Page 37 of The Forbidden Trio

She looked up at the enormous canvas that hung over her bed, a painting her sister Iris had done of Buddha’s serene face in shades of brown and gold. “Please give me serenity,” she begged quietly.

She pulled in a deep breath, into her belly, blew it out.

Nothing.

Shaking her head, she went back to her closet and began to dig through it once more. There had to besomethingin there among all her yoga clothes and her breezy Bohemian dresses. She yanked on one of them in frustration and a box fell from the high shelf, spilling old photos onto the floor. She knelt to retrieve them and saw a scattered stack of pictures of her and Cole. With her heart in her throat, she picked the small pile up and began to leaf through them.

They looked so young, both of them dressed like the little rock ’n’ rollers they’d been, and still were, at heart, in jeans and T-shirts and leather jackets. There were snapshots of Cole on his old Harley, and she remembered the rides they’d taken up the Pacific Coast Highway. Parking at the beach and making out like mad on the sand as the sun went down over the sparkling ocean.

There were pictures of the band on stage at the Roxy and Madame Wong’s in Hollywood, back when Cole’s dark hair was still long, his jeans worn tight over his strong thighs. God, he’d had such swagger and style on the stage. He still did, she knew from having seen him on TV.

She flipped through a few more and found a later one—one from the final weeks of their marriage. She could tell he’d been drunk in this one, his eyes sleepy and sensual. He’d tried to hide being loaded from her, but she always knew the truth behind those sleepy eyes.

Could she see through the raging fire of the chemistry between them to see the truth now?

When her cell phone rang, she jumped.

“Jesus. I really need to calm down,” she muttered as she moved through her apartment into the living room. She tracked the ringtone to the coffee table, which was a piece of carved teak from India topped in glass. Madame was half-sitting on the phone, calmly licking one of her paws. Janie gave her a small push, but the enormous cat didn’t budge, just gave her an evil look from the corner of one blue eye.

“Fine,” she mumbled, snaking her hand under the cat’s furry weight to retrieve the phone—and smiled when she saw it was her best friend calling. “Celine, just the person I needed to talk to!”

She and Celine had met five years ago, when Janie was teaching a yoga class in North Hollywood. An art teacher at L.A. City College, Celine was gorgeous—tall, tattooed, a bit of a rebel, and one of the truest friends she’d ever had.

“And I appear as if by magic, ready to do your bidding, sugar. What’s up?”

Janie smiled. “I have a date. Well, sort of a date. Actually, it’s not a date at all.”

“Okayyyy….”

“That made absolutely no sense, did it?”

“Nope,” Celine said cheerfully. “Want to try again?”

Janie blew out a breath. She moved through the French doors, which she’d left open to take advantage of the fresh air and the sweet scent coming from the pair of lemon trees blossoming outside. The old, uneven bricks of the small patio were cool on her bare feet, and the sky was lit with soft purple twilight.

“You remember I told you about my ex?”

“Theex? The lead singer of Ink & Iron with the tattoos and the motorcycles and the throaty voice who dedicates all his heartbreak ballads to you? That ex?”

Janie bit her lip. “Yes. That one.”

“And?”

“And I’m going to dinner with him in…” she glanced at the clock, “…about half an hour.”

“Seriously? Should I be worried? Because from what you’ve told me he did a real number on you and you’re still pretty pissed off at him. Especially after…well, your old friend who passed so recently.”

Janie paced the small patio. “I know.I know! Which makes this totally stupid. But, Celine, he dropped by my yoga studio today—he walked into one of my classes and stood there waiting for an hour. Well, he actually did the class. I think. I was trying not to look at him, but of course

I did. And then we talked in my office and things got a little messy—”

“I need specifics,” Celine interrupted. “‘Messy’ as in screaming and crying ‘messy’, or hot reunion sex on a yoga mat that was great but you already regret it ‘messy’?”

“Not messy like that. Or not much, anyway. Messy emotional. And I agreed to have dinner with him, which isinsaneand I know it, but not only am I going, but I can’t wait to see him and,

God, what do I wear?”

There was a long silence on the other end of the phone, then, “Girl, you are in bad shape.”