The Virgin's Revenge (16 page)

Cole clamped his teeth so hard they clicked. “I won’t be the only one paying it.”

Locke nodded once, then went back to the sanding, acting for all the world as if there was nothing left to say.

Cole stood for a second, eyes closed, then he turned back down the driveway to his bike.

Maybe there wasn’t.

“Cole actually thought you handcuffed yourself to the bed on
accident
?” Susie’s peal of laughter almost got Amanda snorting into her glass of white wine. After their “date”, which led to yet another soft, innocent kiss at her front door before he left again on Mellon, Amanda officially had no idea what the hell was going on with her plot of debauchery. She hadn’t figured out the pensive look in Cole’s eyes whenever he looked at her since they arrived at the garage either, but she couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Part of her, that stupid, optimistic part, glowed from the warmth of it. Hoped that elusive something meant he was finally seeing what they could be together. But the rest of her pushed that part to the back and hopefully into silence. Only inflated expectations and heartbreak lay there.

He’s never going to feel about you the way you feel about him. Get it through your head already.

She shrugged as she sipped. “If not, he pretended he did.”

“I’m not sure if you should feel pleased with your progress or insulted that anyone thinks you’re that dumb.” Susie wrinkled her nose as she laid her head on her upraised hand, her elbow settled on the round arm of Amanda’s couch. She’d come over right after closing the shop, along with her long-awaited shipment for them to celebrate.

“I’m not even sure I can call it progress. He took me to a garage on our date.”

“At least it was unexpected. And sweet. A little weird, maybe, but definitely thoughtful. My last date the guy didn’t want to leave the free peanuts at the bar.
His
idea of thoughtful was to ask the bartender to refill the maraschino cherries in the condiment bin.”

“Why do you go out with these guys?” It was Susie’s only unfavorable trait, in Amanda’s opinion. She always seemed to pick guys she could either walk all over or who were so lame there was no way in hell she’d possibly spend an entire evening with them. “You have the absolute worst taste I’ve ever seen.”

Susie’s expression turned grim. “You have no idea.”

Amanda eyed her silently for a second, but the darkness faded from Susie’s expression almost as quickly as it came, and she knew her friend wouldn’t explain it. She never did when she had that look on her face.

“Well, it’s pretty clear that Cole is up to more than I first thought. Getting me lessons from Burke isn’t going to endear him to Locke. In fact, I think it goes completely counter to what Locke wanted him to do.” Specifically, coddle and maneuver her into marriage while protecting her from anything sharper than an electron.

Susie looked over, for once looking genuinely interested in this crazy game Amanda was playing instead of disapproving. “That’s intriguing. You thinking we have us a rogue agent?”

Normally, she’d say yes. Cole had thought up some out-there strategies in his time, but she rejected the possibility. “Not likely. Locke scares the shit out of him.”

“Honey, Locke scares the shit out of everyone.”

Amanda rolled her eyes at Susie’s grin. You’d think the woman liked that about him. “If that were true, you wouldn’t get into so many arguments with him.”

“Unlike Cole, I’m a girl. Locke would bash his own head in before he hit a woman. A fact that probably saved your skinny ass more times than it should have.”

Amanda shrugged, but only because she couldn’t really say. She’d never done much worthy of being bent over anyone’s knee as punishment. Not compared to the boys, anyway.

“Part of me wonders if Cole might have overheard us at Shaky Jake’s.” She toyed with the rim of her wine glass, not really interested in drinking more. The alcohol just made her pensive. In her current predicament, that led her to going in pointless mental circles.

“What makes you think that?”

“I don’t know, instinct. Self-preservation vibes.”

“Your well-honed spidey sense?” Susie interjected with a grin.

Amanda laughed despite herself. “You mock, but it wouldn’t be the first time I was right to be paranoid.”

“It’s easier for you to believe that the guy you’ve deemed worthy of your undying love and virginal sacrifice is out to get you than that he might genuinely be interested in you?”

“In a nutshell? Yes.”

“You’re such a psycho. Cole’s a nice guy. He likes you. You like him. You’re making too much of this.” Susie’s buzz was showing, her head lying on her hand. She looked sleepy but content again. A full day’s work, capped by another part of her dream finally coming true, was nothing to be upset about. Amanda kind of envied her that. Among other things.

Susie’s confidence was an unshakable rock, something that had drawn Amanda to her the first day the Suite Shoppe opened. Susie had been thrilled to find another woman so close to her own near six-foot height, but that was where their similarities ended. In her, Amanda had seen all the things she’d wanted to be and had never become. Independent, irreverent, capable. Susie had come to Rancho del Cielo to open her store and had plans to expand that she’d been working through like a general’s war campaign. First the shop, then an online business and with the catalog they’d shot, she was finally moving into getting her own line of lingerie available in stores beyond her own. The successes had been small and painstaking, but they were happening. Amanda thirsted for some successes of her own. Was that so terrible?

All right, so she didn’t have the courage to leave everything she knew and start over somewhere she’d found on a map like Susie had. She wasn’t sure she wanted that much courage, but Susie had inspired her to look for ways to have what she wanted, and she had to keep that goal in mind.

If only that goal wasn’t getting screwed over by an opponent who was playing dirty by acting honorable. Cole Engstrom was a lot of things—sexy, sneaky, brilliant, nutty, oblivious and determined being only a few of them—but one thing she’d never call him was
nice
.

“I mean,” Susie started again, as if she hadn’t been practically asleep for the last three minutes. “So what if your brother set you up? Lots of girls meet their future husbands thanks to introductions from their brothers.”

“Introductions, sure,” Amanda said darkly, that scowl she hated crawling all over her face. “Not too many girls have a brother blackmailing a guy to marry her.”

Susie’s pause this time didn’t seem sleepy at all. Her eyes had narrowed to intensely alert slits. “Excuse me?”

Amanda shrugged. “That’s what I overheard. Cole said Locke forced him into this.
This
being
me
. Locke wants Cole to marry me and keep me safe since everyone on earth knows I’m incapable of doing much more than converting oxygen into carbon dioxide.”

“When are you going to stop letting the way your brother treats you color the way you see yourself?” Susie demanded suddenly, eyes flashing and tone fierce. “No one decides what you can or can’t do but you. Who you are and what you’re capable of accomplishing is up to you.”

Amanda stared at her friend, surprise setting her back in her seat.

“You think I was born this way?” Susie demanded. “Just popped out thinking to myself, when I grow up, I’m going to open my own store and everyone is going to cheer in the streets while I do it? That I didn’t have to fight past people who said I couldn’t do anything? That I didn’t have what it took to be successful? Of course I did!”

“I know, but—”

“But what?”

“But you’re…you.” Amanda knew she sounded lame, especially in the face of Susie’s growing fire. “I’m
me
.”
Me, who has never done anything.
Never had the confidence to think she could get much accomplished. Susie, on the other hand, could probably be dropped in the ocean and still come out of it with a net full of fish and a pissed-off grumble as she stomped onto dry land.

“So? Is there something wrong with you I’m not aware of? Even if there was, it’s not like people with difficulties are incapable of going after what they want.”

“I know that.” She did. The trouble was…she didn’t know
what
she wanted. Until this thing with Cole and Locke, she’d never had the nerve to reach out for anything at all. Could never decide one way or another what path she wanted to take, forever undecided and trapped by it. “It’s not just Locke,” she admitted softly. “It was never that he told me I couldn’t do something. I can’t have you thinking he held me back on purpose.”

“He didn’t help, though,” Susie grumbled.

No, he didn’t. When she’d stopped making choices, Locke had done what he always did. He picked up the slack. Yes, he steered her into the most reasonable options—college within driving distance, insisting she stay within the family home to cut costs—but taking care of everything until she felt suffocated.

Or was it jealousy that fed her resentment?

She blinked, shocked, only at herself this time. Was that what bothered her so much? Locke’s decisiveness digging like a piece of glass under her skin, a constant reminder that she had none?

I’ve got no courage,
she thought, less in answer to Susie’s question and more to her own. If she had it, she’d have moved out years ago. Decided what she wanted to do with her life. Told Cole how she really felt about him. She rubbed the sore space between her brows with the back of her hand.

Susie sighed, then dropped to her haunches in front of Amanda. “Look at this.” She held up one of the glossy lingerie catalogs she’d brought over to show Amanda. “
You
did this. You took a risk for me, helped me come up with the entire layout, design and direction. I could never have put this together without you, and you did it without a second thought. You’re talented and generous to everyone but yourself. You’re wicked smart, and you could be anything you set your mind to. Why can’t you believe in yourself enough to try something for
you
?”

Amanda took the small catalog and stared down at it. The front cover was black, with a woman’s nearly bare body draped across a chaise lounge, her golden skin almost glowing as it emerged from the shadow’s embrace. Her pale hair was pulled into a loose knot on the top of her head, tendrils trailing from her nape. A long string of pearls traced the line of her spine while her arms bent to cup her own breasts beyond the camera’s view. At her hip, an elaborate design of seed pearls and ribbon draped the curves of her ass, revealing everything and nothing at all.

There was no way to see her face, but Amanda remembered taking that picture well. She’d been fantasizing at the time, her face pressed to the top of the chaise, hot and flushed, as she pretended that Cole was the one taking her picture instead of Susie. Her body looked incredible, far better than it had in the proof. She stared at it, almost a little mesmerized.

She could almost see the Amanda she wanted to be in that picture. It was an illusion, she knew, but a tangible one. A reminder of what could be. A woman not crippled by indecision or confusion. That picture was of a woman who knew what—and who—she wanted.

Susie went back to the couch. “You look so good on that thing, we should probably distribute it somewhere there’ll be a ton of men hanging out.”

Amanda’s head swiveled to face her friend. “Uhhhh…aren’t we marketing to women?”

Susie’s smirk did not help. “You’re new, aren’t you?”

“The sarcasm isn’t necessary, you know.”

“Apparently, it is. Women don’t mind coming into the shop, but men are more likely to use the website or the order form to get what they want.”

A queasy feeling settled in the bottom of Amanda’s gut. Ohhhh, this was a bad idea. Really bad. She’d thought the catalog would only be available in the store to established customers, most of whom were women. Or sent to possible vendors who’d never meet her. Not bandied around town where her brothers could possibly be embarrassed by it.

“Oh, come on. I’m kidding. Like I really want my ass plastered all over town. But you have to admit, getting Cole to see this thing would blow his mind—” Susie’s mouth curled with a touch of feminine evil, “—I guarantee you he’d at least be walking funny after finding it. It’d be all he could think about. And a man who can’t stop thinking about you naked is a man who’ll stop at nothing to get you that way. At the very least, he’s going to be a lot easier to trip into your bed.”

Susie was teasing, but the sentiment didn’t settle well on top of the idea of her brothers seeing her half naked. “How about I just club him over the head with a crowbar? Keep it
really
romantic.”

“I’m not sure that would work,” Susie replied thoughtfully. “I’m pretty sure guys have to actually be somewhat conscious to get it up.”

Amanda glared but Susie remained unruffled. She simply crossed her arms defiantly. “You’re the one who wanted to torment the men in your life. I can’t have a little imaginary fun with the idea?”

“Yeah, I know.” And she still did want to torture them at least a little bit. “I wish there was a way to make them all understand without resorting to plots that make me feel like I’m in a dirty
I Love Lucy
episode.”

Susie’s dark eyes lit up. “Changing your mind about the revenge plan?”

“No.”
Yes.

“Because you can, you know. You can completely call this whole thing off and approach Cole like a regular woman would.” Susie folded her hands behind her head and leaned back into the couch, happy with herself and probably thinking she’d effectively scared Amanda straight—mainly that she didn’t really have the balls to pull out every stop for what she wanted.

For a second, it worked.

Until Susie said those wrong three words.

A
regular
woman.

Now didn’t that phrase just bite the wrong nerve? She
was
a regular woman, something even her best friend seemed to have forgotten. A regular woman with regular wants and needs. A regular woman who just didn’t have the option of going after the guy she wanted in that
regular
way because all the other women who’d done that had gotten shot down the second he thought they might get too close to him. That they might want the man as well as the sex.