Free The Accidental Virgin by Valerie Frankel Page A

couldn’t understand why screams still filled the apartment. Brian seemed perplexed, too. The two of them turned toward the sound.
    There, in the doorway, stood a woman. She was short and fair, with a blonde pageboy. She was cute, in a pug-nosed, preppy kind of way. She wore an “antiStacy” outfit — chinos and a mannish blazer over a cobalt blue Oxford shirt. Her hands reached to cup her cheeks, and she dropped a stuffed backpack, blue, on the floor. For a deluded second, Stacy thought she was screaming in pain from dropping such a heavy bundle on her foot. The shrieks were prolonged, ear piercing. This woman must have had some vocal training to sustain the volume. Brian pushed Stacy off him (causing her to tumble clumsily against the opposite arm of the couch).
    He blinked and said, “Idit!”
    Idit? Was he calling this woman an idiot? Before Stacy could hazard a guess, the small woman with the large lung capacity picked up the backpack and threw it at him, hitting him squarely in the chest.
    “In my apartment!” she yelled before running out the open apartment door, slamming it as she left.
    Her apartment? This had been Brian’s apartment for ten years. Who did this woman think she was?
    Brian filled her in: “That was my fiancée, Idit Sholanstein.” He put the backpack on the couch between them.
    Stacy used a pillow to cover her near nakedness. “Your fiancée,” she said, grappling with the news. “I practically begged you to take me back.”
    “You’re my dream girl, Stace,” he said. “Idit wasn’t supposed to be home until late. I guess I should go after her.” Brian turned to look at Stacy, waiting for a cue. She had a choice here: She could 1) send him after his fiancée (the right thing to do), or 2) seduce him, ending her problem and his engagement in one swoop. But then she’d have to be his girlfriend again. From her new place on the other side of the couch, that suddenly seemed like a very bad idea. She looked squarely at Brian, whose eyes were searching her face (and examining her body) for direction.
    “I’m not sure I want a relationship right now,” she said, fumbling. “I meant it when I said that I did, but now I’m not so sure.” She picked up her dress and put it on. “If only Idit had come in ten minutes later,” she said mournfully.
    “I do love her,” said Brian. “But one look at you…”
    “We went out for three years and never got close to being engaged,” she said. “How long have you been with Idit?”
    “We met at vavoom.com, right after you dumped me.” Brian, formerly an engineer for Volvo America, worked as a designer for the simulation shareware game site. “We started as friends. I was depressed after our breakup. Idit comforted me, took care of me. I can’t imagine what I’d have done without her. She proposed to me. Last week. Bought herself a ring. The reason I never asked you to marry me is because I knew you wouldn’t have said yes. And I also know that you don’t really want to get back together with me. You just want to get laid. And I was up for it. I still am.” He pulled Stacy into his lap. “Idit will come back. I’ll make it right. But she has nothing to do with unfinished business between us.” He put his hand between her knees.
    Could she go through with it, now that she knew he was engaged? A moral dilemma. She didn’t need the bad karma, that was for sure. But his fingers felt lovely on her skin and she did have this revirgination problem. If he was willing to compromise his engagement, why should she worry? Was it her responsibility to keep him in line? She wasn’t cheating on anyone. She didn’t even know this Idit.
    Before Stacy could sink into Brian and his moral decline, Idit saved her own life. She slammed back into the apartment, picked up Stacy’s bag, pulled Stacy away from Brian, dragged her out of the apartment, down the hallway, into the elevator, out onto the street and halfway down the block.
    As they neared