“That’s because you’re getting a nasty infection out of your system,” Nic said. “That man’s been plaguing you for months. Wait’ll he learns you’re finally and totally over him. His frickin’ ego will be crushed.”
“Too bad you couldn’t rain on his parade before he left for Paris,” Jayne said.
I cocked my head, unsure if I’d heard correctly. “Paris? As in France? As in the Eiffel Tower? The Louvre Museum? Champagne and decadent desserts?”
Jayne flushed.
Nic sighed. “I thought we agreed to wait until she was feeling better.”
“It slipped out.”
I sipped ginger ale to dissolve the lump in my throat. “Tell me.”
“Michael and Sasha eloped,” Nic said.
“They’re honeymooning in Paris,” Jayne added.
The city I’d dreamed of visiting since I was a little girl and first saw Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron dancing and singing in An American in Paris. The city of amour. The city Michael had promised he’d take me to someday. Instead he’d taken Sasha. “C’est la vie,” I said as blandly as possible, then spooned chicken soup and focused on not clenching my jaw.
Jayne screwed up her face. “I thought you’d be upset. Don’t you care that he didn’t tell you about the baby or the marriage, that he just whisked off the other woman to the city of your dreams?”
“Sasha’s no longer the other woman,” I said, careful not to choke on the words. “She’s his wife. And, no, I don’t care. I’ve moved on.”
“The new and improved Evie,” Nic said with a skeptical gleam in her eye.
“Oh,” Jayne said, looking befuddled.
“Consider me enlightened,” I said, speaking to her New Age sensibilities.
“But—”
“This soup is delicious,” I said. “Aren’t you having any?”
Jayne eyed Nic.
Nic eyed me. “Only if you tell us about the Scottish hunk you boinked and dumped.”
Jayne blinked. “You dumped Arch?”
“Yeah, but first they had great sex,” Nic said.
“Creative monkey sex,” I said, knowing that I had to tell them something about the last two weeks. Since I couldn’t talk about Chameleon, that left sex. Since I wouldn’t be having it anymore, at least not with Arch, the least I could do was relive the best romps with my best buds. Arch wouldn’t mind. In fact, I could envision his cocky smile.
“Interesting,” Jayne said.
“I’ll say.” Nic strode for the door. “I’m going to get my soup and—be warned—I’ll be eating slowly. I want details. Every position. Every location.”
Jayne hovered in Nic’s wake. “I meant, interesting how you have this fascination with monkeys. Remember when you e-mailed me from the ship asking what my dream books said about gorillas?”
I slurped some broth. “Uh-huh.” I’d been plagued by dreams of me in a gorilla suit hawking used cars. The hairy demise of my entertainment career.
She crossed her arms over her gauzy peasant blouse. “Do you remember what I wrote back?”
“Word for word.” I had this gift. Mostly, after reading something once, it was ingrained in my brain. Memorizing scripts had never been a problem. I’d retained a character profile Arch had given me after one reading. I remembered how impressed he’d been. That same night we’d shared our first atomic kiss.
I squeezed my thighs together and cursed some inappropriate tingling. Beckett had asked me if Arch was out of my system. Normally I’m a damn good actress. That I hadn’t been able to disguise my infatuation was disconcerting. Either I was slipping or Beckett had a superior bullshit detector. I’m thinking the latter, which meant I needed to pull off a major deception to earn my Chameleon stripes … scales … whatever.
I broke some crackers into my soup and glanced at Jayne, who was still waiting for me to reiterate her summation. “You said that if I dreamed about apes, then beware of a mischief maker in my business or social circle. Unless the gorilla was docile. Then the dream was a forecasting of a new and unusual friend.”
“I’m guessing since you dumped Arch, he was a mischief maker. At least you got great sex out of it,” she said with a beaming smile. “And also proof that there is some stock in my metaphysical interests.” She flounced out of the room, glanced over her shoulder. “Just so you know, I’ll be eating as slowly as Nic.”
In their absence, I thought about Jayne’s dream interpretation. Arch was a mischief maker, to be sure, but I’d considered him that new and unusual friend. No matter our differences, there’d been that indefinable connection. It bothered me that he’d been able to sever it so easily. A friend would have returned my call right away. A friend wouldn’t have left me a message with no invitation to call back.
“Ouch.”
So much for the new and improved Evie who dumped gorgeous flings without a second thought. No emotional ties. No promises. Just great sex.
Right.
CHAPTER NINE
AMAZING WHAT SIXTEEN hours of sleep can do for a rundown body. By midday the next day I felt half human. Although I suffered the occasional sneeze and my voice was still ragged, I’d stopped coughing and I could breathe fairly well. Chicken soup and girl talk had worked miracles—and, okay, later I’d broken down and taken a slug of nighttime cold medicine. Desperate for relief, I didn’t care about the groggy side effects. In fact, I counted on the greenish liquid to knock me out, which it did. No dreams about Arch winging through London with a flock of pretty birds or a certain honeymooning couple breezing around Paris.
I did, however, dream about my folks. First thing, I tried to call Mom, then Dad. I got their respective answering machines. My brother was unavailable, as well, tied up in back-to-back meetings, according to his secretary. I left messages. I wrestled my runaway imagination to the ground. Don’t borrow trouble, I could hear Arch say.
“Don’t think about Arch.” He sure wasn’t thinking of me. I told myself to stop pouting. I wanted a hot fling. I got it. I wanted to break off. We did. Possible his idea of friendship differed from mine. Possible things were hunky-dory between us and I was overreacting due to an overactive imagination. Yeah. That was it.
After a healthy breakfast and a reviving shower, I was ready to face a new Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah day. Beckett had barred me from the club until my cold was kaput, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t prepare. I’d spend the next day or two cramming. Bone up on jazz standards and common grifts. Somewhere I had the soundtrack from Lady Sings the Blues. I’d be hard-pressed to find a cheery song on that Billie Holliday tribute, but at least it was jazz. I could listen and absorb while reading up on classic cons. Since I’d paid for rush delivery, I expected the books I’d ordered today.
