A Grand Seduction Read online

  “So Bruce wasn’t wowed by your cooking, eh?”

  A knowing glance passed between the others.

  Fran snorted. “You could say that. Told me a starving man would rather eat garbage.”

  “How supportive.” Twyla’s voice dripped with a thick sludge of sarcasm. “Didn’t it occur to Bruce that expecting you to turn into Julia Childs overnight is a bit ludicrous? Isn’t going to happen on a little planet where the sun is yellow and the grass green.”

  “Honey, on Bruce’s planet the sun is breast-shaped and the grass bears a striking resemblance to pubic hair.” Fran furrowed her brow as her gaze wandered the restaurant. A pair of blue hairs were being seated two tables over, but otherwise there was no movement. “Where is Dominique? She insisted that I be here, and now she’s missing in action.”

  Ridelle shrugged. “Ever the mysterious one.”

  “Well, I wish she’d be a little less mysterious and a little more prompt. I’m curious about this master plan of hers. Did she tell you anything?”

  Two heads shook negatives in tandem. Twyla’s curls were tamed in a loose upsweep, drawing many an admiring eye to the graceful stretch of her slender neck. A thin knit turtleneck echoed the effect, the royal purple reflecting upward to confuse the shade of otherwise blue eyes. “No, just said to make sure and be here. But this wouldn’t be the first time she led us astray. Let us not forget the cocktail party in the Hamptons incident.”

  Ridelle rolled her eyes. “Oh God, when was that? Pouring rain, the three of us all dolled up and crammed into my Hyundai to car pool.”

  Fran laughed. “Four years ago. Who’s party was it, some business associate of Dom’s husband? Said she’d meet us there, then gave us that horrendous map, remember?”

  Ridelle took another experimental sip of her coffee, then a bigger gulp. “Must have gotten lost three times, at least. Then we finally get up there—”

  “And the place was deserted,” Twyla finished. “She told us the wrong date.”

  “Then Twyla’s cell wouldn’t work, so we drove all over Hell’s half acre for a pay phone to track Dominique down.” Fran fingered her silverware as she spoke. “She was cozied up to some banker in a club in the city. She’d forgotten and wouldn’t have been there either way!”

  “It wasn’t my fault.” The women looked up to see Dominique, lithe and unruffled by her tardy arrival in a tailored black suit and grasping a black leather envelope bag. A triple strand of pearls clutched at her throat. “Chuck deliberately told me the wrong date.” She favored the group with a forgiving smile. “Sharing campfire stories? Missed me that terribly, eh?”

  Ridelle shrugged. “We were just recalling another time you told us to be somewhere and then forgot to show up yourself.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t miss this. Not to worry, salvation has arrived.”

  Dominique rounded the table and took a seat backing the window. Ronald was as prompt as she’d been late, materializing at her side as soon as she’d scooted in. “Coffee?”

  “Please. And go ahead and put in my order for the usual, Ronald.”

  She looked at the others. “You’ve all ordered, I take it?” To their nods Ronald rushed off in search of coffee and shrimp Pesto.

  Dominique plucked a linen napkin from the table and smoothed it across her lap, then raised a brow in amusement when she glanced up to find the other three women staring at her as though Moses had just descended bearing God’s tablets of stone. “I have your attention, I see.”

  Fran set her coffee cup aside. “I for one am dying to know what your diabolical mind has cooked up.”

  Ridelle snorted. “Yeah, no more stalling, Dom. The fashionable lateness was cool and all, but you’re losing your audience.”

  “Judging by your rapt attention I’d be inclined to argue, but I wasn’t going for dramatic impact. I was stuck on the phone with an investor with all the common sense of a rabid duck.”

  “Ducks don’t get rabies.”

  “This one did. Anyway, let’s get to the point, shall we? Who wants to know how we’re going to help our Frannie here escape the clutches of a vile overlord?”

  “I swear, Dom, if this is some plot to off the guy for his life insurance, I’m sending you in for that psych eval I’ve been recommending.”

  “Ridelle, please. Give me some of my due. I may have bent a few relationship rules here and there to get the upper hand—not always successfully, I admit—but I’m quite above the notion of physical violence against a male.”

  A couple of eyebrows raised across the table, prompting a sultry smile. “Alright, unless it’s in a bedroom under controlled conditions. But speaking of violence against men, what happened this morning, Frannie? You said something about Bruce being upstairs, then I heard him shouting and you clicked off our call.”

  The redhead’s spoon went on its fiftieth twirling tour of her coffee cup. “You were right about the furniture polish. He fell.” To Dominique’s alarmed expression she hastened to add, “He’s fine, the big baby. Just a bump on the arm and a sore back.” She stopped twirling and stared at the milk-sotted liquid. “He’s gotten worse with the sex thing. Remember when I said I thought he was getting off on sort of forcing me?”

  The table went quiet, save silverware dropping to plates as she continued. “It happened again. Last night I noticed it, and again this morning when he fell on the tile floor. He uses sex as a punishment.”

  Ridelle glanced around to ensure the mid-thirties couple seated on their right and the grannies behind them were involved in conversations of their own before leaning forward, arms on the table. “Frannie, that’s called rape. You can have him arrested for that.”

  The redhead’s eyes widened, and she shook her head so fast that concussion seemed a possible option. “No, no, it’s not like that. He doesn’t force me that way—I mean, it’s not like I’m fighting him off and he holds me down. It’s just that, he seems to want it more when we’ve been fighting.”

  Twyla’s cheeks flushed pale crimson as a knowing smile crossed her lips. “Oh, that’s normal, honey. Andy and I do that sometimes, too. It’s called having fun making up afterward.”

  Dominique examined a tiny chip in a pointy red fingernail. “No it’s not. It’s called exerting male dominance over a helpless female.”

  Twyla bristled, crossing her arms in front of her. “Andy would never treat me like that, Dom.”

  The other woman looked up from her manicure. “I didn’t mean you. Her situation is different.” She turned to her friend. “There’s more, isn’t there?”

  She gave a sheepish nod, shooting a look for reassurance to continue. Dom’s eyebrow raise prompted her to go on. “It’s like he only wants it when he knows I don’t want him, like after he’s put me down and hurt my feelings. That’s when he gets turned on—when he’s succeeded in making me feel like crap about myself. I try to brush off his advances, and he doesn’t force me, no. He just opens the debate floor until I’m either coerced into wanting it, or I get too tired of arguing to care.”

  Ridelle had gone pale, and Dom nodded in satisfaction. “I could sense that about Bruce. He likes to conquer women to prove himself.”

  Twyla pressed her point. “Sometimes Andy wants to and I don’t, but I figure there’s no harm in pleasing my partner every now and again even if I’m not in the mood.”

  Fran’s hand slapped down on the table harder than she intended, the jangled upset of silverware turning neighboring heads their way. “It’s not every now and again! It’s every time we fight, and the way things are going, that’s a daily thing.”

  Twyla sat back in her seat, lowering her crossed arms. “Oh.”

  Fran pressed her newfound advantage, leaning forward as Twyla sat back. Her gray eyes darkened as she leveled her gaze at the blond. “I’m betting that Andy doesn’t hit you up for a blow job after he’s through calling you a dim-witted bitch.”

  Adjacent heads continued staring in their direction. Dominique covered Fran’s right
hand—still slapped down on the linen cloth—with her own. The bulk of a three carat wedding diamond shifted beneath her hand. The older woman’s voice was soft and uncharacteristically mothering. “Frannie, people can hear.”

  “Sorry.” The voice was sober—and Twyla’s. “I didn’t mean to minimize how bad things are for you.” Tears threatened to crest lashes carefully spiked with what was hopefully waterproof mascara. “I was trying to make things better.” she paused, throwing Dom a helpless look.

  The other woman didn’t hesitate. “We are going to make things better. We’re going to take Bruce’s own game and shove it right up his prenuptial agreement.”

  In a span of heartbeats, Fran’s expression grew several years younger. “How?”

  Dominique’s eyes glittered with unnatural shine for the dim overhead lighting. “Bruce is about to break the Bad Boy clause in that contract.”

  The other sat up straighter in her seat, voice breathless. “How do you know? Did you find out something?”

  “As a matter of fact, I found out that your husband is about to have an affair. And when he does, we’re going to get photographic proof that you can take to court.”

  Ridelle stopped chewing a mouthful of clam, swallowing the still-too-big lump with a grimace. “Where did you hear that? Who’s the girl?”

  Dominique gave her a pointed smile. “You are.”

  Shocked looks passed between three of the foursome. After a hateful glare at Dominique, Ridelle turned to Fran in vehement denial. “No way, Fran. She’s lying. I’d never do anything like that to you.”

  Dominique raised both hands. “Calm down. He’s going to have an affair with Ridelle because we’re going to set him up to think so.”

  “Set him up?” Twyla gave Dominique a look as if her lettuce wrap had just regurgitated a potato beetle. “That’s cheating.”

  “No, cheating is what Bruce has done to Fran more than once already. We’re just going to schedule his next episode for our Kodak convenience.”

  Twyla shook her head. “I don’t like it. It smells like entrapment. Fraud.”

  Dominique gave a dramatic sigh. “Twyla, dear oh-so-in-love Twyla, it’s not entrapment. It’s opportunity. Think of it this way. If Bruce were a faithful husband, surely he wouldn’t stray just because we dangle Ridelle in front of him? I mean, your Andy would never fall for that.”

  “Of course he wouldn’t.”

  The woman’s voice exuded endless patience. “But Bruce isn’t Andy. Bruce will, in fact, pursue Ridelle, because he’s a rotten bastard who’s cheated before. In which case, he deserves to get caught and Frannie deserves that prenup to be overturned. Right?”

  Twyla stared for a moment longer, than her jaw relaxed. “When you put it that way, maybe. But if he doesn’t cheat, then that’s something to consider, too.”

  Now it was Fran’s turn to look pale. “I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but I hope to God he does. I can’t take the thought of him getting me on my knees on the marble floor again.”

  Quizzical faces failed to ask the question before Dominique interjected a warning. “You can’t think that way. Not yet. You have to keep things exactly the way they are, for the time being. Otherwise you could tip him off to something being amiss.”

  Ridelle tossed her napkin on the table. “Wait, just wait. Why do I have to be his squeeze toy? What the hell did I do to deserve the Scarlet Letter?”

  “One shrimp Pesto.” Ronald’s cheery voice caused Ridelle to jump, her arm knocking against a salad plate which in turn dominoed into her water glass, sending liquid across a remaining lettuce wrap already soggy from neglect. She grabbed for her napkin as Ronald whipped out with a towel and reached across her.

  “I’ve got it.” His smile showed small, even teeth, like corn kernels bleached white in the sun.

  His tuxedo shirt and apron wafted kitchen smells and a faint hint of something familiar. Hi Karate? Ridelle’s brother bathed in the stuff during college. Her nose wrinkled at the memory.

  The smile faded at her expression, and Ronald pulled back from attending the spill. “Anything else I can get for you?”

  The question would be normal to anyone else hearing it, except the quartet of women who’d heard his usual inflection almost every week for a year. To their trained ear, the question carried the unmistakable hint of disappointment.

  When he’d gone, Ridelle turned back to Dominique, who was stabbing at shrimp like a tribesman spearing fish in a river. “And again I say, why me?”

  “I know why.” Fran’s voice held a sardonic edge. “Bruce’s primary brain has been twitching for you for years.”

  “Ugh, thanks a lot. That sentence ought to be good for three, four months’ worth of nightmares.” Ridelle shook her head. “No offense, but Bruce is so beyond not my type. Hell, I don’t even have a type. But if I did, he’d be the polar opposite.”

  “That’s perfect,” Dominique said. “Don’t you see? You can operate without misgivings, or worse, the fear of falling for the ass. That would be disastrous, to say the least.”

  Ridelle sighed. “So what exactly would I have to do?”

  Dominique threw her a look. “Your parents did give you the birds and bees talk, right?”

  Ridelle’s eyes widened into brown jawbreakers. “You’re not telling me I’m going to have to sleep with this guy?”

  Fran shook her head. “No, I’m sure Dom doesn’t mean anything like that. You just fake it for the camera, right?”

  She turned to Dominique, whose stoic expression answered the question before her mouth did. “We can’t just pose Ridelle like a Barbie doll, snap a photo, and yell ‘Gotcha!’ on our way out the door. He’ll know it was a setup. It has to look genuine.” She turned to Ridelle. “You have to be genuine. On the outside, anyway. He can never suspect the truth.”

  Dominique looked around the table to meet silent stares. “Come on, we’re all adults in the modern world, right? It’s not like casual sex has never happened to any of us.”

  Ridelle slumped down in her seat, staring up at the brass light fixture dangling over their table. “I take back what I said earlier, Dom. I prefer the kill-him-for-the-insurance scheme.”

  Fran shook her head. “No. I don’t expect her to do something like that. It’s too much to ask.”

  Ridelle sighed. “We’ve been friends for almost ten years. I’d do anything for you—you know I would. I’m just not sure I can pull this off. I’m no actress, and we all know how spellbinding my love life is.”

  “I believe in you, Ridelle. But I wouldn’t ask something like that of a friend.” Her eyes turned glassy, voice broken into breathless, quivering pieces. “I appreciate the thought, Dom, but I can just go back to the original plan. Either he hurts me enough to leave evidence, or someday I might catch him cheating.”

  Twyla, who’d thus far been frozen in a just-saw-a-train-wreck pose, managed to find her voice. “Wait until he hurts you bad enough? Do you even hear yourself? Surely the money isn’t worth waiting around to get battered or cheated on. Why don’t you just leave?”

  Tears spilled over onto a faint dusting of freckles Frannie always spackled over with makeup. “It’s not about being rich. It’s about not being destitute. My parents left the estate in shambles when they died. They never said a word to me about their financial troubles—not one. Slowly eating through the accounts, properties, investments. Losing their possessions and household staff. I could never understand why they didn’t come to me; Bruce and I would have helped. But I do now. They felt safe knowing my future was secure, and they didn’t want me to worry.”

  She shifted her gaze to Dominique, whose face was unreadable. “So how would they feel now, knowing I wound up homeless because my husband pulled that future out from under me after the remains of my childhood were sold off in probate?”

  Dominique gazed into her lap, smoothing her napkin. “Probably that life has been unfair enough to you, and that it’s time for the man who is largely responsibl
e for that gets on the cross to pay for it.” She tossed a sharp glance at the other two women in turn. “I would do this myself, Fran, but you know Bruce and I never clicked. Ridelle’s been in the crosshairs of his wandering trouser target for some time, so she seems the logical choice. But if she can’t—”

  “I’ll do it.” Ridelle stared at her coffee cup as she ran her forefinger around the top, as though it were crystal and she could elicit a pleasant ringing from it. The rest of the group stared.

  “The jackass has it coming, and I want to help be the one to bring him to his knees.” She straightened in her chair and caught Fran’s gaze. “Painfully. You know, like kneeling on a marble floor.”

  Chapter Five

  The needling pulse of the shower’s massage head drummed against Ridelle’s back, urging knotted muscles to release their stress-induced stranglehold. Pushing wet hair away from her face, she looked around for the Paul Mitchell. Grasping the white bottle, she ad-libbed the label aloud. “Thickens and replenishes. Strengthens your love life, protects you from reprehensible morons, and shines up even the nastiest after-sex hair.”

  Sighing, she squeezed shampoo into her palm. She could use something to shield her from herself about now—a miracle elixir to thicken her skin against the evening ahead. Of course, most people felt that her emotional epidermal layer already resembled elephant hide. No doubt a by-product of life as the only girl in a house with three brothers. What a joke.

  The swirl of designer scent rising from her scalp as she massaged the lather lacked its usual satisfying vigor. For the hundredth time she considered changing her mind. She could stay home, plead a headache. Isn’t that what women always did when they didn’t want sex? Except Fran, of course; she didn’t believe she had the option of refusal.

  Squeezing her eyes shut tight, she stuck her head under the spray. The past week of planning had been a ride of Coney Island proportions. Every time she worked herself into a hyped-up lather of confidence, self doubt came and rinsed it away. Dipping her head back a bit too far, water streamed over her face and into slightly parted lips. Leaning forward, she spewed the water back out. “Relax. It’s not like he’s going to jump you on the table in the middle of dinner. This is just the qualifying heat.”