The Complete Series Boxed Set (36 page)

He pulled her into a warm embrace with arms like steel. “I understand, honey,” he murmured against her cheek. “And besides, trying to squeeze into her crib isn’t practical.”

“You’d know,” she said with a chuckle. “Remember that time it was the only way to get her to sleep? You took one for the team climbing in there with her.”

“And Mike has the pictures to prove it,” Dylan said with a pseudo-sour tone.

“You rang?” Mike appeared in the doorway. “My ears are burning. You guys talking about me?” His eyes lit on Jillian, a tiny cherub curled up in the center of the enormous bed, and he smiled.

“
I see I’m going to get kicked in the kidneys all night,” he said.
 

“And not from me this time,” Dylan joked. Kind of. Dylan was the bed hog now that Laura wasn’t pregnant.

Mike joined the embrace, covering the side of Laura
that
Dylan wasn’t on. He kissed the top of her head and declared, “It’ll all be fine. I’m sure this whole Frank business will turn out to be nothing.”

Oh, how Laura wished he were right.

Oh, how wrong he turned out to be.

Josie was at the reception desk for Good Things Come in Threes when the most irresi
s
t
i
bly pleasant older gentleman knocked lightly on the main door and entered. Well into his fifties, but preserved with a self-effacing confidence that was charming, the man looked like a cross between Robert Redford and Harrison Ford. Smart. Clued in.

Almost
courtly
.

“Excuse me,” he said in a voice that reminded her of
Mad Men
, as if he were enjoying two fingers of brandy in a square highball glass,
sitting
in a leather-covered chair at a steakhouse, smoke trickling up in willowy l
i
nes from a man
i
cured m
a
n’s hand. None of that was true, of course, but the sense of that impression was so strong, just from that opening ph
ra
se.

“Is this the threesome dating service?” he finished, using a lower register in his voice, not out of shame but from a sense of privacy.
His eyes were whisky dipped in moss, an unsettling shade of green against hair the color of wet sand. A little grey was interspersed above his ears, and he had those deep wrinkles that people who smile—a lot—get on their face, from forehead to cheeks.
 

An appealing man.

“Yes, it is.” Josie
stood, came around to the front of her desk, and
stuck out her hand, a bit wary. He could be a reporter. Or a warrant processor. Or someone from the property management company, concerned about parking spots again. A thousand scenarios flashed through her mind, but number one was:

Why did I have to give Darla the rest of the day off?

They didn’t get many walk-ins, and the ones who did come in tended to be the slim
i
est of the slimes, members of the media or part of a fundamentalist Christ
i
an group that was closely associated with the Westboro Baptist clan.

So Mr. Suave was already pinging her subconscious radar, no matter how sophisticated and nice he seemed to be.

“
My name is Frank Stedman.” His grip was warm and friendly, the handshake of a man accustomed to pressing the flesh a great deal. His cultured voice was like liquid laughter, and against her better judgment she found herself melting into his niceness.
 

“Josie. Josie Mendham. Nice to meet you, Frank. You here for business?”

“I’m here to learn as much as I can.”

The hair on her upper shoulders went tingly. “Learn? Are you doing an investigative piece?” Two months ago a journalist had come in and claimed to be an intern at a local college newspaper.
He had a
sked a million questions and then wrote up a
three-thousand
-
w
ord
exposé
for a major newspaper, the web link making its rounds. The nasty comments on the web had led her to ban
her friends
from reading the articles, not that she had any sway.

Laura had read them, as had Darla. The former was worried for Jillian, the la
t
ter that she’d lose her job.

T
wenty-seven new clients had signed as a direct result,
so
hooray
for unintended consequences, but the stress of the negative wasn’t worth it
. They were getting closer to making matches, and another biased news article could threaten that.
Then again, maybe it would get the right person’s attention…
 

“No,” he said, shaking his head slightly,
clearly
perplexed. “I’m here to find the right people so I can live in perfect threesome harmony.”

Those words sounded so fake, so scripted, that Josie laughed in his face. C’mon. This guy wasn’t for real. And he wasn’t even a good actor.

“
Frank,” she said matter-of-factly, positioning herself closer to the door in case he gave her trouble. The UPS guy Darla slobbered over was due to deliver packages soon, and she also knew that the weekly staff meeting for the CPA firm next door would end any minute now. The more company, the more eyeballs and ears she could get if needed, the better. “I don’t think we have what you’re looking for.”
 

He fixed her with a hard, solid look, no negativity. Just a cold calculation, measuring her as surely as if he’d pulled out a yardstick. What he was measuring was a mystery to Josie, though.

The two sat in silence. She sure as hell wouldn’t crack first.

He did. “Josie,” he said with that warmth in the back of his throat, as if he could translate caring with his vocal cords, “I’m here because I lost someone very important in my life years ago, and I want to find my way forward. Your dating service is the only way I can do that. I absolutely need your help.”

Frowning, she took him in.
Plenty of perverts cajoled and begged and asked for every erotic encounter you could imagine—but as she told them, she wasn’t a madam in a brothel, so if all they wanted was a kinky fuck, go on Craigslist and post a Casual Encounter Wanted ad.
 

Frank Stedman wasn’t looking for that, though. “We’re your only hope?”
Josie joked.
“Who are you, Princess Leia? Sorry. I’m no Ben K
e
nobi.”

His face lit up with a smile. “I don’t lo
o
k good in that bikini, and being chained to Jabba the Hut goes a little too far for my kink comfort zone,” he replied.

Josie’s turn to laugh,
but she didn’t take her eyes off him, especially his hands. “Fair enough. Are you here to become a client?”
 

He sidestepped the question, and it would take days for Josie to reflect back on this conversation and realize how skilled, how unctuous he’d been in choosing his words very, very carefully.

“
I’m here to learn more about your service,” he answered, nodding. “And to see how I can benefit from it.”
 

J
osie’s eyes narrowed, her heart beating a few steps faster than its normal pace, her mind struggling to assess the situation and act accordingly. A gut check told her he was fine overall, but something didn’t sit quite right.

“How did you le
a
rn about Good Things Come in Threes?” she asked, gesturing for him to take a seat. With great skill she maneuvered so she was closest to the door.

“
O
n the internet. Google, of course. The great replacer of the neighborhood fence chat.
Can’t ask your neighbor Agnes anymore which threesome dating site she recommends, so…
”

She smiled without showing teeth. It seemed to rattle him in the tiniest of ways, for he hesitated, eyes reading her. He was evaluating her as much as she was studying him, and it had nothing to do with sex or love or kink.

This was primal threat assessment.

“
We don’t get too many walk-ins, Frank, so forgive me. Just making sure you’re not here for the wrong reasons.”
 

Something in his eyes flickered, the skin around them widening  
slightly
, making an inner alarm start to ding
in her chest
. But he tilted his head, that brown-silver hair parted loosely on one side, the bangs falling in light waves across his forehead. God, if he were twenty years younger she’d be squirming in her seat right now, flushed with unwelcome desire for a man who by all rights she shouldn’t—
couldn’t
—have naughty thoughts about, because that man was supposed to be Alex.

Was Alex.

Is
Alex.

Frank’s age had little to do with her ability to keep her clit in check. It was something else, an instinct that freaked her out, because it made no sense.

She had learned to listen to it, though. It was the same feeling she got when her mother went on a bender and brought someone home to fuck.

Preservation.

“What would be a wrong reason, if I may ask?” He saw her eyes blip over to the door and his face morphed to a look of alarm. “If you feel unsafe with me, Josie, by all means we can take our discussion to the coffee shop downstairs, or you can open the door.” His face softened, eyes
appearing to reflect her own
worr
y back to her
. “I would never want you to feel uncomfortable around me, and your personal
safety
is of utmost importance.” The smile he gave her was meant to offer solace, but instead made her feel ashamed.
 

Where was
that
coming from?

“
N
o, no,” she said, backing down even as an inner voice screamed for her to be bold, to stand and go to that coffee shop, to do exactly what he had offered. That was the problem: doing what he suggested felt like a failure, a defeat, like she was giving in to his belief that she was overreacting. Th
is
was crazy-making. How could she have been bent over business expense spread
sh
eets just minutes ago and now she was second-guessing her emotional reaction to this man?

“If it would be better for me to return when you have a coworker here—” Frank started.

“Darla will be back shortly,” she said primly, remembering her self-defense training classes.
Never let a potential predator know you were alone.
The lie lived on her tongue quite happily.

“Do you have other coworkers? I’d imagine a business like this must be bustling. You’ve practically cornered the market.” He winked. “And it’s an important market. I read the write-up you got from that national sex columnist.”

Half of Josie’s mouth went up in a reluctant smile. Charmer. But it was working. She was damn proud of getting such positive coverage for that interview. Laura had stayed behind the scenes, as usual, but Josie embraced her work now.

“We’re a small operation,” she replied. “Just the owner, me, and some clerical workers.”

“And the owner—I believe she’s in a loving, stable threesome relationship with two men herself?” He kept his face impassive, eyebrows raised, the corners of his lips turned up just enough to convey friendliness, but those eyes.

Hawk eyes.

Laura’s story was one that they worked hard to manage
and protect
. Potential clients were always eager for details; knowing that their dream was a reality for at least one group was the best promotion the service could possibly get.

Yet maintaining Laura, Mike, Dylan, and baby Jillian’s privacy was far more important, to Josie, than hawking the service’s wares by whoring out details on Laura’s life.

Walking that tightrope was
hard
.

“Yes.” Josie gave a tight smile. “She is. The owner lives the life.”

“And do you?”

Her smile fell. “
I don’t talk about my personal life with clients, Frank.”
 

“I’m not a client, Josie.”

Ice water ran through her as those hawk eyes zeroed in on her as if they’d telescope
d
, prey spo
t
ted, target isolated.

Attack imminent.

He chuckled. “I’m so intrigued by this company, by the lifestyle. You find a way to help people achieve a kind of love that mass society considers a sin.”

The alarm bell migrated from her chest to her head, ringing in duplicate.

Muted voices next door, plus the shuffling sounds of chairs being pushed around, told her the CPA meeting was over. One of the accountants, Janet, might stop by and ask Josie if she wanted a latte from the very coffee shop Frank had suggested they
move to
.

Please stop by
, Josie thought.

Frank looked at his watch, an expensive
Movado
or a cheap knockoff. Josie couldn’t tell the difference. “Oh, dear. Time for me to go. Do you have an application I might take with me? A brochure? I’m very interested in learning more about how this lifestyle works.”

Sin. Lifestyle. Code words? Was he with the religious protestors?

She added another deadly sin to the conversation: lying. “I’m so sorry, Frank,” she said, handing him her business card, “but we’re revamping all our sales materials right now. We’re completely out of print brochures. But if you give me your telephone number and mailing address, we can be sure to reach out and give you whatever you need.”

“Whatever I need? Sounds good to me,” he replied, scrib
b
ling on the back of a card he pulled out of his breast pocket. He handed it to Josie and she took it, not looking at it.

“We’ll be in touch,” she said as he sli
p
ped out of the door. Janet was in the hallway and caught Josie’s eye. Josie gave her an index finger to ask her to wait.

“Oh, yes, Josie,” Frank said with great affect as he pumped her arm silly with an overly enthusiastic handshake, “you most definitely have not seen the last of me.”

Josie’s phone buzzed, trap
p
ed in her purse in a desk drawer. She ignored the sound as Frank walked away, whistling some tune she couldn’t name, the echo following him.