was carrying a bouquet of pink roses and a small gold box.
“I thought I’d beat you girls here,” she said as Clare let her friends into the house.
Clare took the roses from Lucy and went in search of a vase while her friends hung up their coats. In the kitchen, she cut the bottoms off the stems, and her gaze drifted to the white box on the counter. She was surprised that Sebastian had remembered her birthday. Especially on assignment, and the pleasure she’d tried to suppress brushed across her skin. She told herself it probably wasn’t a thoughtful gift. More than likely the box held the usual self-serving man present. Something crotchless with nipple tassels.
“Lord, I’ve had enough of the cold,” Maddie complained as the other three women moved into the kitchen.
“Could one of you pour the wine?” Clare asked as she arranged the flowers in some deceased relative’s Portmeirion vase. Lucy poured, and when she was finished, the four friends moved into the living room. Clare set the vase on an end table next to the sofa, and when she turned around, Adele was setting the gifts on the coffee table. Including the white box.
As the four women talked about getting older, Clare opened the presents her friends had bought for her. Lucy gave her a monogrammed business card holder, and Adele a bracelet with little purple crystals. Maddie, being Maddie, gifted Clare with a personal safety device in the form of a red stun pen to replace the faulty one she’d given her the year before. “Thanks, guys. I loved all the gifts,” she said as she sat back with her glass.
“Are you going to open that one?” Adele asked.
“Is it from your mother again?” Lucy wanted to know. A few years ago when she’d been avoiding Joyce, her mother had sent her beautiful bed linens for her birthday. Picking up the phone and calling Clare would not have been passive aggressive enough.
“No. My mother and I are speaking this year.”
“Who’s it from?”
“A friend of mine.” The three women stared at her, brows raised as they waited for more information. “Sebastian Vaughan.”
“Sebastian the reporter?” Adele asked. “The guy Maddie thinks has heft?”
“Yes.” Clare’s face was purposely impassive when she added, “And he is just a friend.”
Maddie sucked in a breath. “Just a friend, my ass. I can tell by your face you’re hiding something. You always get that look when you’re hiding something.”
“What look?”
Lucy pointed at her. “That look.” She took a drink of her wine. “So, is he a boyfriend?”
“No. He’s just a friend.” When her friends continued to stare at her, she sighed and confessed, “Okay. We’re friends who have sex.”
“Good for you!” Maddie nodded. “Adele told you that you should use him as a rebound man.”
Adele nodded. “I’ve had a few, and sex without strings is some of the best kind.”
Lucy was quiet for a few moments, then asked, “Are you sure?”
“About what?”
“That you can handle sex without strings? I know you. You’ve the heart of a pure romantic. Can you really handle sex without falling in love?”
“I can handle it.” She set her glass on the coffee table and reached for the white box. To prove it, she’d show them the gift from Sebastian was no big deal. None at all. “And I am handling it.” She opened the white mailer and smiled. Inside was a smaller box wrapped in pink metallic paper and excessive bows and ribbon. “It’s working out great. He lives in Seattle and sees me when he’s here in town to visit his dad. We have a lot of fun and there are no expectations.”
“Be careful,” Lucy warned. “I don’t want to see you hurt again.”
“I won’t get hurt,” she said as she unwrapped the pink paper. “I don’t love Sebastian and he doesn’t love me.” She looked down as she opened the box, and nestled in white and pink polka-dot tissue was a black leather belt. On the heavy silver buckle was the deep inscription, boy toy.
Clare stared down at the gift as she felt a sharp pinch in her chest and a frightening little flutter in her stomach. At the same time, she felt like she was being thrust to the top of a roller coaster. Up, up, up, and she knew there was nowhere to go but straight down.
“What is it?”
She held it up and her friends chuckled. “Is he marking his territory?” Adele asked.
Clare nodded, but she knew it wasn’t like that at all. It was worse. He’d looked into a young, awkward girl’s heart and given her what she desired most. He’d paid attention. He’d listened to her and gone to a good deal of trouble to get it for her. He’d wrapped it in pink and he’d made sure it arrived on her birthday. Her face was suddenly hot, and her pinching heart pounded frantically, beating against the wall she’d built to keep Sebastian out. The wall she hid behind to keep from falling madly and completely in love with a man so totally wrong for her. Around her, her friends talked and laughed and seemed oblivious to the struggle within her to stay on top of the roller coaster. To struggle and fight and hang on. But it was too late. She was helpless as she started the plunge. Deep emotion rushed toward her, and the overwhelming force of it threatened to rob her of breath. She told herself that she couldn’t let herself love him, but it was too late. It slammed into her, and she fell madly, deeply, completely in love with Sebastian Vaughan. Splat. “Oh no,” she whispered.
Lucy noticed something was wrong and asked. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I think turning thirty-four has put me in a weird mood.” She laughed and prayed she sounded convincing.
“I understand. When I turned thirty-five, I started getting a really panicky feeling,” Lucy said, and Clare breathed a little easier. “It’s normal.”
Later, during dinner, Clare tried to tell herself that the burning in her chest wasn’t
But by the time the meal ended with creme brulee, Clare knew it wasn’t the jalapeno nor the day. She was in love with Sebastian, and she didn’t think she’d ever been so scared. Sure, there had been other scary times in her life, but she’d always known what to do. This time she had absolutely no idea. Somehow while she’d been convincing herself that all she felt was friendship, her love for him had snuck up on her quietly. It hadn’t been a whap to the chest or a breath-stealing glance from across the room. No warm fuzzy tingling zaps to the heart when she thought of him. Instead, it had grown from a little seed, finding the cracks and fissures in the wall guarding her heart, entangling her without her even knowing it until she was caught good and tight.
While she and Sebastian talked about a lot of different things, they had never talked about what they felt for each other. But at least she wasn’t in denial. Not anymore. Yes, he wanted to be exclusive, but she knew he didn’t love her. She’d been with men who’d loved her. She might not have felt so strongly about them, but she knew how a man in love acted. And it wasn’t like Sebastian.
Once again she’d fallen for Mr. Wrong. She was such a fool.
That night she went to bed thinking of Sebastian, and when she woke, he was still on her mind. She thought about the smell of his neck and the touch of his hands, but she refused to call him. She had a perfect excuse. She should call and thank him for the birthday present. In fact, etiquette demanded that she at least call him, but she refused to give in to the temptation to hear his voice. Perhaps if she just tried to ignore her feelings, they would go back into hiding. She didn’t kid herself that they would go away. She was a thirty-four-year-old relationship veteran and former love junky. But perhaps, if she were very lucky, his absence would make her heart grow a little less fond.
Eighteen
Three days after Clare’s birthday Sebastian called, and she discovered that she wasn’t so lucky. Not at all. If anything, the sight of his name on her caller ID made her chest hurt.
“Hello,” she answered, striving to sound calm and a little blase.
“What are you wearing?”
