“Stacy—” Robert began, only to stop as another voice echoed in the background, calling him. A female voice. “In a minute,” he responded irritably.
Stacy’s fingers tightened so hard around the receiver, it was in danger of snapping. She’d been such a jerk, such a hopeless, stupid, stupid jerk. But that was all going to be behind her very soon.
“Go, Robert. Your wife’s calling,” she ordered him coldly.
“No, Stacy, I want—”
She cut him off before he could get any further. “It’s not about what you want, Robert. It’s about what I want for a change.”
With that, Stacy slammed the receiver back into its cradle.
Her tears began immediately. Tears of anger, of remorse and, most plentifully, of regret. Barrels of regret. Not for coming in between a husband and his wife, or even a father and his children. Regret that she had spent the past three years of her life, three of the most youthful-looking years at her disposal, sneaking around with a married man. In the beginning, she had been incredibly naive. Thrilled at the fleeting moments of attention he could spare her. Thrilled to have caught his eye to begin with. And he had been generous. Incredibly generous. Before Robert, there had only been costume jewelry. Now there were diamond earrings and gold bracelets.
Diamonds and gold. How the hell could she have sold herself so short? What was wrong with her, anyway?
Stacy stopped to look at herself in the oval hall mirror. What she saw was a still-gorgeous blonde in a filmy negligee. But for how much longer? God, she deserved better than to stand there, waiting for crumbs while Robert’s wife got to eat at the banquet table, devouring whole portions.
“Okay,” she addressed the woman in the mirror. “Okay, so we start over. We stay strong and we start over.” She said it over and over again, until she felt as if she meant it.
What would help, she thought, would be getting rid of every single shred of evidence that Robert had ever been in her life. She took a deep breath. It would be like a caterpillar shedding its cocoon.
“There’s still a butterfly in there,” she promised herself. “A butterfly that’s going to do hell of a lot better than Robert Pullman when she’s through.” It amounted to a declaration of independence. She was through with that lying cheat. That she was the one who had made him such didn’t trouble her in the least.
Crossing back to the bedroom, she went straight to the closet and began to pull Robert’s garments off their hangers. Stacy made a point of stomping on each item she took out, grinding her heel into the fabric.
She’d just yanked off his sweater, the black one she loved so much on him, when she heard the doorbell ringing. Her revelry froze.
Robert.
He didn’t live that far away from here. Only a few blocks. But there was always traffic to reckon with. Still. He must have gone through all the red lights to get here this fast.
A smug expression slipped over her lips. She knew he couldn’t stay away. Knew he wanted her. But she wasn’t won over that easily. Stacy intended on making him crawl for his supper. Or for his pleasure.
Maybe she’d take him back, maybe she wouldn’t, but whatever way she was going to play this, she was determined that he was going to beg.
Confidence filled her veins. She checked herself over in the mirror, ran her fingers through her storm of ash-blond hair, then subtly adjusted the negligee she’d put on when she’d thought he was coming over. Left on her own, she slept in the T-shirt that her first lover had left behind when he walked out on her. She’d spent the past eight years hating him.
Ready to knock him dead, Stacy made her way to the front door, the negligee she’d bought for Robert flapping in her wake as she moved.
“There’s nothing you can say to make me change my mind,” she announced, flipping the two locks the superintendent had recently placed on her door. “Because I—”
The second she yanked open the front door, she froze, stunned. Instead of the rugged physique of her lover, she was looking at a tall, thin, nervous-looking young man. He looked anywhere between his late twenties and early forties. He had the type of face that was impossible to place, although he did look vaguely familiar. But then, she waited on so many people during the course of the evening at Robert’s restaurant, it was hard to remember a select number, much less everyone.
“Oh.” Impatient, disappointed, Stacy gripped the doorknob. “Who are you?”
The man was dressed completely in brown. Brown shoes, brown slacks, brown pullover. He seemed to almost fade into the hallway. He cleared his throat before answering, as if he wasn’t accustomed to speaking to anyone but himself. One of those nerd types who invented things the world suddenly couldn’t do without, Stacy thought. She wondered if he’d done anything of importance and if he was worth a lot of money. Certainly he didn’t dress that way. But then, rich nerds never did.
“Jason, ma’am. Jason Parnell,” he added after a beat. “I’m sorry to bother you, but I live just down the hall.” Turning, he pointed vaguely toward the long hallway. “And my phone went out.” Brown eyes looked into hers, imploring. “I was wondering if I could use yours to call the phone company.”
She remained where she was, her hand still on the doorknob, ready to slam it shut. “It’s Sunday.”
He bobbed his head. “Yes, it is. But their customer service line is opened twenty-four/seven. You have to go through several menus, but you wind up with a live person eventually. I’ve been through this before,” he added sheepishly. “Um, I knocked on some of the other doors.” He turned again, nodding at the various apartment doors, behind which all sorts of lives were being led. “But you’re the only one who answered.”
“Look, I’m expecting someone—”
“I’ll be quick,” he promised. “My mother lives with me and she’s not well. That phone is her only lifeline when I’m at work. If I leave tomorrow morning and the phone’s down, she’ll be helpless.”
He looked pathetic, she thought. Exactly what she would have thought a man past the age of twenty and living with his mother would look like. She didn’t remember seeing him in the building before, but then, he was one of those people she wouldn’t have noticed unless he was lying on the pavement next to her feet.
She supposed there was something to be said about a man who cared that much about his mother. At least he was better than a dirty, rotten, cheating husband who used his wife as an alibi every time he didn’t want to bother coming over.
“Your mother, huh?”
“Yes, ma’am.” His head bobbed again, like a subservient creature. “She’s eighty-five and in a wheel-chair.”
“All right, all right, you’re breaking my heart.” With a sigh, Stacy opened the door and stepped back. “Come on in. But make it quick,” she added.
Turning away, she didn’t see the smile that curved her neighbor’s lips.
“As quick as I can. I promise.”
CHAPTER
