Hanna was quiet on the drive back. She could sense Meghan wanting to ask about her encounter, but to the girl's credit, she made no inquiries.
Once they'd pulled into Hanna's driveway, Meghan cut off the engine and sat looking at the pretty blonde.
"Well, I suppose that could have gone better," Hanna said with a bitter laugh. She then recounted the entire conversation for Meghan before saying, "Let's go sit on the back patio. I don't know about you, but I could use a cigarette."
Meghan agreed but added that she would sneak next door through the back fence and retrieve a bottle of wine and a couple of wine glasses. Hanna made her promise not to tell Haley about what had transpired between her and Curtis. She felt responsible for having failed Haley. Even in trying to be diplomatic in her responses, Hanna knew she had been far too confrontational.
She was still sitting there smoking when Meghan returned a few minutes later with the wine and glasses.
"I told Haley I'd bring you over in a bit. She was anxious to talk to you, and I think Gracie would enjoy seeing you too." Meghan said.
Hanna nodded her head as she took a sip of wine. Its taste was a bit tart for her liking. She preferred the mixed drinks Scottie had purchased for her on their night out in Swamp Town. Haley and Meghan were great company, but Hanna missed her redheaded best friend.
As if reading her mind, Meghan said, "Haley also said she heard from Scottie that their trip might have to extend by several days. Something she and Damian had to see to over in the far east. So I guess you're stuck with me as your companion until then."
Hanna held up her glass as if toasting, and said, "I miss Scottie, but just being honest, having Damian away gives me time to think. Whenever I know he's only the other side of that fence; his presence clouds my mind. It makes it nearly impossible for me to focus on anything else, and I end up walking around here in an indescribable state of arousal."
Meghan smiled and said, "He has that exact effect on all of us if we go too long without being with him. Those days after having sex with him, that issue seems to decrease. It's as if he's nourished us, and we're no longer hungry."
Then, as if remembering what she'd promised from earlier in the day, Meghan added, "Sorry about that. You brought him up, and I was just expounding on what you said."
Hanna waved off her concerns but said nothing.
Both women were quiet for a few moments before Meghan asked, "What you said to Curtis about serving him with divorce papers, did you mean that?"
Hanna seemed to think a moment before saying, "Yeah, actually, I think I did. I know now that I never loved Curtis the way a wife is supposed to love a husband. He was practically forced on me by my parents, particularly my mother. I think she wanted me trapped in the same type of passionless marriage she's endured."
"Your parents...they don't?" Meghan asked, actually showing restraint for once.
Hanna shook her head. "My dad, well, Damian says my dad is gay and has been his entire life. He's been in love and carrying on an affair with the same man for years. What's more, the guy he's in love with is black."
Lighting a cigarette and exhaling smoke into the sky, Meghan said, "Like father like daughter, huh?"
Hanna cocked an eyebrow at her would-be personal assistant. "I never said I was in love with Damian."
"You never said you weren't either," Meghan said, her voice going up an octave as she teased back at the sexy blonde.
Hanna couldn't help but laugh. "I'm not sure I know what love is. What I feel for Damian far outstretches anything I ever felt for Curtis. But are passion and lust enough to equal love?"
Meghan shrugged as she brought her cigarette to her lips. "They can be enough to start with; it's not like Damian anticipates you to marry him."
That caught Hanna by surprise. Seeing the glaring disoriented look on Hanna's face, Meghan asked, "What, you thought the two of you would be getting married?"
"Well...I guess..." Hanna sputtered before frustration got the better of her. "I don't know. He's wanting me to give him a son and called me his queen. I just figured..."
Meghan giggled and said, "I guess I can see your confusion. That is the way we were always brainwashed to understand things were supposed to work. If you think about it, though, the concept of marriage was supposedly ordained by God, so it would make sense that it would be something Damian would avoid."
Hanna started to laugh, a sudden thought filling her head that was so deliciously comical she couldn't help herself. Meghan looked at her friend as if she'd sprung a leak in her sanity.
"What?" Meghan asked with a bemused grin on her face.
Hanna shook her head as her laughing, at last, died down. "It just occurred to me that the Devil wants me to live with him in sin," the gorgeous blonde said with a giggle. "I mean, how perfect of an idea is that?"