“Well, that sucks the big one.” Josie slapped her milk glass down in punctuation.
Faith put her hand over Trinity’s. “Oh Trin, I’m so sorry.”
That was the thing about Faith and Josie. They didn’t ask for dirty details they could spread around the country club. Whatever she said would stay at this table. She’d even get a little sympathy, too. “I found him in the shower doing some floozy, but I’m so over it now. It doesn’t hurt a bit.”
She’d convinced herself it didn’t. Honest.
“When did this happen?” Josie wanted to know.
“Last night.”
“And you’re so over it?” Josie scoffed, yet not in a bitchy I’m-getting-a-kick-out-of-your-misery way.
Trinity toyed with her mug. She wasn’t fond of tea, either. Then she sighed. “There’s nothing to be done. I can’t go back and change it, and I’m not going to forgive him.” She twisted her hands and looked at Faith. “I mean, should I forgive him?”
“Do you think it was a onetime thing, and he’s sorry and it’ll never happen again?”
It wasn’t that he’d called the woman baby. It was the way he said it. As if he’d always used the word for her alone. The fact that Trinity could still hear the endearment ringing in her ears cut deep enough to draw blood. “I don’t think this was the first time,” she whispered. “I don’t think he’ll stop even if he says he’s going to.”
“Oh, Trin.” Faith gave her hand a heartfelt squeeze.
“I am going to be over it, so over it.”
“I’m still not sure why you married him.” Faith didn’t phrase it as a question. Which was good, because Trinity didn’t have an answer.
Had she loved him? She’d convinced herself she did. But if she had, why wasn’t she completely devastated? She was angry more than anything else. It hurt that he’d chosen someone over her, that he’d used her house for his assignation, that he’d probably married her for nothing more than her money.
But she couldn’t say she hurt because he was gone. God, she was a shallow person. She didn’t say that aloud. Faith would tell her she wasn’t, yet Trinity had to admit, if to no one else, that she lived on surface emotions. She wasn’t a deep thinker. She didn’t like self-analysis, in general, though she’d been doing exactly that last night . . . among other things. The memory of Scott Sinclair watching her almost made her blush. Almost.
“Now that I look back on it, I’m not sure why I married Harper, either,” she said, because it was the least innocuous and invited the fewest questions.
“Want us to whoop his ass for you?” Josie offered.
“We’ll hang his entrails from the Golden Gate,” Faith added.
Trinity had once threatened to drape Connor’s entrails over the bridge if he ever hurt Faith.
She laughed despite how it made her throat ache. Her friends were the best ever. “Harper isn’t worth you two getting arrested for the deed. But thanks.” And that was all she’d say. She couldn’t quite define her own feelings other than being messed up. If her emotions hadn’t been topsy-turvy, she never would have let a stranger into her room last night.
Not that she’d tell her friends about that insane interlude. First of all, they’d freak that she took such a risk. But it was also a private, titillating experience that once shared would lose some of the specialness. It was hers.
“And I got a job working at Daddy’s company.”
Faith’s jaw dropped.
“What the hell are you going to do there?” Josie burst out, almost as if she didn’t believe Trinity was capable of doing anything useful.
“I did graduate from college, you know.”
“I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”
“I know.” Trinity wasn’t so sure, though. Josie was a career woman, like Faith, for whom being a kindergarten teacher was a calling. Some sort of program manager for Castle Heavy Mining, Josie had just returned from managing a two-month project down in South America. Castle wasn’t a mining company itself, but they manufactured massive mining equipment. Monetarily, neither Faith nor Josie had to work. Faith’s daddy, Jarvis, was the largest share-holder in Castle Heavy Mining, the family business, and Connor was CEO. Josie’s father also had a big share as well as a board position. Yet both her friends had chosen to do something useful, while Trinity had merely drifted.
Gee, the best thing she could say she’d ever done was introduce Connor to Faith. Other than that . . . she was useless.
Well, no more. She could handle this job, do it well. In fact, she might prove herself worthy of taking over from her father. Why not? She wouldn’t let herself be offended by Josie’s words. Her feelings were simply tender after the trashing Harper had given them.
“I’m going to be the Accounts Receivable and Payables supervisor. ” Before the merger, Green Industries had one major customer, Castle, for whom Green plated and machined component parts, but under the Castle umbrella, her father began courting new customers. “Daddy thinks that as I excel at charity fund-raising, I’ll be great in collections.” She spread her hands and beamed at her audience. “It’s a win-win situation.”
Yet it was one thing to guilt her friends at the country club into donating for a good cause and quite another hassling customers to pay up. But she could make her father proud.
“You do have a way with people,” Faith agreed.
“A job is going to be a lot of fun.” If she didn’t slash her wrists from sheer terror before she started. When she thought about it too hard, the prospect of having a job and people working for her was a tad frightening.
Josie raised one brow as if she could read Trinity’s mind.
“Honest.” Trinity punctuated with a vigorous head nod. “I want something to do. I need something to do. And this is it.”
“You shouldn’t let a man make you change your whole life. Men just aren’t that important.”
Ooh, Josie’d definitely had a bad experience in the past.
“Maybe it’s time to change my life.” Maybe it was time to figure out what she truly wanted. Honestly, Trinity didn’t know. “I mean, Faith wants to be a teacher and a mother. You want to be the head of Program Management.”
“Excuse me, I want to be head of the whole company, not just Program Management.” Josie grabbed Faith’s hand. “I told Connor I wanted his job when he becomes chairman. The first female Castle CEO, what do you think?”
Faith smiled indulgently. “I’m sure that’s what you’ll be.”
“See?” Trinity huffed. “You both know what you want.”
Faith turned her way. “You wanted to be first lady.”
Trinity shrugged. “That was a pipe dream. I wasn’t serious.” She was never serious about anything.
Maybe that’s why Harper had found it so easy to use her.
Oops, that was a maudlin thought creeping in. She beat it back with details. “I start work next Monday.” A week away.
“We’ve got to celebrate,” Faith said, standing slowly and massaging her huge tummy. “Let’s have a glass of champagne.”
Trinity gaped. “But you don’t drink with the baby.”
“I’ve got some sparkling cider as well.”
“I’ve got a better idea.” A brilliant idea. It was growing on Trinity. “Let’s have some ice cream.”
“I don’t have anything fat free.”
“I don’t want fat free.” She had a quick flash of Harper and his voluptuous woman, and her migraine stabbed right through her temple. Damn him anyway. “I want the full-fatted stuff, and pregnant women always have ice cream in the freezer.” Not that Trinity had spent a lot of time around pregnant women before.
Faith stared at her as if antennae suddenly sprouted out of her head, but Trinity wouldn’t say that Harper’s woman looked as if she ate all her favorite flavors of ice cream.
And Harper had still wanted her.
Josie popped up to open the freezer door. “Look at this.” She pointed. “She’s got tons.�
��
“Connor bought all that,” Faith jumped in. “He didn’t want to run out in the middle of the night when I had cravings.”
Josie tipped her head. “I thought cravings were an old wives’ tale.”
Faith blushed for no apparent reason.
“Ooh, I know what she’s craving in the middle of the night.” Trinity laughed.
“Ooh,” Josie seconded.
“I’ll admit the butter pecan is mine,” Faith said primly.
“I want rocky road.” Trinity’s mouth watered. God, she hadn’t had real chocolate ice cream in . . . well, not since she’d started wearing makeup in junior high.
There were so many things she hadn’t indulged in, yet what had been the point in denying herself? Harper cheated anyway.
From now on, she wasn’t going to deny herself a thing. Not one single thing.
“Do you have any caramel sauce?” she asked.
Ice cream. Champagne cocktails. Baked potatoes with sour cream. And passionate sex with a virtual stranger? She remembered how good Scott made her feel. Why deny herself that?
She could call him when she wanted to, and he couldn’t call her back. She could meet him anywhere, then take off in a cab. A quickie, all night, or just a naughty phone conversation. She could control when, where, what, and how, every detail. Control had never seemed important to her before, yet now it was almost a need, like water or food. Their meetings would be about sex and nothing more. Total pleasure. Total control. After finding Harper, pleasure and control now seemed to go hand in hand. She couldn’t achieve one without the other.
In her whole life, Trinity had never been the one in charge. She told people she was, she liked to make other women think she was, but the truth? She molded herself into what she thought a man wanted.
Well, no more. She was going to indulge.
And the next thing she’d indulge in would be Scott Sinclair.
THE investors’ dinner went on and on. Scott took a five-minute break to check his work messages. Ah hell, why not admit it? He wanted to see if she’d called. His presentation that morning had gone off without a hitch, adequately explaining the issues causing Millennium Robotics’ downward financial trend in the last three reported quarters while at the same time keeping the company’s outlook upbeat, though that was a difficult line to walk. His part done, he’d sat through the other presenters, the questions, the discussion, yet he’d had to force his mind to stay on track. It wanted to wander to his mystery lady.
He had to smile to himself, because damn if he wasn’t hooked. Until halfway through the day, he hadn’t bothered to consider whether she even lived in the San Francisco Bay Area. After all, she’d been staying at a hotel, yet he hadn’t allowed it as a possibility that she was from out of town.
Outside the restaurant door, the cool evening washing over him, he punched in his voice mail. His heart started to beat faster the moment he heard her voice on the message, and he felt almost giddy, like a dorky teenager the first time he was absolutely sure he’d caught the head cheerleader’s eye.
“We’re going to have a hot, passionate, anything-goes affair. I’ll call you tomorrow and tell you how it’ll work.”
She was a tease. His cock was damn near combustible. He’d forgotten how good it felt to want a woman this badly. With his blood rushing in his veins, he was completely jacked, totally alive. He loved the mystery, the tension of waiting, the fear she might not call again. She was his drug. He was her addict.
He had one major problem. She’d used the word affair. Somewhere along the way, he’d forgotten to wonder whether she was married. In his mind, she couldn’t belong to anyone else.
But what if she did?
4
SCOTT Sinclair had the hottest voice. In fact, Trinity had called his number a second time last night to listen to his voice mail recording all over again.
Letting his voice play in her head was better than allowing the sound of Harper’s harpy to ring in her ears. Heh. Harper’s harpy. She liked the sound of that. It didn’t make her a bitter bitch. Well, yes, it did, but she couldn’t help herself.
After returning from Faith’s, she’d moved her stuff into the guest room. It might be pathetic, but she couldn’t stay in the master bedroom. And this morning, she was not one darn bit maudlin. Honest.
In the kitchen, the coffee was already dripping, scenting the condo with a rich aroma. She popped her usual half piece of bread into the toaster, and when it was done, she had it halfway to her mouth before she realized what she was doing.
“A real woman doesn’t have to live on half a piece of dry toast.” Throwing it in the sink, she turned on the garbage disposal and ground it up with malice aforethought.
A real woman didn’t need a man to give her great orgasms either. But having Scott Sinclair listen in on a few would certainly be extra stimulating. And if he watched again? Ooh.
Granola streamed out of the package, clattering into her bowl. She used the rest of Harper’s fresh blueberries and covered them in whole, honest-to-goodness vitamin D milk without measuring a half-cup serving. Regardless of calories, calcium was good for a woman’s bones.
God, she felt free as she carried her cereal and the phone into the family room. The berries and milk-soaked granola were damn near . . . orgasmic. Trinity closed her eyes and savored every single delicious bite.
Now, she had to take a bite out of life. For today, that meant a phone call to her favorite CFO, Scott Sinclair. That definitely had an ooh factor involved. Slipping in her Bluetooth—she wanted to be totally hands free for whatever naughty thing she felt compelled to do— she couldn’t wait to hear his voice, for real instead of a recording.
Life without Harper was going to be grand.
“ARE you married?” It wasn’t a statement on her morals, but a need to know. Scott wouldn’t share, even if she was just a voice on his office phone.
She waited a beat too long to answer, and his gut tensed.
“No.”
His tension didn’t ease. “Are you sure?”
She puffed out a little breath. “I’m divorced.” Then she sighed. “Recently,” and before he could ask, she followed up with, “Satisfied now that I’ve bared my soul?”
He liked that she was snarky. He didn’t like that he was probably a rebound thing, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. He’d been hooked from the moment he heard her voice through the wall.
“What about you?” she asked.
“I’m divorced, not so recently. Tell me your name.”
She laughed. It was musical. It made him hard.
“I’m not telling you my name. That’s my secret.”
As was her number. The company phone system went through a PBX, and there was no direct line, only his extension, and no caller ID. She was safe. That was his intention. And she enjoyed playing it.
“What should I call you, then?”
“Well, Scott”—she said his name with a definite emphasis on the T—“maybe you should call me . . . Vixen.”
His turn to laugh, and it came from deep in his belly. “I don’t think so. Doesn’t suit you at all.”
Passing the office door, his controller glanced inside, brow raised as if she’d heard something different in his voice.
Show and Tell Page 5