Except that whatever Lawrence owned remained his until he was damned good and ready to toss it out. Even that didn’t make sense to her, though. Granted, she’d been the one who wanted the divorce, but it had been because she’d found out about the affair. He’d already picked out wife number two before the divorce and he’d annihilated her in court. What the hell else could the bastard possibly want?
* * * *
Chelsey was sorry she’d decided to go to her sister’s house. Marla was like a damned bloodhound once she got a scent in her nose and there was no shaking her loose!
“So … you heard anything from Diablo since the party?” she asked oh so casually once they’d settled on the lounges by her pool.
Chelsey felt a wave of cold wash over her. “Who?”
“Oh! Don’t even try that little sister! You were practically drooling all over yourself before he offered to give you a private dance!”
Chelsey felt her face heat. “Really, Marla! I wasn’t that damned bad …and I’d like to know how you would’ve even noticed! Like everybody wasn’t salivating to get hold of him!”
“Oh, they were. I’ll give you that, and I’ll admit he had my little heart pounding with excitement, too—but you’re the one he invited to the back. What were the two of you doing all that time, I wonder?”
The blood surged a little hotter in her Chelsey’s cheeks. She cleared her throat. “Dancing,” she said a little hoarsely. A sudden thought popped into her mind that brought an awful sense of dread with it. “Marla … you didn’t have anything to do with him offering me a private lap dance, did you?”
Marla looked uncomfortable. “You needed cheering up.”
Chelsey turned to stare at her sister accusingly. “You … arranged it?”
Marla shrugged and then frowned. “Well, I did suggest when I hired him that I’d give him a bonus if he’d ….” She shrugged. “I didn’t see any harm in it. He turned me down flat, though. If you want the truth he was a little nasty about it! He said he didn’t do that, that soliciting was against the law, regardless of the gender. I figured he probably thought I was an undercover cop or something so I didn’t say anything else. But I did throw it out there. I’ll admit that much. I figured you needed to get laid. My god it’s been almost a year!”
Chelsey didn’t know if she believed that or not—now. She felt like squalling. She didn’t think she’d ever felt more betrayed—both by Marla and Garryk—or more like a complete fool! Why had she been stupid enough, or gullible enough, to think Garryk could possibly have any interest in her at all?
Well, she hadn’t believed it—not in the beginning. She’d begun to think it might actually be a possibility because he kept coming back and he seemed so … passionate when he was with her she’d begun to feel … special. What if that was just him, though? What if he was like that with any woman he felt like fucking?
“I was really surprised when he did it after all,” Marla continued thoughtfully. “Especially when he had no way of knowing you were the birthday girl that I could see.”
“You didn’t point me out to him?” Chelsey asked a little hopefully.
“Well … I did try. I was signaling him like crazy, but he was already completely focused on you. I don’t think he saw me.”
Chelsey’s heart sank. “He might have, though.”
“Maybe,” Marla agreed a little doubtfully and then brightened. “He might have discovered it when I let him in the back. I bet that was it!”
Gee, thanks Marla, Chelsey thought unhappily! She finally shut up, though—thank god! Chelsey closed her eyes, pretending to enjoy the sun while she struggled for composure. She’d just begun to formulate a lie to cover a swift retreat when Marla thought of something else to wreck her peace.
“I never did tell you he called.”
Chelsey didn’t bother to pretend she didn’t know who ‘he’ was. “Really?”
Marla sighed. “Well, really Chelsey! He’s an exotic dancer! Cute—sexy as hell—but trashy, as badly as I hate to say it. He could tell I have money. He probably thought you’d be a good meal ticket. Naturally, I wouldn’t give him your number. I wouldn’t have even if you hadn’t forbidden me to give it to anybody. I just wanted you to have a little fun for a change. I wasn’t trying to make you a mark for a con man!”
Chelsey sat up, furious and making no attempt to hide it. “I would’ve expected better from you, Marla! He isn’t trash and he isn’t a con man! That is so unbelievably bigoted I’m ashamed you’re my sister!”
Marla gaped at her for several moments while all that sank in and then her own anger kicked in. “Bigoted? Honest to god, Chelsey! You’re a grown woman! You’re old enough to know better than to be … sucked in by a pretty face and a hot body! I thought you were anyway! It may be an ugly fact of life, but it isn’t bigoted to assume somebody with his background is bad news! It’s self-preservation! He might not be a bad person, but you know damned well the odds are against him!”
“The odds were always against him!” Chelsey said angrily. “But he wasn’t a bad kid in spite of all the shit he had to deal with and he damned well isn’t a bad man! There’s nothing wrong with what he does for a living! Nothing! That doesn’t make him a … whore! Or trash!”
“I never said he was a whore—not that eight out of ten men aren’t!—you’re the one that said that.”
“You didn’t have to! You suggested it when you made the nasty remark about him being an exotic dancer!”
“You’ve been seeing him, haven’t you? He tracked you down and you fell for whatever hard luck story he thought up to con you with, didn’t you?” She studied Chelsey’s set face for a long moment. “Chelly—you’ve got a heart of gold and I’ve always loved you for it, but … it blinds you to people’s faults and makes you a perfect target for anybody with a sob story! Didn’t you learn anything from Lawrence?”
“Yes, I did,” Chelsey said tightly. “I learned how to tell the difference between a real man and a monster!”
“Well, you obviously didn’t!” Marla snapped angrily. “The pretty ones are the worst of all!”
“That’s just as bigoted as calling him trash for being a dancer!” Chelsey said indignantly. “I’m going home. I’m not having this conversation anymore! You’re making wild assumptions and you don’t even know him! You might at least give him the benefit of a doubt!”
“I would if he hadn’t targeted you!”
“He didn’t target me!” Chelsey yelled back at her, feeling the first flicker of uneasiness since they’d begun arguing. “I know Garryk Sinclair! I’ve known him for years. He’s nothing like you think!”
Marla stared at her wide eyed. “Oh my god! Chelly, tell me he isn’t a former student! You wouldn’t do anything that unforgivably stupid!”
Chelsey felt her face heat guiltily. “He was a student—a long time ago, but he’s damned near thirty! What difference does that make?”
“The difference is it could be twisted into a noose for you, damn it! You think it won’t cause a bigger stink than a rupture of a sewer line if anybody was to find out he’d been a student? They’d say you’d been molesting your students since you started! It could turn into a witch hunt—and any kid that feels like he has a grudge could lie and say you’d molested him, too!”
“I didn’t molest Garryk!” Chelsey said angrily.
“Prove it!” Marla snarled at her.
Chelsey blinked at her. “How the hell could I prove it?”
“Exactly! You can’t! And they don’t have to try you and convict you in a court of law! They can do that in the newspapers! If you’re involved with him, you need to break it off before it gets out, Chelsey. I’m serious! There won’t be enough money in the world to get your life back once you’ve been tarred and feathered by public opinion!”
Chapter Nine
Chelsey didn’t think she’d ever been closer to a nervous breakdown in her life than she was when she finally got home! As hard as she tried to dismiss
Marla’s warnings, she couldn’t. She knew it was true. The threat was real.
She might be able to avoid disaster, but she sure as hell couldn’t count on it!
People always seemed to want to think the worst, anyway, and she’d left herself wide open for all sorts of accusations.
They could even twist her decision to stop teaching into something sordid. It was only a coincidence that she’d finally given in to Lawrence’s demands and resigned just before Garryk graduated, but even she could see how that could be interpreted as fleeing the scene of the crime!
She didn’t think it would’ve been quite so bad if she’d at least been able to dismiss the nagging fear that Marla was right about Garryk, too—not that she could, or would, believe he was a con man! The problem was, she was almost a hundred percent certain that he was only serious about screwing her brains out at every opportunity—until he was tired of her and ready to move on to greener pastures.
Even if he had been a … gold digger, as Marla suggested, he would’ve realized the moment he saw her apartment that she was as close to broke as made very little difference! She didn’t believe he was. That had certainly never crossed her mind! She supposed it should have given the fact that she was years older than him, but he hadn’t even tried to bum money off of her—not once! He’d been scrupulously careful to pay her back for everything she’d spent on him or that he’d helped himself to.
She’d figured it was just the sex. She still thought that. Sure she was older and he could’ve gotten pretty much any woman he wanted, but she wasn’t that old! She might not be a great beauty, either, but she had a decent figure and she certainly wasn’t ugly. She also didn’t think she would’ve tempted a lot of men his age, if it came to that, but she’d figured it was a fantasy thing for him. It wasn’t as if impressionable young men didn’t notice their young teachers! They hit high school ripe to fuck anything in sight that they could chase down and plenty of them wanted nothing more than to get their hands on a woman.
In all honesty, she suspected she’d been caught up in a similar fantasy. She knew absolutely that if she’d never lain eyes on Garryk before the night of her party, she would’ve felt much the same as she did now. There was just something about him and always had been that was magnetic to her.
She had known him before, though, and forbidden fruit or not he’d been just as magnetic to the young Chelsey as he was now to her older self. She hadn’t been able not to wonder if he could possibly be as good as he looked like he was. She’d even had a couple of seriously hot dreams featuring Garryk in the starring role.
So she’d been putty in his hands when the opportunity presented itself—because she had always wanted to know. And of course now she did and she realized she’d totally underestimated him.
So she wasn’t just putty in his hands, she was hopeless—a lost cause!
Even now, as frightened as she was at the future Marla had drawn for her, as many doubts as she’d planted about Garryk, all she could think about was figuring out some way to keep from having to give him up. She didn’t think she could ask him to leave even to save herself. All she could think about was that life wasn’t really going to be worth living if she had to do that.
She’d been unhappy before Garryk and she knew without any doubt that when he left it was going to be ten times worse.
She thought he was probably going to leave soon enough anyway. Couldn’t she just enjoy it a little while? Wasn’t there some way to protect her future and still have Garryk as long it lasted? Couldn’t she have her cake and eat it, too?
The thought finally gave her some focus. She’d worry about the other things later—when she had to.
Fortunately, she’d still had enough sense before they’d gotten involved to consider the consequences and Garryk had agreed to see her secretly. That didn’t mean Lawrence couldn’t find out if she wasn’t paranoid and he really was having her watched, but it at least lowered the risk.
So all she really had to do was hide, right? She honestly couldn’t picture Garryk making a stink and telling anyone. He hated anyone prying into his private life. He wasn’t going to announce it to anybody that he was fucking his ex-teacher! And she sure as hell couldn’t picture him telling anyone she’d molested him! If she had, he would’ve gone to his grave to keep anyone from knowing.
So that left her and Marla and possibly Lawrence.
Lawrence would’ve cut her throat and thrown her off a bridge if he’d thought he could get away with it. If he got his hands on the story, she was cooked. Otherwise, she sure as hell wasn’t going to tell and Marla wouldn’t and Garryk wouldn’t.
So hiding seemed the best bet.
Of course, she’d no sooner realized that than she remembered Garryk had told her he was taking her out and she should pick a nice restaurant. She didn’t know what his idea of ‘nice’ was, but she didn’t think it was likely to be any of the super expensive places Lawrence frequented.
It still seemed like a really bad idea to be seen in public with him. She might not run into Lawrence, but she couldn’t be sure she wouldn’t run into somebody that knew him and knew she was his ex.
Garryk would think she was ashamed of being seen with him! She knew he would!
She didn’t want him to think that! Because it absolutely wasn’t true!
She was afraid to be seen with him, and that was entirely different!
Right!
He wasn’t going to see the fine difference—and there was a difference, damn it! He was a fine man and she was proud of him! She would’ve been proud to be seen anywhere with him—except she knew what Lawrence could do with the fact that he was an exotic dancer! Ruin her! She could lose any chance of seeing Larry. She could lose her job. And worse, if he got to digging, he could really ruin her, set off the witch hunt Marla had warned her about!
She could fix the meal she’d planned before! She could tell him she didn’t want the expensive meat to ruin and she also thought it would be nice to just take it easy and have a leisurely ‘date’ at her place since he only had a half day off!
She was sure she could pull that off!
She didn’t know what she was going to do if he decided to take her out again, but she could cross that bridge when she came to it. The important thing was to be careful now without giving Garryk the idea that she didn’t want to be seen with him! She didn’t want to hurt him, or hurt his pride, and she didn’t want him to get angry with her and leave.
* * * *
There were times, Chelsey reflected, when she wished she had chill pills on hand or happy pills or maybe both. She hadn’t managed to achieve any kind of real calm since she’d argued with Marla. She’d done her damndest. She’d thoroughly indulged in an ‘oh woe is me’ crying jag when she couldn’t convince herself that her life wasn’t falling apart. She followed that with a long, hot soak in her tub—and another crying jag. She’d fought a round with a panic attack when she realized how late it was and how unprepared she was and then she’d rushed around in a blind panic trying to put everything together for a ‘quiet, relaxing’ evening at home.
If hysterics wasn’t the road to calm, she didn’t know what the hell was! But she’d run the full gamut, thoroughly exhausted herself, and she was still on edge.
Every time she went to the refrigerator to get something, she stared at the beer Garryk had left. She didn’t know if it was the last of the two she’d found before, or a new one, but there was only one.
He was bound to notice if she took it.
She’d probably puke if she tried to drink it anyway.
Unfortunately, she didn’t drink so she not only didn’t have ‘happy-calm’ in a bottle, it didn’t occur to her that she could buy a bottle of ‘happy-calm’ until she’d already started cooking and couldn’t leave.
She was just going to have to wing it, manage the old fashioned way—drug and alcohol free.
My god, how did they do it before, she wondered when she took the lamb chops out and disco
vered she’d overcooked them? Nothing had turned out! Absolutely nothing! Garryk was going to think she couldn’t cook!
Her chin wobbled threateningly as she glanced from the disaster she’d prepared to the clock for the umpteenth time. Her nose stung. She sniffed, setting the pan down and dashing to the bathroom to throw cold water on her face. When she’d fought back the urge to yield to her emotions again, she looked at herself in the mirror and felt worse. Her eyes were swollen and she’d washed her makeup off. Her hair was falling down and she’d dripped something on her damned dress!
“Kill me, god! Just kill me now!”
A sound emanated from the front of the apartment that instantly distracted her. Her eyes widened. “Oh please! Not now!” Racing on tiptoes, she reached the door to the living room just as Garryk opened it and stepped inside. She froze, staring at Garryk in wide eyed dismay, trying to remember the play she’d rehearsed to convince him he really didn’t want to go out. When her search turned up empty and she refocused on Garryk, she discovered he’d spotted her frozen in the doorway like a deer caught in the headlights of a car.
He was looking at her a little strangely.
Was it the hair and makeup, she wondered? Or the mannequin pose? She smiled brightly. “I cooked!” Can’t you smell the charred meat in the air?
He blinked a couple of times. “I thought we were going out?”
She blinked back at him, trying to remember her next line. “Oh! Well, you know I bought something to cook for you before. Well, it was lamb chops and I didn’t want them to go bad, so I cooked instead.”
He frowned. “I thought I put them in the freezer.”
“That’s how they got there!” Chelsey exclaimed. “But I didn’t realize that until I had everything else ready … and I didn’t want to just throw it all out, so I thawed them.”
He sniffed the air a couple of times. “Is something burning?”
Chelsey sniffed, wondering if that was old burn or something else she’d …. “Oh fuck! I forgot the rolls!”
Smoke billowed out of the oven when she snatched it open. Fanning her face and coughing, she grabbed the pot holder and snatched the rack holding the flaming pan of rolls out. The rack stopped. The pan of rolls didn’t and Chelsey made an instinctive grab to catch the pan as it fell.
The Visitor: Alien Hunger Special Edition Page 11