Vampires and Sexy Romance (58 page)

She herded Susan into the shower and dragged her out for Chinese food and a night on the town. Some sesame chicken and three lemon drop martinis later, she had a smile on Susan’s face, and half the bar hitting on them both.

The next day, after her hangover had faded, Susan started sending out her résumé all over town--even out of town--and had wound up with a great offer from Woods, Farrow, Blank and Stein.

So Susan felt no need, compulsion or want, to ever lay eyes on Francesca Costa again. All it meant was she had a little competition now. And if it had been Francesca herself pitching a design for the opera house, Susan would’ve given it a second thought. But Susan knew that Francesca hadn’t designed anything in almost five years.

“So what’s this one look like?” she asked Jill, pulling out her cellphone, just in case there was another message from Kevin. Susan was referring to the men Francesca was now infamous for surrounding herself with. Always tall, devastatingly handsome, and always, always more than twenty years younger than Francesca herself.

Francesca Costa was a cougar. And like her wardrobe, she got herself a new young man for every season. She’d latch onto these twenty-somethings and paw them with unabashed crudeness. The youngsters were always good architects, and working with Francesca would make them
very
good. Chicago was littered with her cast-offs, and the architectural community looked upon her firm as a sort of training ground--waiting to scoop up the next Costa refugee.

“Mmm,” Jill moaned.

Susan looked at her and saw Jill purse her lips, tilting her head so she could better ogle the guy over her reading glasses.

“If I weren’t happily married…”

“Really?” Susan chuckled. “That good?”

Jill licked her lips. “Mmm.”

Susan had never seen her like this. The guy must be hot.

“Not as young as usual, but...” Jill took a deep breath and seemed totally mesmerized as she let it out in a hiss.

“This has to be good,” Susan said, turning to take a look. She dropped her Gucci leather portfolio, gasped, and lost all ability to speak as she clung to Jill’s arm.

Francesca Costa was hanging all over her new boy-toy.

The new boy-toy was Kevin.

Her Kevin!

Kevin and Francesca were talking with Lou Dante, the owner of Waterhouse Architectural Design. Kevin was smiling, looking tall and broad and devastatingly handsome. And even six months later, Susan could mentally take away the gorgeous dark blue pinstriped suit and picture him naked. Every detail. Every freckle and scar…and his beautiful penis.

But that vision of naked Kevin blew away like tumbleweed as Francesca pressed in closer, her entire body now cleaved against Kevin’s side, her breasts squished against his arm, and she leaned up and whispered something in his ear, her white teeth dazzling against her blood red lipstick.

And those lips! Totally synthetic! Lips weren’t like that naturally. She’d had them, like everything else on her body, surgically enhanced.

Kevin smiled and looked at her, and the look on his face was downright rapturous.

Susan felt something in her drop with a thud, leaving her confused and dizzy. She gave Jill a pleading look. “This just can’t be happening.”

Jill looked even more alarmed than she had in the boardroom. “What can’t be happening?”

Susan searched for the words, and tried like hell to take a breath. “That’s Kevin!”

Jill shook her head, not understanding, and then the realization dawned across her face. “Kevin from the text message?”

Susan nodded.

Jill made the last connection. “Kevin, your-best-friend-from-college Kevin?”

Susan nodded again. “That’s him.”

“Oh my God!” Jill reached out and grasped Susan by the shoulders, and looked over at him again. “He’s hot as hell.” She gave Susan a strange look. “You made him sound like just another architect geek.”

Susan rolled her eyes. “He used to be.”

“Used to be,” Jill said. “And now he’s gorgeous, and Francesca Costa is rubbing herself all over him, marking her territory.” She shot Susan with a scathing glance. “So why haven’t you gone after him?”

“What?” Susan was ready to scream. He was her best friend. What had happened in Cancun was wrong. And no matter how many times she tried to rationalize it, no matter how many times her dreams had been filled with the instant replays of them making love--
argh, that word!
--she couldn’t escape the fact that they were still just friends.

Yet he hadn’t so much as texted her in six months. What kind of friend was that?

But then, what kind of friend would force her best friend to do her, just so she could get over her ex?

That’s when Kevin turned around, Francesca Costa still surgically attached to his arm by her boobs. He looked genuinely surprised when he saw Susan. A wide, happy grin spread across his face as he rushed forward to Susan. She thought he was about to hug her, like he always did when they hadn’t seen each other in a while. But just as he was going to scoop her up in his arms, he stopped. He faltered, halting, his smile dimming dramatically--and he didn’t look like Kevin anymore.

He looked...

He looked like she did when she was missing him.

He started talking in a formal, business-y way. “Susan, this is Francesca Costa. Francesca, this is Susan Rhodes.”

“We’ve met,” both women said in unison. Susan glared at her, wanting to chop her hands off from where they were clutching Kevin’s arm, with a machete. Francesca had the look on her face she always had when she saw Susan. No matter how many parties they met at, even parties for buildings Susan designed herself, she always gave Susan this look:
still no imagination
.

Kevin smiled and gave a nervous laugh. “Oh, right. Francesca was your hero in college.”

Susan glared murderously at Kevin. Francesca looked taken aback.

“You’re kidding?” Francesca’s smile wavered, but came back with an arrogance more befitting her. “So you’re the president of my fan club. Good to finally meet you after all these years.”

Susan saw red, and her fist clenched, her arm jerking back, ready to lay the bitch out.

But Jill caught hold of her and changed the subject with astonishing speed. “So what are you doing in this neck of the woods?”

Francesca gave Jill an interested look, and Susan mentally started planning Francesca Costa’s death. Painful. Slow. Bloody.

“I’m here for the opera house. Kevin is my lead, go-to man.” Francesca’s smile was both gloating and filled with pride.

Sure, she was still hot. But with enough cosmetic surgery anyone can be. So she should stop looking so goddamn proud of herself for catching some handsome stud.
He’s more than just a great body and pretty face, he’s Kevin...

“Susan just made her presentation,” Jill said, keeping the civilized conversation going, yet not letting go of Susan’s still straining arm. “The council members loved it.”

Jill was getting a big raise, even if Susan had to pay it out of her own pocket. Not only had she saved her in that boardroom, but now she was keeping her from making a spectacle of herself, and possibly getting arrested for assault, and was loyally letting Francesca Costa have it.

She’s a doll!

“Suze always swings for the stands,” Kevin said, his expression melting momentarily from cordial to downright affectionate. The effect left Susan breathless.

“They haven’t seen Kevin’s designs yet,” Francesca said, puffing up her chest and pushing her boobs all the harder against Kevin’s arm. “They’ll be eating out of his hand.”

“I don’t know,” Jill said, her smile beatific and a little malicious. “They spent ten minutes just slapping Susan on the back. Looked like a sure thing to me.”

Francesca leaned back from Kevin to give Jill her undivided attention, her eyes flashing with delight. “So Maestro Rossi was enamored with Susan’s proposal?”

That would be a no.

“You bet. I had to make him let go of her by force. Didn’t seem to want to let her go.”

Francesca’s left eyebrow lifted with practiced scrutiny. “Sure he didn’t.”

The next couple of beats were deathly silent, and then the council’s secretary came through the big oak doors and beckoned to Kevin and Francesca to come in.

“Well, that’s us, so you ladies have a lovely day,” Francesca purred as she walked gracefully past them and toward the boardroom.

Susan and Jill shared a look, both thinking the same thing: bitch!

Kevin grabbed Susan by the arm, looking like he was about to blurt out something. But he didn’t. He slowly let go and straightened up to stand at his full height. “So, we still on for dinner tonight?”

Susan gulped. In all her shock and dismay, she had forgotten about dinner. “Of course. What? Eight o’clock.”

“Eight it is,” he said, his eyes focusing on her a few beats too long. “I’ll pick you up.”

Susan almost stuttered, took a deep breath and said, “Okay.”

Kevin turned, a big smile spreading across his face as he strode toward Francesca and the boardroom.

Susan stood in stunned silence as the boardroom door swung closed, and Kevin disappeared from view.

“So what the hell was that all about?” Jill said, standing defensively on Susan’s flank.

“Beats the hell out of me.”

A FEW MINUTES LATER, Jill had Susan in a cab and they were headed back to the office. Susan had been sitting quietly, desperately clutching at the now scuffed and fingernail marked Gucci portfolio case, lost in her own, rather vacant thoughts.

“You’ll be fine once I get you back to the office,” Jill said, a worried expression on her pretty face.

She couldn’t go back to the office. Susan pulled the battered portfolio case to her chest, like a little girl clutching her pillow. She needed any excuse
not
to go back to the office. She was certain she wouldn’t be able to make civilized conversation with anyone there, not to mention explain how thing went with her proposal.

At least the proposal had gone well. Hell, it had gone great. The only holdout being the brooding, goat-like Maestro. Suddenly Francesca Costa’s words hit her.
So Maestro Rossi was enamored with Susan’s proposal?

What did that mean? Who cared if the conductor liked her proposal? He certainly couldn’t have final say. That would be ludicrous.

But the way Francesca had said it...

Suddenly Susan remembered her lunch plans with Jill. “Aren’t we headed for Bloomy’s?”

Jill smiled wanly. “I didn’t think you’d be up for that. I mean, with all the surprises this morning...”

“Hey, I promised you shoes and an extravagant lunch. I’m not one of those forgets-their-promises bosses.”

Jill’s smile brightened and she elbowed the Plexiglass partition with a hard rap. “Thirty East Oak Street. The Prada store.”

She even knew the address for the damn store. Susan couldn’t believe it. Jill did know everything.

~*~

Susan floated numbly through the Prada store. Even all those stunning leather shoes surrounding her couldn’t keep her attention. All her mental energies were trying to piece together her drastically changed reality.

Jill passed right by the sling-backs that Susan had on, and fell in love with an exquisite pair of mules that not only made her legs look elegantly long and sexy, but were two hundred dollars less.

At Bloomy’s Jill tried to get away with ordering just a salad, but Susan caught her mid-order and changed it. “We’ll be having the filet mignon with shrimp and those marvelous garlic whipped potatoes. Portabella mushrooms stuffed with lobster, and the French onion soup to start out with.”

Jill’s jaw dropped as she looked down at the menu, obviously mentally tallying up the bill.

“And we’re going to want the chocolate soufflé for dessert.”

“Very good, madam.” The waiter scribbled down the order.

Susan waited until he was done before adding, “And two Cosmos. Straight up.”

The waiter disappeared and Jill gave Susan a strange, tense look.

“I don’t know about you,” Susan said. “But I need a drink after all that.”

~*~

An hour and twenty-five minutes later, both women had a nice buzz going as they poured themselves into a taxi. Jill was holding her belly, happily stuffed to the gills. Susan had eaten a few bites of her meal, but mostly she was still lost, thinking about Kevin, and wondering why on earth he was working for a barracuda like Francesca Costa.

She wasn’t a barracuda. She was a cougar. And Kevin was young, fresh meat.

Susan cringed at that thought. It had to be a mistake. There was no way Kevin could be...

Boffing the silicon queen?

Susan groaned.

“You don’t look so hot.” Jill leaned up and gave Susan a closer look. “Maybe you should take the rest of the day off and rest.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Why not?” Jill pulled out her BlackBerry, checking Susan’s schedule. “You only have two meetings this afternoon. They’re not even clients, just a couple of bean counters from legal. I can have them canceled before you get through your front door.” Jill leaned back against the ancient leather seat of the taxi, turning her face to Susan, her smile devilish. “And you could use a nap before you get ready for your date.”

“What date?”

“With Kevin. Remember? Dinner at eight.”

“Oh, yeah...Kevin.” Susan had a sudden, hot, sticky flash of Kevin picking her up onto the kitchen counter of that Cancun hotel room. She remembered how his skin had been moist with perspiration, and his hands had felt so good as he...

Susan gulped. Jill was right. With the way her mind kept flipping onto the Kevin Spice Channel, going back to the office was a bad idea. Maybe all she really needed was a nap.

Then Susan caught what Jill had said. “It’s not a date.”

Jill snorted. “Sure it’s not. I thought you two were going to set off the smoke alarms from just the way you were staring at each other.”

“We’re just friends, that’s all.”

“Okay. But a nap will still do you good, and I’ll give you a wake-up call around six. That’ll give you four hours to rest, and another two hours to get ready.”

“Sure?” Susan asked, leaning back against the rather comfy seat of the taxi cab. “I do own an alarm clock.”

“Yeah, but you’ll either forget to set it, set it and then forget to turn it on, or you’ll set it, make it to your date on time, but forget to reset it for the morning. This way will leave much less of your schedule up to chance.”

As usual, Jill made perfect sense.

The cab dropped Susan off at her apartment first, and then whisked Jill back to the office. Susan didn’t stumble trekking up the steep stone stairs of her apartment building, but her path was nowhere near straight. She didn’t fumble with the key to the front door, but getting herself through the door seemed to be a perilous act. Not only did she snag her brand new Prada sling-backs on the damn door, but she accidentally closed the door on her skirt, causing a small, though loud, rip.

Now she had a damaged Gucci portfolio case, gnarled Prada shoes, and--she gave her suit a quick look to see which one she was wearing--a ruined Donna Karan suit.

She would be able to get the suit mended by her tailor easy enough, and if she had the gumption she could find a cobbler to mend the snagged shoe, but her prized portfolio case was beyond repair. Maybe she’d file her taxes in it for the next twenty years?

She shook her head in disgust as she headed up the stairs to her second floor apartment. Once she was through the door, she trudged blurry eyed back to her bedroom, stripping off her ruined suit as she went and wobbling as she took off her shoes.

She fell face-first onto her unmade bed, the sheets cool and soft, wrapping her loosely in their soporific embrace. Her body went limp, her eyes sag shut, and with a sigh she slipped off to sleep.

For exactly five minutes.

Five minutes later the thought of Francesca Costa diddling, boffing, or fucking Kevin snapped her eyes wide open and she rolled over on her back and stared at the ceiling.

As if the answer is etched in the stucco
.
This wasn’t the goddamn
Da Vinci Code
, it was her life...her love life.

Again, with that word!

Susan covered her ears, as if that would keep out an inner voice. She rolled to her side and clamped her eyes shut hard, making green clouds of light float through the blackness behind her eyelids.

Then another thought occurred to her: Kevin wanted to see her. Actually, he seemed verging on desperate to see her, and tonight. Of course, she was desperate to see him too, so maybe she was just projecting her desperation onto him?

But he wanted to see her.

Susan rolled onto her back again, luxuriating in the sudden warmth that thought filled her with.

He wanted to see her.

She stretched, the cool cotton sheets caressing her as she sank effortlessly into thoughts of Kevin naked on top of her, in this very bed. She breathed in deeply, and the warmth from before intensified to a prickly heat. She trembled as that heat moved through her body, inflaming her neck, then moving to her breasts, and slowly settling lower--much, lower.

When the realization that Kevin wanted her hit her, Susan’s eyes snapped open.

And though it was obvious she wanted him back, she was still filled to exploding with nervous terror.

What if he wanted more than she was able to give right now?

What if they did it again and this time he didn’t call her for a year?

What if he was just looking for one more time, a closing roll in the hay?

And what if she ended up wanting more?

And what if--

“What if you shut the fuck up!” she screeched. “Get a hold of yourself!”

She was acting like some spoiled pre-pubescent princess whining about the pea under her fucking mattress. It was degrading. She was supposed to be a smart, worldly, take-charge woman. Those kind of women don’t whine, they bitch.

They scheme and plan. They knock out their competition and take what they want. They don’t just lay around in the middle of the goddamn afternoon and swoon over some boy until they roll themselves right off their bed...

And just like that Susan felt herself falling off the edge of her bed. She was rolled up like an enchilada in her blanket and hit--
thump!
--unceremoniously onto the floor.

Stunned, she blinked up at her stucco ceiling again.

So, what would a smart, worldly bitch do in this situation?

She’d ask herself what she wants.

Kevin
...

Did she want him for a night, a week, a month?

I don’t know
.

So she wanted Kevin in her bed for an indeterminate amount of time?

Susan cringed at the thought.

Y
es
! I want him in my goddamn, motherfucking bed!

The first thing she needed to do was get up off the floor and start getting ready. She looked like broiled shit, and she had a lot of work to do.

Susan fought her way out of her cotton cocoon and used the bed to pull herself to her feet. She didn’t feel drunk anymore, but she did feel a surge of energy start to wash through her as she looked at the clock.

It was four o’clock already. She had gotten some sleep. Now she needed to go into serious grooming mode. She wanted to look good. No, she wanted to look goddamn irresistible. Way better than Francesca Costa!

~*~

An hour and a half later Susan had scrubbed the remains of her roller coaster day from her body and out of her hair. She’d touched up her manicure, defused and scrunched her curly locks, did her makeup extra sexy, and had on a pair of nearly nonexistent black lace panties, and an equally not-there Wonder-Bra.

It was the first time since Cancun that she’d dug through her naughty-wear, and she had to admit that she looked pretty good in them. Now she just had to find a dress that wouldn’t completely cover up all that lacey-underwear sexiness.

She scanned her closet, flipping through out-of-date power suits, rummaging back past her winter wardrobe, and then literally running right into the exact garment bag she needed.

It was a dress of Liz’s that she’d borrowed almost a year ago and had not only never worn, but had completely forgotten about. If memory served her right, it was black and sheer, and so silky that she’d had an orgasm just putting the damn thing on.

After easing the dress over her head, she examined the fit in her full-length mirror. How it hung on her--more like how it adhered to her every curve, leaving her arms naked, and most of her back, showing just enough cleavage to tease, but not so much she’d get picked up for solicitation. The flowing silk skirt came up above the knee to show off her legs.

And black was slimming, even when it was tight.

Just wearing the damn thing made her feel pre-orgasmic. The way the silk slid over her flesh as she turned to check herself out in her full length mirror.

Susan sat down at her bureau to check her makeup one more time. Glancing at the clock, she discovered that it wasn’t even six yet. She had over two hours to kill. Kevin had texted where they were going for dinner, and it really wasn’t far.

Suddenly she was seized with nerves again.

Was she making a complete fool of herself?

Would he be bringing a date to dinner...Francesca Costa for instance?

“Oh God. I need to talk to someone.” But it couldn’t be Liz--that was a story too long for the telling. And Kevin was the problem. So that left...

Dr. Garvin?

Just then Susan’s cellphone rang--it was Jill making her wake-up call. She never let her down.

“Hey, I need a quick favor from my computer genius assistant,” Susan answered the phone.

“What’cha need, boss lady?”

Susan took one big breath, held it for maybe ten seconds, then just started talking, spilling her guts about the whole devastating, hot flash inducing mess. It didn’t take nearly as long as she’d thought it would, even when she started crying, and when she started cursing Francesca Costa’s name…and her surgically enhanced chest.