The Good Girl's Guide to Bad Men (14 page)

I giggled girlishly. My face was so close to his that I could smell the alcohol on his breath. And when he put me down, I could feel his fingertips pressed softly into my side as his hands lingered momentarily around my waist. My stomach flipped.

I was really doing this. This was really happening. Benjamin Connors's hands were really touching my body. And I was letting them. Because that's what I was here to do. To let them.

After a twenty-minute-long winning streak and several more fairly intimate moments celebrating my luck with the dice, Benjamin invited me to step away from the craps table and grab a drink. "You just won me five thousand dollars. I think it's time to quit while I'm still ahead."

The moment my butt hit the wooden bar stool, I could feel the fatigue setting in. I managed a subtle glance at my watch. It was close to five. I had been awake for nearly twenty-four hours and been running off pure adrenaline for the last seven. I worried that a drink might do me in. But alcohol has always been a part of this job. If they drink, you drink, too. If they have another round,
you
have another round. If alcohol impairs their judgment, you kiss back.

"So does Lady Luck have a name?" Benjamin asked after we had gotten situated with two martinis.

I pulled the olive out of my glass and placed it in my mouth, rolling it around on top of my tongue. "Yes," I replied with a teasing smile.

"And what would that be?"

I chewed my olive and washed it down with a sip of my martini. "Ashlyn," I replied coyly. The nostalgia of that name on my lips was staggering. She was back in full force, resurrected in all her glory. And the minute I felt her presence, it was almost as if she had never left in the first place.

As much as the Jennifer side of me wanted to fight her return, knowing how much trouble she had caused me in the past. I could feel my body slowly surrendering to her power. She had always found a way to simply take over, jump in the driver's seat, and seize control of the situation.
This,
after all, had always been
her
domain.

"Ashlyn,"
he repeated, sending chills of apprehension up my spine. "Pretty."

I shrugged, as if I had heard it a million times.

"And what brings you to Vegas?"

This was the part that I didn't have prepared. I would have to make up something. Or rather,
Ashlyn
would have to do what she did best . . . wing it. I decided the more generic the better. "Just here with friends," I replied nonchalantly.

He took a sip of his drink. "And where are these friends?"

"Ugh . . ." I sighed. "Totally passed out at like three. It was completely lame. I wasn't tired and I've always wanted to play craps, so I thought I'd come down here and learn."

"Well, you're a natural."

I smiled and took another swig of alcohol. "I had a good teacher."

It didn't take long for Benjamin's hand to wind up on my leg. He placed it there as casually as if he were simply placing an empty glass on a cocktail napkin. And the strangest part was, it didn't feel strange to me. As sinful and wrong as I knew it
should
have felt, there was an overwhelming sense of familiarity about the whole thing. The numbness in my entire body was back. The same numbness that had comforted me and carried me through a two-year career of letting men like Benjamin Connors touch me.

"What about you?" I asked, running my fingertip around the edge of my glass. "Why are
you
in Vegas?"

He shrugged, avoiding my eyes. "Just like to gamble." Then he nodded toward the glass in his hands. "And drink."

I laughed in agreement. "Vegas is always a good excuse to drink more than you should."

"It's a good excuse to do a
lot
of things you shouldn't." His eyes slowed down for a moment as they met mine with purpose and conviction. "Don't you think?"

I knew this was the turning point of the conversation. Every conversation of this nature has one. It's the moment when the night goes from innocent to something else. And it's a moment that every good fidelity inspector can spot like a black dot on a white page.

"I do," I whispered, knowing that the statement rang all too true . . . for both of us.

And then in one fluid motion, Benjamin Connors downed the remaining half of his martini, reached his hand around the back of my head, and pulled me toward him. As his lips met mine, I tried to fill my mind with nothingness. Empty space. It was my old tried-and-true trick for coping with the kissing part.

But as hard as I tried, the nothingness simply wouldn't come. Apparently, this was a skill that
had
managed to fade with time. Because all I could think about was Jamie. His face, his eyes, his hands. The fact that right now he was sleeping alone, in another country, with absolutely no idea that in one night, I had managed to revert to a person I had willingly abandoned long ago.

Or maybe I had never really abandoned her. Maybe she was just lying dormant inside of me. Waiting to be reawakened by the touch of a married stranger.

As Benjamin's tongue darted in and out of my mouth, I fought to block out the image of Jamie's face and replace it with the face of Darcie Connors, Benjamin's wife of five years. She was why I was here. I was doing this for her. She wanted answers to her questions, and I was going to give them to her. No matter what. That was the promise I had made when I opened the doors of the Hawthorne Agency. And that was the promise I made to every single woman and man who walked through them.

She had come to me asking for the truth. Asking if this was really the man she wanted to raise children with. And the next eight words that Benjamin spoke told me exactly what the answer would be.

"Would you like to come upstairs with me?"

I nodded. I knew I would never be able to get the "Yes" out of my mouth. It would be forever stuck there, trapped behind the emotional battle raging inside me.

But the nod was enough.

I followed him through the casino to the elevator banks. As we rode to the tenth floor, Benjamin's lips were on my neck and the sides of my face. Exactly where Jamie's had been less than seven hours ago when this runaway evening had begun.

I quickly pushed the thought from my mind and concentrated on pretending to enjoy
this
moment instead of being hung up in another. The last thing I needed tonight was for the subject to get suspicious. If he bailed out now, it would mean that everything up until this point had been for nothing.

And it couldn't be for nothing.

It had to be for something. For
everything.

When we entered Benjamin's hotel suite, he didn't waste any time leading me straight to the bed. And believe it or not, I was grateful for his hastiness. Anything to make this night end faster.

We fell onto it, and I felt my mind start to leave my body as Benjamin's lips again met mine and his hands started to wander down the outside of my dress. His kiss was intense and tasting of vodka. It was a now-or-never kiss, the kind that married men use on women who are not their wives. If death row inmates were allowed a last kiss in place of a last meal, this is what that kiss would feel like.

I closed my eyes and reluctantly kissed back.

An intention to cheat. That's all I had to prove was there. That Benjamin Connors had every intention of having sex with someone other than his wife. And as soon as his hands started to slip under the hemline of my dress, I considered it confirmed.

I knew, professionally, I could have taken it further. The dress could have come off. That last PG-13 moment could have been reached. But I knew, emotionally, I would never make it that far. Not without vomiting, anyway.

I placed my hand on his chest and gently pushed him away. "I'll be right back," I said with a flirtatious wink. "I just have to use the restroom."

He smiled and rolled off me as I stood up and adjusted my dress. "It's by the front door."

"Perfect," I replied sweetly.

And it was.

I walked softly to the bathroom and flicked on the light, followed by the fan, then I peered back into the bedroom to see Benjamin unbuckling his belt and unzipping his pants. I closed the bathroom door from the outside and turned ninety degrees until I was face-to-face with my escape. My end to this never-ending night.

As quietly as possible, I turned the handle and pulled the front door open a crack. The Palazzo tower was a brand-new hotel on the Las Vegas Strip. It hadn't even survived a full tourist season yet. Which, fortunately for me, meant that the hinges on the door hadn't yet inherited the ability to alert tenants of a possible runaway. As I slid the door a quarter of the way open, it let out no squeaking complaints. I squeezed through the small space and ever so carefully shut it behind me, keeping the handle fully engaged until the last possible moment to avoid the
click
of the closing door.

Once outside, I took a deep breath and made my way to the elevator, relishing in the conclusiveness of my actions.

The front desk didn't seem at all fazed by my request for a room at five in the morning. In fact, their reaction made it seem rather commonplace. With my new key card in hand, I dragged myself back to the elevator and up to the seventeenth floor, where my room was waiting.

I had to be back at the jail in four hours, but I was still overjoyed to climb under the white cotton sheets of the king-size bed.

I could finally go to sleep. I could finally close my eyes. This night had
finally
come to an end.

But I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that my mind would not rest.

"One Starfish hairclip. One pearl necklace, blue. One seaweed boa, green."

I watched as the morning security guard removed all of Shawna's costume accessories that had been confiscated the night before from a plastic box and placed them on the counter in front of us.

"One seashell purse. Two coral earrings. And one cellular telephone." She pulled the last item from the box and placed it on the table next to the others.

Shawna, now dressed in my yellow sweatshirt with her glittering mermaid skirt underneath, scooped everything into her arms with a scowl and turned to me. "Please, let's get out of here."

I handed all the signed paperwork back to the bailiff and led her through the front door and into a waiting cab.

We made a quick stop at the Palazzo so that Shawna could pack up the rest of her stuff, and she was very grateful to be able to change out of her costume. I had picked up a pair of jeans and an overpriced T-shirt at the Palazzo shops earlier that morning.

As we made our way to the airport to catch an eleven o'clock flight back to L.A., I promised Shawna that I'd talk to some lawyers first thing in the morning to see about sorting out all the details of her arrest so she wouldn't have to come back for a court hearing. Then I told her to take the week off and get some rest, but she insisted that getting back to her usual routine as soon as possible would be the only way to keep her sane.

Jamie had called my cell phone around eight-thirty that morning to tell me that he was going standby on an earlier flight back to L.A. and that I should text him my flight information so he could pick me up at the airport when I arrived.

Once I got on the plane, I spent the first half of the flight home convincing myself that telling Jamie the truth about what happened the previous night (or, more accurately, earlier that morning) was the best course of action, and I spent the second half of the flight convincing myself that he would forgive me.

But the moment I saw his face as he stepped out of the car to greet me at the curb, every convincing word that I had spoken silently to myself at an altitude of thirty-five thousand feet instantly vanished into a black hole in the back of my mind.

His eyes were so trusting. His smile was so genuine. His face was so happy to see me. There was just no way that honesty was the best policy here.

It would only hurt him.

And that was something I could
not
convince myself to do.

Besides, there was no way I was ever going to do it again. So there was really no point in telling him about it. Exigent circumstances. That's all it was. I was dealing with a crisis. Extinguishing the flames of an unforeseen fire. I was doing what the president of any successful company would do. And the bigger deal I made about it, the bigger deal it would become.

So I lied.

"Everything okay now?" Jamie asked as he pulled me into a tight embrace.

I nodded into his warm chest. "Yes. Shawna's fine. A little shaken up, but she'll be okay."

He gave me a quick kiss and a squeeze and then opened the passenger-side door for me. I collapsed into the seat with a heavy sigh.

"So what happened after you got there?"

I shrugged, somehow feeling as though this casual gesture might possibly relieve some of the guilt. It didn't work.

"Not much," I replied. "I mean, I went to the jail, I was too late to bail her out, so I just talked to her for a while. When the guard kicked me out, I booked a room at the Palazzo and fell asleep." I nestled the back of my head against the soft leather of the passenger seat and closed my eyes. Although I admit, it was more out of not wanting to look Jamie in the eye than pure fatigue.

"And so what ended up happening with the second assignment?"

My eyes suddenly flew open and my pulse started to rise. He knew. He had to know. Why else would he ask that?

"What
second
assignment?" I asked warily, trying to gauge exactly how much he knew and what he was referring to. It's a common mistake when telling a lie—giving yourself away by assuming the other person actually knows more than he does. Amateurs end up falling for that trap all the time. Fortunately, I was no amateur when it came to creating complicated webs of deceit. Something I was not proud of. Especially not at this moment.

"You mentioned before you left that Shawna was double-booked last night. So I was just wondering what happened with the second one after she got arrested."

I was relieved to find absolutely no trace of blame or accusation in his voice. Jamie's response was casual and informally inquisitive. Clearly just the genuine reply of a loving, caring,
supportive
boyfriend— sorry, fiancé—who was trying to make conversation and fully understand the nuances of his girlfriend's horrible midnight rescue mission.

Which of course made me feel even more wretched than I already did.

"Um," I started, closing my eyes again. "That
was
the second assignment, actually."

We cruised to a red light and Jamie smiled tenderly at me, reaching out to touch the side of my face. "You look tired, baby."

Feeling his hand on my skin made me want to cry.

He didn't doubt my story for a second.

He didn't even blink.

He trusts me blindly.

The rock that seemed to be growing in the pit of my stomach started to pulsate. I closed my eyes and willed it to stop.
It's not cheating if you didn't enjoy it,
I told myself, feeling rather resolved in my logic even if the pulsation refused to cease.

"I am," I finally said after a few moments of silence as Jamie continued to speed down Sepulveda Boulevard toward the freeway.

"Am what?"

I turned my head and looked out the window, watching the gray November sky follow us home. "Tired."

Jamie dropped me off at my place so that I could rest while he went home to unpack his bag, promising to come back later around dinnertime. Except I didn't rest. I didn't even try. I knew that it was a lost cause. As soon as I dumped my suitcase in the bedroom, I took a quick shower and changed into a fresh pair of jeans and a T-shirt that didn't have the Palazzo logo emblazoned on the front. Then I grabbed my keys and was back out the door in a matter of minutes.

I had to keep myself busy and my mind occupied. I feared idleness would be my worst enemy right now. So I drove around town, making up errands as I went. I definitely needed some more dental floss and toilet paper from the drugstore. And maybe an oversize bottle of Advil and some sunless tanning lotion. And oh, one of those master chopping mechanisms that I saw on TV. And I was sure I had at least
something
at the dry cleaner, even if the old Chinese man insisted that I picked everything up on Friday. I made him check again. Then I swung by Whole Foods and kind of just wandered the aisles for a good thirty minutes, picking up random items, examining the packaging thoroughly, and then throwing them into my basket regardless of whether or not I ever planned to consume them.

When I finally ran out of things to do around seven in the evening, I reluctantly headed back home, praying that something interesting would be on TV so that I could continue to distract myself from my thoughts until it was time to go to bed. At which point I had every intention of employing a prescription sleep aid.

I pulled my Lexus SUV into the garage and noticed that Jamie's Jaguar was already occupying the second parking spot. I fought hard to take a steady breath as I placed the car in park and killed the engine.

I didn't really want to face Jamie tonight. I wanted to be alone. But at the same time, I knew that not being around him would cause me pain. My mind felt as if it were being tugged in a hundred different directions.

But there was one thing I was sure of: I had to work past this. I had to learn how to swallow the guilt and keep it from regurgitating in my mouth in the form of a confession. Jamie was a big part of my life. The biggest. And he was going to be around. His car was going to be in that parking spot every day that I came home. I couldn't
not
get over this.

After a cursory glance in my rearview mirror and a disturbing shudder at my tired reflection, I clasped my house keys and stepped out of the car, promising myself that this would get easier. Eventually time would do its job and I would forget.

And then things would slowly return to normal.

All I had to do until that day came was pretend everything still
was
normal. That nothing had changed. Because to Jamie, nothing
had
changed. I was still the same Jennifer Hunter he had fallen in love with and asked to marry.

So I would have to pretend to be her.

No matter what it took.

"Hey, where you been?" Jamie called from the kitchen, eyeing my armful of superfluous purchases.

I stumbled past the dining room and struggled to place everything on the counter. "Just running some errands for the week."

He reached into one of the shopping bags and pulled out a mysterious blue carton. "Hemp milk?" His face twisted in confusion. "What'd I miss?"

I shrugged, refusing to meet his questioning eyes. "Everyone says it's better than soy milk. And it supports the hemp farmers. It says so on the box."

"So," he said, placing his arms around my waist and pulling me close to him. "We have something to celebrate tonight."

"Hmm?" I mumbled, looking down at his shirt collar and fiddling with the edges. "What's that?"

He nodded toward the hallway that led into the bedroom. There were two suitcases and three small cardboard boxes sitting there. "Where'd those come from?"

He grinned. "I figured if I bring a few things over every day, I'll be fully moved in by the end of the week."

Oh, right, I thought. He's moving in. I wasn't sure how that could have slipped my mind. Actually, I could. But I was trying to forget about that.

"My Realtor thinks I can sell my place fully furnished, which means we won't have to figure out which furniture to keep."

I forced a smile. "That's great."

Jamie pulled me closer to him, and his arms tightened around me. Then his lips pressed hard against mine, and judging by the bulge quickly forming in the front of his pants, this wasn't going to be just a kiss. It suddenly hit me that
this
was how he was planning to "celebrate" the boxes and suitcases in the hallway.

I closed my eyes, trying to soak in even an ounce of his intensity. But unfortunately, my passion-o-meter seemed to be stuck at "cold fish."

Jamie, however, was oblivious to this fact. His hands were already digging into the sides of my waist, and before I knew it, my T-shirt was being whipped over my head and he was now kissing the tops of my breasts, moaning with a sound that resembled someone devouring an ice-cream sundae in the middle of a crash diet.

"We never got to finish what we started in Cabo," he cooed as he grasped the bottom of my shirt and pulled it over my head.

"Jamie," I protested, pushing gently at his shoulders. "I'm not sure if we should do this—"

"In here?" he interrupted. "You're right."

And suddenly, my feet were no longer on the floor. Jamie literally swept me off them and was now carrying me fireman style over his shoulder into the bedroom.

I yelped and clung desperately to his shirt. "Jamie! Oh, my God! Put me down!"

And he did. Right smack in the middle of the bed. Then he was on top of me. And his hands were everywhere. Except I couldn't feel them. I mean, I could feel them on me. But they weren't Jamie's hands.

They were Benjamin Connors's.

And the lips that were sweeping along my stomach, making their way down to my top of my jeans, weren't Jamie's, either.

My breathing started to quicken. Jamie interpreted it as a sign of arousal and moaned into my abdomen.

But the only moaning sounds I could hear were the ones still stuck in my head from last night. The ones that I
thought
I had effectively extinguished with pointless errands and internal monologues. But there they were, louder than ever. And they seemed to be echoing from all corners of the room. Like Benjamin Connors in stereo.

I heard a voice whisper, "You are so sexy." But for the life of me, I couldn't figure out whose voice it was. Was it Jamie's? Was he the one saying that? Or was it part of my Saturday night flashback, presented in Dolby Digital Surround Sound?

"I can't believe how sexy you are."

Who the fuck is saying that?!

Apparently, what happens in Vegas doesn't really stay there.

Jamie was unbuttoning my jeans and kissing the skin just below my waist. Beads of sweat were appearing across my forehead, and the room was starting to spin. Slowly at first and then much faster. Like a merry-go-round gone postal.

Someone stop the spinning! I want to get off!

And then I looked down at the top of Jamie's head, trying to focus my attention on the man I loved. Trying to regain control over the situation. But my vision continued to blur, and the cloudiness in my head continued to hover. And then finally, he stopped and looked up at me. Except I could no longer see his face.

The only face that appeared in front of me belonged to Benjamin Connors.

"Stop!" I screamed. "Make it stop!"

Frantically, I pushed Jamie off me and bounded from the bed, nearly kicking him in the face in the process. I stood helplessly in the middle of my bedroom in my bra and unbuttoned jeans, not knowing what to say or where to look. So I chose the floor.

I didn't know what I was doing. My body didn't feel like my own anymore, and my mind seemed a million miles away. As if it had completely abandoned me to fend for myself and I was failing miserably.

When I found the courage to look up at Jamie, I caught sight of his wide-eyed gaze and quickly looked away, feeling ashamed and embarrassed.

Who was this person?
Certainly not me.

For a moment, neither of us spoke. Jamie was too stunned to say anything, and I was too freaked out. The merry-go-round in my bedroom eventually started to slow down, and I felt my heart rate return to normal.