His eyes softened from the hard brown stone they had become to the warm melted chocolate she knew so well. “Just say you’ll think about it,” he said. “I wouldn’t ask if I thought I’d be breaking up your perfect, happy relationship—hell, that’s one reason I stopped myself from telling you how I felt for so long. But judging from some of the things you’ve been telling me lately, I don’t think you’ve been happy for quite a while. Because I don’t think your fiancé, Christian, puts your happiness first.” He took one of her hands in both of his and planted a warm, gentle kiss on her palm. “And, Phil, I would. If we were together, your happiness would always come first with me. You know that.”
Phil felt her heart starting to race again at his gentle touch. Yes, it was true—for as long as they’d been friends, Josh had always been thoughtful and kind and gone out of his way to make sure she was happy and comfortable. For a moment she let herself imagine what it might be like, living with a man that always put her first. A man that cared more about her than himself or his career. A man—
“…think the pink one is totally you. And it matches that little flip skirt you bought at Shopahaulic,” a high, female voice was saying outside the dressing room.
“You don’t think it’s gonna make me look flat? Because there’s like no support. And I—” a second female voice replied.
“No, no, don’t worry about that. You’re going to be in the pool for most of the party. You don’t need support. They float—remember?” Both voices broke into high pitched, girlish giggles as they passed by the dressing stall where Phil was currently holding her breath.
I have to get out of here! But if she and Josh left at the same time, the girls who had just entered the dressing room would know what they had been doing. Phil had always hated calling attention to herself and this was the worst scenario she could imagine. Well, maybe leaving the bathroom of an airplane at the same time would have been more obvious, but just barely. If she walked out of here with Josh in tow she might as well be wearing a big neon sign on her forehead that read I just got some in a public dressing room!
She pulled Josh down and whispered in his ear. “I’ll leave first. You wait five minutes before you go.”
“Wait.” He took both her hands and spoke carefully, in a low voice. “You’ll think about what I said? Because my plane leaves tomorrow evening at six. I’m sorry to do this to you, Phil, but—”
“I’ll think about it,” Phil promised him, feeling desperate but trying to cover it. “But I…I need time, Josh. Please!”
“All right.” He released her hands and folded his arms over his bare chest. “I guess I’ll see you at the beach party tomorrow?”
“Yes. Yes, we can talk about it then.” Phil nodded and slipped out of the stall, straightening her skirt and trying not to look like a woman who had just had the best and most confusing sexual experience of her life.
As she was attempting to exit the store inconspicuously, the iPod girl at the front counter finally looked up. “Find anything that was, uh, good for you?” she asked.
Phil felt her face heat in a blush. “Look, I didn’t mean to,” she babbled, clutching her purse. “I mean, it’s not like me to do a thing like that. He’s my best friend and I guess I’ve been attracted to him for a long time, only I couldn’t let myself admit it because I’m engaged. But seeing him in those swim trunks—I mean, did you look at him? He looks incredible. So then when I tried on that last bikini I guess I just lost it. And I know you’re not supposed to do that kind of thing in a public place like a dressing room but he was making me so hot the way he…” She shook her head. “Not that it’s his fault. If anything it’s my fault. And I’m sorry if we made a lot of noise. I guess I was screaming pretty loud there but you have to know I didn’t mean to—I just couldn’t help it! I mean, I should have stopped him instead of encouraging him. But you’re a woman too—you can understand, right?”
She ran out of breath at last and realized that the girl was looking at her like she was crazy.
“Uh, lady,” she said, eyes wide. “I was just, uh, making a reference to the fact that you and your friend were digging in the box of new merchandise which you are not supposed to do.”
“Oh,” Phil said in a small voice, feeling utterly mortified.
“Yeah.” The girl frowned, making the piercings in her eyebrows bunch up. “I had no idea you and stud-boy were getting kinky in the dressing room. Until you told me. TMI, okay?”
“Oh, no.” Phil felt like she might start crying again. “You’re not…you wouldn’t call the police, would you?”
The girl made a face. “Yeah, right. And have to fill out a freaking incident report form? As long as you’re not shoplifting, I really don’t give a shit.” She looked thoughtful and Phil could feel her reversed wish beginning to work. “Actually, I don’t care too much about shoplifting either,” the girl admitted. “My shift is over at five and I’m out of here. So you could be wearing half the size twelve rack under your skirt and I couldn’t care less. It’s no skin off my ass.”
“I’m not a size twelve,” Phil said indignantly, forgetting to be embarrassed for a second.
“Oh, no? With those hips?” Miss iPod eyed her critically. “Listen, chica, I hope you at least stole stuff that will fit you.”
“I didn’t steal anything!” Phil nearly yelled.
“Like I care.” The girl arched her pierced eyebrow in a look of ultimate boredom. “But do yourself a favor—next time you’re in the mood for dressing room sex, go check out Flirtz. They have padding on their seats in there. It’s much more comfortable.”
Phil opened her mouth but nothing came out. Hunching her shoulders, she ran for the exit, feeling that she had to get out of the store soon or suffocate from humiliation.
She made it to her car and was halfway home again before she burst into tears. What the hell was she going to do?
Chapter Twenty-Six
She tried to convince herself she could play it cool, but by the time she got home Phil was resigned. There was no way she could hide it from Christian. She sat on the couch, twisting her hands together, her stomach tied in knots. She knew women—plenty of women—who would have written what she had done with Josh off as a one-time fling and kept it to themselves. But Phil was learning a lot about herself—including the inconvenient little fact that she had never really learned to lie. Being a doormat meant she had always gone along with whatever other people said, and there had been no need.
There was also the fact that she just plain felt it was wrong to cheat on her fiancé. She had felt guilty just wondering what Davis Miles looked like with his clothes off. And now she’d gotten to second base (or was it third? Sporting analogies always confused her.) with her best friend in a public dressing room. It was so tacky, so slutty, so…so damn hot! Phil felt her breath coming in little pants every time she let herself remember what it had been like—Josh down on his knees in front of her, spreading her open, kissing her, licking her, telling her he wanted her to come all over his face…
Okay, enough of that! Phil gave herself a mental rap on the knuckles. Just because Josh stirred her in ways that Christian hadn’t in years was no reason to throw away five long years of mutual history and trust. A trust that she had now broken. But who knew, she thought, her mind going down the same path again, that her funny, kind, sweet best friend had such a hot animal side to him? Who knew he wanted to push her up against the wall and feast on her, to suck and lick and tongue her until she screamed her submission? Wait, there she went again. It was time to get serious here and think about what she was going to tell her fiancé.
It was past eight when she finally heard his key in the lock and Phil sat up straighter, dreading what was ahead. She had rehearsed very carefully what she was going to say but when the door swung open and she saw her fiancé standing there with the hand-tooled leather briefcase she had bought him for his last birthday, all the words left her.
“Christian?” she asked through nu
mb lips and he turned to face her, a distracted look on his face.
“Hey, babe,” he said absently, turning to shut the door behind him. “What’re you doing sittin’ in the dark all by yourself?”
“Oh, is it dark?” Phil had been so distracted that she hadn’t noticed twilight falling outside.
“Sure is.” Christian reached over to snap on the lamp, bathing the living room in a soft glow.
“I…I was waiting for you.” Phil had taken a shower and changed into sweatpants and a T-shirt—comfort clothes—but now she wished she was back in her severely conservative office wear. She thought it might have been easier to talk to her fiancé about what had happened in a businesslike manner if she was dressed in business clothes.
Christian sighed. “Philly-babe, I know I promised you we’d talk but I had a long day in court and I’m beat.”
Phil was tempted to send him straight to bed and table the whole discussion. But she wasn’t a coward. “I’m sorry you’re tired but I do need to talk to you,” she said, twisting her fingers. Her mouth was suddenly so dry she could barely get the words out. “About…about infidelity.”
“Oh, hell!” Christian exploded. “I knew it! I knew you’d find out. Did you have me followed?”
“Wh…what?” Phil quavered. “Are…are you saying… What are you saying, Christian?”
He threw his briefcase across the room and started pacing in front of the couch. “You want a full confession? Fine, I’ll give you one. Her name is Jacqueline and we’ve been seeing each other for almost a year—for as long as I’ve been at my job with the firm, in fact. She’s one of the finest litigators we have—smart, funny, sexy as hell. I…” He stopped and shook his head like a dog trying to get rid of a flea. “I don’t even know why I’m telling you this.”
Phil knew—it was her reverse wish still at work. Christian was just speaking his mind. And what was on his mind was another woman—one he’d apparently been seeing for almost a year.
“I…I…” Phil didn’t know what to say. Her mind was a blank, but that didn’t stop her mouth from asking questions. “Do you love her?” she managed to get out. “You want to leave me for her, is that it? Is that why you’ve been putting off the talk about getting married and putting me through law school?”
“Not exactly.” Christian sat on the couch beside her and sighed. “She’s got a husband and kids so we agreed it would be too messy for her to get a divorce. Besides, that doesn’t go over well at the firm—they like to present the image of happy families and couples to the clients, not a bunch of bitter divorcees. That’s why I was upset when you didn’t come with me to the party. Didn’t look good. Image is everything.”
“Apparently not everything,” Phil muttered. “So if you’d rather be with her but you can’t, you’d just as soon stay with me—is that it? Is that why you haven’t already called it quits?”
He sighed. “Come on, babe, I’m not a complete jerk. I’m still willing going to go ahead with the marriage and put you through law school like I promised if you insist on it, even though I still think it’s a waste of your time and my money. I owe you that much.”
“You owe me a lot more than that.” Phil felt like someone had dipped her heart in liquid nitrogen and the slightest tap might shatter it into a thousand pieces. “Were you ever going to stop seeing her?”
“I already have.” Christian looked sober. “I mean, it was her idea, not mine. She’s doing some kind of therapy with her husband and she wants to go back on the straight and narrow. She told me last night at that damn party. Christ.” He furrowed his brow. “I can’t believe I’m telling you all this.”
Phil couldn’t believe it either. Despite his waning interest in their sex life and their relationship in general over the past year, she had never once imagined that Christian might be cheating on her. Suddenly what she’d done with Josh in the RipTide dressing room didn’t seem quite so bad. It wasn’t good but it wasn’t as horrible as, say, conducting an illicit affair with a married woman for an entire year.
“This is why you don’t want me any more,” she said in a low, trembling voice. “This is why you haven’t wanted sex other than a quickie or two in months, isn’t it?”
“Look, babe.” Christian was up again, pacing. “I know this comes as a shock and I’m really damn sorry you had to find out like this. But like I said, it’s all over and it’s not like I’m in love with Jackie or anything. It was just a fling—hell every man has a fling now and then.”
“A year is a hell of a long fling,” Phil pointed out. “But…so, you don’t love her?” Mentally she was flipping through images of women who worked with Christian that she had met at one or the other of his interminably long and boring parties or dinners. If she remembered correctly, Jacqueline was a tall, stick-thin woman in her late thirties with nut brown hair and exotic amber eyes.
“I thought I did for a long time but…no. No, I’m sure I don’t. She was just a passing thing. Hell, I’m so sorry, Phil.” Christian stopped pacing and stood in front of her with his hands shoved deep in his pockets. He used to remind her of a remorseful little boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar when he stood like that. This time the image wasn’t quite so endearing.
“So…so how do you feel about me?” Phil asked, wishing her voice wouldn’t shake so much.
“How do I…?” Christian shrugged, a small frown on his handsomely shaped mouth. “Hell, I don’t know. You’re just Phil—my Phil. My rock. You’re always there for me no matter what. We stick together through thick and thin, right? This is just a little bump in the road, babe. We’ll get through it together.”
“A little bump in the road? And I’m just Phil?” She stared at him in disbelief. “I notice that you didn’t say you love me, Christian.”
“Ah, hell. I’d be lying if I said I was madly in love with you, babe. I mean we’re past that stage, you know? But I care enough to say I’m sorry and to do right by you. That’s why I think we need to put this behind us and get on with our lives. After all, neither one of us can afford this place on our own yet. And I’m going to need a steady, dependable wife to stick by me when my career really takes off. I guess what it comes down to is, I trust you, Phil.”
Phil felt a throbbing in her temples. Was that all she was to him? Steady and dependable? Suddenly she wanted to hurt him—to hurt him as badly as he had hurt her.
“Well maybe you shouldn’t be quite so trusting. What if I told you that I…I had an affair too?” She looked up at him defiantly and felt a quick stab of triumph at the look of disbelief on his handsome face.
“What? Who with? How long has this been going on?” Christian was in full lawyer mode, shooting questions at her like bullets. Phil did her best to remain composed.
“With Josh, my best friend at BB&D. And it only happened today. I’m not proud of it. I…I wanted to tell you about it and ask you forgiveness. But now…it looks like I’ve got a lot more to forgive than you have.”
“Josh? You mean that tall computer geek we met that time in the mall?” Christian surprised her by laughing. “Oh, hell, for a minute I was worried.”
“Well maybe you should be worried.” Phil glared at him. “Unlike you, Josh is actually in love with me. He thinks I’m exciting, not just ‘dependable’.”
“Yeah, I’m sure he said that.” Christian waved a hand at her dismissively. “But, frankly, Phil, I’m relieved. I mean, it was bound to happen sometime. That guy’s been sniffin’ around your panties for the last three or four years. And the way we’ve been fighting lately…no, can’t say I’m surprised. But you say it only happened the one time?”
“Well…yes…”
“And you used protection?” Christian frowned, looking more like a stern father than an angry, jealous lover.
“We…we didn’t actually…” Phil trailed off.
“You didn’t even have sex?” Christian raised an eyebrow at her.
Phil couldn’t believe he wasn’t more upset. She felt
sick—sick at Christian’s admission of guilt and sicker at the idea that he only thought of her as dependable. That he was no longer in love with her and only wanted to stay with her for convenience. So they could make the freaking rent and look like a happy couple to his appearance-conscious firm.
“I…it was…he…not actual intercourse,” she stuttered, feeling like an idiot. “But…but there was definite intimate physical contact,” she added, trying not to think about Josh’s hot mouth on her and the way she’d buried her fingers in his hair and begged for more.
Her fiancé tilted his head philosophically. “Well, then let’s call it even. These things happen—bumps in the road, like I said. And look, if you want, I’ll even agree to some counseling sessions like Jackie and her husband are doing. Though God knows when I’ll fit them in.” He ran a hand through his hair and let out a harassed sigh. It was like he had done something minor—forgotten it was his turn to take out the trash—and now he was prepared to take it out for a whole month to make up for it. When did he turn into such a bastard? Or was I just too blind to see it before?
“I have to know one more thing,” Phil said tightly. “All that stuff you said about not wanting to put me through law school because I don’t have what it takes—was that true? Is that what you really feel about me?”
Christian opened his mouth and it looked like he wanted to say something but Phil’s wish was in effect and he couldn’t lie. “I think you’d do very well in law school and you’d probably even make a pretty good attorney,” he said, and then looked shocked at what was coming out of his mouth.
“Uh-huh.” Phil nodded. “So why did you feed me that line about trying to spare my feelings and save me pain?”
“I just wanted a wife who was there for me. Someone supportive to come home to after a hard day at the office and…” Christian shook his head, trying vainly to keep his jaw from working and the words from pouring out. “I didn’t want to spend the money. I know I promised you I’d put you through school after you put me through but in the back of my mind I always figured I could get you to forget about that and settle down. That way I knew I’d get through school without having to take loans and you’d be dependent on me so I could pretty much do what I wanted.”