decided to give Roger boudoir photos as a wedding gift. The shoot was scheduled for this afternoon. At first, she’d planned to cancel it, but upon further consideration, had decided that the first step in becoming a new woman meant getting past old issues. What better place to start than with her modesty?
While she could have had any one of her photographers here at Laney’s Chifferobe—her catalogue lingerie business—do the spread, Delaney had booked an outside business to handle her photos. There were some things that were simply too personal to share with people she saw on a day-to-day basis and required anonymity. Despite present circumstances, her lips curled into a droll grin.
Boudoir photos of the boss certainly qualified.
The photographers employed by Laney’s Chifferobe were accustomed to peering through their lenses and pulling lollipop perfection—stick-thin bodies with big heads—into focus. Delaney’s size ten pear-shaped body didn’t fit the bill. Not just no, but hell no. She’d clean up roadkill before she’d offer her less than perfect form up to that kind of critical scrutiny. She’d had enough of it as a child to make up for a lifetime.
Delaney knew that Roger planned to come back from his honeymoon and find the mess of their broken engagement cleaned up, expected to waltz back into River City Bank and continue to manage her company’s account, and he fully expected her to be the bigger person—translate doormat—she’d always been.
Well, he expected wrong, and would be in for a rude awakening when he and darling Wendy returned.
Once the initial hurt and humiliation had worn off, Delaney had taken a long critical look at herself and decided a change was in order. She’d spent too much of her time trying to be perfect, had wasted too much of her time on men. She was a two-time loser in the game of love. Clearly, her radar was faulty, otherwise she’d have been able to find a faithful one by now, one that hadn’t had an ulterior motive—like soliciting her business. Her last three serious relationships had shared that same common denominator—in one capacity or another, they’d all stood to benefit from her business.
No more.
She’d tried, she’d failed. The end. She’d decided a married happily-ever-after simply wasn’t in her cards. At least with a man. Women by nature were more faithful creatures. Though she knew it was doubtful—she’d always been fascinated with the opposite sex—Delaney had decided to broaden her scope. In an effort to spark some latent lesbian tendencies, she’d begun listening to Melissa Etheridge, had started watching re-runs of Ellen and Rosie. So far no luck, but who knew? She grinned. The right woman might come along and trip her trigger.
To be quite honest, everything that was feminine and maternal had rebelled at the idea of giving up on love—she desperately wanted a family of her own—but she’d reached a point where there was simply no other alternative. A change was in order. Since men seemed to be the problem, she’d simply take them out of the equation.
In the new world according to Delaney Walker, all men sucked.
Her eyes narrowed. And Roger, in particular, sucked. Irritation bubbled through her veins, triggering a finger twitch. It seemed that revenge therapy was in order again.
“Delaney, are you all right?” Beth asked tentatively. “Do you need me to do anything else for you?”
Delaney nodded succinctly. “As a matter of fact, I do. Clear my schedule for the rest of the week and get me a gallon of weed killer.”
Beth’s eyes widened in confusion. “Weed killer? In winter?”
“That’s right,” Delaney told her, warming to her plan. She really enjoyed this form of therapy. It was very cathartic. “And make sure that it has a spray nozzle.”
1
ARMED WITH A GALLON OF fast-acting Weed-Be-Gone and a pair of garden gloves, Delaney wheeled out of the parking lot of her downtown Memphis office and aimed her sporty sedan toward Germantown, the posh upscale neighborhood Roger—the ball-less worm—called home.
While her sorry ex could squeeze thirteen cents out of every dime, there were a couple of areas in which he simply didn’t spare any expense—his home and his lawn. Roger was a master gardener who spent every free minute and every spare penny landscaping his award-winning lawn. He was particularly proud of his turf, an expensive evergreen designer blend that stayed bright and lush even through the harsh winter months.
The word “asshole” written in dead grass would contrast nicely, Delaney thought with vengeful glee.
She pulled into the drive, made quick work with the weed-killer and just as quickly made her escape. The rush of adrenaline triggered a burst of giddy laughter, pushed past the irritation and made her feel absolutely wicked.
Delaney loved feeling wicked. She got the same thrilling rush from designing her lingerie. There was something so intensely satisfying about creating an outfit that inspired such an intimate, sensual act. One she’d spent an inordinate amount of time fantasizing about. Being an overweight child, then overweight teen, had definitely been to her advantage in one way—the lonely hours had inspired her creativity, had essentially led her into her career. She wanted the women who wore her lingerie to feel sexy in it, empowered. Wanted them to revel in their sexuality, their femininity.
Speaking of empowered, who would have ever thought that such an asinine prank would be so satisfying? So mentally beneficial? She chewed her bottom lip and vaguely toyed with the notion of snatching a few of his prized antique roses, but quickly dismissed the idea. She didn’t mind resorting to a little vandalism to smooth her ruffled feathers, but she wasn’t quite brave enough to become a thief…yet.
Besides, she had an appointment to keep. Granted, no one but she and the photographer would ever see her boudoir photos—but she wanted them anyway, knew she needed to take that first step toward progress. Delaney felt sexy while designing the clothes, but couldn’t feel sexy in them because she’d always been so pathetically modest. That had to change. She needed to get past it, needed to garner a little of that feminine energy for herself.
She pulled her car into a parking space designated for Martelli Photography, grabbed her garment bag from the back seat and mentally prepared herself to battle her modesty. Her stomach knotted. She’d find happiness in little victories, she decided as she made her way into the old building. Why? Because men sucked.
The scent of fresh paint hit her the moment she stepped into the old building. She nodded to a couple of workers and ducked under a scaffold in order to reach the antique cagelike elevator. The old Gloria Gaynor song “I Will Survive” played a continuous loop in her head, bringing a smile to her lips and a bounce to her step.
Delaney grinned, pleased with the rush of endorphins this whole new men-suck philosophy had given her. She began to chant it aloud softly—verbal reinforcement—and listened to the words echo as the ancient elevator slowly lifted her to the top floor.
“Men suck, men suck, men suck.” Damn, that felt good, she thought. So good that, since she was alone, she upped the volume and added a little more U.S. Marine oomph! to the suck part. “Men suck, men suck, men suck.”
A deep masculine chuckle reached Delaney’s ears about the same time that a pair of manly bare feet came into her line of vision. As the elevator slowly drew up into what was obviously a penthouse suite, a pair of long denim-clad legs gave way to an extremely impressive bulge centered between a set of impossibly narrow hips. Blue cotton clung to a washboard abdomen, perfectly sculpted pecs and widened into a pair of the most beautifully muscled shoulders she’d ever had the pleasure to pant over.
The man was built like a brick wall, which seemed appropriate, considering she felt like she’d just run into one.
Dark brown wavy hair, a tad too long to be fashionable, framed a sinfully handsome face that attested to pure dumb luck and good Italian genes. His lips were a fraction overfull for a man and presently curled into one of the laziest, sexiest grins she’d ever seen. Dark brown eyes, heavy-lidded beneath slanted brows, glinted with humor, old-soul intelligence, and