Strange Bedpersons Read online

  Then Nick turned off the road into his driveway, and it was worse than she suspected.

  The house wasn’t large, but it was beautiful, an architect’s miniature masterpiece of white planes and angles bisected by gleaming glass that reflected the moonlight. She’d been prepared to resist clapboard colonial or petite plantation or even pseudo-cedar Frank Lloyd Wright, but this was such a work of art that only a person blinded by prejudice could find it anything but lovely.

  “Do you like it?” Nick asked when he’d cut the engine.

  “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful,” Tess said, and she felt him relax next to her. “When you brought me out here before it was finished, I never dreamed it would look like this. Who designed it? You?”

  “Not exactly.” Nick eased down in his seat a little, surveying the house. “When I was in law school, a buddy of mine got in trouble. I helped him out, did all the legal legwork and saved his butt. He was a senior in architecture, and he took me out for a beer, and after a few, we started talking about the perfect house, and a month later he gave me the plans for this. So I saved up and bought the land, then I saved some more and built the house. It took me a while.”

  Tess watched his face as he looked at his house, seeing the pride and love there.

  “The builders were the best,” he said, “and the irony is, my buddy’s a big name now. Preston Delaney. People come by and photograph it because it’s an early, pure Delaney. I’ve only been in it a couple of weeks, and somebody’s already offered me twice what it cost to build it.”

  Tess rolled her eyes. “Another investment.”

  Nick shook his head. “Nope, it’s more than that. Wait until you see inside. It’s perfect. It was done a month after you left.” His grin faded. “That was one of the biggest disappointments about your dumping me. You never got to see it.” He turned to her in the moonlight. “I know we’re finished with each other, but I’m glad you’re here to see it.”

  Tess bit her lip. “Thank you for inviting me to stay. I’ll try not to get it dirty.”

  Nick patted her knee and then got out to open the car door for her while she stared at the house with fear and longing.

  The interior left her speechless. The ground floor was one big room bisected by black lacquered folding doors with a staircase winding up the middle of it. To her right, through partially opened doors, Tess could see a massive ebony Parsons dining table and black lacquered chairs. To the left, huge overstuffed couches faced each other across thick rya rugs, flanking a cavernous white brick fireplace on one wall and a built-in wide-screen TV on another. The back wall was all glass looking out on an angular pool that reflected the moonlight like marcasite.

  Except for the dining-room furniture, every single thing in the place was white. Tess felt very small and very dingy. She moved to one of the couches, touching it and then jerking her hand away.

  “What’s the matter?” Nick asked.

  “This couch is suede,” Tess said.

  “I know.”

  “Real suede?” Tess asked, knowing it was a dumb question. If it was Nick’s, it was real.

  “Of course it’s real suede.”

  “You have white suede couches,” Tess said and closed her eyes. “Do you live here? Does anybody live here?”

  “Don’t you like it?”

  “It’s incredible. But I am definitely going to get it dirty.”

  “That’s why a cleaning woman comes in twice a week,” Nick said.

  “Well, that’s a relief.” Tess turned to the stairs. “Bedroom up here?”

  “Three,” Nick said. “Take your pick.”

  “Which one are you in?”

  “The one at the back. Big bed. Black satin spread. The guest room is at the front.”

  “Black,” Tess said. “You know, I don’t mean to criticize, but this place could use some color.”

  “I like it this way. It looks expensive.” Nick started up the stairs with the duffel and the suitcase. “Where do you want this stuff?”

  “Guest room.” Tess said, and followed him with the laundry basket.

  TESS LAY AWAKE THAT NIGHT, listening for the screams and the shouts that weren’t there, trying not to worry about Angela and feeling guilty because she was so safe. The other tenants didn’t have rich, depraved conservative lawyers to sweep them off into sinful luxury. And then there was Gina, looking at Park with puppy-dog eyes. And the Foundation kids, now that she’d shot herself in the foot with the Sigler woman. And Lanny. The other problems were more pressing, but Lanny was the one she owed the most. Lanny had been there for her when she was eight; now she was going to be there for him.

  She tossed and turned for another hour, shuffling her worries like a deck of cards. When she finally couldn’t stand it any longer, she slipped out of bed and tiptoed down the stairs, careful not to wake Nick, and went out to the pool. She stripped off her T-shirt and underpants, dove into the water and began to swim laps to exorcise her demons.

  One lap for the apartment-house tenants and their unlocked doors.

  One lap for Gina and her doomed love life and her job search.

  One lap for the kids at the Foundation and their imperiled futures.

  One lap for Lanny and his trashed vision.

  One lap for Nick and his infuriating double personality.

  Only one lap didn’t do it. Once she started to think about Nick warm in that damn black bed upstairs, she swam faster, but it didn’t help. All the images of him she’d ever tortured herself with came back —Nick laughing at her at the touch football game that had started it all, Nick’s arms in that rag of a sweatshirt as he teased her about her laundry, Nick beautiful in evening clothes— but now she had new memories, memories of Nick hot and naked, his body moving over hers, and she got dizzy just thinking about it, so dizzy that at the end of the last lap, she clung to the edge of the pool and gasped for breath.

  “You okay?” she heard Nick say, and she looked up to see him standing there, in black silk boxers, his hair tousled from his pillow.

  He looked wonderful.

  Tess groaned and let herself slip under the water.

  She felt Nick’s hand grab her arm and drag her ruthlessly to the surface.

  “I know you’re depressed, dummy,” Nick said, holding on to her. “But don’t drown yourself in my pool. My insurance rates will go up. Not to mention I’ll never get another date again if it gets out that being with me makes women suicidal.”

  “I’m not suicidal,” Tess said, and then realized he was never going to make love to her again. “Well, maybe I am.”

  “Actually what you are is naked.” Nick sounded distracted, but he didn’t let go of her arm.

  “It’s a private pool.” Tess was too depressed to argue with any enthusiasm. “It’s not illegal.”

  “No, but it’s probably immoral,” Nick said. “Whatever it is, I like it. Let’s go back to my bed and discuss it.”

  Tess blinked up at him, treading water a little faster. “I thought we were finished.”

  “Well, we were until your apartment got trashed and I thought about losing you, and then you ended up naked in my pool,” Nick said. “I remember being sure I never wanted to see you again. I just don’t remember why at the moment.”

  Tess sighed. “It was probably something about your career. Everything with you is.”

  “What career?”

  “Really?” Tess said, her voice suddenly bright with hope.

  “I’m thinking about becoming a pool boy,” Nick said. “You meet such naked people.”

  Tess jerked the arm he was holding and yanked him into the pool.

  “Hey,” he sputtered when he surfaced, but by then she’d wrapped herself around him and found his mouth with hers, and they slipped under the water as she kissed him.

  Nick kicked them both to the surface again and held her tight against him as he tried to get his breath back. Tess trailed kisses down his neck, licking the water from his skin with her tongue