She hung up on him. She expected him to call back, and if he had, she intended to put him through to voicemail. But he never did call back, and now Nicole was left wondering about his statements, wondering about who Anderson was and how he’d gotten her cell number.
Another restless night of sleep, one of many in the last month or so.
Every so often, she turned to look at the time on her cell and found that only a few minutes had passed. She started to doze around four-thirty and then she still woke up at a quarter to six.
Nicole sat up in bed just as her phone rang. This time it really was Red. When she answered, she was struck by how chipper and awake he sounded. No tossing and turning for him—he’d probably slept on some enormous bed with temperature controlled settings to cool his pillow off when he needed it.
“Beautiful,” he said, his deep voice pleasant and alert. “How are you?”
“Okay. A little tired.”
“I missed you last night,” he said. “You should have been here with me.”
“I miss you too,” she said, smiling despite her exhaustion.
“I’m on my way to your apartment now,” he told her. “I should be there in about half an hour.”
“Really?” She jumped to her feet. “I don’t have time to shower and dress.”
“Come on, you can do all that in thirty minutes. I get up, shower, shave and put on my suit every day in like twenty minutes.”
“It’s a little different for a woman. You’ve never lived with a woman, have you?”
He hesitated. “Well…”
And then the phone conversation with her stalker came flooding back to her, filling her stomach with lead. That creepy voice asking her if she knew Red had been engaged before. She’d thought Anderson must be lying, but Red’s hesitation told her otherwise.
Nicole tried to control her sense of anxiety. “You told me no woman has ever even been to your house.”
“I mean, technically that’s true,” Red replied. “This house I’m in now is only about a year old, and no one I’ve dated has ever been here.”
“So you basically lied to me,” she said. “You used a technicality to make me think I was special.”
“I wasn’t trying to lie. I was just making an offhand comment at the time—I didn’t think I was in a court of law. And it was the truth, by the way.”
“So I’ll ask you again. Have you ever lived with a woman?”
Another pause. “Yeah. I have.”
“For how long?” Her hand tightened on her phone until she thought she might break it.
“I don’t know, exactly. Probably about eight months.”
“Eight months…”
“Listen, Nicole, we can talk about this later. I don’t think the phone is the best way to have this kind of—“
“And were you ever engaged before me?”
She heard him sigh deeply through the phone. “I want to have this conversation in person.”
She slapped her hand on the wall. “Just answer the question. Why are you trying to avoid answering me? What are you hiding?”
“Hold on just a minute,” he said, and she could tell that beneath his controlled voice, he was seething. “I’m not hiding anything. You never asked me any of this before.”
“I’m asking now.”
“You don’t get to make demands of me.”
“I’m not some stupid girl you can bully,” she told him. “Have you been engaged before me or not?”
“Yes,” he said, “I have.”
Tears overflowed and spilled down her cheeks. “I wish you would have told me some of this. I thought…I thought I was special to you.”
“You are,” he said. “Nicole…”
“I have to go. And don’t come to pick me up.”
“Nicole, don’t do this.”
She hesitated. “I’m so angry at you right now. I feel like a fool. Do you know how I found out about your other engagements?”
“I have no idea. It was never publicized.”
“That Anderson person—the one who called my phone and left that voicemail you listened to.”
“You spoke to that guy?” Now it was Red who sounded shocked and appalled.
“He called me last night and—“
“Why would you speak to some guy you don’t even know?”
“It was late at night and I was taken by surprise.”
Red laughed harshly on the other end. “You obviously had a good, long talk. Is he with The Rag or one of those tabloids?”
“I really don’t know who he is. I hung up on him.”
“But not before he told you about my engagements. Did you tell him anything about me—about us?”
“No.” She shook her head. Suddenly, she was confused, defensive.
“I need to be able to trust you,” he said. “If you’re talking to the tabloids…”
She put a hand to her head and closed her eyes. “I swear I’m not. He called me and started telling me these things about you.”
“What else did he say?”
“Nothing, but he hinted there was more. And then he started talking about Hannibal Lector and Silence of the Lambs.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. I’m coming over there to pick you up. Be downstairs in ten minutes.”
“Ten? I thought you said half an hour.”
“We wasted too much time arguing. Ten minutes, Nicole. I’m serious.”