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“I dunno. We went away for the weekend a few times during the pandemic, but it’s been a while since things opened again. When wedidtravel… huh, that was when we went to Cabo. Pretty hectic week. We did alotof stuff together, but it was mostly touristy stuff. I don’t even remember what we did for downtime. Did we even have downtime?”
“Sounds like you guys are due a weekend away from home. There’s your next scenario.”
Rhea rolled her eyes. “I’m gonna hate that word by the end of the month. Luckily, I’ve got a thesaurus that lives on my desk.”
“I’ll be the first to admit that I haven’t read any of your books since the first one, but you’re not one of those authors that uses the thesaurus all willy-nilly, are you?”
“Absolutely. Definitely. Without a doubt.”
“I knew it. That’s why you’re up for all of those awards. You’ve won the Pulitzer, right?”
Rhea never knew whether to laugh or scoff when her friends teased her about being a writer. “I’ve never won awards outside of local and niche stuff. I don’t really count it. I mean, my publisher doesn’t. If it didn’t come from New York or London? Didn’t happen.”
“You’ve got to milk more of your personal life.”
“Funny. My dad said the same thing.”
“The man who named youRhiannon?”
“A very respectable goddess in Celtic culture, I’ll have you know,Roxanne.”
“Please, we were both named after Boomer songs, and my dad doesn’t even like Sting.”
“Careful. We’re almost old enough for teenagers to call us Boomers.”
“What teenagers? I avoid them. Stay off my lawn.”
“Me too.”
Roxy offered her friend a fist bump over the table. It was the perfect moment for the exact demographic of people they tried to avoid walking by and making fun of them for pressing fists together like it was 2007 or something.
“That kid wasn’t even a glint in his father’s eye in 2007.”
Rhea pretended to check her phone so she didn’t have to face the embarrassment of a kid twenty years younger than herjudginganything she did. “You know what I was doing in 2007?”
“Partying during spring break?”
“Not quite. I would have been in college, so I was checking out some cute blond and wishing she’d try to date me instead of all the lame girls always on her arm.”
“That’s how it’s always been between you two. You pining, her playing.”
“You say that with a smile, like it’s a good thing.”
“I mean…” Roxy offered a self-satisfied smile that already made Rhea regret saying anything. “You can work with that. Show your wife whysheshould be the one pining afteryoufor a change. It’s been fifteen years.”
“Not quite fifteen years.”
“So you see my point. Rock her world, deny her, drive her crazy, and then go in for the kill on the trip you’re totally going to plan when you get home later.”
“You think I’m going to spring that on her?”
“Iknowyou are.”
Rhea hated to admit it, but her brain was already computing the best path between getting in Paige’s pants and giving her a taste of her own sweet medicine.
Maybe we’re on to something here, after all.When she returned to her office that afternoon, she didn’t immediately take her friend’s advice and start searching for rentals up in the mountains. Instead, she reopened her document from that morning and wrote for three hours. She was glued to her chair until her legs became too numb to remember how to walk when she inevitably got up to use the bathroom.
She was sucked into the fantasy. The one where her cunning yet hapless heroine was lured into an unassuming cabin in the Californian woods, where a total stranger had their way with her – restraints, riding crops, and all.
