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  “Jezebel? Wasn’t she a prostitute.”

  “No.” He wasn’t actually sure. “She wrapped every man she met around her gorgeous little finger.”

  “Ooh, I like that.”

  He loved the way she said ooh.

  “Start my countdown again, Scott,” she whispered.

  And he did. Yeah, his Jezebel had him hook, line, and sinker. He was madly in lust with a woman he didn’t even know.

  COULD a woman have too many orgasms? By Friday, Trinity lost count. Her breasts had grown from all the hormones.

  She hoped it wasn’t all the ice cream she’d eaten.

  “My daughter’s coming home from college this weekend,” Scott said while she was drifting in orgasmic aftermath.

  “Your daughter?” She didn’t mean to let it slip out of her mouth, but it did.

  “Yeah, Lexa. She’s my youngest. She’s a sophomore at—”

  “Wait.” She held up her hand as if he could see her. “Don’t tell me.” She didn’t want to know about his daughter. Jeez, a daughter in college. She’d figured he was in his midforties, but a college-age kid made Trinity feel young. And so not together. She was thirty and just getting her first job.

  She blew out a breath. “New rule. We don’t get personal.”

  “We’re having sex on the phone. That’s personal.” A slight edge ran through his voice.

  “Yes, well.” She bit her lip. Next week she started work. “I can’t call so much after this.” She thought up a good lie. “I was on vacation this week, and I’m back to work on Monday.”

  “Call my cell in the evenings, then.”

  “But you’d know my number.”

  “You can block it.”

  “I like calling you at the office.” The whole bigwig thing.

  “But at home, I can come with you.”

  He was pushing. She was losing control. “No. We can only talk when you’re at work. If you want to stay late so I can call, that’s fine. But those are the rules.” That felt better. Setting rules gave her a sense of control.

  “So you’re not going to call me this weekend?”

  “You’ll have your daughter with you.” A reasonable explanation. “Monday. I’ll call when I get home. Hopefully you can stay late at work.” Said as if it didn’t matter one way or the other.

  Scott laughed. “You really are a Jezebel, aren’t you?”

  This time he hung up first.

  Was he angry? God, even allowing the question in her mind was frightening, as if she were letting her former self, the woman who lived to please a man, sneak back inside her. She couldn’t let that happen.

  “YOU look pretty chipper, Dad.” Lexa chewed on a carrot stick as he put the artichokes on to boil. She’d driven up from San Luis Obispo, arriving late last night. They’d spent Saturday morning running errands, then hanging out around the house. “Got a new hottie?” she added before another carrot crunch.

  Scott’s heart gave an odd jump. Lexa had had a much harder time with the divorce than Brooke. A couple of years older, Brooke had been going into her junior year at college, and though she’d been sad, it hadn’t affected her in the same way. Then suddenly, Lexa, after spending last summer bouncing between his place and Katy’s, had gone back to school with a new attitude. She’d started treating him like her buddy, looking for dates, pointing out “hotties” when they went to the movies or out to dinner.

  But no freaking way was he telling Lexa about Jezebel.

  “I’m just glad to have you for the weekend, honey.”

  She popped him on the arm. “You’re a fibber.” Dumping the bottle of spaghetti sauce into a pot, she set it on the glass-top stove. “Seriously, Dad, Brooke and I want you to find a woman.”

  She caught him off guard once again. She would always be his little girl, and there was something about her picking out women for him that felt . . . queasy. Yet she thought of herself as grown-up, no matter how much he’d always see her as his baby, and she was doing her best to have him treat her as an adult.

  Still, some things were going too far even for him.

  Scott put his hands over his ears. “I’m not listening.” Then he reached for the linguine noodles in the cupboard over the stove. He hadn’t cooked a day in his life when Katy walked out. The last year had been a crash course since he didn’t want to subsist on fast food. When he bought this house, he’d upgraded the kitchen, and at least learned to boil noodles.

  “Tell your sister my sex life is off-limits.”

  “Da-ad.” Lexa put her hands on her hips and pouted.

  Despite being two years apart, she and Brooke were as alike as twins. Five foot ten, they got their height, brown hair, and brown eyes from him while their beauty and slender build came from their mother. They even said Da-ad identically. God, they were so beautiful his heart ached looking at them.

  “We weren’t talking about your sex life.” Lexa flipped her long hair over her shoulder. “We’re talking about your love life. And we think you’re lonely.”

  After salting the water, Scott put the pan on to boil. “You used the term hottie. That doesn’t refer to a love life.” He opened the can of clams to add to the sauce.

  Hottie did, however, refer to Jezebel. She’d cut him off until Monday. Even then, he’d have to stay late if he wanted to talk to her. He recognized a woman’s need to assert control, but it made him nuts. He was deep in withdrawal. Yet that was part of her lure. She kept him on edge, and he couldn’t wait to hear her voice, her musical laugh, the heady sound of her orgasm.

  If he wasn’t careful, he’d be embarrassed in front of his daughter. He needed to corral his thoughts. “I’m not lonely. I’ve got a busy life with work”—he held up a finger when Lexa opened her mouth—“but I promise that when I do meet a wonderful woman, I will give the whole love life thing a chance again.”

  “Good. ’Cause, well, you know, after Mom and everything, we were afraid that you might be gun-shy.”

  He’d painted Katy’s actions in the best light possible for his daughters. He never blamed her, never voiced the thought that she might be seriously depressed. Though he had to Katy. She’d refused to seek treatment. Instead, she’d moved into a condo and lived her days the same as she had when they were married, sewing, arts and crafts, volunteering at her church.

  She simply did it without him in the house.

  “I’m not gun-shy.” He dumped the linguine into the now boiling water. “There’s just no one I wanted to introduce.”

  Lexa set the colander in the sink. “You will let us meet her if you do, though, right? Brooke and I, we want you to find someone.” She tucked her hair behind her ear. “I said the same thing to Mom, too, but I don’t think . . . ,” she trailed off.

  Scott tipped her chin with a finger. “I promise, sweetie, that as soon as I meet someone I like, I’ll introduce you.” He smoothed the hair away from her forehead. “And don’t worry about your mom. She’ll find what she’s looking for when she’s ready.”

  All Katy had been ready for was getting him out of the house. He’d moved on. Now, he felt sorry for her. He was sure she’d never find that elusive “thing” she was looking for, be it love or happiness, but at least she seemed content.

  His monotone relationship with his ex-wife was a far cry from the volatile emotions Jezebel evoked. She made him feel alive. Aware. Passionate. Damn. He wasn’t sure how he’d make it through to Monday night.

  5

  TRINITY wasn’t nervous Monday morning. She was terrified. She’d always entered Green Industries with a song in her heart and a bounce to her high heels clicking across the lobby’s terra-cotta tile floor. That was an exaggeration, yet this morning she’d felt second class when her father trundled her off to Human Resources to fill out an application and give them her Social Security number. Not that she expected special treatment.

  For the first day on the job, she’d worn her best red power suit, the one she saved for fund-raising committees and asking her
father’s associates to donate large sums of money or their son’s two-year-old BMW to breast cancer research. Despite the red, Trinity wasn’t feeling particularly powerful.

  Instead, she gathered her portfolio of important papers about company policy, e-mail etiquette, and 401(k) information, and headed upstairs. The employees she greeted were all familiar, at least for the most part. What wasn’t familiar was the wary glances and the pinched-lip assessments.

  At the entryway to the Accounting Department, she stopped a young woman in crisp blue jeans. “Could you tell me where Anthony’s office is?” Anthony, her new boss.

  She’d met him at the company Christmas parties and summer barbecues. He was a nice sort, in his midforties, married, two kids. His wife was pretty and blond and her name was . . . darn, Trinity couldn’t remember. It wasn’t good not to remember her boss’s wife’s name.

  For her question, she received a surly glare and a curt answer. “Mr. Ackerman’s office is in the corner.” The girl pointed over a maze of cubicles.

  Mr. Ackerman? Trinity started to get it. Green employees tolerated her bouncing through as the boss’s daughter. But working with them? They hated it.

  Is this the way her brother had felt? Like an outsider?

  “Thank you,” Trinity said, and the girl shrugged, then headed out into the hall for the ladies’ room.

  The Accounting area was a din of voices and phones with the cubicles haphazardly thrown together, some facing each other, others back to back, and a center area filled with four-drawer filing cabinets. Rather than finding her way through the cubicle aisles, she skirted the dividers past the offices built along the outside walls. In one cube she passed, a youngish guy slumped over his ten-key adding machine, fingers flying. She’d thought everyone used the computer these days. In another cubicle, a girl chattered on the phone in what Trinity believed was Chinese.

  Anthony’s door was closed, but through the glass side panel, a buxom blonde was visible occupying one of the two chairs in front of his desk. Her thick hair, pulled back in a knot, perched at the back of her neck as she drummed her fingers on an armrest.

  Trinity tapped on the door.

  Anthony stood and signaled her in. Tall and skinny, he had receding hair, with just a tuft sticking up where once he might have had a widow’s peak.

  “Perfect timing,” he said, a grin stretched across his face like a rubber band pulled too tight.

  “I was down in HR filling out paperwork,” Trinity said as if she needed to explain to the teacher why she was late.

  “Yes, yes, of course.” Anthony waved her in, the flat of his hand landing on the chair next to the blonde. “Well, it’s so perfect because I’ve got Inga right here.”

  Something told Trinity it wasn’t at all perfect in Anthony’s opinion. Then Inga stood. Good God, she was an Amazon. Or Brunhilda. Trinity had chosen the three-inch Manolos, but Inga had chosen her heels well, too, and she towered over Trinity.

  “Inga Rice, Trinity Green,” Anthony did the introductions.

  A simple green sheath made of some soft jersey material clung to Inga Rice’s curves. She had bosoms and hips, and Trinity noted a slight sheen of sweat along Anthony’s upper lip just from being trapped behind closed doors with her.

  Inga Rice was the type to make men sweat. Anthony dabbed a handkerchief to the top of his head. “Inga is our lead Accounts Payable clerk. She knows everything there is to know and can walk you through the whole system.”

  “It’s so nice to meet you.” She put out her hand.

  And Inga crushed it, her blue eyes sparkling. “It’s such a pleasure. ” Not.

  Her voice had a breathy quality that had Anthony dabbing the tuft on his head once again.

  “Inga, why don’t you introduce Trinity around?”

  Trinity had the feeling he wanted them gone from his office before the claws came out.

  “Thanks. I’d appreciate that.” She’d give Inga the benefit of the doubt. The woman probably didn’t know her own strength.

  And Inga led her around the department. The Asian girl in the first cubicle was Christina Lee, Accounts Receivable clerk and relatively new. She shrank when Inga stepped into her cube.

  “This is Trinity The-Boss’s-Daughter.” Said with hyphens and capitals as if that were Trinity’s last name.

  The young man with fast fingers was Boyd Osterlot, general ledger accountant. Whatever the general ledger was. Trinity had some things to learn.

  “He doesn’t work for you,” Inga said as Boyd drooled, his gaze fixed on Inga’s upper body curves.

  In the end, Trinity met three Accounts Payable clerks (including the girl in blue jeans), two general ledger accountants, one cost accountant, and a partridge in a pear tree. Okay, sorry, but she couldn’t keep the names straight, or the titles or the jobs. She’d thought she’d have an office-not because she was Daddy’s little girl, but because she was a supervisor—yet her twelve-by-twelve cubicle was three cubes down from Inga’s ten-by-ten. At least Trinity had four extra square feet, but that was about all.

  Trinity had never felt so out of her depth in her whole life. Especially with big, blonde, knock-’em-dead gorgeous Inga Rice standing three inches taller that she did.

  TRINITY gave herself a pep talk all the way home. She’d left on the dot of five. Her head was about to explode like those of the little aliens in Mars Attacks!

  “I can do this.”

  Except that Inga hated her.

  “I can make her my friend.”

  Except that Inga had wanted Trinity’s job. Had believed she deserved the job.

  Trinity was nice, she was personable, she went out of her way to make people feel comfortable. Even old ladies liked her! Trinity liked to be liked. She’d never dealt with such animosity, at least not right in her face. Sure, at the country club there was a bit of vindictive backstabbing, but this was . . . different. She couldn’t quite comprehend it, except to liken it to junior high when that nasty gang of girls had picked on Faith mercilessly until Trinity stepped in and gave them what for.

  It was just that Inga was so . . . pretty? No. In all honesty, Trinity was pretty. She wasn’t stuck-up, but she knew she was pretty. Good bone structure from her mother. Her mama had been absolutely gorgeous. Trinity always strove to be perfect like she’d been. Everyone loved her mother.

  A light turned red before she even saw it turn yellow, and Trinity slammed on the brakes. At least no one rear-ended her.

  Back to Inga. It wasn’t jealousy or anything like that. It didn’t bother her that men’s eyes followed Inga’s swaying backside while they were still shaking Trinity’s hand.

  The light turned. She told herself to pay attention, but all she could see was Anthony dabbing the sweat off his head and Boyd all googly-eyed over Inga . . . or rather Inga’s breasts.

  It was Inga’s bosom. That’s what bothered Trinity. Inga had bosoms. Like Harper’s harpy.

  After thirty years of feeling fine with her body, suddenly, Trinity wasn’t sure she was good enough. It was demoralizing. She felt oodles of empathy for Faith, who’d always felt inadequate. Not that Faith was inadequate. She was gorgeous and perfect. Certainly Connor thought so and adored her.