The Chronicles of Stella Rice: February Read online

“Ménage a Trois,” Meagan said. “If you do this, you’ll have to remember, it’s just sex. Don’t mistake it for anything else and get hurt.”

  Katarina’s head swung around to face Meagan. “You can’t be serious. You’re not seriously telling Stella this is an okay thing to do.”

  “It’s Stella’s choice.”

  “This is crazy,” Katrina started. “Come on, Ann. Back me up on this.”

  Ann downed some MGD then shook her head. “I think I’m with Meagan. As long as Stella doesn’t get emotionally involved, this could be fun. Hell, I’d do it.”

  “Why doesn’t that surprise me?” a male voice asked.

  We all jumped when a cane materialized in the air above us, descended, and struck the table with a loud whap. The whap was followed by a string of curses and unflattering comments that had the blood draining from Ann’s face. Only as the spray of spittle began to dissipate was I able to identify the speaker, and only then when the tide of his anger had lessened to an extent that his words no longer resembled that of an angry chimpanzee.

  “Gerard,” Ann said, once she’d composed herself sufficiently to stare down her nose at him. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  Why she asked him that instead of being nice to him, I’d never know. She’d only spent the last week crying and moaning about him. If this was the best she could do to win him back, I didn’t think she had a chance in hell.

  “Stay away from Candace,” was his short, but passionate retort to Ann.

  “Candace? Candace who?”

  I tried not to snort at the ridiculousness of this question.

  Gerard’s lip curled. I feared he was about to let loose with a fresh torrent of expletives. Instead, he rested his fists on the table and leaned closer. His blonde hair fell over his forehead, making him seem younger, more innocent, less pissed off. “I know it was you, Ann. You and Stella.” I felt his eyes flash on me as he said my name.

  “Hey,” I said, throwing up my hands in defense, “leave me out of this.

  “Stay away from Candace.”

  “Drop dead,” Ann replied.

  “If I find out you’ve been harassing Candace…” he paused. No doubt he was trying to think up a suitable punishment.

  “Don’t you dare threaten me.”

  Unable to come up with anything good, Gerard stood erect and said, “Stay away.” Then he turned and stomped out the front doors.

  We were silent, unsure if it was safe to speak yet. We knew from the last few weeks the precarious position we were in. One wrong word, one casually spoken phrase could be enough to push Ann over the edge. None of us wanted to see her attempt to drown her misery in tequila again, so we waited and tried to gauge her emotional state.

  It didn’t look promising. As she reached for her beer her lips had already begun to quiver. Her eyes looked moist and disbelieving and her nose was turning red.

  She finished off her beer in a few gulps, raised a hand for our waitress, and ordered herself two tequila shots.

  “Ann,” Meagan was the first to say.

  “I hate him,” Ann declared.

  I reached across the table and gave Ann’s hand a squeeze. “Tequila won’t help.”

  “Oh yes it will. It’ll make me numb.”

  “Remember how awful you felt Wednesday morning after drinking all night?”

  “Yeah,” Meagan agreed. “Don’t let Gerard do this to you.”

  As the waitress set Ann’s tequila shots on the table, Ann nodded her thanks, hefted one shot glass, and swallowed. She didn’t bother with the salt or the lime, all she cared about was the booze. “Just shut up and let me drink,” she said.

  And that pretty much capped off our night.

  CHAPTER SIX

  2/7/05 8:35 a.m.

  Oh, the tangled webs we weave.

  If I had thought the doc was going to forget our conversation of last week, I was destined for disappointment. Okay, so maybe disappoint isn’t the right word here because I wasn’t really disappointed. I was pleased, enthusiastic, but I was not disappointed. I was feeling guilty, though. Why I should feel guilty was anybody’s guess. Okay, so I’d had sex with Jake again. Big deal. It wasn’t like having sex with Jake meant anything serious was happening between us. Sex with Jake was just that. Sex. Jake was involved with someone else. Our date on Valentine’s Day aside, the important thing was that I owed Jake nothing and he owed me nothing. I was a free agent, able to date whomever I pleased.

  Least that’s what I kept telling myself.

  Dr. Taylor arrived promptly at eight-thirty in black slacks and a lemon-yellow, button-up shirt. He stepped into the office behind Ann, slipped out of his coat, and waited.

  All I can say is my world came to a sudden, mind-numbing stop. Here was the kind of man dreams were made of and women fantasized about. Somehow I didn’t remember him looking this good. He could’ve stepped off the cover of a romance novel and into my office. If I didn’t have such a strong grip on reality I would have thought that was exactly where he’d come from—that Ann had gone out and grabbed some erotic novel and shaken the doc loose from its pages.

  He smiled, almost shy and boyish, and held out his hand when I started toward him. It took a second, but reality settled itself on me again and I lifted my own to meet his. Our palms touched and I nearly yelped in surprise. His skin was so hot, it seared. And rough from years of hands-on work.

  Slipping my hand free, I nodded to Ann who quickly retreated from the room—grinning like a loon—and shut the door. The usually large office suddenly felt too small to hold the two of us.

  He brushed against me as he crossed the room, then settled in the seat opposite my desk.

  When I gave him the resume and cover letter I’d spent the last few days working on, he spent exactly two minutes looking them over. He paid me the remainder of my fee, grinning as he signed the check and placed it in my hand. It was all very professional and above boards. A minute later, he said, “What about that date?”

  I stared at him and considered turning him down flat, then threw that idea out the window. “I don’t know,” I said, knowing damn well I had every intention of saying yes.

  “Come on. It’ll be fun.”

  “When were you thinking?”

  “Saturday.”

  “Let me check my schedule,” I parried, trying to sound busy and important. “I’ll call you tonight and let you know.”

  “Set the whole day aside. I want you from sunup to sundown.”

  “Little pushy, don’t you think?”

  “I know what I want.” He stood. “I’ll be waiting for your call.”

  I escorted him to my foyer and out the door.

  Dear God, I hope I’m not making a mistake.

  8:46 a.m.

  Desperate to get back in Katarina’s good graces after last night, I rang her the moment the doc left.

  “Guess what?” I practically shouted into the phone.

  Katarina, who was currently in her downtown office, probably staring out the window asked, “What?”

  “I have a date. No, don’t groan. It’s not Jake and Dev. It’s a former client. His name is Doc—”

  I could almost see her perking up when she interrupted. “He’s a Doctor?”

  “Not the kind you’re thinking of. He’s a Nautical Archaeologist and fine.”

  “So when are you going out with him?”

  “Saturday.”

  “Doing what?”

  “I don’t know. But he wants me to block all of Saturday for our date.”

  “Good for you, Stella. Let’s hope the date goes so good you forget about Jake.”

  In all honesty, I didn’t know if that was possible.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  2/9/05 10:36 a.m.

  Since Gerard’s departure from Ann’s life, she seemed to be a permanent fixture in mine. She slept in my home, ate my food, and drank all my tea. Don’t get me wrong, my home is always open to any friend or family member in need of emotional
comfort. This is, of course, assuming said friend or relative is sane. At present, sane wasn’t a word I’d use to describe Ann’s mental state. Angry, desperate, and irrational were better descriptions. And at times, when she was guzzling my “Awake” tea and had way too much caffeine flowing through her veins, crazier than a shit-house rat.

  Last night she’d sat at her desk for hours, downloading every song she could find that reminded her of Gerard. After amassing a suitable number of songs to ensure hours of heartache and despair, she burned them onto a CD, then she showed up at my bedroom door armed with it, a bottle of tequila, and time to spare.

  It wasn’t a good night.

  This morning she’d allowed me the privilege of holding her hair while all of lasts night’s tequila revisited her.

  I can’t go on this way. And Ann definitely can’t go on this way. She’ll kill herself with alcohol poisoning if she tried.

  I have to do something!

  “I’m a mess.”

  I looked up to see Ann walk into the office. She came around my desk and slumped in the client chair across from me. I took in her wet hair, rumpled jogging pants, and her pale face, and nodded. “You have to pull it together,” I told her.

  She nodded. “I have to get Gerard back.”

  “No, you have to forget about Gerard. Move on. Date someone else.”

  Ann grimaced and shook her head. “I’m not interested in anyone else.”

  “Then spend some time on your own. You don’t need a man to complete you.”

  “Not any man. Gerard. I feel lost without him.”

  Okay, so I liked Gerard too. He was a great boyfriend whenever they were together. He was devoted, caring, loving, and affectionate. If I was going to be honest, this breakup wasn’t Gerard’s fault at all. It was Ann’s. Whenever they broke up it was always her fault.

  “Why?” I asked, suddenly. “You get him back, then you’ll break up with him again.”

  Ann slumped lower. “I won’t. I appreciate him more now.”

  “Honestly, Ann. If I was Gerard, I would’ve broken up with you too. After a while a person gets tired of being dumped all the time.”

  “Oh great! Now you’re turning on me too. I can’t take this any more. My life is falling in on me!”

  I phased out Ann’s ranting as a thought occurred to me. What if this was what Gerard wanted? Could the only reason he’d broken things off with her was to give her a taste of her own medicine?

  The beginnings of an idea began to form in my head. It was risky, not a definite, but if it worked out, it might be just the thing needed for this situation.

  “If you and Gerard got back together, would you dump him again for no good reason?”

  “No! I’d never dump. I love him.”

  “Why don’t you call Gerard and invite him and Candace to The Oak Room two Saturday’s from today. No, don’t interrupt. Just hear me out.” When Ann sucked her teeth and sat back I continued. “You tell him you didn’t realize breaking up would mean you would lose him as a friend. Tell him you still want to be friends and this is your way of burying the hatchet.”

  “Why the fuck would I say that?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Your mother ever wash that mouth out with soap?”

  “Hell no!”

  “Anyway,” I said on a sigh, “what we’ll do is fix you up on a date with someone that night. Someone good looking. One of Meagan’s friends. That way when Gerard gets there and—”

  “And he sees me with another man he’ll get jealous.”

  “Bingo. So what do you think?”

  She didn’t answer right away. I could see her tossing the idea around in her head, thinking of possible scenarios. “I say hell yeah! Let’s do it.”

  I gave her thumbs up. “You call Gerard and I’ll call Meagan.”

  “Oh, this is gonna be good,” she said, bounding from the chair and trotting to her desk. A moment later, she had her phone pressed to lips and was saying, “Hi Gerard. It’s me…Ann. I’m calling because I want to apologize…”

  4:43 p.m.

  As anticipated, “Operation Lure and Deceive” was in full force. Meagan rushed to my place as soon as she got off work. The plan was for us to go over a list of possible men with Ann. The list of Meagan’s ex’s was long. And she’d brought pictures.

  “Gerard wouldn’t feel threatened by this guy,” Ann said, adding another photo to the reject stack. “Or this guy. But this one is promising. What’s his name?”

  Meagan smiled. “His name is Sean. He’s a vet, has a house in Fells Point, and would do anything for me.”

  “Anything?”

  “You name it.”

  Getting up for coffee refills, I glanced at the picture. Sean was a good-looking man. “You threw this one away?”

  “He was looking to get married,” Meagan explained. “I’m not ready for marriage.”

  Leaving them hovering over the coffee table in the family room, I grabbed their empty mugs and went into the kitchen. I was pouring cream into our mugs when the doorbell clanged.

  Katarina was still at work and I didn’t remember having any appointments after three today.

  “I got it,” Ann said, rising from the sofa and setting out for the door. Seconds later, when Ann strolled into the family room, Kool-Aid grin plastered to her face, I knew things were about to get interesting.

  And they did.

  Walking behind Ann was Dev.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Jake’s lover was at my house.

  Dev was in my kitchen.

  I’d only seen Dev once before and that had been at Hammerjacks in January when his band, Maverick, was doing a show. Onstage, dressed in black leather, he’d been magnificent. The leather hugged every delectable inch of his body. The pants fit like a second skin, molding to his form as he danced across the stage.

  The man was a walking, talking billboard for sex.

  With Dev standing in my kitchen, his hair falling in loose curls around his shoulders and a cocky grin on his lips, I’d quickly forgotten I was supposed to hate him. I didn’t think any woman could hate Dev.

  He sauntered (yes, sauntered) through my family room and toward the kitchen. This was a man who was positively awe-inspiring. My eyes roved up and down his body of their own accord. I was making a fool of myself, but I couldn’t stop. One look simply wasn’t enough. He was wearing suede today. Black suede so tight, I wondered how he could breathe. The wool turtleneck was a good touch. The royal blue was a nice contrast to the pants. The shiny, black, knee-boots he had on weren’t too bad either.

  I opened my mouth to speak, couldn’t tell if any sound would actually come out, and shut it.

  “Stella,” he said.

  Dear God, my name sounded amazing on his lips.

  I darted a look at Ann, who shrugged. “Can I help you?” I asked.

  He rounded the breakfast bar and came to stand beside me at the center island where I’d been stirring cream into our coffee mugs.

  “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you,” he said.

  That’s when I remembered my most recent get-together with Jake. You know the one. The sex on the desktop, I want to have a ménage a trois with you, get-together.

  My cheeks warmed at the memory and I hoped desperately my thoughts weren’t written all over my face.

  “Oh?” I said. Stupidly.

  “Oh,” he agreed, with a nod. “I’m Dev. Jake’s lover.”

  “I know who you are. I saw you at Hammerjacks last month.”

  His grin broadened. “Your knee to the groin didn’t do any lasting damage to Jake, but I guess you already know that.”

  I swallowed. “Oh! Jake told you about that? About—”

  “His desk,” Dev finished, tucking his thumbs into the waistband of his pants. “Jake tells me everything.” He leaned in close and whispered, “Even about the red paddle.”

  I wanted the floor to open up and suck me in. This could very well be the most embarrassing moment of my l
ife, and considering my history, that was saying a lot. Allowing Jake to paddle me last month had been one incredibly erotic experience. And it was private. Not something Jake should go around telling his friends about. Not even Dev had a right to know. After all, I didn’t want people knowing I’d let a man tie me up and swat my ass. That wasn’t the kind of thing strangers needed to know.

  “What else did he tell you?”

  Dev slid onto a counter and made himself at home. Brushing hair out of his face with one bejeweled hand, he informed, “Jake told me he invited you over on Valentine’s Day.”

  I could hear Ann and Meagan giggling. Clearly something about this exchange was amusing to them.

  “And what do you think of that?” I asked.

  “That’s why I’m here. We never formally met so you don’t know how things are between Jake and me.”

  “I didn’t know he was seeing anyone,” I said quickly, fearing this conversation was about to go south.

  But Dev shook his head. “Hush.”

  I opened my mouth to object but closed it again when he frowned. “Okay, say what you came to say.”

  He looked toward the family room where Ann and Meagan were hovering. Turning back to me, he suggested, “I think you’d rather have this conversation in private.”

  Considering the things Jake had told this man, I figured Dev was right. So I asked the girls, “Can you give us a minute, guys?”

  Ann looked like she wanted to refuse, but at Meagan’s prods, the two exited. I had no doubt they’d gone as far as the outer wall and were listening to every word we said.

  “Dev and I are lovers, you know that. And we’re both bisexual.” He paused. “And we’re both very domineering men.”

  “Okay,” I said, wondering where he was going.

  “I like to be on top, and Jake likes to be on top. Sometimes sex turns into a wrestling match, if you get my meaning.”

  I didn’t. The idea of wrestling with either man was so alluring I couldn’t see a problem. But I was curious and wanted to know more so I told him, “I see.”

  “Do you? You can’t have two domineering people in the bedroom. It doesn’t work. Don’t get me wrong, Jake and I have a good time, but it could be better. He shifted on the counter, sliding forward until he was poised at the edge. Eyes intent on mine, he said, “That’s where you come in.”