Private Confessions. Lori Borrill

shaky ground.

      Adrienne breathed a sigh of frustration and sank back in her seat. “I’ve told you a dozen times, Logan and Cyber Man are between you and me.”

      “I mean it, Ade. A word of this gets to Logan and I’m sending an e-mail to everyone in the office telling them your real name.”

      Though Adrienne hadn’t shed her Birkenstocks and ankle-length skirts, there were two things about her hippie, Free Age upbringing she didn’t want spread around the office. One was her parents’ radical political views, which included their notion that the Moore Agency was in the business of brainwashing the public to further corporate greed.

      The second was her real name, Hummingbird Eucalyptus, after her mother’s second-favorite bird and tree. Her older sister, Robin Willow, had been given the first choice, leaving Adrienne with a name she’d quickly found ridiculous once she’d graduated from her co-op schools and entered the real world.

      Trisha rarely threatened Adrienne with their secrets, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

      “I swear, Bill came up with the idea on his own.”

      Trisha’s pulse resumed ever so slightly. “What did you tell him?”

      “I told him I agree, but that it’s up to you and Logan. I’ve done the matchmaker thing before and I swore I’d never do it again.” She crossed a hand over her chest. “Honest to God.”

      Trisha studied her friend, looking for a twitch, a blink or a flinch that would tell her Adrienne was lying.

      Nothing.

      Her breathing resumed. “Thank you.”

      “Listen, if you aren’t going to go for Logan, you need to move on with your love life. You can have practically any man you want. Why you’re talking dirty on the Internet with this stranger is beyond me. You have to know he’s a pimply teenaged kid.”

      Trisha smirked. “Or a toothless rodeo clown.”

      “Don’t you know you’re better than that?” Adrienne sighed. “Come on, sweetie, you deserve a real man. I don’t know why you dumped Hal. That guy was hot.”

      “Ha! Harley Hal? Leather chaps aren’t my style.”

      “Trish, the guy was hot and he adored you.”

      “He wanted me to get a tattoo.” Trisha shook her head. “I’ll never be anyone’s motorcycle mamma.”

      “What about Phil? What was wrong with him?”

      Trisha’s expression went blank as she stared at Adrienne for an extended beat. “He’s never had a job.”

      “He’s in med school.”

      “He’s a thirty-four-year-old professional student. He already has a law degree but does he try for the bar? No. He decides to go into medicine. I swear. He’ll never amount to anything. He just stays in school so his parents will keep supporting him.”

      “His parents are filthy rich, which means he’s filthy rich. What does it matter? You certainly wouldn’t end up in poverty.”

      “I have no respect for a man who doesn’t attempt to make his own way through life.”

      Adrienne sat back in her seat and let out a long huff. “Well, you’ve got to do something. Using a pimply kid to fantasize about Logan isn’t getting you anywhere. You’re just going to give yourself a nervous break-down.” She gave Trisha the once-over. “Look at you, you’re a mess,” she added, pulling the pad of notes from the desk and pointing to the last few entries. “You’ve written the same sentence three times. Are you planning to stutter?”

      “I’m just a little distracted.”

      “Because of Cyber Man.”

      “No,” Trisha declared, but the tone didn’t sound at all convincing.

      Adrienne tossed the notes back to Trisha. “Cyber Man is a pimply teenager. Just repeat that in your head. Wipe out whatever fantasy the guy fed you and replace it with pimply teenaged kid.”

      Trisha doubted that was possible. She’d so thoroughly burned last night’s sex chat in her mind, surgery couldn’t remove the image of Logan Moore pleasuring her at his desk. Thank God, she hadn’t worn her navy-blue skirt today, but if Logan wore the crisp white shirt she’d envisioned, she was going to be in trouble.

      Hopefully, they would conduct the meeting at his conference table and she was considering bringing enough materials to require it, though it wasn’t technically necessary.

      Adrienne’s comment repeated in her mind. The woman was right. Her cybersex idea was beginning to interfere with her work and she would have to get over it fast before she soured her reputation and destroyed her career.

      “I just need to get through this project and I’ll be free to go,” she said.

      “You’re seriously going to quit?”

      “I don’t have any other choice. I need to distance myself from Logan before I ruin my reputation and once I land Tyndale Resorts, I’ll have the reference I need to get a good job at another agency.”

      “As good as what you’ll have here?”

      Adrienne knew something. Trisha could always read the woman like a book, especially this particular look that said she had inside information she was dying to share. She was casually glancing around the office as if she’d never seen it before while her finger tapped a countdown on the arm of her chair, as if to tick off the seconds before she burst with her news.

      “What do you know?”

      Adrienne’s grin widened in that I-thought-you’d-never-ask smile. She straightened in her seat and leaned forward to whisper. “Well, rumor has it Logan’s planning to promote you to vice president.”

      “Who says?”

      “Came straight from Human Resources.”

      Reliable source, but she still found it hard to believe. She’d only been with the company two years. She was the newest marketing director on staff. But then again, none of her peers had landed the accounts she’d recently brought in the door.

      She sat for a moment, trying to let the repercussions of the notion sink in.

      She decided there were none.

      “Well, he’s wasting his time. I’m not staying. I can’t,” she said, but even she could hear the uncertainty of her tone.

      Adrienne’s expression turned to shock. “Trish, we’re talking VP. What other agency is going to make a twenty-eight-year-old woman a VP? You’d be crazy to walk away from an opportunity like that.”

      She hated when Adrienne was right.

      “I’m going to have to give it some thought.”

      “You’re going to have to dump Cyber Man and either make a move with Logan or get over him and find someone else.” She glanced down at Trisha’s hands, which had begun trembling again. “Look at you. You’re a disaster. The cyber thing isn’t working. You were handling Logan much better before you linked up with pimply kid.”

      Trisha breathed a sigh of agreement. “I know. But I really like him. Sometimes when we chat, it’s like he knows me. It’s almost creepy how much we think alike.”

      “Creepy being the operative word.” Adrienne tilted her head and flashed a warm sympathetic smile that bordered on pity. “Trisha, this cybersex thing isn’t for you. Dump pimply kid, get over Logan and take the VP job. Don’t trash your career over a man. You can handle Logan. You just have to try.”

      “You’re right. I know you’re right,” she replied.

      Unfortunately, knowing and doing were two different things.

      2

      “HEY!