Maybe they should go see a movie, or a play, catch dinner this weekend. And then he could start talking serious.
The sound of voices echoed quietly down the hall and he stilled.
“It’s sex, Tessa. Okay? Believe it or not, I like sex and it’s been a damned long time since I’ve had it. He’s good at it, too. Aren’t I entitled to enjoy it?”
Blush. His heart started to ache.
Tessa laughed and said, “Don’t tell me that, Valery. I’ve seen you looking at him.”
“Have you looked at him? He’s fucking gorgeous. Who in the hell wouldn’t want to fuck him?”
“Are you listening to yourself?” Tessa demanded. “Can you hear yourself? Damn it, pay attention to who you’re talking to. This is me. I know you better than that.”
Silence, and then Blush’s soft sigh. “Look, Tessa. Not everybody can be lucky enough to have what you have.”
“You’re too scared to try,” Tessa said softly.
Marc stepped forward. His heart felt too fucking broken to care what Blush’s response was to Tessa’s challenge would be. Shit. So she hadn’t had a good fuck in a while. That’s what this was about. “So, you needed to get laid, Blush?” he asked coldly, tucking his hands into his pockets.
Soft female gasps, and two pairs of eyes flew his way. Blush’s cheeks burned bright crimson and then she paled, her mouth opening and closing, soundlessly. Her eyes were dark, almost black in her lovely face. Looking at her was like a dagger in his heart. Turning his eyes to Tessa, he swallowed, tried to think of something to say. There was simply nothing.
He had gambled.
He had lost.
“Marc—”
“Don’t,” he said quietly, his voice low and husky, but full of rage, all the same.
Lifting his head, he let her see all the pain and anger he was feeling before he whispered again, “Don’t, Blush. Just don’t.”
Then he turned around and walked away.
She had never felt so shaken in her entire life.
“Well, I can say you royally fucked that up,” Tessa said with mock cheerfulness. She looked torn between sympathy and anger, her eyes glittering as she listened to the door slam down the hall.
“I’m going to go talk to him,” Valery said, her voice soft, her chest tight.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, not just yet.” Tessa moved to the waiting room door and closed it, turning to lean her back against it. “Marc’s been in love with you since high school. Do you know that?”
Valery said harshly, “Don’t do that. Don’t say that.”
“Why the hell not? It’s true.”
“How in the hell do you know?” Valery demanded, her eyes stinging with tears. It can’t be true. Damn it, it can’t. But something about the way he had looked at her…
Tessa smiled, a sad little smile. “Know who I’m married to, don’t you? You know Caleb is one of Marc’s best friends. Caleb doesn’t say much, but he sure as hell knows how to listen.” Tessa sighed, turning around and pushing her hands through her hair. She stared at the wall, her arms folded around her. “I had my suspicions for a while, but you never wanted to talk about it. And look at my track record. Until Caleb, I had messed up every relationship I’d ever been in. And Caleb came to me. He made the move. I’m terrible at giving advice on things. But Caleb knew. Marc’s so far gone over you, it’s not even funny. I said something about it at my wedding, and that’s when Caleb told me, but he said you two had to find each other for yourselves. Once he told me, it was so easy to see. And for a while, it was funny, watching you two around each other, but now it’s just—hell. I don’t know what it is.”
Then Tessa turned around and her cold blue eyes stared into Valery’s. “But that was just plain cruel. Blush, what in the hell is your problem? What are you so damned scared of?”
None of Tessa’s words connected. Her legs collapsed under her and she just fell onto the chair under her. “He’s not in love with me,” she murmured. “He can’t be.”
“Why not?” Tessa asked, lifting her chin.
Because if he was, I just ruined everything.
Aloud, she said, “Why do you think that? Where did you get such a fucked-up idea?”
Tessa smiled one of the rare catty smiles that ever graced her face and then she replied, “I’m sure you noticed something of an anomaly on him, a piercing? For a man who is pretty damned good about practicing what he preaches and all. He doesn’t smoke, doesn’t drink more than a beer here and there. Eats better than anybody I’ve ever met in my life. He’s the poster boy for healthy living.”
“What in the hell does that have to do with anything?” Valery demanded, reaching up and grabbing handfuls of her hair.
“Caleb told Marc years ago that you and him were meant to be together and he should ask you out. He was too chicken, according to Caleb. Marc said you’d end up married to some artistic freak or the like before you were even twenty years old and if he was wrong, he’d get his nipple pierced. Well, Caleb came home on leave the summer you turned twenty and held him to it. Then he asked him when he was going to ask you out. Marc was going to, but you were in Ireland, then when you came home you started dating somebody, an artist. He moped for months.”
Valery licked her lips. “That doesn’t mean he is in love with me.”
“All right. But him telling Caleb that you were the only woman he’d ever love does,” Tessa snapped, starting to pace the room, her long legs scissoring back and forth, shooting her an incredulous look. “Damn it. My wedding. You caught the bouquet. Marc caught the garter. He was standing there turning it around and around in his hands, staring at you like he could just eat you up in three greedy bites, and you were oblivious. And again, Caleb asked him when he was going to do something. Marc said, ‘I’ve been here, waiting for her to notice me for years.’ And I quote, ‘The woman I’ve loved my whole damn life doesn’t even realize I exist. It’s useless.’ Damn it, Blush, I never realized you were a fool.”
Valery blinked. She felt bruised. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
“For crying out loud, why didn’t you ever look?”
Valery stood up, taking a deep breath. Then she walked out the front door.
Behind her, Tessa gaped, her mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. “Well, why don’t you just kick me next time?” she muttered, reaching up and rubbing her hand across her chest.
Valery stood in front of her mirror, smoothing the lotion into her skin, forcing her mind to blank. She had to, because if she thought about anything, she’d shatter.
She ached, hurt all over.
She had been so terribly wrong.
And she’d acted like some high school kid.
The refrain from a movie she’d seen years before kept echoing in her head.
Loser. Loser. Loser.
How appropriate.
She was a damned loser. She’d lost everything.
Damn it. What in the hell was wrong with her?
Was she that afraid of taking a risk?
She scowled at herself.
Yes. She was.
She stared at her hands, at the pale lavender lotion that slicked them. It was a better quality than its predecessor had been, thicker, softer, and left her skin feeling silkier. It smelled every bit as good as the original had.
Valery could still remember the shocked pleasure that had run through her when she’d opened the elegant silver box and pulled out the simple purple glass bottles of lotion that first time.
And the card…
Does this seduce you the way you’ve always seduced me?
It hadn’t been handwritten. The computer-generated calligraphy was always the same.
But suddenly, Valery knew exactly who it was from.
Closing her eyes, she stood there as the knowledge flooded her and tears started to build behind her closed lids. Her throat felt tight and her chest ached.
Damn it, I am not going to cry.
; So she had totally fucked up.
Crying about it wasn’t going to solve it.
Doing something, on the other hand, while it may prove useless in the end, at least she was doing something.
Slathering the rest of the lotion on her body in a hurry, she strode naked out of the bathroom, and prayed she hadn’t totally ruined it.
“Damn it, I was so mean to her,” Tessa pouted, pacing the floor, her full lower lip poking out, her eyes dark and angry.
Caleb was sprawled on the bed, watching her patiently. “Darlin’, this is something Valery and Marc are going to have to work out themselves. And it’s long overdue, if you ask me. Just try not to worry about it.” His eyes dropped to her lip and he wondered if she’d think he was trying to change the subject if he got up and bit it.
“Damn it, I should have told her how he felt about her a long time ago. I’ve known—”
Caleb’s eyes narrowed. “Now, I told you a secret,” he said, straightening his legal pad, a mess of books open in front of him. “I wasn’t supposed to go sharing Marc’s secrets and you don’t need to go interfering. If they are supposed to be together, they’ll do it on their own. They’ll work it out on their own.”
She stuck her tongue out at him. “I know they need to work it out on their own. But I didn’t have to kick at her. She looked like a whipped puppy,” Tessa wailed, moving to the chaise lounge under the window and flopping down on it dejectedly. She stared out the window over the backyard, her eyes moving over the line of rose bushes that Caleb had planted the past spring without even seeing the lovely buds. All she could see was the pain in Blush’s eyes.
“Tessa—”
“Don’t,” she said flatly, her eyes cutting to him. “You have this odd fixation in your mind that I can do no wrong and—”
He laughed. “No, I don’t. Just because I think you’re a damn angel…” his voice trailed off and he laughed again. Then he sobered.
“Strawberry, I do not think you are perfect. But I know Blush almost as well as I know you. We all grew up together, remember? And maybe, just maybe, sweet little Tessa being mean was the kick in the ass stubborn Blush Taylor needed.”
He climbed off the bed and went over to stand behind her, rubbing her shoulders. “Listen to me,” he murmured, lowering his head. “Yes, you could have told her. I could have. But Marc’s always known how he felt. Blush has always tried to hide from it. Hell, up until this past year, she’s still been mean as a snake to him. He’s tolerated it, because he adores her. But what good would it have done to tell her, if she wasn’t ready to admit to herself how she felt about him?”
Tessa slid a look over her shoulder at him. “How did you get to be so smart?”
He lowered his head and caught that lip that had been tempting him to distraction, biting it just like he had been wanting to. Then he lingered to kiss her teasingly. When she sighed into his mouth, he pulled away.
“I’m going to go run you a bath. And you’re going to get in there and relax while I fix supper. Lasagna, I think. Then after we eat…I’m going to tie you to the bed and fuck you silly, until you stop worrying about other people and start paying attention to me,” he murmured, reaching down and cupping her breasts in his hand, nudging his cock against her back.
Tessa gasped and arched into his touch. “Ummm…that sounds…pretty good.”
Chapter Nine
Valery lifted her hand to bang on Tessa’s door a third time, her mouth puckered in a scowl. Damn it, she knew her friend was in there. Was she so damned mad at her she was ignoring her? Both cars were there.
Hell, they were probably twisting on the sheets. Valery felt her mouth start to tremble and a streak of jealousy shot through her. Just before she banged on the door a fourth time, it opened and Caleb was there, a rag tossed over one shoulder, a tomato in one hand, an eyebrow lifted.
When he saw her, a smile spread over his mouth and he pushed the door wider. Sympathy sparked in his dark eyes and reached out, brushing a corkscrew curl out of her eyes. “I’ve got Strawberry soaking in the tub,” he said, cocking his head to the side. “I’m tempted to go run another bath in the spare room and put you in there. You look even sadder than she does. But I don’t think I can fix what’s wrong with you.”
“Tessa has a key to Marc’s house. I want it,” she said, lifting her chin.
“No, she doesn’t,” Caleb said amicably, turning and walking into the kitchen, laying the tomato down and stirring the pot on the stove.
Normally, the scents on the stove would have had her salivating, but she was too frustrated, too nervous. “The hell she doesn’t. You all take care of his mail, and water his garden and the houseplants when he goes out of town for conferences. I want the key. I’m not going over there to trash things. Give me the key—I’ll talk to Tessa later, I promise, but I need the key,” she said, reaching up and grabbing a fistful of curls, shoving them out of her face as she met his eyes and waited.
“Well, yes, we have a key, but it’s mine,” Caleb said, crossing the room and reaching into a basket, pulling a key ring out and fishing a key off of it. He tossed it to her, his mouth canting up at one corner. “You realize, don’t you, that if you do something that’s going to cause me problems, Blush, I’ll never hear the end of it. That means neither will you.”
She flung herself across the room at him and planted a loud smacking kiss on his lips before running out of the house without saying a single word.
Caleb licked his lips and grinned, glad Tessa wasn’t in the room to see the male appreciation that lingered in his eyes for a moment.
The house was empty when she got there.
Good.
She did, after all, have a plan. It would be easier to get it done if she had some time before he threw her out. She stripped out of her clothes and stashed them, toting her camera equipment in, setting up her photo printer and the laptop in the spare bedroom. Judging from the looks of the dust in there, it hadn’t been used since his sister had last come to visit.
Then she started with the pictures.
At the front door, on the steps, on the bed, in the shower…all the while running back and forth between her shots and the door, watching for him. Where in the hell was he? She started printing them off. And left them where she took them.
She left the final one on his bed. With a letter. She didn’t exactly know what to say, so she just wrote,
You seduced me, too. But I started loving you a long time ago. Will you forgive me?
After pacing the house naked for a while, Valery started feeling stupid, so she got dressed. It was past midnight now.
Damn it!
Where was he?
He had to work tomorrow. Had he forgotten that?
Finally, at three a.m., she gave up and left, sighing as she locked the door behind her, throwing her camera bag over her shoulder, her eyes gritty with fatigue, her heart heavy with worry and grief.
She got home at nearly four a.m. and fell face first on the couch, still clothed.
After sleeping restlessly, the phone ringing at seven woke her and she attacked it with a vengeance. “Marc?”
“No. It’s Wyatt. Damn it, where have you been, sweets? We got a date today at the airport, in like four hours, remember? Scotland? Yo?”
Shit, shit, shit, shit!
“I don’t know—”
“You don’t know? It’s a little late to back out now, darling. I’m counting on you. It’s only two weeks, Val. Come on, get your fine ass out of bed, take a shower and get your passport! Get moving!”
Fuck! Calendar shoot. Haunted castles. Wyatt had gone out on a limb for her, helping to get her on this shoot. If she backed out now…I can’t. “Look, I need to make some phone calls,” she said tiredly, reaching up and rubbing her eyes.
An hour later, she was packed. But she still hadn’t gotten hold of Marc. She had left numerous messages at his house. She had called Tessa, but Tessa, once she finished apologizing, didn’t have a clue where he was
. She did give her his pager number, but she couldn’t do anything else.
“Look, I’ll leave his key here.”
“That’s fine,” Tessa said softly. “So this is big? You have to go?”
“Yeah. May not make much money, but it’s big exposure. That counts for a lot,” Valery said softly. “And Wyatt went out big time to get me this. I can’t back out on him now. It’s only two weeks. But…”
“Timing sucks,” Tessa said succinctly.
“Yeah. I…I, uh, left some stuff at Marc’s. If you see him, tell him…tell him…hell. Don’t tell him anything. If he can’t figure it out, I guess there’s nothing there for us,” she said sadly, reaching up and rubbing her hand over her aching heart.
She hung up the phone and grabbed her stuff, heading out to meet the taxi just as it pulled up her long driveway. Valery slid her shades up her nose and refused to let the tears building in her eyes fall.
Chapter Ten
Marc stormed into the house, ignoring the ringing of his cell phone.
He was tired. He was heartbroken.
And he needed a shower.
He had spent the night taking call for another doctor instead of coming home and had ended up getting puked on by a squeamish new dad, then the baby started having breathing problems. Once he filched some scrubs from OR, he had crashed in the doctors’ lounge and slept there, instead of coming home and dreaming of Blush.
Then he had to go to the office and dodge Tessa, cutting her off, walking into rooms to avoid talking to her, and outright ignoring her.
And several messages from Blush were on his pager.
Now, finally, he had some peace and quiet.
He could sleep—
There were pictures in his house.
Blush had been here.
He could smell her.
The soft scent of her body lingered, faintly. Very faintly. But she had been here. Fuck. Rubbing his gritty eyes, he walked to the stairs and studied the portrait-sized photo of her lounging naked on the stairs, staring into the camera’s eye, her heart in her gaze for all the world to see. But maybe he was hoping too much to see it there.
Silk Scarves and Seduction Page 7
