Take Me

The line was silent for several long moments. “Not exactly,” he finally said.

Her suspicions about Travis’s impromptu visit grew. “Were you even at my show?”

Luke cleared his throat. “No. I got called into the ER. It was really bad timing on my part, and I wish I had it to do over.”

Janica pieced two and two together and unfortunately it was exactly what she had already deduced.

“You sent Travis in your place, didn’t you?”

Luke sighed. “I’m afraid so.”

“How could you?” she exploded, forgetting for the moment that she lusted after Luke. It was one thing for Travis to treat her sister like she wasn’t good enough for him—at least you knew a self-important snake when you saw him slithering around—but it was worlds worse for a nice guy like Luke to turn on the person she loved most in the world.

“How could you have done something so… so awful? You of all people know how he ignores her. He acts like she doesn’t even matter.” Luke was silent as she fumed, which pissed Janica off more. “Don’t you have anything to say for yourself?”

He let out a long breath. “I blew it. Trust me, I’ve been beating myself up for it ever since.”

Janica hmmphed. That was more like it. He should feel bad, she thought. Luke’s thoughtlessness had caused Lily no end of problems. In the back of Janica’s mind, it occurred to her that maybe she had been the start of Lily’s problems: After all, if she hadn’t forced Lily to be in the fashion show, then Travis wouldn’t have come in Luke’s place.

No, she thought, I won’t blame myself. Why should I when it’s clearly Luke’s fault? Forcing any traces of guilt from her mind, she worked to get the rest of the facts straight. “So Lily went home with Travis?”

“Janica,” he said, not bothering to hide his growing impatience, “maybe you should be asking Lily these questions.”

Janica snorted. “Yeah right. Like she’d tell me anything. She would never talk to me about her sex life in a million years. She still thinks I’m twelve or something.” Just like you do, she almost said before she caught herself. Pausing to think things through, Janica said, “So she went home with Travis. But there’s no way they, you know…” She blushed furiously in the privacy of her design studio, glad that Luke couldn’t see how embarrassed she was. “So why is he taking her to Italy?” she added, speaking more to herself than to Luke.

“He’s what?”

“He just came by to pick up a complete wardrobe for her for their trip. For tomorrow.”

Fury bursting from every word, Luke said, “Janica, if you would excuse me, I need to go have a word with my brother to make sure that he treats Lily with the respect she deserves.”

The line went dead, and Janica hung up the phone, confused, but for the first time, hopeful that her sister might actually be living life instead of hiding behind a wall of responsibility and fear. There were so many times that Janica had wanted to tell Lily to go out and get a life. To dress up and get her hair cut in a sassy new style. To stay out all night with a totally inappropriate guy. To look in the mirror and actually see how beautiful she really was. But Janica knew Lily would never do any of those things.

For some crazy reason, Janica mused, Lily thought that she wasn’t a stunning woman because she wasn’t stick-thin. Janica had watched Lily suffer through one diet after another until she wanted to scream with it.

But then again, Janica marveled at how Lily was, all of a sudden, getting all the guys. Not that Travis was any kind of super prize, of course, he was way too much like a typical macho guy for her.

But Luke, on the other hand, had definite possibilities. Big, throbbing possibilities. Smiling again as she got to work on her latest men’s suit design, Janica couldn’t help but envision how Luke’s broad shoulders and trim waist would look in her clothes.

Or better yet, without them.

Lily stood in the middle of the huge, busy warehouse and ran her hands over the beautiful imported upholstery fabrics, feeling as if she were a fairly-tale princess in a perfect dream. How else could she possibly be standing amidst all of this multicolored, richly textured beauty, able, for the first time, to let her imagination roam freely?

After the most pleasant five minutes she had ever spent with Albert All in Barker’s that morning, where she picked up the sweater she had forgotten and got to watch him sputtering and spitting all over himself at her resignation, even though she hadn’t had the nerve to tell him exactly what she thought of him, she hopped in her car and headed straight for the San Francisco Design Center.

When she had first graduated from design school she loved to walk through the cluttered building, letting all of the beautiful furnishings fill her soul to the brim. But then, when she finally accepted that she didn’t have the guts to start her own design firm, not with so many other talented, driven designers out there all vying for the same jobs, she stopped coming to her favorite place. All it did was make her feel even more like a loser. Especially when she saw somebody from her graduating class walking around with a cell phone making purchases for a client. She knew she had to accept that she worked at a subpar furniture store, selling pressboard armoires and faux-leather couches. Hundred-thousand-dollar rugs and cut-crystal chandeliers had no place in her world.

Today, she almost felt like she belonged in the showroom, and it was wonderful. Lily felt freer than she had since she was a child, safe in her mother’s arms, before her parents had died in the car crash on Highway One. Overnight, Lily had become a mother to Janica, giving all of herself up to make sure that her baby sister’s life was as good as it could possibly be under the circumstances. Grandma Ellen had done the best she could with them, but Lily knew she was the only one who could even come close to loving, supporting, and taking care of Janica the way their mother and father had. Lily didn’t regret one single moment with Janica. She wouldn’t take back any sacrifices in the name of her sister’s happiness.

Lily was the sensible grounded one, happy to let Janica fly free into the world.

But, somehow, amazingly, Travis had given Lily the gift of flying free herself.

Not that she trusted him, though. Not one bit. He had clearly brought her out to the pool to seduce her, and although she definitely didn’t mind his incredible lovemaking—oh, who was she kidding, there was no love about it, it was sex, pure and simple—she minded the fact that Travis thought all he had to do was crook his finger in her direction, and she’d come running.