He was shaking his head before I’d even finished. “I’m not close to Esme,” he said. “Haven’t been for years. Last time I spoke to her was two days after you left. I was gone from the school before the new year.”
“Really?” I asked in shock. He had seemed so satisfied with his life and the work he did at the program. I never thought he would quit.
“Yes.” He was looking down at the table, obviously feeling uncomfortable. “Your leaving opened my eyes, and I realized that even if I told you differently, I didn’t like what I’d become. I wasn’t the man my parents raised any more, and had my mom been alive, she would have been so disappointed.”
I blanched at his casual admission of his mom’s death.
“Your mom’s dead?” I blurted out before I could stop myself.
He nodded. “She died when I was still in high school. I’ve come to terms with it now so it’s not so difficult talking about it.”
“How?”
“Cancer.”
I swallowed thickly and truly wished that I could believe him, but this was the second time he’d told me a member of his family was dead, and the first time was all a lie, so you couldn’t blame me for being careful this time.
And I told him this. “I’m sorry, but I’m finding it difficult to believe you,” I said truthfully, but somehow an apologetic tone sneaked in.
“That’s fair enough,” he said and smiled ruefully. “You would be able to find this death, though, compared to my ‘late sister.’” He made quotation marks around ‘late sister,’ and I was surprised to hear him joking about the lies he’d drilled into my head.
When I didn’t reply to his joke, he looked apologetically at me again. “Sorry, is it too early to joke about it?”
“Eh…” In my dazed state, it was the most intellectual thing I could say. “No, I was just surprised to hear you actually joke about it,” I said when I finally got my brain back.
“I guess you never really got to see that side of me in the program.”
“No, the possessive asshole pretty much took over during that time.” I hadn’t hesitated when I said it because he knew what an asshat he’d been, and I wasn’t about to sugarcoat it.
He surprised me again by laughing. “I’d almost forgotten about your spunk, but it’s nice to see it’s still there. It was one of the things I liked about you when we met.”
“So you did form an opinion on me. It wasn’t all professional then?”
“You already knew that. I made it quite obvious that I wanted you, or at least, I thought I did,” he said and frowned.
“You did, but I couldn’t trust that it was the truth after what you told me. You had me so confused, and in my head, everything that happened at the school was a lie.”
There was a pause while he studied me. “It wasn’t,” he said after a moment. “There is only one rule for someone like me, and that is to not get emotionally involved with the target. You crawled underneath my skin in the first week, and after that, it was impossible to let you go. You were the first one that I didn’t want to change, but it was a job. I had a contract, and I had to go through with it.”
“But you let me go,” I pointed out.
He nodded. “It was very unprofessional of me, but I could never be completely professional with you. I had decided that I would keep you for as long as I could during that Christmas party, but when Carter showed up, I knew that I couldn’t continue. I couldn’t keep trying when I knew that you would be sent back home to that.”
I was looking down at my melting cheesecake that didn’t look nearly as appetizing now as it did before. I thought that I wanted to hear his motives behind what he did to me, but now, I wish I hadn’t. It just made me more confused and torn.
I didn’t know if I should view him as a normal, slightly misguided guy or the villain in the drama. His version painted him as the noble one since he told me the truth and let me go even though he didn’t really want to.
I couldn’t process that right now.
“Look, I know this might sound completely inappropriate…” That surely got my attention and I cautiously looked at him. “…but I was wondering if perhaps I could get your number. It’s just that I haven’t been able to get you out of my mind, and I would like to get another chance and give you a new impression of me. I have changed quite a lot over the years.”
“James, I’m pregnant,” I said as if that wasn’t obvious already.
He looked at me as if I was kind of crazy. “Yes, I know that.”
“And you still want my number? Are you sure?”
“Yes, I am.”
I frowned. “I don’t know…” I said hesitantly.
James leaned forward on his elbows. “Can I ask something?”
I nodded.
“Why did you kiss me before?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know,” I answered truthfully. I really didn’t know, but strangely enough, I did not regret it, either.
“Then give me another chance, and you might find the answer,” he said with a teasing smile, and I just felt like I was in too deep waters. I couldn’t read this guy properly. He didn’t make sense to me, and it made me nervous.
Becca would have questioned my sanity if she’d seen what I did then, but I pulled a pen and a piece of paper from my purse, and I wrote down my number.
I held it in front of him, but I didn’t let it go, either.
“If you screw me over again, you’ll be sorry. You shouldn’t mess with a pregnant police officer.”
He smiled. “I promise that I won’t screw you over. I’ve really changed and so have you apparently. You never told me you’re walking in your dad’s footsteps.”
I placed the number in front of him and felt regret for a second, but then again, nothing ventured, nothing gained. I would just have to wait and see where this would lead.
“It should be a warning to you then. I have a license to fire a gun.”
I had to leave then, but as I started to prepare, James placed his hand on my arm. It felt as if I’d been electrocuted. I looked up at him, and his expression was soft. He reminded me of the guy I first thought he’d been.
“Thank you for this, Jenn.”
I almost choked when I heard him use my nickname. “You called me Jenn,” I stated dumbly.
“I did.”
“Why?”
“Because you like it better,” he said and then he was the one who got up and left me alone in the coffee shop.
I stood there frozen for a long time, and it wasn’t until the girl behind the counter came up to me that I broke from my stupor.
“Are you all right?” she asked me worriedly, and I saw her glance at my stomach.
“Yes, sorry! I thought I needed to pee, but I guess I didn’t,” I said with a sweet smile and left the shop. The girl stood where I left her with wide eyes.
I didn’t tell Becca, and I think that it was one of my biggest mistakes ever, but I knew she would advise me against ever seeing James again, and I just couldn’t do that.
I was going to give him a chance. He said he’d changed. Well, he would have to prove that. I didn’t trust him, but time would tell the truth.
Last time, I’d noticed early on that there was something shady with James. He had those moments when the mask slipped, and I saw the real him. After that, I noticed how hard it was for him to keep the mask in place. He had to really force it, but it only made me more guarded.
He was good at what he did. He manipulated me well, but I was constantly suspicious.
It had been different this time. While I was still suspicious, it had nothing to do with how he acted. It was rather how he didn’t act. He seemed too relaxed, as if he didn’t really try to be nice and charming; he just was.
I wanted to believe that he had changed, but I was afraid that maybe he had just gotten better at what he did.
However, when he called me three days after the coffee shop, I suddenly had my answer as to why I’d kissed him in the
parking lot outside of the supermarket.
It had been my curiosity.
I wanted to know if the passion I’d felt when kissing him at the program had been a figment of my imagination because of the character he portrayed. If that was what it had been, and I hadn’t felt a thing on the parking lot, I would have been able to place it all behind me and really stop comparing other guys with James.
But I did feel something. I felt a whole lot. The passion had still been there, as open and raw as ever, and I had known then that I wouldn't deny him a second chance.
I didn’t hesitate when he asked if I wanted to go out for lunch because I wanted to, not just because my body and baby were hungry, but because my curiosity was. I needed to feed it, and I was going to find out if James was the same or if he had indeed changed.
And there was no time like the present.
CHAPTER 24
A SECOND FIRST DATE
“This is a really nice restaurant, James. I thought we would go to a Subway or something,” I said and feeling very uncomfortable in my casual wear as we were lead to our table.
“I like this place, and I thought you deserved something better than Subway,” he replied and, like a gentleman, he pulled out my chair for me.
“Deserved? Why would I deserve anything?”
James studied my expression from across the table, and I just knew he was reading me.
“Stop that,” I said and hurriedly picked up the menu to keep myself busy.
“What?” he clueless asked.
“Stop trying to read me. It makes me uncomfortable.”
He immediately leaned away from his position and back into his chair in order to give me space and make me relax. At least, that was how I interpreted his movement.
He grabbed his own menu, but after looking at it for only a few seconds, he put it down on the table and leaned forward on his forearms again.
“Jenn, do you know why I asked you here?”
I shrugged at the strange question. “To have lunch,” I stated, but it somehow came out like a question.
He smiled a small smile. “Yes, but do you know the meaning behind the lunch?”
I frowned as I thought about it and then shook my head which caused James to drop his head and sigh.
“Jenn, I asked you to come here as a date,” he said into the table and then looked back up at me. “I thought I made myself clear that I wanted to give us a new chance.”
I had frozen at the word “date” but I soon regained my composure. “No, you said you wanted a new chance. We never spoke of any ‘us.’ Actually, I don’t recall there ever being an ‘us’ from the start. It was all staged.”
Sadness crept into James’s eyes and I didn’t like seeing it, although I had no idea what I said to place it there.
“I need you to know that I am going to be completely truthful in what I’m about to say. Will you believe it if I tell you?” he asked me pleadingly.
I felt strong hesitation toward promising him anything, but I didn’t really see what I would lose by giving him the benefit of a doubt this time.
However, I had learned my lesson. “I can’t promise anything until I hear it.”
He nodded slowly and it appeared as if he was unsure if he should say anything at all. He came to his decision fairly quickly.
“I am going to allow you to interpret this in any way you want. If you want to believe that it’s all bullshit, that’s on you, but I’m telling you that it’s God’s honest truth when I tell you that I fell in love with you during those short months we had.
“I didn’t realize it back then. I thought I was simply attracted to a beautiful woman, but later on, I knew that I wanted you in a different way than the women I’d been with before. I craved your company, your wit, your strong personality. Those were the traits I was hired to destroy, but the more time I spent in your company, the less I felt I wanted do it.”
He shook his head at some memory before he continued. “I wanted you to stay exactly as you were because you reached me like no one of those brainless robots I’d turned previously had been able to do. I wanted you to be mine, and to stay exactly the way you were.”
At the end of his little speech, I was completely tongue-tied. I wasn’t able to utter a single word for a solid minute, but there was a question that gnawed at me in the back of my head.
“I have one question.”
“Go ahead.”
“Do you feel any regret toward changing those other women?”
I could see that it was not the question he had been expecting.
“That’s your biggest concern after what I said?” he asked as it to make it clearer.
“Yes…”
He didn’t answer my question right away and I just knew it was because he wanted more of a response from me after his declaration.
“I’m not going to dwell too much on the past,” I said to break the silence. “I have some questions that I want answered, and it will take quite some time for me to start building up any kind of trust with you, but I don’t feel that what you felt back then has a great impact on today. That was five years ago, so I’d rather try to leave that chapter of our lives behind. Now, I need for you to answer my question.”
“If I have any regrets?”
“Yeah.”
He inhaled deeply. “I would lie if I say that I felt any regret at the time, because I didn’t. It’s different now, though. In hindsight, I know that what I did was horrible. Those women were innocent and had their whole lives in front of them, but because they were chosen to become submissive wives to guys who couldn’t keep a woman, they were doomed. And I didn’t hesitate. I was young and stupid. I liked that I could mess with the mind in a way others couldn’t. If your question is, ‘would I go back and change it now that I know better?’ I don’t know. I feel rather torn on that point, because, yes, I would like to give those women a second chance, but if I’d never done it, I would never have met you.”
I swallowed in an attempt to sooth the dryness I felt in my throat, but it didn’t help, so I took a small sip of water and cleared my throat.
“If you don’t like what you do anymore, why do you still do it?” I was going to keep asking those questions that kept the spotlight away from his feelings for me and the whole “us” thing no matter how much it would frustrate him.
“Because I’m not using my skills on innocents anymore.”
“You’re not? Then what do you do? You said you’re here for a job.” I suddenly felt so curious. A strange sensation of intrigue washed over me. What could he possibly work on with the skills he had?
“I am here for a job, but I’m afraid I can’t discuss it with you. It’s confidential.”
At the sound of that, I let out a shocked giggle. “Wow that sounds important. Almost like some kind of Government Issue or something.”
He didn’t comment on that. Instead he grabbed his glass of water for a drink and I narrowed my eyes at him. “Are you?” I asked in whisper. I suddenly felt as if everyone in the restaurant was listening to us.
He met my eyes over the edge of his glass, and his green depths pierced into mine. “Jenn, just drop it. I’m not allowed to discuss it no matter how much you pressure me.”
“Right! Right, I’m sorry. I was just a little…I mean…The Government, really?” My curiosity was shooting through the roof and I had always had trouble reining it in once it had been released.
“Jenn,” he warned me, and I really tried to back off.
“Right! Sorry!” I held up my hands in a surrendering gesture and he smiled at my antics.
“Let’s talk about something else,” he suggested.
“Yes, please!”
“You said you had questions. Let’s just get them out of the way. Hopefully we can move on after that.”
I nodded. “Sounds good, but can we order first? I’m starving and Baby’s getting kind of impatient.” I gently rubbed the place where I felt Baby’s kick and tried to soothe as b
est as I could. I’d felt Baby’s movements the entire time, but he had been rather calm so far. Now though, he was hungry.
James glanced down at my stomach and the look in his eyes revealed that he had almost forgot that I was eating for two now. I couldn’t tell if the fact that I was pregnant caused him any discomfort.
“Of course,” he replied after a few seconds and gestured for a waiter to our table.
When our order was written down and we’d gotten some more water, James leaned forward. “Go ahead,” he said. “Ask anything, and I promise I will be truthful.”
“Is that your new philosophy or something? To always tell the truth?”
“Not necessarily. I just feel that I need to do that with you in order to deserve your trust.”
“And when you have that trust? What do you plan to do with it?”
“Cherish it,” he said without hesitation and somehow it caused me to blush.
I cleared my throat and proceeded with my first question. “Who was involved in the whole plot-thing?”
“Your mother and Carter, naturally.” I clenched my teeth when he referred to Renée as my mother, but I let it pass this time. “Esme and I were the only ones with details, but Carlisle and the staff knew the reason whenever I was there. Except that kid with the cars. He was new.”
I smiled when I heard that Seth was innocent. It was also a relief to finally know that my friends had no idea. It hurt to know that I had just left and had no contact with them today, but it was in the past and they had probably moved on now.
I thought of Jessica and Peter with a hint of sadness, but I hoped they had found what they hoped to find and were happy.
I thought of Tanya and hoped that she had been able to save her marriage. I’d met her son, whom I’d sadly forgotten the name on now, briefly at the Christmas party and I knew that he was going to turn nine this year.
My next question wasn’t quite so serious, but it was something that I had been wondering ever since I found out that it wasn’t a coincidence that I got James as my volunteer.
“How did you stage the drawing that first day? I saw you reach into the bowl and choose a name.”
The Perfect Guy: A Romance Novel Page 18