Champagne Rules Read Online Free Page B

maybe you could, Suze. Wouldn’t that be better than hot dreams?”
    “Weren’t you listening?” Suzanne said impatiently. “Even if he was real, I never knew anything about him.”
    “It’s hard to track down a person when you have no information,” Ann agreed.
    “Hmm.” Jenny drummed her fingernails—hot-pink, decorated with rhinestones—against the table. “How about a personals ad?”
    “Oh sure, Jen,” Rina said, “like there’s any chance the chocolate man lives in Vancouver.”
    Jenny groaned. “Duh. Not the Vancouver paper, you twit, the internet.”
    Suzanne’s breath caught. She used e-mail all the time, and the internet for veterinary research, but she’d never thought of using the worldwide web to try to track down her one-time, maybe lover.
    Ann frowned. “That could be dangerous. Freaks and weirdos hang out on the internet.”
    Jenny rolled her eyes. “Suze wouldn’t use her own internet address. We’ll get her a free account with Hotmail or Yahoo. Anonymous. So what if she gets some flaky replies to the ad?
    She just ignores them.”
    “The odds of him seeing the ad are incredibly slim, even if he does exist,” Ann pointed out. “This does not sound like the kind of man who needs the internet to find a date.” Frowning, she ran her fingers through her hair, then suddenly gave an impish grin. “Still, there’s nothing lost in trying.”
    Jenny and Ann were talking like this had gone beyond the hypothetical. Suzanne’s heart thumped nervously. She turned to Rina, who was staring off into space. “What do you have to say about this?”
    “Hmm?” Rina said dreamily. “You know, sometimes we let people go out of our lives too easily.”
    Suzanne groaned. “This is not a good idea. I can’t imagine marrying this guy, so what’s the point?”
    “Are you so sure he couldn’t be your Mr. Cleaver?” Ann asked.
    “I . . . Oh, come on, he was sexy and . . . outrageous. Definitely not husband material. I want a steady, reliable guy like my dad and my brother-in-law. Besides, I’m still in vet school, I’m nowhere near ready to settle down.”
    “Yeah,” Jenny said, “so it’s a perfect time to take a walk on the wild side. For once in your life.”
    “For twice, you mean,” Ann, the stickler for accuracy, said.
    “For twice,” Suzanne echoed. The idea was tempting. Or maybe that was the second margarita talking. “I’ll think about it. But if I do it, you guys have to help me.”
    Jax was standing at his secretary’s desk discussing a file, when her phone rang. Caitlin answered, then put her hand over the receiver. She looked like a cheeky elf with her trendy orangetipped hair, freckles and wide grin. “Your wife.”
    “Ex,” he corrected automatically. Caitlin always teased that, because he rarely dated, she forgot he was divorced. “I’ll take it in my office.”
    He closed the door to his closet-sized office, slid into his chair and picked up the phone. His marriage to Tonya might have been a mistake, but their hard-won friendship was something he valued. “Hey, you. What’s up?”
    “Just calling to say happy anniversary.”
    “Ouch,” he said mildly. If they’d stayed married, it would have been three years on Sunday. “Sorry I didn’t send a card, but I figured Benjamin wouldn’t appreciate it.”
    “He’s cool. Especially now our marriage has lasted a whole month longer than yours and mine did.”
    They’d finally reached the point where the teasing was affectionate, even if occasionally barbed on her side.
    “Double ouch,” he said. So she and Benjamin had made seven whole months.
    “So, I’m curious. Did you even pause a moment in your work to remember it was our anniversary?”
    He smiled into the phone. Yup, there was a work barb. But it was kind of cute that, while she was happily married to another man, she didn’t want her ex to forget her.
    “Yeah,” he confessed. “Found myself thinking about our honeymoon. Sonoma, the wineries,