Red Hot Reunion

So damn good. And she could pretend that she was still with Jason. And that he loved her.

Even though he didn’t love her. Not anymore.

She was immediately overloaded with sadness as she slid out from beneath her duvet. Standing in front of the full-length mirror in her walk-in closet, she noticed that her eyes were bright and glossy, her cheeks were pink and hot, burning up, just like she had been last night.

Looking at the drab stick figure staring back in the mirror, Emma couldn’t believe that she had done all of those naughty, breathless, incredible things last night with Jason.

Jason, the famous sex symbol.

Jason, the stunningly masculine man who had filled her so deeply, so completely with his huge erection.

Jason, the only man she had ever truly loved.

Emma sank back against a row of well-tailored business suits and closed her eyes. If she tried hard enough she could almost be back in the lake with Jason. She could almost escape from the boring, monotonous joke that was her life.

Almost, but not quite.

Emma put on a boring beige skirt and sweater set, slipped her feet into dull beige kitten heels, put on the small pearl earrings that her father had given her when she graduated from high school, got into her Range Rover and drove the half mile to her parents’ house for their weekly Sunday brunch.

All the while trying to ignore how dead her heart felt.

Emma stood in front of her parents’ front door for a long moment, taking a deep breath to compose herself before turning her key in the lock, stepping inside, and coming face to face with her mother.

“Emma darling,” Jane said as she air-kissed Emma’s cheeks.

Emma knew her plastered smile must look far more like a grimace, but it was the best she could do. Her mother peered closely at her face.

“Are you wearing blusher?” her mother said, through tight disapproving lips.

Emma frowned. “No, Mother.”

But Jane obviously wasn’t going to take her word for it, because she reached for a tissue from the nearby table and roughly wiped it over Emma’s cheek. Staring at the unblemished white of the tissue, her mother was finally satisfied that she was telling the truth. “You know how vulgar blusher is.”

Knowing her mother wasn’t expecting a response, nor would wait for one, Emma merely nodded. It

wasn’t that she thought blusher was actually vulgar, but in her experience it was far easier to agree with her mother than it was to state her own opinion.

Having done away with makeup as a reason for Emma’s new look, Jane asked, “Are you ill?”

Emma noticed that her mother took a step back as she asked the question, obviously more afraid of catching something from her daughter than she was concerned about Emma having an actual illness.

“No,” she began, but then she realized that she did in fact look different. Her passionate, wild night with Jason—she could hardly say his name in her head without blushing and breaking out in a sweat—must have changed her on the outside, just as it had irreparably changed her on the inside. And if she didn’t plead illness, what would she say?

Oh, you know how it is, Mother, when you spend the night having sex with an old flame in public, you just glow a little bit more than usual.

A wild giggle threatened to erupt from her mouth. If she ever dared to say something like that to her mother, the earth would surely open up and swallow her whole.

“Emma?” Jane said, her tone sharp. “I’m waiting for your answer.”

Emma feigned a cough into her hand. “I might just be a tad under the weather.”

“If only Steven were still here to take care of you.”

Emma watched as Jane turned and headed into the kitchen, slightly sickened. As if Steven had ever taken care of her a day in his life.

If only her parents would learn to accept that Steven was gone. They were divorced and no amount of wishing and hoping would bring him back.

Not, Emma realized with sudden clarity, that she wanted him back anyway. Nothing she and Steven had shared during ten years of marriage had come even close to the passion and intensity of her stolen hour with Jason in the lake.

Emma felt as if a pin had pricked her. And it hurt. A lot. Until last night, she suddenly realized, she hadn’t

“felt” anything in years. She had, in essence, been walking around completely numb.

Dazed by the enormity of her discovery, her hand unclenched of its own volition and she dropped her purse and jacket in a heap on the well-polished hardwood floor.

“Emma, why are you dawdling in the foyer?” her mother called out from the covered back porch. “It’s time to come outside and serve lunch to your father.”

It took a moment or two, but the sound of her mother’s voice, and the disapproval in it, helped Emma to refocus her blurred vision. She walked through the formal white and beige living room and out through the French doors to where her father was seated.

“Emma,” her father said, his greeting as terse as usual. “Your mother’s roast is getting cold. Please serve it now.”

“Yes, Daddy,” Emma found herself automatically replying, her tone as coldly polite, as emotionless as her father’s. An image flashed before her of her passionate, heated, violent response to Jason’s touch the previous night. It was such a contrast to the coldness all around her that she felt light-headed again and clumsily dropped the carving knife to the table.

She blindly reached out to steady herself on the back of a chair.

Jane immediately stood up and grabbed the knife. “Sit down, Emma. I’ll do it,” she added with a sigh.

Emma knew her cheeks had to be red, considering how the thought of Jason made her feel like she was burning up all over, and her father’s eyes narrowed as she worked to regain her composure.

“I hope you didn’t drink too much last night at your class reunion,” he said. “That’s no way to make a good impression on potential clients.”

“You know better than that, Emma,” Jane said as she slid the extremely sharp carving knife through the roast.

Jane finished serving the meal and Emma stared at the unappetizing plate of food before her. Without really noticing what she was eating she cut into a fatty piece of the roast and brought it to her lips.

“Emma!” her mother screeched. “What are you doing eating that fat? Don’t you remember how plump you were as a teenager?”

Emma dropped her fork as if it were on fire. Every meal with her mother was a reminder of the year Emma had turned thirteen. Naturally thin as a child, once she hit puberty everything had changed. Her legs had gone from stick thin to slightly rounded and hips had appeared virtually overnight. Emma might not have thought too much about it—after all, all of the other girls at school had gotten their periods well before her and she felt almost scrawny and childlike next to most of them—but Jane had been horrified by her daughter’s womanly transformation.