Operation Sizzle

by Darcy Lundeen

Rob nodded. “Okay, so let’s try sophisticated first to give you an idea of how you’d look.”

  Staring at the mirrors, Betsy watched three views of her hair being brushed, gathered up in handfuls, gently twisted into a knot, and secured at the back of her head. Then, leaning forward, Rob took a few loose tendrils and curled them in front of her ears and forehead for a softer look.

  “Voilà,” he finally announced, flourishing an exaggerated gesture at his work. “Now we have a sophisticated look, if that’s what you wanted. What kind of dress are you wearing? That should give us a good idea about the most appropriate style.”

  “The dress?” Betsy shook herself out of her concentration on how terribly she’d betrayed Rob. “Uh…it’s red, low cut, clingy. There’s a slit up the side.”

  Rob’s eyes widened. “Oh ho! Well, why didn’t you say so? In that case, maybe we should go for sexy, flirty, and even semi-slutty, though with a definite overlay of ladylike elegance. What say you?”

  Betsy regarded her sophisticated image in the glass and considered the options. Then she thought of her original goal—to send Tyler’s head spinning off into space with shock, regret, and desire at the mere sizzling sight of her. That goal suddenly seemed stupidly trivial, but she knew she had to give Rob an answer, so she quickly nodded her agreement. “Sounds good. Do it.”

  And he did. Down came her sophisticated upsweep, and a few minutes later he was coaxing her hair into soft waves that cascaded around her shoulders.

  “Okay, sweetie,” he said as he reached for a container of hairspray. “First you ditch the part and add a little height with some back combing. Then you use just a touch of spray—nothing too strong. In case anybody wants to run his fingers through your sumptuous locks, you don’t want him thinking he’s just buried his hand in a bale of hay.”

  Betsy nodded dutifully. But as he worked, she only half listened to his continuing instructions. She was too busy silently warning herself to just confess to Rob without asking about Matt, without even looking around to see if he was there. But in the end she couldn’t help it. She ignored her own warning and asked. “I guess Matt isn’t here, is he?”

  “No, he’s getting ready to leave.”

  Betsy jolted to attention. “Leave?”

  “Right. He’s getting his own place. An agent has been helping him find something. He’ll tell you all about it when you see him.”

  A sudden ache formed inside of her, an unexpected sense of loss, but she pushed the ache away, refusing to acknowledge it. All right, this wasn’t bad. This was really good. A wonderful piece of news. It meant Matt was moving on—probably out of Rob’s life for good—out of her own life, too. And now she definitely didn’t have to hide the situation anymore. She could be open about it with Rob, the way she should have been from the start, and they could comfort each other over their mutual loss.

  Jumping up from the chair, she grabbed hold of Rob and enveloped him in a fierce hug. “Oh, Rob, I’m so sorry. But maybe it’s best for both our sakes that he leaves.”

  Rob pulled back and stared at her. “Huh?”

  Taking a deep breath, Betsy released him, knowing that this was the hard part and not sure exactly how to broach it. Fast, clean, and upfront, she finally decided. The way she should have handled this mess from the start. “Please forgive me.” She held her hands out to him like a supplicant. “Oh God, it’s terrible.”

  Rob grasped her hands, looking alarmed. “What’s terrible, sweetie?”

  Betsy shook her head and turned away, not wanting to see the look of betrayal on his face when the truth came out. “I’m in love with your boyfriend.”

  “You’re in love with Arlen?”

  Betsy turned back to him. “Who’s Arlen?”

  “My boyfriend.”

  “What about Matt?”

  “What about him?”

  “I thought he was your boyfriend.”

  “You’re kidding, right?” Rob was biting his lip, obviously to keep from laughing.

  A chill surged down her spine, sending her nerves on full alert. Something was wrong here. Very wrong. “But he’s staying with you.”

  “Of course he is. After he moved to town, he needed a place to live until he could find his own apartment.”

  The chill grew stronger, turning into an icy foreboding. She took a slow, deep breath, trying not to panic. “You’re not close friends?”

  “We’re more than friends. We’re cousins. I told you that in the phone message I left when he first arrived.”

  Betsy swallowed. The message she hadn’t bothered listening to because she was so angry at Rob. “You’re related?” she asked in a small voice.

  Rob shrugged. “Cousins usually are.”

  “And he shares your, uh, lifestyle, too?”

  Rob rolled his eyes. “Lifestyle! God! You, of all people, using that idiot euphemism. If you want to know whether he’s gay, just ask.”

  “Is he gay?”

  Rob let out a raucous laugh. “Not in this lifetime, sweetie.”

  Betsy groaned. All right, it was definitely time to panic. “Oh God, he’s been giving me secret sex lessons to help me with my problems. I thought it would be all right because he’s gay.”

  Rob’s laughter ratcheted up from raucous to explosive. “Why that sly old—”

  “This isn’t funny, Robert,” she cried. “You’re sure he’s straight?”

  Rob cut off the merriment and forced his face into a sober mask that of course he didn’t mean. “Straight as a ruler.”

  She shook her head, unable to believe it. But she knew it must be true. Rob wouldn’t lie to her, not about something like this. Thinking back to her first meeting with Matt, she tried to unearth clues she might have missed that he wasn’t gay. Maybe his offer of sexual help should have been a signal, but she’d been so sure that this stranger who had rushed over to help her was just a confirmed do-gooder that she’d never thought to dig for any deeper motive.

  Biting her lip, she suddenly thought of another, even earlier clue. Their phone call—the way his voice had deepened suggestively when he said he’d like to be Rob if she intended to “get” him in a good way.

  That should have been a gigantic red flag that he wasn’t into men, but she’d been too deep into both her watered-down tequila and her embarrassment to think straight. “Oh God.” She moaned and squeezed her eyes shut.

  She’d been having sex with a straight man, a man she’d confided in, stupidly revealing her failures in bed, her incompetence, everything. How much worse could it get? Opening her eyes, she glared at Rob, resentment suddenly overtaking humiliation. “Where is he?”

  Rob cleared his throat, looking just about as deer-in-the-headlights jangled as she’d ever seen him. “I think he’ll be out for quite a while,” he stammered, apparently sensing her dangerous mood change. “I don’t really expect him back until—”

  A key rattled in the lock, and he broke off and gave her a sheepish smile. “Uh, well, until right now, I guess.”

  The door opened, and Matt came waltzing in, flashing a big grin when he saw her. “Hi. I just signed a lease for a new apartment. That’s the surprise I told you about the other day, Betsy. I’m moving to my own place. It’s over on—”

  “Great, that’s great,” Rob interrupted.

  Betsy saw him throw Matt a warning look, but it apparently went right past Matt, because he just kept grinning as he came toward her.

  “Look, I’ve gotta go out for a while.” Rob tried another of those desperate eye signals that evidently still didn’t register in Matt’s mind.

  Good. When the axe landed on Matt’s deceitful head, she wanted to do the honors in private without him having any advance notice that the blow was coming.

  “See you later,” Rob called, halfway to the front door as he ran for cover.

  Matt spun around to look at him. But his cousin had already made it to safety, slamming the door shut behind him. “That was fast.” He shook his head and chuckled as h
e turned back to her. “What happened? Did his friend invite him over to check out the newest sex toys?”

  Ignoring the comment, she began to pace. “Matt, what was the full name of the last person you dated? Sam.”

  “Samantha Weldon.”

  She stopped pacing and turned to him. “And the person before that. Jerry. What was Jerry’s full name?”

  He shrugged. “Geraldine Denby.” He paused and stared at her, frowning. “Hey, what’s going on? Why all the name questions? Did I miss something?”

  She shook her head. No, I’m the one who missed something. I missed the fact that I’m a fool. She slumped onto the sofa. “Oh, God, I am so totally screwed.”

  Matt sat down beside her, grinning with horny delight. “Not yet, but hopefully in about ten minutes. Isn’t it time for another lesson?”

  Betsy jumped up and backed away from him. “You lied to me.”

  He looked up at her, his grin dissolving into confusion. “How did I lie to you?”

  “You’re supposed to be gay.”

  He stood up and followed as she backed away. “According to whom?”

  She clamped her mouth shut. Good question. According to her own convoluted thinking, but she wasn’t about to tell him that. “You’re staying with Rob,” she finally said. “He’s gay.”

  “I’m his cousin. Why can’t I stay with him without being gay?”

  She felt the wall at her back and stopped retreating. “You never told me you were cousins.”

  Matt stopped in front of her and shrugged. “It never came up. Anyway, I thought Rob told you.”

  Betsy took a breath. True enough on both counts. She’d never listened to Rob’s message and she’d never bothered asking Matt why he was staying with Rob. She’d just stupidly assumed it had to be a guy-guy thing. She was an idiot, a dimwit, a dealer in stereotypes. Then she realized the worst part of this fiasco—the part that, thank God, indicted him. “Oh my God,” she sputtered. “You were using me. For sex.”

  “That’s what our agreement was about,” he reminded her. “Sex. Me teaching. You learning. Us practicing.”

  “But you were enjoying it.”

  “Hell, yes. Weren’t you?” He leaned closer, forcing her to cower back against the wall. “I thought that was the point of the arrangement—to help you feel freer with your body and your partner’s body so you could enjoy yourself, and in your own dumbass word, sizzle. Well, honey, you now sizzle. Crap, you not only sizzle, you virtually burst into flame whenever I come close. And you know something? Fool that I am, I do the same whenever you’re close to me.”

  Betsy shook her head, refusing to dwell on his admission. “You don’t understand. I told you everything. All my doubts and inadequacies. I’ve never done that with a man, except a little with Rob, but not as much as I did with you.”

  “And I accepted your so-called flaws, even though most of them are microscopic. I accepted everything about you. I accepted you just the way you are. I told you my own flaws, too.”

  She sneered at that. “Picking your teeth at the table is not a flaw. A little gross, maybe, but no big deal.”

  “Well, springing for eighty-five-dollar bikini waxes whenever you meet a guy you might like to sleep with isn’t a flaw, either. And, frankly, it’s a little grosser than my situation. But I didn’t care.”

  Betsy sucked in her breath. “Go on, throw the bikini waxes back at me. I never should have told you everything.”

  “Obviously you didn’t tell me everything. You never mentioned you were certifiably insane.”

  “I wasn’t until I met you.”

  He waved his hand angrily toward the door. “Fine, go back to Tyler, then. Enjoy sizzling with him at your fancy office party.”

  Betsy pushed past him and headed for the door. “That’s just what I intend to do.” She stopped on the threshold to throw one parting shot. “At least he doesn’t use iridescent condoms. He’s a grownup. He sticks to basic beige.”

  She whacked the door shut behind her and stood in the corridor vibrating with fury. At least she thought it was fury…until the tears came spilling down her cheeks. Then she wasn’t sure what it was.

  Chapter Eighteen

  It was a bad idea. Matt could feel it in his gut. Instead of coming to Betsy’s office to see her, he should have been eating lunch at his desk while he reviewed the facts of his latest case. But a half hour ago when he told his gut to take a hike, he’d made the decision, and now he was following through with it.

  Pressing the button that would take him up to her office, he stood stiffly in a corner of the elevator until the doors opened at the fifteenth floor and he forced his feet to move down the hall and into the reception area of Worldwide Computing Magazine.

  A woman in her forties sat at the front desk, wearing a headset and punching computer keys as she juggled phone calls. Matt strode to her desk, trying to exude confidence and the kind of assertive air that would let this gatekeeper know he intended to get exactly what he came for.

  Looking down at her, he cleared his throat to snag her attention. “I’d like to see Betsy Kincaid.”

  The woman glanced up at him and flashed an appreciative smile, as though she liked what she saw. “And you are…”

  “Matt Pollard.”

  She nodded, tapped some keys, and spoke into her headset. “A Mr. Pollard to see you, Betsy.” Frowning, she looked up at Matt. “She says she’s very busy.”

  He shrugged. “I’ll wait.”

  “Right.” The receptionist went back to her headset and Betsy. “He says he’ll wait.” With a sigh, she turned to him again. “She says it’ll be a long wait. She’s very busy.”

  Folding his arms across his chest, he gave her his most uncompromising prosecutorial look. “I’ll wait as long as it takes.”

  “He says he’ll wait as long as it takes,” she said into her headset. Then sparing him a quick glance, she lowered her voice. “He looks like he means it too,” she added, nodding as she listened to Betsy’s response. Pushing back her headset, she finally turned to Matt with a big smile and a thumbs-up sign. “She’ll be right out.”

  And she was.

  A minute later, he saw her coming around a corner, her expression a mixture of annoyance and uncertainty, and he stepped away from the front desk and tried to steel himself for what came next.

  ****

  Betsy stormed down the hall to meet him. Of all the idiotic stunts he could have pulled, coming here to see her had to be the worst. She rounded the corner leading to the reception area, and her steps faltered when she saw him at Flo’s desk, looking handsome and in control and like the last man she should pin her dreams on.

  That meant she had to be strong. Do it. Put on your act, the ballsy one you’re going to use when you face the tenant leadership.

  So she did.

  Head held high, she went right up to him, trying to ignore the cold sweat bathing her palms and the way her heart began beating triple rhythm. Nodding briskly, she considered giving him a small, polite smile, realized it would set the wrong tone, and abandoned the idea in favor of being firm and businesslike. “Hello, Matt. You want to see me?”

  He nodded. “That’s right.”

  She took a breath, wondering what to do next. Flo was clicking merrily away on her computer as if she was swamped with urgent work, but Betsy suspected it was just an act while Flo tried to get an earful of their conversation, and she definitely didn’t want that to happen.

  But she didn’t want Matt in her office, either. She was still so emotionally raw that if they were alone her reactions might spiral out of control and she’d end up either screaming at him or begging for another lesson. So she gestured him over to a corner of the room that she hoped was far enough away to ensure some privacy. “Over here, please.” She led him there, then took a stand where she could watch Flo while Flo was watching them. “Now what is it you want?”

  He put his hands on his hips in that damn macho pose men sometimes used to show ho
w damn macho they were. “What I want is to straighten out a few things, like whether or not I was deliberately deceiving you.”

  Betsy stared at him. “And you came here to do it?”

  “After the way you stormed out of Rob’s place, would you have let me into your apartment?”

  She thought about it. If she didn’t want to be alone with him in her office, she definitely wouldn’t want to be alone with him in her home. “Probably not.”

  He nodded without surprise. “Yeah, so I came here to do it.”

  Betsy slid a glance at Flo. The other woman had pushed her headset back, and from the tilt of her head, she was listening. Even though they weren’t talking loudly, at least some of their words must be carrying across to the reception desk.

  “Look, there’s nothing to straighten out,” she told Matt, nervously lowering her voice. “It was all a silly misunderstanding. End of story.”

  “You’re right. It was a silly misunderstanding. But there was more to it than that. What we said to each other, the things that—”

  “I know. We acted like children. I’m sorry I criticized your condoms.”

  He sighed. “And I’m sorry I criticized your bikini wax. But that’s not the point.”

  “The point is…” She shook her head. “I don’t know. I guess the point is I feel like I was used.” All right, used wasn’t exactly accurate. What she really felt like was a fool, and she’d already been a fool with too many men. Never again.

  He leaned toward her, slowly biting off the words. “I never deliberately used you.”

  “I know that, but I can’t help it. That’s just the way I feel.” She slowly backed away, desperate to cut this short before she burst into tears. “I’ve got to go now. I have a lot of work to do. I’m sorry, Matt. Goodbye.”

  She didn’t give him a chance to answer. She just turned around and walked away, keeping her head up and her movements brisk to hide the fact that she’d just made one of the hardest decisions of her life.

  ****

  He watched her walk away—probably for the last time. She was doing it so firmly and making such a forceful show of dumping him. In public, too. Well, of course in public. That was his own damn fault for coming here and boxing her into a corner.