Sighing with contentment, Ginger rolled away from the strong, warm body and onto her other side. As her elbow jammed against something lumpy, she stirred, sensing that something was wrong. It took half a second for her to realize that the something lumpy was part of the mattress, which instantly made her remember where she was.
Her eyes popped open. Jerking her head up, she glanced at the glowing red digital numbers on the bedside clock.
“Holy shit!” Ginger was up in a flash, throwing the thin sheet off her body and scrambling from the bed.
“What is it, babe?”
“The time,” she answered, as she reached for the lamp switch. The bulb blew as she flicked it on. She dashed to the curtains instead and yanked them open, only to realize a moment later that anyone passing the motel window could see her naked form.
“Shit,” she repeated. “This place is hardly better than a roach motel.” She turned on the light near the door, then went back to the bed. As she sat on the edge, she searched the worn carpet for her underwear among the strewn clothes.
She felt Bo’s fingers stroke her butt. “Come on back to bed.”
“Bo!” Finding her underwear, she bent to snag it, then whirled around to glare at him. “It’s minutes to ten.”
“Yeah. You know I love to get my groove on in the morning.”
She shimmied into her panties. “I have to go see the lawyer, remember?”
“Oh. Well, maybe a quickie?”
Ginger rolled her eyes. She and Bo had already made love four times, which was why she was late getting up this morning, even if she was extremely satisfied. “You want this plan to work, don’t you?”
“It is working. That punk’s out of your life.”
Ginger slipped her form-fitting lycra top over her head. She didn’t bother with her bra. Her cosmetically enhanced breasts didn’t need a bra, anyway. Besides, she had a lot more leverage with men when she wasn’t wearing one, and given how late she was, she had a feeling she would need leverage when she met with the lawyer.
Ginger forced her voluptuous body into her low-rider jeans. “Tony may be out of my life, but you’re forgetting the biggest issue. The money. I don’t have it yet.” She enunciated the last five words. “This game ain’t over till it’s over, and I’m supposed to be meeting with my lawyer in—” She groaned as she glanced at the clock. “Three minutes.”
Bo sat up. “All right. Gimme a minute.”
She may have been late, but Ginger couldn’t help pausing to gape at Bo. “Whoa—wait a minute. You’re not coming with me.”
“I figured I’d come along for the ride.”
“No! What would people say if they saw the despondent
wife of Anthony Beals leaving some run-down motel room with another guy?”
It was a rhetorical question, and Bo didn’t respond. Instead he frowned and reached for the remote. He flicked the television on and began whizzing through channels. Ginger headed across the room to the small counter and tiny sink outside the bathroom.
She turned on the faucet and splashed lukewarm water over her face. Towel-drying her face, she headed back toward Bo. She was tossing the towel on the bed when she caught a glimpse of her husband’s face on the television.
“Bo, stop. Go back.”
Bo looked up at her with confusion.
“The TV.” She waved a hand frantically. “Go back.”
Bo began flicking backward, but too quickly.
“Not so fast, Bo.”
He stopped on a commercial for Zack Mulroney, some hack of a lawyer speaking about personal injury lawsuits. “This guy?” Bo asked, a confused expression on his face.
“No, not that. Go back again. There!”
It
was
Anthony. His picture was transposed on the screen behind some blond anchorwoman’s head.
“…last night. Apparently, Anthony Beals had a bone to pick with the infamous sex therapist and author of the popular new book,
The Big O
.”
As a clip from the
Tonight Show
ran, Ginger watched the screen, her smile growing wider.
“Oh, this is good,” she said. She erupted in a fit of laughter at Jay’s line about the
Jerry Springer
show. “This is
perfect
.”
“With this latest fiasco, people can’t help but speculate if Anthony Beals will be joining the ranks of other Athletes Behaving Badly.”
The camera moved to a male newscaster, and he started talking about a high-speed chase on Interstate 5.
Ginger jumped onto Bo’s lap and planted kisses all over his face. “Ooh, baby. Do you believe it? I can’t believe it. What a stroke of
luck
! And thank God, I now have a reason for being late. I can say I caught the news and wanted to know what was going on with my husband. How I was distressed by his behavior.”
“Cool. So we can have a quickie?” Bo cupped one of her breasts.
Ginger climbed off Bo’s lap. She ignored the question. “Tony’s proving to the world that he’s an ass. Any judge will have to rule in my favor.”
She snatched up her purse and hustled to the door. Bo called out to her, “Hey, babe. Where’s my kiss?”
“Sorry.” Spinning around, she rushed back to Bo. She gave him a soft kiss on the lips.
“I hate when you run off like this.”
The tenderness in Bo’s voice got to her. She loved this man. They’d spent too much time apart already.
All the more reason to head to her lawyer and get this situation resolved once and for all.
Ginger stroked Bo’s hard abdomen, an abdomen she had first come to appreciate in the backseat of his ’83 Cadillac during her senior year in high school. They had been through so much together.
“I hate running out on you, too. But I’m doing this for us. The sooner this is all over, the sooner we can get together again.”
“Am I still your boo?” Bo asked.
“You’ll always be my boo.” She gave him another kiss, a deeper one.
“When will I see you?” he asked as they pulled apart.
“When it’s safe.”
“Tonight?” His voice held a hopeful note.
“I don’t know. I’ll call you as soon as I can. I at least have to make an appearance at the house so those nosy neighbors don’t get suspicious.”
“’Kay, babe.” But Bo didn’t sound all right.
“Don’t worry, Boo. It’ll all be fine. More than fine. Just remember why we started this. Keep your eyes on the prize.”
Bo swatted her ass as she got off his lap. A tingling sensation spread through her. You’d think with the amount of times they’d had sex over the years, she wouldn’t feel any sparks when he touched her. But she did. She always did. Which was why, even though she had been with other guys, she knew that Bo Baxter would always be the One.
He had stood by her through more than one moneymaking scheme, including the big disaster, which had led to her marrying Anthony Beals. Meeting Anthony Beals had been a stroke of luck; marrying him, an act of pure genius. Bo hadn’t been happy about it, but she had convinced him that Anthony was their meal ticket.
“I love you,” Bo said.
“I love you, too,” Ginger replied. Then she slipped out the hotel door and closed it behind her.
Sliding on her sunglasses, she glanced in all directions to make sure no one was around before heading toward her late model Mercedes. She was so happy, she almost wanted to scream out loud. Lord, but Tony was an idiot. She couldn’t have picked a better target. By the end of the day, she would be well on her way to ensuring that she and Bo would never have to go back to the ghetto. From here on in it would be Easy Street. And she damn well deserved it.
The only cloud in her silver lining was that she’d have to pay off that slimy loan shark, Pavel.
She told herself not to think about that as she opened her car door. Thinking about Pavel only made her remember the one time she had strayed from Bo, and how things had gone so horribly wrong.
But how could she not think about it? Freddie Monahue was the reason for the current mess she was in. He had promised her happily-ever-after with tons of dollar signs. But the man had been a sweet-talking con artist, and she was still paying the price for her stupidity.
Ginger sighed as she started her Mercedes, thinking of how gullible she had been. Freddie had convinced her she would become a multimillionaire with an investment in a dot-com company. It had seemed too good to be true, and wouldn’t you know it—it was?
As she started out of the parking lot, she reminded herself that it would all be okay now. She was about to make things right again. She had to—her very life depended on it.
Because she and Bo owed Pavel half a million dollars, and he wanted his money in the worst possible way. She’d kept him at bay with sex over the past year, but not even that was working anymore. He was getting impatient, which was not a good thing.
Thank God this would all be over soon.
Ginger rubbed her eyes with the heel of her hand as she drove, hoping to make them good and red. She needed to look like a basket case when she got to her lawyer’s office. She was the distraught wife, distraught over her husband’s infidelity, and she simply wanted to move on. If there was any talk of reconciliation, she’d bawl her head off—whatever it took to be convincing in her grief.
One way or another, she would make this work for her. She would get her divorce from Anthony on the grounds of adultery. And with that declaration would come five million smackeroos.
The ticket to solving all the problems in her life.
“I slept with him.” Liz Stewart—blond, big-busted, and beautiful—spoke with unmistakable remorse. She was Hollywood’s newest obsession, a sexy “girl next door” type who was fast making a huge name for herself, practically overnight.
“And how do you feel about that?” Lecia asked.
“I feel awful.” She covered her face in shame. “Absolutely awful. I mean, I
knew
he was married, and
I’m
married. I told myself to ignore his flirtation. ‘Whatever you do, don’t sleep with him,’ I told myself. But suddenly I was in his trailer going over the script, and the next thing I know, I was undoing his pants….”
Lecia didn’t speak. She observed Liz, trying to read her true emotions.
Liz sniffled. “Now he won’t even talk to me. The whole cast is looking at me suspiciously. I’m sure they know, and they think I’m a dirty slut who seduced a world-famous director. Before I know it, rumors will be flying that I slept my way to the top. Which is absolutely
not
true. Oh, God. What have I done?”
Liz seemed truly remorseful. But then, she always did. In the two months that Lecia had been seeing her, Liz had had seven affairs.
“So you’re concerned about your role on this film?” Lecia asked. “Your reputation.”
“No,” she answered quickly. Then, “Well, yes, but that’s not the most important thing. The worst part is that I’ve betrayed my husband once again. And every time I cheat on Rod, I feel like I lose a part of myself.”
“The last time you were here, we talked about the triggers for this behavior,” Lecia said calmly. As a therapist, it was her job to remain impartial, no matter what her patients told her. “You said you were going to work on recognizing the triggers so you could avoid behavior you considered unhealthy.”
“I know. And I shouldn’t have gone back to Hunter’s trailer when he said he wanted to go over my lines, because there was something about the way he said it. I
knew
it was trouble. But I went anyway. I needed…”
“What?” Lecia asked when Liz paused. “What did you need?”
“The thrill, I guess. This stupid quest of mine to achieve orgasm is always getting me into trouble.”
Lecia jotted down Liz’s comment. “And did you achieve orgasm?”
“Man, did I ever,” Liz replied, her voice brimming with what sounded like pride. Then it cracked. “But then I felt like a dirty whore. Which I’m not. I’m just a woman with some problems, you know? Everyone’s got problems.”
“Was this time any different than the other times? Once you went home, I mean?” Liz had always been intimate with her husband after having an affair.
“No. When I went home, I told Rod that I’d had another episode. We took a shower together, and then we had sex.”
Lecia didn’t know whether Rod was a rare, supportive husband or a spineless fool. Liz had admittedly cheated on him at least ten times in their fourteen-month marriage.
“And?”
“And I couldn’t come with him.” She started to softly sob. “I love my husband. Why is this happening to me?”
“One of the things I’ve noticed, Liz, is that you almost use your affairs as foreplay. You like the excitement of being with someone new, perhaps even the risk factor is a turn on. But you always go home and make love to your husband.”
“Yes.”
“Do you want your marriage to work?”
“Of course I do. I can’t stand hurting my husband this way.”
“The first step in changing negative behavior is to acknowledge that behavior.”
“I know. That’s why I’m here.”
“Obviously, sex outside of your marriage is not good behavior for many reasons, not the least of which is the risk factor of picking up diseases. But each time you have sex with another man, you’re betraying the intimacy of your own marriage. Now, if this is some kind of kinky sex game you and your husband play, that’s one thing.”
“It isn’t.”
“What is it that you want?”
“Hot, mind-blowing sex with my husband.”
“And why do you think you’re not having that? Is your husband willing?”
“Oh, yes.”
“And you’re willing?”
“I
want
to be willing.”
“Why do you say that? That you
want
to be willing?”
“I guess because I only seem to be turned on after I’ve cheated on him.”
Lecia paused, made some more notes. “Some couples get into a pattern with their lovemaking, a routine so to speak. This can be a big turn off, because there’s no spontaneity. But it’s also a problem that can be easily resolved. Have you explored toys with Rod, different settings for lovemaking?”
“With my lovers, yes.”
“Why not your husband?”
“I don’t know.” Liz looked away. “Rod did suggest trying sex toys, but once he did, it turned me off. I don’t know why. When I suggested using sex toys to my lovers, I was always very turned on.”
“
You
suggested them?”
“Always. With my lovers, I call the shots. I don’t know…it’s like I’m playing out a part in a movie, the role of a temptress. I feel…I feel powerful.”
Bingo. So this
was
about control. Lecia had wondered as much, based on everything the woman had told her during their previous sessions.
But control was only the surface of the problem. Beneath it, Lecia was certain there were myriad issues dealing with sexual abuse. Liz had admitted to a scandalous number of sex partners during college, and the kind of dangerous behavior sexual abuse survivors were famous for. Once, Liz had left a party with three strange men and ended up in a hotel room having sex with all of them. According to her, it had been the quest for the mighty orgasm. Lecia knew otherwise.
But if Liz had been abused, she had either repressed the memories or deliberately not told her about them.
“Liz, I think we’re really beginning to scratch the surface here. You’re seeing me for a sex addiction, but the problem in all likelihood has nothing to do with sex. You need to find the reason behind the addiction.” Lecia paused. “There’s a new therapy I’d like to try, if you’re willing.”
“Of course.”
“It’s called EMDR—Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. It’s a process that helps clarify what you may be thinking, feeling. But it is a slow process. In other words, there’s no quick fix. But if you’re serious about changing your behavior, you need to get to the bottom of what’s behind it, and I think this can help.”
“I understand.”
Lecia would say nothing of her suspicions to Liz. If the woman had been sexually abused, she would have to discover that on her own, through treatment. There were stories of patients uncovering repressed memories through the guidance of therapists, only to realize later those memories had practically been implanted. Families had been torn apart by such painful accusations.
Lecia concentrated on what Liz was cognizant of. “In the meantime, you need to encourage open discussion with your husband about how your behavior has hurt him. This may serve as a sort of wake-up call for you. I’m hesitant to suggest couples counseling yet, because you need to work on yourself first.”
Liz dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. “Okay.”
Lecia glanced at the clock. She was a couple minutes over her time. She rose. “I’ll see you next week, Liz. Same time.”
“Thank you, Dr. Calhoun.” She stood as well. “By the way, I saw you on the
Tonight Show.
I was like, you go girl.”
“Thanks.”
Lecia sensed that Liz wanted to say more, but she didn’t. And Lecia was glad. She had spent half the night trying to put Anthony Beals out of her mind, and hadn’t succeeded. She didn’t need anyone else reminding her of him and what had been an incredibly embarrassing episode.
“Next week,” Lecia said.
“Yes, next week.”
Alexander Brody eyed Ginger with an uncompromising gaze. “Maybe you didn’t hear me correctly. I said a
million
dollars.”
Ginger met the look with one that was equally unwavering. “With all due respect, I heard you the first time. And I’m more than a bit confused. Why do you think I’d want to settle for a million?”
The lawyer exhaled his frustration. “Quite frankly, I think a million is a great deal.”
“For my husband, yes, because
five
is what we agreed upon,” Ginger pointed out. “It’s written in black and white in a contract that’s binding. If he cheats, I get five million dollars. He more than cheated on me. He humiliated me with some lowlife prostitute.”
“The allegations of infidelity are unsubstantiated,” the lawyer pointed out.
“He did it.”
“No one can be sure.” Brody shrugged. “Who knows—maybe things did happen as your husband said. Maybe he didn’t know that woman was a prostitute.”
Ginger snorted her contempt. “He knew. And he was willing to pay for sex because he’s a pig. Who knows how many other women he’s been with?”
“Accusations are one thing. But it’s my job—the court’s
job—to deal with fact. And without any proof of infidelity, your prenuptial agreement can’t be enforced.”
“But—”
“In light of that, I think the offer of one million dollars is very generous. You were only married for five months.”
Ginger summoned her tears, hoping they would do the trick. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she sobbed. “That he hasn’t ripped my heart to shreds?”
The lawyer was unimpressed by her display of melodrama. “It means that you should consider yourself lucky. A million dollars will go a long way to helping you start your new life.”
“It’s not enough,” she hissed through clenched teeth.
“Enough for what?”
Shit. She knew she shouldn’t have spoken that aloud. But whose side was this lawyer on, anyway? What kind of high-powered lawyer to the stars was he? She snatched a tissue from the jerk’s desk and dabbed at her eyes before speaking. “Enough for…for my emotional pain and suffering.”
“It’ll buy you a good shrink.”
Ginger sucked in a shocked breath.
“Sorry.” Brody held up a hand. “That was out of line. I’ve made my position clear. I think you should take the offer.”
“It’s not what we agreed upon.”
“When you told me your husband had been unfaithful, I thought you had proof. That’s why—”
“A judge may believe me.”
“Sure. That’s possible, however unlikely. Even still, it could take several months before it’s decided in court.”
Ginger clutched her Louis Vuitton Murakami handbag. Certainly this wouldn’t be the last one she would ever buy. “But I…I’ve already become accustomed to a certain lifestyle. How can he get away with such a small offer?”
The lawyer sighed wearily. “Perhaps you want to reconsider your petition for divorce. After all, your husband seems willing to work things out.”
“No. That’s out of the question.” It wasn’t part of the plan. She needed a divorce from Anthony as soon as possible. “I, uh—I’ll never be able to trust him again.” She sniffled.
“Fine.” Brody’s smile was as fake as they came. “Shall I call your husband’s lawyer and tell him we have a deal?”
What was wrong with this man? Was he deaf
and
unambitious? “Mr. Brody, I’ve already made myself clear. I hired you to make sure that I get what was promised to me in the prenuptial.”
He pushed his chair back and stood. “Then I’m sorry, Mrs. Beals. I cannot in good faith continue to handle your case.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“No, I’m not.”
Ginger got to her feet. “B-But—what do you mean?”
“We have nothing else to discuss.”
“You’re—You can’t do this. You can’t just drop me. You work for me.”
“With all due respect, Mrs. Beals, I quit. If you refuse to accept my advice, there’s nothing more I can do. I won’t waste your time or mine fighting for something that will never be. Another lawyer might, but I won’t.”
“I don’t believe this.” She needed Alexander Brody. He was one of the best divorce lawyers in Los Angeles.
As Brody rounded the desk he glanced at the ornate wall clock in a less than subtle hint that her time was up. “I’m more than happy to continue on as your attorney if you’re willing to accept the deal your husband’s lawyer has presented.”
“I won’t be bullied into selling myself short.”
“Then I wish you luck. And good day.”