by Susan Fox
He hadn’t drawn the drapes—oh, my God, I’d let him go down on me in front of all of Toronto!—and the light of the night city brightened the room enough that I could find my purse. And my discarded clothing, except for my panties. They were somewhere in the bedroom, and I wasn’t going back in case he woke up.
When we did talk, what would we say? He’d promised nothing would change, but…but we’d had sex. Incredible sex. The best I’d ever had.
No, that had been with Pritam, I told myself. Nav was my friend, and being lovers would ruin that.
The next time I saw Nav would be in Vancouver. If he was still willing to come. But how could Nav be my wedding date after this…fling with his alter ego, Pritam? We’d have to talk.
Maybe I should take some aspirin and stay and wait for him to wake up.
No, leaving was best. We’d played out his strangers-on-a-train game, and it was over. Easier for both of us to not endure an awkward morning-after conversation.
In fact, maybe we didn’t need to talk about this at all. Could we pretend it had never happened? I could take my cue from him. If he didn’t mention it…
I’d have to e-mail or phone about the wedding. If Nav acted like his old self and didn’t refer to Pritam, maybe I wouldn’t, either.
Damn. This was confusing. What had I been thinking?
I hurried toward the door, already fumbling my room key out of my purse.
Five minutes later, after taking aspirin and drinking two glasses of water, I pulled off my clothes, set the alarm clock, and fell into bed. For the moment, I just needed to sleep.
What was done was done, and I’d worry about it in the morning.
Chapter 9
Nav woke, feeling the most wonderful sense of well-being. He lay on his side with his eyes closed, savoring the sensation and the memories.
His plan had worked even better than he’d hoped. He and Kat were lovers.
He turned his face into the pillow, smelling a hint of jasmine. God, she was delicious. Every inch of her. Every scent, every sound she made. Better than he’d ever imagined.
The lovemaking had been incredible.
He opened his eyes to check the clock by the bed. Almost seven. Yes, there’d be time for morning lovemaking before they had to leave for the train station. And then there’d be three romantic days, three sexy nights on the train. If she still bought into the game.
Or would she have regrets? Would she call it off? How would she handle the whole Nav/Pritam thing? He was almost reluctant to roll over and wake her.
Slowly he shifted onto his back, then to his other side. Then he jerked upright. Damn! Her side of the bed was empty. He glanced toward the bathroom. An open door, no light on.
He leaped out of bed and rushed into the sitting room. Crap. No Kat. She’d run away.
He slammed his fist on the mahogany table that, last night, had held their champagne. So much for that romantic train trip to Vancouver.
What the hell was he going to do now?
Chapter 10
When I woke, my headache was gone.
As I took a long, lovely shower, I felt more philosophical about what had happened yesterday. It had been a game, and I’d had fun. I slid my hand between my legs, where my body still hummed from that fun.
Nav had told me there’d be no consequences, that we’d go back to being friends. I trusted him, so I was going to believe that was true.
I hoped he wasn’t mad or hurt that I’d left in the middle of the night without a good-bye. I’d never intended to stay—that was why I’d kept my room—but had he realized that?
Should I call him? No, he was probably sleeping in.
Maybe he’d hang around Toronto for a day or two, taking photographs for his exhibit, rather than heading straight back to Montreal. Later today, or maybe tomorrow, I’d phone and make sure everything was cool. No hurt feelings, no regrets, no issues.
With any luck, we’d both pretend the whole Pritam thing had never happened. If so, then I’d find out if he was still willing to come to the wedding.
At least now I knew he’d be eminently show-offable, with his shaved face and nice clothes.
But seeing him for the first time after last night could be weird, with his new image a reminder of Pritam. It was going to be hard not to think about how great he looked naked, and what a fabulous lover he was.
My body heated, and I turned the shower dial to cool. I couldn’t think like that. He would be Nav. My best friend. The two of us were absolutely not going to have hot sex again.
Our friendship was wonderful, and to date all my love affairs had been dismal failures. I’d never take that chance with Nav. Plus, even though Pritam had said he wanted to get married, Nav was all about playing the field.
He’d probably played the stranger game with other women. Why should that thought disturb me?
Less than an hour later, an attendant showed me into my single bedroom sleeping compartment on the VIA Rail Canadian. The room was tiny, the size of a single bed plus a little space to squish my carry-on. During the day, it held a chair, toilet, and sink, and at night an attendant would stow the chair and pull out a bunk bed. The shower was down the hall.
The cramped space wasn’t a problem, because I rarely spent much time in my room, except to sleep.
Normally I’d have gone to the Park Car or Activity Car to have coffee and a muffin and watch as people boarded. But before I’d left the hotel I’d downloaded e-mail to my laptop and I wanted to read it. Besides, I needed to finish off the M&M e-vite.
As my computer booted up, I glanced out the window at the busy train station. Was Nav out there, catching a train back to Montreal, or was he staying in Toronto?
Did he still feel a sexy hum in his body, and did his mind replay images from last night? Or, for him, was it just one in a long string of casual hookups?
I forced myself to concentrate on the computer screen.
One message, from my friend Corrine in Australia who had studied at the U of T with me, had the subject line
Congrats to your sister!
How had she heard about Merilee’s engagement? Maybe through my sister Theresa, who taught at the University of Sydney, though I hadn’t been aware Theresa and Corrine knew each other. I clicked open the message.
Theresa’s on the front page of the tabloids! Wow, did she ever snag a hottie!! I’ve seen her fiancé on TV and man, does he rock
Theresa? Fiancé? I shook my head. Corrine was mistaken. After Theresa’s divorce from backstabbing Jeffrey, she’d vowed not to marry again. The woman didn’t even date. She probably hadn’t had sex in years.
Unlike me, whose body felt pleasantly worn out from so many orgasms I’d lost count.
Damn, it wasn’t wise to replay last night. Pritam was gone—poof—as if he’d never existed. And I didn’t want to think of Nav in a sexual way.
I focused again on the e-mail.
Why didn’t you tell me she was engaged to Damien Black? He’s been voted one of the 10 sexiest bachelors in Oz, and now she’s taken him off the market. Good on her!!! (I’d hate the bitch if she wasn’t your sister. LOL)
I laughed out loud, too. Yeah, like my buttoned-up sister would hook up with a man like that. He definitely wouldn’t be attracted to her, and she’d figure he didn’t have two brains to rub together. There must be two women named Theresa Fallon.
I always thought you were the tabloid girl in your family
Have they set the date? Are they getting married in Canada or here? If it’s here, let me know when you’re coming and we’ll get together for drinks. (Lots of drinks!)
XO, Corrine
Uni prof? There couldn’t be two Theresa Fallons who taught at Australian universities.
Well, how about that? Theresa was engaged? Theresa and Merilee? No, there had to be a mistake. Theresa would never do something so out of character.
I had to call Vancouver and find out what was going on.
I realized that, while I’d been absorbed in Corrine’s e-mail, the train had started to move. Cell reception was iffy inside this steel capsule, and I stood a better chance of getting through when we reached the next station. Besides, it was only six a.m. in Vancouver.
Quickly I finished the e-vite and then shut down my computer. Might as well get some breakfast.
I checked my reflection in the mirror. Despite getting only a few hours’ sleep, the great sex had put attractive color in my cheeks. I added lipstick to match the printed Betsey Johnson top I wore with a short denim skirt.
I made my way through several sleeping cars to reach the Park Car, a two-level car with a 360-degree observation dome above and a lounge and seating area below. Beverages and muffins were always available.
As I poured coffee and chose a blueberry muffin, a gray-haired woman was doing the same. I smiled at her. “Good morning. Are you traveling on your own?”
“I am.” Her compact body and friendly, alert expression reminded me of a fox terrier. “How about you?”
“Yes. Why don’t we eat together?”
“Why not?”
Once we’d introduced ourselves—her name was Lynn—and found seats, I said, “I’m going all the way to Vancouver. How about you?”
“To Jasper, then on to Banff.”
“Banff in the summer.” I pictured lovely mountain scenery, stunning Lake Louise. “It should be beautiful. Is this business or pleasure?”
“Pleasure, indeed.” Her eyes twinkled. “A holiday with a gentleman friend.”
“Sounds lovely.” What a perfect spot for a romantic escape. “So, you live in Toronto, and he’s in Banff?”
“He’s from Vancouver.” She tasted her coffee, then added another packet of sugar. “We met on an Alaska cruise last year.”
“How romantic. But isn’t it difficult, carrying on a long-distance romance?”
“Sometimes. But we do pretty well.” A smug grin flashed. “Very well, actually.”
“Do I hear wedding bells in your future?” Was every female I knew getting married?
She shrugged. “Maybe one day. We’re in no hurry. We’re both widowed and had happy marriages. We don’t want to rush into anything. It’s best to make sure before you say the vows.”
“That’s wise.” Wiser than my habit of falling head over heels. “I’ve promised myself I won’t get serious about a man until I’ve known him for at least a month.”
“A month?” Her eyes twinkled. “An entire month?”
“For me, that’s an improvement.” I said it dryly, to show I could laugh at myself.
We were approaching a station, and I checked my watch. My family would be up by now. “Would you excuse me? I have to make a call.”
“See you later, Kat.”
When the train doors opened, I stepped onto the platform and dialed the house.
Merilee answered. “Hey, Kat. Hang on, let me put you on speaker.”
That told me she and the others were in the kitchen, where my parents had installed a conference phone when the first of us, Theresa, had left home.
I heard a click, then Merilee said, “Can you hear me?”
“Sure can. Is everyone there?” As I spoke, I walked to the end of the platform, as far away from the hustle and bustle as I could get.
“Hello, dear,” Mom said, and Dad said, “Good to hear from you.”
Then I heard Theresa’s voice. “Hi, Kat. I made it home late last night. Are you—”
“You’re engaged? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I’m not. Where did you hear that?”
So it was a mistake, as I’d suspected. “A friend e-mailed me from Australia. She saw it in some tabloid.”
Mom said, “This is exactly the kind of thing we’re concerned about.”
“It’s all a big mistake,” Theresa said.
“I thought it must be.”
“You’d have known for sure if you’d seen the guy,” Merilee said. “He’s seriously hot.”
“Seen him?” What was my little sister talking about? “You’ve met him?”
“Yeah,” Merilee said. “They were on the same flight. They had some little fling or whatever.” She snorted. “Can you imagine Theresa being engaged to one of the ten sexiest bachelors in Australia?”
Of course I couldn’t. Nor could I imagine her having a fling.
“You guys, I’m here!” Theresa’s voice was loud, annoyed. “And thanks for that vote of confidence.”
“What?” I asked.
She huffed. “You think there’s no way I could possibly attract a seriously hot man.”
True. She was so tailored and uptight, and kind of plain. Of course I wouldn’t say that, and besides, there was more to it. “It’s just that you go for the professorial type. Like Jeffrey.”
“Except,” Merilee put in, “that since Jeffrey, you don’t go for any guys at all.”
“I go for Damien. And he goes for me.” Theresa sounded defiant. “It’s more than a fling. It’s a relationship.”
A relationship? This was for real? My head-in-a-book sister had actually met a special guy? “Oh, my gosh, Theresa has a boyfriend!” I squealed. For the moment, happiness for her triumphed over envy.
“I do.” She laughed, sounding young, bubbly, thrilled to bits. “I really do. And he’s not only handsome, sexy, and successful, he’s smart and very nice, too.”
“Sounds like the perfect man,” I told her, wishing I could find one of those for myself. Like Pritam, but for real. “Even better than Matt.”
“No one’s better than Matt,” Merilee said huffily.
Oops. Pardon me. “How did you meet?” I asked Theresa.
“At a bookstore. He’s a novelist.”
The bookstore fit Theresa, but it was hard to imagine her being attracted to someone as frivolous as a novelist.
“And then on the plane,” she added.
After all that giddy joy, I’d have expected her to be more effusive. And what did she mean by “and then on the plane”? It sounded almost as if she barely knew the man, yet the tabloids had them engaged?
Before I could ask, she said, “And how about you and this man, Nav? Is it serious?”
What could I say? “Nav? Oh, he’s great.”
“The relationship must be pretty serious if he’s willing to come all the way across the country to go to a wedding with you,” Theresa said.
“And meet the parents,” Mom added.
If I still wanted him to come. In which case, I’d have to pretend he was my special guy, though actually he was my best friend, though in fact we’d had blisteringly hot sex. Of course, at that time he’d been Pritam.
Damn, my headache was coming back.
“Right,” I said. “Well, let’s see. He’s actually pretty much what Theresa said about her novelist. Except, Nav’s a photographer. But he’s, you know, all those good things.” Not a celebrity, though. Theresa’s guy topped mine, damn it. I rubbed my aching forehead.
“We can’t wait to meet him, honey,” Mom said. “Right, Ed?”
“Right,” Dad said. “Though it’s disconcerting to suddenly have men left, right, and center, trying to take my girls away from me.”
“Nav and I aren’t about to get married.” The words burst out before I thought. If I wanted my family to believe Nav was my special guy, I shouldn’t be so hasty to deny the possibility of marriage. With Merilee and Theresa so excited about their relationships, I wanted the family to believe I had one, too. For once, it’d be nice if there was no ribbing or pity.
“Nor are Damien and I,” Theresa said.
Mom said something I didn’t catch.
Before I could ask her to repeat it, Merilee said, “You’ll always have Jenna, Dad. She thinks monogamy sucks.�
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“I don’t want you girls following her example,” he said quickly. “It’s downright dangerous, as well as foolish, to take up with one man after another.”
One man after another? Dad was so naïve. Jenna saw nothing wrong with having more than one lover at a time. But our parents didn’t have to know that. “No news from Jenna about her travel plans?” I asked.
“Not a peep,” Merilee said. “Unless she got in touch with you, Theresa?”
“No,” my other sister said.
We were all quiet for a few moments. Jenna acted on impulse and didn’t have a responsible bone in her body. She never worried about anything, and the result was that everyone else worried about her.
I needed aspirin.
Theresa broke the silence. “Kat, Merilee and I are going to discuss wedding plans, then I’ll call or drop an e-mail and let you know where things stand.”
“And I have the e-vite. I’ll send it next time I get Internet access.”
“Weren’t you in Toronto last night?” Theresa asked. “Couldn’t you have sent it from there?”
“I, uh…didn’t have it ready then.” Thank heavens my family couldn’t see the flush that burned my cheeks.
The train was almost loaded, so I said a quick good-bye. As I closed my cell, I realized I hadn’t found out how Theresa and her boyfriend had ended up in the tabloids.
A celebrity. She was dating a celebrity.
Too bad Pritam didn’t really exist. Would a Bollywood producer top a celebrity author?
Chuckling, I stood back for a moment to admire the train. I never thought of myself as old-fashioned, but there was something magical about the string of cars stretching beyond my line of sight.
Inside the more than two dozen cars were people who, except for Lynn, were total strangers. But by the time we reached Vancouver, I’d have met a number of them and heard some version of their life stories.
On trains, people tended to talk. There wasn’t a lot else to do. Plus there was something about the white noise whooshing sound, the gentle rock-and-rolling motion, that hypnotized you. That loosened tongues and inhibitions.