Secrets of a Shoe Addict (29 page)

“What?” Tiffany wasn’t prepared for this. Abbey was always so strong, so cool.

“I’m sorry.” Abbey waved a hand weakly, then put her hands over her eyes.

“Abbey.” Tiffany didn’t know what to do. Pour more cosmo? Offer coffee? Ask her to say more? Distract her so she didn’t get too upset? “Don’t blame yourself.”

“It’s
my
fault,” Abbey insisted, almost angrily. “It’s my fault.” She leveled her gaze on Tiffany with an unmistakable challenge in her eyes. “This is all about me.”

“What do you mean?” Tiffany asked.

Abbey closed her eyes. “I can’t.”

“You can talk to me. Abbey, it’s clear you need to get something off your chest.”

Abbey shook her head, wordless.

Tiffany put a hand on Abbey’s. “You can talk to me.” She meant it. She had never seen someone in so much pain as Abbey was, and she wanted to do anything she could to help. And at the moment, it looked like Abbey needed to let something out or burst.

“Can I?” Abbey looked up at her with reddened eyes. Her pupils were small, giving her an almost hostile look.

But Tiffany stood her ground. “Yes.”

“And you think you could just listen and keep it to yourself?” Abbey challenged, like a child who was angling for one answer but fearing another.

Tiffany nodded. “Yes.”

And then Abbey broke down.

She could not remember a time in her life when she had cried so much or so hard. Sobs came out in silent heaves, her tears hot and seemingly endless.

Later, she’d probably be embarrassed. But right now it felt like if she didn’t let it out, she’d explode.

“I married Brian for the wrong reason,” she said through ragged breaths. “He deserves better.”

“What do you mean?” Tiffany soothed. “Why did you marry him?”

Abbey took one long, slow breath. Then another. Feeble attempts to quell the hysteria bubbling beneath her surface.

She had to get it out.

She had to tell the truth.

Finally.

“I married him to save myself.”

“Save yourself?” Tiffany looked puzzled. “Save yourself from what?”

Abbey swallowed. Hard. “Eternal damnation.”

Three thirty in the morning, and Loreen couldn’t sleep. She’d been tired all day, barely able to keep her eyes open, so why she woke up suddenly in the middle of the night was a mystery.

After tossing and turning from 3:01
A.M.
until 3:30, she logged on as Mimi and waited for the phone to ring.

It didn’t take long. She wasn’t sure why that surprised her, but almost immediately she had a call from a guy who sounded
almost
young enough to be calling on his parents’ dime while they were out of town.

Another ten minutes passed in the darkened room, and the phone rang again.

“This is Mimi,” she said, trying out a new Mimi voice. This was more of a Betty Boop thing.

“Mimi?”

“Yes.”

“This is Anonymous.”

After weeks of doing this, she was prepared for just about anything. “Hey, Anonymous. What can I do for you?”

“I tried to call you earlier, but you weren’t working.”

“You can talk to anyone at Happy Housewives,” she said. The Betty Boop voice had been a mistake, though. This was going to be very hard to keep up. “We’re all glad to talk to you.”

“Nope.” His voice was starting to sound familiar. “They tried to pass me off onto someone else, but I wanted to talk to
you
.”

She went with it, despite the disconcerting feeling she might know him. “Okay, Anonymous, what do you want to talk about?”

“My wife.”

Wait a minute.

Loreen shifted in bed. “Your wife?”

“That’s right.”

It was Robert.

“Maybe you should call your wife on her own phone instead of paying three bucks a minute to talk to her,” Loreen said.

“No, no. This will do.”

She dropped Mimi’s sexy inflection altogether. “Not if you have a kid going to college in a few years.”

“I can afford it,” Robert said. “It’s for a good cause. I understand some happy housewives got into a little bit of trouble in Vegas.”

Loreen smiled to herself. “Okay, then, Anon, what’s up?”

“Well, like I said, I want to talk about my wife. That is, my soon-to-be ex-wife.”

That
ex
. It always bugged her. It sounded so . . . hostile. “What about her?”

“Well—” He expelled a sigh. “—she probably wouldn’t believe it if I told her, so I thought I might run it by you first. Maybe you can advise me.”

“What is it?” Was he going to tell her he’d met someone? That he was getting married? Was he so afraid she’d freak out that he wanted to pay the PTA for her time, to mollify her?

She braced herself for his answer, trying to steel her heart against breaking, even though they were about to be divorced and she wasn’t really supposed to feel
any
of this kind of stuff anymore.

“Well . . . my soon-to-be ex-wife—I’ll call her Lor . . . etta.”

“As in Lynn?”

“Exactly. She
loves
country music.”

Loreen rolled her eyes. She
hated
country music. “What about Loretta, the country music queen?”

He clicked his tongue against his teeth. “Thing is, I think I’m still in love with her.”

Loreen’s stomach clutched.
“What?”

“I know, I almost can’t believe it myself.”

“Is it . . . true?”

She could picture him nodding. “I’m afraid it is.”

“Wow. So. What would you want
Loretta
to do with that information?”

“I’d want her to consider it for what it is: the truth. See, I told her I thought she was a control freak and that she was concentrating too much on our son and not enough on me, but I learned recently there was more behind it.”

Loreen swallowed. “And how did that make you feel?”

“Like a jerk for not wondering what was going on with her sooner. Instead I got pissy about how it was affecting me.” He sighed. “We probably should have gone to counseling.”

Tears welled in Loreen’s eyes. “She probably should have taken care of you more,” she acknowledged. “If she had, maybe you’d still be married.”

“We
are
still married,” Robert said.

“Technicality.”

“It doesn’t have to be.” He took a long breath. “I love her. I want to grow old with her.”

She gave a laugh because it felt better than crying. “Women don’t like to think about growing old.”

“But, if we’re lucky, we all do it. And I want to do it with my best friend. And that’s what she is. She’s the best friend I ever had.”

She swallowed, but her throat was so tight, it hurt. “There’s a lot to be said for marrying your best friend.”

Robert hesitated. A costly hesitation, considering how much he was paying per minute. “So what do you think about divorcing your best friend?”

She took a breath. “I don’t really like it, but I think sometimes if two people initiate something like that, maybe their initial reasons are sound.”

“Okay, but think about this.” Diplomatic Robert was here. “What if you’re wrong?”

There was no Diplomatic Loreen. Just Reactive Loreen. “I don’t want to make a mistake because I fall for the passion of the moment.”

“
This
is not a passionate moment. This is an
honest
moment.” Robert gave an exasperated sigh. “We’re facing the possibility of pissing our whole lives away, each of us alone, because we’re afraid to get hurt again.”

Loreen shook her head in the dark, unable to take on such a huge possibility.

“I can’t do this right now, Robert.”

“Anonymous.”

“Robert.”

“Okay, Loretta.”

She had to laugh.

“When
can
you do this?” he asked. “We need to talk about this. That is, unless you know beyond any shadow of a doubt that your answer is no.” He waited a second. “Is that the case?”

She shook her head, but the lump in her throat prevented her from speaking.

“Loreen, I hear fabric rustling. Does that mean you’re nodding or shaking your head?”

“Shaking my head,” she said. “We’ll talk about this later.”

“You promise?”

She swallowed. “Yes.”

“Okay, then. We’ll talk soon, Loreen. Very soon.”

She hung up the phone and held it to her chest, considering the possibilities.
Could
she get back together with Robert? Was that what she really wanted?

God knew she thought about him often enough. She’d loved being
married to him. In fact, until the end, when they’d butted heads repeatedly over the issue of her detachment from the marriage, she’d loved just about everything about being with him. She even loved to go grocery shopping with him.

And, actually, she missed going grocery shopping with him.

She missed a lot about him.

Plus, there was the whole physical contact thing. Once upon a time, they were great together in bed, and she hadn’t been with anyone—except Rod, and Lord knew she was trying not to think about
him
—since they’d split up.

It wasn’t just the sex either. It was the casual intimacy of draping her legs over him while they sat on the couch watching TV together. It was lying in bed next to him while they read before kissing good night and turning off the lights.

It was that spatial intimacy that you just couldn’t have with someone you weren’t romantically intimate with.

She missed that.

She missed
him
.

But was she setting herself—and Jacob, there was no leaving Jacob out of the consideration—up for disappointment if they tried again and found out it didn’t work?

She closed her eyes against the possibility. It was all too much to think about so late at night. She just wished she could somehow relax and get back to sleep.

She needed what her late-night callers got: a nice warm cup of orgasm.

The phone rang.

Damn it. She should have turned it off. She wasn’t focused.

It rang again.

She tried to collect herself. She had to answer. Everyone knew she was the reason they needed so much money.

That got her. She opened the phone. “This is Mimi.”

“Mimi, this is Anonymous.”

She laughed. God, she was glad it was him. “Anonymous! Long time!”

“Too long.”

“So what can I do for you?”

“Actually,” he said, lowering his voice, “it’s what I can do for you.”

She frowned. He wasn’t going to press her on the getting-back-together thing, was he? Robert ought to know her well enough to know that wouldn’t go well.

“And what is that?” she asked him cautiously.

“Well, you do this service for guys all the time, but has anyone bothered to reciprocate?”

Interesting. “No,” she said. “As a matter of fact, no one has done that.”

“Exactly what I thought. So tonight I don’t want you to do a thing. Don’t lift a finger—” He paused. “—unless you want to.” He laughed. It was a nice sound.

Actually, a sexy sound.

Was she really going to fall for this?

“I don’t, huh?”

“Mm-mm. What are you wearing? No, wait—don’t tell me. This time of year, it’s probably either the Eeyore nightshirt or that pink and green thing with the buttons that you got at Target about a hundred years ago.”

“Wrong.” She gave Eeyore, holding a cup of coffee on the shirt she was, in fact, wearing, a silent apology for denying him. “I’m wearing
a black satin teddy with garters and fishnets. You know, my usual work clothes.”

“I’m unhooking those garters now. And pulling the stocking off your right leg.” He hesitated. “And now your left leg. And I’m running my hands back up, slowly across your thighs. Both hands, both thighs. You’re not wearing panties. . . .”

“No,” she whispered.

“Good. Why waste time? I want to taste you. It’s been too long, and I want to taste you now.”

She sucked a breath in.

“Can you feel it? Can you remember?”

“I can.” Her voice wavered.

“Me, too, baby.” That voice. She loved his voice. “Remember what I’d do with my hand about now?”

She closed her eyes and imagined it. “Yes.” She was going for it. She needed this.

She’d needed this for a long time.

Chapter
      
19