LITMIR.BIZ

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began to pace, a revived, caged energy freshly unleashed. Surely Landon had confided his reasons to Sanjeev for putting her and Caine together. “Why Landon would do something like this to me—to both of us? He knew where we stood with each other. Caine and I are in the worst possible place two people who broke up the way we did can be.”

      Sanjeev’s eyes shifted downward in subtle recognition before refocusing on Dixie. “A place entirely of your own making.”

      Dixie nodded at his more than fair statement. “That’s the absolute truth. You’re right. But he’s pitted us against one another like two children fighting over the last piece of Martha’s peach pie. Why would he want to hurt me like this? He knows—knew—how painful the subject of Caine is for me.”

      Sanjeev smiled as though he were recalling a fond memory. “He’s also the man who stood by you even after enduring Louella Palmer’s public accusation that you had a sexually transmitted disease, lest you forget.”

      Dixie’s fists clenched at her sides. “The clap to be precise.”

      Sanjeev raised his hands and slapped them together, jarring her.

      “Still not funny.”

      “Oh, Dixie. It was almost a lifetime ago. Surely you can see the humor in it by now?”

      “I’m not sure I’ll ever see the humor in Louella Palmer, standing in line behind me at Lucky Judson’s hardware store, randomly clapping while everyone was in on the joke but me.”

      The memory of that still stung as freshly as if it had happened just moments ago. A mix-up in her pre-marital test results, tests both she and Caine had agreed to have administered before their marriage, had resulted in the “teetering-on-senility” Dr. Wade Johnson somehow allowing his onetime receptionist, Louella, get her hands on them. Of course, she’d told anyone who’d listen Dixie had the clap.

      “What is it your countrymen say about payback?”

      “While I see your point, that’s not the point. This phone-sex business isn’t about punishing me for being a mean girl, Sanjeev. Landon loved me when I was horrible, and he loved me after I wasn’t so horrible. Anyway, we’re off track here, friend.”

      He pursed his lips, giving his cheekbones a hollowed look. “I’m not off track. There is no track. Landon didn’t always have a rhyme to his reason. As you well know, he did many things on a whim—or because it simply pleased him, but never without the utmost caution. I don’t know what would please him about seeing you suffer when he did nothing but indulge you almost all of your life, even at your worst, but I have no answers, only my orders to keep you safe, well-fed, and comfortable.”

      “Nothing concerning Caine Donovan is safe,” she muttered.

      Sanjeev acknowledged her words with a nod. “Be that as it may, we’re here in this moment. Now, I have Mona and Lisa to bathe. They’re as unruly as your hair, and I won’t have them laying all over the bed I expressly freshened for you until I’m sure we’re cleared for fleas. You, lovely Dixie,” he said, pointing toward the equally opulent adjoining bathroom, “have an appointment at the guesthouse to meet your fellow employees. Freshening up wouldn’t hurt you either. You’re funeral worn.” He chuckled at his joke, padding out of the room with a wave over his shoulder.

      The silence of the bedroom engulfed Dixie in its subtle hues of silk and throw pillows, leaving her a moment to hear the throb of her panicked heart.

      Meet your fellow employees, rang in her ears with a hauntingly Vincent Price–like quality. Sanjeev said it as though her new job was something as ho-hum as retail sales or file clerking.

      Which brought a thought to mind. What were the women of phone sex like? Did they have office parties or swingers’ parties? Celebrate birthdays with a cake from the local grocery store and attend in pasties and a thong?

      Gossip at the water cooler about what a limp dick Dale in Idaho was for calling them from his mother’s basement, and running up her phone bill just so he could get off to the sound of some imagined sex-starved woman who was just waiting for his dulcet tones to lull them into a pretend orgasm? Did they send each other the BDSM joke-of-the-day emails?

      Oh, Dixie, reckless and impulsive be thy name.

      The jingle of dog collars and heavy breathing startled her from her panic. “You’re overthinking this, Dixie!” Sanjeev called out with a pant as he flew past her bedroom with Mona and Lisa dragging him down the long hallway.

      Sure. She, Dixie Davis, was overthinking. Not something often credited to her, but on this rare occasion, certainly applicable. Reaching for her purse, she made her sulky way to the bathroom, paying little attention to her lavish surroundings.

      She didn’t notice anything but her purse vibrating the sound of a text message when she threw it on the countertop just under the gorgeous Venetian mirror she didn’t want to look into.

      The only person who’d ever texted her was Landon....

      Dixie took a hesitant step forward, the tile beneath her feet no longer soothing her with its cool surface. Instead, it magnified the apprehension sweeping along her nerves like an out-of-control firecracker left on the ground to spin haphazardly.

      With a trembling hand, she opened her purse on the vanity and snatched her phone out, stifling a shaky breath in order to read the text—from none other than Landon.

      My beautiful friend, your journey awaits. Today is the first day of the rest of your life, Dixie-Cup. Carpe phone sex!

      After freshening her makeup, brushing her hair into a ponytail, throwing on a cotton skirt and a tank top, impossible text message still on her mind, Dixie strolled along the winding path of arborvitaes and rosebushes to the guesthouse.

      Which wasn’t really a guesthouse at all. It was a mini version of the big house with only five bedrooms instead of ten, a pool lined with white travertine along its sloping edges, and an island, complete with palm trees, chaise longues and a bartender in the middle of it all.

      As she made her way past the pool area, she noted not a single string bikini or Insanity Workout body to be had. The pool didn’t have a ripple of activity swirling in the crystal-blue waters, dotted with solar lights beneath the surface where she’d expected to see a bevy of beauties playing volleyball on the shoulders of beefy men.

      Her images of sex goddesses scantily draped in bikinis, dangling their feet in the pool while they whispered, “I love it when you touch me there” fled and were replaced by the sound of a voice that couldn’t belong to someone more than ten years old.

      She followed it toward the wide glass doors leading inside, scooting through the doors, and making her way across the terra-cotta tiled floor to the rounded entryway where the voice grew stronger.

      “Ohhhhhh, I’m so wet for you!” an enthusiastic voice cooed. “You’re so big and hard, I just don’t think I can stand it! Doooo me, Enzo,” the little-girl voice—far too youthful for phone sex—purred. “Do me like that, you Italian stallion!”

      Dixie stopped all forward movement as if she was playing a game of life-or-death freeze tag, gripping the overstuffed chair in the twilight-filled foyer to keep her legs from collapsing.

      She couldn’t do this. The woman’s voice, coming from Landon’s old office, belonged to, at best, a teenager. How could she possibly support anyone who wanted to talk to a child—even if she was a grown woman merely pretending to be a child? How could Landon have supported it? Disgust bloomed in the pit of her stomach, mushrooming until she couldn’t breathe.

      This had gone much further than she’d gone in her head. It was one thing for two adults to consensually have make-believe sex with a phone as their barrier. That she could almost handle. But when a man wanted a child he could pretend to have sex with—that was well off her morality chart.

      Not to mention—Italians and stallions?

      That was her cue. Exit stage left.

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