Tempt Me, Taste Me, Touch Me - Bella Andre Page 0,3

She winked to send home her none too-subtle double entendre.

Carrie playfully smacked Vanessa on the shoulder. "Holding out for a bigger diamond is something only you would do."

Vanessa sniffed. "That's because I'm the only one with the panache, not to mention the balls, to carry it off." "You said no?" The.shock in Rose's voice was strong enough to carry over Alanis and the road noise. Heat flooded Carrie's face. "I didn't say no, I yelled no:' Now that the dam had broken, everything came spilling out. "He was talking about Mummy and Bora-Bora and I wanted to smack him. He didn't even wait to hear if I said yes before he was naming our children."

In a show of solidarity that Carrie couldn't have predicted, especially since she knew firsthand how difficult it was to take the diamond off, Vanessa slipped the ring off her finger and shoved it back into Carrie's pocket. ''At least now you don't have to give up your career to be a trophy wife:' Vanessa said, in her characteristically blunt manner.

Carrie's mouth fell open and she spun around to face Rose, putting their lives in jeopardy for several seconds. "Vanessa just called me a trophy wife. A trophy wife! Aren't you going to make her apologize?" Rose bit down on her lip. With great reluctance, she finally said, "She's right, Carrie."

Vanessa reached across Carrie to take the wheel as they swerved into the fast lane and Rose let out a highpitched yelp of fear.

"Sorry I'm almost killing us here:' Carrie said, turning back to the road. "I just can't believe this. Why didn't you guys ever say anything?"

Vanessa shrugged. "James was rich and successful and good looking, and you seemed to like that:' ''And this was your 'Year of Marriage:" Rose said, an embarrassing reminder of Carrie's drunken New Year's resolution. "We didn't want to mess that up for you."

Last December 31 she'd decided that nearly two years with James and no wedding ring was long enough. Plus, she'd been thirty-two, and time had seemed of the essence. Babies, the next stage of life, the whole nine yards. Which meant it had been time to get her boyfriend to make the big move. And so she'd declared her "Year of Marriage" resolution to her friends in a private, well-liquored embrace and had dropped numerous hints to James for the past nine months, not to mention leaving dogeared copies of Bride magazine on the coffee table at her apartment.

"I still don't understand why neither of you went out on a limb to tell me what you really felt about James. If I'm too blind, too stupid to save myself, isn't it up to my best friends to save me?" Vanessa pressed her lips together, making it clear that she didn't appreciate having to defend herself. Rose stepped in to smooth things over. "You always said how perfect everything was with James, so we kind of figured things were just how you wanted them. That they were good enough."

Carrie looked at Vanessa for the full, unvarnished truth. ''And?''

"You never want to hear anything negative. You convinced yourself that he was wonderful, and if we'd said anything you would have blown us off."

"We didn't want you to have to choose sides:' Rose said, trying to soften Vanessa's harsh, but honest, statement. "No matter who you marry, we'd always want to be your friends. But if we'd said we didn't like him ... " Rose didn't say any more, didn't say how Carrie might have given up her best friends because she hadn't wanted to face the truth about the man she'd been dating.

Carrie felt tears welling up and was glad she had her sunglasses on. "You're right."

"Don't be mad at us, Carrie:' Rose said.

Carrie shook her head. "Of course I'm not mad at you guys.

How can I be? I'm just upset that it took me so long to face up to who James really was. To what our relationship was all about. I wanted him to be perfect, and he was on paper, so I pretended that he was in real life too. But all along, he was only good enough. And I was just as bad as he was, because last night I realized that I never truly loved him. Even though I tried to convince all of us that I did."

While Rose rubbed Carrie's knotted shoulder muscles gently from the backseat, Carrie wished she could rewind the last two years and start over.

In a shaky voice, she