Susan Phillips - What I Did for Love

“Impossible,” Laura said. “I have back-to-back meetings on Monday.”

Meg frowned. “Mom and I are going riding tomorrow.”

“If I have to be quarantined, I’m doing it in my own house.” Rory glanced around for her purse. “I’ll go out through the back gate.”

“You’d better clear it with Public Health first,” Jade said. “These guys mean business. I’m sure you’d have to send your staff away first.”

Rory paused in her search for her purse, apparently remembering the filmmakers she was housing.

Chaz had taken the coffeepot from Aaron and turned to Bram. “What’s SARS? I don’t know what that is.”

Aaron answered for him. “Severe acute respiratory syndrome. It’s a serious disease. Very contagious. There was a pandemic a few years ago that killed hundreds of people and made thousands sick. A pandemic is like an epidemic, except a lot bigger.”

“I know what a pandemic is,” Chaz retorted so defensively Georgie knew she was lying.

“This is bullshit,” Bram said. “Lance hasn’t even been in the house fifteen minutes. And, god knows, nobody kissed him.”

Jade flipped her hair over her shoulder. “I explained that to Public Health, but they won’t budge.”

Laura whipped out her cell. “Give me the number. I’ll make them budge.”

But she wasn’t the only alpha dog in the room, and the others-Bram, Paul, and Rory-already had their hands on their own phones. Aaron took one look at Georgie and grabbed his, too. Lance glanced around. “Everybody can’t call.”

“I’ll do it,” Rory said. “I have contacts.”

For the next half hour while Georgie sat silently, the rest of them listened in on Rory’s conversations as she spoke to officials in the county’s Public Health Department and then the mayor himself. Finally, she conceded defeat. “Pulling strings isn’t going to work. This is political. Because celebrities are involved, nobody wants to be held responsible if this thing gets out of hand. It’s definitely overkill, but it seems as though we’re trapped.”

People began looking in Georgie’s direction, judging her reaction to being cooped up with her ex and his new wife. Scooter Brown would have known how to handle this. Scooter always came through in tough situations. Fine. Let that perky little bitch deal with it.

She pushed Scooter up from the couch. “We’ll make the best of it. Like a big house party. It’ll be fun.”

Chaz plunged into the mess. “I have a ton of food in the freezer, so that’s not a problem.”

“I need a drink,” Bram said.

“Of course you do,” Georgie snapped before she could stop herself, which meant Scooter had to jump in and rescue her. “A great idea, sweetie. Open a couple of bottles.”

Chaz turned to Bram. “Where’s everybody going to sleep?”

Georgie should suggest Paul share a room with Lance. He’d love cozying up to his favorite person.

Gradually they sorted it out. Meg insisted on taking the couch in Bram’s office, leaving the guesthouse bed to Rory and Laura. Paul would sleep in Georgie’s office. The guest room where Georgie had been sleeping went to Lance and Jade, which forced Georgie to explain that she’d been using it as her dressing room and would need to get some of her things out first. In a whispered argument, Chaz begrudgingly agreed to let Aaron sleep in her living room. That left Georgie cuddled up in her husband’s bed. It was such an unsettling prospect that Scooter once again had to come to Georgie’s aid. “I think the wind is calming down,” she chirped. “Let’s light a fire on the veranda. We could even make s’mores.”

“Or not,” Skip drawled.

Rory phoned her housekeeper and arranged for some personal items to be placed in a rainproof bag by the back gate. Meg lent Laura a roomy sleeping shirt. Jade announced that she slept nude so Georgie didn’t need to bother finding her anything. Chaz and Aaron distributed towels, washcloths, extra bedding, and toothbrushes. All the while Georgie struggled with a sense of unreality.

After the worst of the storm passed, Meg led Rory and Laura to the guesthouse while Bram made his way through the remaining sprinkles to retrieve Rory’s things. Her father poured a brandy and went out to sit on the veranda. Lance and Jade wanted to clean up after their long trip, and Aaron led them upstairs.

Georgie began helping an unappreciative Chaz pick up. Before long, she heard the shower go on in her bathroom and-twenty minutes later-turn off.

One shower. How cozy.

Her stomach churned. Having Lance here was horrible enough, but Jade’s presence made the situation unbearable. And it was all Bram’s fault.

She closed herself in his bedroom. She’d make the turret that occupied the far end of the room her sanctuary. An inlaid wooden table sat between a pair of easy chairs, and a lamp with a heavy bronze base rested near a chaise upholstered in a nappy chocolate brown chenille that complemented the buckwheat-honey walls. The chaise could only hold one person, and that’s where she’d sleep. Bram’s bed was for sex, not all-night intimacy.

She walked over to the window and gazed down along the rain-slicked driveway toward the gates. Even though it was after midnight, she could see at least two cars still parked on the street, the paps keeping their eternal vigil and praying for the magic shot that would bring them their fortune.

Public Health now had the names of everyone who’d been quarantined, so the story would leak quickly. They’d all have to release statements. Old problems forgotten. One big happy family. Lance would finally get what he wanted-the appearance of her forgiveness and final absolution in the public eye.

She rested her cheek against the window frame and wondered what it would be like to go through life always speaking the truth. But she lived in the wrong town for that. This was a city built on illusion, on false fronts and streets that led nowhere.

The door opened behind her. She heard the inevitable clink of ice cubes and caught the scent of rain as he came nearer. “I didn’t mean it to turn out like this when I invited her inside. I’m sorry.”

His unsolicited apology took some of the wind out of her sails. “Exactly how did you expect it to turn out?”

“Look, I was pissed.” He kept his voice down in deference to the single wall separating them from their unwelcome visitors in the next room. “Where does that guy get off showing up here? Then the whole idea of Jade sitting in the car feeling sorry for you because she figures you’re so destroyed by their great love affair that you don’t have enough backbone to look her in the fucking eye. It got to me.”

Put like that… Still, his high-handedness felt too much like her father’s. “It wasn’t your decision to make.”

“You weren’t going to make it.” He tugged at the buttons on his damp white shirt. “I’m sick of watching you wimp out whenever her name comes up. Where’s your pride? Stop believing she’s better than you.”

“I don’t-”

“Yes, you do. Jade may be better at some things. She sure as hell is better at going after another woman’s husband. But what Jade is or isn’t has nothing to do with you. Grow up and start being happy living in your own skin.”

“You’re talking to me about growing up?”

He wasn’t done ripping on her. “Jade and Lance were made for each other. He was no more the right man for you than…”

“Than you are?”

“Exactly.” He took a long swig from his glass.

“Thanks for your insightful input.” She snatched the robe and nightgown she’d fetched earlier and stomped into the bathroom to change. But as she washed her face, she had to admit Bram’s heart had been in the right place. Inviting Jade into the house had been his twisted version of being protective. He couldn’t have predicted the consequences.

When she came out, she found him propped against the pillows, wearing only a pair of knit boxer briefs that gleamed white against his skin. He’d kicked the covers back, and he had a book propped open on his chest. Seeing Bram Shepard reading a book looked weird enough, but not as weird as the pair of steel-rimmed glasses anchored to the bridge of his nose. She stopped dead. “What are those?”

“What?”

“You’re wearing glasses?”

“Just for reading.”

“You have reading glasses?”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“People with tattoos shouldn’t have reading glasses.”

“I didn’t have them when I got the tattoo.” He slipped off the glasses and took in her T-shirt and blue pajama bottoms. “I was kind of hoping you’d be wearing one of those numbers from Provocative.”

“Even if I were in the mood, which I’m definitely not, I wouldn’t do it with them on the other side of this wall.”

“I see your point.” He got out of bed and pulled her across the carpet to the bathroom, where he shut the door and sealed them inside. “No more problem.”

“I’m still furious with you.”

“I understand. It’s only because I haven’t made a sincere-enough apology.” And he started to kiss her.

Georgie hated movies where all the hero had to do to make the heroine forget she was mad at him was to kiss her senseless. She had no intention of putting her grievances aside that easily, just as she had no intention of giving up this welcome diversion. Instead, she poured her frustration into the kiss. She dug her fingernails into his bare shoulders and sank her teeth into his lip. She pushed her knee against…

“Hey, watch it,” he muttered.

“Shut up and earn your keep.”

He didn’t like that, and the next thing she knew, her pajama bottoms were around her ankles. She lifted her knee again, but he caught it, and in one motion, pushed that same knee far apart from its mate and set her hips on the long granite counter.