Addicted to Love (22 page)

Besides her core body temperature? “I thought . . . I couldn’t sleep . . . ” She heard him take a deep breath and the rough masculine sound sent a shiver through her. “We need to talk.”

“What about?” he asked.

She heard the creak of bedsprings. Rachael closed her eyes and licked her lips. She could see his chest, ripped with muscles, minimal chest hair. His washboard stomach was flat and his . . .

Stop imagining him naked, dammit.

But she couldn’t stop.

Oh, this was horrible, awful. She wanted him the way a child wanted a slice of birthday cake. A child didn’t care if she gained weight or ruined her dinner or rotted her teeth. A kid spied a piece of cake and she just went for it, full out, no hesitation.

Exactly the same way Rachael had been going after men her entire life — grasping, needy, without discernment.

Except that she’d never before felt cravings this intense.

She ached to consume him in one greedy bite and lick the frosting from her fingers afterward. She hungered for him without any consideration for the consequences. She wanted to inhale his scent, taste his flavor, hear his voice as he groaned her name in the throes of passion.

To heck with one slice, she wanted the whole cake.

Did she have the strength to fight for what she needed? Or was she going to give in to the pull of romance as she’d done countless times before?

Just hang up!

“Rachael? You still there?”

“Uh-huh.” She felt dazed, like she’d been in the dentist’s chair breathing nitrous oxide.

“Are you all right? You sound . . . odd.”

Not odd, horny.

“Um, fine, just fine,” she lied, struggling to keep her mind on the reason she’d called him. She settled back against the headboard and drew her knees to her chest.

“Where are you?” he asked.

“At my mother’s house.”

“I know that,” he said. “Whereabouts in the house are you?”

“In bed.”

“Hmm.” His voice cracked.

It suddenly occurred to Rachael that he might be having a few late-night fantasies of his own. Stunned, she sucked in her breath as chill bumps spread over her arms.

“So what are you wearing?” he asked in a deep, throaty voice.

Omigod, clearly he had mistaken the meaning of her call. Time to slice things off before they went too far.

“Or are you wearing anything at all?” he asked.

Rachael’s cheeks blazed hot. She glanced down at her white cotton T-shirt with the faded Hard Rock Café logo. Sexy as granny pj’s.

I am not playing this game
, she told herself, but said, “A Victoria’s Secret negligee.”

From the other end of the phone line, she heard an audible gulp. She pulled a pillow over her head as her face flamed hotter.

“What color?” he asked.

“Black,” she improvised, pressing a palm to her feverish neck. “With red satin ribbons.”

He hissed in his breath as if he’d walked across hot coals.

She could see him in her mind, his big hand clasping tight to the receiver, his long muscular body stretched across his bed, naked as the day he came into the world.

“And black fishnet stockings,” she added, feeling devilishly out of control.

He growled.

“Scarlet stilettos,” she went on, enjoying his reaction.

“Stop!” he commanded in his law enforcement voice.

Her fingertips, which had somehow walked from the nape of her neck to the waistband of her panties, froze.

“And tasseled pasties.” She kept going, unable to resist.

“Uncle,” he croaked. “I give. You win.”

Remorse fisted inside her. “I’m sorry,” she apologized. “Phone sex was
not
the reason I called.”

Brody chuckled, a rough, regretful sound that sent fresh chills slipping down her spine. “Listen . . . ”

Rachael sat up straight. “Yes?”

“I’m actually glad you called.”

“You are?”

“I wanted to talk to you about what happened at the library tonight.”

“You mean between my parents?”

“I mean between us.”

“Um, there is no us. You’re you and I’m me and we’re separate as separate can be. Separate and single and . . . ” she chattered inanely.
Good Lord, woman, shut up.

“Rachael,” he said.

“Uh-huh?”

“Hush a minute and let me get a word in edgewise.”

“Okay.” Rachael held her breath.

“I’m not going to pretend I don’t feel something for you,” Brody said, “because I do.”

“You do?” she squeaked.

“Yes, but I’m not the kind of guy who beats around the bush. The timing is off for us. You’re in a bad place emotionally.”

My sentiments exactly.

“And I’m just now getting over what happened in Iraq and my wife leaving me for another man. Trust isn’t my strong suit and you can’t build a relationship without trust.”

“Okay.” Where was he headed with this?

“You’ve got this whole anti-romance thing going on.”

“Yes?”

“I know you feel the chemistry, too. Your kiss said it all. But you also told me you had trouble separating love from sex, so sex is out of the question, because the last thing I want is for you to get hurt again.”

“Excuse me?” Was he putting out feelers in a roundabout way to see if she could handle a casual fling?

“Isn’t that why you called?” He sounded confused.

So why had she called him? “No!”

“Okay, but you were the one who mentioned Victoria’s Secret and tasseled pasties.”

Guilty as charged. And she was regretting her faux pas more with each passing second. “You thought I called to proposition you?”

“Did you?”

“No. . . . No . . . absolutely not,” Rachael sputtered. “And I can’t believe your arrogance. Why on earth would you think I would have an affair with you?”

“You said you wanted to learn how to separate love from sex. I thought —”

“Think again, Sheriff Egotistical.”

He laughed.

Laughed!

Rachael’s blood boiled. “I wouldn’t have an affair with you if you were the last man on earth.”

“That’s too bad,” he said, “because I think we could have great sex together.”

A
FTER HER ILL-FATED
midnight phone call to Brody, Rachael’s life went from bad to worse.

Her cell phone kept ringing with inquiries from people wanting to know how to join Romanceaholics Anonymous and/or praising her for the YouTube video. Rex called, all excited, to tell her that
Trace Hoolihan Ditches Bride
was officially the twentieth most internationally downloaded video of the day, but then he couldn’t understand why the news did not make her happy.

“Great,” Rachael muttered darkly. “Now I’m an
international
laughingstock.”

“You’re an international celebrity is what you are,” Rex said.

Rachael snorted. She didn’t want to be a star. She just wanted to stop falling blindly in love. And she wanted to go back to Houston and get on with her life. She had a week left on her community service sentence and then she was headed home. School restarted in two weeks and she’d have to start searching for a new apartment since she’d given hers up when she and Trace got engaged. Jillian had already told Rachael she could come and stay with her until she found somewhere suitable to live.

By the end of her day delivering meals on wheels she pulled her VW Bug — which she’d had repainted after the graffiti incident — into Mrs. Potter’s driveway, and told herself she was not going to look across the street to see if Brody was home.

She looked.

And there he was.

Outside. Shirtless. Pushing his lawn mower across the plush Saint Augustine.

Their eyes met.

Brody raised a hand.

Rachael ducked her head and raced inside the house.
I told you not to look
, she scolded herself, but that didn’t stop her heart from beating too fast. Good thing she was leaving town soon.

She found Selina in the kitchen making enchiladas. That was a positive sign. Her mother hadn’t been eating.

“Smells good,” she said, coming over to drop a kiss on her mother’s cheek.

“Someone from Country Day called while you were out,” Selina said. “I wrote the contact information on the notepad.” She pointed with the tip of her paring knife to the message center by the phone.

Rachael bustled over to look at the note.
Mr. Sears called, he’d like a call back ASAP.
A cell phone number followed. Mr. Sears was the principal of Country Day where Rachael was employed as a kindergarten teacher.

“Must be something about the upcoming school year,” Rachael said, picking up the phone and simultaneously kicking off her sandals.

She punched in the numbers, listened to it ring.

“Hello, Mr. Sears?” she said when the man answered. “This is Rachael Henderson.”

“Rachael,” Mr. Sears said, his voice sounding clipped and serious. “We need to talk.”

Something about the principal’s tone sent up warning flags. “Yes, sir.”

“There was an emergency meeting of the school board last night,” he said.

“Emergency meeting?”

“It’s come to our attention that you’ve encountered a bit of controversy over the summer.”

“Controversy?” she echoed, feeling blindsided. “The emergency school board meeting was about me?”

“Well, more specifically, about that video you posted on YouTube,” Mr. Sears said.

“Yes?”

“The board feels that it’s not only inappropriate for one of our faculty members to produce such content, but we’re afraid the attention will be detrimental to Country Day.”

“Are you asking me to pull the video from YouTube?” Honestly, after all the crank phone calls she kept getting, she was ready to have Rex yank it off the Internet.

“I’m afraid it’s gone beyond that. Someone from your hometown notified us that you’d been arrested for vandalism.”

Rachael felt a harsh stab of betrayal. Could it have been Brody? But why would he do that? Why would anyone? “Someone from Valentine called you?”

“Yes. Is it true?”

“The charges were a misdemeanor, and I —”

“Nevertheless, in light of your behavior,” Mr. Sears interrupted, “the school board has decided to cancel your contract for the upcoming school year.”

She felt at once both furious and terrified. A trickle of sweat ran down Rachael’s neck and dropped cold into her cleavage. She’d just lost her job because someone in her hometown didn’t like what she was doing. “You have no legal right to cancel my contract.”

“Read your contract, Miss Henderson. We have every right to protect the students from a teacher with a criminal record.”

Criminal record! All she’d done was paint a sign black.

“Mr. Sears, surely there’s something I can do to change the school board’s mind. You simply can’t fire me. I love those kids, I love my job, I love —”

“You should have thought about that before you vandalized a billboard,” the principal said, cutting her off. “I’m sorry, Rachael, but the decision is irrevocable.”

A
CROSS TOWN
, K
ELVIN
Wentworth received a phone call.

“It’s done,” said the voice on the other end of the line. “She’s been fired from her job.”

Kelvin smiled. “Good work.”

“Are you sure it was such a smart move? I mean, now that she’s out of a job, she’s free to stay in town and devote all her time to stirring up anti-Valentine sentiment. And causing problems for your reelection campaign.”

Kelvin snorted.

“Don’t underestimate her. She’s already done a lot of damage.”

“You’ve knocked the pins out from under her with this one,” Kelvin assured the man he’d coerced into doing his dirty work. “She’ll have to concentrate on finding a job. In the meantime, I’ll be winning the election.”

Plus sealing the deal with Amusement Corp.

Kelvin smiled. At last everything was falling into place, and he wasn’t about to let some snippet of a girl with starry-eyed dreams stand in his way.

M
ICHAEL
H
ENDERSON HUNG
up the phone feeling dirtier than he’d ever felt in his life. He’d just betrayed his daughter to his lifelong rival. He was a complete and utter bastard. No wonder Selina had left him.

“But it’s for the best,” he told himself. Sometimes a father had to hurt his children in order to ultimately save them. He had to do this for Rachael’s sake. He’d had no other choice.

Remorse ate him.
Did you have any other choice?

No, he didn’t. Agreeing to help Kelvin was the only way he could get Rachael to stop her anti-romance campaign. And dropping the romance campaign was the only way she was ever going to find the love she truly deserved. And it was the only way he could win his wife back. Besides, Country Day would have found out about her arrest for vandalism sooner or later and it was better that Rachael lose her job before school started rather than after.

You did the right thing.

Still, he couldn’t help feeling devious and underhanded. He was so terribly, terribly ashamed of what he’d done but his motivation came from the heart. This was what he must do to help her. It was a father’s cross to bear. Like when he’d had to hold her down for an injection when she was a screaming four-year-old with an appendix that had burst and she needed emergency surgery. Watching her suffer had been like cutting off his right arm. He felt exactly the same way now.

What’s Selina going to think when she finds out you got Rachael fired?

“She’s not going to find out,” he muttered under his breath. “And neither is Rachael.”

Because if Selina found out what he’d done, he knew she wouldn’t understand. And she wouldn’t forgive.

Before he had time to brood over that, the doorbell rang.

Michael frowned. He wasn’t expecting anyone.

He walked to the front door, his footsteps echoing loudly in the house, which now felt so empty without Selina in it. He squinted through the peephole and saw Vivian standing on the doorstep in a raincoat.

Immediately, he knew what was beneath that raincoat.

Absolutely nothing.

It was a game they’d played when they were in high school. She’d wait until his parents were gone and come to this very door in her raincoat. She’d ring the bell and say —