Stella in Stilettos (24 page)

Maggie’s mouth dropped open.

One foot in front of the other
, Stella repeated while walking the painful-plank back to her desk.

She tried to collect herself. Any minute Alex would join her and she didn’t want to fall apart in front of him.

Before she could blink, he was there.

“Stella.” His voice cracked. “I wanted to tell you what was going on, but I didn’t think I would need to. I thought all of this would blow over.”

Anger turned to pain and suddenly Stella hurt in places she didn’t think possible. She wanted to ask him if he wanted to tell her when he was kissing her, or unzipping her dress, or when he was making love to her and whispering tenderly in her ear.

“I should’ve told you,” he said quietly. “Please don’t be upset.”

Being upset didn’t begin to skim the surface. He’d known all along and still seduced her. Stella felt the color drain from her face at the same time her fists clenched. With absolute preciseness she enunciated her words so he couldn’t mistake any of them. “I – want – to – be – left – alone.”

Alex made a swipe for her hand, but she quickly crossed her arms. “Go away.”

“No, Stella. Let’s deal with this now. They made me an offer and I turned it down.” He groaned from deep in his chest. “I told Maggie no. I told Jett no. I told Marc no.” He shook his head. “And then Maggie pulled this stunt.”

Stella waved him away. “Seriously, go away.” At that moment she was thankful she didn’t cancel the trip to Key West. More than anything she needed sunshine, margaritas and space from self-serving pains in the neck.

 Alex’s voice was thick with tension. “Stella.”

“Please leave.”

“Don’t shut me out,” Alex pleaded.

Too late, buddy. The door is being sealed
.

* * * *

I-270 funneled to one lane and there were brake lights for as far as the eye could see. “Alrighty then.” Stella hit her steering wheel so hard it vibrated under her hand.

Her cell phone had the impudence to ring.

She slumped against the seat and ignored it. Curiosity won out and she checked the number. Trish. She was in no mood to talk, even to Trish, so she let it go to voice mail. Any second now, the blasted thing would ring again. And again. It would continue to ring until she answered.

“Hey, Trish.”

“Are you okay? Steve told me what happened.”

“I’m fine.”

“Uh-huh. Sure you are. I’m on my way over.”

Stella gnashed her teeth together. “I’m not home.”

“Where are you?”

“Where I always seem to be. In a jam.” She clarified. “On 270. Traffic is backed up and I’m stuck in the middle of it.”

“Sucks to be you,” Trish teased, then quickly recanted. “Dang. That was sensitive.”

“Don’t worry about it. Right now, it’s true.” It did suck to be her, but that was wallowing in self-pity and she was too pissed to wallow.

“No it’s not. You’ve just had a minor setback.”

It didn’t feel minor. “Traffic is starting to move. I have to go.” Technically, one car moved a few feet so she wasn’t lying.

Trish’s voice was full of concern. “I’ll meet you at your place.”

“You don’t have to. I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine. And I’m coming over.”

Stella noticed Trish fell short of saying anything about Alex, which was a good thing, since she wasn’t sure she could handle hearing his name. “Okay, but I’m not going to cry on your shoulder. In fact, we’re not going to talk about the job at all.”

“If you don’t want to cry and don’t want to talk, that only leaves one thing. Whiskey or rum?”

Alcohol wasn’t the remedy, especially the strong stuff. But hey, it might dull the pain. “Whiskey.”

“See you in a bit,” Trish said softly.

All Stella really wanted was some alone time to cuss and throw things.

* * * *

Stella downed her third diet-cola and whiskey and handed the glass to Trish. “Hit me again.” She took a slice of pizza at the same time.

Trish shook her head. “You’re a lightweight, missy. If you keep this up, it’s going to knock your socks off.”

“Maybe that’s what I want.” Stella cocked a half-blitzed brow. If it took a bottle of whiskey to help her forget that her life and heart were in the toilet, then so be it.

“Throwing up sucks.” Trish mimicked getting sick.

“I’m not close to throwing up. Besides, I’m eating pizza to soak it up.” Stella took a big bite. “See?”

“You’re going to regret this.”

“Add it to the list,” Stella said dryly.

Trish sat beside Stella and tucked her legs up under her. “You know I don’t want to say ‘I told you so’, so I won’t.”

“Thanks.” Stella was completely angry, but it was crystal clear why it happened. She slurped her drink. “Maggie fell under his spell.”

Trish gave her a pointed look. “You’re letting Maggie off the hook? She tried to put the screws to you.”

 Stella nodded sluggishly. “Lowered resistance makes people do crazy stuff.”

Trish made a face.

“No one can resist him, Trish.” A tear slipped from the corner of her eye and trickled down her cheek. “I couldn’t. He waltzed into the department and I fell into bed with him.”

Trish wiped the tear from Stella’s face. “Hussy.”

“Takes one to know one,” Stella countered. They both had enough alcohol to make that seem funny, and they laughed hysterically.

When the moment sobered, Trish dug for more. “You started to say something about Belinda earlier, but the pizza came and you never finished.”

A hiccupped-sob worked from Stella’s chest. “We’re not supposed to be talking about any of this. Let’s change the subject.”

Trish laid a hand on her shoulder. “You wouldn’t have brought her name up if you didn’t want to discuss it. Trash talk, Stella. For once in your life, muster up some meanness. It’s cleansing. I do it all the time.”

“Okay,” she slurred. “It seems I’m not the only one who slept with Alex.”

“What?” Trish’s hazel eyes almost bulged out of her head. “Who told you that nonsense?”

Stella snatched the whiskey bottle and diluted the diet cola. “Who do you think?”

“There’s no way, Stella. She’s lying.”

Stella closed her eyes.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake. Sort through the pile of dung and smell the truth.”

Stella shrugged dispiritedly. She didn’t want to believe it either.

“Alex has made some mistakes, Belinda isn’t one of them.”

Stella scooted to the edge of the couch and shared what Belinda had said.

Afterwards, Trish scoffed dramatically. “He’s a jackass, but he isn’t stupid.”

“Just because she’s a witch, doesn’t mean she’s lying.” Stella tried to drown her sorrows by gulping her drink. She coughed from the burn.

Trish poked a hole in Stella’s theory. “Alex isn’t paying her a bit of attention, so she’s getting revenge by using the oldest trick in the book.”

“Which is?”

“Duh. She planted the seed of doubt. I’d bet my 401k he didn’t sleep with her. The Alex I know only has eyes for you.”

“The Alex you know? How do you know so much about him?”

A fleeting look of guilt raced across Trish’s expression. “I know him from everything you’ve said about him. Stella, he’s into you.”

She expected Trish to say those things because they were best friends. Right or wrong, through thick and thin, Trish was there for her, which meant she couldn’t see through the fog anymore than she could. “Belinda’s beautiful and has a body men would go to war over.”

Trish stuck her finger in her throat. “You’re making me gag.”

The conversation was interrupted by the phone ringing beside them. They both gave it an annoyed look.

Trish checked the caller-ID. “Are you going to throw him a bone?”

Stella shook her head. “Nope. I’d be happy to throw him something else, like a live grenade or a rabid armadillo.”

Trish didn’t laugh. “He didn’t mean to hurt you.”

Stella gave an alcohol-induced snort. “It was bound to happen. After all, he’s Mr. Wrong.”

“Sheesh, I was kidding when I gave him that name. Alex is crazy about you, Stella.”

She couldn’t wrap her head around any of it because the room started to move. “Oh no,” she gurgled and put her hand on the arm of the couch to keep it from spinning. The last thing she heard was Trish saying, “Uh oh.”

The sliver of light leaking in from under the bedroom door hurt her eyes. Stella pulled the comforter over to head to block it out. Her head felt like someone had taken a claw hammer to it.

Slowly she pulled the comforter back down and took a gradual look at the alarm clock. Six o’clock.

Thank goodness she had time to get rid of her monster hangover. Stella snuggled under the covers. Her subconscious tapped her, gently at first. When she didn’t pay attention, it gave her a good thump.
A.M. not P.M., dummy
. Stella sat straight up.

She stumbled out of bed and followed the light to where she found Trish wrapped in an afghan, drinking a cup of coffee.

Trish gave her the once-over. “You look like hell.”

Stella would’ve frowned if her forehead would’ve cooperated. “I feel like it too.”

Trish shook a finger. “I tried to warn you.”

Stella tried to smile but it triggered throbbing. She wanted to remind Trish she hadn’t been a slouch either, but it required oomph and at the moment she didn’t have any. “You made coffee,” she said with as much happiness as she could drum up.

“Maybe you should down a bottle of water first. It’ll hydrate you.”

Her stomach knotted. “I need something stronger than water to cut this.”

“No doubt.” Trish stood up and folded the afghan. “I was going to wake you in a few minutes because it’s snowing like crazy, which means we better put it in gear.”

Stella shuffled to the window and pulled back the curtains. There was a good two inches on ground and it was still coming down. “I’m not going in today.”

“Right,” Trish clucked. “You never stay home.”

“I’m serious.” Stella traipsed to the kitchen, filled the largest coffee-cup she could find and moseyed back to the living room. “I was awful, wasn’t I?”

The smirk on Trish’s face confirmed it.

“Thanks for taking care of me.”

Trish gave her a genuine smile. “I’m glad I could help. Besides, I still owe you. I poured my heart out to you more times than I care to think about; at all hours of the night, and you never once complained.”

Stella smiled in spite of her monumental headache.

“Remember all those times I made you be the designated-driver so I could drink myself silly?” Trish wrinkled her forehead. “On second thought, maybe we shouldn’t resurrect any of that. Too painful.”

“It was never a problem, Trish.”

“I was such a drama-queen.” Trish snorted with self-deprecation. “Still am.”

“You weren’t as bad as you think.”

Trish was thoughtful for a minute. “What I’m really trying to say is you’ve been such a good friend to me, Stella, and you’re such a good person. It tears me up to see you heartbroken.”

The dam holding back the tears sprang a leak.

Alex hurried to Stella’s cubicle with the naïve notion that even if her car wasn’t in the parking garage, she was at work. His heart sank when he discovered the neatly-kept, three-walled compartment was minus its beautiful tenant.

Not seeing her made this thoughts go crazy. He had to talk to her. To find out how she was feeling. He’d called her at least a dozen times last night to try to talk things out, but she wouldn’t pick up. Given the circumstances, he probably wouldn’t have either.

How was he supposed to apologize if she wouldn’t give him a chance? He’d contemplated storming her apartment and forcing her to listen, but people got hauled off in cuffs for that kind of behavior.

Looking around the office, he noticed only a handful of people milled about. Normally the place was a frenzy of activity at five minutes till eight. Then it dawned on him. Icy roads. Driving into work had been a slick-challenge, or should’ve been. He’d been too preoccupied with thoughts of Stella to be worried about treacherous roadways.

Grim scenarios fired through his brain. What if Stella slid off the road? What if someone else lost control and plowed into her? What if they had to use the jaws-of-life to cut her out of the car?

Anxiety took control of him. He tried to walk it off just like he did last night – all night long.

He paced up and down the aisles.

Corrine’s head bobbed past the cubicles in the front of the room which meant she was on her way to the cafeteria for her morning ritual of coffee and a doughnut. He ran up the aisle to cut her off. “Corrine.”

“Yessss?”