I Think I Love You (5 page)

The offender turned scarlet and sat back in her chair like a good girl. "My name is
Bobbie,
Ms. Metcalf. Bobbie Donetti."

"Oh, my mistake. One of the few mistakes I've made in my career, I might add."

A repentant silence fell, but Justine wasn't satisfied. She pursed her mouth and crossed her arms over her runway-quality laser-red suit—whoever said that redheads shouldn't wear red had never gotten a gander at her. "Before we move on, I'd like to take a moment to remind everyone seated here that Cocoon is a classy firm—if you intend to stay here, you might want to reevaluate your business wardrobes." She glanced around the table, lingering on Barbie-Bobbie, daring anyone to make eye contact. No one did.

"Now then, are there any other questions about the new product line?"

There weren't.

She opened the folder in front of her. "Good. As I was about to say before I was interrupted, the new sales quotas and bonus structures are in your folders—"

The door to her office burst open, and Justine jumped to her feet, her patience spent. "Dammit, what now?" She didn't recognize the slight woman who stood in the doorway, her graying hair disheveled, her eyes glassy.

The woman wet her lips. "Are you Justine Metcalf?"

"Yes.
Who
are you?"

"Lisa Crane."

"I don't—" Justine stopped as realization hit her. Randall's
wife.
She swallowed and forced a note of calm into her voice. "Do you need to speak with me in private, Mrs. Crane?"

"No," the woman said, closing the door behind her and turning the lock on the handle. "I want plenty of witnesses."

Her heart thudded. "Mrs. Crane—"

The woman raised a revolver. "Shut up, slut."

Cold terror gripped Justine, and shrieks rang out.

"Don't anyone move," Mrs. Crane said, sweeping the weapon over their heads, and the group obliged. She smiled at Justine. "I understand you're screwing my husband."

Justine was paralyzed in her crocodile pumps, "I d-don't know what you're talking about."

The woman reached into her purse and tossed a wad of something on the table that slid down the glossy length and stopped in front of Justine's notebook.

Her panties. A pair of tiny sheer silk undies with a yellow butterfly design. One of the non-cosmetic items she'd added to last year's product lineup.

Justine's mouth went dry. "Those... aren't... mine."

The woman cocked the hammer. "Prove it—lift your skirt."

Panic rolled over her in waves. She leaned against the table, the edge cutting into the fronts of her thighs. "I—"

The woman raised the gun and fired. Everyone screamed except Justine, who simply waited for blood to begin spreading over some portion of her upmarket suit jacket. When it didn't, she realized that the woman had shot high and into the wall behind her. As her knees weakened, her mind raced—at least security would be alerted, although the Keystone Cops milling around Cocoon's lobby had never dealt with anything worse than a malfunctioning fire alarm.

The Crane woman cocked the hammer again. "I missed on purpose. Lift your little skirt, or I'm going to start picking off your friends here."

Her "friends" were weeping, but Justine was dry-eyed with disbelief. This couldn't be happening, not to her. Not when she finally had the world by the balls after years of clawing her way up from the degradation of in-home makeup parties.
For instant cheekbones, apply blush on the apple of your cheek.
Christ, didn't she deserve to enjoy her success for a few lousy years?

"I'm going to count to three," Lisa Crane said, pointing the gun at wide-eyed Terri Birch, vice president of human resources. Terri had three kids and a vacation home in Aspen. "One..."

And Justine had shagged Terri's husband, Jim, in the catering pantry at the company Christmas party.

"Two..."

Terri began to sob.

"Okay," Justine said with a tiny chopping motion. "Okay." She smoothed her hands down her thighs and began lifting the hem of her skirt one millimeter at a time. She'd stall the woman as long as possible, hoping that by some miracle, help would arrive before the bullets started flying again. "You've got it all wrong, Mrs. Crane. Randall and I are just friends."

"That's not what he said." The woman laughed. "Right before I shot him."

Her heart pummeled her breastbone. Randall was...
dead
? Good God, the woman was mad. "M-Mrs. Crane, why don't you let these people go? They're innocent in this matter."

"Nobody's going anywhere until you expose your ass to the world. Somehow I don't think these folks will mind, because I'll bet they've had to kiss it a few times." She motioned with the gun for Justine to keep lifting, then pressed the barrel to Terri Birch's head. Terri's big hair nearly enveloped the gun.

Justine swallowed and slowly inched her skirt upward. The air touched her skin above the black thigh-high stockings. The woman was riveted, and so were most of Justine's staff. A couple of them had the good grace to look away, and Justine made mental notes for future pay raises. If she lived.

Her hem snagged on a garter belt fastener, then bumped higher. When the bottom of the fabric brushed her pubic hair, Justine set her jaw—she'd lifted her skirt for less compelling reasons than to avoid death. Of course, the woman was likely to shoot her anyway if the cavalry didn't arrive soon. She'd balled enough cops in this town that they'd damn well better save the day before she got her ass shot off. Her only flash of vindication standing skirt-up in the path of the air-conditioning vent was that she had one fine-looking ass.

"Guess those
were
your panties," Mrs. Crane said dryly, but she seemed deflated in the face of truth.

"You've proved your point, Mrs. Crane," Justine said, dropping her skirt. "Now put down the gun. Randall isn't worth all this."

The woman squinted. "No,
you
wouldn't think so, would you?
You
didn't work as a waitress to put him through law school.
You
didn't give him two sons.
You
didn't nurse his mother through Alzheimer's. Randall means nothing to you, but he is
everything
to me!" The woman was crying now, and pressing poor Terri's head to the side with the barrel of the gun.

"Relax, Mrs. Crane," Justine soothed.

"A person can't just go through life destroying relationships and get away with it!"

The faces of the married men Justine had slept with over the years passed before her eyes. "Please put down the gun."

The woman suddenly laughed. "I don't think so." She moved the gun from Terri's temple and aimed for Justine's chest. Justine inhaled and closed her eyes.

When the shot rang out and mayhem erupted, she fell to the ground and waited for the pain to overtake her. She hadn't talked to Regina in weeks, to her parents in months, and to Mica in years. She curled into a ball and wondered if her back-stabbing baby sister would have the heart to show up for her funeral.

Chapter 3

DO wake up and smell the leftovers.

Mica was trapped in a cabinet of some kind. She inhaled the pungent, mossy scent of walnut wood, and her eyes flew wide in the darkness. She was inside the wardrobe. The antique wardrobe that she, Regina, and Justine had repaired and re-finished for Justine and Dean's future household. Beneath her fingers, the wood of the door was smooth and hot from all the sanding—so hot that she cried out in pain.

"Let me out!" She flailed at the door. "Let me out of here!"

The door fell open and she tumbled onto a slick, cold surface. She closed her eyes and welcomed the coolness against her feverish cheek and bare breasts. She was lying on hard water—the word escaped her...
ice.
No, not ice... tile. The Italian tile in the master bathroom she had fallen in love with. She had been in the linen closet, not the walnut wardrobe. She was safe... free from the suffocating memories. For now.

"Ms. Metcalf?"

She opened one eye and tried to focus on the female voice with the British accent emanating from the intense light. "Hm?"

"Ms. Metcalf, what were you doing in the linen pantry? Are you all right?"

"Hm."

"Let me help you up."

Mica acquiesced because she didn't have the strength to do it herself and she needed a drink. "Who... the devil... are you?"

"I'm Polly, ma'am. The new housekeeper."

Mica groaned as a chunk of memory fell into place. Firing the former housekeeper had been Dean's concession after she walked in on them kissing in the pool house. A weak moment, he'd assured her, and promised to hire someone else, someone less kissable, she'd assumed. But as Polly's angelic face came into focus, Mica knew she'd been had. Another redhead. She laughed, sagging against poor, unsuspecting Polly as the woman dragged her across the floor and settled her into the vanity chair.

Mica blinked back miserable tears as her mind flew in all directions. Maybe if she demanded that Dean marry her once and for all, his flirtations would end. He was generous with his winks and kisses, but he swore that he'd been faithful to their bed all these years and she believed him. Hadn't he forsaken her own sister at the altar to be with her? She sighed noisily. Maybe they could save some money and she could take a sabbatical from modeling next year. They could have a baby. They could buy this house with the bathroom tile she loved.

"Ms. Metcalf... your
eye."

With much effort, Mica peered into the mirror at the purplish bruise. She swallowed and touched the tender skin. Dean had never hit her in the face before.

"I'll fetch you an ice bag, ma'am."

"No! I fell is all. I'll be fine. Leave me."

"Ma'am?"

"What?"

"I came to let you know that you have a visitor."

Mica closed her eyes. "Who is it, for Christ's sake?"

"A Mr. Everett Collier."

Her agent. Some part of her brain registered concern that he had come to see her at home, but at the moment she couldn't process all the inputs. She wound her hair and held it off her neck to relieve the pressure from her tingling scalp. One thing she did know: she couldn't allow Everett to see her hungover.

"He said it was urgent, ma'am, or I wouldn't have disturbed you."

Mica ran her tongue over the roof of her mouth to dispel a disgusting taste. "What time is it?"

"Just before the noon hour."

"What
day
is it?"

"Er, Thursday, ma'am."

Oh, crap... did she have a booking today? Surely Dean wouldn't have let her miss
another
shoot. "Is Dean—is Mr. Haviland home?"

"Mr. Haviland left around nine o'clock."

And left her passed out in the closet... or had he put her there? Panic rose in her chest, her gaze darting to far corners of the room. "Did he say where he was going or when he'd be back?"

"No, ma'am. He received a phone call and left soon afterward."

Another mysterious phone call. When she would ask who called, he'd mumble something about a wrong number; then later he'd disappear.

"Mr. Haviland instructed me not to disturb you, or I would have helped... that is, ma'am, I would have... already cleaned your room."

"I'll let you know when to clean our room," Mica snapped, then pressed her hands against her screaming temples. The last thing she needed was this pretty little redhead traipsing in and out of their bedroom dressed in a short uniform. She exhaled, then spoke through clenched teeth. "And find something respectable to wear if you expect to work here."

The woman's gaze flicked over Mica's partial nudity. "Yes, ma'am."

"And stop calling me ma'am!" Christ, it was bad enough that other models had taken to calling her Aunt Mica. She still had plenty of good years left in the industry. Plenty. She pushed her hand against her agitating stomach. "Tell Mr. Collier that I'll call him later, and then bring me a drink. Vodka, straight."

"Make that coffee," a male voice said from the doorway. "And aspirin."

Mica looked up to see Everett Collier standing in the doorway. Medium height, medium build, medium attractive, dressed in an immaculate suit and pristine white collar-less shirt. Other than being perhaps a little less quick to smile, the forty-something man was unchanged from when she had signed with his agency nearly five years ago.

"Everett." She tried to stand but failed.

The man nodded to Polly. "I'll take over from here. Please add two pieces of buttered toast to the coffee tray for Ms. Metcalf."

"No butter," Mica corrected.

"Extra
butter," he told Polly, then jerked his thumb pointedly toward the door.

Polly fled.

He sighed. "Hello, Mica."

Mica turned away and covered her eye. Her bare breasts were a non-issue—Dean had assured her the reserved man was supremely gay. Her vision blurred, then doubled. "I'm sorry, Everett. I don't feel well, and Dean isn't here."

He shrugged out of his jacket and settled it around her shoulders. "I didn't come to speak to Dean; I came to speak to you. Quite a shiner you have there."