A Grand Seduction Read online

  “I have to. I’ve gotta get those photos for Fran, or all this was for nothing. I’m going to invite him over again tomorrow.”

  “No! Don’t do that.”

  “Why not? If I don’t get those pictures, this shit was all for nothing.”

  Twyla’s heart pounded with sick dread. She wanted to tell Ridelle the real reason, but she just couldn’t. Not now. The girl had been through enough for one night.

  “Twyla? You still there?”

  “Just wait a couple of days, okay? You need a chance to heal. Talk to him if you want, of course, so he doesn’t suspect anything’s wrong. I just don’t want him causing you any more pain.” Which was true enough.

  “I suppose. It’s not like I’m in a rush to get pounded again. I’m just in a hurry to have this over with.”

  “I am too. Call me again if you need to talk, okay?” A thought dawned. “Oh, and Ridelle?”

  “What?”

  “Talk to me first before you invite him over again. I can try to give you some pointers so it won’t hurt as much next time.”

  “I will. Thanks for hearing me out on this. I didn’t think Dom would quite get it, and I sure as hell wasn’t about to call Fran.”

  The bedside clock read eleven-fifteen when they clicked off the call. Twyla stared at the handset, replaying the conversation in her mind. Before Ridelle changed her mind and got herself into bed with him again, the group needed to talk.

  Twyla smacked the touch lamp on and dialed Dominique’s number. She’d know what to do.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Rain wept war tears over Quakertown when a knock came at Ridelle’s door two days later. Her three friends huddled under trench coats and a pair of black umbrellas, the latter shaken out with vigor and left standing against the wall of her front stoop before the women entered.

  The dark attire, somber expressions, and ominous weather seemed more suited to a wake than an impromptu meeting, though they hadn’t exactly gathered to discuss casserole recipes and needlepoint.

  After depositing wet rain gear on a coat rack in the small tile entryway, the group followed the scent of freshly brewed coffee to the kitchen. Snapping up mugs that were already laid out, Twyla and Dominique helped themselves while Ridelle took a seat at what might be considered the head of the table, were it not perfectly square. Fran came around and sat directly across, setting a black leather saddlebag purse on the floor beside her. Was she avoiding eye contact? Ridelle couldn’t tell.

  “None for you two?” Twyla tapped her mug, voice brighter than her gaze.

  Ridelle shook her head. “I’m jittery enough, thanks.”

  Fran, half-distracted by drops of rain water that had found the front of her ash knit tunic, responded in kind. “I’ll never sleep tonight if I do.”

  Twyla shrugged, sipping experimentally at the brew as she took the seat backed against the living room. Her mug was white and proclaimed her a lover of New York. Dominique, in a wine pantsuit, was close behind.

  Far from the usual buzz of idle chatter and gossip, the foursome sipped and stared in relative silence for an almost teeth-gritting span of time before Dominique finally set down her mug.

  She fastened Ridelle with a gaze. “I guess what we’re all wondering first is whether you’ve talked to him since the other night.”

  “He called yesterday.” Ridelle’s attempt to keep herself from tossing a glance at Fran as she replied failed. The woman’s hair was fast becoming a post-rainfall frizz, but the eyes that met hers in return were unruffled and determined.

  Dominique pressed on. “And?”

  Ridelle tugged on the hem of her royal blue velour jogger. “And, he wanted to see me again.”

  Twyla held her mug in both hands, peering over the brim as she blew gently into the steaming cup. “Did you?”

  Why did Ridelle have the sudden feeling that she was on trial? She shook her head. “You said to wait until I talked to you before I did. So I told him to come by tonight.” She tried, but didn’t quite succeed in keeping a sarcastic edge from her voice as she added, “That good enough?”

  Fran leaned forward, breasts clad in the ash scoop neck spilling onto the table top. “That was fine, honey.”

  Ridelle shot her a questioning gaze, but it was Dominique who stepped in. “Tomorrow would have been better, but this works out okay. He’ll think everything between you two is still on the up and up when Frannie confronts him tonight.”

  “Tonight?” Ridelle reached up to tighten her slipping ponytail.

  Fran nodded, arms crossed on the table in front of her. “The big showdown is just hours away. The night I earn my freedom.” The smile that followed overlapped scheming with genuine relief.

  Ridelle frowned at each woman in turn. “I don’t understand. What are you planning to confront him with? You have to wait until I get the photos so you’ll have proof.”

  Twyla developed a sudden, intense interest in her coffee cup. Fran glanced at Dominique with raised brows.

  Dominique sipped twice at her mug before replying. “Fran’s already got the proof she needs.”

  “How? Do I just have to testify or something?”

  Twyla sat back in her seat, playing with a gold filigree locket Ridelle knew contained photos of Andy and the kids. She rubbed the surface in a way similar to how Bruce had thumbed Ridelle’s diamond necklace.

  Fran broke the moment’s silence with a sigh. “I’ve got photos of you sleeping with Bruce.”

  Blood pounded in Ridelle’s ears, loud enough to where she thought perhaps she hadn’t understood Frannie’s words.

  “It was Dom’s idea,” Twyla said. “In case something went wrong.”

  Breath cut off from Ridelle’s lungs. “You guys were spying on me?”

  “It wasn’t like that,” Dominique said. “None of us were actually here. You wanted privacy, and we respected that.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  The woman reached a manicured hand to smooth a complicated French braid that didn’t require it. Not so much as one rain-frizzed hair dared visit this woman’s head. “It was felt that, should something go wrong with your equipment or ability to operate it, a backup plan should be in place.”

  Ridelle folded her arms firmly under her bosom. “You mean, if for some reason I became unwilling to cooperate?”

  Plum colored nails clicked the table top in some sort of unidentifiable Morse code. “Don’t be defensive. Look, this whole plan depended on getting viable proof. Shouldn’t we have made sure we had a redundancy system on hand, just in case? It’s not like you could have yelled ‘Cut!’ and asked for another take if the camera didn’t work or something. We did it to help you.”

  “To help me.” Her gaze wandered the table and found Twyla nodding a bit too vigorously.

  “And it did help you,” Fran said. “Almost as much as it helped me.”

  “Really? Guess I’m not seeing the pig picture, then, because I don’t get how my so-called friends sneaking behind my back taking pictures of something very private was done to help me.”

  Fran snorted. “Private? Funny, I thought it was a very well-rehearsed, well-discussed moment between four women.”

  Ridelle’s sigh was impatient. “I made the decision to allow myself privacy because it was my very first time. Ever. How would you feel if photos of you losing your virginity turned up in some skanky lawyer’s office? Jesus. Not exactly shots my parents want to put in my First Moments photo album, you know?”

  The redhead appeared unconvinced. “If you’d have told us you were a virgin in the first place, things would have been a lot different.”

  Ridelle threw her hands in the air. “How? Would you not have lied to me and invaded my privacy?”

  “Ridelle.” Dominique’s calm voice sounded even quieter against the rising tide of the other two women’s. “I know you’re surprised by the news. But let me explain.”

  A retort died unsaid as the girl turned a stony gaze her way. “Knowing you we
re a virgin wouldn’t have changed the decision for backup, no. But it would have altered the entire plan from the beginning. We never would have asked you to go through with this.” Before Ridelle could make the same argument she’d given Twyla over the phone, Dominique held up a quieting hand. “But had you still been determined to proceed, we could have helped prepare you. We could have discussed your feelings about postponing the photo op. The point is, you made the decision to sleep with Fran’s husband without getting the photos and to withhold the fact that you were a virgin all on your own. We had no input.”

  She paused to sip at her coffee. Ridelle glared at her until Dominique went on. “It dawned on a couple of us that you would have to suffer through endless retakes if getting the proof turned out to be harder than we thought. With two cameras, we had double the chance of succeeding. As it turned out, that decision that Twyla and I made was a good thing.”

  Ridelle blinked and shifted her gaze to Twyla. She had Fran figured for being the evil accomplice. Twyla was the last one she’d have suspected.

  “It was a stroke of luck,” Twyla said, her eyes pleading. “From what you told me that night, your encounter with Bruce was less than pleasant.”

  Fran snorted. “That’s Bruce under the sheets, all right. An unpleasant encounter.”

  Twyla ran a hand through curls rendered even tighter by the weather. “Now that we have photos that will work, you don’t have to go through a repeat performance. So yeah, we helped you.”

  Ridelle shook her head. “But how did you get the photos?”

  “From a couple of discreet devices that belong to a friend of mine,” Dominique said. “One in a wall vent, one near the curtain rod.”

  “A friend of yours? So some skanky guy saw everything?”

  “Skanky girl, actually.”

  Ridelle shot to her feet. “So some skanky girl broke into my apartment and put up spy cameras? Where are they, exactly?” She stalked across the living room toward the back hall.

  Twyla spoke up. “Don’t bother. They’re already gone.”

  She whirled on a sneakered foot, hands fisting hips. “Fabulous. Some bitch broke into my place twice?”

  Twyla raised her hand. “I’m the bitch. The girl was never here.” She reached inside a tiny pocket over the breast of her forest green T-shirt, then set a key down on the dining table.

  “You used my spare.” Ridelle reached over and snapped it up off the table. “I gave you that to house sit last winter, not to give you VIP spy access.”

  Twyla stared into her lap. “I’m sorry, Ridelle. I didn’t think you’d be this upset about it.”

  “Oh, I’m this upset, all right.” A fiery challenge blazed at each woman at the table. “I’m pissed. Why didn’t you guys just tell me?” Her gaze landed on Fran.

  The woman put her hands up in mock surrender. “Don’t look at me, hon. I knew nothing about it until they brought me the pictures.”

  “Fine.” The death stared leveled at Dominique. “I’ll look at you, since you seem to be the mastermind of all this. Explain to me why I couldn’t know about this backup plan?”

  The woman’s return stare was impassive as she rose and stood behind her chair. “Simple. When you came to my door in a wild-eyed panic, I realized you might be too close to the plan to be able to see it through when the time came. If you’d been told about the extra cameras, however, you might have deactivated them.”

  Ridelle nodded. “So basically, you’re confirming that this is exactly what I think it is. You don’t trust me. You thought I had the hots for Bruce so bad I’d do anything to protect him.”

  “No, Ridelle.” It was Fran’s turn to rise, though she stood in front of her chair rather than behind it. “That’s not it at all. We do trust you. I know you weren’t worried about sparing Bruce.” She nodded to Twyla and Dominique. “From what these two told me when they turned over the pictures, their concern wasn’t that you’d try to undermine our plan. It was that you’d panic at the last minute. Which is exactly what you did.”

  “I didn’t panic. I made a conscious decision to spare myself having a rather tawdry first time committed to film. Can’t any of you understand that?”

  “Of course,” Dominique said. She walked around until she stood a couple of feet in front of Ridelle. “But you didn’t give us the option of factoring that information into our decisions. You want to accuse of keeping secrets, fair enough. But you had one or two of your own.”

  “Yeah, except mine didn’t hurt anybody.”

  “Not true.” Twyla sat, tilting the mug toward her to examine the half cup of fluid remaining. “Your secret risked blowing the entire plan.”

  Ridelle stared down at her. “What are you talking about?”

  “Honey, any woman in your position would have a million second thoughts if they weren’t virgins. But for you, the prospect of giving yourself to a man was that much harder, so the risk of you changing your mind was that much higher.”

  “Which you almost did,” Dominique said. “And now I realize why.”

  Fran jumped in. “No one would have thought less of you for it. Bruce has had a few booty calls on the side, but it wasn’t like a daily deed. If you’d have bowed out, how many other women could we have risked parading in front of him before he caught on? He may be a penis-driven fool, but he’s no moron.”

  “We weren’t trying to hurt you, Ridelle,” Twyla said. “We wanted what’s best for you and Fran. We’re your friends.”

  Anger still slashed through Ridelle’s chest, but the words softened the edge. “Well, you do have a point. I did almost change my mind, but not only because I was a virgin. I suppose I should be thankful that there are pictures to spare me from another go-round with the jackhammer.”

  Fran laughed aloud at that. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to make light of it. I just know all too well what you mean by that.”

  Ridelle cracked a sick, reluctant half-smile at the affirmation. “So, do you have the photos here?”

  Fran nodded. Silent, she pulled her purse from the floor and plopped it on the table. Inside was a manila envelope she handed over. Ridelle’s hands shook while she pulled out a series of four by six photographs, each one more incriminating than the last. After the third—a pose not even her gynecologist would want to deal with—she swallowed a greasy swell of nausea and handed the stack back. “I suppose all of you have seen these.”

  Twyla shook her head. “I didn’t. There was no reason for me to look.”

  “I didn’t really,” Dominique said. “I glanced at a couple when my friend printed them out to make sure they were good enough for Frannie to win her case.”

  Ridelle hugged herself, cheeks warming to a high simmer. “Well, embarrassed isn’t even in the neighborhood of covering how I feel.”

  Fran came around the table and drew her friend into a warm but tentative hug. “Grateful doesn’t begin to cover how I feel. Thank you, Ridelle. I’m so sorry for all this. The worst crap is behind us now. After I shove these down Bruce’s throat, he’ll hopefully be smart enough to settle. Either way, you’ll be so upset about my discovery of the affair that you’ll break it off with him, and he’ll never suspect the real reason. Then we’re both home free.”

  “All,” Dominique corrected. “We’ll all be home free.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Four Months Later

  Frannie had the dream again. She stood in Bruce’s office, him seated behind the oversized desk like the CEO of a Fortune 500. Why did men surround themselves with obscenely large things? Obsessing over bigger motors, bigger processors, bigger televisions…a penis thing, no doubt. In which case, it seemed that men like Bruce would prefer to downsize their possessions to make their cocks appear larger by comparison.

  “I really don’t have time for this now,” he was saying. “Perhaps you could schedule your raving paranoia for a time when I’m not expecting an important overseas call?”

  In reply, she slapped a pile of photographs down
on a manila folder in front of him. “Just thought maybe you’d like to make some additions to the digital slideshow on your desk.”

  His face went white as he scanned the top photo; by the last Bruce Myers had turned a sickly shade of gray. “How did you get these?”

  She crossed her arms under a plunging white neckline designed to give him an eyeful of what he’d no longer be mauling. “Wasn’t easy, considering you cut off my ability to retain a private investigator. Luckily, there were those willing to give generously to the ‘Save Fran From Her Slimebag Husband’ fund.”

  He grabbed the photos off the desk and rose, tucking them into the inner breast pocket of his charcoal suit.

  She shrugged at the gesture. “Keep them. They’re just copies.”

  “And if I told you they aren’t what they look like?”

  Fran tossed strawberry locks behind her as she laughed. “Then I’d say save your foul breath, because you’re the world’s worst liar. Ridelle already confessed to everything.”

  He muttered a curse under his breath. “You talked to her?”

  “Of course. She was my friend—past tense. Though in hearing the bitch’s story, I confess I can’t help but feel she was rather led astray. Really, Bruce, a virgin? It’s not enough for you to screw around with my friends; you have to rob their innocence, too?”

  A vein pulsed at his temple as he fished the photos back out of his pocket. Holding up a particularly graphic pose of him servicing Ridelle from a kneeling position at the foot of her bed, his voice strained on the edge of a shout. “Does this look like she’s fucking innocent?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “No, it looks like she’s fucking garbage, but that’s another story.”

  Nostrils flaring in the midst of a reddened face, Bruce lunged around his desk toward Fran. The hand not gripping evidence was balled into a fist. Her eyes widened, and she retreated back. “What, are you going to hit me? That’ll make for some great additional photos.”

  He sneered, but stopped short three feet from her. “What do you mean, ‘additional’ photos?”

  She shrugged. “You don’t honestly believe you’re not still under surveillance in case you decide to do something stupid during this confrontation?” It was a lie through and through, but Frannie had no desire to suffer any physical backlash.