by Jae
Her hands bunched into fists beneath the table. God, she hated being unable to help or to say anything that would ease the sudden tension. Would a comforting touch be welcome, or would it make Lana flinch and stiffen up even more?
Carefully, Claire reached out and put her hand on Lana’s, which lay on the table. For once, Lana’s fingers were cold, so she rubbed them gently.
“It’s okay.” Lana smiled, but Claire had a feeling she was drawing heavily on her acting skills. She gave Claire’s hand a squeeze before withdrawing hers and returning her attention to her friend. “So Hope will be missing her beloved adas polo today?”
“Oh, don’t worry.” Slowly, Laleh’s smile returned too. “I’m sure Aunt Nasrin will send some home with me if Hope doesn’t get here in time.”
As if on cue, a stocky, salt-and-pepper-haired woman appeared, introduced herself to Claire as Laleh’s aunt, and took everyone’s order.
Claire was still more focused on Lana than on the menu, so when it was her turn to order, she chose the first thing that caught her attention—the chicken soltani—and handed back the menu with a “kheyli mamnoon.”
Laleh regarded her with interest. “You speak Farsi?”
“Oh no, only a few words I picked up from a Persian couple I counseled a few years ago.”
“Claire is a psychologist.” Lana leaned toward her and slid her hand onto Claire’s thigh, high up, where at least Laleh could see it.
Claire flinched at the unexpected move. When Lana started to withdraw her hand, she quickly covered it with her own so they wouldn’t draw attention. The move pressed Lana’s hand more intimately against her thigh, making Claire’s belly quiver and her skin heat beneath the jeans. Her body clearly hadn’t gotten the message that this was just pretend.
“What else did you pick up from your patients?” Laleh asked.
“Only a few basics like salaam and khoda hafez,” Claire said. She hesitated and then added, “But actually, the Farsi words I heard most often from them were harum zadeh and kos maghz.”
Laleh laughed, and the Middle Eastern family at the next table looked over.
“Let me guess,” Laleh said when she stopped laughing. “That couple ended up divorcing.”
“Actually,” Claire allowed herself a proud grin, “they just celebrated their tenth wedding anniversary.”
Lana patted Claire’s thigh, making more tingles shoot through her body. “Claire’s an excellent therapist. Did I tell you that the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy honored her with an award last month?”
Claire blinked at her. Apparently, Lana had done some research.
“Congratulations,” Jill said. “So that’s your secret.”
Claire looked over at her. “Secret?” Had she missed something? That hand on her thigh was far too distracting.
Jill flashed them a grin. “The secret of how you made Lana fall for you like this.” She snapped her fingers. “After that whole Katrina disaster, I didn’t think Lana would ever move in with anyone again, especially not that fast.”
Katrina disaster? She wasn’t talking about the hurricane, was she? Great, here I go again, sitting here like a complete idiot.
Laleh’s aunt returned to the table with their drinks, bread, plates of fresh herbs, and bowls of hummus and yogurt-cucumber dip. Lana took her hand away from Claire’s leg to help reorder things on the table.
Finally, Claire could breathe again.
Everyone was still looking at her expectantly, waiting for her to tell them how she had won Lana over so quickly.
“Yeah, well, what can I say…?” That was the question: What could she say when everyone else at the table knew more about her supposed girlfriend than she did? She smiled at Lana, hoping it looked like a loving smile, not like a disgruntled animal baring its teeth.
Lana lifted her hand and cradled Claire’s cheek in her palm. Looking deeply into Claire’s eyes, she said, “From the moment we first met, it was like magic. We just…clicked.”
Claire struggled to suppress the twitching of her lips. During that first meeting, the only thing that had clicked had been the dollar signs in Lana’s head when she’d heard the offer of fifty thousand dollars.
“Wasn’t it like that for you and Crash too?” Lana asked, directing her gaze away from Claire.
Good. Get their attention off us.
Jill laughed. She and Crash traded a long look.
“Not exactly,” Crash said with a fond smile. “I thought Jill was a spoiled Hollywood diva because they hired me to stumble over a bedpan for her.”
“Hey, I wanted to shoot that scene myself, but the director wouldn’t let me.”
“I know.” Crash lifted Jill’s hand to her mouth and kissed her knuckles.
Claire frowned. “Why wouldn’t the director let you do it yourself?” Stumbling over a bedpan wasn’t exactly dangerous, was it?
Silence spread over their table.
Claire looked from one woman to the next. Oh great. Clearly, she had put her foot in her mouth again.
“Because I have MS,” Jill said. Her tone was light, but Claire had often heard such deceptively easy statements during therapy sessions, so she knew Jill must have struggled quite a bit until she’d reached that kind of acceptance.
For a few seconds, words deserted Claire. Lana should have told her so that she wouldn’t have been caught unawares. What was the right thing to say? I’m sorry? I couldn’t tell? Finally, Claire decided on, “Thank you for telling me.”
Jill nodded. “It’s getting easier, thanks to my therapist—and Crash.”
The two looked at each other again and seemed to forget everything around them.
Claire averted her gaze so she wouldn’t intrude on their private moment.
Laleh’s attention wasn’t on her friends either. She stared at something behind Claire, and the biggest smile Claire had ever seen appeared on her face.
Claire turned.
An athletic stranger with tousled, chin-length, brown hair strode toward them, not glancing left or right even once. The gaze of her intense blue eyes was on Laleh alone. She stopped next to Laleh’s chair, bent, and kissed her softly. “Hi.”
Darkness had slowly descended on the patio, so now the candle in the glass globe in the middle of the table threw shadows across their faces, and the lights wrapped around the trees lining the patio twinkled like stars. A love song was playing in the background.
Claire leaned back in her chair. Great. Here they were, in a romantic little restaurant, with two couples who could have been poster children for her thriving relationships book. How awkward.
She sent Lana a glance, but she just shrugged and said, “Hi, Hope.”
Maybe they should try a romantic gesture of their own, to fit in with the other infatuated couples at the table. Quickly, Claire went over chapter seven of her book—Making an Effort: Little Gestures That Keep Your Romance Alive.
Taking a bath together and making out in an elevator were definitely out, but tip number eight might work: feeding each other dinner. She submerged a piece of bread into the yogurt dip and held it out for Lana to eat.
Lana looked from the morsel to Claire’s eyes with both brows drawn up, but then she seemed to realize what Claire was trying to do. Just as she leaned forward and was about to close her lips around the bread, a drop of yogurt splashed onto her blouse.
The tips of Claire’s ears went hot. Great. She should have listened to Michelle, who had commented that her trying to feed Lana was about as sexy as feeding a toddler. Hastily, she looked away as Lana dabbed a napkin over her chest.
Claire slumped against the back of her seat. I really hope my tips work better for my readers than they do for me.
Lana pulled the seat belt away from her belly and popped open the button on her capris. “God, I’m so full.”
&
nbsp; Claire didn’t answer, maybe because she was fully focused on pulling the Audi out into the light evening traffic.
“The 101 might still be closed,” Lana said. “We should take Brand.”
Again no reply from Claire, but she headed south on Brand Avenue.
Lana peered at her, trying to make out her features in the lights of an oncoming car.
Claire had that therapist look on her face, which Lana knew by now meant she was holding back her emotions. “What is it? I thought it went really well tonight. Didn’t you think so?”
To be honest, she hadn’t been sure how prim and proper Claire would fit in with her more laid-back friends, but to her surprise, Claire had gotten along with everyone. She had seemed genuinely interested in Crash’s anecdotes about life as a stuntwoman, and she had made everyone laugh when she’d recounted a hilarious story about shopping for her office couch.
“Oh yeah. Really well.” Claire’s voice was dripping with sarcasm. “Especially the parts where I looked like an idiot!”
What the hell was she talking about? “You mean when you dripped yogurt all over me? That was no big deal.”
Claire braked a little too abruptly at a red light, making Lana press a hand against the dashboard, and turned her head to glare at Lana. “I’m not talking about that.”
“What then?”
“I’m talking about when you suddenly got all quiet and pale and Laleh apologized for…I don’t even know what!”
The light turned green, and Claire accelerated across the intersection.
Nausea swirled through the pit of Lana’s stomach. She clutched the door handle. Was Claire speeding, or did it just feel like it to her? “That’s bullshit! No one thought you looked like an idiot.”
“Oh no? I was the only one who had no clue about something that obviously upset you.”
“At the moment, you are the one upsetting me!” Cold sweat dotted her brow. She stared through the side window at the buildings that seemed to fly by much too fast.
“Oh, now you are upset when you were the one making me look stupid in front of all your friends? Couldn’t you have at least told me about Jill’s MS or this Katrina person?”
“You mean the way you told me everything about Abby and your breakup?”
They glared at each other.
Lana swallowed down the rising bile in her throat. “Could you please keep your eyes on the road?”
With a grunt, Claire returned her attention to the street ahead. “Me not telling you every little detail about Abby… That’s different.”
“Oh yeah? How?”
“It’s different because…because…because I’m the one paying you, not the other way around!”
The words hit Lana like a punch in the stomach, adding to her nausea. “Oh wow. Way to make me feel like a prostitute,” she muttered.
Claire didn’t seem to hear—or care. “I’m paying you to save me from public humiliation, not to make me look stupid.”
“Is that all you care about? How you look to other people? You know what, Claire? For a psychologist, you sure have a lot of hang-ups!”
Claire winced as if Lana had slapped her. “Says the one who’s sitting in a car, trembling and refusing to talk about it!” she shot back.
“You’d love that, wouldn’t you? So you could focus on what’s wrong with me instead of your own problems.”
Claire white-knuckled the steering wheel. “Nonsense. If I want to convince others I’m your loving partner, I need to know what’s going on with you.” Her voice softened as she added, “And I want to help you.”
“I don’t need help—and certainly not yours. Now drive slower, dammit, before you kill us both!”
“I’m doing the speed limit,” Claire said but eased up on the gas anyway.
They spent the rest of the forty-minute drive in silence.
When Claire pulled into the garage, Lana got out of the car on trembling legs. Without waiting for Claire, she stomped to the door and stabbed the security code into the keypad.
A red light flashed across the panel. Wrong code. Dammit.
Claire pushed past her. “Let me.”
Lana gritted her teeth, hating the feeling of standing there like a helpless child who couldn’t even open a door by herself. But if she didn’t want to stand there half of the night, she had to move aside.
As soon as the door opened, they both stepped forward, nearly colliding.
They glared at each other, then Claire waved her through and stomped into the house behind her. Their bedroom doors fell closed behind them without them exchanging another word.
Lana sank against the door. Great. And tomorrow we’ll have to convince half a dozen therapists that we’re happily in love… If Claire doesn’t want to cancel our arrangement. She stripped off her stained blouse, threw it across the room, and dropped face-first onto the bed. “Fuck,” she groaned into the pillow.
Chapter 9
Claire had never been so glad that the counseling center, where Renata’s party was being held, was just a six-minute drive from her home. Even those few minutes seemed to stretch forever.
Silence reigned between them since they’d left the house. They hadn’t exchanged more than a few words all day.
She peeked over at Lana, who didn’t make eye contact but instead stared straight ahead through the windshield.
Claire sighed. Their chances of pulling off looking like a couple in love were practically zero.
“The most important person to convince is Renata, my mentor and boss,” Claire said, to fill the strained silence. “So try to impress her, okay?”
Lana grunted a reply.
“Remember to introduce yourself as my girlfriend, not my fiancée. And whatever you do, try not to let Vanessa corner you alone.”
Another grunt came from Lana.
Claire glanced over at her. “You’re not going to give me the cold shoulder during the party, are you?”
“Don’t worry. I’m a professional, and I know how to act. I won’t embarrass you,” Lana said without looking at her. “After all, you’re paying me.”
Claire bit back a sharp reply. Another hurtful back-and-forth like the one yesterday wouldn’t help. She pulled into the parking garage that was attached to the three-story office building housing the counseling center.
With the silence between them, the clacking of their heels sounded overly loud as they climbed out of the car and made their way to the entrance. At the last moment before entering, Claire remembered what she’d forgotten yesterday too. “Uh, hands.”
“What?”
“We’re supposed to be holding hands,” Claire said.
Lana frowned but then offered her hand. As always, her fingers were warm, so unlike her attitude toward Claire right now that it startled her.
Clinging to Lana’s hand as if it were a lifeline, she pulled her into the building and past the exotic plants and the koi pond in the courtyard without giving her much of a chance to marvel at her surroundings. The shades on the floor-to-ceiling windows to either side of the path were up for a change, giving her a glimpse of her colleagues mingling in the reception area.
“Great,” Claire muttered. “Vanessa is already there, parading around her husband and probably her book.”
“Which one is she?” Lana asked.
“The redhead with the toothpaste-ad-white smile and the James Bond look-alike pasted to her side.”
Lana craned her neck. “She looks nice.”
Claire arched her brows at her. Had Lana just said that to aggravate her? “Oh, she is nice. At least to your face. But if it serves her purposes, she’ll bad-mouth you behind your back.”
“Maybe you’re just paranoid,” Lana said.
Before Claire could answer, Vanessa saw them through the window and gave an exaggerated wave.
“Claire, welcome,” Vanessa said as she dragged her husband over to them. He was a lean, clean-shaven guy who indeed looked like James Bond in his custom-tailored tux.
What the heck? Why is she acting like she’s the hostess? Claire looked around. Where was Renata?
Vanessa turned her attention to Lana and eyed her from head to toe with a gaze that made Claire itch and want to push between them. “And this must be the charming…?”
“Lana Henderson.” Lana shook her hand with a pleasant smile. “And you must be Vanessa. Claire has told me so much about you.”
“Um, she did?”
“Of course! She talks about her favorite colleagues all the time.”
Claire warningly squeezed her hand. Don’t overdo it.
Lana pulled her hand free and pointed at the reception desk, where a buffet and a tray of champagne glasses had been set up. “I think I’ll go get myself a drink. Do you want a glass of champagne too, honey?”
“Um, no, thanks.” Maybe Claire could have used some alcohol to calm her nerves, but she wanted to keep her wits about her.
“Would you mind getting me a glass too, sweetie?” Vanessa asked her husband.
“Of course.” He kissed her hand and then let it go with some hesitation, as if he could barely stand to be separated from her for even a second.
Christ. Their lovey-dovey behavior was getting on Claire’s nerves. Maybe it was just bitterness and jealousy since her own relationship hadn’t worked out, but somehow, she found their displays of affection fake. Says the woman who’s paying an actress to play her girlfriend!
When her husband and Lana walked off, Vanessa turned toward Claire. “So that’s your new girlfriend.”
“That’s Lana.” Claire infused as much pride into her tone as she could.
“I have to say, I’m a little surprised,” Vanessa said.
“That I’m with someone else that fast after…?” She didn’t say Abby’s name.