Chapter Seven
Taryn picked up her phone from the bedside table without opening her eyes. After Cassie had playfully hung up on her last night, she’d over-indulged in a few too many brightly colored and highly alcoholic cocktails. The conversation had left her on a high, the likes of which she couldn’t rightly say that she’d ever experienced from the mere exchange of words. Great sex always left her on a euphoric high, but it was often short-lived and easily forgotten.
Taryn already had a sneaking feeling that Cassie wouldn’t allow herself to be so easily maneuvered into the distant recesses of her memory—even if they never slept together, their verbal banter would sway prettily in her mind like wind chimes. But she was determined to get that dinner dateandsex, preferably for more than one night. Since she was trapped in Vegas for six months, she might as well spend her downtime with a woman as beguiling as Cassie.
“Answer your phone, goddamnit,” Andi called from the living room.
She shook off her musings and looked at the screen, hoping it would be Cassie. It wasn’t. Her brother’s face invaded the pixels, and her thumb hovered over the decline icon.
“Taryn!”
Andi’s exasperated call removed her indecision, and she accepted the call begrudgingly. “Hey, Cinderella. Why are you calling me at this hour?” Taryn asked. “Actually, why are you calling me at all?”
He chuckled. “You better not let Mom hear you call me that. How’s my ugly sister?” He poked his finger at the screen. “Still not done anything about your busted nose, I see. Why don’t you pop home before your next show? I could squeeze you in for a quick rhinoplasty. It’d make Mom and Dad so happy.”
Taryn resisted the urge to touch her slightly crooked nose and smiled, recalling Cassie’s fascination with it early this morning. “No. It’s too good a conversation piece. And you know how I feel about perfection.”
Ralph rolled his eyes. “The desire for perfection paid for your medical degree, sister.”
“Which is why I don’t use it,brother.”
“So I can’t tell Mom you’re finally coming back to join the family business?”
Taryn shook her head. “Why do you ask me thatevery timewe talk? You make me want to screen your calls.”
“Because Mom insists that I ask you every time I call, and I don’t want to lie and tell her that I’ve asked you if I haven’t.”
She tutted. “Fine. No, I’m not coming home.” She wasn’t about to share that she’d been having a mini existential crisis about how fulfilling her current career was and had even been thinking about the degree she hadn’t bothered to use. It was just a weird blip, though she couldn’t see how a six-month residency was going to help her meandering thoughts. Whatever happened, she would never be using her medical degree to perfect privileged plastic people.
“Where in the world are you at the moment?” he asked and waved his finger to indicate behind her. “That doesn’t look like your trashy trailer.”
Taryn half-snarled. “My trailer isn’t trashy. It’s homey.”
“Sure.” He turned his phone and gave her a little tour of the room he was in. “Thisis homey.”
She frowned. “It looks like no one lives there. I bet your cutlery is still shrink-wrapped and your furniture still has the price tags on it.”
He flashed an expensive smile. “How would my many late-night callers know how rich I was if I didn’t leave the price tags on?”
“I wouldn’t imagine you let them stay long enough to care.” Which was hypocritical since her constant stream of carnal companions didn’t get to spend too much time in her space either. But that wasn’t a choice as much as a by-product of her career and lifestyle.
“And I suppose you’ve settled down with a lovely woman, had three children, and own a Prius.”
She raised her eyebrow and put her hand over her heart. “You wound me, brother. I could never have a Prius.”
“Because it’s electric, and you prefer your vehicles to guzzle gas?”
“Because it’s ugly. You know how much I appreciate the lines of a well-designed car, and the Prius doesnotfit into that category by a country mile.”
“I know you appreciate them almost as much as you appreciate the lines of a woman.”
Taryn shrugged. She couldn’t argue with that observation. “As much as I love our little conversations,” she glanced at the time on her phone, “especially when I’ve only had four hours’ sleep, did your call have a purpose, or did you just want to irritate me?”
He grinned—the genuine one that made him look like her six-year-old pain-in-the-butt but cute-as-a-button brother—and nodded. “I’ve got some vacation time, and I thought I might come and see you. It’s been a hot minute since we had a big fat steak and some beers together.”
Taryn narrowed her eyes. “Who told you?”
He fluttered his eyelashes and feigned an innocent expression. “Who told me what?”
