by Nina Lindsey
The gesture bolstered his courage. Excusing himself, he followed her. She stood at the counter, slicing a pound cake. Her tangled brown hair fell across her cheek, partly shielding her elegant profile. She was still dressed in what he’d come to think of as her “professor clothes”—a straight tan skirt and cream-colored blouse.
He wanted to go up behind her, slide his hands around her waist and pull her body back against his. He wanted to breathe in her fruit-scented shampoo and press his lips to her nape. He wanted her to smile and turn her head, to seek his mouth for a kiss, to tell him in a warm, husky voice that she loved him.
How was it that this woman had burrowed into his heart so fast? Had she known there was a vast empty space only she could fill? A Callie-shaped hole where no other woman would ever fit?
She absently licked a crumb off her forefinger and glanced up. Heat threaded the air, layered with the crackling electricity that sparked between them every time their eyes met. His pulse increased.
“Callie, I—”
“We have an unexpected visitor.” Eleanor walked in from the foyer, a nervous smile tugging at her mouth. The tall, gray-haired man whom Jake had briefly met at Sugar Joy followed her.
Callie set the knife down. Jake felt her sudden tension from clear across the kitchen.
The man touched Eleanor’s shoulder and spoke in a low voice. “It’s really better if I come back another time.”
“No time like the present.” She patted his arm, her hand trembling visibly. “I want you to meet my daughters.” Straightening her shoulders, she indicated Callie. “This is my eldest daughter Callie, and her friend Jake.”
Callie didn’t move to greet the man. The “you’re not welcome here” vibe radiating from her was almost tangible. Eleanor twisted her hands together as she watched her daughter.
To fill the sudden taut silence, Jake stepped forward.
“Henry, isn’t it?” He extended a hand. “Jake Ryan.”
The older man nodded and shook his hand. “Good to meet you.”
“Let me introduce you to my other daughters.” Eleanor tugged on Henry’s sleeve, and they disappeared into the dining room.
The silence grew thicker. Jake’s skin prickled with wariness.
Callie turned her attention to him, doubt darkening her eyes. Something shifted, turning the air cold and hard.
“What?” He tightened his hands into fists.
“How did you know his name is Henry?”
Chapter 21
“A deal.” Even as Callie repeated the word, it made no sense.
Sinking onto the love seat, she stared at Jake across the living room. Eleanor perched on a chair, biting her lip worriedly. Aria, Rory, and Henry had all left before Eleanor corralled Jake and Callie into the family room so they could “clear the air.”
With what? An industrial-sized vacuum?
Callie still couldn’t believe what she’d just heard.
Jake had asked her out because of a deal he’d struck with her mother? Callie had been suffocating Eleanor so much that her mother had found it necessary to practically blackmail Jake so that she could have the freedom to pursue her new relationship with Henry—a man Jake had already met because he’d been chatting with her mother at Sugar Joy?
WTF?
Jake sat on the sofa, his elbows resting on his thighs and his head in his hands.
“I can’t believe this.” Callie lifted her hands, willing her mother to tell her this was some ridiculous joke. “You coerced him into asking me out? And you—” she pointed a finger at Jake “—agreed? You came to my office that day acting like you wanted to take me…excuse me, to hang out with me? Are you both kidding me right now?”
“Callie, I’m so fucking sorry.” His voice was hoarse. “I never expected it to come to this.”
“Neither did I.” Her forehead furrowed, Eleanor approached her daughter and reached out to touch her hair. “I’m sorry, honey.”
Callie flinched away from her mother’s touch. Eleanor stopped and curled her fingers into her palm.
“It was totally my fault,” Eleanor said. “My idea. Don’t blame Jake.”
“That’s not true.” He lifted his head, his blue eyes dark with regret. “I’d have done anything to ensure no one else knew I was here. And it wasn’t…I mean, that day in the elevator, you were so…I wanted to…and when I found out it was you, and then the whole thing at the bakery…it was like some twist of fate, and I couldn’t…I didn’t want to turn it down.”
“Oh, give me a break.” Hardening her heart against his jumbled words, Callie got to her feet. “You were both afraid of being found out, and instead of just owning the truth, you made a bargain to lie to me.”
“It wasn’t a lie.” Eleanor stepped in Callie’s path, placing her hands on her hips. “I asked Jake to take you out, yes, but not under the pretense of lying to you. You’d known each other in high school, and I’ve been hoping for a long time that you’d start going out and enjoying yourself…and he came along at the right time.”
“Because your pathetic, lonely daughter couldn’t get her own date?” Fisting her hands, Callie fought back another wave of anger. “Because I’d been suffocating you so much that you didn’t even want to introduce me to your new boyfriend?”
“Every time I’ve tried to talk to you about easing up a little, you haven’t heard me.” Eleanor put her hands out in front of her. “And I explained why I wanted to keep Henry to myself for a little while.”
“You didn’t have to enlist Jake to help you do that!”
“Yes, I did.” Frustration flashed in her mother’s expression. “Callie, I love you so much, but you’ve been micromanaging my life for so long that I was beginning to think I’d never get it back or just live on my own again. You’ve blocked every attempt from me and your sisters to try and get you to understand or even see what you’ve been doing, and yes, I take the blame too because I let you take charge.
“When I met Henry, it was hard enough admitting I was interested in another man after your father and after my surgery. I struggled more than I can tell you with so many questions. Who was I as a woman after that? Would anyone be attracted to me again? Did I even want to be with anyone else? The last thing I needed was you telling me what I should or shouldn’t do, or conducting some kind of search on Henry, or God forbid somehow preventing me from seeing him at all. I just wanted to get to know him on my own terms in my own way.”
Callie clenched her jaw. “I wouldn’t have stopped you from seeing him.”
“Yes, you’d have welcomed him warmly, just like you did tonight.” The sarcastic edge to her mother’s voice cut Callie like a knife.
God. Had she been that bad? Could she ever change?
Eleanor let out her breath and spread her hand toward Jake. He hovered silently near Callie, like an eagle wanting to swoop in and enclose her in his wings.
“When Jake showed up, it seemed like the perfect solution,” Eleanor said, her voice gentling. “You’d get your mind off your work and the tenure review, and you’d have a bit of fun. He’d stay undercover, so to speak. I’d have a chance to figure things out on my own.”
“And not once did you think of how I’d react to this whole scenario?” Callie stepped toward the door as something inside her shifted, turning her anger toward them inward. “Not once did you think I might not want to have fun?”
Even as she said the words, she realized how ridiculous they sounded. Who didn’t want to have fun? A control-freak Classics professor who couldn’t seem to deal with change on any level, apparently.
“Honey, all I do is think of you and your sisters,” her mother said. “I’m sorry you had to learn about it this way, but maybe it’s for the best. We weren’t getting through to you any other way, and at least now you know. It’s much easier to work through problems when they’re out in the open.”
“Well, maybe we can all go to group therapy, then.” Stung by the implication that this was her fault, she st
rode to the door.
“Callie…” Eleanor extended a hand to try and stop her, but Callie evaded her grasp and grabbed her purse.
She hurried outside, welcoming the cool night air on her hot face. A thousand emotions swirled through her—anger, hurt, embarrassment, and maybe worst of all, the sickening realization that her mother and Jake had concocted this scheme because she’d been so rigid no one could get through to her.
Except Jake. The man she’d fallen in love with, who’d not only gotten through to her, but had found his way into the deepest recesses of her heart and soul.
The man who’d taken so many chances in his life and career. He sought out risks and challenges. As much as she wanted nothing to change between them, now she’d have to live with it because the paparazzi incident had just underscored how different their lives were and probably accelerated Jake’s departure.
She dug her car keys from her purse and hurried toward her parked car.
“Callie.” Jake closed his big hand around her arm, pulling her to a stop.
“Go away.”
“Please talk to me.”
“About what?” She whirled to glare at him. The desperation etched on his strong features seared right through her heart, but she couldn’t drum up the wherewithal to ease his pain as well as her own. “The fact that I was a job? That you were forced to take me out or risk blowing your cover?”
“I know that’s what it looks like—”
“That’s what it was!”
“No. Before I said one word to your mother that day, I looked you up on the Skyline website because I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about you. It was like high school again…there was no way I’d ever approach you because you were Callie Prescott and I was just this guy who watched you walk across the quad and wondered how anyone could ever be in your league. As much as I wanted to go to campus to find you, I kept talking myself out of it because no one was supposed to know I was here. So when your mother gave me an opening, I took it.”
“You were acting.” Though not even her anger could make her believe that, Callie knew the accusation would hurt him. “That whole thing at my office…you were just playing another role.”
“I thought…goddammit.” He dragged a hand over his face. “At first, I tried to tell myself it was a role, but that lasted all of two seconds because acting is about trying to convince people that what I’m feeling is real, when what I feel for you is real. Every moment I’ve spent with you…it’s like nothing else exists.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me?” Backing away from him, she spread her arms wide. “Why didn’t you just say my mother had asked you to entertain me so she could have a life again?”
“Would you have gone out with me if I had?”
“Of course not!”
“That’s why.” He stepped forward, his gaze locked to hers. “Believe me, Callie, I wanted to tell you the truth. But after we went out, I couldn’t wait to see you again and then again…and when we weren’t together, I was thinking about you, and I was scared shitless that telling you would ruin what was becoming the best thing I’ve ever had.”
Callie’s breath hitched. “It did ruin it, Jake.”
“No.” A crack threaded his voice. He reached for her. “Callie, please. I love you.”
Her heart somersaulted once before pitching down to settle in the pit of her stomach. The words she thought she’d never hear from him ricocheted inside her.
Despite all her practicality, in a secret part of her soul, she believed in love. She’d even imagined having it for herself one day, and the truth of her love for Jake still flourished powerfully throughout her entire being. It always would.
But love was amorphous and imprecise. It couldn’t right wrongs, solve unsolvable problems, or close the distance between two people whose lives were so far apart that there wasn’t even a middle where they could meet.
With every bit of strength she possessed, Callie hardened herself against the desperate love in his dark blue eyes.
“Go back to Hollywood, Jake.” She tossed her purse into the passenger seat and got into the car. “That’s where people will appreciate your acting.”
A shutter slammed down over his face. She shut the door and started the engine.
After shoving the car into gear, she backed out of the driveway and started home. Halfway there, she pulled to the side of the road and cried until she couldn’t breathe.
Chapter 22
“Dr. Prescott.”
Seated at her office desk, Callie jerked her head up and tried to pull her scattered thoughts together. Professor Klein, the ancient expert of ancient philosophy, stood at the doorway of her office, his mouth pursed in disapproval.
“Your final tenure review is in half an hour,” he said.
“I am aware, thank you.”
“Again, Mrs. Boswell in the front office tells me that members of the media are still pestering her.” A slight sneer accompanied his remark, and he nodded to the window.
Callie followed his line of sight to the quad, where a few camera-laden reporters lingered. Their numbers had declined in the three days since Jake had returned to Los Angeles, but there was still fallout from the bakery incident and public interest in Callie and Jake’s relationship.
Not that there was a relationship anymore. He was gone, and she had stayed. It had ended the way she’d expected it to from the start.
She just hadn’t expected it would hurt so damned much. Like her heart had become a hard, frozen ball spiked with icicles.
“I’ll take care of it.” She reached for her phone. A woman from Jake’s security firm had contacted her to say they had a “team” working for both her and her family’s safety and privacy and to please call immediately if she ran into any problems.
“This kind of attention does not befit the dignity of this department,” Professor Klein sniffed.
Your presence does not befit the dignity of my personal space.
“I said I’ll take care of it.” Callie rose and put her hand on the door in a blatant invitation for him to leave.
Glowering at her over the tops of his glasses, he shuffled out. Callie shut the door with a pointed click and placed a call to the security firm, asking them to please deal with the loitering reporters.
She sat back at her desk, determinedly pushing all thoughts of Jake out of her mind. In half an hour, she had to face the ten-member tenure review board. She would give a statement and answer questions about her scholarship, career, and the reasons why she should be awarded a promotion to full professor.
A knock came at her door.
Suppressing irritation, she called, “Come in.”
Eleanor entered, looking both youthful and pretty in jeans and a polka-dot shirt. Callie’s heart constricted. She hadn’t seen or spoken to her mother since the blowup at her house, and she’d ignored Eleanor’s texts and voicemails.
“In addition to your intelligence, devotion to your family, and high achievements, there’s another quality you share with your father.” Closing the door behind her, Eleanor approached the desk. “You’re as stubborn as a mule.”
Callie shook her head, resisting the urge to fling herself into her mother’s arms and sob out all her heartbreak. “I wouldn’t get things done if I weren’t stubborn.”
“Maybe, but there’s something to be said for being flexible, too.” Eleanor sat down, resting her purse on her lap.
“I have to meet with the tenure board in less than half an hour.”
“That’s why I’m here.”
“For my review?”
“Of course.” Eleanor reached out as if she were going to touch her daughter, then pulled back. “I know the review is closed to the public, but I’ll be waiting for you when you come out.”
“It could take all afternoon.”
“I happen to have all afternoon.”
Swiveling on her chair, Callie faced her mother. Her throat tightened at the warm, melancholy glimmer in Eleanor�
�s eyes.
“Mom…”
“Some relationships don’t last.” Eleanor leaned forward and covered Callie’s hands with hers. “But I’m afraid you’re stuck with me. It’s in the rulebook. Amor maternus.”
Maternal love. Callie smiled faintly. She’d never known life without her family’s love.
Tenderness softened her mother’s features. “Amor vincit omnia.”
“Love doesn’t always conquer all.” Callie turned her palm upward and curled her fingers around Eleanor’s. Warmth flowed from her mother’s soft hands into her skin, melting the icicles around her heart.
“Well, you should at least give it a chance.” Eleanor tightened her grip. “Nemo sine vitio.”
True, no one was without fault. She gazed at their entwined hands. “I love him.”
“I know. He loves you.”
“Even if I could get over this whole thing, I can’t compete with Hollywood.” Callie let out her breath and blinked back tears. “With his career and all that fame. He’ll be away so much, and Bliss Cove is home to me.”
“So? We live in a world of modern travel and time off, honey. Improvidus, apto quod victum.”
A laugh broke from Callie’s throat. Improvise, adapt, and overcome.
“I can’t battle both you and Latin, Mom.”
Eleanor smiled and shrugged. “Veni, vidi, vici.”
“Te amo.”
They both stood at the same time and embraced, a tight, warm hug of forgiveness and promise. Callie swallowed her lingering tears and turned back to her desk.
“I need to get to my review.” She patted her chignon and smoothed down her skirt. “Do I look okay?”
“Perfect.”
Callie picked up her leather folder of notes, and they walked down the hall to the large conference room. The big wooden doors were closed. Callie almost sensed the presence of the ten stern board members enclosed in the vast space. She tightened her grip on her folder.
“Are we late?” A hushed, frantic voice came from the direction of the elevators. “We couldn’t find parking.”