Chapter 2
Wednesday night, Phillip lifted his glass of whiskey up to admire the light that shined through it. His friends were reveling in the night, but all he wanted to do was give Marie a call to see how…
He stopped, and froze…stunned when he realized where his mind was going. He wanted to call his assistant to find out if she had recovered from the stressful day? Why wasn’t his mind thinking about Lillian? In fact, his fiancée had come to his office yesterday, needing to talk to him, but they hadn’t even gotten around to whatever she needed to discuss with him. And ever since that moment when he’d walked out of his office, he hadn’t thought about her at all. Not once.
And yet, Marie…he thought about her constantly. They talked at night, discussing his schedule for the next day. He called her in the morning, teasing her during his morning run because he knew he’d woken her up. He liked doing that. He loved thinking about her long lashes fluttering against her white skin and...
Hell! He was not in love with his assistant! He acknowledged that he wasn’t in love with Lillian either, but he and his fiancée would make a good pair. Their upcoming marriage was solid, based on mutual interests and families that had known each other for generations. He and Lillian shared a history together. They’d attended each other’s high school graduations…although separate years since he was older than she was. He’d even attended her college graduation celebration several years ago. They had the same social circles, knew the same people, enjoyed the same activities…on paper, they were a perfect match. Which is why they were getting married.
So…why was he thinking about Marie? His assistant would legitimately kick his butt if she knew that he’d suddenly been having sexual fantasies about…
“What’s wrong?” Stephen Markum, one of his groomsmen and college buddies asked, his hand frozen midway to his mouth.
“You okay, Phillip?” Tony chimed in as well, both of them noticing that he’d jerked upright.
Phillip ignored his friends, not sure what was going on. “What the hell?!” Phillip muttered. He’d never fantasized about Marie before! Where had that thought from?
And yet, hadn’t he woken up with a raging hard-on the other morning? And it certainly wasn’t Lillian’s blonde beauty that had invaded his dream. No, he distinctly remembered dark brown hair and…hell! Pink nipples!
Damn, he realized that he had no idea what color Lillian’s nipples were. He couldn’t believe that he hadn’t had sex with his fiancée! In this day and age, waiting until after the wedding to make love was…well, it was antiquated! And yet, neither he nor Lillian seemed to have any urge to rectify that situation.
He suddenly realized that he wasn’t even remotely sexually attracted to his fiancée!
Looking around, his friends were all laughing and joking about something. He had no idea what because he was too immersed in his own shocking realizations to pay attention. How the hell could he be mere days away from his wedding, and only now realizing that he had no sexual feelings for the woman he was about to marry?!
He’d been too wrapped up in work to really pay attention to the wedding plans, which, again, was ridiculous. Until Marie mentioned it about a month ago, he hadn’t even realized his wedding was on his calendar. All of the arrangements had gone through Marie.
How the hell had he gotten to this point in his wedding planning and not realized the primary issue? He didn’t want to marry Lillian. He’d never even questioned marrying her. From the first moment his mother had mentioned the possibility, it had all made sense. Not that he’d ever really thought about getting married before his mother had brought up the subject, but after his agreement, it seemed as if the dating and engagement had created a life of its own. One that he hadn’t been in control of.
Even the engagement ring had been given to Lillian by his mother. It had been his grandmother’s engagement ring, but his mother had taken it to be reset into a more modern setting and then just couriered over to Lillian’s office. He hadn’t even seen it until Lillian had shown up for dinner that evening.
What an ass he’d been! His mother had gotten him engaged! What kind of man allowed something like that to happen? Granted, he’d been incredibly busy lately, preoccupied with several mergers that had added significant value to his hedge fund. But there was no excuse for being more intimately involved in a business merger than he was with his fiancée!
If any of his friends had told him something like that, he would have ridiculed them. Looking around, he realized that his friends were all celebrating his upcoming wedding a whole lot more than he was. Granted, he’d just realized that he was marrying the wrong woman, but…
Woah!
The wrong woman?
Phillip blinked, but he still couldn’t focus on anything around him.
Shouldn’t he say that he shouldn’t be getting married? Why did Marie’s face pop into his mind? Well, actually, at this particular moment, it wasn’t her face that he was thinking about. He was visualizing her full breasts in the soft, cotton sweater she’d worn to the office today. And those points that had…had she been cold this morning during their meeting? He’d thought it had been a bit warm but…her cheeks had been flushed, her lips soft.
A jealous rage unlike anything he’d ever experienced hit him as he realized that Marie had been fantasizing about some guy! His Marie had been…
No, she wasn’t his. Lillian was his woman!
“You okay, old man?” Tony asked, sitting down next to Phillip.
“I’m fine,” he snapped, then tried to relax his shoulders when Tony’s eyebrows lifted in question at the sharp tone.
“You don’t look fine,” he replied, lifting his glass of whiskey to his lips. “You look like someone just gave you a kitten and you have no clue what to do with it.”
Phillip stared at his friend, shocked that Tony was so astute. “What makes you say that?” he asked carefully, Tony was an amazingly perceptive guy. His parents were pretty wealthy too, and had been horrified that their son had decided to join the police force instead of a law firm. They’d argued until they were blue in the face that a police officer was not worthy of their blue blooded heritage. Since Tony held a law degree, and had even passed the bar exam, they constantly urged to him to at least join the FBI. He argued right back that they weren’t in charge of his life and he was going to do what he wanted. He even threatened to give up his trust fund if they didn’t stop bothering him about it.
Tony considered being a homicide detective a bit like putting together pieces of a puzzle, with the added excitement of the danger involved. The three of them, Tony, Stephen, and himself had been friends since college. They’d all been in the same fraternity together and had done a lot of stupid stuff over the years. But he doubted either of his best friends had ever become engaged to the wrong woman.
In this case, Phillip didn’t want Tony to realize that there was a mystery. The man was as tenacious as a pit bull and wouldn’t relent until he’d figured out what was going on.
“Are you even listening to me?” Tony demanded, pouring more amber liquid into Phillip’s glass.
“Of course,” he replied, lying through his teeth.
Tony looked at him as if he didn’t believe him. Smart man. “What did I just say?”
Phillip rolled his eyes, pretending that he was irritated, when in reality, he hadn’t a clue. “You were hounding me about not marrying Lillian because you don’t like her.”
“My comments had absolutely nothing to do with your wedding. And I like Lillian. If you were to pick any random stranger off the street, you wouldn’t find any woman who fit you and your life better than Lillian.”
Phillip turned his head towards his best friend. “Why would you say that?”
Tony lifted his eyebrows again and Phillip’s stomach filled with dread. Tony had sniffed out a problem. Not good!
“She practically grew up in your house, your mother and hers are best friends, and have been for about forty years. She runs the same kind of business you do, although…” he started to say something, but shook his head. “You guys even think alike.”
Stephen snorted, leaning forward to pour more whiskey into his glass. “Yeah, that’s a bit creepy, Phil.
“I was thinking the same thing,” Phillip replied quickly and leaned back, trying to feign indifference. “I was just wondering how others perceive us.”
Phillip didn’t even bother to look at Tony, knowing that the man didn’t believe him worth a damn. “Lillian is smart, elegant, and capable of just about any problem someone puts in front of her.”
“As long as it has nothing to do with math,” Phillip muttered into his glass with an amused smirk.
Both men stared at Phillip, stunned by what he’d just said. The guys didn’t know Lillian as well and Tony was the first to express the need for clarification. “What was that?”
Phillip looked over at Tony. “Lillian hates anything to do with math. I agree with you, she’s fully capable of anything, as long as it doesn’t have to do with math.”
“I can empathize,” Tony stated firmly with a chuckle. “Math sucks.”
“Can’t argue with either of you on that issue,” Stephen said, raising his glass and toasting Tony. “We’ll leave all of the math problems to Phillip.”
Phillip laughed. “Math is just logic. I’m surprised that you guys hate it so much.”
Tony shook his head. “No. The world is not made up of numbers and formulas. It’s about ideas and feelings. Knowing something in your gut and going back to figure out what your gut is telling you.”
Stephen nodded. “I’m with Tony. Intuition has saved my butt from a bullet many times.” He turned to Tony and they shared a look. “The hairs on the back of the neck?”
Tony chuckled. “Wouldn’t be alive today without those warning signs.”
“Glad you appreciate all the effort I put into getting the two of you through calculus,” said Phillip archly as he drained his second glass of whisky.
Several hours later, as Phillip pulled off his clothes that night and slipped between the sheets, it wasn’t Lillian’s smile that popped into his head right before he fell asleep. It was Marie’s and her eyes were telling him that she wanted him just as badly as he wanted her.