LITMIR.BIZ

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(the one without love) and perhaps Slovex (the one with). Hmm. I gotta work on that.

      As for the whole question of how you know love is real…um, gosh. That’s tough. Because it’s totally experiential, and not at all objective. (Am I helpful or what?) I think I fell in love with Dash that first night out. Something shifted inside, and it had nothing to do with sex, and everything to do with sex. I was hit by Cupid’s arrow, I guess, which makes as much sense as any other theory. The thing is, there’s no way to know if it’s everlasting love unless you go through everlasting. Or read the Cosmo love horoscopes. I’m not sure which. <g>

      Trust your heart. Trust your instincts. Give yourself permission to love freely, and accept love in return. In the meantime, go get laid.

      Love, Tess

      SAMANTHA HUNG UP the phone and frowned, swiveling back and forth in her office chair, tapping a pen to the side of her cheek. Another sexual harassment case. On the one hand, the accuser, Tanya Banyon, admittedly a rather…obvious sort of female. On the other hand, Rick Grindle, the accused. Samantha had only gotten a glimpse when she visited Eisemann, Inc. but by all accounts, including the one she’d just gotten from a female colleague of his, he was charming, intelligent and thoroughly professional.

      Usually in these cases it was only a matter of a few interviews before Samantha could tell either of two things. One, that there had simply been misunderstood personal boundaries and communications, or two, one party was lying. Rick Grindle had been unavailable for a personal interview so far. She’d go that route next.

      “What’s doing?” Her assistant, Lyssa, poked her head into Samantha’s office.

      Samantha shrugged. “Just wrapping up before I go home.”

      Lyssa pushed the door open with her shoulder and marched in, carrying an armful of files which she dumped onto Samantha’s desk. “I come bearing gifts.”

      “Oh, joy.” Samantha gave her a wry grin. Lyssa was tall, blond and curvaceous. She exuded a fresh sweet sexual quality that had men hurling themselves after her as she walked down the street. The kind of woman who made any other woman near her feel old and stale, like recycled airplane air. If Lyssa wasn’t a genuinely grounded, warm person, Samantha would hate her.

      “Anything exciting on the agenda tonight?”

      Samantha lifted an eyebrow. “Is there ever?”

      Lyssa smiled, showing, of course, perfect white teeth—a smile Samantha had seen reduce cold, cocky vice presidents to blushing beings from Planet Idiot. “You could change that, you know.”

      “I know, I know. But I’m not—” The word “ready” got as far as the inside of her teeth before her brain stopped it. Hadn’t she just decided last night that she was ready?

      “Bill and I are going out to Excalibur tonight. Want to come along?”

      Samantha hid her wince. If she was going to play third wheel, at least she’d like to play it to someone other than Bill. Lyssa had this amazing, unerring ability to fall for unattractive, selfish, annoying boy-men. “Thanks, I’m pretty tired. Long week. I think I’ll finish here and go home. Maybe another time.”

      “Suit yourself. But I think it’s high time you started bestowing that gorgeous bod on deserving men again.”

      Samantha rolled her eyes. “I’ll take that under advisement.”

      Lyssa laughed. “Okay, so I’m intruding. You need anything else before I go?”

      “No, no.” Samantha waved her off. “Go have fun, eat chicken wings, drink, go deaf. Enjoy it.”

      She watched Lyssa leave the room, ready to go out and have a ball on a Friday night, even if it was with a selfish, annoying boy—man. While Samantha would go home, dump her briefcase on the already cluttered dining room table, feed the cats, eat bad food and end the evening cuddled up with a book about someone else having sex.

      A sudden restless rebellion swelled in her chest. She couldn’t face that tonight. Closed in with her loneliness and her confusion and her cats and her work and those damn frozen dinners.

      Enough. Tonight she was going out.

      She turned impulsively to her computer, logged into her home account and hit “Create Mail.”

      From: Samantha Tyler

       Sent: Friday

       To: Erin Thatcher; Tess Norton

       Subject: Readiness

      Newsflash. I know I’ve been a wimp. I know I’ve been hanging back. I’m not even sure what changed my mind, except maybe that I had a totally hot dream last night.

      But as of this date, Friday, August ninth, my Man To Do hunt has begun in earnest. Chances are I will go sit in a bar tonight and look available and pathetic, but there is always the hope that someone and something will happen that will involve nudity and sweaty writhing and many many orgasms. It’s been too damn long.

      I have spoken.

      Samantha

      P.S. I’ll let you know details tomorrow.

      She clicked the send button, shoved her chair back and stood, grabbing her briefcase. She wasn’t usually this spontaneous, but then her life hadn’t been usual in a while. It would be great to be out, surrounded by her fellow Chicagoans, noise, energy and life.

      Chances she’d find someone and then actually go for it tonight were slim, but the fantasy of being with someone deliberately unsuitable was delicious. Men to Do Before Saying I Do. After a bad marriage, divorce, and all the angst that went with them, a fun-only fling was exactly what she needed. To indulge attractions for types of men she could no more get serious about than enjoy shopping for feminine protection.

      And speaking of protection, she still had the condoms she’d bought on a particularly rebellious day last spring after the divorce, when she thought she was ready for a wild night.

      Not.

      She’d met a guy, a sweet, overly earnest type, well over six foot and solid. At the time she’d been so angry and grieving that she’d practically thrown herself at him. After two hours of beer and innuendo they’d gone outside together, ostensibly to drive to his apartment. She’d kissed him twice, burst into tears, sobbed violently for half an hour and completely freaked the poor guy out.

      Okay, so divorce did not leave her at her most rational.

      But that wouldn’t happen this time. She was ready now. She felt peaceful and stable, rather than manic and confused. She was acting out of genuine need this time, making a strong deliberate choice, not reacting to pain and fear.

      She closed her office door and strode through the building to the underground garage, calling good night to a few fellow employees. The Blazer started up; she backed it out of her reserved space and headed into the still-blazing day. She was in the mood for a fun place with a bar, but also decent food, not the packed-to-the-gills meat-market type places. P.J. Clarke’s in the Gold Coast would do it.

      She found a parking place in an adjacent lot and walked toward the restaurant entrance, wishing she’d gone home to change out of her business suit and into something more casual, maybe a little funky. Maybe even a little sexy. Except if nothing happened when she was in her suit, it was easier to look like she was out for a nice lone-woman dinner and to heck with everyone else. There was something sad about sitting at a bar decked out in hot-to-trot finery and striking out. A situation that would have her imagining all the other bar patrons whispering and shaking their heads.

      Poor thing. Out to get some and no one biting.

      She swung open the door, letting cool confidence take over her body, though she was shaky inside, half nerves, half excitement. No problem. Move forward and chant the mantra: Samantha Tyler does this kind of thing all the time. Take me or leave me. I’m here.

      She squared her shoulders and walked with deliberate indifference toward the bar,

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