Marriage by Mistake

father, who'd enjoyed one mistress after another the entire span of her parents' marriage.
    The other disadvantage of marriage Dean would have saved her from, or so Felicia had thought, was having to satisfy a man in bed. She'd thought Dean was...like her. Driven by his work, sober and serious. Not distracted by the more basic elements of human nature.
    Now that she'd met the man's oh-so-alluring wife, Felicia knew better.
    Good God, what if they had married, only for her then to discover—?
    Her eyes widened at the mere thought. Coming to a stop by the large, mullioned window, Felicia crossed her arms over her chest and turned her back to the window. She didn't want the glass to show her a reflection of herself. She didn't want to see the deep deficiency so well hidden beneath a fashionable exterior.
    She was frigid. She had to be. At twenty-eight years old, she'd never lain with a man. She didn't even want to lie with a man. She didn't want the physical or emotional vulnerability that would be involved.
    Dean, she'd thought, would not have desired that from her. With Dean she could have been safe.
    A laugh escaped her. Well! Not only was Dean married, but he was clearly not safe. That wife.
    God.
    And somehow...somehow...this disaster was all Troy's fault.
    Felicia couldn't say exactly how. She only knew that Troy had given her the news about Dean's marriage with such obvious delight. With smug glee he'd made it clear he understood the dreams she'd had. And he mocked them. He mocked her . He always did. He was odious, a toad, slime.
    Down below, outside the window, Felicia could hear Aunt Hilda and Uncle Garrett's voices. They'd come out the front door and were saying goodbye to her mother.
    When Felicia heard the slam of their car door, she moved. If her mother saw her light on under the door she would surely come in and submit Felicia to her interrogation this evening, instead of waiting for morning.
    Her mother wanted to know everything that Felicia did, everything she thought and felt. It was a constant challenge to satisfy her mother's curiosity and maternal concern, even while telling her nothing of genuine intimacy. Sometimes...sometimes Felicia considered moving out of her childhood home—even if it would mean leaving her mother all alone.
    But for now Felicia stole on experienced feet to the switch beside her bedroom door. With a flick of her hand, she plunged the room into darkness. Later, after her mother had walked past and gone into her own room Felicia could turn the lights back on.
    Meanwhile, waiting with hushed breath in the darkness, Felicia could see the red light on her answering machine blinking. Someone had called on her personal phone line while she'd been at the opera.
    Dean ? Felicia thought, with a stupid leap of hope. Stupid, because Dean wasn't about to call her, even if he hadn't been married. She barely crossed his mind. The message was probably from a fellow member of one of the many boards to which Felicia belonged. There was the problem of finding a professional fundraiser for the Boston Family Aid Foundation, a problem that was becoming more urgent as the purely volunteer efforts to raise money fell short.
    Felicia bit her lower lip. The Family Aid Foundation was close to her heart. She wanted to give families—mostly single mothers—a chance to get their lives together, to become independent and self-sufficient.
    So once she heard her mother's bedroom door close at the end of the hall, she moved across the room to her bedside table. There she switched on the small lamp and then hit the button for the answering machine.
    But it wasn't one of her contacts at the Family Aid Foundation. No, of all things it was Troy's voice that came out of the pretty white answering machine which sat on her night table.
    "Guess this is kind of a shock," Troy muttered.
    He could say that again. Felicia stared at her answering machine, which had suddenly become an alien creature, allowing Troy's voice to be stored inside, and now letting it drawl forth, right into Felicia's most private space.
    Troy was everything Dean was not. Troy exuded sexuality. He was like—a big tom cat, physically expert and deeply sensual. Even now, his mere voice was making Felicia's hair stand on end.
    "Don't know if I've ever called you about anything at all," Troy went on. "But—that's not the point. The point is—" And here Troy sighed, deeply. "The point is I wanted to ask you out...to lunch, I guess. Yeah,