Unmistaken Identity

by Marie Johnston

  “You can’t scare me away.”

  The words were meant to soothe, but instead, she wiped tears away.

  All through dinner, he made inane small talk while her glassy stare unraveled his heart. For the hundredth time, he questioned what he was doing with Mara, how it was all going to end, for him and for her—for them. He followed her back to her place and they watched a movie. Nothing physical beyond him holding her.

  It was early when they’d usually be seeing way beyond midnight together, but he tucked them into her bed.

  Grudgingly, he had to admit it was his best night of sleep ever. He would’ve slept in, but her alarm went off.

  Game day. She rolled out of bed without a backward glance and padded to the bathroom to shower.

  She’d be working all day, and he’d…work? He was behind with Canon’s paperwork but nothing critical. A Saturday morning at the club was ideal for being productive. He wasn’t meeting with Franklin about his plans in New York until later in the week.

  He reclined on her bed and watched her dress and get ready for work.

  “Lock up when you leave?”

  “Aren’t you going to have breakfast?”

  “Chris is bringing donuts today and probably for our last game day next week.”

  “What if I’m still here when you get home?”

  She was walking out of the bedroom and glanced back in surprise. “What if I’m not feeling any better?”

  “Then I’ll take care of you again.” And he meant it. Why? The time was coming when he had to cease being Sam. He’d go back to being the…what? The guy who worked all the time? The successful businessman who women flocked to? Would he take his pick and be okay not knowing a thing about his partner and knowing their interaction was barely more than a verbal contract?

  An unreadable expression flitted over her face, but she settled back on neutral. “I should probably get some groceries.”

  Morbidly interested in how she chose what canned or boxed goodness to buy, he said, “Come back first and I’ll go with you.”

  The silence of her house bothered him, unlike his. He rarely used the main floor of his house, keeping to the upper level he’d made his lair. The weekends when he had no staff around, he didn’t mind the quiet.

  In Mara’s place, he did.

  What to do all day. He could be a slug and game the hours away. Stopping in the bathroom, his gaze kept going to the drippy faucet. Mara’s shower hadn’t yet drained all the way in the tub.

  In the kitchen, he couldn’t escape the steady drip from that sink, either. Might as well unplug her fridge for all the food it contained. Leaving to get something for breakfast was the first order of business.

  He pulled aside the drapes to check the weather outside. One end of her picture window was missing a screen and he didn’t have to look out the window because the cold air drafted through the frame.

  Locating his phone, he called Flynn. His buddy owned an industrial construction company and was just who Wes needed.

  “Grab your tools and something to eat and get over here. I’ll text you the address.”

  His groggy friend mumbled a curse and Wes heard a female’s voice reply.

  They hung up and Wes texted Flynn directions to Mara’s.

  Flynn’s reply: U owe me. Morning wood doesn’t take care of itself.

  Wes dressed and had time to play a few rounds of Super Mario before Flynn knocked on the door.

  “What a freaking dive, dude.”

  Defensive instinct rose. “It’s not that bad.”

  Flynn snorted and came inside. He carried a bag of food in one hand and an old, dusty bag of tools in the other.

  “How long has it been since you’ve actually gotten your hands dirty?”

  “Fuck you. I still do some work. Usually on the weekends so I don’t have to put up with anyone.” Flynn set his bag down but didn’t come any farther inside. “Besides. I like to see how the contractors dick with me when they think I don’t know what they’re talking about.”

  Wes grabbed the food. “I’m starving. You should see what that girl eats.”

  “If it looks like this place, I don’t want to.” Finally moving inside, he didn’t stop, roaming Mara’s house. “Ready to get your hands dirty, bro?”

  Yeah, actually, he was. He looked forward to hanging out with Flynn and improving Mara’s home.

  Chapter Sixteen

  She really didn’t want to face Wes. Not after the paradox of last night. The way he’d taken care of her and tucked her in.

  Could she be getting through to him or was it still some elaborate ruse to prove…what? Whatever reason had made him introduce himself as Sam was no longer the reason he stayed Sam. She doubted he’d ever watched a movie with a girl and not gotten past first base. The naïve girl inside of her she couldn’t get away from suggested the intimacy they shared was more than just sex. They enjoyed each other’s company, were physically compatible, had similar interests. How many couples could watch season after season of Star Trek together? That was more than sex.

  Yet she was the one who was ultimately behind his troubles with the city, and how could she forget the lawsuit?

  Useless. All of it. While he may be deceiving her, she’d had no reason to think he did dirty business. Even Chris’s friend had had to make up a reason to stall Wes’s plans.

  But she’d go along with it because it might buy some time for Wes to come around. Dare she wish for him to apologize for how he’d acted? It was the best-case scenario. The opposite outcome could get very ugly.

  It was already dark when she pulled up to her house. Wes jogged outside to meet her and climbed in.

  Instantly her mood lifted with his ready grin. Then the deep kiss he gave her wiped out the rest of her melancholy.

  What was between them was real. Had to be.

  “Where to?” he murmured against her mouth. “Or should we sit here for a while and keep each other warm?”

  “Groceries first. And then you can warm me up.”

  She backed out while he buckled up. As she drove them to the store, she wondered if Wes had ever been in one. Was grocery shopping too plebian of a task? Did he have “people” who did these kinds of things?

  Her question was answered as Wes darted from stand to stand. He stopped to read greeting cards and trotted over to show her the funny ones. “People still send these?”

  Then he picked up everything she tossed in the cart and read the ingredients.

  “There’s not even real cheese in this.”

  “No,” she agreed. “But a box of mac and cheese costs a dollar and a small brick of cheese costs four.”

  He grabbed canned green beans. “Look at the sodium in this.”

  “I drain and rinse them first. It helps.”

  He wandered next to her, more subdued. “But even frozen has to be better.”

  “While I could eat healthier on a budget, I’m sticking to dirt cheap until I get back on my feet after Arcadia closes.”

  She watched him closely. He scowled and a zing of satisfaction went through her. No idea how the rest of them lived. Never wondered where his next paycheck was coming from. Never been run out of business by a resentful real estate tycoon.

  What must it be like for him? See it, buy it. No thought of cost. No waffling between canned and frozen, or eating based off the weekly sale ad. A million dollars could land in Mara’s lap and she didn’t think her thrifty tendencies would leave her.

  They waited to check out and while she noticed all the appreciative glances he received, he inspected the magazines.

  “Have you heard of this new movie with the Greek gods?”

  She nodded and smiled fondly. “I never read the books but I’m going to the movie. Anything Greek has a fond place in my heart.”

  She began unloading her items on the belt and Wes stepped in to help.

  “I was thinking that after this, I wanted to make one stop.”

  “Whatever. You’re driving
.” He dropped his head to whisper, “I’m at your mercy.”

  He might not be after she played the last card she had left against Wes’s power and money.

  She explained her reasons without telling him where they were going. “I really appreciate you doing this with me. It’s just that I’ve not gotten the chance to visit this place for months. I should’ve this summer, but with Arcadia closing, I just feel like I need to stop and pay my respects.”

  Out of the corner of her eyes, Wes’s expression froze. Inch by inch, he turned to face her.

  “Where are we going, Mara?” His tone, so somber, so full of dread.

  “I need to visit my friend before the snow flies. You never know when it’s going to come this time of year.” Her own voice shook.

  There was still time to turn around. This errand felt dirty, but Wes had to know how much his father meant to her—and how much he still meant to Wes.

  She’d been honest when she’d said she didn’t agree with how Sam had reacted to Wes after the divorce. He’d never come out and said it, but Wes’s mother was indeed a nasty, selfish person.

  Still, Mara didn’t feel much better than Jennifer Robson as she drove under the wrought iron archway into the cemetery.

  Wes had fallen quiet, his mouth clamped shut. His hand twitched like he was going to open the door and dive out with a tuck and roll.

  Having been here only once, she found her way without getting lost. His headstone, more like monument, was in place. It hadn’t yet been erected the last time she’d visited.

  She parked with her headlights not directly on Sam’s resting place. “Are you coming out?”

  His stricken gaze was glued to the towering gray masterpiece. “Why would I? I didn’t know him.”

  Except the pain in his words sounded fresh and torn from his soul.

  Tears prickled Mara’s eyes as she walked to the grave. The visit brought clarity, as if Sam spoke in her ear that Wes’s actions had to do with Sam and not Mara directly.

  “What do I do, Sam?” she whispered. A tear rolled down her cheek.

  Her friend had been so good at advice, spilling it readily to all who’d listen. A product of his years of being in a leadership position.

  She glanced over her shoulder. Wes’s head was down. This had to be killing him.

  “Why didn’t you tell him? Why’d you cut him off entirely?” Why’d she get dragged into the middle?

  There were no answers from the grave.

  ***

  Wes poked at his food. Unappetizing macaroni coated in yellow-dyed powder with half a cow’s worth of butter. When Chef made mac and cheese, it was the stuff a five-star restaurant could serve with pride.

  Sam’s grave.

  His stomach turned. What had possessed her to go to Sam’s fucking grave?

  Mara’s gaze was on him, but he wouldn’t look at her. He couldn’t decide if he was furious with her, numb, or should drink a liter of whiskey and crawl inside the bottle.

  She set her fork down. “Are you done?”

  He nodded and she took their plates to the sink.

  “Did you…did you fix my sink?”

  “Yeah,” he said hoarsely. “I had a friend help me.” Without Flynn, he’d have gotten nowhere. “Hope you don’t mind. We also fixed the bathroom sink and the cupboard doors” She jerked around to look for sure. “And we sealed the windows for winter.”

  “Wow.” She stared at the sink with a stunned expression and his chest threatened to puff with pride. “Thank you. Your friend’s kind of handy to have around.”

  The corner of his mouth lifted at her teasing. “He’s not a bad guy.” A swell of emotion hit him. He liked pleasing her, liked making her life easier, liked joking around with her. Confusion morphed into remorse and the combo churned the processed food in his belly. He pushed back from the table before he did something stupid like confess…everything. “Listen, I’m going to have to get going. I…hope you don’t mind.”

  Disappointment creased her brow. “Is everything okay?”

  “It’ll be fine. Just not feeling well.” He went in search of his duffel and grabbed his coat, not bothering to put it on.

  She met him at the front door. He dropped a light kiss on her lips before he left, the worry in her eyes haunting him.

  The drive home felt longer than normal. He never looked forward to going home, not like when he went to Mara’s place.

  His place was empty. He pulled into his four-car garage, relieved that his mom hadn’t taken root while he’d been gone.

  Wes took the stairs at an easy pace and dropped his duffel by the laundry basket. The clothes he’d worn with Flynn were dirty. Flynn had made the crack that he could wash them at Mara’s because he knew full well Wes had never run a washer in his life.

  In the upper level where he spent the majority of his time, he bypassed his home office and the master bedroom and went to the door at the end of the hall.

  He flipped on the light and faced tubs full of toys and cardboard boxes full of comics. When he’d been shipped off to boarding school on the East Coast, his mom had put them all into storage. A move unusual for his mother, who was more likely to burn things than store them. But even his mom had expressed rare sympathy for how Sam had abandoned him.

  For hours, he sifted through old comics while memories assaulted him. He wondered if that old comic book store was still open.

  A quick search on his phone revealed that it’d been closed for ten years. Years after the divorce. Had Sam gone in until the day the doors had shut? If he had, had he remembered how much fun they used to have? No less than once a month, they’d collected the latest comics.

  Wes pulled out Sam’s old Star Wars comics. He ran his hand over the plastic cover booklet and recalled Sam’s gruff voice bitching about how the comics in those days weren’t canon and strayed from the origins of the Star Wars universe.

  Wes smiled in spite of the sharp pain in his chest. It was why he’d named his night club Canon.

  With a frustrated sigh, he shoved all the books back in place and glared at the piles of toys. He’d completely unravel if he cracked the lid of any of those.

  His phone rang and he expected Mara to be calling, but it was Helen. He frowned. This late on a Saturday? He couldn’t let it go to voicemail.

  “Mr. Robson, I need to meet with you about the findings I have on Miss Baranski.”

  “Meet you at the office in the morning? Ten o’clock?”

  “I’ll be there.”

  He hung up and put his head in his hands. Meeting tonight would’ve been best, but his intuition said he should try to get some rest first.

  Chapter Seventeen

  He dressed and drove to his office tower. Helen waited outside and he let them in.

  “We don’t need to mess with going upstairs. Have a seat in the vestibule, Helen.”

  Brusque and to the point, she laid out a folder of papers. “I didn’t have to dig very deep, sir. Two major concerns popped out immediately.”

  She handed him a form and he scanned the print, his eyes narrowing as he went.

  “Is this a trust?”

  “From one William Kostopoulos to Mara Baranski. One point five million dollars when she turned twenty-two.”

  “What’s the relation? Or was it a relationship?”

  She crossed her penny loafers at the ankle and leaned in. “Mind you, the financial department hadn’t dug that far yet. However, I found no marriage certificate for her mother so I assume Baranski is a maiden name. Again, nothing proven, but something I felt you should know since this seemed an urgent matter.”

  He set the paper down, his heart thundering. “If that’s the first, I’d hate to see the second.”

  Helen’s entire demeanor changed to disapproving and not directed toward him. “Academic records.” She handed him more sheets. He read the report, but his brain refused to comprehend the gravity of it all.

  “Her last semester and she was failing a critical class
needed for her degree. Odd because all her other grades had been decent. She could never claim summa cum laude, but she did all right. Yet she never finished, not at that college.”

  Yep. He’d gotten to that part. An ocean rushed through his ears, dimming Helen’s explanation.

  “Miss Baranski, perhaps thinking one point five wasn’t enough for her to live on, wanted to graduate, so she struck a deal with Dr. Jake Johannsen. They both scored in a way. His wife caught wind and went to the administration. Mara left the school with no degree and Dr. Johannsen got divorced.”

  Mara was a home-wrecker.

  His hands curled into fists. His comic book shop owner had destroyed another man’s life before going after his father.

  How the fuck had she gotten a trust with that amount of money? What’d she done for that? Who’d she done for that?

  The papers shook in his hand. Helen clasped her hands on her lap, her back erect. “We have more investigating, but I thought perhaps this could put that legal nonsense to rest.”

  “Yes, Helen. Thank you. You may go. Enjoy your Sunday.” One of them should.

  She left him with the incriminating evidence.

  He tossed the papers onto the chair next to him and threw his feet on top of the table. Surrounded by glass and all alone, he stretched out and ruminated.

  His phone rang.

  Jennifer. Mom. He could answer and ask her how a woman could do that to men. But then she’d get ideas. Worse, she’d sniff out another woman trying to get her claws into Sam’s empire. Wes pitied any future wife of his—not that he would ever marry.

  He rubbed his temples. What had he expected? These reports were exactly the reason he’d hooked up with Mara.

  So, what? It made him feel better that Sam had been seduced by Mara and hadn’t preferred a stranger to his own son?

  Did he have anything to drink in his office? A day getting shit-faced sounded divine.

  His phone rang again. He stared at the ceiling. During the shittiest five minutes of his life, no one was going to leave him alone.