Twisted By Desire (Lust, Desire and Love Trilogy #1)

by Desiree A. Cox

  “I did it.”

  I looked at her feet and stifled my laugh. The shoes were not on all the way, and they were on the wrong feet. “You sure did, baby; can I make them tighter for you so they don’t come off?”

  “Okay.”

  I quickly switched them and pulled the Velcro tight. “Are you ready to go see Ms. Jane?”

  “Yeah, I like Ms. Jane.”

  “Okay, hold your lunch, and I’ll get my keys.” Damn it, my fucking shoes. “I’ll be right back.” I ran back up the stairs, grabbed my slide wedge sandals, and ran back down the stairs, where I dropped them and slid my feet in. “I’m ready.” Fuck, my keys. I darted into the kitchen and grabbed the keys off the table, and scooped up my purse by the strap.

  We raced out the door, locking it behind us, and I was ready for what was starting out to be moron Monday.

  I dropped Abby off at day care and made it to work with two minutes to spare. My first meeting was with my manager and it took the entire one hundred twenty seconds I had to get to his office on time. No coffee, scatter-brained, and heart racing a mile a minute, I walked over to his assistant to let her know I was there.

  I walked out fifteen minutes later feeling battered and bruised. My ego was resting in the palm of my hand, in need of some serious CPR and TLC. He called it constructive criticism, but I called it a warning that a written warning was coming if I didn’t get my shit together. How in the hell had I managed to screw up so bad last week? I’d never made such careless mistakes before, and I had been doing this job for years.

  “Pick up your face, darling,” Tristan said and smiled at me as I passed.

  “I’m not in the mood today.”

  “Need a strong shoulder to lean on, or cry on?”

  “No, I need a drink already.”

  “It’s only nine thirty. Kind of early, don’t you think?”

  “No, and if you don’t stop asking me questions, I’m going to scream.” I looked up with glassy eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m having a shitty day already. I screwed up something last week, leading to a Monday morning ass-ripping session.”

  “I’m sorry to hear. I’ll let you get back to work. If you need anything or are interested in a drink after work, let me know. I’ll go with you.”

  “Thanks.”

  I pulled up the account that had all the mistakes and reviewed my work. Idiot, you know better than to add those two numbers. I made the change, but something still didn’t seem quite right. I looked and looked until my eyes crossed. I needed caffeine.

  I locked my computer, grabbed my mug, and headed down to the break room. I was happy no one was in there. I couldn’t take any more distractions or idle chatter. I needed to get this screw up fixed and resubmitted by lunchtime. I poured my coffee, added the cream, and stirred. I fell into a trance looking at the coffee as I swirled it. This day was officially shit. It had to get better, though, because it couldn’t get worse.

  I walked back down to my desk in time to hear my cellphone ringing. I yanked it out of my purse and saw it was Sky. Great; I didn’t really want to talk to him. I let the call go to voicemail and unlocked my computer. I thought I had figured out what I’d done wrong. I made a couple more changes and came up with the result Jack fuck-my-life-today Granger told me I should have gotten. One crisis averted. I sent the attachment via email to him and got busy on the next task of the day.

  My cellphone rang again – it was Sky again. This time, I answered it, against my better judgment. “Hey.” Butterflies began taking over my insides, and my chest felt hollowed out.

  “Hey Nik. Is everything cool today? You know, I really want to talk to you about yesterday.”

  “I’m fine, Sky. I don’t want to talk about it, really.”

  “Something is going on, and I want to know. Did I do something to upset you?”

  “Look, I’m sorry, okay? I don’t know what you want me to say.”

  “What are you apologizing for? What’s going on? What got you so upset?”

  “You’re not going to let up, are you?”

  “Nik, I know you better than that and I could see it in your eyes. Something is going on and we need to talk, period.”

  “Fine, I’ll tell you. I got jealous seeing Hope there. Are you satisfied? I always get jealous when I see her.” I sniffled as tears prickled in my eyes. “I have to go; I can’t talk about this now.”

  After I hung up, I sat there horrified. I can’t believe I just hung up on Sky. I can’t believe I just told him I’m jealous of Hope. Fuck, can this day get worse?

  With my phone out, I decided a call to Jeff might cheer me up. I needed to shift this bad juju away from me. I pressed the numbers on the card, and it hit me, I still didn’t have a number for Jeff other than his work number.

  His phone was answered on the third ring by the same pleasant-sounding woman. “Jeffrey Carrington’s office, how may I help you?”

  “Jeff Carrington, please.”

  “May I ask who’s calling?”

  “This is Nikki Carmichael.”

  Is this business-related?”

  “No, this is a personal call.”

  “If you’d like, I can transfer you to his voicemail. Is that okay?”

  “Sure, thank you.”

  Right about this time I felt like I should go home, crawl back in bed until the next morning, and try all over again. And look, it was only ten fucking thirty. Only five and a half hours left of this torture before I could get some alcohol in me. Just one glass of wine; that was all I needed. I would figure out how to hit the reset button. I was surprised Georgia hadn’t come by yet. Maybe I needed to go find her.

  “Nikki.” Jack’s voice caused the hairs on my body to bristle and shoulders to hunch. I could hear his clopping footsteps getting closer to my desk. I raised my eyes just as I heard him gasping for breath over the wall of my cubicle. “The numbers look much better now. Good job.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Pay closer attention next time, and don’t make silly mistakes. You know it always takes more time to redo work than it does to do it right in the first place.”

  “I’m really sorry. I’ll be more careful in the future.” Perhaps you can just take me out back and shoot me next time.

  “All right. I’ll let you know if I need anything else.” He turned and walked away.

  I dropped my forehead onto my desk, arms dangling, with my fingertips skimming the ground. A few seconds later, I heard Georgia’s voice laughing at me. I turned my head slowly, never breaking the connection my forehead had to the wood desktop, to see her doubled over, arms clenching her stomach, laughing.

  “Sweets, we need to do lunch. Do you have anything on your schedule?”

  “No, please, take me far away.”

  “We can go to the mall food court, if that’s far enough.”

  “It’ll do. What time do you want to leave?” I lifted my head and raised my eyebrows, hoping she would say now, knowing that was impossible.

  “We can leave at noon. I’ll be back when I’m ready. Try to hold it together until then.” She chuckled as she walked away.

  Georgia was right; I needed to pull it together.

  I heard my phone chime, signaling a text message. I unlocked the screen and saw Sky had sent me a message.

  Sky: We are not done talking. Let’s meet later.

  Me: Meet me at the bar across the street from my job. We can talk, if you insist.

  Sky: I’ll be there at 6.

  I finally got back on my computer and checked my emails. I replied to those that needed my attention, and the others got moved to the archive folder. I switched applications and opened my marketing tool to review the other accounts I had worked on the week before. I needed to make sure that if I had messed up anything else, it got corrected before submissions at the end of the night.

  “Are you ready?” I was so busy studying my files, I didn’t hear Georgia tap on my desk.

  “Yes, let me save this real quick and we can
go.” I grabbed my purse and phone, and we made our way through the door to the elevator leading down into the parking garage.

  “You have a lot to catch me up on.”

  “I know. The weekend was bonkers.”

  “Just tell me this right now; did you cut Jeff after Saturday night?”

  “No. He came through with flying colors, slam dunked it, knocked it out of the park, and whatever other metaphor you can think of.”

  “I’m right over here.” She pointed to her silver Pontiac G6. She unlocked it, and we got in, quickly fastening our seatbelts.

  “Where did you guys go for dinner?”

  “Bern’s.”

  She stopped the car in the middle of the ramp. “Seriously? That place is five-star and really expensive.” She accelerated again.

  “I know. I saw the menu. He also ordered a bottle of Burgundy.”

  She stopped again. “A whole bottle?”

  “Georgia, if you don’t drive, we’ll never get out of the parking garage.” I laughed. “And yes, he ordered the whole bottle. We shared it.”

  “How was The Castle? That club is mostly gothic, steam-punk type crowds. I was thinking about you in there and how much you wouldn’t fit in.”

  “The castle I went to wasn’t a club. You’re not going to believe this, but it was his house.”

  Georgia slammed on the brakes again, and the car behind her laid on the horn. “Shut the front door!”

  “Georgia, stop doing that! You’re going to get hit, and it’ll be your own fault.” I sighed. “I’ll tell you the rest at the mall so we get there in one piece.”

  We parked the car and walked in through the entrance next to the food court. I was craving Chick-fil-A and planned to get the largest fries possible. Georgia headed over to get pizza. We met at a small table near the soft-serve ice cream kiosk.

  “So tell me everything, and start from the beginning.” Georgia leaned in, eager to hear, as she sprinkled the crushed red pepper flakes out of the packet on her slice of pepperoni. “Did he pick you up, or did you guys meet somewhere?”

  “He came by and picked me up; I gave him my address Saturday morning when we talked.” I shoved my hot waffle fries into a peeled-back ketchup container. “We had a reservation for seven at Bern’s Steakhouse. When we walked out to his car, I was floored; he drives a Nissan GT-R.”

  “Nissan’s are common, no big deal. I’m more impressed that he took you to Bern’s.”

  I pulled my phone out of my purse and googled the car. Once I had a picture and the retail price available, I shoved my arm across the table with my phone facing her, displaying the information. “See, that’s what he drives.”

  “Damn. I didn’t know Nissan made anything that expensive.” She took a bite and chewed before continuing to talk with food in the side of her mouth, looking like a chipmunk. “So tell me what you were wearing and about Bern’s.”

  “I wore my flimsy super-short yellowish gold dress with thin spaghetti straps and my animal sling-backs.” I crammed a few more ketchup-covered fries into my mouth and chewed. After swallowing, I continued, “Bern’s was really nice. I’ve never eaten somewhere so high-class. The steak was so tender it was like cutting through soft butter, and the flavor was unbelievable. I was shocked when he ordered the bottle of wine. I think that helped loosen him up. We had a nice conversation with dinner.” I took a bite of my sandwich.

  “We left Bern’s, and I thought we were going to the club, The Castle. I had looked it up to see what it was and wasn’t crazy about it, but hell, you only live once, right?”

  “Right, so about the house … please continue.”

  “I thought I was on that show Cribs. His place is huge, ridiculously huge, ten-thousand-square-feet huge. Needless to say, he’s loaded.” I chewed and swallowed another bite of my sandwich.

  “He gave me the grand tour. He has an elevator and a movie theater that seats twenty. His master bedroom is absolutely huge. The house is sick. Do you remember that movie The Big Lebowski, when John Goodman said ‘those rich fucks’? That’s what I was thinking walking through there. He even has a pool and pool house, but I didn’t see them; it was too dark.”

  “What did you guys do? Did you end up going out somewhere?”

  “I did what any other red-blooded woman would do who was out with such a good-looking guy, had been treated to a dinner at Bern’s, and seeing he’s very wealthy -- I fucked him.”

  “Seriously? That was like the second time you went out. You don’t even know him.”

  “I know more about him now than I did, and I know I’d like to see him again, but let’s keep it real. Honestly, I may not see him again, Georgia, and I don’t care. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity knowing I may never hear from him again.”

  “Most men don’t keep the easy ones, though, Nikki.”

  “Yeah, I know. I still don’t regret it, though. I called and left a voicemail for him this morning.”

  “Why call so soon? You should have given him a couple days to see if he’d call you.”

  “My day has been so fucked up, I thought talking to him might help.”

  “Yeah, what’s going on? Tristan said you snapped at him and that you got scolded in your one-on-one this morning.”

  “I messed up on an account last week. My mind has been all over the place since I saw Jeff in that restaurant. And on top of that, I saw Hope again Sunday night.”

  “They aren’t getting serious, are they? But, I mean, Sky has a right to move on; you divorced him. One woman’s trash is another woman’s treasure.”

  “I’d hardly call Sky trash -- maybe uninspired and broke, but definitely not trash. Anyway, I got jealous seeing her -- damn near crumbled right in front of him and then felt like a complete ass after I left his apartment.”

  “Shit happens; don’t sweat it. You’ve got bigger fish to fry now anyway.”

  “I agreed to meet Sky after work to talk about this; he’s not letting up, and he’s going to put me on the spot again about getting together. I just can’t do it. I love him, but I just can’t. I hate when he has me cornered.” I took a bite of my sandwich and held my ketchup-covered lukewarm fries in my hand, waiting to shove them in my mouth.

  “Any idea when you’ll see Jeff again?”

  “No clue, and I still don’t have his cellphone number. I’m telling you, there’s still a weird vibe with him.”

  “Was it worth it? Sleeping with him?”

  “Right now; yeah, yeah it was.”

  “We have to get back. Grab your food, and you can eat in the car; just don’t make a mess.”

  I wrapped up the rest of my sandwich and jammed it back in the bag. The fries had to go; they were cold and gross. I hefted my purse onto my shoulder, and we headed back out and across the parking lot to the car. I felt just a tiny bit better after talking to Georgia about my near collapse over Hope and Sky, and not being judged by her. Now I just had to deal with Sky later.

  We walked back in the building and saw Tristan in the hallway; maybe he was just returning from lunch. Georgia leaned over to whisper in my ear, “Did you know he’s secretly dating someone in Customer Service?”

  “No way! Really? Who? For how long?”

  “Christy. They’ve been a thing for a couple of weeks. I’m not supposed to say anything so don’t you dare tell anyone.”

  “I won’t say a word.” My heart sank a little. I felt a knot form in my gut. A part of me wondered if I had made the right choice by not giving Tristan a chance. Maybe we could have -- Just stop already; he isn’t my type, and there was no desire to give him a chance at anything other than being a quick fling.

  “I’ll talk to you later, Georgia. I have to go get some work done.”

  “See you.”

  I made it back to my desk and got my belongings put away, unlocked my computer, and brought back up the accounts I was working on before lunch. Another day of number crunching, only this time I had to be hyper-paranoid because I couldn’t afford t
o mess up again.

  An hour and a half later, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. The relentless mind-numbing staring at numbers was turning my brain to mush. Before I opened my eyes, my cellphone rang. Thinking it might be Jeff, I pulled it out of my drawer. My heart raced and I held my breath momentarily when I saw the number for Abby’s day dare.

  “Hello?”

  “May I speak with Mrs. Carmichael?”

  “Yes, this is Mrs. Carmichael.”

  “I’m sorry to bother you at work, but Abby isn’t feeling well. She doesn’t have a fever, but is complaining her tummy hurts.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  I hit the end button on my cell and clicked the save button on my computer. I jumped up from my chair so fast it nearly toppled over backwards. I walked down to Jack’s assistant. “Is Jack available? I need to talk to him. My daughter’s sick, and I have to go pick her up.”

  “Just go; take care of what you need to. I’ll give him the message when his meeting’s over. If you need to be out tomorrow, just give us a call.”

  “Thank you so much.”

  I ran back to my desk, logged off, grabbed my purse, and rushed out to the elevator.

  After getting Abby home and settled in her bed, I called Sky to let him know I wouldn’t be able to meet him later.

  “Hey Sky, I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

  “Hey. No, I can talk.”

  “I wanted to let you know, I won’t be able to meet you later. I had to pick Abby up, she wasn’t feeling well.”

  “What’s wrong with her? Is she okay? I’m coming over; I need to see my little princess.”

  “You don’t have to come over; she’ll be okay. They said she was complaining of a tummy ache.”

  “I’ll be at your place at six. Please don’t tell me I can’t check on my daughter, Nik.”

  “I’d never keep you from seeing her, you know that. I’ll see you later then.” Damn it! I thought I had an excuse to get out of this wretched conversation. He’d be by in a couple of hours, just time enough to clean up the kitchen and vacuum the floors. One of the benefits of a small house is that cleaning is quick.