Hot Night. Shannon McKenna
your schedule. I’m meeting with an important donor at one.” She swept out, leaving a suffocating cloud of Joy in her wake.
Great. Now she had to make another ten frantic phone calls to schedule another time for the volunteers’ meeting. A typical day on Planet Bridget. Abby took a desperate swig of espresso and hustled into her office. The phone was blinking. She grabbed the receiver. “Yes?”
“Abby? Dovey’s holding for you on line two,” the receptionist said.
God forbid he had another blind date. Dovey was determined to find her Mr. Right, and much as she appreciated his efforts, today was not the day. “Put him through,” she said. “Dovey? Are you there?”
“I am! And how is my lovely Abby today?”
“Not so lovely, I’m afraid. I’m swamped, and Bridget’s cracking the whip big time. Where are you? Can I call you back later?”
“This will take just a minute. How was your date with Edgar?”
“Train wreck,” Abby said, shuddering. “Bloodbath. Total carnage.”
Dovey clucked his tongue. “This may seem strange, but I’m glad to hear it, because I’ve found a much better candidate! Hetero, forty-three, handsome, intelligent, single—that is to say, divorced—”
“Divorced?” It made her think, uneasily, of Mysterious Mark. Brrr.
“Three times. The wives’ fault. Bitches, all three. Apart from that, he fits every requirement on the List, right down to liking cats!”
Abby took a gulp of coffee. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” Dovey was so excited, she hated to tell him how unenthusiastic she felt. No matter how Listworthy this guy was, he wouldn’t have anything on a hunkadelic locksmith. “What does he do?” she asked dutifully.
“He’s a psychotherapist,” Dovey said. “I can personally vouch for his financial solvency, love. You could balance the budget of a small country with the money that I’ve paid him in the last few years.”
Abby stared out the window as she doodled on her desk calendar. “You’re sweet to think of me, Dovey, but can’t we give it some—”
“Just give me permission to give him your number,” Dovey pleaded. “Then just lie back and let destiny take its course.”
“That sounds alarming.” Abby fidgeted, fishing for an excuse.
“Pretty please?” Dovey wheedled. “He could be your date to the gala. I’ve already sold him a ticket. And he’ll look great in a tux.”
She doodled some more, stalling. “What’s his name?”
“That means yes, right? His name is Reginald Blake. You’ll love him. He’s perfect. I’ll call him up right away. Ciao!”
Abby hung up, and noticed that the locksmith’s number was still on her thumb. Her shower had faded it. Before she knew what she was doing, she had rewritten it on her thumb in fresh, wet black ink.
Yikes. She watched the ink dry, alarmed at herself.
It was normal to have fixated on Zan. He’d saved her from an awful fate. He was also drop-dead gorgeous. There was probably a name for this in the psych manuals; the Something-or-Other Syndrome.
A List-approved date was the perfect way to distract herself from this silly infatuation. Tonight, even. Why not? She ran her love life. She did not let it run her. And having a date for the gala would be nice.
Her eyes wandered to her desk calendar. Her doodles practically leaped out at her. Zan Duncan. Zan Duncan. Zan Duncan.
His name was emblazoned all over the month of June.
The chocolate-covered coffee beans Nanette had given her caught her eye, still wedged into the recesses of the plastic coffee lid. She pried them out, popped them into her mouth and crunched them up.
One had to take life’s little comforts wherever one found them.
Chapter
4
It was cold in Mark’s bedroom.
Elaine shivered, struggling against the strips of the silk scarf that bound her wrists and ankles to Mark’s bed. That scarf had been one of her favorites. A gift from Abby. She hadn’t wanted it ruined, but Mark hadn’t listened once he’d started to rend. Mark didn’t listen very well.
Hah. Was that ever a stunning understatement.
The coverlet was wadded into a scratchy bulge beneath the small of her back. Mark had left her there and wandered downstairs a half hour ago. At one point, she heard him talking on the phone in what sounded like Spanish. Then she heard the muted hum of the TV being turned on. The TV, for Christ’s sake. She struggled harder, and made as much noise as she could, which wasn’t much with the scarf tied over the gag in her mouth. She tried not to cry, but she’d never had much luck at that when she felt hurt and abandoned.
Tears kept sliding down, tickling her face. She tried to blot them on the pillows. Her nose was blocking up with snot. What an alluring picture she’d be once he finally decided to pay attention to her.
A woman’s got to cut loose and take some chances sometime, right? God, had she really said that?
Within limits. As long as you’re having fun, Abby had replied.
She struggled harder for breath. She was not having fun. She’d been in a state of dazed incredulity since this affair began, she’d been excited, titillated, dazzled, but she had never had one ounce, not one pinch, not one speck of fun. She never relaxed with Mark. Never.
She was too afraid of him.
She knew herself, after years of therapy. She knew her weak spots and her defects like the back of her hand. She might have no clue how to overcome them, but damn, did she know them. And she knew that this was not fun. She should not be afraid of Mark. Not if this was true love.
Then again, she was afraid of everybody. Her own mother, her own boss, who wasn’t she afraid of, other than maybe Abby?
She was so pathetic. How typical, that she had to be bound, gagged, screwed, and forgotten to get a clue. Tears of shame oozed out.
It had been so exciting, finally having an affair, like normal women did. Actually having sex, after all those depressing years without. Good sex, too. At least at first. For about a week, it had been perfect. Then something strange had crept into it, so gradually.
It had gone rotten from the inside. As usual, she hadn’t wanted to let go of her fantasies. She waited until they were wrenched away, like a bandage off a scabbed wound. So that it hurt as much as possible.
Last night she’d started facing reality. Tonight, she had no more doubts.
The most awful thing about it was that she’d consented to this treatment. She had no one but herself to blame for being so eager to please. She’d even bought rope, at his request, so that they could play his games at her house. She was a willing accomplice to his cruelty.
Her therapists said that her problems with men were a direct result of her problems with her father, issues of abandonment, blah-blah, tell her something new. She understood the dynamic. Now all she wanted was out. She wanted to fly away. To be somewhere else, someone else. She wanted out of this bed, out of these silken ties.
She couldn’t run away to Spain with this man, as she had promised him. He would destroy her. He was destroying her now.
Mark appeared, silhouetted in the door to the bedroom, still talking on his cell phone. His voice was so beautiful, speaking Spanish. It still thrilled her, even bound and shivering. The light behind him lit up the bulb of the glass of wine in his hand. It glowed like a chalice full of blood. The Cabernet she had ordered to accompany their meal.
She shuddered, so deeply she felt like it should shake