“You make it all sound so easy.”
“I know it’s not. But you have to do it anyway, so you might as well do it as soon as you can and get it over with. Now, I really do have to run. Tell Hana I’ll come down on a weekend and we can all hang out. I like her, too. I don’t know why Harrison can’t see it, but this world suits you. It’s doing you good. Don’t feel guilty about it. It’s your life, honey. Remember that.”
Leigh nodded, and kept her eyes on Emily as she walked away.
Finally, she sank onto the stool again, and shrugged.
“Emily tends to take charge.”
“I noticed,” said Roger, and he looked a little dazed.
“But she loves you. The two of you are very close.”
Leigh smiled and nodded.
“We are. I don’t get to see her nearly as much as I want to nowadays. Her work keeps her very busy, and she travels so much with it.”
“Do you wish you’d chosen a life like that?”
Leigh shook her head.
“No, I really don’t. It suits Emily, but such rootlessness wouldn’t work for me. I need to know that there’s a place where I belong, where I can always curl up and just be myself when I need to be. Emily is far more footloose than that, and I mean that in the best way. When she believes something’s right, she can bulldoze her way through all objections and get there.”
Roger nodded, seriously.
“She kept looking at my feet. Does she have an objection to feet?”
Leigh chuckled.
“I’m afraid I told her about the odd socks. She found that quite funny.”
“Well, I suppose the pair I’m wearing must’ve disappointed her today. They’re brown and boring.”
Leigh grinned.
“Sometimes, plain is a better description than boring, and plain is exactly what you need at times. So, Professor, what are you doing in the pub during school hours?”
Roger smiled.
“Looking for you. You seemed to have gone missing for a couple of days. I was concerned, and I didn’t want you to get into trouble, so I came looking for you.”
Leigh smiled back at him, charmed.
“You’re one of the people I could get in trouble with,” she pointed out.
“I hope you don’t see me that way.”
Leigh looked away for a moment before meeting his eyes steadily. She liked his eyes – they looked frank and steady.
“I don’t want to get you in trouble, either, Roger.”
Roger smiled.
“I realize that. And this is very inappropriate. I realize that. But would you like to go to dinner with me?”
Leigh frowned.
“I’ve already gone to dinner with you.”
“No, to an actual restaurant, where we can sit down, have a glass of wine, and talk like adults, without any rules to worry about. What do you think?”
Leigh considered.
What did she think? She thought that she should take Emily’s advice and just go for it, that’s what she thought. What did she have to lose, after all?
She had already lost everything she’d been trying to hold on to for so long. So, now she might as well throw caution to the wind and just do what she felt like doing.
“I think that might be nice,” she said, slowly.
“I was hoping you would think so. It might be a bit inappropriate for me to pick you up.”
Leigh smiled understandingly.
“I know. I wouldn’t have either of us risking too much that way. How about you give me the address and I’ll meet you there?”
“Excellent idea,” agreed Roger, and gave her the address.
Leigh recognized it, of course. She recognized it immediately.
How could she not? It was where Harrison had proposed to her – that first time. It was where she had left him, running away from him like she needed to get away from him. Leigh wanted to scream, say she couldn’t do it, and run away again, just like she had done to Harrison.
But she saw those photos.
Harrison and Diane, looking so cozy and intimate, with that smile on Harrison’s face. Harrison and Diane, looking like they knew each other’s taste, how they liked to be touched, how they liked to be teased. Those lips, so eager and willing to kiss him and pleasure him – Leigh knew they would be. Why wouldn’t they? Hers had been, for so long.
She saw them in her mind’s eye, and imprinted on the back of her eyelids. So, she conjured up a bright smile and nodded.
“Oh yes, I know where it is. Though if we’re going to order that bottle of wine, I’d better get a cab instead of driving there. Wouldn’t want to leave my car there overnight, would I?”
Roger nodded.
“Excellent idea. Maybe I should get a cab there, too. That would be one way to make sure I don’t get lost. I have a terrible habit of getting lost,” said Roger, launching into an undoubtedly amusing story about a time he had gotten terribly lost.
Leigh was glad to let him keep talking because she seemed to have lost her ability to contribute anything meaningful to the conversation.
She was going on a date with Roger.
This time, there were no games she could play to avoid that truth. This time, it was a date – a tangible, real sign that she was trying to move on.
Leigh kept smiling, even when her cheeks hurt with the effort it took.
Chapter 11
“Hey, Leigh! I’ve got breakfast for you!”
Hana’s suspiciously bright cheeriness rang warning bells for Leigh. She remembered the last time Hana had been that cheerful. It hadn’t ended well.
“What’s wrong?”
“What do you mean? I’ve got pancakes!”
Leigh shook her head as she shoved her hair off her face and sat up.
“No, don’t do it. It doesn’t work anymore. Just tell me what’s wrong. I know something’s wrong. I know it, Hana, you do this only when things are going to hell.”
Hana’s face fell.
“Really?”
“Really.”
“I should make you pancakes more often.”
Leigh smiled, but the nerves were obvious. Leigh felt like she was constantly braced for bad news nowadays.
“I wouldn’t say no to that. Now please, tell me what’s wrong. Have there been more photos? Has Harrison been trying to call you again? Is Emily coming over?”
Hana grinned.
“I’d be making celebration pancakes if Emily were coming over. You have excellent taste in friends, Leigh. Emily, me…”
Leigh smiled, as Hana had intended.
“Now stop deflecting and please tell me what’s wrong.”
Hana’s smile drooped on one side to make a funny frowny smiley face.
“Have you checked the college Facebook group? The gossip one?”
Leigh frowned and shook her head.
“Of course not. Why would I? It isn’t my kind of thing at all. And it’s not your kind of thing, either, so… Oh no. No, please tell me it’s not what I think it is.”
Hana nodded reluctantly.
“If you’re thinking that they’ve gotten wind of your breakup and decided that it makes good copy and lots of clickbait, you’re unfortunately right.”
Strangely, Leigh’s reaction was tinged with relief. She had expected worse, to be honest – she had expected them to have gotten wind of her growing closeness to Roger. They really would’ve dined out on that for weeks.
“I guess I should check it. I should know what people are saying, at least.”
“Remember it’s not people. It’s just those shitty dickheads who run the group and the idiots who live for gossip. It will all blow over soon enough when they find something else.”
Leigh shrugged and grabbed her phone. She found it soon enough.
Leigh Wells is no longer the girlfriend-cum-stepsibling of billionaire playboy Harrison Bloom, according to our sources. The young lady who made waves by declaring that she was in a committed relationship wit
h the man with whom she had grown up, as siblings in every way, is now no longer in a relationship with him. Sources claim that the reason for this tragic breakup is the young lady’s penchant to play the field – a little bird also tells us that she likes playing with fire in the field.
The billionaire and ex-boyfriend and still-stepbrother doesn’t seem to be pining for her. He was recently photographed half-undressed with an ex-flame, the gorgeous Diane Masters who has been in Europe for a while. Is it a coincidence that the Honorable Ms. Masters made her way back across the ocean exactly when they broke up? Or could it be that Miss Leigh Wells, for all her considerable charms, simply couldn’t hold on to the affections of the man she had declared she loved with all of her heart?
Leigh felt the anger, acknowledged it, and let it go.
Well, she tried, but if only it were that easy. She felt it and she acknowledged it. At least that made it two out of three.
“The bleeding…”
Leigh trailed off, unable to find anything bad enough to say.
“I know. But what can we do? The first amendment.”
Leigh added something decidedly crude about idiots who thought this was the best use for the first amendment.
“Give me pancakes,” she demanded, and much to Hana’s bemusement, stabbed at it as if it were one of those who ran the group.
“This is going to make it into the campus paper, too, isn’t it? Of course it is. Everybody will be talking about the scandalous, amoral, pathetic Leigh Wells who not only dates her stepbrother, but loses him to somebody much sexier.”
She rounded out that thought with a string of expletives that would’ve done a sailor proud and made a cowboy jealous.
“Well,” said Hana, amused, “you’re taking this better than I thought. Anger is better than grief.”
Leigh shrugged.
“If I stay angry, there will be no room for grief. It shouldn’t be too hard to stay angry. I am angry. I… Oh, I wish I could blame Harrison for this!”
Hana frowned.
“I don’t think you can.”
“I know I can’t. I… You know, I’m not going to hide inside this time. I’m going to go out there and go to class, and do everything I would normally do. If they thought that they could entertain themselves by shaming me, they will see that I will not be shamed. Who the hell do they think they are?”
Hana let Leigh blow off steam as she packed away the pancakes, and finally took the plate from her hand.
“Well, I suggest a shower – and wash your hair – before you do that.”
Leigh nodded.
“I will. I’ll show them.”
The righteous indignation kept Leigh going for a good long while. She paid attention to her clothes, and even did her makeup when she went to class. She was determinedly cheerful, smiling at even people she honestly couldn’t stand, and attentive in class. It helped that the paper that was graded and given back that day brought with it an A for her.
By evening, she was beginning to flag, but then there was something else to keep her going – her date.
The entire day had cemented her determination to call the evening a date.
“Wow, you look incredible,” said Hana, walking into the dorm. Leigh had just finished getting ready.
Leigh did think that she looked pretty good. The red dress she was wearing had been a little too small for her when she’d bought it, but it looked good on her now. It was long enough to hit her knees, but the slit on the side rode up high on her thigh. She had decided to embrace the waves in her hair and set it to look a little wild and wanton. The crimson lipstick was a blatant invitation.
Defiance was a good look, decided Leigh.
“I should. I’m going on a date,” declared Leigh.
Hana looked surprised.
“Well, good for you, but when did this happen?”
“Roger asked me out. I said yes. I’m not going to tell anybody else about it. But if Harrison can date gorgeous, sexy blondes, I sure as hell can start dating, too.”
Hana nodded slowly.
“Well, don’t let me try to stop you. Have fun, Leigh. But if you need me to come and pick you up, let me know.”
Leigh smiled, a bright, hard smile unlike herself.
“Oh, don’t worry. I have no intention of needing to be rescued. I’ve had enough of moping. I’m going to have fun.”
Hana could only nod and watch, worried, as Leigh booked her cab and walked out the door.
Leigh’s bravado kept her going until she reached that lovely boutique hotel. Seeing it made her blanch a little, but she steeled herself and walked in. So what if she’d been running away from Harrison the last time she’d been there? She was done with running.
She was about to give her name at the restaurant when she saw Roger.
Her heart settled a little, and the edge was taken off, though not by much. He looked bemused, and he was still wearing his reading glasses.
With a smile, Leigh walked up to the table. Roger saw her, and his face was lit up by his smile as he got to his feet and walked to hold her chair out for her.
“Leigh, you look…”
The look in his eyes told her what he couldn’t seem to say. Leigh smiled, determined to put the past behind her for good.
“I should hope so. So do you.”
There was an awkward silence that, strangely, made Leigh feel better. This was what a date was like – it was normal. She was stepping into normal life again.
“Let’s not talk about class or college, shall we?”
Leigh nodded, agreeing.
“Let’s not. And let’s not get wine or champagne. Let’s stick to what we like.”
“Scotch and beer we’ll have, then,” agreed Roger, and placed the order quickly. “This reminds me of the life I used to have,” he said, after they were served.
“Really? Did you date a lot?”
“No, not really. I was too busy for it. Besides, all my poise seems to be reserved for the courtroom. Or, apparently, a classroom. When it comes to dating, I don’t usually know what to say.”
“And yet you managed to convince somebody to marry you.”
“I did. But that was before I knew the courtroom and had to reserve all my poise for it.”
“I usually make it a rule that we shouldn’t talk about work. But tell me about your work. I’ve been considering criminal law. Tell me what I can expect.”
That seemed to set Roger at ease, and conversation flowed easily, as did the Scotch and beer. Leigh found herself at ease, asking questions that genuinely interested her, telling him about her work in ways that she hadn’t been able to tell Harrison.
Soon, they started talking about family, carefully skirting around Harrison. But it was a relief for Leigh to find out that she had so much more in her life. She had spent the last few months in a cocoon where everything had been about Harrison and her. Now she could see beyond it, and she was glad to find that it wasn’t an empty wasteland.
“I can’t believe you have four sisters. I can’t imagine what it’s like to grow up with four sisters,” said Leigh, when Roger told her about his childhood.
“Well, my mother declared that we’d better all learn to cook. But I used to bribe my sisters to clean up. I’d do their laundry.”
Leigh chuckled.
She and Harrison hadn’t had such a relationship. Harrison had always been far too disciplined to need any favors from her at all.
“Sounds like you have a wonderful family. It must’ve been nice to grow up in such a big family. I sometimes wished that I could have that, too. Not that I wasn’t happy, but I was a very goal-oriented child. I didn’t need much coddling, really. I usually knew what I wanted and went about getting it.”
“You’d get along with my youngest sister very well. She’s very much like that. I’d like you to meet them, Leigh.”
That segue from casual conversation to meeting the family threw her, and made her eyes widen.
“I don’t t
hink I’m up to a family inspection right now, Roger. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a bit of a notorious item at the moment. Why, gossip columns are full of me!”
Roger shrugged.
“I didn’t mean now. I meant sometime down the line. I don’t plan to keep teaching after the semester is done. We wouldn’t have to sneak around after that. I’d like you to meet my family then. If things are good with your family, I’d like to meet them, too.”
The panic was now beginning to make it a little hard for Leigh to breathe.
“My family is a little complicated.”
“I’m not pressuring you. There’s plenty of time. I’m in no hurry. I just want you to know that I like you – I really like you. I’m not trying to waste your time or mine. I want you to know that I think what we have is real and special, I suppose.”
Leigh was so suffocated that she had to get away. A little abruptly, she excused herself and made her way to the restroom. She looked at herself in the mirror, and wondered what was wrong with her.
She should be glad that Roger wasn’t looking for something quick and easy. Why wasn’t she?
Leigh knew why, of course. Harrison was why. She’d been running on anger and defiance, but that only took you so far. After a while, you had to figure out something more lasting to keep you going.
Did she want something with Roger? Or was she just using him to lash out against Harrison, even if that made absolutely no sense at all?
What the hell was she even doing?
What was the point?
Was she really that petty?
Roger was a good person. He did not deserve to be used like she was doing. What had she become?
Leigh looked in the mirror and saw a lovely woman, and wondered at how she was underneath that gloss. She was shocked when she realized that she had been trying to compete with Diane Masters, by getting decked up and wearing that dress. It wasn’t her style, not really.
Why was she doing this?
Because, she admitted to herself, feeling defeated, she wanted Harrison. She loved him.
Despite all their problems, she needed him, and she needed him to understand that she needed time – not time away from him, but time with him to work through her conflicted feelings about being identified as Harrison Bloom’s woman.
Being Harrison Bloom's Girl (That Forbidden Love Book 2) Page 12