Kept (3 page)

Four thirty. Well, either Kell or Maggie should be home soon in case things got wiggy with Mr. Douglas. Until then, Trish replied neutrally in third-person. "Well, if a woman was going to ask that much of a man, she should expect to be available to him twenty-four-seven – travel with him, organize her schedule around him . .

."

"Sexually available?"

"Yes."

"With what sort of do’s and don’ts?"

"That would depend on the woman – and the man -

wouldn’t it? On what each of them liked or didn’t like?" Reed nodded. "I mean, if they’re sexually incompatible, then the man isn’t getting much for what he’s shelling out, is he?"

"We’re hooo-oooommme!" came the cry from the front door. Trish heaved a huge sigh of relief, but the tension returned to her body when she realized that Reed was, of course, going to be invited to dinner.

She was definitely different around him since their little discussion. Wary, almost, Reed decided, and that was exactly what he didn’t want. When their hosts were both out of the room, Reed turned to Trish and said, "Look, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable earlier this afternoon. But I do think the idea of keeping a woman – you, in particular – would have a lot of advantages, and I’d like to explore it further." Tricia had moved just about as far away from him as she could manage to be without leaving the room, looking like a deer caught in headlights, dammit.

- 17 -

BacksideOfLove.com

Carolyn Faulkner

He was so goal oriented that he tended to bowl people over trying to get to the objective and he sometimes left bodies along side the road. In business that was fine, but, although this was, ultimately a business deal, there were still people involved, and it wouldn’t work if she was afraid of him.

"Will you go out with me tomorrow night? Dinner? Just the two of us, so we can talk?"

Trish really wasn’t sure what she should say.

"You look scared, and you don’t have to." There it was again, that damned soft, cajoling voice and that depressingly accurate perceptiveness. "I won’t touch you, I won’t kiss you, I won’t even hold your arm. If you like, we won’t even discuss what we were talking about before. We’ll just have a date and Maggie’ll be over the moon." She still looked like she was about to say no. "I won’t keep you out past ten. I’ll pick you up at seven. Bring your cell phone and keep it on at the table. Bring mace and pepper spray, and you can use both of them on me if I break my word." This got him a smile. "I’m really not a jerk. I’m a busy, rich man who doesn’t have time to wine and dine any more, and your idea is very intriguing to me." His tone dropped lower still. "And I’m attracted to you, and I think you are attracted to me. If we weren’t, we couldn’t even discuss this. I think it would work really well for both of us."

"Okay, okay – jeez, you’re a freaking bulldozer!"

Reed rose as Maggie and Kell came back into the room.

"No, I just go after what I want, and I get it."

Maggie took one look at Reed and said, "I know that look.

What did you just go after and get?"

"Your cousin has agreed to accompany me to dinner tomorrow evening."

- 18 -

BacksideOfLove.com

KEPT

Maggie was practically beside herself, but Kell kept her in check. "Great! Dinner and a movie?"

"Just dinner," Trish corrected quickly, and Reed inclined his head in agreement.

"Whatever the lady wants," Reed demurred. He pecked Maggie on the cheek in thanks for dinner, then departed, leaving chaos in his wake.

"Oh, I just knew you two would hit it off!" Maggie was practically dancing around the room. Nothing Trish did or said seemed to diffuse her.

Finally, she gave up and went to bed, her mind occupied for the second night by thoughts of a dark, sexy almost-stranger.

~ ~ ~

It was six forty-five, and the compulsively early Trish sat in her cousin’s living room, reading the terminally heavy tome, "Fiery Cross", which she could barely lift. The doorbell sounded at exactly seven, and Maggie raced to open the door, but Trish got there first.

Reed was wearing a nice suit, but nothing ostentatious, which was good because Trish hadn’t brought anything expensive and she was sure that, even if she had, New Hampshire expensive and Knoxville, Tennessee expensive would not be the same thing at all. Just another little reminder of how far she was out of her league, here, but what the hell? Nothing ventured, and all that rot.

Trish was wearing a beige linen suit with embroidery and cut outs along the hem of the top and the skirt, and matching wheat colored pumps. Two of the holes in her ears sported simple gold studs, with the bottom hole in each ear pierced by a good-sized diamond.

- 19 -

BacksideOfLove.com

Carolyn Faulkner

Okay, so even on a teacher’s meager salary she could afford QVC

diamonds. So shoot her. Anyone who came at her with a jewelers’

loop was going to get smacked.

Their grandmother’s solid gold beads hung around her neck, courtesy of a comically anxious Maggie, and the only ring that graced her hands was her "divorce ring" – a hideously expensive, gorgeously beautiful heart tourmaline in a princess setting. "Divorce rings" had slowly become a macabre tradition amongst Trish’s women friends as each woman in turn got an engagement ring and a wedding ring, then got divorced. Someone, somewhere along the line came up with a great idea – why not buy yourself a "divorce" ring? It was your money now; hell, spend some of it on yourself!!

So, that became the battle cry as each of her friends and family left the ranks of the blissfully wed to become the bitterly –

or even just sadly – divorced. One of Trish’s friends had gotten a credit card in the mail the day before her final divorce papers arrived. She blew the whole credit line at once on a flawless emerald – and was still paying the thing off three years later. But every time she put that ring on, she knew had gotten something beautiful and wonderful out of the ashes of a failed relationship.

And, if she hadn’t bought it for herself, no one else would have bought it for her.

When the finally extricated themselves from Maggie and landed at the restaurant, Reed was pleasantly surprised to hear her turn him down when he asked if she wanted a drink.

"Just a Diet Coke, please."

"Religious reasons?"

"Excuse me?"

"Do you not drink because of religious reasons?"

- 20 -

BacksideOfLove.com

KEPT

"No, because of taste reasons. I’ve never developed a taste for it, and besides, I hate the way it makes me feel. All woozy and out of control."

"Ahhh. I’m not one for being out of control much myself."

He caught her eye quite deliberately. "With a couple of situations being obvious exceptions."

Dinner went surprisingly well. The restaurant Reed had chosen was one of casual elegance, nothing that made her inherently uncomfortable. He kept a light, entirely non-threatening discussion going through the entire meal, until the dessert menu was presented. Trish declined a sweet, but Reed indulged himself in a decadent vanilla cream Brule, offering a heaping spoonful to Trish, who was hard put to resist her favorite dessert.

"I shoulda just taken that spoonful and applied it directly to my hips," she groaned, licking her lips unselfconsciously.

"Don’t tell me you’re one of the dieting masses, too?"

"I should be, but I’m not. I certainly could be skinnier than I am, but – "

"No. You’re probably, what, a size fourteen?"

Oh my God! He’d pegged her perfectly! Had he looked at a tag in her clothes?

The outraged look confirmed his accuracy without a word from her. "You don’t look fat to me. You look like you’re about the right size for your height."

"Yeah, but I’m supposed to be a size six."

"Says who?"

"Society."

- 21 -

BacksideOfLove.com

Carolyn Faulkner

"Society said I should have ended up in jail."

Because she didn’t even voice the question, and seemed genuinely interested, he told her what it had been like for him to grow up. "Wow. You’ve really come a long way."

"And now here I am. Alone. No one to share it with."

"You should be looking for a wife, not a mistress," Trish chided gently.

Reed tilted his head and pinned her with a look. "Are you opening the door for that discussion?"

"Well, let’s just say that my hand is on the doorknob and leave it at that."

"Chicken," he teased with no animosity, laughing when she did a very bad imitation of that bird over her shoulder as they left the restaurant.

On the ride home, he got her to agree to go out again the next night. "And now that you know I’m not an axe murder –"

"I know no such thing," she countered. "I can’t imagine that you’d be cheap enough to show someone your axe on the first date."

When he finished laughing, he continued, " – tomorrow, I want to discuss the topic that we’ve been dancing around all evening."

He’d been scrupulous about keeping to their agreement – he never touched her once that night, to Maggie’s complete disgust.

Reed was thinking on the drive home that he’d been very well behaved. This time.

- 22 -

BacksideOfLove.com

KEPT

he next night, however, Trish discovered early in the evening that the gloves were definitely off. They T were in a very private booth of an atrociously shi-shi restaurant, with a Diet Coke and a Scotch, neat, in front of them, respectively.

The first thing he said to her was, "I want to keep you, if you’re really interested in an arrangement like that."

Trish congratulated herself on not choking on her soda. "I don’t know whether I’d be interested or not. I’m certainly lacking enough scruples to entertain the offer, however."

Reed chuckled. "That was an interesting way to backhandedly insult yourself."

"Well, you see, it’s like this: I’m alone. I don’t have a boyfriend, just an ex I don’t talk to. My parents are dead. Maggie is the relative that I’m closest to, and if you gave her the chance she’d lay me out on a platter with an apple in my mouth for you." She saw his eyebrow rise at that. "My friends would all applaud me and ask where they could get clones of you, so there’s no one around to really object if I decided to take you up on it."

- 23 -

BacksideOfLove.com

Carolyn Faulkner

"Then you have put some thought into it," he said, satisfaction rife in his tone.

Trish shrugged. "I did when you seemed interested in it, yes."

Reed leaned back in his chair, giving her a considering look. "And what you listed before – is that what you want?"

Frankly embarrassed by that list, Trish blushed. "No. I have no illusions that sex with me would be worth all of that."

"Well, what would you want?" Reed was finding himself more and more intrigued by this woman. Not many would have declined the things she’d mentioned and most would have taken one look at his net worth and been asking for more – much more.

Tricia took her time answering that question while studying the man before her. The uppermost thought in her mind was, why would a man like him need a paid mistress? He must have to check under the bed every night and shake the women out of his bedclothes each evening! Reed Douglas might not be classically handsome, but he was still an incredibly attractive man – to say nothing of the fact that his money alone would make him irresistible to some women. He was tall – taller than she liked, frankly – and very broad in the chest and shoulders, as if he was a weightlifter or professional wrestler in his off hours. He was healthily tanned but not to a George Hamilton extent and his eyes were an intelligent, clear gray. Tricia bet that very little – in business or elsewhere – got by him.

She gave an involuntary shiver.

"Are you cold?" he asked solicitously, immediately standing to shrug out of his jacket, placing it around her shoulders so that she was cocooned in the remnants of his body heat.

- 24 -

BacksideOfLove.com

KEPT

Although Trish absently caressed a lapel of the jacket, she murmured distractedly, "No, I’m not, really." Her eyes met his boldly. "I think that a lot of what I would want would depend on what you would want . . . sexually."

Their waiter chose that inopportune moment to reappear at his elbow, refilling their drinks. "Would you like to place your order now, Sir?"

Reed replied firmly, "We do not wish to be disturbed. When I want you, I will let you know." The man bowed, and left. "Are you okay discussing this here?"

Trish shook her head. "Yes, this is neutral territory, which is perfect right now."

"I kinda thought that my place would probably be uncomfortable for you, and I don’t think Kell and Maggie’s is really the place, either."

"You’re right." Trish grinned. "Well, the waiter won’t come back for fear of his life, so I think this is pretty safe."

His eyebrow rose. "Was I just insulted?"

"I doubt it. You’re a very aggressive and dominant man, or you wouldn’t have gotten where you are in life, so why would you be insulted just because I recognize those traits in you?"

"And does my aggression and dominance concern you?"

Readjusting her position a little awkwardly, Trish nonetheless said exactly what was on her mind. "No, not as long as you don’t turn it on me."

Reed snorted. "I think you’re too much like your cousin to be a shrinking violet."

- 25 -

BacksideOfLove.com

Carolyn Faulkner

"I’m more sensitive emotionally than my cousin is, in general, but I was referring more to physical and/or sexual aggression."

"Well, let me soothe your mind. I can provide references, if you require. I have never before nor would I ever in the future raise my fist to a woman, despite the ample provocation my mother could provide when she was alive." His dig at his mother made the moment lighter than it might have been, and Reed was rewarded with the smile he was looking for. "Actually, I adored my mom, and she was smart as a whip, but she couldn’t have balanced a checkbook if her life had depended on it."