Money Can't Buy Love

by Connie Briscoe

  He hadn’t returned any of her calls since they almost got caught in the truck on Monday, and here it was Friday afternoon. This was the longest they had gone without contact. There was no use denying it any longer. Her relationship with Ray was coming to an end if it wasn’t already over. This was really hard to accept, since only weeks ago they were a hot couple who couldn’t get enough of each other.

  The telephone rang and she grabbed the receiver, hoping that it might be Ray. “Hello?”

  “Lenora?”

  Lenora frowned deeply. It had been many weeks since she’d heard Dawna’s voice. She had almost forgotten what it sounded like. But not quite.

  “Hello, Dawna,” Lenora said. “Yes, it’s me.”

  “How are you?” Dawna asked.

  “Fine.” She was struggling to land clients, Ray had all but vanished from her life, and most of her money was gone. But she would never reveal to this woman that she was at a low point.

  “I had Jenna dig up your new office number,” Dawna said. “Hope you don’t mind.”

  That depends on why you’re calling, Lenora thought. “Not a problem,” she said.

  “I heard that you and Gerald got engaged. True?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then congratulations!”

  “Thanks.”

  “The reason I’m calling is that I have a photography assignment I think you might be interested in,” Dawna said. “Are you looking for work? Or are you already swamped with clients?”

  Lenora was desperate for assignments, but was she hard up enough to work with Dawna? Yes. “I’m always looking for more work,” Lenora said. The word “more” was a joke, she thought. Even the measly job for Ray had dried up.

  “I may have just the thing for you,” Dawna said. “Ever since you left, I have been struggling to fill your shoes, you know?” Dawna laughed. “This would be a big, multi-month assignment photographing the exteriors and lobbies of various art museums and galleries in Baltimore, including the Walters Art Museum and the Baltimore Museum of Art, for a feature we’re doing on the Baltimore art scene. I need someone who can also photograph art pieces from the museums in a studio setting. I’ve already gotten permission for some of the artwork, and I don’t need to tell you that this is a big deal. I need someone who can take this job, run with it, and come up with some glorious, mouthwatering shots. I don’t want to trust such an important assignment to any of the amateurs working on my staff now.”

  Lenora couldn’t kid herself. The assignment sounded better and better the longer Dawna spoke. In fact, it sounded like a dream job, almost too good to be true. But it was true. And Dawna seemed to be a lot more pleasant than she ever had before. Maybe Dawna treated her freelancers better than she did her staff. “All right, you got my attention. I’d love to work on this.”

  “Wonderful!” Dawna said. “We just need to go over the details and sign the contract.”

  “When do you want to meet?” Lenora asked. “I’m free just about any time that works for you.”

  “How about this afternoon?” Dawna asked. “Actually, how about right now, before I go to lunch?”

  Lenora sat up straight. Dawna was obviously eager to get going on this, and the sooner the better for her. A big smile crossed Lenora’s lips for the first time in weeks. She was finally going to land some real photography work. And not only would she get paid well for such a big assignment, but when the feature ran in the Baltimore Scene her byline would appear alongside the photographs. That could lead to more assignments from Dawna as well as from others. This could be just the thing to take her mind off Ray and get her life back on track.

  “I’ll be knocking on your door in thirty minutes tops,” Lenora said. “No later than eleven-thirty.”

  “Good,” Dawna said. “I’ll be waiting.”

  Chapter 38

  Pulling up in front of her old office at the Baltimore Scene gave Lenora the chills. It had been a couple of months since she was last here, yet it seemed like yesterday. The parking garage, the building, the elevator—everything flooded her mind with memories, some of them good, many bad. And most of the bad memories had to do with Dawna.

  So why was she back here to meet with the dreadful woman and possibly to work with her? Easy to answer, Lenora thought. She was desperate for work, and Dawna had offered her a plum assignment that was simply too good to pass up.

  She stepped out of the elevator on the fourth floor and walked into the magazine’s lobby. She smiled when she saw Jenna.

  “Hello, stranger,” Jenna said, looking up from her nail file. She stood and they embraced.

  “It’s good to see you,” Lenora said. “Can you tell Dawna I’m here for our meeting?”

  Jenna nodded toward the hallway. “Go on in. She’s expecting you. The door might be closed, since a man went in there about ten minutes ago. But she said to tell you to go right on in.”

  “Do you know who she’s with?” Lenora asked.

  Jenna shook her head. “He doesn’t work here at the magazine. I’ve seen him here once or twice, but he always walks into her office without stopping at the desk. He’s real cute, so I assumed they were a couple or something.”

  Lenora nodded and made her way to Dawna’s office. This was odd, she thought. Dawna didn’t mention anything about anyone else attending the meeting. And Dawna certainly wouldn’t have a boyfriend sitting in on a business meeting. Her former boss was too professional for that.

  Lenora paused at the door, knocked briefly, and opened it. She froze in the doorway, startled almost senseless by the scene. Dawna sat at her desk, and Raymond Shearer sat opposite her.

  “Well, don’t just stand there, honey,” Dawna said, her tone full of daggers. “Come in and sit down.”

  Lenora stumbled inside as Ray stood up from his chair and strolled to the window behind Dawna’s desk. He didn’t speak to Lenora. He just shoved his hands into his pockets and stood with his back to the room. Although Ray had looked genuinely surprised at seeing Lenora there, his actions revealed a sense of familiarity between Dawna and him that Lenora was unprepared for. The only one who did not look surprised about the strange gathering was Dawna.

  Lenora shook her head with confusion. “What’s going on, Dawna? I thought we were meeting about an assignment.” And what was Ray doing there? And why was he ignoring her?

  Dawna gave Lenora a phony smile. “Ray and I got to talking, and I had no idea it was already time for our meeting. Funny how time flies when you’re engaged.”

  Engaged. Dawna lingered on the word and Lenora suddenly remembered the ring on her finger, the one she was always so careful to remove before meeting with Ray. Lenora quickly hid her hands behind her back.

  “And you two know each other, obviously,” Dawna said.

  “Hello, Lenora,” Ray said, finally looking directly at her.

  Lenora smiled awkwardly and struggled to remove the ring hidden behind her back. “Hello, Ray.”

  “A few days ago I told Ray that I heard you got engaged,” Dawna said. “He’s having a hard time believing that.”

  Lenora stopped trying to remove the ring or hide her hand. Suddenly the weirdness in this whole scenario seemed to have been turned up a notch.

  “When’s the date?” Dawna asked Lenora.

  Lenora hesitated. Dammit! Why was Dawna so fixated on making sure Ray knew about her marriage plans? What the hell was Dawna up to? “June,” Lenora said softly. There was no point hiding the date now.

  “See, Ray, I told you they would probably be married by next summer,” Dawna said. “Lenora has been trying to get Gerald to marry her for years. Have you picked out a dress yet, Lenora?”

  “There’s really no contract work for me, is there?” Lenora asked, ignoring Dawna’s question.

  A slow, cocky smile spread across Dawna’s face. “You catch on fast.”

  “So why go to all the trouble to get me here using a lie?” Lenora asked. She looked at Ray. “And are you in on it?”

&n
bsp; “I had nothing to do with this,” Ray said. “I had no clue you would be here when Dawna invited me for lunch, just as I had no clue you were engaged to be married. As to why Dawna did this, I’m not sure. I have my suspicions.”

  “I had to prove to you that she was engaged,” Dawna said. She turned to Lenora. “I kept telling him, but he wouldn’t believe me. He said you didn’t wear a ring and that you would have told him if you were engaged.”

  “I thought we were being up front about our involvement with other people,” Ray said to Lenora. “Especially about anything serious. Seems I was wrong.”

  Lenora swallowed hard. “Are you two seeing each other?”

  “Almost since we met when Ray was working at the Moss Building,” Dawna said.

  That was even before she got involved with him, Lenora realized. Lenora looked at Ray. “Then you haven’t exactly been honest with me.”

  “I always told you I was seeing others casually,” he said.

  “Yes, but seeing others and seeing my former boss are two different things.”

  Ray shrugged. “That’s your opinion.”

  “Ray, I wish you wouldn’t keep calling our relationship casual,” Dawna interjected. “You’ve practically moved in with me these past few weeks.”

  “That’s an exaggeration,” Ray said. “I have a few things there.”

  Dawna smiled. “So far.”

  Lenora’s eyes widened as she listened to the two of them. Why was she standing there arguing about who said what or who lied and who told the truth? The whole thing was bizarre. She was seeing Ray. Dawna was seeing a lot more of Ray. He was seeing them both. Dawna wanted him to herself and she set Lenora up, plain and simple. She had been caught ring-handed, and Ray didn’t like it. Lenora backed out of the office and fled down the hallway without even pausing to say good-bye to Jenna. Dawna had lured Lenora into a trap and played her masterfully. Lenora could never hope to compete with her cunning former boss. Dawna already had her beaten in just about every category imaginable—looks, success, smarts. And now Dawna had Ray all to herself.

  Chapter 39

  Lenora had an appointment at three-thirty that Friday afternoon with a wedding planner and a future bride to discuss Lenora doing the photography for the wedding. But after leaving Ray and Dawna, Lenora was too upset to see any potential clients. Wedding photography was not something she enjoyed much anyway. It didn’t pay the kind of money she needed to keep her studio afloat. She had agreed to meet with the client only because she was hungry for work, any kind of work. So she sat at her desk and called to postpone the meeting to Monday.

  After she hung up, she shook her head at the thought of what had transpired at Dawna’s office. Ray and Dawna. Unbelievable. Now that Lenora had gotten past the initial shock, she was racked with jealousy and mostly embarrassment. Jealousy, she was familiar with. She had experienced it often enough before, especially when she learned that Gerald was cheating on her. But that was nothing compared to being made to look like a fool by the other woman, especially when the other woman was Dawna.

  Ray had always implied that other women were in the picture casually. There were never signs of other women, and when they were together he turned off his cell phone and focused on her. That was one of the reasons she loved being with him. But she never imagined that she was the only woman he was seeing. No, the problem was that the other woman was Dawna and the nasty trick her former boss had just played on her.

  And how could Ray do this to her? He knew how she felt about Dawna. A part of her was furious with him. Still, she wasn’t ready to give him up without a fight. Maybe he would understand if she explained to him that she hid the truth about her engagement because she was afraid to lose him. She picked up the desk phone and dialed his number. There was no answer, so she left a message then rested her head on her desk.

  The outlandish episode in Dawna’s office was such a blur that Lenora could barely remember who said what. But someone mentioned that Ray and Dawna were going to lunch together. Maybe Ray would call after lunch with Dawna. Unless they did more than lunch. Lenora wondered if he had ever taken Dawna to his truck for sex. For all she knew, they might be parked somewhere that very moment, making passionate love to each other.

  She couldn’t stand it. The truck was their special place. Hers and Ray’s. She jumped up and paced the floor between the window and her desk, trying to shake the thoughts of Ray and Dawna together. She wondered if Ray had real feelings for Dawna. After all, Dawna was gorgeous, with the kind of good looks that made men salivate. And she could ooze charm when she wanted. Ray might even be in love with Dawna.

  Lenora grabbed the phone and dialed Ray’s number frantically. The answering service came on again, and she slammed the phone down and flopped into the chair. Why was she being such an ignorant fool? Did she really expect her fat, frumpy ass to be able to hold on to a man like Ray? Of course not. That she had even partly held his attention for a couple of months was amazing.

  The phone rang. She snatched it up.

  “Hello?”

  “You called?” Ray asked coolly.

  Lenora gasped. “Um, yes. I… I was hoping we could talk about what happened earlier today.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about, Lenora. I don’t deal with women who are married or engaged. It can get too messy.”

  She swallowed hard. “For what it’s worth, Ray, I’m really sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I planned to, but—”

  “Save it,” he said, interrupting. “I probably had no right to expect honesty, given the nature of our relationship.”

  “Can you ever forgive me?” she asked. Never mind that he was screwing her former boss and didn’t bother to mention it. This wasn’t the time to bring that up.

  “There’s nothing to forgive. It’s done, it’s over. Let’s both move on.”

  “Together, I hope. Please, Ray? I promise to be one hundred percent honest from now on.”

  “It’s best we do it separately.”

  Lenora’s heart sank to the floor. “Are things serious with you and Dawna?”

  “Not really.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me about her?”

  “There was no need to. We’re not serious despite what she implied and what she might want.”

  “But she’s my former boss,” Lenora protested. “I told you how I feel about her.”

  “So? You have a problem with your old boss—you and a zillion others. What did that have to do with us?”

  “I can’t believe you take that so casually,” Lenora said. “And she knew about you and me obviously. Did you tell her?”

  “No. You called recently while I was with her. I had put the phone down, and she saw your name on caller ID before I could get to it. That’s when she told me you were engaged. She knows I don’t deal with women who are in serious relationships with other men. I didn’t believe her, though, because I know how determined she can be when she wants something. I thought she was just saying that to get me to stop seeing you.”

  “And that’s what led to the meeting in her office today?”

  “Unfortunately, yes,” he said. “I’m sorry it all came down that way, but Dawna tricked me into showing up at her office, too. I had no idea you would be there.” He chuckled. “That’s Dawna for you, though.”

  Lenora couldn’t miss the admiring tone in his voice. He obviously liked Dawna. He had even moved some of his things to her place. So the better woman had won the prize. Or at least the most conniving one. But Lenora still couldn’t bring herself to give up on Ray just yet. “I really would like to see you one more time.”

  “Sorry, I can’t.”

  “You’re still out with Dawna? Is that it?”

  “Actually, no. I’m on my way to the dealer to take my truck in for service.”

  “How are you getting home or back to work?” she asked.

  “Probably a cab. Dawna was going to follow me and take me back to the job site, but I was so disappointed with what sh
e just pulled, I told her I’d find another way back.”

  Perhaps Dawna went too far with her scheming this time. “Let me take you back,” she offered.

  “I’ll manage.”

  “It’s not a problem, Ray. I’d love to help out.”

  He paused for a second. “Okay, it is a long cab ride. Meet me there in about an hour.”

  Yes! Lenora thought, pumping her fist in the air.

  Lenora parked her car and walked into the Ford dealership. She found Ray checking out the new Ford F150 pickups, circling a shiny black one, arms folded across his chest, as a dealer spoke to him. She was so excited to see him. For a while she thought she might never lay eyes on him again. He squeezed her shoulders and introduced her to Tony, the car dealer.

  “So is this the fiancée?” Tony asked upon seeing the ring on Lenora’s hand. Lenora quickly slipped her hands behind her back.

  “No,” Ray said. “She’s a friend.”

  The dealer nodded, obviously deciding to zip it up.

  “Nice truck,” Lenora said.

  “Yes, very,” Ray said. “Top of the line.”

  Lenora walked around to the sticker on the window. “Not a bad price,” she said.

  Ray chuckled. “Not if you can afford it.”

  Lenora nodded as Ray reached out to shake Tony’s hand good-bye. Then they walked toward the parking lot.

  “What’s wrong with your truck?” she asked.

  “I suspect it’s the transmission. Probably going to be here a couple of days and set me back a few thousand.”

  “How many miles does it have on it?” she asked.

  “Close to a hundred and fifty thousand.”

  Lenora stopped and faced him. “Why don’t you let me buy you a new one?” She wasn’t sure where that suddenly came from. But he needed a new truck. She had the money to buy him one. It would eat seriously into what money she had left, but she would worry about that later. Right now she was all about trying to save her relationship with Ray.

  “I can’t let you do that,” he said.

  “Yes, you can. I can afford it.” She pushed her dwindling bank account figures to the back of her head.