A Grand Seduction Read online

  Finding an empty spot, she stepped out of the car and looked around for Bruce’s black BMW convertible. Not spotting it right off, she wandered to the glass front entrance and wondered what she was doing here. Why did he want her company, really? Was he as interested in her as everyone seemed to think? What if the television was a surprise for Frannie, and he merely wanted the opinion of one of her friends?

  Another glance at her watch showed it was twenty after. No doubt traffic down from the city had hung him up. As if her thoughts caused him to materialize, a 325ci whipped alongside her. The top was down, yet Bruce’s hair somehow managed to escape the slightest ruffle. “Sorry I’m late,” he said. “Hope you weren’t waiting too long.” The accompanying smile lacked apology, but did a fair imitation of movie star dazzle. “Let me park this beast.”

  Suddenly feeling conspicuous, Ridelle dug through her bag as he drove off, flipping open a mirrored compartment in her wallet. She angled the bag to catch her reflection without being so obvious as to whip it out and primp. The expression was a bit deer-in-the-headlights for her taste, but she was otherwise still presentable.

  He sauntered up wearing two parts of a three-piece gray pinstripe suit, the crisp white shirt underneath his vest rolled halfway to the elbows that were bent as he rested his hands on his hips. Both wrists were adorned in precious metals—a Rolodex on the left and an Italian gold, marine-link bracelet on the right. What a pair he and Fran must make these days, what with him now in possession of all the family jewelry.

  “Three car accident on the turnpike,” he said. “Traffic was a nightmare.”

  Ridelle nodded, mouth losing moisture and syllables by the second. “I saw the mess coming the other way.”

  “Thanks again for doing this. Fran hates this stuff, and I figured I could use the opinion of someone who’s seen one of these in action.”

  Ridelle offered a smiling nod in reply, and their eyes held for a bit longer than necessary. Was it her imagination, or was there a telepathic we-know-what-we-really-want-here message in that glance?

  “Well,” he said, breaking the moment. “I think I’ve held you up long enough. Shall we?”

  Without awaiting a reply he strode to the front door, pulled it open, and gestured Ridelle inside ahead of him. As she crossed the threshold into the bustling two story warehouse, she got hit by an unexpected blow of his scent. He’d not only worn the cologne, but had apparently reapplied it within the past hour.

  Damn. This was going to be a long trip.

  Chapter Ten

  Frannie, her fists lodged under her armpits, shook her head as she listened to the message for the third time.

  “Hey, babe.” Her husband’s voice sounded uncharacteristically accommodating. “I’ll be late tonight. Don’t bother cooking for me. I’ll grab a bite in town. See you later.”

  Dominique had been right about dinner. The time stamp on the message meant he’d left it just after talking to Ridelle at lunch. He’d already planned to be eating away from home. With Fran’s best friend, which of course wasn’t mentioned in his chipper little message.

  Things were shooting along even better than she could have hoped. Just a few short weeks since the girls had hatched this plan and he was ready to plunge deep into Miss Walters. At the rate it was going, maybe the big plunge would be tonight. She frowned. There would be no photo-op capturing the moment if it happened now. Still, maybe it would be better if he had her more than once. It would be more damning if it were an ongoing affair. Then there could be no argument of it all being some horrid misunderstanding. “Oh my, was that my penis inside her? I had no idea!”

  Either way, the obvious warming of his loins for Ridelle made her the perfect choice, just as Dominique had thought. Her friend was not only brilliant, she was downright MENSA material—an unsurprising thought considering the first three letters of the organization spelled out her specialty. Still, they all thought this plan would take months to implement, and yet the seeds of betrayal they’d planted were already preparing to blossom. Even Dominique seemed surprised at how readily Bruce took the bait. Just like sperm to an egg. “The bastard better be taking precautions,” she muttered to herself.

  Angry thoughts swirled through her head. Oh, how Bruce must be splaying his peacock feathers over the life he thought he had going! His dutiful wife sat at home, cooking and scrubbing and unable to spend a dime while he stepped out to shop and bang a young, hot goddess. Why, his dick must feel twelve inches tall. That Bruce was such a willing participant in his own undoing was an embarrassment to her in front of her friends and truly reinforced just how much he deserved what was about to come his way.

  Yes, she should be ecstatic to the point of moistness right about now. She was headed for unmarried bliss at a pace none of them had dared dream possible. Soon, she would be the one out buying expensive toys and sleeping with anyone she chose. Those men would have far more endearing nicknames for her than moron, dim-witted bitch, and the host of others on Bruce’s insult hit parade. And to top it off, her first order of business upon moving out would be to hire a housekeeper to spit shine her new bachelorette pad. She was as ready to divorce the endless marble floors as she was her husband. A happy future, indeed.

  Why, then, was she so damn annoyed that their plan was turning into a wild success? Fran would be hardly be standing on the launch pad to freedom if Bruce rebuffed Ridelle’s aggressive advances. Not that her friend had stuck a nipple in the man’s mouth or anything, but the woman must have done more than ladle gravy on his plate to warrant this response. She was grateful, really. But was it too much to expect that he at least show the restraint of a mad bull in Pamplona? Perhaps a five-minute internal struggle before concluding his morals were on permanent hiatus would have softened the blow.

  Grabbing her purse from the built-in kitchen desk, she sighed and wandered toward the lingering bubble bath that awaited her. An itchy truth niggled along her spine as she moved through the hallway. Maybe, despite her desperation to cut the jackass loose, Fran had secretly hoped Bruce would surprise them all by remaining faithful to her. Bruce Myers had unleashed an emotional hurricane on his marriage, and dropping back to a whispering breeze now couldn’t undo the resulting damage. Still, she would have been happy to see him leave a building or two standing in his wake.

  Climbing the stairs with sudden weights in her feet, Fran’s mind wandered to the way she would love to see the scene play out. It would be just like an old black-and-white matinee. Ridelle, with a sweeping Carole Lombard hairstyle and a cigarette in a sleek holder, would slink over to Bruce on his office sofa. Dropping herself too close beside him, she’d cross her legs strategically to force the slit of her skirt to crevasse open and display far more thigh than was proper in married, mixed company.

  Rubbing a stiletto along his calf, Ridelle’s blood red lips would purse to issue a perfect smoke ring. “You know we find each other attractive, Bruce,” she’d say. “I’m a modern woman, and I believe two people can have what they want. I’m here, and the loving’s free. No one ever need know but us.”

  Then Bruce, with a Clark Gable mustache and strong resolve, would get straight to his feet. “I’m sorry, little lady, but you’re wasting your time. My passion beats for one woman alone, and that’s my Frannie. Now, may I suggest that you leave before causing yourself further embarrassment?”

  Frannie wandered into the master bedroom as the imaginary scenario faded, dropping her purse on the chaise with a sigh. Yes, as much as life tried to demonstrate otherwise, she still believed in fairy tales. Pulling her sheer blouse over her head, she wondered why on Earth she kept winding up with the ogres.

  *

  Though the arrival of summer and daylight savings lengthened the days, night time was still on final approach by the time Bruce and Ridelle burst out of the store in Princeton, laughing like old school chums. Bruce pushed a shopping cart laden with bags for each of them—CD’s and DVD’s for Ridelle, cell phone accessories and an iPod for him. S
teering for the BMW, the pair stopped alongside the trunk while Bruce clicked off the alarm with his keychain.

  “God, that was fun.” Ridelle poked through bags, pulling out one of her purchases. “Casablanca, limited edition collector’s set. Haven’t seen this in forever. I can’t wait.”

  He hefted the first bag into the trunk. “I love that one. It’s a classic.”

  “A fellow Bogey fan, eh? We should watch it sometime.” The words were out before Ridelle had time to consider the implication.

  “Definitely.” He shot her a wink. “Bet it’d be great on the new TV.”

  Ridelle felt an unexpected twinge at the reply. That he’d so readily accepted was a good sign things were headed in the right direction, but to amend that to involve an evening at home with his wife? Maybe he trying to steer Ridelle—or himself—around the danger of something happening between them.

  Or perhaps he was trying to backpedal away from the brief scene that had taken place earlier, when a pimple-faced stork of a sales clerk mistook Ridelle’s identity. After torturing the anemic lad for forty minutes about the various merits of large screen viewing, the kid patted the top of a particularly pricey floor model and grinned at Bruce. “See, your wife prefers this model right here. An excellent choice. Take her wise advice, and I guarantee you won’t be sorry.”

  Ridelle was about to correct his error when Bruce had slid an arm around her shoulder and pulled her close against his side. “Yes, every man should be so lucky as to have a gorgeous, high tech woman like this around.”

  Her cheeks had fried red, and the scent of that cologne of his surrounding her disjointed her knees enough to where he’d had to tighten his grip on her shoulder to steady her. With the contact came an infusion of heightened senses, like the intimate pressure of his hip against hers, the sound of her frantic heartbeat, her breath rushing through the air like a category three storm. Everything prickled with intense importance that lasted even after he pulled away. Though she was sure he hadn’t felt the same thing, the two of them had locked eyes for a moment as he drew back. His were tinged with a question she wasn’t sure she knew the answer to. The clerk gave Bruce an occasional knowing smile while the purchase and delivery details for his new fifty-two inch behemoth were handled.

  After the clerk left them to chase other prospects, Bruce was quick to offer an apology. “Sorry about that comment earlier. I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”

  Trying for a casual chic she did not possess, Ridelle brushed a hand at the comment. “I wasn’t embarrassed.”

  “Your cheeks were all flushed.”

  “Oh.” After a moment’s pause, she gave a helpless shrug. “That seems to happen a lot when I’m around you.”

  His glance was quick and measuring, but he laughed. “Well, I merely meant to pay you a compliment. I hope it didn’t bother you.”

  Some calm returned. “Not at all. I was flattered.”

  That aside, the pair wandered all over the store, discovering a shared love for an eclectic assortment of gadgetry, music, and appliances. She knew more about computers, but he was the audiophile. They’d both done some homework on high definition TV. By the time they’d finished their circuit, Ridelle knew they’d clicked hard into solid common ground.

  When the last of Bruce’s bags were secured in the back, he glanced at his watch and shot his eyebrows toward the shadowing skyline. “Wow,” he said. “I can’t believe we shopped for so long.”

  “And I can’t believe I spent so much,” she said. “Still, I had a blast.”

  Bruce leaned against the trunk with his arms akimbo, grinning at her like a teenager checking out a hot rod. “Don’t know too many women who can go toe to toe with me over this kind of stuff.”

  She shrugged. “The tomboy in me, I suppose. I did grow up in a house full of men.”

  He cocked his head. “Tomboy, huh? You don’t look the part.”

  She tried to fight off another rush of heat en route to her face. “I’ll have you know there were boys at school that never even knew I was a girl until the year I came back to school after summer break with breasts.”

  The laugh was crisp and rocketed straight up from his tilted head. “And they chased you with reckless abandon thereafter, no doubt. None of the girls in my class cared about anything other than nail polish and Farrah hair, though I’m sure that dates me terribly.”

  Ridelle rolled her eyes. “I might have cared, if I had nails or hair that would cooperate. I used to pretend I was a vampire and couldn’t see my reflection, so mirrors weren’t necessary.”

  A brief, but punctuated silence followed. Bruce pushed himself away from where he’d been leaning against the Beemer. “Look, it’s almost a quarter to eight. How about we celebrate my leap into impossibly large electronics with a bite to eat? It’s the least I can do for dragging you around for so long.”

  In the I-know-men points column, Dominique just scored one, Ridelle, zero. Her friends really knew their stuff where males were concerned.

  She flashed a grateful smile to wash away her awkward hesitation. “Sounds wonderful.”

  “Great. Why don’t we hop in my car and find something close by? We can run back for yours afterward.”

  She couldn’t find flaw in the logic, so let him add her bags to his trunk. He opened the door for her, and she slid onto the sleek, black leather seat. “Weren’t you worried about leaving the top down out here?” she asked.

  He shut her door and rounded to his side. “Not really. The alarm is so sensitive that anyone sneezing ten feet away will set it off. A bit annoying, but it helps. It’s Lojacked, too.” He stuffed a key into the lock and fiddled with some buttons. “I’ll put it up for you now, though. I’m sure you don’t want your hair blown every which way. Frannie hates the convertible.”

  The evening was still warm, and the thought of a convertible was inviting. “No, don’t. It’s okay.” She leaned over and grabbed a gold pen from its perch at the head of the gear shift console, holding it up for his inspection. “Mind if I borrow this?”Without awaiting a reply she grabbed the back of her hair, fashioned it into a quick twist, then stabbed the pen in and out through the knot to hold it in place. “Fire away.”

  He shot her an appreciative glance. “A woman who thinks on the fly. An admirable talent.”

  With that the sports car roared to life, and they were off in search of fine dining in Jersey. Bruce skirted them alongside Princeton University, with its European brick grandeur and Neo-Gothic archways posed in stately presentation against the early night sky. Soon the pair landed on a tree-lined street full of tiny shops, where they spotted an eatery. Bruce slowed the car to a crawl in front of the green awning adorning the restaurant. “Here okay?”

  “Sure.” While he parked them a half-block away, she snuck another peek at the mirror stuffed in her purse. Her cheeks had been lightly slapped by the open air, blushing an appealing, healthy pink.

  A bustle of pedestrian activity peppered the street as they headed for the foyer. Despite clusters of people, the table wait for a party of two was mercifully brief. Bruce and Ridelle found themselves ushered to an intimate spot near windowed patio doors in short order.

  The interior of the bistro featured rich European upholstered furnishings. Pale olive walls were splashed with warm lighting from occasional wall sconces, creating a casually upscale feel. Drink orders were handed off to a saucy waitress with a long, wispy gold ponytail, then Bruce waggled his menu. “Feel free to be utterly decadent. This is my treat for all your help today.”

  Glancing at the menu, a twinge of guilt flashed at the thought of being offered filet and salmon by the same man who begrudged his wife a lunch salad with friends once a week. Since the gas card was the only plastic she’d been allowed to keep, she’d finally come up with the idea of letting her food tab get picked up by one of the group, then taking them to the nearest gas station and reciprocating with a comparable amount of gasoline. Fran Myers refused to be beholden to anyone except the
husband she felt owed her an entire financial existence. Perhaps in some ways she was right, but Ridelle couldn’t help but think the woman was being a little unrealistic. Hilarious, considering Ridelle had yet to cut fiduciary apron strings of her own.

  Perusing the menu spawned an unholy growl from Ridelle’s stomach. She hadn’t realized just how famished she was. Settling on Cajun striped bass, she laid her menu aside and found herself back in a buzzing puddle of somethingness, an annoying state of being overly aware of dining alone with another woman’s husband. Unable to sit inside her own skin with quiet contentment, she flicked glances around at other diners as though they might be scrutinizing her with disapproval. Surely the guilt crawling under her skin was flashing like a neon sign, branding her as an adulterer. Worse, she was a wannabe adulterer, deliberately plotting and scheming to reconstruct the lives of at least three people.

  No one around her seemed to care about her sinful ways, luckily. They were all too involved in the personal dramas, or if nothing else, platters of delightful-smelling food. Ridelle’s wandering gaze returned to the table to find Bruce watching her with a relaxed, mild expression. Her stomach twinged as their eyes met, though whether it was due to alarm that he read her thoughts or something more, she couldn’t tell. Either way, silence boomed like cannon fire by the time her jaw loosened enough for a little fishing expedition of her own. Her voice was tentative and less commanding than she’d have liked. “Do you need to call Frannie and let her know where we are?”