Commissioned In White (Art of Love Series) (21 page)

Chloe bit back her first response of denial. Emma didn’t need more pain.

“Fine. I concede we all need help with our love lives, but if I’m going to have to answer those dumb quiz questions, it’s going to require more than mild lubrication. I think I’m going to start at lunch and do a follow-up drink every hour to make sure I maintain a buzz all day to get through it,” Chloe said, gracing Emma with as sincere a smile as she could manage. “It shouldn’t take much though. I haven’t been inebriated in years.”

Shaking off her mood, Emma stood to wiggle her hips and her eyebrows as she looked at Chloe. “Does alcohol still make you want to get extra friendly?”

“Yes. So if I do get tipsy, don’t let me run off with some strange man. That’s a bit more self-exploration than I’m ready for right now,” Chloe said, letting herself find the humor in it at last.

Listening to both her friends laughing at her plea, something inside Chloe eased. She hated being defensive, hated that she’d brought that attitude to these two women who had been true friends to her through thick and thin. They didn’t need her angst on top of their own. She was the fix
er
not the fix
ee
in their group.

Taylor laughed at Chloe’s confession and sighed at the kindness and caring on her face as well as the return of ease to Emma’s expression. “I have missed you something fierce, Chloe Zanders. The California sunshine is going to melt all that East Coast angst away soon. By the time you get your tan back, you’ll be a new woman.”

“Wow. Aren’t you the optimist for once? Saving a business agrees with you,” Chloe teased. Then she sighed. “I’m glad to be back. It was way past time to make a change.”

Taylor sprang up from the bed, lithe and confident in her dress clothes, which she intended to shed right now for crops and the tightest T-shirt she owned. “Wear something easy to get out of, girls, and bring slut shoes if you have them. We’re going shopping.”

Chapter 2

“I just love this place,” Emma said, flipping through the racks. “Upscale consignment, and just look at all these wonderful recycled clothes. I’ve said it before, but, Taylor—you really are amazing.”

“Yes, well you know I became very resourceful during the two lean years I was working to save Pink Link Sports. This place was a financial godsend for schmoozing wear when I had to go to sponsor parties. Are you still a twelve, Chloe?” Taylor asked.

“I wish. Now and again I can squeeze into a really, really large twelve bottom, but I’m always a fourteen on the top,” Chloe replied. “I moved from a D to a DD cup a few years ago so I need the boob room.”

Taylor stopped to study her. “This will be perfect then.” She handed a two piece outfit over to Chloe. “This will let the girls peak out and say hi to people. Your breast size is an asset. You need to use it.”

“It’s a harem girl outfit,” Chloe declared in horror, laughter choking her as she looked at the jewel toned top and skirt Taylor had passed to her. “I’m not wearing this
in public.”

“Come on. You’re a little soft, but you still have the waist for it,” Emma said briskly. “I watched you change clothes. You look great, just pale. Try it on.”

“I agree,” Taylor said, smiling. “Try it on.”

Chloe rolled her eyes, then tossed the outfit over her arm with the other two she’d found. “You two are as nuts as ever. I know I used to be the primo slut among us, especially when it came to clothes, but those days are long gone. I don’t flash my cleavage or anything else at the world anymore. I was only a size ten in college. There’s a big difference in flashing now.”

“Why?” Taylor asked with a grin. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned in business, it’s that it’s hard to find the right customers without good advertising.”

Chloe tilted her head and looked at Taylor as Emma laughed in the background. “Says the five-foot-seven woman with the body of a skinny model. I bet you barely wear a size eight.”

“Six sometimes,” Taylor said, eyes twinkling. “What can I say? Despite working out regularly, it’s mostly genetics. I kiss my mother for it whenever I see her, which is fortunately only twice a year.”

Chloe rolled her eyes. She had never met her own birth mother, but Chloe would bet money the woman hadn’t been less than a size twenty. She was watching her hips and thighs spread with every passing year. The thought of being even bigger than she was now did not make her cheerful.

Emma laughed at their banter over weight. Her proportionate size eight body on her five-foot-four frame had never much mattered to her so long as her health was good.

“All this fixation on weight is bringing me down. How did you lose touch with your inner slut, Chloe? I only met your ex a couple of times, but he seemed like the type that would have liked the sexually liberated side of you. I remember him being tall, broad-shouldered, and very handsome,” Emma said.

“All true—and Aaron did like my slut side,” Chloe said, irony dripping from the words as flipped through the racks. “We were in bed more than out the first year we were married. He was really good in bed too. For a couple of years, I thought I had found the perfect man.”

“So what went wrong?” Emma asked, trying not to exude too much sympathy because she knew Chloe didn’t like pity. “Your husband never came with you when you visited, but I guess I always thought that was your choice.”

What went wrong?
Chloe stopped flipping through the rack of beautiful clothes to ponder her answer.

“It seems like I spent the last four years trying to figure that out, Emma. For one, Aaron’s family was always critiquing me—us—no
me
,” she corrected. “They frequently complained about the way I dressed that first year I lived there. To get them to shut up about it, somewhere in the second year I started wearing clothes with no cleavage, flat shoes, and pants in the summer to work. And then I found out about the first woman Aaron cheated on me with. She was my age, but she looked like you two, including the blonde hair.”

Chloe looked at the sympathy in their faces but also saw a glint of steel in both gazes aimed at her.
That’s what I came here for
, she realized. Under their sympathy was support of the best kind. Chloe knew they would never let her wallow too long in self-pity.

“Even though it killed my pride to know Aaron had slept with someone else, I still loved the jerk, so I told myself that I wanted to work out our problems. For a while, I even went back to normal until he asked me tone it down again for his family’s sake. So back I went to wearing my conservative clothes and dark colors. That would have been—oh, early in year four I think—just before woman number two entered the picture.”

Emma stopped to stare. “Chloe, that’s awful. Your husband wanted you like you were, but then wanted you to change just to please his family? That seems kind of dumb of him, don’t you think?”

“Well, I do now,” Chloe said emphatically. “I should never have let anyone tell me how to dress or what to like or what was funny or not funny. By the time Aaron actually left me for the last woman—a nubile twenty-three-year-old I heard—well, I didn’t even recognize myself except for the belly button ring hidden under my drab clothes.”

Taylor was shaking her head. “Well, screw that. Try on the harem girl outfit. That’s who you really are.”

Chloe laughed. “Right—I’m a giant sized harem girl,” she said wryly, rolling her eyes. “You know, the sad thing is that only the first woman hurt. The other two just seemed inevitable and as much my fault as Aaron’s. If I would have left after the first woman, then the other two would never have happened.”

“Why did you stay?” Emma asked softly, wondering if Chloe had loved Aaron as much as she had loved Brad. She hoped the answer was no for Chloe’s sake.

Chloe thought of how falsely attentive Aaron had been when he’d been cheating, how great the sex had been when he’d felt guilty, even when the real intimacy had died. Even knowing it wasn’t enough to hold her relationship together, she had swallowed the hurt and told herself it was what adult women did to make their relationships work. It was pathetic to think about now, but at the time it had seemed a lot less trouble than starting over at her age. Now she was doing it anyway…at forty no less.

“Why did I stay after I knew there were other women? Laziness,” Chloe answered firmly. “If Aaron hadn’t moved out, I probably would still be there.”

“Oh, you’d have found the energy to leave eventually,” Taylor said, laughing when Chloe laughed. “Emma and I both know you better than that.”

“Honestly? Even though Aaron moved in with his girlfriend before the divorce was final, I didn’t really care by that point. On the plus side, my in-laws were incredibly nice through it all, and I know Aaron caught hell over leaving me for her,” Chloe remarked. “They begged me to stay on at the company. Thank God I wasn’t that desperate for work. Having a savings meant I could totally leave.”

“Of course they wanted you to stay,” Taylor said. “You were working in the family business for a fraction of what you’re worth. I intend to hire you as soon as I can afford you.”

“I love you for saying that, but no thanks, Taylor. I’m on sabbatical from being a money genius. I haven’t had a real vacation in years, so I’m not even looking for work for three months. And when I do start looking, I’d like to do something very different in my next job,” Chloe said cautiously.

“
Singing?
You’re going back to singing?” Emma asked excitedly, almost dropping her clothes. “Oh, Chloe, that would be simply awesome for you.”

Taylor paused to study Chloe as well. She wasn’t fooled by her pretended interest in vintage evening gloves. She’d seen her friend’s eyes light up at Emma’s comment.

“I did not say I wanted to sing for a living,” Chloe protested. “I haven’t sang in years—well, not really.”

“That’s a sacrilege with your talent. We’ll rectify the not-singing-thing tonight. There’s a piano lounge at the hotel with a very nice looking pianist,” Taylor teased. “I had a supplier who was staying here a couple of weeks ago. We met for drinks in the lounge. If I hadn’t been working, I might have even talked to Mr. Hunky Piano Man.”

“Ply me with enough alcohol and I’ll sing my thong song,” Chloe teased. “That gets a rise out of most men.”

“No, I want to hear you
really
sing and quiet the whole room like you did in college,” Taylor insisted, narrowing her eyes at the startled gaze Chloe sent her way. Oh yeah, she was interested.

“Give it up, Ms. Optimist. College was a long time ago and so was singing in front of an audience,” Chloe told her sadly.

“Not that long,” Taylor denied easily, “and you were more than just good. You were extraordinary. I never fully understood why you went into accounting instead of music.”

“I was young, just out of the orphanage then, and wanted security. If I hadn’t gotten the scholarship I would never have met you two. My left brain and stomach won the debate over what to major in,” Chloe said. “I’ve made some good investments with my degree and don’t regret my accounting work. It gave me security, which I badly needed in my life even if the work wasn’t very fulfilling otherwise.”

“Or fun,” Emma said, cringing at the idea of sitting behind a desk for days on end with no movement. “I’m with Taylor. Singing tonight will be like the old days. We’ll do back-up. It will be fun for all of us. We’ll all pretend we’re twenty again.”

“Twenty? Don’t make me laugh. I don’t intend to spend my sabbatical money on the amount of lubrication it’s going to take for me to get up the nerve to sing in public after all this time,” Chloe informed them on a laugh.

“Lubrication is on me then,” Taylor said, laughing. “I want to hear you sing, Chloe. If you can sing again, then I will believe anything is possible, including me finding a decent straight man in southern California.”

Chloe held up a one-piece black bathing suit that had more cutouts than material. “Well, if this bathing suit can cover all the important parts, then
I’ll
believe anything is possible.” She looked at Emma, who was smiling at her. “What are you smiling about?”

Emma shrugged. “I always believe anything is possible. And I would like to hear you sing tonight too. That bathing suit is going to make you look dangerous, Chloe. Be careful wearing it.”

“Dangerous?” Chloe repeated on a laugh, holding the suit to her body in front of a mirror. “Yeah, all my fat will squish out the holes and I’ll probably look on the verge of exploding.”

“
Fat?
” Taylor exclaimed, choking on the laugh. “You have the body of a centerfold. God, those easterners did a number on you. I remember when you used to brag about your curves, especially the ones falling out of your bra. Emma and I couldn’t even get an interested look from a guy until you were hooked up for the evening.”

Chloe looked at the clothes over her arm and snorted at the irony. Everything they had pushed on her to try on looked like clothes some way more confident woman would wear.

What happened to her over the last decade? Had she truly become a different person?

“You two crack me up. I’ve gained at least thirty pounds since college, and I wasn’t skinny then. Was I really like that?” Chloe asked.

“Yes,” Emma and Taylor both answered firmly, exchanging a look that had them both laughing. They used to complain to each other all the time about how lucky Chloe was with her curvy body.