The Ex Factor

When she’d recovered enough to close her mouth, she said, “But I don’t get it. Why? What?” She heaved a sigh. “What’s your plan?”

The pavement seemed to tick under Sophie’s heels, sounding like a clock counting seconds. “I don’t know. Honestly, I didn’t have a plan. Don’t have one. I thought it would be cool to surprise Karen, but—”

“The force field got to you.” She shook her head. “That is some powerful chemistry between you two.”

She was right. The moment Karen had stepped out of her office and he’d seen her again, he’d known that what they’d had wasn’t over. Not for him. “Yeah.”

“So, what happened between you two?”

“We should go in.”

“That’s Melissa’s dad over there looking all stressed. Means the bridal party isn’t here yet. We’ve got some time.” She hauled him around the side of the church. “Spill.”

The story was so stupid he felt foolish even repeating it. “This drunk woman came onto me at a party and Karen flipped out. She got it in her head that I was cheating on her.”

Cool blue eyes stared into his. “Were you?”

“No. I never would have done anything like that to Karen. I loved my wife.”

“Then why would she think it?”

He leaned his back against the brick wall. It seemed sturdy, solid, the way a good marriage should be. “I’ve spent a lot of time asking myself the same question.”

“How badly was the drunk woman coming onto you?”

“Oh, it was bad. She was undressing herself, trying to undress me. When Karen walked in on us she was plastered to me, and I was trying to stop her unzipping me. Must have looked to Karen like we were in a big hurry, both trying to get me unzipped.” He’d never really looked at it from her point of view before. He’d been too busy being pissed that she didn’t believe him.

“Wow. That sucks.”

“I know.”

“Did you go for counseling?”

“The only counselor she wanted was the kind in a lawyer’s office. She started divorce proceedings right after she threw me out of the house.”

“Why would she end a marriage without even fighting for it?”

Leaning against the brick of that old church he felt like a little of the wisdom of the aged building was seeping into him. “Her dad really ran around on her mom. For years, with a lot of different women, until her mom finally divorced the jerk. Maybe, on some level, Karen expects a husband to be unfaithful.”

“Then you’re going to have to figure out how to convince her that some husbands can love a woman faithfully. And that you are one of them.”

“We’re already divorced. Why would I do that?”

When she shook her head at him, the sun struck her pale blond hair, giving him the impression of a halo. “No wonder you never looked twice at any of those women I introduced you to.” She patted his shoulder. “You, my friend, are still in love with your wife.”

KAREN FOUND the best man without trouble. He was the only guy in a tux standing on the freeway looking miserable.

She pulled over. “Hop in,” she said. Then, before pulling back into traffic, she made contact with her limo driver. “Where are you?”

“Five minutes away.”

“Make it ten.”

“You got it.”

She delivered a very grateful best man to an equally grateful groom and breathed a sigh of relief. Then she dashed to the front of the church to welcome the bridal party. As she’d suspected, they had no idea they’d been stalled.

The bride was as radiant as could be hoped, and after escorting her and the bridesmaids to where her father waited, adjusting her veil and reminding everyone to take a deep breath and smile, to remember to savor the walk down the aisle, she slipped inside to give the organist the heads up.

As the strains of “Here Comes the Bride” boomed through the church, everyone rose. In her head she heard her own personal musical mash-up, the wedding march overlaid with her own version of “Another One Bites the Dust.”

Once the wedding was underway, she eased back out of the church and called Chelsea who was already preparing food for the reception. “Heads up. We’re running behind about fifteen minutes.”

“’Kay, thanks.” And the woman was gone.

She then drove to the mansion where the reception was being held. The kitchen was a hive of organized chaos. Chelsea overseeing the sit-down dinner for one hundred and fifty that would take place as soon as the guests arrived.

She walked into the huge ballroom-turned-dining room and was filled with pleasure. It looked beautiful. They’d gone with autumnal colors and the burgundies and golds and greens looked lovely against the rich mahogany wainscoting in the room. Real fires already burned in the two fireplaces and bouquets of autumn leaves, artfully arranged to look casual and natural adorned the space. Fat candles waited to be lit, the crystal shone, the cutlery glittered, and Cinderella’s confectionary coach lent a whimsical touch.

Dee called her when the bride and groom were on their way, so she was at the front door to greet them.

“We did it,” Melissa cried, holding up her left hand where a brand-new band glittered.

“Congratulations,” she said, hugging the happy young woman. “I’ve got rooms upstairs for both of you so you can freshen up. Once all the guests have arrived, we’ll announce you and the reception can begin.”

She took the extra ring that the groom pressed secretively into her palm, slipping it onto her right hand once more for safekeeping.

As with most weddings, the guests enjoying the perfect event could have no idea of the infinite number of details handled and the disasters averted that went on behind the scenes. And that was exactly how Karen liked it.

So she was less than pleased when Dexter surprised her at the end of the evening when most of the guests had departed.

“You do good work,” he said. “I’m truly impressed.”

“I thought you’d gone,” she snapped, then could have cursed her tongue for betraying that she’d noticed when Sophie left and assumed Dex was with her.

“I told Sophie I had a ride.” He shrugged, looking impossibly gorgeous in a well-cut suit in shale gray. “Do you?”

“I do if you give me a lift, otherwise I guess I’ll call a cab.”

“Why didn’t you go home with your date?”

“Because she’s not a date. She’s the fiancée of a good friend. I didn’t want anybody thinking there was something going on between me and Sophie when there isn’t.” He held her gaze. “You know how suspicious people can be.”

Refusing to rise to such obvious bait she said, “Well, I guess I can give you a lift but you’ll have to wait until I’m finished here.”

“No problem. Can I make myself useful?”

“You can help load the supplies into the van.” In fact, she hired a company to take care of the cleanup, but she was annoyed with Dexter and half hoped he got something nasty on his pretty suit.

As though he’d read her mind, he slipped off his jacket, and, to her surprise, slipped it over her shoulders. “Take care of that for me.” Then he rolled up his sleeves and headed toward the cleanup crew, turning quickly from wedding guest to menial laborer.

The jacket was warm from his body and, weak woman that she was, she slipped her arms into the sleeves and enjoyed the sensation of wearing something of his. She caught an elusive scent of him, something hot and spicy and forbidden.

Then she went into the kitchen to check in with Chelsea. Her caterer was pretty much ready to go, the kitchen cleaner than when she’d arrived and all her food and supplies loaded into her van.

“How you doing?”

“My feet hurt.” She grinned. “But we pulled off another miracle.”

“I thought the Cinderella coach cake was a bit much, but everyone seemed to like it.”

“Seems we’re never too old for fairy tales.”

“Speaking of fairy tales, who’s the Prince Charming out there hauling tables and why are you wearing his jacket?”

“That’s no prince, that’s my ex-husband.” She didn’t bother to explain the other part.

“Wow.” Chelsea did a double take, and she followed her friend’s gaze to the sight of her ex’s delectable backside as he bent over, helping lift a heavy table. “That’s the scumbag? Too bad he’s a wretched human being. He sure looks good.”

“Yeah.”

They both watched out the window for a few more moments. “He doesn’t mind getting his hands dirty, I’ll give him that.”

“No.” She’d always loved that about him, the architect who was only too happy to get down and dirty with the construction aspects of his projects. She was never sure whether he appealed to her more when he was designing and envisioning a finished project, or when he was covered in sweat and sawdust, muscles bulging.

Chelsea pulled herself away from the window first. “Okay, I’ve got my own eye candy at home. I’d better get back, David’s waiting for me.”

“Sure. Have a great Sunday.” They hugged quickly.

She was, as usual, the last one to leave. Only this time, she wasn’t alone. Dexter followed her to her car. The temperature had dropped suddenly and there was a sharp chill in the air.

Once they were settled into her car, the heater humming, she turned to him and said, “So, where can I drop you?”

He gazed at her mouth. “I was hoping we could pick up where we left off the other night.”

5

“WHAT?” The word bounced around the inside of her car, even though her shock was only pretense. She’d known the moment Dexter asked her for a ride home that he had more than transportation in mind. You didn’t love a man for six years, live with him for five, without knowing a thing or two about how his mind worked.

Or have him know about how yours worked, she realized, as he gazed at her separated by nothing but a couple of feet of cold air, with an expression that suggested he knew she was as aware of him as he was of her. “Come on,” he said. “You’ve been thinking about having sex with me, too. I know you’re too honest to pretend you haven’t.”

Which was exactly what she’d planned to do. Deny, deny, deny. She sighed out a breath of mingled frustration and—no, it was all frustration, both the irritation of a woman dealing with a man she thought was out of her life, and the huge dollop of sexual frustration that being around Dex again was causing. Because she couldn’t be near him and not remember how they’d burned up the sheets together. No matter their problems, their sex life had always been superb.

“I can’t—”

“Whatever else was wrong between us, you can’t deny that when we got naked, everything worked,” he said, oddly echoing her own thoughts on the matter. Then he reached over, and ran a fingertip under the hem of her skirt. “Or not even naked,” he mused, his eyes crinkling as memories rose around them. “Remember that time when we took my first brand-new car out for a spin?”

“No,” she lied.

Which was a huge mistake because then, of course, he had to remind her of an incident they both knew she remembered perfectly well.

“I’d only ever driven used beaters, and now suddenly I had a company car, and it was brand-new. We went to the dealership to pick it up. A silver GM sedan.” It had been a green Ford, but she refused to rise to the bait no matter how provocatively he behaved. She shifted an inch closer to her door, but he shifted, too, so his finger continued to trace the hem of her skirt which had, naturally, ridden up when she sat down. She could smack him away, but that would make an issue of something she preferred to ignore. Besides, what he was doing felt so good, and it had been so long.

“It was summer and you wore a red sundress.” He was right about the season, but she’d worn a blue cotton dress. She never wore red with her hair color. His wandering finger had reached the crease of her closed legs and he paused for a second. “Is any of this familiar?”

“Not ringing any bells yet.” Ha.

His voice grew husky. “We took a drive, didn’t know where we were going, didn’t care. We found ourselves down by the river. It was quiet, nobody around.”

Because he’d obviously carefully done a reconnaissance mission beforehand. When he’d pulled out a bottle of wine from his briefcase along with two glasses, she’d known it.

“Do you remember what happened then?” he asked, his voice so close, so deep and low, that she knew he’d moved closer.

“No,” she lied.

“That’s too bad. I’ll never forget that night as long as I live.”

The touch of his finger doing no more than trace her hem, running along her upper thigh, was so erotic it was an act of will not to squirm, not to push his hand higher, where she needed release so desperately, or at least depress the handy button that would recline their seats. Or even better, act as they had that night he was describing, and simply crawl into the backseat where there was more room.

“I’m sure you’ve made lots of new memories since then,” she snapped.

“Don’t you want to know what happened?” he asked her, as though she’d never spoken.

“It was a long time ago.”

“Not that long.”

Maybe she could force her body to remain still while that one finger played at her hem, never going higher or doing anything that would make it necessary for her to slap him down, but she couldn’t seem to control her breathing. Even as she tried to pretend she felt nothing, remembered nothing, a combination of his finger stroking her skin, his nearness, and the sweet, painful pull of memory was causing her breathing to speed up along with her pulse.

“We talked about my new job, and a new event you were organizing, and it seemed like we could do anything. We were young, smart, ambitious and we had each other. What an unbeatable team.” The finger stalled for a moment and she felt the tension in his hand as though a spasm of emotion had hit him. It felt like anger, but she had to assume it was guilt for throwing everything they’d had away.

Then the moment passed and the back-and-forth exploration of her thigh continued. He tugged her skirt up a full half inch, torturing her again with a slow track back, his finger pad tracing a line of heat across her skin.

“All the while we talked, I did this. Played at your hem, and you pretended you didn’t notice, like now.”

“I think your memory’s playing tricks.”

“And then, suddenly, you parted your legs and turned toward me.” He swallowed. So did she. Heat flooded her body as she remembered what came next.

“I thought I was so in control, touching you, turning us both on, but you were the one in control, weren’t you? You were the one with the secret.”

“No,” she whispered, but she wasn’t telling him she hadn’t had a secret, she was trying to stop the flood of memory that was as warm and thick as desire.

“When I got up to touch your panties, you weren’t wearing any.”

Oh, how she remembered. The feel of the air wafting up her skirt, the wanton knowledge that she’d stood by while he’d finalized paperwork at a car dealership, while they’d driven public highways, and all the time, underneath her cotton sundress, she’d been bare-assed.

“We were in the backseat so fast I ended up with bruised elbows and knees. We never did take off our clothes, did we? I ended up flipping that skirt up, pulling down the top of your dress to reach your breasts. You were always so sensitive there.” He laughed softly. “We were like a pair of kids going at it.” He sighed, obviously realizing that this little trip down memory lane wasn’t working. Her thighs didn’t ease open, though he couldn’t possibly know what torture it was to hold them closed against him. “God, I loved you.”

“But not enough,” she said, her voice so soft she wasn’t sure if he’d heard her.

“Do you think we rushed into marriage too fast?”

She turned her head, wondering where he was going with this train of thought. “We knew each other a year. I guess I wish we’d waited. Long enough for me to realize you weren’t the kind of guy to stick with one woman.”

He pulled his hand back into his own lap and she fought the urge to grab it and put it where she needed, so urgently, to be touched.

“I wish I’d waited long enough to get a handle on those demons you carry around with you.”

“What demons?” she snapped. How like a man to cheat on her and then try and pretend she was the one with the problem.

“The demons that stopped you being able to trust.”

She was not going to have this conversation again. She’d moved on. “If I’m so full of demons, what are you doing still trying to get into my pants?”

A sigh of pure frustration rolled through him. “Hell if I know.”

6

THE READING TERMINAL MARKET was crazy. Naturally. It was a Sunday afternoon and every yuppie with a craving for organic arugula or some fresh monkfish had made tracks down here. Karen had a love/hate relationship with the market. While she loved this place simply for the fun of people-watching, she also suffered as only a woman who loves food and tries to live on fifteen hundred calories a day can suffer.

Since she’d barely slept thanks to Dex and his antics in her car last night, she felt weaker than usual. The worst part had been driving him to his hotel, with all the steamy atmosphere between them churning around with a lot of emotions. Anger, frustration, and a bitter kind of longing that hurt more than all the other feelings put together. How could she still want the man so much?

Dex was her ex. He had to remain that way if she had any chance of hanging on to her hard-won self-esteem.

She’d half thought he’d invite her up to his room and was ready to let him have it when he did. Somehow, the fact that he didn’t say any more than, “Thanks for the ride. Night,” was an added insult. He didn’t even ask her up to his room so she could annihilate the guy with a few well-chosen words that she’d been practicing for blocks.

How unfair was that?

The bakery smells were so good. There were blocks of cheese bigger than house steps and she wanted to buy one and gobble every succulent morsel. She loved cheese, every fat-saturated ounce. Hard cheese, soft cheese, runny cheese, blue cheese. Oh, stop it. She averted her eyes. She really shouldn’t be here.

But Ron had suggested the locale for their first coffee date and, under instruction from Dee, she’d agreed without quibbling. Now she was here she wished she’d quibbled big-time. She wanted to turn tail and head home. Apart from being exhausted, cranky and cheese-obsessed, she’d probably dressed all wrong for a first date with a stranger. Her jeans were casual, but she’d pushed her feet into high heels instead of giving them a well-deserved Sunday rest, and she was worried that the green sweater was too low-necked. The last thing she wanted to do was stick her boobs in some poor man’s face, so she’d added a scarf at the last moment, and now wished she could go home and start over.

Dee had made her promise to let her hair down, which she’d first assumed was some kind of veiled allusion to being open for sex with a stranger until Dee had clarified that she actually meant she should leave her hair unpinned and unconfined. “You have such great hair, that gorgeous red color and the natural curls.” And since Dee seemed to know what she was doing in the online dating world, Karen had been persuaded.

Now she suddenly felt like a country-and-western singer with too much of everything. Big hair, big heels, big breasts, big butt.

She was a few minutes early, because it was her way, and stopped to stare unseeing at a booth selling nothing but spices. She never should have agreed to this date with Ron the CPA.

Somehow, this was all Dexter’s fault. If he hadn’t got her so riled up she never would have agreed to a date with some guy she met over the Internet.

However, she realized that whatever her reasons for being here, she wasn’t about to stand this man up. It wasn’t his fault she was an idiot. So, they’d have coffee. An hour of her life would be wasted, and then she could get back to attempting to make something of the years left to her.

On that optimistic thought, she made her way to the busy coffee shop and immediately spotted Ron, who was standing near the entrance, obviously as punctual as she was.

He looked exactly like his photo. Exactly like a CPA. And suddenly she relaxed. He was reassuringly unassuming, no other women were covertly studying him or overtly drooling. He was the kind of man who wouldn’t forever be tempted to stray, which had to be a good thing.

She forced a smile to her face and walked up to him. “Hello, you must be Ron. I’m Karen.”

They shook hands. He seemed pleased by her punctuality, insisted on buying her a coffee and they settled at a table.

For a moment, neither spoke. Finally he said, “You’re very punctual. It’s a quality I admire.”

Oh, how old-fashioned he sounded. What was she even doing here? Her mind flashed back to the night before, when she’d been humiliatingly close to parting her thighs and doing her ex-husband in the parking lot. Something had to change, and fast. She smiled at him. “I feel the same way.”

Now that she looked at him, she saw that behind his glasses he had warm gray eyes. He was fairly forgettable until you took note of those eyes. He was dressed neatly, in jeans that bore such sharp creases she suspected he ironed them, a polo shirt he’d probably bought at Costco or Sam’s Club and a well-worn leather jacket.

Another pause ensued, while they both took refuge in sipping coffee, and finally she blurted, “I have no idea how to do this. I’m so sorry, it’s my first time.” She sighed, sensing the genuine niceness of this man, and opened up even more. “In fact, it’s been a long time since I had any kind of a date. I’m so out of practice I have no idea where to begin.”

It was as though her confession took all the awkwardness out of their date. Ron nodded with sweet understanding. “It sucks. Really.”

She was surprised into a spurt of laughter by his sad admission.

Then realizing how that must sound, he added, “I don’t mean meeting you, but online dating is a new skill you have to learn.” He shrugged. “I’ve been doing this for a few months now and I find the hardest part is that people often, when they write their profiles, put a description of what they wish they were like rather than something that’s actually true.”

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