Invitation to Seduction: Open Invitation, Book 1 (14 page)

“Tell me about Stephen. About the club.”

Stacy didn’t look at her, but her hands stilled, the file held aloft for several heartbeats. “What do you mean?”

“You introduced me to him. Then you had him come to the club for Virginia’s party. He said you knew he’d be there, but I think you asked him to come.” She didn’t ask if Stacy had slept with him. Stephen told her they hadn’t. She believed him. In fact, she believed everything he’d said, even that he thought he’d never tire of her. Still, she had to understand Stacy’s role in the whole debacle. “I want to know why.”

Stacy set her file down. The hand holding Debbie’s trembled. “I care about you. I knew something was wrong.”

Somehow, despite their years of friendship, Debbie felt betrayed. “Did you two talk it over and decide what I needed?”

“No. He wouldn’t talk about you. I kept asking, but he would never tell me anything. His refusal made me think he cared. I told him we were going to the club. I’m not even sure anymore if he said he’d be there or I asked him. But I wanted him to meet you that way. In that place.”

“I don’t understand. It was so...” She searched for the right word. “Extreme. You already had him helping me find clients. Why’d you have to do the rest?”

Stacy’s grip tightened on her fingers, and her gaze locked with Debbie’s. “Because you needed someone to seduce you, to desire you. I knew he did, even if he never said so outright. The club was the only place you would let anything happen between the two of you.”

“I’ve never told you anything about my marriage. Why did you think...?” She trailed off. Stephen had read between the lines of her emails. Stacy had read between her words.

“Everything. You stopped having your hair highlighted. I think you would have stopped doing your nails, too, if you’d been going to someone other than me. You didn’t seem to care about anything anymore. Not even the stained glass until I put you in touch with Stephen. You used to wear pretty things. You liked dressing sexy. You used to talk about your husband all the time. But you stopped. I thought he was having an affair.” She picked up the file again, buffing the same nails she’d already finished. “And I thought you should have one of your own.”

It was nice to be cared about. But... “I don’t like being manipulated, Stacy. I don’t like you deciding what was wrong, then picking out the solution for me.”

“But I’ve always been that way.”

“Yeah, you have.” Debbie gazed at the rows of bright polish on the shelf over Stacy’s shoulder. “I didn’t have an affair with Stephen.” What they’d done was so much more and so much less. “And we don’t talk anymore. It’s better that way.”

For the first time she admitted to herself how much she truly missed him, his banter, his praise, his touch. How much he occupied her thoughts. Not just her nighttime fantasies, but her waking hours, every day, at lunch, during her commute, or soaking in the bathtub with a glass of wine. Any time her mind had free time to wander, it wandered straight to Stephen.

Stacy pulled on her fingers. “I’m not sorry I did it. I know you think I should be, but you wouldn’t talk to me about what was going on, and I had to do something.” She tipped her head, moisture suddenly collecting along the lower rim of her eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me? We’re friends. I could have helped, even if all I did was listen.” Stacy sniffled and bent over her filing.

Debbie took her friend’s hand in both of hers and squeezed. “I’m sorry. I should have let you help me. He isn’t having an affair. He just doesn’t want to make love with me anymore. He’s having impotency problems, and he won’t even go to the doctor. It was all too embarrassing and humiliating and painful to talk about. Even with you.”

“Has it gotten any better? Because you seem different now.”

Yes. She felt different. “No. It hasn’t changed. But
I
have to decide what to do about it. On my own.”

“Just get him Viagra.”

You had to
want
to take Viagra. Her husband wasn’t even interested in going to the doctor, letting alone asking for a pill. The thought didn’t hurt as much as it used to.

Stacy covered her mouth and gasped. “Oops, sorry, I wasn’t supposed to tell you what to do.”

“It’s all right. You know, if you don’t start filing, you’re going to be late for your next client.”

“You’re my last. I thought maybe we could go out for dinner. We don’t have to talk about...stuff. We don’t even have to talk about Stephen. Even though I’m dying to know all. I haven’t talked to him in weeks.” She gasped again. “Not that he’d tell me anything. He
never
told me anything, I swear.”

The sniffling Stacy was gone, replaced once more by the lively, optimistic, and out-there woman.

Debbie was glad. “You know, I love you. You might stick your nose where it doesn’t belong, but your heart’s always in the right place.” She met her friend’s penetrating gaze. “But I don’t want to talk about this again. So don’t ask, okay?”

Stacy widened her eyes and nodded solemnly. “I swear I won’t.”

“Then I’d love to have dinner.”

Regardless of whether she talked about it with Stacy or not, she was going to have to figure out how to fix her marriage.

If it could be fixed.

She wanted a passionate
marriage
, not a series of interludes that she had to keep repeating as if she were addicted. And she wouldn’t settle for security; she wanted it all. Passion, seduction, and fire. Stephen had taught her that she deserved those things.

And if her marriage couldn’t be fixed, then she’d find another way to take back her life.

* * * * *

Debbie looked at her husband across the kitchen table, the scent of the tangy sweet-and-sour sauce tingling in her nose, the red pepper flakes bursting in her mouth. At dinner last night with Stacy, she’d decided what she had to.

“That was good, honey, thanks.” He licked his fork and smiled.

“You’re welcome.” Stir-fry was easy. She just hadn’t bothered to put herself out in too many months to count.

He pushed the plate away and sat back. He was a good man. Always polite, always kind, always appreciating the little things she did. But there were tired lines beneath his eyes that hadn’t been there a couple of years ago. He didn’t smile or laugh as often as he used to.

“Did you have a good day?” she asked.

“It was fine.” He always said he was fine, and thus prevented any real discussion between them.

“I love you,” she said.

“I love you, too” was the automatic reply.

She would
not
let this go, not this time. She’d already determined she wouldn’t immediately jump into the impotency thing. If she did, she’d never get through to him. She broached the issue in the only other way she could. “Are you ever going to want me again?”

“I want you. Don’t be silly.”

She put her fork down. He ate faster than she did, and her plate was still a quarter full, but she wasn’t hungry anymore. “You always say that. But you don’t act on it.”

“I know. And I’m sorry. I’ll get better. I promise.”

He always said that, too. The situation didn’t get better. “We have to make a change. This isn’t working the way it is.”

He leaned forward, elbows on the table, fingers massaging his temples. “I’m tired. This isn’t a good time.”

There was never a good time. Before, that had angered her. Now, she saw how much he really meant it. Could his problem be mental as well as physical? He was so tired of...something. His career? A lack of life purpose? A feeling that he’d gone to work every day for the last twenty years and hadn’t accomplished anything important? Maybe it was his pride in her stained glass work that made her think that. He’d often said he wished he had something that meant as much to him as her glasswork did to her.

“Want to tell me what’s wrong?” she asked, hoping to draw him out, even as she knew that was next to impossible.

He closed his eyes, sat there rubbing his temples in circles. “Not really.”

“Maybe I can help.”

He looked at her, seemed to study her for several minutes. “I don’t think so. It’s just some midlife crisis thing. Don’t worry. I’ll be better in a little while.”

Midlife crisis? He’d been this way for over five years, and he wasn’t even forty yet. “You’re not happy, are you?”

He gave a small laugh, something halfway between self-deprecating and a snort. “I’m too tired to think about it.”

“We need to think
and
talk about it. I want us to start making love again. Maybe we should have a goal. Like once a week.”

He scrubbed his hands down his face. “Why is sex so important to you?”

How many times had she heard that question? She struggled to answer with something different, something that might reach him. “Without it, we’re just roommates. It’s not a marriage.”

“I don’t know how you can say that. I do everything for you. I go to work every day. I come home every night. We’ve got financial security. What more do you want?”

“Passion.”

“Why?”

“Because without it, I don’t feel vital. It makes me feel strong. And alive. A part of something. Instead of just going through the motions.”

“Doesn’t it mean anything that I love you?”

“It means a lot.” But in some ways, it was a phrase he used to appease her. She drew in a breath, held it. She’d exposed herself to Stephen, but she’d never tried with her husband. If they were going to have a marriage, then she had to give him the same things she gave to Stephen. “Why don’t you come into the bedroom while I’m masturbating? I’d do it for you, if you wanted me to. I think about you watching me, and it turns me on.”

Once the words were out, her fingers tingled and her heart raced. She even saw spots before her eyes. She’d never admitted aloud to him the things she did alone in their bedroom.

He dropped his hands to the table, folding his arms, and looked out the window at the garden. “I didn’t know you were.”

“Be honest,” she whispered.

He looked at her then, really looked, his gaze traveling over her forehead, her cheeks, her lips, then up to her eyes. “I just can’t do it. I don’t know why. I just can’t.”

“You have to figure out why.” She hesitated, wondering if this was the right moment. Between them, though, there would never be that
right
moment. It simply had to be said. “Why don’t you see a doctor? I know I asked you before, and you didn’t think it was necessary, but
I
think it’s important.”

He sucked in a deep breath, rolled his lips inward, then let the air rush out between them. “I’m too tired to bother.”

Tears pricked her eyes. Even after all the anger, the sadness, the despair, those words still had the power to tear her heart out. Maybe if he’d exploded like the last time, it wouldn’t hurt so badly.

They sat in silence. The clock ticked on the wall. The oven’s temperature gauge clicked back on. She’d warmed the plates but forgotten to turn it off when she took them out.

“I do love you,” he said.

“And I’ll always love you.”

He turned to study the garden once more. “I’m sorry I can’t change.”

The problem was that he wasn’t willing to. He wasn’t even willing to consider the possibility that he had a solvable physical problem. She knew he never would be. She pushed the pain she felt aside. “It’s not your fault. We could have gone on if I didn’t feel that I need more.”

Stephen had given her that something
more
she’d been looking for, even if for such a short time. But this wasn’t about Stephen. It wasn’t about the club or the things he’d done to her and for her. This was only about her marriage. She’d known it wasn’t working long before Stephen.

She put her hand over her husband’s, squeezed until he looked at her. “I don’t blame you. If I could help you, I would. Only I can’t. You have to work it out for yourself. I hope you do, but I’ll still love you even if you don’t.”

He looked at her a long moment. “But you’re not going to be here, are you?”

“No. I can’t wait anymore. I really wish I could.”

He closed his eyes. “I don’t know where we went wrong. I’m so sorry. I knew you needed more, and I should have—”

She stopped him with a finger over his lips. “Almost every screwup takes two to make it happen. You’re a good man. Maybe this change will help you figure out what
you
need.”

She couldn’t stay. She’d lost faith, lost hope, in him, in their marriage. The brutal truth was, she didn’t
want
to wait anymore. She wanted to take charge of her life again.

“God, we’re so fucking civilized, aren’t we?” He laughed, a short, sad little sound, though Debbie thought she detected a thread of relief that it was all finally over.

“Yeah,” she said. “We always were civilized. Maybe that was the problem.”

This time when she went to bed, she covered her mouth with her hands and cried all the tears she hadn’t cried in front of him. Tears for all the special moments they’d had, and all those that would never come. She would miss him. She wished she could hate him. It might have lessened her own pain. But she couldn’t blame him for what had gone missing in his life. He honestly didn’t know how to fix it. She was afraid he never would.

But she knew her needs. Seduction, passion and fire. Finally, after so many years, she’d chosen those desires over the safety of her marriage.

Outside the bedroom, the volume rose on the TV.

* * * * *

There couldn’t have been a more amicable divorce on the planet. Yet there were still myriad details to handle. Debbie bought out her husband’s half of the house. It would mean she couldn’t quit work for a long, long time. That meant she was just like most people. Then there were the cars and the big screen TV and the stuff they’d accumulated over the years. There were all the new things, too, that she had to buy to replace the necessities he took.

She cried half the time and was almost overcome with paralyzing fear the rest. Almost.

The only rays of sunshine were the clients Stephen continued to send her way and the praise they passed on. She praised him in return. It almost felt like they were communicating. She kept his email address, his home address, his cell phone number. Late at night, alone not only in her bed but in the whole house, the urge to call him beat like a drum in her head.