Chapter Nine

And suffer she did.

At eight-fifteen, on Wednesday, the meeting was called to order, and Betsy braced for disaster. Fortifying herself with handfuls of Mae Keegan’s cookies and a large slab of her sponge cake, she huddled in a corner of Lorena Lattimer’s living room as she listened to the tenant leadership announce the only item on the agenda—the need to evict a woman and her brood of kids.

The trio sat together holding court at the center of the room. Lorena Lattimer remained the imperious, in-charge diva, and Mae Keegan was still the cheery, bake-lady sidekick. Only Evan Huffnagle seemed to have changed. Or at least Betsy’s view of him had. He no longer reminded her of a funeral attendee. Now he seemed more like the corpse itself, rigor-mortissed up to the gills. Except, Betsy noticed, for his eyes. Occasionally they’d spark when he looked at one of the younger, hotter women in the room—a babe with killer legs and a skirt short enough to show them off to full advantage—meaning there was still life in the old guy after all.

By nine o’clock, the problem had been detailed and discussed and the leadership declared it was time to sign a petition demanding that management take action.

****

Twenty-five minutes later, the meeting was over, and Betsy officially hated herself. She staggered out of Lorena Lattimer’s apartment, thoroughly depressed at how quickly she’d caved. Even the fact that everyone else had done the same didn’t help her downer mood. Then she saw Matt at her front door and some of her depression lifted. He was leaning against the wall, arms folded across his chest, one foot crossed over the other, looking like he was definitely energetic enough to teach a lesson.

When he saw her coming, he pushed away from the wall and smiled in greeting, then stopped smiling and studied her more closely. “Bad meeting?”

“Bad me. I caved.”

“And exactly what does that entail?”

Betsy clamped her mouth shut as several tenants left Mrs. Lattimer’s apartment and walked past on their way to the elevator. Throwing them a friendly, tenant-co-conspirator smile, she watched until they were out of sight, then turned back to Matt, gesturing for him to come closer. “Bend down.”

When he did, she whispered the awful truth in his ear. “I signed a petition asking management to evict a tenant.”

“Does the tenant deserve to be evicted?” he whispered back.

Betsy shrugged, stupidly distracted by how masculine he looked up-close with all that shadowy stubble on his jaw—not at all like smooth-skinned, stubble-less Tyler. “She’s young and was recently widowed. She’s got four kids, all under the age of seven, and so far she hasn’t done anything to stop her little girl from drawing pictures on the walls.”

“Recently widowed and with four kids to take care of, including a budding graffiti artist.” Matt was thoughtful for a minute, then shook his head. “No eviction. Just give the kid a wet sponge and make her clean up after herself.”

Betsy snorted and pushed by him to unlock the door. “Very funny. The kid is only five years old.”

“Hey, five-year-olds can wield a wet sponge as well as anybody else.”

Betsy jammed the key into the lock and turned it hard, trying to ignore him and his idiot suggestion and his damned enticing stubble, but he grasped her shoulders and turned her around, forcing her to face him.

“C’mon, Betsy, open the door and let’s go inside.” He flashed a cajoling, make-nice smile. “You need some diversion…and a good dose of friendly exercise.” Then he paused and gave her a closer look. “Unless you’re really not up to it.”

Was she up to it? She felt so crappy about what she’d just done, that maybe now wasn’t the right time for a lesson. Maybe she should just go to the nearest restaurant, order every dessert on the menu, and try to forget what a coward she was by eating herself into a sugar-induced stupor.

Then Mae Keegan exited Mrs. Lattimer’s apartment and came bouncing by, curls fluttering and arms filled with empty cake plates. Flashing a delighted smile at Betsy, she stopped to talk. “Well, that was a good meeting, wasn’t it?”

If you like gang-banging the neighbors. Biting her tongue, Betsy stifled the urge to really say the words. Instead, she behaved like the nice, accommodating young lady she was and nodded sweetly. “Unbelievable.” Let the woman take it any way she wanted and, of course, the way she wanted to take it was as a paean to public lynching.

“I thought so, too,” Mae gushed. “Almost everyone there with any taste at all was gobbling up the food I brought.” She held up the empty plates. “See, not a single crumb left. A lot of the tenants even asked for my recipes.”

Betsy smiled and nodded. The group had descended like vultures on the goodies.

Squeezing her shoulder, Mae leaned closer, just like two girlfriends dishing dirt. “I noticed you had more than one slice of cake yourself and at least a few handfuls of cookies.” She patted Betsy’s arm as her gaze did a quick survey of the rest of Betsy’s body. “I’ll give you the recipes, too. You look like you enjoy desserts as much as I do.”

Betsy’s smile froze, but Mae didn’t seem to notice. She just chirped a happy goodbye, then turned and bounced her way down the hall while Betsy stared at her substantial hips with a sense of cold foreboding. Okay, that settled it, no pigging out on sugar to ease her conscience. Which meant she’d have to find something non-caloric to pig out on instead.

Grasping Matt’s sleeve, she shoved her front door open. “The diversion and the exercise—I’m definitely up to it.” She pulled him into the apartment.

****

The lesson lasted two hours, and when it was over, Betsy lay in bed beside him, no longer the least bit depressed. But she did ache. Oh Lord, did she ache. Even worse than she’d ached after lesson one. Damn, she felt wonderful.

“How’d I do?” She hunkered down under the sheet he’d covered them with once the session had ended.

He was leaning on his elbow, looking down at her, his face half in shadow in the semi-darkened room. His teeth flashed in a smile. “Blew me away.”

She smiled back at him, somehow feeling inordinately proud. “Really?”

Another flash of teeth. “Totally.”

“Thank you. You were good, too.”

“Really?”

Betsy bit her lip to keep from sighing. “Totally.”

“Thank you. High praise, indeed.”

“You deserve it.” She shifted and winced. “Don’t think I’ll ever be able to walk the same way again.”

“Then don’t. Walk another way.”

She stared at him. His teeth were no longer flashing smiles at her. “What?”

With a sigh, he leaned across her to switch on the bedside table lamp.

Betsy blinked in the sudden glare, then regained her sight and went back to staring at his unsmiling face.

“Before I explain, promise you won’t take it the wrong way.”

“I won’t take it the wrong way.” She said it automatically as her hands clutched at the sheet that covered her.

“Okay,” he mumbled, then cleared his throat.

It was a definite delaying tactic. She continued staring, waiting for him to summon the courage to go on.

“Um, well,” he finally said. “I notice sometimes you walk like you’re apologizing. For what, I don’t know. Don’t walk like that anymore.”

Betsy struggled into a sitting position, pulling the sheet with her to hide the fact that, according to Mae Keegan, she was well on the road to runaway flab. “I walk like I’m apologizing?” she sputtered, getting right in his face so he was forced to ease back toward the edge of the bed. “That’s ridiculous. Are you insane?”

He frowned at her. “You said you wouldn’t take it the wrong way.”

She frowned right back. “I’m not taking it the wrong way. I’m taking it the way you meant it. I walk funny or strange or something.”

He groaned. “That’s not the way I meant it, and I never said funny or strange. And, more important, you weren’t being honest when you said you wouldn’t take it the wrong way.”

She yanked the pillow up behind her and leaned against it, folding her arms across her chest. “Right, okay, I didn’t really mean it.”

“You lied to the teacher?”

“Did not. I had my fingers crossed. When I was a kid, if you said something and had your fingers crossed, it wasn’t a lie.”

Matt rolled his eyes. “Wonderful. I’m in bed with a woman who uses the if-my-fingers-are-crossed-when-I-say-it-it’s-not-a-lie defense.”

She sat up straighter, ready to argue, but he pointed a finger to stop her.

“Now quit being offended and get out of bed. Go on, walk for me and show me I’m wrong.”

Betsy was sorely tempted to tell him where he could stuff his order and his pointing finger, but he’d been good enough to give her his time and his…uh…body, so she tamped down the reaction and just huffed with annoyance. “Is this part of the lesson?”

He nodded and waved his hand at the room. “Better believe it. Go on, walk.”

She shifted in bed and flinched at the delicious soreness in her thighs. “Walk? After what you just did to me, I can barely move,” she groused, even though it took all the effort she had to keep from grinning at the memory of what he’d just done to her. “But if you want me to walk, fine, I’ll walk.”

Yanking the sheet away from him, she wrapped it around herself and rolled off the bed, leaving him completely uncovered. “Okay, you want me not only to walk, but to walk different, right?” She moved away from the bed and found a clear space in the middle of the room. “Well, how’s this, sport?”

Holding the sheet up, bunched clumsily in her hand so she wouldn’t trip over the hem as it dragged on the floor, she swept grandly across the room, feeling sort of silly and highfalutin’ with her head held high, shoulders squared, and feet half-walking, half-gliding. But if that was what the man wanted, damn, she’d give it to him.

“Yes!” Sitting up, he pumped his fist in the air. “Not so fast and a little more hip action, but baby, you’ve just about got it.”

Betsy stopped in mid-glide and stared at him. “I have?”

His smile gave her the answer. “Not bad, Betsy Kincaid. It needs more work, but the general outlines are spot-on. So since you’re doing so well, tell me again what the hell this whole Operation-Sizzle thing is about.”

Betsy shrugged. “I already explained. I don’t sizzle. I’ve never sizzled, not with any of the men I’ve been with. I was born without a sizzle, and I want to develop one. That’s your job, to get me sizzling.”

He stood and came toward her, apparently not the least bit embarrassed by his nakedness. Not that he had anything to be embarrassed about. His body was in prime condition—hard, muscular, and completely coordinated, unlike her body that was too short, too clunky, and definitely softening a little around the edges.

She hugged the sheet tighter against her, prepared to fight him if he tried to remove it. True, he’d already tested her body, front, back, and every which way a body could be tested, but that had been in the forgiving semi-darkness. Now the light was on, and she didn’t do naked in the light when anyone else was around.

“You were nearly sizzling with that walk.” He came close but, mercifully, didn’t try to snatch her sheet away. “And in the tests I gave, you showed remarkable sizzling potential. Best reactions I’ve ever seen.”

She looked up at him, blinked, and swallowed hard as her throat went desert-dry. “You’re a very good teacher. And your tests are, uh, really stimulating.”

“And you’re okay with that?”

Betsy nodded. Okay? Oh God, yes, was she ever okay with it.

“Good, because we still have more to do.”

“Definitely.” She struggled to control her crazy breathing at the prospect of having more to do with him.

“So until the next lesson, you’ll practice what we did today,” he said.

“The stimulating part? You want me to, uh, stimulate myself?”

He grinned. “No, the walk. You walk that way at work tomorrow. Slower, sexier, more hip action.”

Betsy nodded. “Slower, sexier, more hip action.”

He slid his hand under her chin, and she held her breath. Were they going to practice kissing again? But he only tilted her face toward him. Then his hand fell away, leaving her strangely disappointed.

“And hold your head up as if you’re important.”

“Right. Head up, slower walk, sexier, more hip action,” Betsy recited obediently.

Later that night as she curled up alone in bed, she silently repeated his walking instructions. Head up, slower walk, sexier, more hip action. Then her mind veered to more exciting things, and she happily relived all the testing he’d put her through. Hugging her pillow, she finally fell asleep, smiling and thinking about lesson two. Truly a lesson to remember.

****

The next morning, Betsy pushed open the heavy glass doors that led to the office where she worked and strode into the reception area, not only silently reciting Matt’s instructions but following them as well.

Head up. Slower walk, sexier, more hip action.

She felt strange doing it. Silly. Even fraudulent. After all, this wasn’t her. She was sizzle-less Betsy Kincaid, not someone who gave off the confidence of a sexy, unapologetic woman.

“What happened? Have some great sex last night?” Flo, the receptionist, asked as Betsy sashayed past her desk.

The question stopped Betsy cold, and she turned and frowned at the woman. “What makes you say that?”

Flo shrugged, then gave a smirking grin. “The way you’re walking. I don’t know…sort of sexy. I mean, not as, you know, scrunched over and hesitant as you usually do.”

Betsy nodded. Of course she knew. Matt had already pinpointed the problem for her. She was just stunned that other people in the office had seen it, too. And if Flo had noticed, no question about it, so had everyone else. “Not as apologetic, you mean?”

Flo thought about that for a minute, then nodded. “That’s a strange way of putting it, but yeah, I guess so.”

“Thank you, Flo. I appreciate your opinion.”

Flo held out her hand. “Hey, you’re not mad, are you? I meant it as a compliment.”

Betsy smiled at her. “No, I’m glad you told me. Thanks. And thanks for the compliment.”

Turning away from the reception desk, she resumed her new walk, grinning as she passed a couple of copywriters, who stopped their conversation and looked at her. One of them even winked. On a sudden, devilish impulse, Betsy winked back.

Okay, this was good. She rounded a corner and continued her sexy hip swing down the corridor leading to her office. Granted, the winker was old enough to be her dad, maybe even her granddad, judging by his balding pate and ballooning paunch. Still, it was more than she usually elicited from her male coworkers. And that was saying a lot.

Lifting her chin a little higher, the way Matt had wanted her to hold it, she added another small wiggle to the hip action, feeling free, feminine, fabulous and…

She stopped abruptly when she saw Tyler come out of the employee lounge, his arm draped around the shoulders of a new hire, April Something-or-other, a tall brunette with porcelain skin, a knockout figure, and a walk that didn’t have to swing like a pendulum to be sexy. He smiled at the woman, and Betsy shriveled.

All right, forget it being good. It wasn’t. It was really totally dumb. She could never have that girl’s natural grace. Lowering her chin, she let her shoulders droop back to where they usually were…to where they probably belonged…and ducked into her office before Tyler saw her shimmying her ass like an incompetent streetwalker.

“Damn,” she muttered as she dumped her bag on the floor beside her desk and slumped down in her chair.

Self-delusion could be wonderful, but bumping up against cold reality when you were in the midst of deluding yourself was the pits. The only good thing about it was that it let you know the truth, and her truth was that she was a failure and a mess. Picking up the phone, she punched in Matt’s number. And she needed another lesson. Soon.

****

Matt switched off his phone and shoved it back in his pocket, shaking his head in amusement. So Betsy had seen her dumb ex-boyfriend with some foxy coworker and needed an emergency self-confidence upgrade. Okay, that was totally doable. Better than doable. From his perspective, completely enjoyable, and something he could easily do as often as she wanted it.

After all, during yesterday’s lesson, he’d deliberately done all the work for her, and from her reactions, done a damn good job of it, too.

So there, Sam! He thought about his last, completely unenjoyable relationship. Not a serious enough lover, was he? Ha! Maybe not for a woman so intent on snagging marriage and having kids now, now, now, that she couldn’t see past his sperm count or her own ovulation cycle. But for someone like Betsy Kincaid, who wanted sex without strings, he was perfect.

He grinned.

Frankly, so was she—a cuddly, potential dynamo of a sex partner, who’d somehow invaded his dreams last night. And that was really odd because he never saw specific women in his sex-dreams. It was always just a vague, amorphous vision of a woman. Female body parts without the need of an actual female to muddy up the works. Or his life.

He looked around at his new office, listened to the random sounds of his new colleagues, thought about the new, needy lady he’d be with tonight, and decided that at the moment his life was pretty good and he’d been right to ditch St. Paul for a fresh stomping ground

As soon as he found his own digs, he’d even be able to invite Betsy over for a continuation of their lessons. That way, he conveniently got to satisfy all of his basic male needs and in the process help a desperate woman satisfy her needs as well. It was the perfect arrangement. Altruism meets self-interest. Man, you couldn’t beat that combination.

Then he remembered her idiot ex, Tyler, and stopped grinning. Damn, wasn’t it always like that? A wonderful woman chasing after a scumbag guy.

Shaking his head, Matt pulled a new case file from the pile on his desk and went back to work. Not that he cared, of course. The only thing Betsy Kincaid meant to him was a little short-term fun-and-games, and that was all she’d ever mean.