by Larkin Rose
“What are you wearing, Eve?”
Eve pressed the tip of her finger against her clit, then flicked, widening her legs. “Black slacks. White silk thong. Hurry. God, hurry.” Eve looked out over the expanse of the room, flicking fast against her clit, frantic to come, and spotted Jodi facing the lobby windows, her head angled, one hand pressed to the opposite side of her face.
Dear God, not again! First her visions, now the reality.
She looked fuckable in her gray slacks, and the damn shirt that was obviously one size too small. Always. Dammit, couldn’t the woman find a shirt that didn’t slick across her body like a lover’s tongue?
Eve looked away, determined Jodi wouldn’t fit into this phone call. Not this time.
She circled harder and summoned Lexi’s image to the surface. “Make me see you, Lexi. No one else. Just…you.”
Jodi flinched with her words, how they cut like a razor blade. She’d been a moron to think that maybe, just maybe, Eve could want anything outside her perfect little fantasy world.
From this day forward, every time Eve dialed her number, she’d see that petite body, feel and taste her. Jodi had had her fantasy pumping beneath her. Yet the fantasy was all Eve would ever want, would ever make room for in her life.
Her world was full, packed with all she would need in life, and Jodi could never be part of that world. Lexi could, of course, but not Jodi. The truth slammed hard.
It was time to finish this. Time to walk away, to leave Eve behind in her little sheltered cocoon.
Jodi was done.
First, she had to get the hell out of this building, out of Eve’s life. She’d never know about Lexi. She’d make sure of that.
She moved to the door to slip away, to fade into the night so Eve would never have to look back. She’d toss the phone into the nearest trash bin and never have to hear that ring tone again, or Eve’s plaintive cries shortly after. If Eve wanted a fantasy, she’d have to find it elsewhere.
A man and woman shoved through the door just as Jodi reached for the handle, their laughter loud. She pulled away to hide the sound of the noise as they raced across the small foyer and into the bar area.
Jodi turned to barrel through the doors and took one last glance in Eve’s direction. Eve was watching her, brow angled. She looked to the couple and then back to Jodi.
Jodi couldn’t move.
“Say my name.” Eve rose from her chair, her expression threatening, confused, and almost pleading.
It was too late for Jodi to move, too late to run. She didn’t much care right now. Eve was never hers. Never had been. Eve belonged to her fantasy world, just the way she liked it.
Eve moved in front of the table. Her head swam with confusion, with denial. The way Jodi was staring at her, the phone pressed snug against her ear, she didn’t have to hear her name. She needed to hear it.
“Fucking say my name.” A sob trapped itself deep in her chest.
Jodi wasn’t moving. Standing stock-still, those gorgeous eyes penetrating Eve with the answer.
Eve fisted her hand by her side, her stomach rolling. “Say it, Godammit!”
“I’m Lexi.”
Eve watched in horror as Jodi’s lips moved, as she both heard and saw the words. “No. Dear God, no.” Angry tears sprang to her eyes. The accent was gone. In its place was that sexy country drawl she’d been hearing all week, feathering commands against her ear, prickling her flesh with their soft breath.
An unsure smile broke across Jodi’s lips as if she’d turned Eve’s world from shit to gold.
Eve willed herself to stand and not run. Every fiber of her being ignited with the punch of Jodi’s confession. Her fantasy, the most perfect sexual connection she’d ever had with another living soul, a woman who knew her deepest, darkest sexual fantasies, was standing within fifty feet of her. The living reality she didn’t want in her life.
Something stabbed with harsh force, the realization of her entire week with Jodi. “You’ve known all along? The whole time?”
Jodi nodded but held her expression firm. “From the second you spoke your first words in the studio. I’d know your voice anywhere.”
Tears welled in Eve’s eyes. She couldn’t look away, couldn’t feel a thing. Her whole body was numb, her mind void. She felt like someone had drained her, had ripped her soul clear from her body until she was empty. Boneless. She felt boneless as Jodi stood motionless.
She’d never had such an absolute connection to anyone, let alone someone clear across the world, or on a damn phone. Somehow, someway, she’d found that connection, had clutched at it like a security blanket.
Depression swarmed around her like a cold, black wind.
Eve shook her head and took a step back until she bumped the table. “I trusted you. Trusted Lexi…you. The things I said. Things we did.” She tightened her grip against the rush of tears. “You betrayed me.”
Jodi took a step forward, hating the hurt and fragile expression, as if she had physically punched Eve. In honesty, she guessed she had. She was deflating Eve’s bubbled world, where everything was the way Eve saw fit, no blemishes. Where Eve had her reality and her fantasy all wrapped into a neat little package. Where nothing and no one could touch or change it.
As much as she wanted to race across the room and pull Eve against her, stroke the hair back from her face, and beg her forgiveness, there was nothing she could do to change this outcome.
Eve had already spelled it out in black and white.
Jodi drew in a breath, her heart already missing the sound of Eve’s voice. “I can’t be your fantasy, Eve. I’ve already been your reality.”
With one last look at the face she wouldn’t soon forget, she turned and slipped out the glass doors. She shoved the phone deep in her pocket and kicked up her steps. Far away. She needed to get far away from Eve.
She didn’t stop her fast pace until she got to the middle of Westminster Bridge.
The lights twinkled and sparkled, reflecting like a dark impressionist landscape in the water. She loved this spot, the beautiful skyline, the quiet and serenity. A place she would have never known if not for her mother’s desperate need to mend her broken heart, to start a new life. Jodi had been paying the price ever since.
Jodi had walked every alley of this city, run as if the hounds of hell were after her through most of them. She knew it inside and out—where to score drugs, where the pedophiles lurked, usually with their hand jerking in their pants, where not to venture if her life depended on it, ever. She knew the vendors, most by name, who would share, who wouldn’t dare.
She leaned her forearms against the railing. The water drifted lazily. She thought of her father. What an incredible man he’d been. Protective and stern, so in love with his family. He’d made a gentleman out of his only child. She thought of her mother, how loving she’d been, how in love she’d been with Jodi’s father. Jodi had adopted her faithfulness, her undying need to love and be loved. She thought of her life, her past, but most of all, she thought of Eve.
Jodi wasn’t the twisted one. Eve was.
With a silent prayer that Eve would find all her heart desired, that Jodi would find love herself, she held the phone to her lips, closed her eyes against a silent prayer, then flipped Lexi’s only connection to Eve into the Thames.
Chapter Eighteen
Eve dropped into the desk chair and avoided looking at her computer, focusing on the windows stretched against the outer wall of her office instead. Beyond the glass was a bleary, overcast day, very much matching her mood of late.
The normal get-up-and-go girl couldn’t find the oomph to get up and go anymore. She was still doing her job, as always. She’d expect nothing less of herself. But it was getting harder to find her day-to-day drive, the spark that normally kept her on her toes, in control.
She couldn’t shake off her lethargy, the feeling she refused to call depression. She’d tried, really, she had.
Six months had passed her by, and what had
she achieved other than spending every waking moment throwing herself headlong into sketches and designs, models and itineraries? No matter how far she sank into her career, the anxiety was right with her, working alongside her, breathing down her neck. Even the creation of another breathtaking design hadn’t tugged her from the black hole.
She’d been duped, deceived. Lied to. By a woman she trusted. Trusted with her heart, her secrets, her fantasies. She kept telling herself over and over that no one knew, and that no one cared even if they did know, but even that didn’t make the knife in her back feel any less painful.
Betrayed. That’s how she felt. Completely and utterly betrayed.
Lexi. Jodi.
Eve shook her head and finally turned her attention to the monitor. She had to stop this nonsense. All this thinking. It was fucking with her mind. The drama was over. Over and done.
Pink memo slips were stacked dead center on her keyboard as a reminder that she had urgent messages. A hundred e-mails would be in her inbox, just as they always were. Some would get forwarded to Khandi without reading the body; some she’d save for later. The rest would be sent to the trash bin.
Every day, same start. Day after day after day.
Worse, she hadn’t stopped looking for an e-mail from Jodi. God only knew why. What could Jodi possibly say to erase the fact that she’d lied, that she’d omitted all truths, that she’d made a complete mockery of Eve’s confession? God, the things Eve had told her, how she was addicted to a phone voice, to the things that voice commanded her to do to herself. Jodi knew the deepest part of her, the part that belonged to no one else but herself. She knew, and she’d allowed Eve to carry on.
Eve felt like a fool. Yet she couldn’t stop thinking about Jodi. The visual image of her was strong, even after all these months. Their long walk along the river, rain falling all around them, Jodi holding her hand, how warm and comfy and protected she’d felt. Every minute of their time had been a lie. And for once in Eve’s life, she’d put aside her dying devotion to her career. For once, she hadn’t cared that work awaited. For once, she’d lost herself in their time together, in those eyes, in her bed. And it’d been amazing. Every minute of it.
With an aggravated grunt, Eve shoved the to-do notes aside and opened her in-box. Might as well get something done. Everything else might feel dead, but her career, she’d worked too long and too hard to let anything screw that up.
Khandi breezed into the office and slammed the door shut behind her, startling Eve. She walked to the desk holding a stack of magazines, her face set and determined.
“Look, I have to tell you something, and you’re going to be pissed, but hopefully you’ll still love me and buy me nice bonus gifts, like the Gucci bag last Christmas that I loved, as you know, oh, and that cute little scarf from Macy’s that matches my—”
Eve snapped her fingers to speed up the outburst. “Khandi, get to the point before you hyperventilate.”
“Okay. See, I know something, something I shouldn’t know, but I know, and I should have told you, and, well, I just couldn’t cause you were all tongue hanging out your mouth like never before, and, well, I’d never seen you act so gooey-eyed before—”
“Khandi! Seriously! Get to it!”
“Stop yelling at me! You know it makes me all nervous and then I can’t think straight, and then I can’t remember what I was saying.”
“As opposed to the way you’re acting now without me yelling at you?” Eve studied her more carefully. “You’re on the damn cold meds again, aren’t you? Seriously, Khandi, you have to read the directions.”
Khandi gave her a scowl. “No, Ms. Moody, I’m not on freaking cold medicine.”
“Then can you just say whatever it is you’re attempting to say and failing miserably at? Please?”
“Here!” Khandi tossed a magazine on the desk.
Eve rolled her eyes. Khandi was going to try her patience to the max with the damn gossip columns. She was sick to death of seeing them, finding them, knowing the contents stemmed from a place she wanted to forget about right now. Eve was going to come unglued soon.
“Just flippin’ read the damn thing!”
Eve cocked a warning brow at her and leaned forward. Carlotta Tate, some mastermind producer with the London Theater, dominated the cover.
Eve shrugged and looked up. “And?”
Khandi’s expression turned soft and apologetic. “I’m sorry, Eve. She’s an escort. There, I said it.” She dropped into the chair opposite Eve and blew out a breath.
“Carlotta Tate?”
“No, marble brain. Jodi!”
Eve’s heart slammed at the mention of her name. She looked back down at the cover for a closer inspection and found Jodi standing on the edge of the red carpet, face stern, posture straight and stiff in her black tuxedo.
That explained why Khandi had been hoarding all the damn tabloids, leaving them lying around the hotel suite for Eve to stumble upon in London. Then practically begging her to “read this article about Carlotta Tate” and “would you just look at this hottie.”
Eve had only herself to blame for ignoring Khandi’s reluctance to spill the truth. She instantly wondered if it would have changed her mind had she known, if Khandi had told her instead of beating around the bush. Fact was, she’d been almost desperate to get to Jodi’s bed. Knowing those facts probably wouldn’t have stopped her either.
Khandi dropped another magazine beside the first. This one bore another female Eve didn’t recognize, younger than the last, far more beautiful. She was possessively perched on Jodi’s arm, hand tucked around that tight bicep Eve had had the pleasure of licking, her smile wickedly bright as she posed for the camera.
A knot formed in Eve’s stomach, a tiny little seed that grew bigger, harder, as she studied every pixel of the photograph, of the way the woman was latched on to Jodi.
Her trance snapped when another magazine dropped onto the last, followed shortly by another.
Eve watched them land one at a time, entranced, enthralled, heat igniting anger, and jealousy chewing her insides like a Pac-Man. It didn’t matter what she wore—jeans, slacks, nothing—Jodi was so enticing in every outfit. Her hair unkempt, those piercing jade eyes, she was impossibly sexy. It was easy to see what kept her agenda full, how she attracted the women.
Khandi dropped another and leaned back. “Are you pissed at me?”
Eve eyed her for several seconds, then looked at the cover. Jodi wore another tuxedo in this picture. Eve didn’t have to see beneath the jacket to know what rested there. Her tongue had the pleasure of tasting every groove.
She concentrated on Jodi, on her dates, the way they stood beside each other. Jodi’s vacant face.
Then she saw it. The delicate way her “date” rested her hand around her arm, in the crook of her elbow. That spark of jealousy whipped to life again, and Eve had to inhale to tap it back in place. She had no right to be jealous of Jodi, or the women she’d obviously fucked at the conclusion of their nights. But, dear God, she did. It made her crazy to think of someone else pumping beneath that tongue.
All of the magazines held the same similarities, all with Jodi as a date to someone well known or wealthy. Eve wasn’t sure why she kept looking. She was riveted to every scene, every snapshot of Jodi’s face, every pose.
It suddenly hit her something was off. Jodi’s face was void of any emotion. It was lifeless. Not a single photo had captured a smile, grin, or smirk. Eve casually fanned the magazines out. Not one. She wasn’t sure what it meant, if anything.
Her mind snapped back to their walk along the Thames. Eve had tucked her hand around Jodi’s elbow, and she’d flinched. She’d felt it, wondered about it, but then Jodi had taken her hand, had woven their fingers together as if it were the most natural act in the world, and it had felt like the most natural thing in the world.
As quickly as she’d scanned over the covers for a smile, she reversed back over them. Not one showed her holding hands either. Her arm,
elbow, bicep, but nothing as personal as linking fingers with another. Their poses were clinical.
Had Jodi allowed them to touch her at night’s end, out of sight of the paparazzi, behind closed doors?
Shocked at the question, the jealousy, at that knot swelling once again, Eve scooped the magazines into a pile and pushed them toward Khandi. “What does this have to do with the fact that you’re supposed to be getting me shots from the latest group of models?”
Khandi looked stunned. “No gasp of shock? No screaming at me for not telling you?” She leaned toward Eve. “Why do I smell something rotten?”
Eve took a deep breath. “Khandi, I knew.”
Khandi’s eyes widened and she slammed back. “What? You knew the whole time and didn’t tell your bestie?”
“You’re seriously chastising me for not telling you?” Eve chuckled. “When you obviously knew long before I did?”
Khandi hung her head, pursed her lips into a pouty face, and batted her long lashes. “But, boss, you were so…love-struck.”
Eve laughed. “I might have been a few things, stupid being number one, but love-struck wasn’t in the equation.”
“Yeah. Right. Whatever.” Khandi tossed another magazine on the desk. “Look at this one. Five months ago. You won’t find her anywhere.”
Thankfully, this one was void of Jodi’s gorgeous face.
She tossed another on top. “And this one, three months ago. No Jodi.”
Another landed. “Or this one, two months ago.”
One more landed with a thump. “And last month’s issue. Nothing, nada, zilch. She’s nowhere in any of them.”
“I’m assuming you’re going to get to the point before I turn forty?”
Khandi huffed. “She ducked out because of you. Don’t you get it? She loves you.”
Eve’s heart warmed and careened in her chest. Then anger bubbled that her heart had done anything at all. She pushed out of her chair. “That’s it! I’m calling your pharmacist. No more over-the-counter medication for you.” She walked around the desk and gently urged Khandi toward the door. “Take your tail back to that computer and get me those shots printed before I start looking for a new assistant. And for the love of God, cancel your subscriptions to the London tabloids. It’s deranging that brain of yours.”