Real Women Don't Wear Size 2 (33 page)
Okay.
Handle the situation,
his managerial instincts directed, and in this case, handling the situation meant finding Clarise and clearing up this mess. He snagged his phone from his pocket and dialed her cellular. “Come on, Clarise.”
It went straight to voice mail. He left a message, but knew she wouldn’t listen to it. With no way to reach her before she got on a plane, if she hadn’t boarded one already, Ethan decided to do the only thing he could. He grabbed his suitcase and began packing. Sure, he’d planned on professing his love in Tampa, but Birmingham would do. He shoved everything in his bag and decided to make one more call. Before second-guessing his decision, he dialed her home number.
“Hello. This is Clarise. I can’t take your telephone call at this time, but please leave a message. I’ll be happy to return your call as soon as possible.”
Ethan’s brows lifted. Her message was probably a lie, when it came to him. She wouldn’t return his calls. Ever. Unless . . .
What the hell.
“Clarise, this is Ethan—don’t delete this message. Not yet. I love you. There. I said it. And I’m on my way to Birmingham to explain. I want you, Clarise. And I want to work this out. I’ll be on the next plane.” He disconnected.
Okay, so it wasn’t the romantic conversation he’d envisioned over waffles and strawberries, but desperate times call for desperate measures, and he’d just told a woman he loved her, something he’d never done before, over her answering machine. He loved her, and he’d make her see the truth about the two of them, after he told her the truth about Babette. Desperate times indeed. Leaving the condo, he hailed a cab, which was a miracle in itself, given the parades were set to start in two hours. “Miracles. I’ll need plenty of them today,” he said, sitting in the backseat while the cabbie jerked the car to life and steered him in the direction of the airport and, hopefully, in the direction of the woman he loved.
Five hours later, thanks to the cabbie’s driving like a bat out of hell and the airline’s having an available seat on standby, Ethan stepped off the plane at the Birmingham airport. His bag had been too large for carry-on, so he started down the concourse toward baggage claim. While waiting for the conveyer to distribute his luggage, he withdrew his phone and dialed her apartment.
“Hello. This is Clarise . . .”
He listened to her voice and waited for the moment when he could tell her, again, that he wanted to talk, to tell her—everything. Primarily that he loved her and wanted to spend his life with her, but before her message ended, the line clicked.
“You’re Ethan, aren’t you? I saw your name on the caller ID.”
“Yes,” he answered, stepping away from the noisy conveyer system when he recognized the voice. While he’d talked to Gertrude Robinson merely a few days ago, when she agreed to grant him passage past the complex guard, he hadn’t seen her since she’d stopped by to visit Clarise during the store’s Christmas extravaganza. At that time, she’d been hard to miss; her flaming orange dress and heels stood out like a buoy in the sea of winter garments.
“She doesn’t want to talk to you,” she said, snapping his mind from the memory with her statement.
“I know, but—” Ethan started; however, Granny Gert wasn’t finished.
“She’s not here anyway. Said she wanted to go for a drive and think, and she said if you called to hang up. If you came by, to slam the door in your face. If you left a message, delete it. Listen, I don’t know what happened, but let me tell you, I’ve never seen her more upset, and I don’t know if I can forgive you for that, even if you did say you love her.”
“Did she get my message?” Ethan asked.
“Yes and no.”
“Yes and no?” he asked, moving to a vacant bench away from the airport crowd. He sat down, then stood back up and paced while he waited for Granny Gert’s answer. Clarise didn’t want to talk to him or see him. So much for miracles.
“Yes, she heard your voice, but no, she didn’t hear your message. As soon as you started talking, she pressed the delete button and left. Slammed the door so hard my great-grandmother’s picture fell off the wall, and I’ll tell you right now, it’s a good thing that photo wasn’t messed up, cause I’d have blamed you. And whatever you did to hurt my granddaughter.”
“I need to talk to her, Ms. Robinson. To explain.”
“What have you got to explain?” she asked. “What did you do?”
Ethan swallowed. Clarise hadn’t told Granny Gert about Babette. That didn’t really surprise him. Even though Clarise was upset with her sister, she wouldn’t talk down about her to their grandmother. His Clarise simply wouldn’t do something like that.
His Clarise.
Gertrude Robinson huffed into the phone. “No, don’t tell me,” she instructed. “She said she didn’t want me to know, and I’ll respect that, but I really thought the two of you were meant for each other. The fact that you’ve ended up being a horse’s behind really ticks me off.”
“We are meant for each other,” Ethan said. He wasn’t going to argue the horse’s behind comment, since right now, he felt like a jackass for not telling her about Babette sooner. But he had no doubt that he and Clarise were meant to be together. He couldn’t imagine being with anyone else. Didn’t want to.
“She said she didn’t want to see you again and that she was quitting her job. That certainly seems odd if she’s meant to be with you, don’t you think?” she said, her words whipping through the phone as though she’d slap him if she could reach her hand through the line.
“I didn’t mean to hurt her,” Ethan said honestly.
“Yeah, well, you did. And I think you should give her the space she needs.”
“I need to talk to her. Then, if she still doesn’t want to see me,” he started, and once again, she interrupted.
“No,” she said flatly. Then she blew an exasperated breath through the line. “Tell me something. Was it the truth? Do you love her? Really?”
“Yeah, I do,” Ethan said.
She waited a moment, then whistled softly. “I sure wish my dear Henry was here to help me at times like this.” She took an audible breath. “You sound so sincere . . . ”
“I am.”
“Henry, I sure hope this is the right thing,” she mumbled, then cleared her throat. “Now I’m only doing this because I think my granddaughter may feel as strongly about you, even if she seems as though she’d just as well castrate you as speak to you right now.”
Ethan’s groin tightened involuntarily. “Ma’am?”
“That was one of my mama’s expressions. I don’t use it much, but it seemed to fit.”
“Oh,” he said, for lack of a better word.
“Anyway,” she continued, “what I’ll do is test the waters for you. I’ll try to put in a good word for you, whenever she decides she’s ready to talk about you again, and I’ll let you know when it’s safe to show up. That’s the best I can do,” she said, in a that’s-my-offer-take-it-or-leave-it tone.
“I want to see her tonight.”
“No,” she said. “It’s too soon. Trust me, I know my granddaughter, and she needs space. You should give it to her. If you really do love her, you will. Besides, she heard you on the machine and knows you tried to call. I’ll let her know you called again. That’s good enough for now.”
“But—”
“No,” she repeated. “If you show up, it’ll only make things worse. She isn’t ready to see you, Ethan, and if you’re as smart as she claimed—before she was mad at you, of course—then you’ll wait until she is.”
Ethan groaned. This was not what he’d planned, at all, but as much as he wanted to force Clarise to see him, his gut told him that Gertrude Robinson knew what she was talking about. “All right. For now. But I’m not going to wait forever. Hell, I don’t know if I can promise to wait a day.”
“Well, try,” she said, then added, “Goodness, she’s back. Gotta go.” She hung up.
Ethan slapped his phone shut and cursed Clarise’s wild sister. He’d thought he had handled that awkward situation last year as well as any red-blooded male could. He hadn’t wanted to hurt Clarise by telling her the truth back then, and he honestly hadn’t wanted to hurt Babette either. Hell, he’d thought that whole “incident” was over and done. But here it was, costing him the woman he loved. His mind traipsed back through time, twelve months ago, to the memory of Babette Robinson, smiling provocatively while wearing a white fur coat. And nothing else.
God help him.
C
larise wore the sexy, skintight green sweater dress she’d put on for Ethan on Saturday. On that morning, she changed clothes after learning they were going to one of the family-oriented parades, but not before she’d seen the way he’d eyed her in this dress. Shannon and Jadelle had steered her right on this one, for sure, and now two more of Clarise’s female buddies were helping her out. This time, her accomplices were Rachel and Jesilyn, both of whom were determined to help her forget all about Ethan Eubanks via a bar full of good-looking strangers and a bottomless glass.
She supposed there was a bit of spite involved with her apparel selection. Ethan would keel over if he saw the way guys at the bar drooled over her in the formfitting dress, and right now, that’s exactly what she wanted. Ethan Eubanks. Dead. So there.
Grumbling, she stomped her strappy high heels through the crowd and ordered another daiquiri. She’d told he-who-does-not-care that she’d forego strong drinks from now on, but since he didn’t care, what did breaking her word matter? Goodness knows he didn’t seem overly concerned about breaking her heart, so what was a broken promise on her part?
“Feeling better yet?” Rachel asked, her pink eye shadow glowing beneath the bar’s black lights.
Clarise accepted the drink from the bartender and took a big sip. “I’m getting there.”
“Still won’t tell us what he did?” Jesilyn asked.
Clarise simply shook her head. She didn’t want to get into the details, particularly since both of her friends still worked at Eubanks Elegant Apparel. She really didn’t want to cause any problems there. Ethan paid them very well, and they enjoyed the income and status that came along with being department heads at the prestigious store. Clarise had enjoyed that too, until yesterday. Or rather, until today, when she officially called Jeff Eubanks and told him she wouldn’t be back. Bless his heart, Jeff tried to convince her to stay and even offered her an impressive increase in commission to accomplish his goal. But she declined. No doubt Ethan hadn’t informed his brother of their awkward situation. Then again, he had no reason to tell Jeff. Clarise, on the other hand, had every reason to tell her sister.
She took another big sip of daiquiri and thought of Babette. They were different, that was true, but they had always been close. So close, in fact, that Clarise had never confessed to her sister how jealous she was of Babette’s physique, not to mention her gumption, the way she went after everything she wanted—and usually reached her goal. Unfortunately, Ethan had fallen into the category of “something Babette wanted,” and although Clarise believed she could eventually forgive her sister, she didn’t believe she could ever be with a man who’d also been with Babette. And she didn’t know whether she could ever forgive Ethan for hiding the truth. She sucked a big gulp of daiquiri through the straw, then slapped her fingertips to her forehead to combat a piercing jab of brain freeze. Great, she couldn’t even enjoy being bad with a daiquiri. Even her body wanted to make sure she stayed miserable.
Moving back into the fray of the crowd, she saw Miles Watkins working his way through the thick river of partyers. When he was finally within earshot, he yelled, “Hey, Clarise! It wasn’t the same at the store today without you. You sure you’re not coming back?”
“I’m sure,” she answered, trying to be heard above the crowd.
“Wanna talk about it?” he asked.
“No.”
One side of his mouth quirked up. “Okay. Well, do you want to tell me where Rachel is? She told me that they were taking you here tonight and asked me to come, but I haven’t seen her at all in this crowd.”
“There you are!” Rachel said, easing beside him and pressing a soft kiss to his lips. “Glad you came.”
He grinned. “I didn’t know I had a choice. You said to come or else.”
“That’s right,” she said. “And you came.”
“Yeah, I did.”
Clarise watched them chat and kiss, all the while remembering merely two days ago, when she and Ethan were doing the same. The past week echoed in her mind like an intriguing movie trailer, rated XXX. She leaned against the bar and closed her eyes, then let her memories take over . . .
Ethan’s mouth on her private flesh, licking and sucking and teasing until she screamed her release. Their close call in the midst of elevator sex, and the way she’d looked in that gold-tinged mirror when she came. Beneath the bleachers, with the cool concrete pillar against her back and Ethan, hot and hard, pushed into her core. The way her breasts had looked when covered with powdery sugar, the way her womanhood looked when doused with the same sweet, white substance, and the way her body shuddered through a fury of orgasms when Ethan thoroughly licked her clean. Shower sex. Oh. My. Slick suds sliding between them, hot water pulsating against their flesh, her foot propped on the shower’s edge while she held on to the ceramic handle. Ethan’s head between her legs. And then the beach, the soft blanket teasing her nerve endings, while she asked him to make love to her.
“Make love,”
she’d said. Not
have sex.
A dastardly faux pas on her part.
And as the last vivid image pressed forward, she opened her eyes and gulped another mouthful of daiquiri, then fought another stab of brain freeze. Had that actually been
her
Monday night? Careful Clarise? Slipping into that red naughty-as-sin outfit and ordering Ethan Eubanks to remove every stitch of clothing? Getting turned on as he followed her commands, then covering his perfect body with cotton candy dust? Clarise shivered. She’d never received or given oral sex before this weekend. It’d been intoxicating enough to be on the receiving end, but when she’d run her tongue up and down his hard length, felt that hard pulse within her mouth as she’d taken in as much as she could hold . . .