“Catherine,” he mumbled, her mouth bobbing up and down as he tried to speak.
She lifted her head up; he moved his shoulders a bit to gain some room.
“I can’t do this. It’s not that I don’t find you attractive,” he said, feeling passion starting to build again at the mere focus of his attention on her hair. Her scent. That scent. “Quite the opposite. I want to rip your clothes off — ”
“Then do it. Don’t — ”
“No — ” he managed to say before she planted another passionate kiss on his lips. The wine. Her soft lips. He let them linger on his for a moment. Shook his head, trying to free his mouth to speak. “I can’t. I’m married. I’m — ”
“Hoping that Leeza will come home.”
He nodded.
She sighed, hung her head. Climbed off him, straightened her suit, brushed back her hair with her hands.
He sat up and rubbed his temples. “She could walk through that door any minute.”
“I know that that’s what you’d like to believe.”
“It’s what I have to believe. Or I wouldn’t be able to face each day.”
“I understand,” she said, folding her arms on her chest and walking over to the fire. “I don’t like it, but I understand.”
He rose from the couch, zipped his pants. “If this were another time...” he started to say, and stopped.
“I’m sorry.”
She lightly stroked his cheek with the back of her hand and walked over toward the entryway. Picking her coat off the rack, she walked out of the house, the rapid clickety-clack of her spiked heels against the marble floor echoing in his mind, matching the rhythm of his heartbeat.
CHAPTER 35
EXCEPT FOR THE HUM of the refrigerator, all was quiet in the kitchen of Leeza Madison’s sister’s house. The kids had gone to the zoo with their aunt, leaving Leeza alone for some time to think. She sat, staring at a piece of paper with a phone number scribbled across it. Three times she had picked up the phone to call, more out of curiosity than anger.
A couple of days ago, when she retrieved the messages off her home voicemail, she was unnerved by one from Catherine Parker, a woman out of Phil’s past whom he had not spoken to in nearly fifteen years. For a long time, it was a name and only a name, until she caught a glimpse of some pictures that Jeffrey had placed in an old shoebox.
Aside from the pictures, she vaguely remembered the stories that Jeffrey and Phil used to tell when talking of what fierce competitors they had been during their childhood. And from what she could recall, during their teen years, Catherine was considered the ultimate prize. But neither of them had brought her up in at least a decade, at least as far as she knew.
Now here was a message on their voicemail.
Why had she called? What did she want? She couldn’t possibly know that she had left Phil. Unless he had called her first. No, it didn’t sound like that. This was a person-from-the-past-trying-to-reestablish-contact kind of message. With a hi-remember-me flavor.
Leeza picked up the phone for the fourth time. Punched in the numbers. Felt nauseated, dirty. She spoke to the Energy Data Systems receptionist and was placed on hold.
A moment later, someone picked up the line. “This is Catherine.”
“Yes, hello, this is Leeza Madison, and you left a message on my voicemail.”
“A message...oh, that,” Catherine said, playing it out just a bit. “It’s already been returned.”
“It was. Oh,” Leeza said, unsure of what to say next. “By my husband?”
“Is Phillip Madison your husband?”
“Yes.”
“That’s who returned the call.”
“Do I know you?” Leeza asked, playing dumb, trying to prolong the conversation.
“We’ve never met. I’m...an old friend of Phil’s. I hadn’t spoken to him in years and I was going to be in Sacramento, so I thought he and I could get together.”
Get together, she replayed in her head. She got together with Phil. “Okay. Well, as long as you spoke to Phil...”
She was beginning to feel awkward, realizing that she never should have called her. It was a mistake. There was nothing to gain here. “Sorry to have bothered you.”
“Leeza, wait. Don’t hang up.” She paused for a second, then said, “I think you’re a very lucky woman.”
Leeza did not reply.
“I don’t mean to meddle in your personal business,” Catherine said, “but I feel that I have to tell you something. Woman to woman.”
Oh, here it comes. Her heart sank; she felt weak. She slept with him. That bast —
“Your husband’s very loyal to you. He loves you a great deal.”
“What do you mean? How do you — ”
“I had dinner with him a couple of nights ago. I’d read in the paper that you’d left him. The press catches everything.” She paused; there was no response from Leeza. “Anyway, I don’t know if you know this, but Phil and I almost got married fifteen years ago. I left him for another man who turned out to be a shadow of the man Phil was — I mean, is. I have to admit that I wanted him back. And I tried my best — I put everything out on the table. But he wasn’t there for the taking, Leeza. Turned me down. I pushed, he retreated. Said that you were too important to him.”
Leeza was still silent. Another deafening second passed.
“Leeza, are you still there?”
She had not thought of all the things that could be happening to Phil while she was gone. He’d had dinner with an old girlfriend and she hadn’t even known. Had she been too quick to rush to judgment?
“Leeza?”
She cleared her throat. “Yes. Yes, I’m still here. Sorry. This has just caught me a little off guard.”
“Nothing happened between us. He wouldn’t allow it
