A Grand Seduction Read online

  Staring into her with piercing meaning, he reached up and squeezed her right breast.

  “For heaven’s sake, I wasn’t shoving them anywhere.”

  Still gazing at her, he circled her nipple with thumb and forefinger, then pinched until it peaked. Her breath caught and his voice dropped. “See? There’s proof that you want me.”

  “No I don’t, I—”

  God broke off further discussion by grabbing the back of her head and pressing his mouth to hers, forcing her lips apart with his tongue until she permitted entrance. Dammit, but that special thing Bruce did to her inner lip shot straight between her thighs every time.

  Later, long after he’d pushed her hips into the mattress with the flat of his palms and thrust like a piston on misfire for fifteen minutes, she came to a decision. Dominique, she realized, was onto something. Cheat where you can, using any shortcut possible. She didn’t need to learn how to do more. She needed to be smarter and make it look like she did more.

  Peering into the fridge, Fran allowed a tight smile to stretch her soft features. Cheat she did, starting with some routine household duties this morning. Meals were the natural next step. Thus far, Bruce had steered clear of the kitchen, so if some ready-mades slipped into the fridge, who would know? Besides, it wasn’t like it was a crime. He hadn’t told her not to. Not quite. He’d merely said “No take out” when she’d tried it the very first night. As long as it hailed from the local grocer, who cared if it came already sliced, cooked, and hell, preheated?

  The phone warbled from the built-in desk in the corner. Shutting the fridge, she tossed the towel back on the counter and clicked her way across the broad expanse of floor, then snatched up the cordless.

  Dominique was on the other end. “How goes Chez Fran’s Gourmet Delights?”

  “Neither gourmet nor delightful. What’s up?”

  “You missed our last lunch and I want to make sure you’re coming today. I’ve had an idea.”

  She shook her head at the phone. “I can’t. I have my glamorous new life to take care of. Grocery shopping, housecleaning, you name it. And,” she said with a sigh, not wanting to let out the rest, “well, I don’t have any money.”

  “Don’t worry about that, honey. We’ll take care of it.”

  “I don’t want you guys taking care of it!” She winced at the sharpness of her own words, and forced herself to relax by exhaling along, deep breath. “I’m sorry. I’m just stressed right now. And I feel horrible having you guys shell out for my meal when my husband brings home a generous six figures.”

  “Where is Ted Tightwad, anyway?”

  “Upstairs, showering. I appreciate the offer, Dom, but it’s just too humiliating to have you guys footing my—or should I say his—bill.”

  “Try not to look at it that way. Just think of this as a business investment.”

  Fran laughed. “Business investment? Since when do our lunches have anything to do with business?”

  “Since now. Just show up at Odette’s today, and I’ll fill you in on the brilliance that is my devious mind. I’ve found you a way out of this.”

  Her brows rose right along with her curiosity. “Okay, you win. That reminds me, I owe you thanks. Your devious mind has already proven quite useful.”

  “How so?”

  “I realized you were right about cutting corners to keep up appearances with minimal effort. In fact, you saved me three hours of housework this morning already.

  “Wow, I’m a damned genius. And how did I manage this feat of undeniable skill?”

  “My floors. Do you know there are six separate steps involved in waxing my goddamn floors—two of which require over an hour each per average-sized room?”

  “A travesty. I suppose I should give my housekeeper a raise.” Dominique cackled like a mad hen. “Like that old bat doesn’t rob me blind already. Did I tell you I think she swiped my pearl drops? I haven’t found them since New Year’s in Manhattan.”

  “The ones with the diamond bows? You lent them to Twyla for Valentine’s.”

  There was a clicking sound on the other end, like Dom was tapping a fingernail against her teeth. “Oh. Well, the woman’s still a menace to high society. So you were saying about your magnificent floors?”

  She switched the handset to the other ear, sweeping a grand gesture in the air. “When I was checking the cleaning closet, I found a much better way.”

  “Marian was hiding inside?”

  “Lord, don’t I wish. Anyway, I’ve no idea why she kept doing floors the old way when this was sitting right in the cupboard. I mean, do you realize we own a hundred and forty-seven different cleaning implements? I counted. Nineteen are related to wax. Oil soap, floor wax, paste wax, wax stripper, lambs wool buffers, a wax-o-matic applicator, baseboard strip solution, you name it, I’ve got it. Why the hell would anyone need nineteen waxes, Dominique?”

  The other woman snorted. “No clue. Sounds like the start of a bad horror movie to me.”

  “And how does anyone even figure out which ones to use? Hell, Twyla didn’t know what some of them were for! That’s when I spotted it. Spray on, wipe off.”

  “Sounds like a winner to me. What was it?”

  She beamed in triumph. “Pledge furniture wax.”

  There was a pause. “You used furniture polish on a marble floor?”

  “Brilliant, isn’t it? Did the master bathroom in six minutes this morning. Six, and it shines like the window display at Tiffany’s.”

  She heard the other woman suck in a breath. “You know I’m not exactly the go-to person for all things floor wax, honey, but wouldn’t that make the floor rather slick?”

  “That’s the point, isn’t it? Slick and shiny.”

  “Shiny, yes. Slick as in break your neck? No.”

  Fran’s free hand shot to her mouth. She stared without seeing at the refrigerator screen while the cooking show hostess put final touches on a lemon meringue pie. How could she be so uniquely stupid?

  “Oh God. Bruce is in there.”

  The phone still clutched to her ear, she took off across the kitchen. Out in the Great Room, the rapid clickety-clack of her heels was dulled sporadically by a threesome of antique Persians scattered hither and yon. Once in the two-story grand foyer, she all but flung herself up the graceful arc of a veined marble staircase leading to the upper gallery.

  Breathing too hard to hear the alarmed conversation spouting from the handset, Fran dashed through the open double doors to the master suite. Despite his absence from the immediate room, Bruce wasn’t hard to find. Fran followed the string of expletives—her name had been added to the profanity pantheon—past the sitting area and four-poster bed to the bathroom.

  “Frannie? Dammit, Fran!”

  Here she dropped the phone, sending Dominique to the floor with a clatter. Through a dissipating haze of steam whooshing through the still-open shower door she spotted her husband, genitalia on spread-eagled display to any braving the doorway, on the black and white tile floor. Half sitting with one knee crooked in a deep bend and the other leg splayed out, Bruce clutched one arm against his the fine down of hair covering his chest and the slight middle-aged spread on his abdomen that crept up despite weekly tennis and a strictly observed regimen of sexual gymnastics. His hair stuck to his head in soaking black rivulets, water dripping from several points into his eyes.

  “Where the hell have you been? I’ve been yelling for five minutes.”

  She hiccuped a gasp. “Bruce! What happened?”

  “What the hell does it bloody look like? I fell and broke my damn arm.” He nodded to the handset lying near the open doorway. “Please tell me you were delayed because that’s 9-1-1 on the line?”

  “Oh! No, it’s Dom.”

  “Too busy chatting with your damn friends to come when your spouse yells his head off that he’s dying?”

  She bent over and retrieved the phone, ignoring another stream of curses. “You know I couldn’t have heard a thing from downstair
s. This house is too big.” She added to the phone mouthpiece, “Dom? I have to go. I’ll see you later.”

  She clicked off the call as he exclaimed, “‘See you later’? Not unless she’s meeting us at the hospital, babe. You’re not going anywhere. I need a doctor.”

  Fran sucked in a breath. “You’re really hurt?”

  “Of course I’m hurt. You tried to kill me!”

  “That’s absurd.”

  “Yeah? I know you were in here messing with the floor this morning. What the hell did you do to it?”

  “I’m sorry. I waxed the floor. I wanted it to look nice for you.”

  “Well that’s great, Frannie. I can see my agonized reflection just fucking perfect from down here, what with my head inches away from it and all. I almost bashed my skull in, you dim-witted bitch.”

  She clenched her jaw. “Don’t you call me names. It’s not my fault you weren’t paying attention and fell.”

  “Oh, of course not. You slicked a gallon of motor oil on the floor so the bath rug would take flight like a magic fucking carpet, but it was my fault, right?”

  He struggled to sit up straighter, leaning over so his balls found purchase on the oh-so-shiny floor. His face screwed up into a grimace at the motion, and he clutched his left arm tighter. Despite his less-than-loving manner, Fran felt a stab of guilt-ridden sympathy. Crossing the room, she knelt at her husband’s side, ignoring the wet spot seeping into her designer slacks.

  “I said I was sorry. I didn’t do it on purpose, you know. Here, let me see your arm.”

  He pulled back like a child avoiding a shot from the doctor. “No. Just call an ambulance.”

  Why did all men devolve into infants when sick or injured? Rolling her eyes ceilingward, Fran bent across her husband and, on all fours, peered at the suspect left arm. Frowning, she lifted a hand off the wet floor and poked his forearm experimentally with her finger. “Does it hurt?”

  “Not there. It’s my elbow. How the hell am I going to play tennis tomorrow with a broken elbow?”

  “You don’t play left-handed, for one thing.”

  She bent over further, leaning down to see the elbow he refused to raise higher for examination. After prodding it with a finger, she sighed. “It’s not the least bit swollen, Bruce. I think you just bumped your funny bone.”

  “Oh. Well, you should look a little lower while you’re down there. I think there’s some swelling near my stomach.”

  That blasted her pulse into gear. What if there were internal injuries? Frowning, she reared back to ask what he meant, but he grabbed the top of her hair with his good arm and yanked her down toward his bare naked lap.

  “See? Right there.”

  Her scalp shrieked in protest. “Bruce, stop it! You’re hurting me.”

  “Eye for an eye.”

  As she yanked back, she caught the twitch of his now-awakening penis. She sat back on her haunches. “You seem perfectly fine to me.” She threw another glance at his lap as the smile on his face grew in time to his arousal. “Normal as ever.”

  Bruce raked his fingers through his still-wet hair, slicking it away from a brow veined with deep worry lines. “So, now you’re Doctor Kildaire, too? I’ll admit the arm feels a bit better. Hurt like a bitch at first, but now that I’m getting all warm and tingly, it’s improving. I think you should stay down there a while longer.”

  “One minute you’re at death’s door, now you’re trolling for a blow job?”

  “Hey, if a woman gets on all fours while I’m naked, she best do something useful while she’s at it. You tried to make me eat marble, wife. I say it’s time for you to eat wood as an apology.”

  Her lip curdled in time to her stomach. “Just the romantic words every woman longs to hear.”

  Bruce leaned forward so they were nearly eyebrow to eyebrow, his eyes holding hers in cold lack of regard. She could smell English leather and sleep-coated martinis that toothpaste had yet to wash away. “You want romance? Next time try landing me on something softer than the damn bathroom floor.”

  A near-playful smile parted the clouds over his eyes, though a piercing ray of danger lingered. The look, along with knees that were quivering and vocal over their mistreatment against the tile floor, prompted her to push back and rise. Halfway into the motion, however, Bruce’s arm made a miraculous recovery and he pulled her back down.

  “Stop that,” she snapped. “I’ve got a lot of work to do on the house today.”

  His derisive snort echoed through the space. “If it’s anything like the booby trapped bathroom, I think your time will be better spent servicing my more immediate needs.”

  The need in question was at full attention. For some time now Fran noticed that her refusal and Bruce’s eventual conquest had become a vital part of his foreplay.

  “But…you’ll be late for work.”

  “I’m the boss there as well as here, darling. I can be late anywhere I choose.” He leaned back on both arms, grunting with another wince. “Not too rough this time. I think I broke my spine, too. I’ll probably need traction after this. So have at me gently.”

  ‘Have at me’? A true Harlequin romance moment. What girl could ask for more?

  With a sigh, Fran resolved to make it to lunch at Odette’s that day, even if she had to blow half the bus drivers in town to get there.

  Chapter Four

  Lunchtime found Odette’s in typical quiet chaos. Following an early morning rain, the greenery surrounding the cottage-style eatery glistened like a diamond-studded Easter egg hunt. The clouds had blown away from New Hope just in time for the group to arrive under sunny skies, underscoring the promise inherent in the town’s name.

  New Hope was an innocuous little gem on the map, nestled among the canals and river bends comprising the Delaware waterway. Two thousand residents lived in near anonymity there, tucked in along the Interstate between Delaware and Maine, as many do who find naught but peace and tranquility in their surroundings.

  The town’s media highlight came in the early nineteen eighties when a famed news reporter and her companion plunged their car into the river and drowned. Such a black splotch on New Hope’s serene history marked it as a temporary place of note—the way a highway patrolman highlights the scene of a tragedy with flares. “Something horrible happened here,” they seemed to say. “Take notice. Take care.” In an ironic twist, this particular tragedy occurred after the two had dined in the very restaurant the four friends converged upon for lunch and gossip once a week. And today, to hear tell of a very important plan.

  Fran arrived first, taking the prime seat looking straight out onto the watery landscape where the Delaware winked with some secret that glimmered up from just beneath the surface. Twyla and Ridelle arrived soon after, and as they sipped coffee and awaited the arrival of a Cherrystone clam appetizer and lettuce wraps, the irony of the vacant fourth seat set in. Dominique was nowhere to be found.

  Fran, wearing a turquoise shell with an embroidered black cardigan and black slacks—kneeling on a bathroom floor did unspeakable things to Chanel, reached out of habit to finger a necklace no longer adorning her neck. Remembering too late, she stroked her throat with a sigh.

  Ridelle caught the motion as sipped coffee that matched the brown of her Irish knit sweater, frowned, and reached for the sugar. “So how are you holding up, Frannie? Sorry I wasn’t more help when you called. Any cooking effort beyond poking holes in a cellophane wrapper and microwaving for five to seven minutes is outside my domain.”

  “That’s okay. Twyla turned out to be a big help.”

  She turned a grateful smile on Twyla, who returned a nod of dismissal. “Hardly. I helped her make a couple dinners Bruce despised, and probably with good reason. I should have thought twice about macaroni and cheese for a man like your husband.”

  Ridelle shrugged. “I love mac and cheese. Stouffer’s is to die for.”

  Fran laughed. “That’s for sure, considering Bruce will kill me if I ever try to serve it a
gain. Said he doesn’t eat crap off the kiddie menu.”

  Twyla’s face twisted. “My bad. I’ve been cooking kiddie menu for too long. Sorry.”

  Ronald appeared balancing twin platters along one forearm. “Here you go, ladies.”

  Without prompting so much as a jiggle from the precarious arrangement on his left arm, he leaned in to slide two water glasses and a bread plate aside to make room for a deposit of lettuce wraps and another of steaming breaded clams. A sweep of burnished blond locks fell across his forehead as he leaned in. With a quick smile at Ridelle and a nervous twitch that may have been a wink, he was gone.

  Ridelle’s eyes shot skyward. “He never gives up, that guy.”

  Fran giggled with a wanton mirth that felt wonderful, genuine. “Cause you’re such a hottie tottie.”

  “Please. I know it’s small town around here, but why are all the good ones fags and the rest an evolutionary hop away from amoeba?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Twyla lifted a lettuce wrap using a pair of forks and transferred it to her own plate. “Any place with no hardware store and three gay bars doesn’t quite embrace the stereotypical definition of ‘small town’.”

  “Besides,” Fran helped herself to a second lettuce wrap, “I think Ronald’s kind of cute. A bit younger, but that hardly matters once you’re out of high school.”

  Twyla’s eyes twinkled with R-rated mischief. “Youger means more stamina.”

  Ridelle shrugged. “It’s not like he’s ugly or anything. He’s just so, I don’t know.” She snarled her lip. “Nice. Too nice.”

  “Eew, nice. Good God, we can’t have that.” Twyla shook her head, sending a lock of blonde cascading down over her left eye. “We want ’em mean and smelly.”

  The women laughed as Ridelle waved the comment away with a sweep of a slightly chapped hand. “I don’t want a mean one. I don’t want any one, really. I’m just saying nice guys finish last for a reason. If a woman can make a doormat out of a guy, she will, and it’s not very appealing. Better they offer a bit of unknown. A little risk.”

  Fran raised her hand like a kid in a classroom. “I hereby cast my vote for nice guys. The other kind sucks royal.” She muttered the rest well under her breath, “Or makes you do so on a moment’s whim.”