After the Morning After (2 page)

Victoria guffawed unwittingly and, still not taking her eyes off her work, said, “Bella?”

“What?”

“Fuck you.”

Bella snorted out a laugh. “Oh, and as for those Kegels you’re so proud of, give me a break! Those little exercises can in no way replace the real workout your honey pot would get from a big, strong dick. Nothing can.”

Victoria laughed softly. “Though my
honey pot
and I thank you for your concern, we are both well aware of the benefits of having dick, thank you very much,” she retorted primly, making Bella crack up.

“Ooh, my favorite topic of conversation,” Addie, also the owner of the café, cooed as he slid his trim, expensively decked-out frame into a chair. He placed a basket of warm sliced banana bread in the middle of the table. “Whose dick are we talking about, and who’s getting it?”

Victoria hid her grin by taking a sip of her tea as she stared into Addie’s eager face, still amazed that she had become such fast friends with two of the most interesting—and most beautiful—people she’d ever met. They were all so wildly different, or more to the point,
she
was wildly different from the two of them.

Body wise, she was the smallest, having never gone past the towering height of five feet two, while her friends both topped six feet
—Bella by an inch, Addie by three. Addie was rangy with long legs, a great butt, and a muscled chest, which he was forever showing to its greatest advantage by wearing tight silk T-shirts. His skin was a golden brown, courtesy of a Chinese dad and an Ethiopian mom, and was pampered religiously with expensive cosmetics. His brown, wavy hair, with shiny blond streaks was also pampered like a favorite child by weekly trips to the salon, and was kept just long enough to touch his broad shoulders. He wore dark jeans and a light pink shirt, which set off his beautiful skin perfectly.

As for Bella, she had what was known as an hourglass figure and had facial features that were asymmetrically perfect. She was also quite pale, which was striking and dramatic against her long, thick dark hair. And the stark black she habitually clothed herself in only added to the drama. Of course physical differences were to be expected, but Victoria sometimes felt like an ugly wren when in the presence of such bold peacocks.

She looked over at Addie, whose given name was Adam. He’d insisted on being called Addie since the age of twelve. He was the one responsible for some major changes in her life. Over the past few months, she’d thanked God for Addie’s kindness, which had been masked as arrogance and shallowness. Victoria was from Boston, and though she’d been in the small town of Bay Side in northern California for a few years, she hadn’t really had any close friends until he had practically ordered her into his tea shop. Once there, both he and Bella had cajoled, pampered, and plied her with liquor until she was telling them everything that had happened that night.

The others didn’t know it, but if they hadn’t been there that night sharing their woes through hard liquor and laughter and encouraging her to do the same,
she would have buried herself in her work and quite possibly would have given up on men and relationships for good. She’d had too much bad luck with them.

“Thank you, Addie,” she said solemnly.

Addie frowned quizzically. “My banana bread is the best in town, but it’s not that serious. So what exactly what am I being thanked for?”

“For inviting me in here all those months ago. I don’t think I’ve ever thanked you before.”

Addie snorted. “It was strictly a business decision. You looked like a drowning cat, and I was afraid you’d scare away potential customers, so it was best that you were in instead of out. Besides, it turned out to be my pleasure, but you’re welcome. Now, let’s get back to the subject at hand: we were talking about dick, right? What’s up with it? Who’s getting it?”

“That’s the problem,” Bella said with a smirk. “It isn’t up
—not for Tori, anyway.”

“Ba-da-
pum,” Victoria retorted and lifted her cup. “But seriously, folks, I’m here all night,” she murmured wryly before taking another sip of tea, smiling when the other two laughed.

“It is your turn, though,” Addie reminded her. “Both Bella and I have taken steps to get out of our cock droughts, and now it’s your turn.”

“Yes, darling,” Bella said with a pat on her hand, “that loser has been out of your life for months now. It isn’t as if he’s worth pining over. Is that it? Are you pining over him?”

Insulted, Victoria raised one perfectly arched brow and just looked at Bella.

“Oh, pardon me. Guess not,” Bella murmured.

“As far as I’m concerned, he doesn’t exist anymore. Besides, I’ve gotten on with my life too. I have,” Victoria protested when both of them threw doubtful looks her way. “I don’t dwell on what happened with that anthropoid who called himself a man, and I’ve got my work and you guys.”

“Mostly work,” Bella commented.

Victoria held her hands up, palms out. “Well, I do have to make a living, you know.”

“Is that whining, welching, or both we hear coming from Ms. Thing over there?”

“Cue the violins,” Bella said.

“All right, all right!” Victoria muttered. “I’ll do it.”

“That’s a big girl.” Bella patted her hand in condescending approval, prompting Victoria to chuckle and snatch it away.

“But seriously, Tori,” Addie commented, “I sense reluctance in you. Do you not want to do it? I mean, I know our little deal to go out and meet other people to get over our breakups was a little silly, but it was meant to cheer us and help us get on with our lives. Is there something you want to tell us?”

Guilt pricked at Victoria’s conscience again. “You’re right, Addie, I have been holding back. I’d planned to divulge a secret tonight
—”

“Knew you were holding out.”

“So did I.”

“Anyway,” Victoria said repressively. “As I was going to say, I’ve been holding out on you guys. The night I was dumped, I didn’t take it as easily as you might have thought.”

“But I thought he was just someone you had sex with,” Addie said. “I know you didn’t know about the other women, but it was only about sex for both of you, right? You guys always got together on Wednesday nights, right?”

“Yes,” Victoria confirmed and studied her nails. “I’m afraid when Keenan and I heard the term ‘hump day,’ we chose to interpret it literally,” she finished in a low, amused voice.

The comment produced bawdy laughter and a few verbal responses.

“I heard that!”

“Get your freak on!”

“I know that’s right!”

“Go on, Tori,” Bella said when they had quieted.

“Well, it’s like I told you all those months ago. Keenan chased me until he wore me down. At first I was just a challenge to him, and I knew that, but things changed. I wasn’t playing hard to get when I met him; I really didn’t want a relationship. I gave in to him because I thought I could trust him, and, well”
—she hesitated and shrugged jerkily—“I was horny and I like sex,” she tried to say in a smooth voice, “and Keenan gave it to me in spades. I didn’t want, nor did I expect, the typical relationship with him, but I also didn’t expect him to be sleeping with two other women at the same time and treating us as if we were cars he had out on a test drive. We were supposed to be friends, and I trusted him.” She lifted her cup to drink more tea but found it empty.

“Don’t stop now,” Addie demanded. “I’ll get you more tea. Bring a big pot of black cherry for her,” he called to one of his
waitstaff as he pointed to Victoria. “And bring refills for Bella and me too.”

Victoria started again. “He should have told me what he was doing so he could have made the choice as to whether or not I wanted to be included, which of course I
wouldn’t
have,” she said softly as she looked down at her hands, which had a tight grip on the cup.

“And that’s why he didn’t tell you,
hon,” Addie said. “He knew you’d bail the minute he suggested such a thing.”

“Yes, I figured that out, but I
trusted
him. And what he did when he revealed his true self to me was take away something that I’d just started to get back when I met him. He took away my trust in my own judgment.” She smiled her thanks when the waitress brought the tea and refilled her mug.

“Go on,” Bella encouraged her after she’d watched her doctor her tea with honey.

Victoria looked at the two faces eagerly awaiting her story and grimaced. This was the hardest part. Given all that they’d shared with her, she shuddered to think how they’d react when they learned what she’d been holding back. She took a bracing sip of her tea. “Once upon a time, I was engaged to be married. I thought he was perfect for me. We wanted the same things: a family, our careers.

“We’d grown up together, and what I really liked about him was that he was able to see beyond the senator’s and socialite’s daughter to me. And he was open to a little rough”
—she cleared her throat and focused her gaze on a painting on the wall behind Addie—“uh…trying new things in the bedroom. I mean, he barely batted an eye when I told him that I wanted to try bondage. We had just started to dabble in it when, two days before the wedding, he left me,” she finished and looked down to stir her tea. She waited for their responses.

Silence had never been so loud before.

She looked up, and her eyes went wide. Well, good heavens, she thought with a wince as she studied her friends, I didn’t think the facial expression of horrified shock could exist anywhere but in pages of fiction. Mouths slack and preternaturally still, both of her friends had their unblinking, dazed eyes focused on her. Lord, she thought, involuntarily shivering, they look like a couple of cult followers.

“Anyone for grape Kool-Aid?” she murmured before clapping her hands loudly. She didn’t think that her news had been worthy of such a strong reaction. “All right, snap out of it. Surely what I said is not that shocking.”

“It is coming from you,” Addie retorted. “And did you say something about grape Kool-Aid?”

Victoria smiled. “Never mind about the Kool-Aid. Can I assume your shock is because of what I said about bondage?”

“Being that you’re you and bondage is…well,
bondage
, the fact that you’re into it is more than a bit shocking. But personally, I’m more interested in the whole him- leaving-you-two-days-before-the-wedding part,” Bella said. “That must have been just awful. What happened?”

Victoria shrugged. “I don’t know what happened. He just left town two days before. All I got was a note saying that he couldn’t go through with it. I assumed he didn’t love me.”

“Yeah, I guess I’d assume the same thing,” Bella agreed. “And I see now why you’re reluctant to get involved again, especially after that. I mean, it’s a double whammy, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is,” Victoria said.

“Are you going to start dating? And let’s be clear—neither Addie nor I will understand if you refuse.”

Victoria frowned and looked at Addie.

He nodded in agreement with Bella. “Let’s face it, honey—there’s no time like the present for you to start moving on. No point in getting stuck in neutral.”

“And besides,” Bella chimed in, “you said you weren’t in love with Keenan anyway and that you’re not pining, so what’s the BFD?”

“BFD? Big fucking deal, right?” Victoria looked at Bella for confirmation and continued when she nodded. “It’s not a BFD in that sense, but at any rate, you don’t have to worry; I agreed to do it, so I will. And besides, you two seem to be having such fun with it, I don’t want to be left out,” she joked. “I’m just glad I didn’t draw the short straw and that now I get to go last. I’m not embarrassed to say that I am really kind of nervous about it. All those months of watching you guys put yourselves out there gave me time to think and prepare mentally.”

Bella nodded. “Good, because I think you need to go after that long drink of water you slept with the night you left here after bawling your eyes out. Trying your hand at Italian now, dear?” she asked with a sly smile.

Victoria’s mouth flew open, and she felt her entire body flush with embarrassment. “He…h-he’s Indian, not Italian. But when did you… H-how did you…?”

Bella frowned. “Indian? But isn’t he just a little, well,
pale
to be from India?”

“He’s not from India; he’s from Georgia, was born and raised there. Now tell me
—”

“But he looked Italian, like a southern Italian, of course. But still Italian. I
—”

“Oh for heaven’s sake, Bella! What difference
—” Victoria began, infuriated until she saw the teasing glint in her friend’s eye. “Will you just tell me, please?”

“Tell you what? How I saw you? I was on my way home from spending the night here after Addie so graciously offered us the use of his place to sober up. And since I was close to the Hotel Carlisle when the call came in about a disturbance taking place there, I decided to check it out. Well, imagine my surprise when as I’m making my way through one revolving door, I see you rushing through the other, but in the opposite direction.

“You looked thoroughly and enviously used. Your hair was mussed, your lips were swollen, and you had that cat-that-swallowed-the-cream smile. I started to call out to you but changed my mind because we didn’t know each other very well, and you seemed like the type to be embarrassed to be seen leaving a hotel looking like you’d just had a serious schtupping.

“Anyway,” she said, ignoring Victoria’s pleading look at the ceiling, “I was further surprised when I walked into the hotel and no more than two minutes later saw what I thought was a tall, gorgeous Italian guy striding through the lobby. His hair was wet, and I could tell he’d dressed in a hurry, because his shirt was unbuttoned
—he has quite a chest, by the way. Tori, you should be congratulated—”

“But you digress,” Addie said with an impatient glare.

“Oh no,” Bella said with a wicked grin. “No, I don’t. His chest was quite a thing of beauty. But anyway, he was looking around like he’d lost something—or
someone
—and me being a public servant, I went over and asked him if everything was all right. I just had to do my duty—”

Victoria narrowed her eyes. “I’ll just bet you did.”

“Serve and protect, Tori,” Bella reminded her in a singsong voice, “serve and protect. Anyway, he said everything was okay, but just to be sure, I got specific and asked him if the pretty little black lady I’d just seen run out like she had stolen something had done anything illegal to him or his person—”

Insulted, Victoria drew herself up indignantly. “Well, really! I have never
—”

Bella simply spoke over her. “And he flashed me a smile so sexy it almost made me rethink my stance on poaching, said, and I quote, ‘Yes, ma’am, she stole
somethin’, all right, but it’s nothin’ I didn’t mind losin’. But I reckon I’ll catch her, and as soon as I do, I aim to get some of mine back’—said it just like that, ‘
mahn
back.’”

Arms crossed, Victoria sniffed and muttered, “‘
Reckon
?’ He would never, not in a million years, say—”

“Mm, sounds yummy,” Addie purred. “Does he really sound like that, Tori?”

“Oh, so
now
you want my input?”

“Shit, Tori, just tell me what the man sounds like!”

“Well, first of all,” she said with a chiding look at Bella, “Scarlett O’Hara here exaggerates. And besides that, she has an absolutely horrible Southern accent.”

“Damn it, Tori. Stop stalling!”

Despite her reservations, Victoria got swept up in their enthusiasm. She smiled as she remembered that one night long ago. Her heart hammered, her breath quickened, and her brain stuttered out an instinctively honest answer. “He sounds…he sounds…dangerous.”

Smirking, Addie said, “So now I know why you refused my invitation to sleep over that night.”

“No, he’s not the reason. I didn’t stay over because”—she hesitated and then decided to be honest—“I didn’t really know you guys, and I didn’t feel comfortable staying. I wasn’t ready to go home yet, so I decided to stop in at the hotel for another drink. I bumped into Sanjay at the bar.”

Two faces went completely blank for a moment and then, “
You picked him up
?”

“No!” Victoria said vehemently. “At that time I’d known him about six months because we worked together.”

“Sanjay? Like that doctor on television? Sanjay Gupta?”

“Yes, but this Sanjay is much hotter.”

“I’ll second that,” Bella muttered.

Addie smiled. “He is, is he? And shame on you, Bella, for not sharing the news about him a long time ago.”

Bella’s shrug was patently unconcerned. “I couldn’t. I figured Tori had her reasons for not saying anything, and it wasn’t up to me to tell.”

“Really?” Victoria asked. “Then why on earth are you squealing like a stuck pig now?”

“Your comparison leaves something to be desired,” Bella muttered with a frown, “but to answer your question, you opened up more tonight, and I just figured it would be okay.”

Addie put his teacup neatly in its saucer. “Is he the one you’ve chosen? Or are you already seeing him, and we just don’t know about it?”

“I’m not seeing him. It was only for one night.”

Bella smiled. “Will you start to see him now, though, is the question.”

“It’s complicated, but the short answer to that question is I don’t know. I’m thinking about it.” And with that answer, she was done talking about it. Her face said it all when she looked at her friends. “Anyone up for Chinese tonight?”

They took the hint and didn’t ask her another question. And as they rose to leave for the restaurant, Victoria sighed in relief that the discussion was over. There was no way in the world she was ready to discuss the fact that the man she’d slept with was not only the hottest lay she’d ever had, but he was thought to be a corporate thief as well.