One True Love?

The bastard. The poor pathetic lonely…Nope, sometimes Brendan could be just a bastard. Corinne crunched her teeth together and squared her shoulders. She was going to be damned before she was made a fool out of by Marjorie from human resources. Calling upon all of her training, she focused on making herself taller with larger breasts. It was a visualization technique her seventh-grade acting teacher had taught her, and it had stayed with her ever since. Visualize yourself as you want to be seen and people will see it, too.

“Go get ’em, tiger.”

“Give him hell,” Darla added.

This from her cheering section. With the regal air of a queen she stepped out into the hall. Cubicles lined up along the hallway were filled with not-so-busy customer service representatives who had been enjoying the Marjorie and Brendan Show. Now that Corinne had added herself to the mix, the scene took on a whole new tension.

The question was, how did she want to play this particular act? All fifty employees of the small company knew about her on-again, off-again relationship with Brendan. Most thought he was playing her for a fool, but that was because they didn’t understand him. Now here she was with her newest competition, who, if it was at all possible, was wearing an even shorter skirt than hers. The woman must have had her legs genetically engineered. It was the only explanation.

So did she go for catty? Explosive? Sorrowful and betrayed? Better yet, it was time for the old standby. She would play the bigger person. Not an easy task, considering she was playing the scene with an Amazon.

As cool as lemonade in summer, she strolled up to the couple standing too close together for company etiquette, and nodded her head. “Marjorie. Brendan. See you both when I get back.” Enough said. She continued her march down the hall and out the door.

She didn’t hear it, but she felt Matthew and Darla’s applause accompany her all the way out the door.

IT WAS TOO EARLY for it to be hot. April was supposed to be about cool temperatures and soft breezes. But in New Jersey, when the humidity started to spike, anything was possible. Oh well, Corinne decided philosophically as she shucked her grasshopper blazer and noted the sweat stains, all the better to get her acclimated to the weather in the Bahamas. Still, it would have been the cherry on top to leave New Jersey while the weather was lousy for her two weeks of fun in the sun.

Dropping her suit into the dry-cleaning bin, Corinne checked the suitcase open on her bed one more time. Sundresses. Long flowy skirts. Strategic hip wraps. Three bathing suits. And SPF40 sunblock. For a redhead, frolicking in the sun did have its down side and its name was freckles.

The phone rang, and Corinne skipped through her condo to get to the kitchen before her answering machine picked up. When she missed the call by one ring, she decided she really was going to have to get another phone for her bedroom. But, since the only jack available was used for her modem, another phone also meant another line.

“Damn, I hate these things. Pick up dear. It’s your mother.”

Corinne cringed and considered playing not at home. She held her breath and waited.

“Damn it, Corinne, I know you’re there. I can hear you breathing. Now pick up the damn phone.”

Damn was her mother’s favorite word. She said it was because back in the fifties it was the only swear word they would let a woman say on film. It sort of became one of her trademarks—the sultry eyes, the husky voice and the fact that she said damn before almost every line. The first few times it could be highly effective, but after the tenth or so damn, it started to lose its impact.

Knowing there was no way out, she picked up the phone. “Hello, Mother.”

“Ah-hah, I knew you were there,” Grace Weatherby said as if she had uncovered some dark and diabolical plot.

“I was in the bedroom,” Corinne explained, not like that meant anything to her mother, who had only seen her condo once. And even that had been just a glimpse.

“I have tragic news. It’s absolutely damning!”

Corinne waited.

“Your sister is refusing to go to the damn Cannes Film Festival. Can you believe it? I’ve told her, her only hope of winning an Oscar is if the critics start to see her as a serious actress. And she refuses to listen to me.”

Serious actress. Myra? Corinne didn’t think so, not when her last film had starred an alien and the film before that a ten-foot gorilla. “Myra is a Hollywood box-office star. Maybe she’s content with that.”

If you asked Corinne, Myra would have been content as a toll taker. Blessed with her mother’s flaming-red hair and endless legs and her father’s fine cheekbones and green eyes, she was destined to be Hollywood’s girl for however long the ride would last. And, of course, the Weatherby name didn’t hurt. But Myra’s heart was never really into it.

“The money isn’t enough. Damn!” her mother exploded. “How long have I tried to instill in all of you that a Weatherby has won an acting award in each generation? Your father for best actor, me for best supporting actress, and even your brother managed to walk away with a Tony.”

“And there was my plaque for employee of the month,” Corinne added with her tongue in her cheek.

“Yes, of course,” her mother agreed.

Corinne could almost hear her mother struggling to recall what it was that she did for a living.

“Darling?”

“Yes, Mother?” Corinne knew what was coming.

“What exactly do you do for a living?”

She was twenty-seven and had been working as a financial controller for the same company for the last six years. However, her mother chose to block such horribly dull thoughts as finance from her mind. So, each time Corinne mentioned her work, Grace would always have to ask the inevitable.

“I’m a controller, Mother.”

“Oh, yes.” Her mother sighed, even though Corinne knew she had no clue as to what that meant. “And do you still live in that…state?”

“Obviously, since I’m the one who answered the phone.”

“Don’t get fresh with me, young lady.”

“Haddonfield is a nice town. And New Jersey is a fine state, Mother. It has mountains and beaches…”

“Please,” her mother interrupted. “New Jersey is just that damn place right after you leave New York and are on your way to Hollywood. Anyway, the reason I called was to have you call your sister and tell her she must go to that damn festival.”

“I can’t call her. I’m about to leave for my vacation.”

“Vacation!” her mother exclaimed, as if Corinne had somehow said the word hell instead. “Weatherbys don’t take vacations.”

They had had this argument before. “Most Weather-bys get three months off in between movies or productions. I have to go to work every day. I need a vacation.”

A huge sigh, then, “Where are you going?”

“The Bahamas. Paradise Island.”

“Dear, couldn’t you have done better than that? Why, I can rattle off the top of my head at least fifteen more suitable islands.”

“Paradise Island is in my budget, Mother.” Budget was another word she knew her mother detested. Every once in a while Corinne liked to throw it into the conversation just to rile her. She could almost see Grace shuddering on the other end of the phone.

“At least tell me you’re going with that nice man…what was his name? Brendan?”

Yet another reason why Brendan and she were destined to be together. Her mother loved Brendan. The one time Grace had managed to set foot in New Jersey, Brendan and Matthew had been helping Corinne move into her new condo. Her mother had practically recoiled at seeing Matthew, big and sweaty, wearing tattered jeans and a torn cotton T-shirt. There was such plainness about him, she’d told Corinne later.

But Brendan had made a big fuss over her mother, referred to her as Corinne’s sister, then went on to list a few movies she’d starred in. Her mother had practically drooled over him.

It was that much harder to tell her mother that Brendan wasn’t coming with her. “Not this time, Mother. He has to work.”

Work on becoming an unattached man, that is.

“Well, you have a lovely time. And you’ll call me when you return?”

“Yes, Mother.”

“Damn, I hate good-byes.”

“I’ll call in two weeks.” Corinne hung up the phone. “Or in two years,” she muttered after she was sure the connection was broken. Sometimes her mother could be very draining, to say the least. Not that she didn’t love the woman with all her heart, her father, too, it was just that they lived such a different life and believed in such different things that Corinne was never too sure how she came from them.

For one thing, the whole family mocked her idea of one true love. To them it was as foreign as domestic champagne. It was common knowledge that both her mother and her father slept with every leading person they ever starred with. Her mother could list ten true loves alone, and while her father’s memory wasn’t as good these days, given time he could list a handful as well. The only thing that had kept the family together was the fact that her mother and father had starred together in so many movies.

No sir, not for her. Myra had just broken off her fourth engagement. And her brother, Jeffrey, was working on his third wife. Corinne wanted something different for her life. She wanted stability. After all, she wasn’t the most stable of women, so it stood to reason that she could only successfully fall in love with one man once. That man was Brendan. Now if only he would come around to her way of thinking, they would be a perfect match.

Even her family liked him. And Brendan liked the fact that he knew someone with “famous” connections. When they married, her parents would throw her a gala wedding to rival Myra’s first wedding. Or almost-wedding. That particular fiancé she had left literally standing at the altar.

Regardless, she and Brendan would live happily ever after. Corinne was sure of it. If not, if she couldn’t straighten his arrow, well then she was just going to have to deal with being single for the rest of her days, because she wasn’t going through this agony again for anyone. And she highly doubted, anyway, that there was anyone else out there waiting for her.

Brendan was her mate. Her future. The other half of her soul. Without him she would live like old Miss Havisham of Charles Dickens fame. Alone. In a decrepit wedding dress and a room full of spiders. Forever.

Well, maybe not spiders. She didn’t like them so much.

Ding-dong.

The doorbell startled Corinne out of her musings. That’s strange. She wasn’t expecting anyone. Instantly, her heart began to race. What if it was Brendan, she thought as she skipped through the house to her front door.

What if he had come to his senses? What if he was ready to give up all the other women so that he could be with her forever?

What if it was just Darla?

Corinne’s face fell and her shoulders slumped when she opened the door to find Darla on the other side of it. “Oh, it’s you.”

“And hello to you, too,” Darla greeted her with a sarcastic tone. “I figured you might be down so I brought some comfort food.” She lifted the brown bag she carried in her hand.

“What is it?” Corinne asked.

“Brownies and vodka.”

“Okay.” Corinne took the bag and wandered back to the kitchen. “Only one brownie for me though. I’ve got to get this body into a bathing suit in less than forty-eight hours.”

“Fine by me.” Darla never had any problems with finishing off brownies. She made her way to the over-stuffed couch in the living room and sat down. “So Matthew told me that you told Brendan that if he doesn’t give up the other women that it’s really going to be over between you two. Is that true? This isn’t just a ploy to get him to straighten up?”

“Matthew has a big mouth,” Corinne said, returning from the kitchen with a tray of brownies, two martini glasses and a bottle of Cosmopolitan mix. She set the tray down on the coffee table, splashed the mix into the two glasses, then topped them with the vodka that Darla had brought. She handed a glass to Darla and lifted her own.

“Here’s to a successful plan.”

“Here’s to your vacation,” Darla said.

“Here’s to my showing Brendan how much he’ll miss me.”

“Here’s to looking good in your bathing suit,” Darla said instead.

Corinne lowered her glass. “I’m not sensing I have your full support of my plan.”

Instead of answering, Darla took a sip of her drink.

Gasping, Corinne stood up and pointed at her friend. “You don’t support me,” she accused her.

Wincing, Darla put down her glass. “I just don’t understand what you see in him. He’s been nothing but awful to you. I mean, Marjorie from human resources? Really! The only thing I can figure is he must be fantastic in bed.”

Slowly, Corinne sank back down on the couch and took a sip of her drink. “I wouldn’t know,” she muttered.

“What!” Darla shouted, practically spilling her drink. “You’re telling me you’ve never slept with him?”

“Do I look like the sort of woman who would sleep with a man while he was sleeping with other women?” Corinne asked, offended at the mere idea.

“No.”

“When I’m finally with Brendan I want it to be special. I want it to be perfect. After all, he will be my first.”

“First what?”

“My first lover,” Corinne clarified.

Darla snorted at such an outright lie. “Are you kidding me? I know of at least one. What about Carlos?”

“Who?” Corinne asked, feigning ignorance.

“Carlos. The guy with hair and the motorcycle who you…”

“I know who Carlos is,” Corinne snapped. “I’m just choosing to forget him. I’m revirginizing myself for Brendan.”

Darla’s brow scrunched. “Can you do that?”

“Yes, it’s done all the time,” she replied breezily. “I read it in a magazine. The point is, Brendan is my future. My destiny. My one chance to have the kind of life I’ve always dreamed of. If this trip away from him doesn’t convince him of that, I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“You could always, oh, I don’t know, maybe find someone else,” Darla suggested. “What about Matthew? This may be out of left field, but I think he might like you.”

Corinne dismissed that suggestion as if she hadn’t even heard it. It was ridiculous. Matthew Relic liking her. Matthew Relic and her together. Impossible. It would be like putting the sun and the moon together.

“No. I refuse to turn into my mother or my sister or my father or my brother. All of them like to just flit and fly from one love to the next like bumblebees in heat. That is not going to be me. No, I’ve already decided that if things don’t work out with Brendan, then I’m through with men forever.”

Darla’s eyes widened. “Wow. Forever? That’s a really long time.”

“Yes,” Corinne choked out, feeling the fear building inside her.

“I think that calls for at least one more brownie.”

Corinne did, too.

2

SHE STOOD OUT like a ripe plum in a white bowl.

Okay, so he wasn’t the best at analogies but Matthew understood what he meant. With her red hair billowing out from underneath a grand straw hat, wearing her purple bathing suit and matching sarong, and stretched out in her chair on the powdery white sand, she was exactly as he had described. It just didn’t sound as good when he tried verbalizing it in his mind. Good thing he’d tried this one out silently before he used it on her.

What he wanted to say was, boy she sure did look pretty. It was clear to Matthew, and surely to every one else on the beach, that Rinny was the most stunning girl on the stretch. In the clutter of people—most of whom were happy loving couples—camped out on the beach outside the Paradise Hotel and Casino, Matthew had no problem spotting his girl. If he were less of a practical man he would say that she had a powerful aura about her. Whatever it was, it seemed to attract him like a fly to…He should probably forget the analogies.

Flipping his beach towel over his shoulder, Matthew marched across the beach to her private camp. She had a beach chair on either side of her—probably to keep the happy loving couples at bay—filled with a radio, three books, enough sunblock to ward off a nuclear blast and finally her. She sat in the middle chair, her legs covered by the sarong she wore, her arms covered by the shade of her near-sombrero. The sunglasses that she sported were shaped like cat’s eyes. Purple to match her suit. No doubt she had as many pairs of sunglasses as she had outfits.

His Rinny always knew how to put the package together. Standing before her, he waited for recognition from her that he was blocking her sun, but she was too covered in shade to notice. Beneath the glasses she must have had her eyes closed so Matthew decided to simply plunk his six-foot frame down next to her on one of the chairs. “Hi, Rinny.”

Corinne had been dreaming. Brendan had been down on one knee before her with a ring box in his hand and a loving expression on his face. He had been promising her his love, fidelity and friendship for all the rest of his days. The dream was so powerful she could almost feel the tears well up in her eyes as they might if it were really happening.

Then suddenly, Brendan’s face became Matthew’s face with its deep-midnight-blue eyes and strong chin. And he was calling her Rinny. No one else called her by that absurd nickname. She wasn’t even too sure why she allowed Matthew to continue to use it. Although the thought of trying to break him of the habit seemed exhausting. Matthew was like a steamroller. Slow. Plodding. Inexorable. And difficult to push off course. It made him a phenomenal accountant, but a bit of a bore.

“You asleep, Rinny?”

There it was again. This time Corinne did open her eyes and peer out over her sunglasses. There he was, plain as the sun, sitting next to her as if it were the most normal thing in the world. Matthew Relic was on Paradise Island. Somehow the two didn’t seem to fit, but there was no doubt it was him.

“What are you doing here?” She wasn’t too sure how she felt about his presence. Piqued because he had interrupted her vacation? Confused as to why he would follow her here? Or maybe a little happy to see a familiar face? After only two days, she realized that the next week and a half was going to drag with no one to talk to.

Most of the couples she met only stopped long enough to ask her where her husband was and if they wanted to get together for couples tennis. As soon as she explained that she was on the island by herself, they made their excuses and went on their way, absorbed with each other. She would have found the whole thing utterly depressing if she hadn’t continued to tell herself that the purpose of this trip was to secure the very same happiness that these couples had found.

“Darla told me you seemed a little down before you left. She said something about a lot of brownies.”

Corinne groaned, remembering how sick she’d felt the next day after eating all that chocolate.

“Anyway, she told me where you were staying. And I figured you would still be smarting from your breakup with Brendan, so…”

“Breakup?” Corinne interrupted. “We did not break up.”

“Sure you did. I was in the filing closet, remember? ‘No one is ever going to love you like I loved you.”’ He changed the words, but the meaning was the same.

Corinne laughed her, oh-you-silly-boy chuckle. “Matthew, Matthew. You don’t understand. That wasn’t a breakup, that was an ultimatum.”

“It was? It sure sounded like a breakup.”

“It wasn’t,” she explained. “You see I left him to give him a chance to feel what it would be like if I really left him. No doubt right now, at this very minute, he is at home contemplating what his life without me will be like and he’s wondering how he can get me back.”

Right now, at this very minute, Golden Boy was probably at home romancing Marjorie from human resources. But Matthew kept that opinion to himself. He didn’t want to hurt Rinny. He just wanted her to see that Brendan was no good for her, while he, on the other hand, was perfect. It wasn’t going to be easy. He could see that now. He needed an angle.

“So what does he need to do? What is the ultimatum?”

She shifted a bit in her beach chair. “He needs to stop seeing those other women,” she said tightly.

“You mean the ones that make him virile,” Matthew added in an attempt to show her how misplaced her love was for that man.

“Yes. I’m enough for any man,” she stated confidently.

“You can say that again.”

“I beg your pardon?”

Leaning back on his elbows and stretching his bare legs out to the sun, Matthew took in the view of the ocean. The water spectacularly blue against the iridescent white sand, it was so beautiful it almost hurt. A little like Rinny when she got huffy.

“I was just agreeing with you.”

“Hmm,” she uttered, disbelief evident in her tone. “Somehow I don’t think so. Well, if I’m so difficult then why are you even here? Don’t tell me you came all this way just to cheer me up. Did you follow me down here for another reason, Matthew?”

It was pointless to lie. Even when he tried it, everyone could always guess the truth. “Yep.”

“That’s it? ‘Yep.’ That’s the only answer I get? Sometimes you can be so difficult.”

“I don’t mean to be.”

Corinne tried again. “Would you mind telling me why you followed me?”

“Well…”

“Never mind. I think I know,” she stopped him. She tilted her head in his direction and gave him her, oh-you-poor-boy smile—which was only slightly different than her oh-you-silly-boy chuckle. “It’s really no big secret. The truth is you have a little crush on me. Don’t you?”

“I…”

“I don’t mind,” she offered gallantly. “Truly, it’s not surprising. After all, it’s only natural that someone like you would be attracted to someone like me. For one thing, we are complete opposites. That alone can be enough to stir someone’s interest in another person. You see the qualities that you lack in the other and you want them for yourself.”

He didn’t think so, but rather than try to correct her assumptions only to be cut off again, he let her continue.

“The important thing is not to let it get out of hand. You know that I love Brendan and you know he’s the only man I’ll ever love.”

“Why?” Matthew managed to toss into the conversation.

The question brought her up short for a second, but she recovered and quickly stepped up onto her Brendan soapbox.

“He’s really a very sensitive man. I know sometimes he doesn’t show it, but that’s because of his insecurities. He feels he has to hide his true self. There’s that and he’s a talented salesman. Of course he has excellent fashion sense. And we’re very much alike. We both enjoy the spotlight. We both play to the crowd. We understand each other.”

“If he understood you,” Matthew argued, “he would know that you’re not the type of woman who would tolerate cheating.”

“He’s going to stop cheating. He knows he has to or he will lose me forever.” There was a catch in her voice even as she said the confident words. “Would you want to lose me forever?” she asked him a bit frantically.

Gently, he shook his head, and said, “No. I wouldn’t want to lose you forever. I guess I’m worried about you. What if he doesn’t stop cheating? You’re not going to stick around for that, are you?”

He would have to kill Golden Boy if he ever caught him with his pants down around his ankles with some other woman while he was married to his Rinny. And Matthew would hate like hell to have to go to jail.

Back to huffy in the blink of an eye, Corinne whipped off her sunglasses in a fluid movement and he could see how indignant she was. “Do I look like one of those pathetic women who would let her husband cheat on her?”

“No,” he answered thoughtfully. “There’s nothing pathetic about you, Rinny.”

“Certainly not,” she affirmed. “I promise you, I have no intention of sitting by and watching his roaming eye for the rest of my life. If he can’t settle down, then we’re through. Unfortunately, that means I will have to spend the rest of my life alone, and I would really rather it not come to that.”