Pink Satin

“He’s sick,” Marie said emphatically. “Sick, sick, sick.”

“Sad,” Greer corrected in a low voice.

Grant nodded quietly to her over the desk. “He needs help, I expect. Psychiatric help. I told him that when I fired him.”

“But…how did the police know about the phone calls? And I still don’t understand why he told you what happened at the trade show. This morning when I learned he was gone, I assumed that he’d come back here, but-”

“He told us nothing,” Marie said heatedly. “Grant fired him over the telephone when Ray called this morning.”

“But-”

Grant leaned back in his chair. “Your Mr. McCullough made an extremely informative call to me earlier.” A small smile touched his features. “One of several in the last week, actually. After last night, I think he would have preferred to have Ray drawn and quartered, but he settled for explaining to me exactly what Ray had put you through. McCullough also persuaded me to make those reference checks yesterday. And he convinced the police to tap Ray’s phone last week. Unfortunately, they didn’t get a report back on that until yesterday.”

“What?” Marie turned offended eyes to her husband. “You told me nothing about that part of it.”

But Grant was looking only at Greer. “Mr. McCullough had reason to believe that one of our employees was your caller. You changed your phone number twice; yet your caller knew that new number each time-and, of course, you immediately informed us of your new telephone number each time. Except for your family, who could have learned your number and your personal schedule so quickly, except someone you worked with?”

Grant’s voice was soothing, quiet. Greer had always found her boss’s voice gentling. Not this time.

Her thoughts were filled with Ryan. He’d done all of that. And he hadn’t said a single word.

***

Grant and Marie both urged her to take the rest of the afternoon off and go home. She didn’t. She wanted to think, and always thought best when she was busy. Mulling over a problem while facing four walls and total silence always sounded good, but it never worked for Greer.

She left several minutes before five, though. Ryan, of course, wasn’t back from work when she arrived at the apartment. She didn’t expect him to be. After running a brush through her hair, she left her door open and paced up and down the hall, Truce pacing directly behind her.

Ryan didn’t pop through the door until ten to six, early for him. He was dressed strictly as a businessman, in a pale gray suit that made his shoulders look huge, and was reaching for the newspaper when he noticed her at the top of the steps. She was standing stiff as a board, with her arms folded over her chest, eyes blazing.

He froze.

Greer’s eyes pinned him as securely as a collector pins a moth. “I would appreciate the chance to talk with you,” she said crisply. “I discovered exactly how much you were involved in getting Ray…caught.”

“Greer…” He took a very careful breath, eyes on her face. “You’re upset because I interfered. I don’t blame you, but try to understand. I didn’t want to go behind your back, but I knew damn well you’d say no if I asked you ahead of time.”

“You bet I’m upset. And as I said, I’d like to talk with you, McCullough. Like in an hour. Your place.”

“Greer…”

She turned on her heel, whirled into her apartment and locked the door. Truce screamed. She opened the door, let the cat bound in and relocked it.

Her heart shifted promptly into race, as though a computer button had suddenly been turned on. She flipped off one shoe, then the other, then padded barefoot toward the bathroom, unbuttoning her shirtwaist dress as she went. The pale lavender cotton dropped somewhere in the hall, and she left it there. By the time she turned on the shower taps, she was wearing only bra and pants, and she stripped those off as the shower warmed up.

Ten minutes later, she stepped out, fiercely rubbed her hair with a towel until it was half dry, then used a blow dryer and brush to do the rest. Naked, she walked to her bedroom and bent down over her lowest dresser drawer.

It was there. The cream lace on pink satin negligee. Her quick-quick movements slowed abruptly. Her fingers took the time to caress the soft fabric before she drew it out. Really, Greer. This is terribly out of character.

And her heart was suddenly beating erratic rhythms. Old ghost rhythms.

For so long, she’d valued the safe niche she’d carved out for herself in her relationships with men. “Safe” was being a friend, not a lover. “Safe” meant caretaking and playing with men only when she was in control. “Safe” had been convincing herself that that was what she was as a woman, and all she was and wanted to be.

Ray had blown her definitions of “safe” off the map.

Ryan had made her see what she wanted and needed for herself as a woman.

Slowly, she slipped the satin over her head, and with a whisper it draped itself over her body and fell in long, sleek lines to the floor. Ryan had taught her a lesson in honesty. Now it was up to her to put his teachings into practice.

Fingers suddenly trembling, she drew on the cream lace peignoir that matched the negligee, and caught her reflection in the mirror. A boldly sexual woman stared back at her. An alluring woman. Her breasts were barely covered by the cobwebby bodice; she could see the dark tips of her nipples. Lower, she could even see the indentation of her navel: satin did show everything. Every curve, each line of her bottom and thighs, even the small raised mound that was the woman of her.

She sprayed perfume on her throat, then between her breasts and, with wildly shaking fingers, between her thighs. The perfume cooled, raising goose bumps on her skin. Leaning over the dresser, she brushed an almost imperceptible layer of mascara on her lashes and a subtle blush on her cheeks, then bit her lips to make them red.

Even watching herself in the mirror brought color to her cheeks, and she left the room in a rush, making it all the way to the door before she realized her palms were damp from nerves. Impatiently, she backtracked to the kitchen, dried her hands determinedly on a towel and rubbed some cream on them. It didn’t make any particular sense to apply lotion to damp hands, but Greer wasn’t acting rationally at the moment.

Old ghosts had to be exorcised. There was a man across the hall who seemed to think she was a sexually vibrant woman. Mostly because he’d brought out that side of her the night before. She’d been a participant then, not an aggressor, and that was the difference. Life just refused to be easy.

She opened the door, crossed the hall, took a huge breath and knocked on her neighbor’s door.

The door opened instantly. Ryan had his sleeves rolled up and a drink in his hand. He’d obviously run his fingers through his hair over and over, because that cinnamon-colored mane was impossibly tousled. Worry lines were etched around his deeply troubled eyes, and his mouth was parted to say something immediately when he caught sight of her. Caught sight of all of her.

His mouth abruptly closed. He leaned out into the hall and looked one way, then the other. Seeing no one else, he abruptly pulled her inside and out of sight, then slammed the door behind her and put his drink down on a table.

She hadn’t breathed yet, not in about the past five minutes as far as she could remember. Ryan leaned against the door, that frantically worried look only gradually leaving his face as his eyes slowly skidded over her body from throat to toe. And then again. And then again.

When his eyes finally traveled up to hers, they were sky blue, bottomless blue, and filled with love. Greer desperately, desperately wanted that love, but what she’d anticipated seeing in his eyes was desire. She had not expected him to shake his head with a scolding grin. “You knew damn well I was worried as hell when I walked in and you jumped me. I thought you were angry.”

“I was angry. With me.” Because he’d touched her. And she’d never touched him. Not the right way. Not in a way that honestly expressed how much she wanted him. Not in a way that told him she