His languor faded, and he raised one knee beneath the sheet that had fallen low on his hips. “I believe we already discussed this.”
“Don’t make me bargain for my job with more sex. You’ll only feel tawdry.”
“God, you’re full of it.”
He was right about that, but before he could drive his point home, she tried to make a dash for the bathroom only to have him catch her long before she got to the door and drag her back to bed. “Not so fast. There’s an interesting perversion I stumbled across in my research recently.”
“What kind of perversion?”
He slipped his hand between her legs, and the way his fingers moved made her forget that she didn’t have her defenses back in place. “I’m sure it would be too much for you.”
She nipped at his shoulder. “Maybe if you’re extra gentle?”
“Or maybe not.”
And that was the last either of them said for a very long time.
Much later, when she emerged from her second bath of the morning, her bed held only a disgruntled basset hound. The time she’d spent in the tub had sobered her, and she sank down on the edge of the mattress. Gordon inched over and propped his head on her thigh. One long, floppy ear fell across her knee.
She dropped her head and fought back the tears. All morning she’d tried not to think about Emmett, but the ghosts could only be kept at bay for so long. She’d just severed another tie with him. Which was the thing about watching a loved one die a slow death. There was no clean break, no single moment of overwhelming grief, just an endless strand of losses. She rubbed Gordon’s head. Clasped her knees.
Being with Colin had felt too good. But she couldn’t blame herself for what she’d done, not after going for so long without a man’s touch. At the same time, she had to make certain her old needy habits didn’t come creeping back. She’d never let herself depend on another man for her happiness, and definitely not anyone as emotionally aloof as Colin Byrne.
The clock chimed downstairs, and she remembered this was Sunday. Colin was going to the concert, and she’d told Gigi she could visit this afternoon. She was in no shape for an angst-ridden teenager, but she could hardly ring Gigi up and tell her not to come, so she blew her nose, pulled on her jeans, fixed her makeup, then headed downstairs to clean up the breakfast mess.
Colin’s kiss-off check lay on the counter. She picked it up. Two thousand dollars. His guilt ran deep, and she tore it up. She thought of Delilah. Once again, she considered the possibility of having her stepdaughter live with her, and once again she rejected it. Delilah enjoyed their shopping expeditions and restaurant lunches together, but after a few hours away from Brookdale she got agitated and begged to go home.
She was staring at the wall when Gigi arrived, wearing another of the ratty, oversize outfits that must be giving her parents fits. She bent down to give Gordon the attention he demanded. When she rose, she looked awkward and nervous. “I was supposed to go to the concert with them this afternoon, but I talked back to my dad.”
“How convenient.”
“Do you . . . uh . . . want to make some cookies or something?” She flushed, deciding too late that her big-city aunt was too worldly for cookie baking. Sugar Beth repressed a sigh. She couldn’t deal with her own insecurities, let alone this child’s.
“No flour,” she said.
“That’s okay. Making cookies is lame.”
“Think so?” Sugar Beth could have told her she loved baking cookies nearly as much as she loved eating them, but she didn’t want to encourage any more bonding.
“Maybe you could show me how you do your eye makeup? It’s pretty cool.”
Sugar Beth took in her baggy cords and faded T-shirt. “Aren’t you afraid it’ll clash with that trendy outfit?”
“I don’t always dress like this.”
“No?”
Gigi examined her thumbnail. “It’s better this way.”
“Better for who?”
A shrug.
Sugar Beth didn’t have the energy to probe deeper. Eye makeup was safe. And it would be better for Gigi to learn makeup tricks from Sugar Beth than from her stick of a mother, or, God forbid, Merylinn, although Merylinn did have a nice touch with lip liner. She started to lead Gigi upstairs, then remembered the sex-rumpled sheets. “I’ll bring the stuff down here. The light’s better.”
“Okay. And then I sort of have a list.”
“Of what?” Sugar Beth asked warily.
“Some questions I want to ask you.”
Her head began to throb. She abandoned the eye makeup plan and made a beeline for the kitchen. “I need coffee.”
“I drink coffee.”
“Sure you do.”
“I do!”
Fine. Let Ryan worry about caffeine addiction. She set up the coffeemaker, flicked the switch, and turned to see that Gigi had seated herself at the table and was dredging a piece of paper and a pencil stub from her pocket, all ready to take notes. “First, do you think it’s better to be smart or popular? I think popular.”
“They’re not mutually exclusive.”
“They are in Parrish.”
“Not even in Parrish.”
“You were smart,” Gigi said, “but you got crappy grades, and it made you popular.”
“I hate to disillusion you, but I got crappy grades because I had my priorities screwed up. And I would have been popular even if I got good grades.”
“How?” Gigi abandoned her notes. “That’s what I don’t understand. How did you do it? You were rich like me. Didn’t all the kids hate you for it?”
Sugar Beth was tired of letting the world watch her bleed, and she didn’t want to talk about this now. Or ever, for that matter. But Gigi deserved an answer. “I was born with a false sense of superiority,” she said slowly, “and I managed to manipulate everybody so they bought into it. It was great short-term, but you might have noticed it hasn’t done zip for me long-term.”
Gigi hadn’t gotten the answer she wanted. “How exactly did you manipulate them?”
Sugar Beth glanced longingly toward the coffeemaker, but it hadn’t finished brewing. She needed caffeine now, and she grabbed a Coke from the refrigerator. “Want one?”
“No, thanks. I prefer coffee.”
“Of course you do.” She popped the top. Gigi waited, all big eyes and eager ears. Sugar Beth tried to think of what to say that would make sense to a thirteen-year-old, or even to herself. “The goal isn’t to be popular, Gigi. The goal is to be strong.”
“I don’t feel strong,” she said miserably.
Welcome to the club, kiddo. “Nobody does when they’re thirteen. But thirteen is a great time to start accumulating power. The right kind.”
Gigi’s face lit with interest. “That’s what I want. I want to be powerful.”
“But you want to be powerful right now, which isn’t going to happen.”
“You were powerful when you were thirteen.”
Sugar Beth repressed a bitter laugh. “My power was an illusion. All the tricks I used to acquire it ended up backfiring on me as I got older. You want power that lasts. And you don’t get it by being less than you are.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“In your case it means pretending you’re poor by disappearing inside ugly clothes, then blowing off schoolwork and hanging out with the wrong kind of kids.”
Gigi looked outraged. “Just because Chelsea isn’t rich . . .”
“This doesn’t have anything to do with money. It has to do with brains, and from what you told me, Chelsea wasn’t blessed with a full set. You, on the other hand, have more than your fair share, but you don’t seem to be taking advantage of them.”
“I’m not hanging out with geeks like Gwen Lu and Jenny Berry, if that’s what you mean.”