Just About Sex (2 page)

“I can understand why you’re so upset.”

He started, his frown disappearing.

“I’m sure we both wish your girlfriend had tried to solve your problem in a more private manner, but at least she’s opened up a dialogue—”

Greene’s mouth dropped open.

“—and I’d like to help. Here’s an advance reading copy of my new book. You can have it for free, of course. I’ll be happy to autograph it for you.” She held the book out to him and he took it warily. “I think chapter eight could really work wonders for you and Nikki.”

Blinking as if dazed, Greene looked down at the book, where her face smiled up at him from the cover, and read aloud: “Sextasy: Dr. Simone’s Guide to a More Satisfying Sex Life.” He looked back up at her, his chin still on the floor. “You cannot be serious.”

She smiled encouragingly. “It’s natural to be embarrassed, but you
can
work through this! This is a very common problem—”

“I don’t think you’re hearing me.” Holding the book overhead, he dropped it on the desk with a loud thunk, ignoring her surprised, outraged squeak. “I guess they didn’t teach listening at NYU.”

“Now wait a minute—”

Freddie’s head poked in the door. “Everything okay in here?”

“No!” Simone and Greene shouted together, neither bothering to look at Freddie. “Freddie, I need a minute,” Simone snapped, glancing at him long enough to see his brows creep toward his hairline as he spun and walked off down the hall.

Greene didn’t miss a beat. “Nikki is not and never has been my girlfriend. She was a woman I had occasional sex with. When I ended it, she got pissed.
That’s
why she wrote that little letter. Revenge. And I do
not
have a small penis. And I’m great in bed. I can do two fishes. One night I made Nikki come four times.
That’s
why she was so upset when I dumped her. Okay?”

“‘Two fishes?’” Simone asked blankly.

Disgust passed over his features. “You call yourself a sex therapist? Maybe I should lend you my copy of the
Kama Sutra
so you can educate yourself a little. And you can keep your little how-to, pseudo-science manual.”

Suddenly she remembered. The two fishes position required a man with an exceptionally long penis. Simone felt her cheeks flame and her pulse drummed with anger. When had she ever met such an arrogant jerk? Nikki, obviously, had had the right idea in dealing with this idiot. All Simone’s training and professionalism flew out the window. Something—everything—about this man rubbed her the wrong way, and it was her solemn duty to the women of Cincinnati to take him down a notch.

Tapping her index finger to her lips, she tilted her head to the side. “Wow. This is worse than I thought.”

“What is?”

“Well, in my experience, lovers are like soldiers. The ones who really see the action don’t need to brag about it.” She stared pointedly at his groin, which was covered by the flaps of his jacket. “So I guess your
member
is even smaller than I’d suspected.”

Greene leaned over the desk again and smiled that same crooked smile. His leering gaze swept up and down over her body, lingering on her breasts, the tops of which he could surely see through the white lace camisole under her peach suit jacket.

“Baby, there’s one sure way for you to find out how big I am.”

Ignoring the strange and unwelcome fluttering in her stomach, Simone laughed without humor. “Well, as tempting as your little—” she looked at his groin again “—and I do mean
little—
offer is, I think I’ll pass.”

He shrugged. “Your loss.”

“Oh, I’m sure.” She picked up a file from her desk and flipped through it without seeing anything. “And I’m sure none of your alleged satisfied customers ever faked it.”

Roaring laughter answered her. “That’s ridiculous. None of my women would ever need to fake it. And anyway, I’d know.”

Infuriated now, she slammed the file closed and tossed it aside. “Have you ever seen
When Harry Met Sally?
”

His smug, defiant smile faltered. “No. Why?”

“No reason.” She let her lips turn up in what she hoped was a satisfied, mysterious smile. “So if we’re finished—”

“No, we’re not finished.” His face tightened and his voice dropped back into a low, dangerous range. “I don’t like being laughed at. How are you going to fix my reputation?”

Sighing, she ran a hand through her hair and considered their limited options. “The best I can do is let you write a rebuttal letter, or print a correction on the names. But I think that would only draw more attention to the whole thing. The best thing for you to do is just get over it.”

A muscle pulsed in his jaw. “‘Just get over it?’”

“Yes.”

“I don’t think so. I want you to print an apology.”

“For
what?
Not showing up at your house with a tape measure before I ran the column?”

“No, no. You can keep it vague. Just say you’re sorry for recent inaccuracies and for not double-checking to make sure the names had been changed. That should do it.”

Simone’s powerful defiant gene kicked into turbo drive, and she raised her chin to give him her haughtiest glare. “If you think I’m going to let some arrogant jerk storm into
my
office and dictate what
I’m
supposed to write in
my own
column, you’d better think again because you are obviously delusional.”

Greene growled ominously, but she wasn’t finished.

“Why don’t you suck it up and be a man about it? Stop your whining! You know what they say about sticks and stones! Get over it!”

A dangerous silence stretched between them. Greene cracked his lips open and somehow spoke despite his rigid jaw. “Are you…
taunting
me?”

“No.”

More silence followed, reminding Simone of the audience’s hushed silence one time when she watched the tiger tamer at the circus; just as she had then, she knew the wild animal could strike at any second, but prayed that he wouldn’t.

“Hmmm.” Greene tapped an index finger against his lips and tilted his head to the side, just as she had done.

Was he
mocking
her?

“You’re awfully glib. I wonder how
you’d
feel,” he said, leaning his hip against her desk, “if someone printed stories about
your
sexual exploits and ruined
your
reputation.”

Unease replaced anger. She certainly didn’t want her private life trotted out for public inspection, especially now. Not now. Trying to appear nonchalant, she tossed her head. “What do you mean?”

“Are you familiar with the term
comeuppance?
”

Unease gave way to a panicked feeling of dread. Frozen, she couldn’t look away from his dark, intense stare. Something told her both that she did not want this man as her enemy and that she must not—must never—show him any sign of weakness. But as her ears burned and a cool drop of sweat trickled between her now clammy breasts, she couldn’t help it. She blinked.

His gaze sharpened.

Abruptly she looked down, brushing lint off her slacks. “I have no idea what you think you’re talking about.”

“Will you issue the apology?”

“No,” she said, her stubborn streak refusing to allow her to back down.

Risking a glance at him, she saw, to her horror, a slow, wicked smile widen across his face—exactly the way a conniving smile had dawned across the Grinch’s face in that old cartoon where he decided to steal Christmas. She swallowed, hard.

“You’re going to regret that, Dr. Simone,” Greene said. “You’ll see.”

Chapter 2

A
fter Greene stalked off, Simone’s quivery knees finally gave out and she collapsed into her desk chair. Leaning back, she closed her eyes and tried to take several deep breaths to calm her racing pulse, but her lungs seemed to be suffering from amnesia and wouldn’t cooperate. Her brain, likewise, went haywire and focused on only one frenzied thought: what did he mean?
What did he mean?

Worrying solved nothing, but her roiling gut wouldn’t let her do anything else. Greene wanted a pound of her flesh, preferably bleeding and tattered, and wouldn’t stop till he got it. As tempted as she was to hope he was the idle threat type, she knew better. Greene was the Captain Ahab, scorched earth type—the type who’d follow her to the ends of the earth until he got vengeance, no matter what kind of destruction he left in his twisted path. She knew it.

But what could she do? She couldn’t—

Hurried footsteps in the hallway startled her out of her thoughts and she jumped to her feet. Freddie rushed in, followed by her lawyer/agent, Pat White.

“Pat’s here, honey,” Freddie told her.

Pat stepped around Freddie, looking him up and down as she went. “What are you, the butler?” she snapped, her sleek salt-and-pepper bob swinging around her unlined light brown face. “I’m quite sure Simone can see that I’m here.”

Freddie sniffed and looked away.

In her omnipresent shapeless dark suits with alternating white or cream tailored shirts, Pat looked like a consummate professional, but Simone had always secretly thought the spirit of some dead but confused New York cabbie had possessed her body. If she had to pick a motto for Pat, it would be something like, “My opinions: always available. No need to ask.” Pat and Freddie, alas, got along like gasoline and a lit match.

She hurried forward to kiss and hug Pat. “I’m so sorry!”

Pat frowned at her. “What happened to you? I’ve been waiting down at the café for twenty minutes! What? Have I got all day?”

“Well, I—”

“Wait, don’t tell me.” Pat waved a hand and perched on the edge of the desk. “Freddie, here, said some maniac barged in and bragged about his penis. Was it really that big? Never mind. What happened?”

Simone scowled at Freddie before answering. “I’m not sure what Freddie told you, but we did
not
have a penis viewing here in my office this morning.”

“A shame,” Freddie muttered, flopping on the sofa and throwing his arm over the back.

“As I was saying,” Simone said, shooting Freddie a death glare, “this man was upset about a letter he claims his angry ex wrote for revenge. I think he wanted me to print a retraction or apology or something. We argued, I pointed out doing something like that would probably draw more attention to the whole issue than he really wanted, and he left. Well, actually, he made a veiled threat, and then he left.”

Pat clutched her arm. “Why didn’t you say something? What kind of threat? Did he have a gun? Do we need to get a restraining order?”

“No. Nothing like that. He’s a lawyer. I don’t think he’s a wacko.”

Pat snorted. “I hate to burst your bubble, Snow White, but lawyers are the biggest wackos out there.”

“Amen,” Freddie said from the sofa.

They both ignored him. “It wasn’t a violent threat,” Simone said. “He was just kind of wondering aloud how I’d feel if someone told stories about my sex life, or something like that. I’m not going to worry about it.”

She meant it. Now that a few minutes had passed and she’d repeated his veiled threat aloud, it all seemed so silly. The man was a lawyer. A professional, just like her. What was he going to do? Hire Sammy “the Bull” Gravano to carry out a hit on her? Of course not. So she’d just forget about the whole ridiculous incident. Greene couldn’t do anything to her.

“I don’t know. I don’t like it.” Pat whipped her PalmPilot out of her jacket pocket. “Gimme his name. I’ll check him out a little.”

Simone told her, then moved on to what was to have been the topic of their lunch meeting. “Soooo? How was the conference call? What’d they say?”

“Well, I’ve got the good news and the not-so-good news. I’ll give you the good news. The good news is, National Press is definitely ready to add a sex columnist to its daily papers. They think the time is now, people are ready, yadda, yadda yadda. They like you, they think you have enormous appeal, they think they can work with you and they’re excited about your book coming out. This would be tremendous exposure, of course. With
USA Every Day,
you could be huge.
Huge
. And I think the deal would be worth about ten percent more than I quoted you.”

For the second time that day, Simone’s professionalism left her and she giggled and clapped her hands. Finally! After a million years of graduate school and dissertations and research and building her practice and working her behind off, now—
finally
—real financial security, for herself and her mother, was within reach. She could buy a house, travel and put more money away for retirement. If they syndicated her column and her book took off, the sky was the limit.

“I’ll be wanting that raise,” Freddie told her, grinning.

Pat held up a warning hand. “Not so fast. I haven’t told you the not-so-good news.”

Simone froze in midclap and dropped her hands.
“What?”

“They’re also looking at another columnist. You know that woman out in Minnesota? The granny-nurse woman? Her. They think she’s more reassuring and a little more scientific. I dunno. More credible, maybe. Who knows. Anyway, the point is, they haven’t decided. It’s between you and her.”

Freddie made an outraged noise. “Well, that’s probably just a negotiating trick. You know—so they can get Simone for cheap if she thinks they might give the job to someone else. That’s all that is.” He smiled reassuringly at Simone. “Don’t you worry.”

Pat pivoted on her hip to gape at Freddie. “What are you? A lawyer now? Did you go to law school since last week? Huh? You think I didn’t think of that? You think I didn’t do a little research?”

“Heifer,” Freddie muttered.

“Okay, people,” Simone said, shooting them both warning looks. Once they got started they could bicker like the Honeymooners. “Just give me the bottom line, Pat.”

Pat drew herself up. “The bottom line is, you need to keep your nose to the grindstone and keep cranking out a great column. And keep up with all the little local interviews and radio shows and positive publicity. Okay?”