“I don’t think so. I might have to work late anyway.”
He didn’t believe her excuse, but he nodded.
“By the way, when you were at the museum the other day, did you happen to see anyone taking pictures?”
Chev frowned. “As a matter of fact, there was a guy with a camera phone. I let him know I saw him and he put it away.”
“Not soon enough,” she murmured.
“Is something wrong?”
“His name is Lewis Wilcox and he’s a reporter. He knows who I am—or rather, that I used to be married to the state attorney general. He sent the photos to Jason and is threatening to reveal everything.”
Chev shrugged. “So?”
“So…it will be bad for Jason that I’m doing something so…controversial.”
“But it’s not illegal, and besides, you’re good at it. And I know you enjoy it.”
She gave him a tight smile. “Too much for my own good.”
“Ah. Your ex doesn’t know that you’re…”
“An exhibitionist?” she said bluntly. “No. And I wasn’t one when he and I were together.”
“So this is something recent?” he probed, his balls throbbing just talking about it.
“No.” She looked up, down, all around. “My first experiences were in college.”
“And it started up again after your divorce?”
She nodded. “When you moved in.”
He stepped closer and picked up her hand. “Look, Gemma, I’m no expert. But it doesn’t take a psychiatrist to see that you’re using this fetish to keep from getting close to someone.”
“Maybe,” she admitted.
“All I’m saying,” he said gently, stroking his thumb over her palm. “Is that the two don’t have to be mutually exclusive.”
Her chest rose and fell as her breathing became more labored. The hardened points of her nipples showed through her T-shirt. Her lips parted and her eyes dilated. She wanted him, he could feel it. She was thinking about the night they’d spent together burning up the sheets, barely speaking because they hadn’t needed words to communicate. They were communicating now, he realized as the air became thick with need.
“Gemma—”
She abruptly pulled her hand from his. “I have to go.”
Chev didn’t try to stop her. He had no right to.
* * *
SHAKEN, Gemma practically ran back to her house, dodging the peacock, which seemed determined to block her path. “Get out of the way!” she shouted, shooing the bird, thinking if it hadn’t been for the pesky creature, she and Chev might not have interacted so much, and she wouldn’t be…
Confused.
She closed the front door and leaned against it. It was the man’s bottomless dark eyes, damn it. The way he looked at her…as if she were the only thing in the world that mattered. It was, she realized, why they seemed to have such a deep sexual chemistry. They connected through meaningful and purposeful eye contact.
It occurred to her suddenly that she and Jason had moved through their entire marriage making as little eye contact as possible. Was it because they each didn’t like what they saw? Didn’t feel the connection, so they’d found it easier and better to just stop looking?
Her cheeks were wet when she walked to the phone. She dialed Jason’s number and he answered on the second ring, his voice pleased. “Gemma? I saw your name on the display.”
“Yes, it’s me.”
“How are you?”
“Fine. Is this a bad time?”
“No worse than usual.” He gave a tight little laugh. “Have you given some thought to what I proposed?”
To what I proposed. As if it were a business deal to be settled. As she listened to papers rattling in the background amidst keys clicking on a keyboard, her heart sank. He couldn’t set aside work long enough even to talk about rebuilding their marriage. Was he so sure that she’d come running back to him that he’d already crossed it off his to-do list? Tears clogged her throat, but at least it confirmed her instincts.
And her decision.
“Gem, are you there? I don’t mean to rush you, but I have to be somewhere in fifteen minutes.”
“Of course,” she said. “This won’t take long. I’ve thought about what you said, Jason, and I’ve decided that I prefer to leave things the way they are.”
Silence resonated over the line as the paper rattling and key clicking stopped. “I’m sorry—what did you say?”
She inhaled. “I don’t want us to get back together.”
Disbelieving noises sounded in her ear. “But…you’re making a mistake. If we don’t get back together, Gemma, I can’t control Wilcox. You won’t have the protection of my name or my office.”
She pressed her lips together, biting down. It was so like Jason to try to exert pressure to get his way. “I hope he doesn’t use those pictures to embarrass you or your office, Jason, but if he goes public with them, I’ll be fine. I happen to like my job and frankly, I’m good at it.” And she was no longer going to be ashamed of her “inclinations,” as Lillian had so aptly put it.
“Gemma, why are you doing this?”
“Because I love you, Jason, but not enough.”
“Not enough to what?” he asked, incredulous.
Gemma closed her eyes at his inability to grasp the emotional gravity of the situation. “Exactly,” she murmured, then hung up the phone.
She took a few moments to breathe deeply and to mourn the time lost. They both deserved better. She pushed to her feet and, eager to rid herself of all the artifacts of her marriage, carried the boxes and baskets of Jason’s things to her trash bin in the garage. The divorce papers went in the file cabinet. Then she tackled the photos.
While she sorted through pictures of their life together, making a stack for herself and one to box and send to her mother, she slipped their wedding DVD in the player and let it run in the background. She’d watched it countless times during the divorce proceedings, but this time it was different. This time, she was dry-eyed and philosophical, wishing she could talk to the young bride in the film and tell her to run and find someone who knew everything about her—including her fetishes—and still wanted to be with her.
She smiled at the picture in her hand, one of her and Sue at a charity golf scramble from a few years back, their arms around each other’s shoulders. But it was something in the background that caught her eye—Sue’s golf towel…black with a gold letter monogram. Exactly like the one that Jason had seemed to prize, a gift from someone…
An awful seed of dread took root in Gemma’s stomach. She picked up the remote control and went back to the beginning of the DVD, this time watching the interaction between Sue, her maid of honor, and Jason.
They’d stared at each other when Sue walked down the aisle, escorted by Jason’s best man. After Sue took her place at the altar, there was an exchanged glance…then another…and another, each more lingering than the last. Even while Gemma walked down the aisle. Sue was nervous, fidgeting. Jason looked…uncertain. When he wasn’t looking at her or Sue, he was looking straight up, as if he were struggling with a decision. And when the minister asked if anyone knew of any reason she and Jason shouldn’t marry, Sue had opened her mouth…then closed it. Then there.
Gemma froze the tape. Jason had pivoted his head and looked at Sue, a pleading expression in his eyes. An expression of love.
She covered her mouth with her hand. Jason and Sue…how had she missed it? Snatches of conversation came back to her.
I never dreamed the two of you would get married…I’m just really happy that you’re moving on…I don’t want to see you get folded back into Jason’s life.
Sue had scoffed at the idea of her getting back together with Jason…because she wanted him for herself? How convenient that she was in Tallahassee and so was Jason. And that he had left Gemma in Tampa.
With the frame of Jason looking at Sue over her head frozen in the background, Gemma picked up the phone and dialed Sue’s number, her fingers shaking.
“Hi, Gemma,” Sue sang cheerfully. “What’s up with you?”
She gripped the phone, bile backing up in her throat. “How long?” Her voice quaked.
Sue gave a little laugh. “How long what?”
“How long have you and Jason been fooling around behind my back?” At the silence on the other end, tears filled Gemma’s eyes. “Oh, God, it’s true.”
“Gemma, let me explain—”
Gemma disconnected the call and unplugged the phone, then hugged herself, every part of her aching. Her marriage had been a lie…Jason had never loved her. Her friendship with Sue, another lie. Their late-night gabfests in college, sharing hopes and dreams, long-distance phone calls when they’d landed in different cities after she’d married Jason, making it a point to never miss a birthday or anniversary of some special occasion. To think that she had relied on Sue’s advice to get through the divorce. And to top it all off, she had slept with Chev at Sue’s repeated encouragement to “go for it.”
A few minutes ago, she had felt like an independent woman reclaiming her life, only to discover that she had been manipulated every step of the way. She had to be the world’s biggest fool.