Twisted By Love, Reincarnation Tales, Book 1 (2 page)

As he joined the exodus from the elevator, he
realized he couldn’t have timed his departure from his office more
perfectly. Wearing her walking shoes, she was halfway across the
lobby, heading for the outside.

He was a normal man, and he shouldn’t do it.
It was compulsive. He could be called a stalker. Jesus, he
was
a stalker. Except that he didn’t mean her any harm. He
almost laughed aloud at that. How many other deluded stalker types
had told themselves the same thing?

Bern knew it was wrong. He followed her out
the door anyway.

* * * * *

The sky was a bright, cloudless blue above
the high-rises. On a day like this, Livie could ignore exhaust
fumes, honking, and hoards of office workers out for lunch. She
scented fall in the air, the temperature cooler after a long, hot
summer, and she walked a route that allowed her to stay in the sun
rather than moving into the shadow of the skyscrapers.

As she waited for a stoplight, Livie lifted
her face to the sun. A breeze blew her hair across her face, and
she tugged the strands away before they caught in her lipstick. The
red light changed and after crossing the street, she checked her
image in a shop window.

With a shock, she saw him in the reflection,
the man from her building. The elevator man. He stood across the
street, facing her direction. Something skittered across her skin,
and it wasn’t altogether unpleasant. Was he following her?

She turned quickly, but he was already moving
again. He wore sunglasses just as she did, so really, he could have
been looking at anything. Another man, dressed in executive garb
like it was a uniform, stopped to shake his hand. They were
acquaintances, and behind them yawned the open doors of a
high-priced restaurant. Of course he hadn’t followed her. He’d been
on his way to a lunch engagement. She was ridiculous.

Yet she felt the oddest sense of loss. As if
she wouldn’t mind at all that her mystery man had been watching
her. There was something about him that gave her crazy
thoughts.

It was time to start back. Rather than
retrace her steps, she turned down an adjacent street that wasn’t
as crowded. Ahead, a homeless man was spreading his blanket on the
sidewalk beneath the ragged awning of a vacant shop. A small dog
milled about his feet.

As Livie reached him, he held his arm out,
blocking her way. “You got a buck to feed my dog, lady?”

“I’m sorry, no.” Livie didn’t carry her purse
during her walk.

“A pretty lady like you? Nice threads like
that?” He flicked her jacket collar, and Livie jumped back.

Most of the street people she came across
asked then went about their business if you refused. Or gave a
polite thank-you if you handed them a few coins. This man was
something else entirely. A strange glow lit his eyes as he looked
at her. As if he could see into her.

“I know your kind,” he whispered, his breath
rancid. His face was clean, but his clothes reeked. “You think
we’re lazy, we’re drunks, or we’re crazies. You think it’s our own
fault.” He stabbed a finger at her, barely missing her cheek. “But
you’ll get yours in the end. She’ll get you. She always does.”

“What are you talking about?” He didn’t make
sense.

“You know,” he snarled at her. “She’ll punish
you for what you’ve done. And she always wins.”

She should have walked away. But his gaze was
hypnotic, holding her as if he’d put his hands on her.

“Bitch,” he muttered, flecks of spittle on
his lips. “She’ll be the death of you. She always is and always
will be.”

She stared, couldn’t tear herself away.

“Hey.” A sharp voice broke the spell. “This
is what you want.” It was him again, her elevator man. He hadn’t
gone into the restaurant after all. Waving a twenty dollar bill at
the homeless man, he glanced at her, his lips forming the single
word
Go
.

The last thing Livie saw was the flash of a
bony white hand as the homeless man snatched the bill and stuffed
it into the voluminous pocket of his camouflage jacket.

Perhaps she should have stayed, yet something
about the encounter had completely unnerved her. She didn’t look
back. Crossing the street a block down, she stood a moment against
the wall of a bank building, letting the sun warm her.

Why did he hate her, a man who didn’t even
know her? He must have been crazy. It occurred to her that she
ought to be afraid. But of whom? The homeless man? Or the man who’d
rescued her?

* * * * *

Vindication. She’d needed him. The guy on the
street had a maniacal glint in his eye; the incident could have
escalated. Bern had saved her. Then he’d followed her back to their
building, made sure she got safely inside. He thought about
catching up, getting into the elevator with her, talking to
her.

His rationalization didn’t cut it; he was
still sounding like a stalker. It was the word
follow
. It
bothered him. He needed to get a grip.

He needed to introduce himself, like any
normal man would.

Chapter Two

Toni was an hour late. Livie and her sister
had a standing dinner date every Wednesday at Chez Bouchard’s in
Palo Alto, part of Toni’s we-are-family-and-must-not-grow-apart
motto. It was a leftover sentiment from family therapy days, before
Dad died and Mom had retired south to Palm Springs. Their mother
didn’t fly anymore and claimed the drive was too long, so she’d
left Toni in Livie’s capable hands. Two years older, Livie had
always been her sister’s keeper. Even as she sometimes resented it,
she knew she always would be.

The hour wait had given Livie time to think
about her elevator man. She’d alternated between telling herself
that he’d been following her and calling herself crazy for blowing
one small coincidence out of proportion. She’d had a few
other
thoughts about him, too. In vivid detail. She’d never
been one of those women to get all gooey looking at a man. She was
too sensible for that. But him...she certainly thought about sex
with him. Mostly likely, the fantasy would be better than any
reality, but her fantasies had been pretty spectacular.

God, she really did need to get
sensible
about this. She needed to think about her
sister.

Where the hell was Toni? The restaurant was
about halfway between them, though definitely in Toni’s favor since
Livie worked in San Francisco and Toni worked in San Jose. Toni was
always at least fifteen minutes late for everything. Livie, on the
other hand, was always fifteen minutes early. She’d left three
messages. All remained unanswered.

Five more minutes, that’s all she’d give
Toni.

“Can I bring you another cocktail while you
wait?” The handsome waiter smiled sympathetically. With the weekly
dinners, he’d grown used to seeing her alone for long periods
before Toni arrived.

Livie glanced at her empty glass. Another
champagne cocktail and she wouldn’t feel comfortable driving back
up the Peninsula to her condo in Belmont. “Just water, please?”

The water glass had barely stopped sloshing
when her cell rang. Toni. Finally.

“Where are you?” Livie snapped instead of
answering with her usual pleasant greeting.

“Oh my God, Livie, it’s terrible. I’ve had
the
worst
day.” Toni sniffed, then a sob bubbled out.

“Are you crying?”

“Yes, I’m crying.” The
duh
was in her
tone. “I can’t even see to drive.”

“So where are you?” The diners at the next
table glanced up at Livie’s rising voice.

“I don’t know.”

Livie took a deep breath for patience and
kept her tone low. “Tell me where you are, and I’ll come get
you.”

“I’m in the parking garage at work. I can’t
drive.”

Reaching into her purse, Livie yanked a few
bills from the side pocket and slipped them onto the table. “All
right. I’m on my way.” She waved goodbye to her waiter, then
pointed at the table to assure him she’d covered her cocktail and
given him a hefty tip, too.

“Don’t hang up.” Toni’s voice rose to a
screech as Livie headed out to her car.

“I won’t. But the phone will cut out for a
minute while the Bluetooth connects.” Without waiting for an
answer, she beeped the remote and settled into the car. Toni tended
to be on the melodramatic side, to put it mildly. At least she
wasn’t threatening to drive into a lamppost.

“Okay, I’m back.” She tossed her purse onto
the passenger seat. “Now tell me what happened.”

“He dumped me.” Toni’s pitiful voice filled
the car.

It was after seven, and the freeway was
blessedly clear when she merged onto it. “Who dumped you?” Livie
couldn’t keep up with her sister’s dating schedule.

“Reese.”

If she recalled correctly, Toni had been out
with the guy two or three times after encountering him at some
soiree she’d crashed in order to scope out fresh meat.
Rich
fresh meat. Toni preferred events put on by financial institutions.
She had to sit through an hour-long talk about the state of the
economy, but the payoff was fancy hors d’oeuvres and men in
expensive suits.

“You had a date with me,” Livie said, trying
to distract Toni. “Why did you go out with him?”

“I didn’t.” Toni let out a wail. It took
Livie a few minutes to calm her down and get the story out of her.
“He dumped me over the phone. He didn’t even have the guts to do it
face-to-face.”

“Well, that was shitty.” Livie had to admit
that in the guy’s place, she’d have used the phone method, too.
Toni was prone to scenes. “So what was his reason?” she asked.

“He’s a man. They never have reasons.”

“All right. What did he
say
was the
reason?”

“That he was entering a busy time at his
company and wouldn’t be able to give me the attention I
deserved.”

Which meant he didn’t feel like putting up
with Toni’s histrionics and his work was a convenient excuse. “Did
you sleep with him?”

“Liv-ie. What kind of question is that? And
what does it matter anyway?”

It mattered because the greater the physical
intimacy, the greater Toni’s level of attachment. “So? You’re not
answering me.” Livie had reached the freeway exit for her sister’s
workplace faster than she’d hoped.

Toni snuffled and sniffled, then blew her
nose. “No, I didn’t.”

Toni managed to get emotionally involved far
too easily. “Do you want to spend the night, sweetie?”

“Yeah. Please.”

Livie would therefore have to drive Toni to
work in the morning—from Belmont to San Jose—then head back up to
San Francisco, but she couldn’t leave her sister alone in this
state. “Okay. But we have to get up
really
early,” she
stressed. “Before the traffic becomes a nightmare. All right?” She
wanted to make sure Toni understood.

“Yeah, sure. Thanks, Livie.”

“Where are you parked?”

“Second level, right side, halfway down.”

She pulled into the garage. The Bluetooth
hissed with static. “I’m almost there.”

“I love you, Liv.” The phone went dead.

Livie wasn’t so sure about that. Toni needed
her. It wasn’t the same thing as love.

* * * * *

Bern toweled himself off. He’d fantasized
about his mystery woman in the shower. Visions of hot, steamy sex
that made him hard as stone. The cold water had done nothing to
alleviate his basest desires.

Nor had his earlier talk with Antonia, though
it should have. The woman could screech. He’d had to hold the phone
twelve inches from his ear. She had a hell of a vocabulary.

The least you could have done was talk to me
face-to-face when you dumped me, you asshole.

That was one of the more polite names she’d
called him. Whether it was a
Dear Jane
letter, phone call,
email, voice message or one-on-one dinner, the result would have
been the same, as were Antonia’s potentially ballistic theatrics.
Asshole
that he was, he’d decided driving all the way down
to San Jose would only prolong the unpalatable confrontation.

Antonia could be downright scary. On their
second date, one moment she’d been as delicious as the Cakebread
chardonnay he’d ordered, the next she’d lit into the waiter because
her steak was too rare. Bern had been uncomfortable enough with her
bad behavior to suggest she chill out. When the steak was delivered
a second time cooked to her perfection, she was all smiles again.
The scene left a bad taste in Bern’s mouth. He should have listened
to his instincts right then. During their next date, she’d cut off
a minivan on the freeway, almost sending the vehicle into a spin.
She’d claimed the woman had been tailgating her and she was only
teaching her a lesson. Bern had to wipe the sweat off his upper lip
at the first-hand brush with road rage. At that point, he’d had
enough of Antonia Scott. The woman needed some serious anger
management therapy.

They’d met a little over a month ago. He
could be honest about it now; he’d experienced a slightly negative
gut reaction when she’d first shaken his hand. But she’d been
pretty, charming, and sexy, and he’d told himself he was an idiot,
especially since they appeared to have much in common. She asked
about his work, his interests. She’d looked at his card, wanted to
know what his middle initial stood for, then said she’s use his
middle name so that she’d be different from everyone else. He’d
thought it endearing at the time. It was only later that he
realized she’d been adept at saying whatever she thought he wanted
to hear. He’d ignored the warning signs. He wasn’t twenty-three, he
was forty-three, and he should have known better. Thank God he’d
figured her out before he’d slept with her. He could only imagine
how much worse the situation would have been.