The Elliotts: Secret Affairs: The Forbidden Twin

A long pause ensued. “This is Friday,” she said coolly.

“Would you rather go out tonight?”

Dead silence.

He brushed a speck of dust from his slacks. Something told him he’d just messed up his first assignment, big-time. “Scarlet?”

“You don’t think it’s a little insulting to ask me out the day before? You don’t think I would have other plans already?”

“We only started this class today,” he countered. “If we’d started on Monday, I would’ve asked you then.” Although he’d would’ve asked her for Tuesday, but he wasn’t about to tell her that. “Do you have plans for Saturday night?”

“Yes, I do.”

He wasn’t sure what to say. Should he ask her for the following Saturday?

“Start over,” she said, then hung up.

He decided to make her wait. When he finally redialed fifteen minutes later, he got her voice mail.

“Ms. Elliott,” he said, starting from the beginning. “This is John Harlan. We met at the Charisma open house over the holidays. I was wondering if you’d like to have dinner with me a week from Saturday. Here’s my private line.” He recited his phone number. “I look forward to hearing from you.”

He’d barely hung up when his private line rang.

“It’s a good thing I came into your life,” Scarlet said. “Has that method worked in the past?” She said method as if it were something that stank.

“What method?”

“Leave a message for a woman asking her on a first date?”

She sounded either shocked or disgusted.

“I asked for more than a week from now.”

“You asked her answering machine.”

He massaged the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. “Which is apparently the wrong thing to do. I’ll start over,” he said, hanging up before she could. Normally he would’ve been frustrated by that kind of game by now, but he found it stimulating. She challenged him. The trick would be to challenge her in return.

He lifted the receiver, then hesitated. She would be expecting him to call back.

“Not this time, Ms. Elliott,” he said as he flipped through his Rolodex. He wanted an A on his first homework assignment.

She’d gotten him thinking outside his normal box. He wanted her to see what he’d already learned.

* * *

“Somebody likes you,” a woman said as she rounded Scarlet’s cubicle.

She smelled the flowers before she even looked up from her computer and spotted the bouquet, not something neat and tidy like a dozen roses, but an exotic bundle of baby orchids in a variety of deep colors. Her heart did a little dance at the sight. She hadn’t been sent flowers in a long, long time. Even so, she resisted the temptation to bury her face in the blossoms as the vase was set down in front of her by Jessie Clayton, the vivacious twenty-three-year-old intern assigned to work with her.

“Shall I read the card?” Jessie asked, green eyes sparkling behind trendy glasses as she snagged the tiny envelope and held it over Scarlet’s head.

“I write your performance reviews.”

Jessie laughed and handed Scarlet the card. “I don’t suppose you’re going to read it out loud.”

“Good guess.”

Alone, Scarlet held the envelope to her lips for several seconds before opening it. Inside was a phone number. No flowery sentiment. No invitation to dinner. Just a phone number.

She smiled, slowly. Score one for John.

She picked up the phone and dialed.

“John Harlan.”

She heard expectation in his voice, maybe because he was trying to cover it. “Nice move.”

“Who’s calling?”

She grinned. “Let me start over.” She hung up and redialed. After he answered, she said, “The flowers are exquisite. Thank you.”

“So you remember me?”

She slipped into the role. “Of course. We met at the Charisma open house over the holidays.”

“You were wearing a green dress the color of your eyes,” he said.

Her breath caught, even though they were talking about an imaginary occasion. He made it sound real, as if he’d seen and admired her in that dress. “You were wearing a suit and tie,” she countered.

“Lucky guess. I hope you’re wondering why I sent the flowers.”

“I’m curious, yes.”

“I’d like to get to know you. Would you have dinner with me? Maybe a week from Saturday?”

“I’d love to.”

“May I pick you up, say, at eight o’clock?”

“That would be perfect.”

“I’ll call you during the week to reconfirm.”

“Okay.”

He said goodbye and hung up, and she was left wondering if he meant they wouldn’t talk to each other or see each other until he picked her up. Was that how far the role-playing would go? Or would they have a separate life, continuing what they’d started?

For now she would let him lead the relationship. She would go to The Tides for the weekend to visit Gram and Granddad, as planned; attend the Spring Fling at the country club; and make herself unavailable to John, letting absence do its work.