what?”
“If you don’t know, I couldn’t possibly explain it to you.”
“Aah, the last resort of the cornered female,” he said, shaking his head now. “I expected better of you, Caitlyn.”
“And I expected…” She stopped, blew out a hard breath that puffed her bangs up off her forehead so that he was treated to another peek at the dangerous sparks shooting in her eyes. “I don’t know why I expected anything different. So you know what? Never mind.”
“Excellent idea,” Jefferson said, grabbing the opportunity to end this discussion as quickly as possible. For whatever reason, his steady, dependable assistant had slipped off her mental track. “We’ll forget this conversation ever took place.”
“You will, too, won’t you?” Caitlyn tightened her grip on the strap of her purse, turned and headed for the door. “Well, I won’t be forgetting anytime soon, Jefferson.”
She was gone a moment later and he was left with irritation pulsing inside. He wasn’t accustomed to anyone walking out on him. And he didn’t like it.
Two
“Men suck.” Disgusted, Debbie Harris lifted her appletini high.
“Hear, hear!” Janine Shaker picked up her Cosmo and held it poised for a toast.
“Preaching to the choir,” Caitlyn said, and lifted her glass to clink against the rims of her friends’ glasses. Then she took a long sip of her raspberry martini and blew out a breath.
After the weekend she’d had, not to mention that last conversation with Jefferson, it was good to be with her friends. Women who understood. Women she could count on, no matter what.
“Are you okay, honey?” Debbie asked, always the one with the biggest heart and the soul most easily bruised. “I mean, really okay?”
“I’m fine,” Caitlyn said, and surprised herself with the truth of the statement. Good god. She’d been poised to marry Peter, for heaven’s sake. Shouldn’t she be in mourning? Shouldn’t she be weeping miserably in a corner somewhere?
Sure, she’d done some crying over the weekend, but if Peter really had been the love of her life, then wouldn’t she be feeling more…shattered? But she didn’t. And somehow that was even sadder than the breakup of her engagement.
“I cannot believe Peter thinks you’re in love with your boss,” Janine said on a snort of laughter. “Lyon makes you nuts.”
“I think Peter was just scared and needed a reason to back out of the wedding, the big weenie,” Debbie said.
“Yeah, but accusing her of being in love with Lyon?” Janine shook her head. “That’s really stretching.”
At the moment, Caitlyn could hardly even think about Jefferson Lyon without gritting her teeth. In love with him? Not a chance. Attracted? Sure. What red-blooded, breathing woman wouldn’t be? But attraction was where it started and ended.
“Don’t even get me started on Jefferson Lyon,” Caitlyn muttered, and snatched a tortilla chip from the basket in the middle of the table. As she crunched down hard on it, only half pretending she was snapping her boss’s neck in half, she told her friends, “When Jefferson found out the wedding was off, he just said, ‘Oh, good. You can go to Portugal with me after all.’ No I’m sorry, Caitlyn. Are you all right? Do you need to take some time off? Do you want me to kill the jerk for you?” She took a sip of her drink and reached for another chip. “I’m telling you, I came within a hair of quitting.”
“You should’ve,” Debbie said. “Men suck.”
“Where’ve I heard that before?” Janine wondered aloud.
“Funny.” Debbie smirked at her, then turned her gaze back on Caitlyn. “Anyway, Peter obviously had some commitment issues and was just using Lyon as a handy excuse.”
“Well, it was a stupid one,” Caitlyn said. She refused to think about the quick whip of something hot and delicious that usually zapped her whenever she was too close to Jefferson. That was just lust. Or not even that. Just…appreciation for a good-looking guy. That was it. She nodded. Appreciation. Attraction. Nothing else.
“Duh.” Janine shook her head. “But the upside is he gave you a month to call it off. Unlike my own unlamented ex-fiancé, John, who thought three days was more than enough time.”
True. Janine’s ex-fiancé had left her a note, three days before their simple backyard wedding that read only, Sorry, babe. This isn’t for me. Debbie was right, Caitlyn thought. Men really did suck.
“Did you tell your mom yet?” Debbie asked the question, already wincing in anticipation of the answer.
Yep, these friends knew her well. Knew her family. Knew what kind of hell her mother was going to put her through for ruining her only shot at being mother of the bride.
“Yeah, that was a good time.” Caitlyn closed her eyes and sighed, remembering the look of stunned shock, disappointment and frustration that clouded her mom’s face just yesterday when she’d dropped by her parents’ house to deliver the blow.
“Guessing she didn’t take it well?” Janine asked.
“You could say that. You would have thought I’d… No, I can’t even think of anything that could rival how this news hit Mom. She’s had her dress for the wedding since the week after Peter proposed,” she reminded them unnecessarily. “‘Four times,’ she told me yesterday, ‘four times I was mother of the groom. It was my turn to be Mother Of The Bride.’”
“Yikes,” Debbie muttered.
“That about covers it,” Caitlyn said. “She even says the words Mother Of The Bride in capital letters. She’s been so enjoying being in on everything. Heck, the only way I got to pick my own site was because Peter and I were paying for the wedding ourselves. Otherwise mom would have found a cathedral or something. She really was looking forward to a big show. I was her only shot at the brass ring.”
“She’s gonna make you pay.”
Janine grumbled, “She should be making Peter pay.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Caitlyn said with a shake of her head. “The point is it’s over. And now our little circle of dumpdom is complete.”
Debbie looked at her across the table. “I just can’t believe Peter turned out to be a stinker. He seemed so nice.”
Janine finished the last of her drink and scowled down at the empty glass. “They all seemed nice, at first. Mike was great to you until you found out about the other two wives he already had.”
It was Caitlyn’s turn to wince now. Six months ago Debbie had been within a couple of weeks of her own wedding, a planned elopement to Vegas, when she intercepted a phone call for her fiancé, Mike, at his place. Turned out that the woman on the line was Mike’s wife. And by the time it all got sorted out, yet another wife had been discovered. And now Mike was in jail, where every good bigamist should land.
“True,” Debbie mused, and rubbed
