you speak to Marnie this week?’

  ‘Sure, we had lunch on Tuesday.’ The usual strained, stilted affair.

  ‘And you didn’t tell her about us? About Friday night?’

  ‘I said I wouldn’t,’ he replied, not sure where the irritation came from. It wasn’t as if he and Marnie were bosom buddies. Even though their mama had raised her never to say it, he knew Marnie thought he was a womanising jerk. He knew that and he accepted it—it was part of the penance he paid for that night—and frankly Marnie’s bad opinion had been the least of his worries as he watched his marriage disintegrate.

  Since the divorce and their mother’s death, Marnie had kept her distance, pursuing a career in New York that he knew very little about—and making caustic comments on the few occasions they met about his being the playboy of the western world. He didn’t bother to deny it, because he didn’t need her approval—and he hadn’t exactly been a monk. But he also didn’t plan to give Marnie more ammunition, so the last thing he’d be likely to do was mention to his sister that he’d had an all-nighter with Gina again. But the spurt of annoyance was there none the less. Not just because Gina had doubted his word, but because she seemed so damned determined to keep their thing a secret. He didn’t like secrets, because they could come back and bite you on the butt.

  ‘Could I ask you to keep quiet about this arrangement too?’ she said.

  ‘Sure, if that’s the way you want it.’ He shrugged, trying not to care. ‘Marnie doesn’t get involved in mill business, she just helps herself to the company’s equity,’ he said, the statement coming out with more bitterness than he’d intended when he saw Gina frown.

  ‘If you say so,’ she murmured and the prickle of irritation became a definite stab. ‘I’ll see you in a few days.’