He thought of her curled along the side her old husband. He’d liked Virgil, but the mental image made him a little queasy. Maybe it was just him, but he tended to think he wasn’t alone in his belief that an eighty-one-year-old man just didn’t have the jump in his junk to keep a thirty-year-old happy in the sack. Virgil might have had decades of practice, and more money than God, but it took more than that. It took a healthy stamina to satisfy a woman like that.
He closed the magazine and thought of the phone call he’d overheard the day of Virgil’s wake. Virgil might have had enough money to keep his young wife happy, but he’d bet there’d been someone else putting a satisfied smile on his young wife’s face.
From twenty-six stories above the city, Faith looked out the two-story wall of glass at the lights of Seattle and the thick fog covering the waters of Elliott Bay. Through the soupy night, she could almost pinpoint the exact location of Virgil’s estate. Not that she could see it, but she’d lived there for five years and knew it well.
She thought of the first time Virgil had brought her to his home after their quickie wedding in Vegas a month after they’d met. She’d taken one look at the big house out on the island and just about had heart failure, wondering if she’d get lost in the big, rambling mansion.
She thought of the first time she’d seen Virgil at a Playboy party she’d helped host at the Palms. That night he’d made her an offer she’d refused. He’d made it again after the Playmate of the Year ceremony at the Playboy Mansion. He’d told her he’d show her the world and everything in it, and all she had to do was pretend that she loved him for more than his money. He’d promised her a million dollars for every year that she stayed married to him and she’d said yes.
In the beginning, she’d figured she’d stay married to him for a few years and get out. But after a short time, they became best friends. He’d shown her kindness and respect, and for the first time in her life, she’d known what it felt like to be safe and secure and not have to worry about anything. By the end of the first twelve months, she loved him. Not like a father, but like a man who deserved her love and respect.
He’d been good to his word, and during the first few years of their marriage, they’d traveled all over the world. Hit every continent, and stayed in exclusive hotels. They’d toured the Mediterranean in yachts, gambled in Monte Carlo, and lounged on the white sands of Belize. But shortly after their second year together, Virgil suffered a massive heart attack and they didn’t travel out of the country after that. They’d stayed in Seattle and socialized with Virgil’s friends, but mostly they stayed at home in the big house on the island. Faith hadn’t really minded. She’d cared for him and loved taking care of him.
But they’d never actually made love.
All the money and surgeries and miracle pills in the world hadn’t prevented Virgil’s old age and diabetes from interfering with and robbing him of the one thing that made him feel like a vital man. Long before he’d met Faith, he hadn’t been able to have and sustain an erection. Nothin
g had worked for him, and his enormous pride and gigantic ego insisted that he settle for the next best thing. The appearance of sex with a much younger woman. A centerfold.
If she were totally honest, she would admit that she hadn’t minded. Not just because he was fifty-one years older than herself, although that had been a part of it—especially in the beginning. But mostly Faith just didn’t like the uncertainty of sex. You could never tell by looking at a man if he was good in bed or not. There was never any way of knowing until it was too late and your panties were missing.
Before Virgil, she’d had a lot of boyfriends and a lot of sex. Sometimes it had been really good. Sometimes it had been really bad. To her, sex was like a box of chocolates—and yeah, she’d sort of stolen that from Forest Gump—she never knew what she was going to get. Faith didn’t like anything that wasn’t a sure thing, and there was nothing worse than craving something wonderful and yummy but getting a horrible orange jelly.
She hadn’t had sex since she’d married Virgil. At first it had been difficult, especially since she was young and she’d been fairly active, but after a few years of going without, she really didn’t miss it anymore. Now that Virgil was gone, she doubted her sex drive would suddenly come back to slap her in the head. And she just couldn’t see herself with another man.
The doorbell brought Faith out of her contemplation of sex and men. She moved through the living room and the travertine tile felt cool beneath her bare feet. She and Virgil had purchased the four-bedroom penthouse last year, but they’d used it only on the rare occasions when it had been easier to stay overnight in the city. It was mostly finished in marble and tile and had an ultramodern feel. Virgil had let her decorate it, and she’d picked out white leather and tons of red and purple pillows. It had a main-level terrace that looked out over Elliott Bay, and a rooftop solarium covered with glass that had an unrestricted 360-degree view of the city, the busy waterways, and Mount Rainier beyond.
She opened the door and a white ball of fur jetted past, its little toenails clicking on the tile. Faith felt an overwhelming urge to punt.
“Mother.” Faith looked behind her own shoulder as a white Pekingese jumped up onto her white leather sofa. “And Pebbles.” The nastiest dog on the planet. “You should have called.”
“Why? You would have told us not to come.” Valerie Augustine wheeled her large pink suitcase into the penthouse; her overly painted lips air-kissed Faith’s cheeks as she passed.
“It isn’t that I don’t want to see you,” Faith said and shut the door behind her. “I’m just swamped.” She followed her mother and pointed to the pile of books open on the glass-and-stainless coffee table.
“What are you studying for?” Her mother shoved the handle down into her suitcase and moved toward the leather couch on her five-inch spike heels. Pink, of course. To match her leather pants. She picked up a book and read, “
Idiot’s Guide To Hockey. Why are you reading this? I thought you sold the team.”
“I decided not to.”
Valerie’s big green eyes widened and she shook her head, disturbing her perfectly feathered Farrah ’do. In the seventies, someone had told Valerie that she looked like Farrah Fawcett. She still believed it. “What happened?”
She didn’t want to get into the whole story with her mother. “I just decided to keep it.” She thought of Landon reaching for her and Ty Savage stepping between them. She was grateful he’d been there. Grateful he’d stepped in. Almost grateful enough to forgive him for calling her “Miss January” in the press.
“Well, I’m glad. Now that the old bastard is gone, you need something to do.”
“Mother.”
“I’m sorry, but he was old.” It wasn’t exactly a secret that her mother hadn’t liked Virgil. The feeling had been mutual. Virgil had provided a nice monthly income for Valerie, but there had been strings attached that Valerie resented even as she cashed the checks. One of them being that she could not show up whenever she felt like it. “Too old for a young, beautiful girl,” she added as she tossed the book on the sofa and picked up her dog. Pebbles looked at Faith through beady black eyes and growled and snapped as if Faith had tried to snatch a piece of jerky from her jaws. “Oh hush,” Valerie said through pursed lips as she raised the dog to lick her face.
“Yuck. That’s disgusting.”
“I love Pebbles’s kisses.”
“She licks her butt.”
Valerie frowned and tucked the dog under one arm. “No, she doesn’t. She’s very clean.”