Otherwise Engaged (15 page)

“I have not!”
Daphne said even though that was the thing she’d just refused to admit. And she
hadn’t, really. She knew better than that, right? She’d stopped things before
she could get to that point.

Fool. You were at that point before you even
got to Puerto Rico,
she told herself.
Fine!
I’m doing damage control before it gets even worse
, she argued back. Why
was she arguing with herself? What had this man done to her? Nothing she hadn’t
let him do. Nothing she hadn’t fully enjoyed. But that was over now. Wasn’t it?

“I say you
have,” Bettina countered knowingly.

“Fine. Just to
prove it, I’ll call him right now. It’s nothing. Just sex.” She shrugged. “And
when it’s over, it’s over.” The words almost caught in her throat. She grabbed
her phone and bent her head over it, letting her hair form a curtain around her
so Bettina couldn’t see her face.

“You’re calling
him because you got it bad.”

“Whatever you
say,” Daphne said. She dialed Rain’s number and held the phone to her ear,
telling her stupid heart to stop pounding as she waited for him to pick up.

“Hello?” His
voice came through, sexy and confident as always, after the second ring.

“Hey, how are
you?” Daphne said, hoping her tone came off as casual.

“Good. How’ve
you been? I’ve been meaning to call you.”

He always said
that when he’d had no intention of calling at all. Her heart sank a little. “I
just wanted to see what you’re up to. Some people from work are getting
together tomorrow night, and I wanted to see if you were free.”

After a pause,
he said, “I’m busy. I have a lot to do for work. Playing catch-up still,” he
said in a voice that wasn’t unfriendly or overly friendly. It was the same
voice he’d often used when they’d talked before Puerto Rico.

“What about the
weekend?” she asked just to see what he’d say.

“I’m going to
Thailand. I leave Friday.”

With him, that
could actually be true. She wasn’t sure if she believed him, though. “Okay,”
she said, her tone cooling a bit. So this was where they stood.

“I’ll call you
when I get back to the States.”

Yeah right. She
wouldn’t hold her breath. “Okay.”

After she hung
up, she looked up at Bettina.

“What’d he
say?” Bettina asked, but she already had her Sympathy Look ready as if she
knew.

“It’s over.”

“Already?”

“Already.”
Daphne fought the stupid urge to cry. Wasn’t that what she’d expected? What
she’d prepared herself for? Dammit, her only regret was that she hadn’t been
the one to walk away. She’d given up her ability to say that she’d walked away
from him by making that damned phone call. He’d been the one to hand down the
final rejection.

“It’s okay,”
Bettina said before reaching over to hug her. “We’ll go out this weekend.
Forget all about him, find you somebody new.”

“Okay,” Daphne
said. She wasn’t sure about the finding someone new part, but she wasn’t going
to sit in the house, being all sad and miserable that weekend.

Bettina leaned
back and put a hand over her heart, feigning shock. “You mean I’m not going to
have to beg you to come out this weekend?”

Daphne laughed.
“Nope.” Screw it. She was done with this nonsense. So what if she seemed to
attract the cheating kind and who cared if Rain had disappointingly proved her
right? From now on, she called the shots. There was no more waiting on any man
to realize or do or want anything.

“Are you
finally seeing the light?”

Daphne nodded
while staring down at her phone. “Yeah. You know what? I think I am.”

#

Saturday night,
when Daphne walked into Bettina’s apartment, Bettina gave her a wolf whistle.

“Guess who
won’t be holding the purses
tonight
,”
Bettina said, her grin emanating approval. “What got into you?”

“Decided it was
time for a change,” Daphne said. She’d been expecting her cousin to be surprised.
Usually, Daphne donned loose-fitting black slacks, a simple blouse that wasn’t
tight or low-cut or meant to be provocative in any way, and black flats to go
to the club. She’d throw her hair into a snatchback ponytail. She wanted as
little attention as possible whenever her cousin dragged her out. She’d sit in
a corner, guarding everyone’s purses and anchoring a table so the others would
have a place to sit whenever they wanted to take a break from dancing. She’d
wear an expression to go with the
outfit,
both meant
to keep guys from bothering her. It worked with most of them.

But not that night.
That night, she was going to make sure
she showed off everything that Rain was missing. She wore dark wash skinny jeans
that accentuated her long legs with high-heeled brown boots. Her spaghetti
strapped top dipped into her cleavage in a way that didn’t allow for wearing a
bra. Her hair fell around her face and over her shoulders in soft curls.

“A change,
huh?”

“Yeah.” Daphne
smiled. She had to learn to stop treating every little thing with a man like a
big deal. If they could brush her off and move on to the next one, she could do
the same. She’d had fun. No need to get hung up on it. Time to move on. One
thing was for sure. She wasn’t going to be caught moping around, acting like
there was only one man in the world and that one didn’t want her.

No, there was
definitely more than one man in the world. And she’d never find the right one
for her if she spent all her time sulking in a corner, ruminating about the
ones who’d done her wrong. She wasn’t saying she would go running around all
naïve or that she would go in blindly. She liked to think of herself as going
in cautiously yet hopeful. Yep, that was
her
.
The new Daphne.
Open to opportunities, hopefully a little
wiser from her past experiences. But not bitter. Never bitter. Not anymore
anyway.

She looked
around at Bettina and her three favorite club rats. Schyon—pronounced
“Shawn”—Arielle, and Vera. Bettina’s friends approved of Daphne’s new
look as well.

“What are we
wasting time here for?” Schyon asked, flipping her bright red weave out of her
face. “We need to be out there, getting our men.”

They went to
Bettina and the others’ favorite haunt. It was a place downtown near Chinatown.
The music blared, and they had to shout over it to talk to each other, so they
didn’t do much talking. They danced until they started to sweat. Not wanting to
let the hair go just yet, they found a table and ordered some drinks.

They sat there
for a while, talking and laughing and catching up. Daphne forgot how much fun
it could be to just let
herself
go during a girls’
night out. Schyon had the best stories and was currently telling them about a
run in with a drag queen she’d had one night a few weeks ago.

“I’m telling
you, I almost got myself in a fight with a man,” Schyon was saying. “There was
no way to tell that was a man. Girlfriend knew how to work it.”

“I would’ve
known,” Bettina said.

“Right.” Schyon
shook her head. “I could bring RuPaul in here right now, and you’d swear out he
was all woman.”

“He is.”
 

Everybody laughed.

When they went
to order another round, the server said, “Those gentlemen over
there
say this round’s on them.” She pointed to the bar and
to three very attractive men.
Almost enough for one for each
of them.
The men smiled, and Daphne and the others waved to them. After
they’d ordered their drinks and were talking about what they’d done for the
holidays, the men made their way over to the table. All three were tall. Two
were dark-skinned and one was light-skinned. One of them had short dreads. The
other two had their black hair cut close.

“Hi, ladies.
I’m Troy,” the dark-skinned one without dreads said. “This is Bill.” He pointed
to the dark-skinned guy with dreads. “The light brother’s Tye.”

Tye? Thai?
Really? She glanced heavenward and
thought,
You think you’re funny, don’t you?

Bettina made
the introductions on the ladies’ side.

“How’d you
three meet?” Schyon asked.

“We work at the
hospital together,” Troy said, his smile and gaze lingering on Daphne while he
answered Schyon.

“As?” Schyon
asked.

Troy laughed.
“Doctors.”

“Hm. The only
three black doctors in D.C., and they end up at our table,” Schyon said.

“Schyon,”
Bettina said with a laugh. “Stop it.”

“Mind if we sit
with you ladies?”

“If you can
find chairs, sure,” Schyon said.

They did find
chairs, and Troy set his next to Daphne.

“Daphne, huh?”
Troy said. “Beautiful name.”

Daphne smiled.
“Thank you.”

The server
brought her drink. She took a sip from the martini glass.

“What did we
buy you?” he asked.

“Manhattan.”

“You like
vermouth?”

“I do.” She
took another sip before smiling at him over the glass. Rain wasn’t the only one
who could do this. Damn, why was she even thinking his name? She blamed it on
Tye and his name. “So what kind of doctor are you?” she asked, battling to push
that other one to the back of her mind.

Troy grinned
and sat back in his chair. “E.R. doc.”

“Now that you
say that, you kind of remind me of Mekhi Phiffer.”

“Oh, all
brothers gotta look alike, huh?” he asked, his grin widening. They both laughed
at this. “I had to come over here, though. Had to meet you. You are the
prettiest woman in this club tonight. You know that?”

She smiled and took
a long pull of her Manhattan.

They talked for
the rest of the night and danced for part of it as well. She couldn’t stop
herself from comparing the way he moved to the way Rain moved. She didn’t want that
man to keep popping up in her mind. It would pass, though. The more time she
put between herself and Puerto Rico and what happened there, the easier it
would be to put him out of her every thought. He’d go back to being what he was
and should stay—a vague recollection. An old friend she thought about
occasionally but rarely saw.
If she ever saw him again at
all.

Troy was great.
He was a good dancer. He had an excellent body, and she could see hints of it
through his button-down shirt when he moved in certain ways. And when she
brushed against his waist or abs while they danced, all she felt was pure
muscle. Rock solid. He told her he was training for a marathon, which surprised
her a little. He was big.
Big yet muscular.
It wasn’t
what she thought of as a runner’s body. He didn’t have the lithe, lanky build
of a runner. Rain’s body was more like a runner’s body. Rain was a little taller
than Troy, too. At five nine herself, she’d always had a thing for tall guys.

Stop it, Daphne. Just stop it right now.

At the end of
the night, she exchanged numbers with Troy.

“Are you going
to see him again?” Bettina asked as they left the club. The others seemed
equally interested in her answer.

A slow smile
crept across her lips. “I don’t know.”

“You better.
Girl, if you don’t take him, I will.”

“Schyon!”

“What? I will.”

Daphne looked
down at her phone. Troy had already texted her. Why had some awful thing she
hated in the pit of her stomach half-hoped Rain’s name would pop up on the
screen?

“I’m definitely
going to see him again,” Daphne said, making the decision right then and there.
She was going to get Rain out of her system
one way
or
the other.

Chapter Twenty

Rain pressed a
fist to his mouth and stared out of the plane window. He was on his way home
from Thailand. He’d been there for the past few weeks. He’d had some loose ends
to help tie up, but everything was on track now. His uncle was all set with moving
plans forward for the factory and everything else he needed for the moment for
the business. Rain’s company was providing a lot of the financial backing. His
partners agreed that his uncle’s business would give them a huge return on their
investment. Even Panjamawat was happy for the moment. Rain should have been
happy, too. Should have felt like celebrating. What he shouldn’t have felt was
so damned restless.

It was the
beginning of February. Almost a month had passed since he’d seen Daphne. Since
the day they’d flown into Dulles together from San Juan.

Man, he
couldn’t stop thinking about her. He’d never spent so much time thinking about
any one woman. Maybe he needed to screw her one last time to get her out of his
system. No, he wouldn’t do that to her. He was supposed to be some kind of a
friend to her. He’d already messed that up enough. The only thing that could
make it worse would be to bang her again and then disappear. Or just disappear
altogether.

No, he hadn’t
disappeared. He wasn’t ignoring her. He’d legitimately had to go to Thailand
for business. And there’d been no point in calling her. It wasn’t like they
could have met up or anything while he was in Bangkok. He’d call her when he
got back. And he’d ask if she wanted to meet up as soon as he got control of
this urge. If he wanted to rip her clothes off her just by picturing her in his
mind, he couldn’t imagine what he’d do in person. Yes, as soon as he got that
under control, they could meet for brunch or something.

Brunch. That
was how the whole mess had started.

No, he couldn’t
keep thinking about her. When had he ever thought about any woman this much? It
was obscene. Women were for fun. But how much “fun” had he had since Puerto
Rico? He hadn’t had sex since that day in the suite before they’d left for the
airport.

Her on that counter top.
Those silky thighs pressed to his
sides. Her lips close to his as she moaned his name. Damn. He couldn’t keep
thinking this way.

The only reason
he hadn’t been screwing around was he’d been so busy with work. Yep, that was
the only reason. He’d hit the ground running as soon as he’d gotten back from
Puerto Rico, but things should slow down a little now that he was returning
from his Thailand trip. He was going to find some chick and get it in as soon
as he got home.

Skylar came to
the airport to pick him up. He’d asked for Rain’s flight information and
insisted on picking him up because he said he had big news for him, and they needed
to talk in person right away.

As soon as he
was in the Jeep with Skylar, Skylar who was bursting with his news, said, “You
gotta come to Silicon Valley with me, man.”

“Huh what now?”
Rain said
,
feeling blitzed by the request. “What are
you talking about?” His mind had been…elsewhere. It was hard for him to
concentrate on what Skylar was saying.

“I have to go
out there for work.
For Bevyx.
Remember all the fun we
had on our trips out there in college and when we first started Bevyx?”

“I don’t know.
I have a lot of work to do myself,” Rain said, suddenly not feeling up for a
frat-boy-like trip with Skylar. What was he saying? He’d always been up for
those.

“So make it a
work trip. You can write it off. I know you just got back, but I have to leave
ASAP, and I want you to come with. You could do some networking. Find some new
potential clients.
And the ladies.
Oh man, remember
the ladies?” He laughed. “You know, that song is true. I
do
wish they all could be California girls.”

“I guess I
could use the networking opportunity,” Rain said. And the farther away he was
from D.C., the less temptation he would face. He had to get back on track and
try to salvage what was left of his friendship with Daphne. He had to come
across some perspective. Maybe going to California was the way to do that. “I
need at least twenty-four hours at home, man. I feel like I’m constantly on a
plane these days.”

Skylar
shrugged. “Sure. We’ll leave in a couple days.” Good old last-minute planning
Skylar.

When he got
home, before unpacking only to have to repack in a few days, he checked his
mail. He rifled through it while heading in the direction of his home office.
He had a postcard from Mr. and Mrs. Manuel Estevez. They’d turned one of their
wedding photos into a postcard. The card thanked him for coming to Puerto Rico
for their wedding. There was also a thank you card in the stack of mail from
them for the gift he’d sent them.

He smiled
briefly and tucked both away in the top drawer of the desk in his office. He
realized he hadn’t thought much at all about Carolina since the wedding. And
the only times he’d thought about her had been to compare what he felt for
Daphne to what he felt for Carolina.

He realized
they’d been right, both Carolina and Daphne. Jealousy had driven him to try to
break up that wedding. Not love. He loved and cared about her, but he wasn’t in
love with her. He was glad Carolina had found love, and he wished her well. He
really did. He was astonished at just how true that was. He’d been afraid of
change. Afraid she wouldn’t be there just in case anymore. Wow. What a selfish
bastard he’d been. Thank goodness he hadn’t been allowed to stand in Carolina
and Manny’s way.

He wasn’t going
to go there when it came to thinking about his feelings for Daphne. They were
friends. That was all. Friends who’d crossed a line and needed to find a way to
go back to the way things had been before that line was crossed.

Delving into
organizing things for his trip to California, he once again did what he was
perfecting as an art form. He shoved all the things he didn’t want to deal with
to the back of his mind. He made a pile of laundry for his housekeeper, emailed
his partners asking to set up a Skype conference call as soon as possible, and
took care of other things that would allow him to leave for San Jose in a
couple of days.

#

Daphne’s life
post-Rain was completely fulfilling. She barely spent a moment thinking about
him. She’d been on one date with Troy, but the E.R. kept him pretty busy, and
she liked it that way. She wasn’t ready for anything serious with anyone. She
spent Valentine’s Day with Bettina and her girls. That night, she’d picked up
another guy. They were supposed to be going out soon.

The Friday
after Valentine’s Day, Daphne and Arlen sat in her office, brainstorming for a
project. She’d also started spending more time with Arlen outside of work. They
lived near each other, and Arlen had invited her to join his running club.
She’d been running with them a few times, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to join
yet. Everyone in the club was really friendly and encouraging, welcoming her
into the group any time she wanted to join.

“Daph, what are
you thinking about?” Arlen asked.

“This project.”

“Liar,” Arlen
said, throwing a pencil at her.

She caught it and
stuck her tongue out at him.

“The question
remains. What are you thinking about?” Arlen leaned forward, rested his elbows
on his thighs, and folded his hands under his chin. His wispy light brown hair
was perfectly in place as always.

It’d been over
six weeks. Rain hadn’t even tried to call her. She wasn’t supposed to care. She
wasn’t allowed to care about that. Still, it hurt.

“We have to get
this done,” Daphne said. “We only have another week.” They had to get this
project ready to present to the board. With any luck, they’d be breaking ground
on a mixed income building in Anacostia by spring. Things were really getting
rolling. She loved nothing more than seeing her hard work and planning
become
a concrete reality out in the world. All the
possibilities in the world seemed to lay in helping mixed income housing catch
on in D.C. She hated that she wasn’t as excited about this project as she
wanted to be.

“I know that.
But we’ll never get anywhere while you’re distracted. So let’s get it out in
the open so we can deal with it.”

“There’s
nothing to get out in the open,” she insisted. She tapped the pencil Arlen had
thrown at her against the desk.

“Oh yes there
is.” Arlen nodded knowingly. “It’s about him, isn’t it?”

“Who?”

Arlen rolled
his eyes. “Your one great love.”

“Don’t you dare
call him
that.
Rain is certainly not my one great
love.” She hoped not because if so, finding love was definitely a lost cause
for her.

“Then how’d you
know exactly who I was talking about?” Arlen lifted perfectly arched eyebrows.
“Uh-huh. See?”

“Oh,
just—shut up, you.” Daphne got up and began pacing the room. “And what
good does it do if he is my one great love, huh?”

“Daph, you’re
amazing. Just look at you.” Arlen gestured at her. She wore charcoal gray
pants. The matching suit jacket hung over the back of her desk chair. Her beige
silk sweater was short-sleeved. She wore her pearls that day, earrings, and the
matching necklace. Her hair was up in a bun, which was the way she wore it most
of the time at work. Her bangs were slanted across her forehead. “You could get
any straight man worth anything in an instant.”

“Huh. So Rain’s
worthless. I already knew that. Do you have a point or are you just rambling
over there?”

“My point is
,
you have to deal with your feelings for him. You can’t
keep pushing them back and pushing them back and pushing them back. Deal with
it, move on, and find a man worth your time.”

“And how do you
suggest I do that?” Daphne asked.

Before Arlen
could answer, Daphne’s smart phone buzzed on her desk. She went over and looked
down at the screen. She did a
double-take
. She
couldn’t believe what popped up.
Two-faced
liar,
which was what she’d recently replaced Rain’s name with in her phone,
was splayed across the screen. She watched it buzz and buzz.

“Aren’t you
going to answer it?” Arlen asked. She looked up at him. A puzzled frown crossed
his handsome face. “It’s not like we’re in a
real
meeting.”

“Can’t. Can’t
answer it.” That was all Daphne could get out. Her heart thudded in her chest.

Realization
dawned in Arlen’s baby blue eyes. He sat back in his chair. Crossing his ankle
over his knee, he let his stylish, black, leather loafer dangle off his heel.
“Oh, oh it’s him, isn’t it?” Arlen gazed in the direction of her phone. “Speak
of the devil,” he murmured.

“You could say
that,” Daphne said, staring down at the phone again. It’d stopped vibrating.
She was paralyzed. She couldn’t even make herself reach out and touch it.

“Aren’t you the
least bit curious?”

Daphne did a
move that was somewhere between a shrug and a shoulder slump. Arlen was
probably just as confused by that move as she was by all the thoughts running
through her head. Her phone informed her that she had a new voicemail. How
could she listen to the sound of his voice without breaking down every bit of
resolve she’d built up over the past few weeks? She couldn’t. She’d have to
delete that voicemail without so much as listening to one word of it.

“Well. One
thing’s for sure,” Arlen said.

Daphne looked
up at him. “What?”

“You’ll never
get him out of your system like this,” Arlen said.

“What’s that
supposed to mean?”

He shrugged.
“What it means.”

Arlen was
right. She needed to deal with her feelings for Rain. Her reaction to this
phone call proved it to her. She wasn’t going to talk to Rain, though. That
wasn’t the right way to do it. All that would accomplish was causing a setback.
That would put her right back where she started, all lovesick and incapable of
rational thought. No, this was a job for Arlen and Bettina.

“Okay.” She
shook her head. “But I’m going to need some fresh air for this.” She crossed
the room, heading in the direction of the coatrack that was in a corner of her
office near a file cabinet.

Arlen stood. “Tell
you what. We’ll go to that Korean barbeque food truck you like so much. My
treat.”

“I’m not going
to argue with that.” Daphne shrugged on her coat and reached for her scarf.

They left the
building and crossed the street. As they walked toward the food truck, which
was a few blocks away, Arlen said, “I noticed you left your phone in your
office.”

“Didn’t need
the temptation.” Daphne focused her attention on the bright neon green, pink,
and yellow colors of the food truck they were approaching.

“Fair
enough.”
 

They waited in
line in relative silence while Daphne tried to compose her thoughts and figure
out where to start and whether she should leave out anything. Arlen ordered a
barbeque steak sandwich, which of course reminded her of Rain and his seeming
obsession with steak. Daphne ordered a kimchi burrito. After they ordered and
were standing to the side of the truck waiting for their food to be prepared,
Daphne turned to Arlen and took a deep breath. “Okay. You’ve just volunteered
yourself to get the worst of this.”

Arlen opened
his hands wide and said, “Let’s have it.”

“Well, we have
to go back to the beginning.
Freshman
orientation at
SUNY,” Daphne said. Then she launched into the tale of how she’d fallen into
lust that had turned into misguided, unrequited love over the years.