“Okay.” Angela stood up.
“Why?” Finn asked. That made Angela stop. If he’d kept his mouth shut, she’d have the keys in her hands by now.
Alex dug her fingernails into her palms. Well, Finn, I have to go beg my ex-lover to get a paper back before he ruins any hope I have of an academic career. “I need to go up the mountain.”
Angela crossed the room to her purse and rummaged for a minute to find the keys before holding them out.
Alex ran out the door and jumped in Angela’s gold Taurus. She reversed out of the driveway, flinging gravel and no doubt upsetting Finn. Roger couldn’t do this. This wasn’t the action of a man in love. This was crazy. Alex had to go slower than she wanted once she reached the mountain because the road dropped off right behind the barrier. One wrong move and she’d go flying into the trees like she was starring in a summer blockbuster movie. That was pretty symbolic, too. One wrong move, and her life was over. At the campground, she slowed to a crawl, letting the headlights sweep around the circle of cabins. Roger’s car was parked in front of one at the back. She pulled in behind him. Ignoring the stares of the couple sitting on their porch watching a bunch of kids chase fireflies in the middle of the circle of cabins, she banged on the door.
“Alex.” Roger smiled like it was Christmas morning. “I knew you would come. Come inside.”
“You knew I would come? How could I not? What are you doing?” Alex snarled. Her throat ached from not screaming. She should be screaming.
Roger looked over her shoulder at the couple next door. “Inside.”
Alex stepped in. She could hash it out with Marc in the middle of dinner rush, and she couldn’t with Roger when there were only two witnesses. Very telling. The small living room had a neat pile of books on the table next to the laptop. Positioned as if they had just been unpacked. “Roger, what are you trying to do to me?”
“I told you. I’ve submitted your thesis. I knew you wouldn’t want to do it yourself.” He reached for her. “What is it?”
“Of course I wouldn’t want to do it myself. It wasn’t my thesis. I can’t steal someone else’s work. Especially Melanie’s. She’s dead. That’s so wrong. It’s not even plagiarism. It’s grave robbing.”
“Alex, you are working with antiquated ideas of right and wrong. It’s so charmingly feminine of you.”
Charmingly feminine. He said it all the time. His way of saying that she was a stupid woman. Her time in the mountains with Marc was doing some good. “Roger—”
“Listen to me, my dear. From a certain perspective, this is right.” He was smiling ever so slightly, but smiling just the same. Unbelievable.
Alex opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Her brain had slammed to a stop so fast she thought inertia must have carried it forward into her skull causing a concussion. “From a certain perspective? Are you mad?”
“You were writing a paper about lost opportunity, and you were losing an opportunity. This thesis was nearly finished. I polished it a little for you as a thank you for all the work you’ve done for me all these years and for the depth of our relationship. To prove that I love you.”
“Wait. Let me get this straight.” Alex pressed her hands over her temples hoping that would keep her brain from slamming to a stop again. “You submitted a stolen thesis from my e-mail address. You hacked into my e-mail account to send a stolen thesis. A thesis stolen from a dead girl. And somehow you think this is okay? This is the right thing to do?”
“Alex, you’re repeating yourself.” Roger tried to put his arm around her again, but she dodged him.
“That’s because I can’t believe it. I keep hearing it over and over in my head and with every repetition, it gets more tawdry and reprehensible.”
“You know I would do anything for you. You are like a siren, and I have crashed myself on your rocks.”
Alex rubbed her face. “Greek mythology? Really?”
“You lured me in, Alex. You knew I was unhappy with my wife.” He shook his head, like he was forgiving her for a youthful mistake.
“I did?”
“You were so lovely and so attentive. The worthy little helpmate. Sometimes a little naive, but I find that so attractive in a woman. When I met you in class, you knew what I needed before I asked.” Roger brushed her hair off her cheek. “How could I have resisted you when I could see how hard you were trying to please me? You brought me coffee, just the way I liked it every class that term.”
“Not every class.” Every class after the first week. She’d been headed to lunch that Tuesday in September and saw him in the hall, looking like he hadn’t slept in days. She’d already been nursing a ferocious crush on the clever, gentle professor and wanted to do something for him. On the way to his class, she’d picked up a cappuccino—no foam, double sugar—because she remembered him saying that he liked it that way. Was that all it took? “Cappuccino drinkers are warmhearted but can be absent minded. No foam because you’d end up looking silly.”
“And double sweet because I have terrible impulse control. You reinvented yourself as the perfect woman for me so I would fall in love with you and cheat on my wife.” He stroked her cheek. “You saved me from a joyless existence.”
When she had ice cream with Marc on the town square, she’d been very curious about what flavor he chose because it was a reflection of his personality. She’d researched him online and dressed to please him. Her whole plan after the first day they met was to reinvent herself as Marc’s perfect woman. Was that all love was? One person who was so desirable that someone else rearranged their entire personality to please them?
“You wanted me to fall in love with you, and now you’re going to punish me by leaving me. You can’t leave me.” He clasped his hands in front of his chest. “I can’t let you go.”
“I never meant to lure you away from your wife.” Or had she? It had been so long ago. He had been the very attractive, scholarly Brit Lit professor with the tweed coat and the brown leather briefcase. She’d been crazy about him. Had she lured him away from Carla?
“I need you, Alex. Please don’t leave me.”
Marc was here on this same mountain. He had told he loved her, too. He had said he wanted to take her away to Italy and marry her. But when he found out she had tricked him into falling in love with her, that was going to change. She wasn’t any better than his ex-wife. “I have to go.”
“Meet me at the university. In my office. We’ll straighten this all out, my darling. No more of this silliness.”
“Yes.” Alex blinked. Marc had called her his darling, too. “Your office. I have to go.”
On the way down the mountain, Alex contemplated hitting the gas instead of the brakes and letting the car fly off the side of the mountain. The cursed thesis. Killed the writer and the thief.
“I have to go home. I need a ride to the bus station,” Alex announced when she walked in the door.
Finn stepped out of the bathroom with toothpaste foaming out of his mouth, wearing blue striped pajamas. “What?”
“I have to go to the bus station now. I need to go home.” Alex walked past him to her room and started jamming her things in her suitcase. All this time she’d been thinking she was the Typhoid Mary of marriage when she was the much more culpable Mata Hari.
“What do you mean you have to go now? Right now?” Angela asked from the doorway.
“Do you know what time it is?” Finn demanded.
“I have to go right now!” Alex screamed.
“What happened?” Angela asked.
Alex slammed her suitcase closed. A sleeve dangled out the side. Tears started to stream down her face. She had manipulated Roger. She’d made herself into his perfect woman and pursued him until he gave in. Then she’d left him high and dry. No wonder he came after her. She was foolish and feminine, a stupid little girl. “I have to go.”
“Alex.” Angela tried to hug her, but Alex pushed her away. Angela stumbled into
the dresser, shocked.
“Hey!” Finn shouted, grabbing for Angela as if she might fall. “You are not getting violent with my wife in my house.”
“Then take me to the bus station. I have to leave. I can’t stay here.”
“All right, hold your horses while I get some pants on.” Finn went to their bedroom.
“Alex, I don’t understand. Did something happen between you and Marc? You were so happy before.”
Happy. When she thought she could escape her mistakes, but she was making them all over again. She was tricking another man into loving her. She couldn’t abandon Roger after all he’d done for her.
Unless she could stop it. She could bear the guilt of nearly taking Roger away from his family, but not stealing a thesis, too. Somehow she needed to stop that mess. Roger had meant well. He really had, but that was wrong on top of wrong.
Marc was better off without her. The last thing he needed in his life was another woman using him. He didn’t deserve that.
She had never deserved him.
Chapter 8
Marc walked into the diner whistling. He’d wrapped up “Peaches” this morning and short of a title, it was pretty well done. Tessa e-mailed to ask him if he wanted the contract for the “Short Skirts” song sent FedEx, or if he’d be in L.A. within the next month to sign them in the office. Shep had called, and in a drug-addled way, had offered to let him work on his upcoming solo project, followed by a thanks for helping him out. Working with Shep might be prestigious, but it was looking like it might be even more trying than working with Jason. At least Jason was clean and sober. Now he was starved and desperate for some Alex.
The diner was full. In fact, a little more full than usual, and Junie’s mom was waiting tables. Ida glared up from where she was taking an order. Why was Ida taking orders?
“You. Sit. I need to talk to you,” she barked.
Marc pointed at his chest.
“Don’t play dense,” Ida snapped and pointed at the stool behind the register with a hot pink talon.
Marc took another look around the diner. No Alex. Perching on the stool, he checked outside. No Alex. She said she had opening duty this morning. That was why she wanted to go back to Angela and Finn’s yesterday evening. She would be off the clock in about twenty minutes, but unless she was in the bathroom, she wasn’t here. Paul was glaring at him through the service window.
“What did you do to that poor little girl?” Ida marched toward the register and Marc swore the floor trembled like a herd of T. rexes were approaching instead of a single late middle-aged woman.
“Where’s Alex?” Marc asked.
“She went back to school.” Ida started tapping her talons on the counter. The sound was loud enough to echo through the diner.
“Why?”
“Well, that is the million dollar question, isn’t it? We want to know what happened between you two after you left here yesterday.”
That was hardly a story he was going to tell, not in any detail. “Let’s continue this in the kitchen.”
“Let’s do it right damn now.”
Marc frowned at Ida. She liked to give a good show, but this was ridiculous. Then he noticed the set of her mouth and that she still had the order she’d just taken in her hand. Ida wasn’t putting on a show, she was livid.
“In the kitchen.” Marc pushed passed her. Everyone in the diner watched them walk through the door so Marc kept going to the storage area. Paul called Junie’s mother to cover him. The way they ran this place sometimes, he was surprised they ever got any business. “Now, what happened?”
“That’s what we want to know,” Paul said.
Fight at restaurant. Make up. Crazy great sex. Soulful conversation. Asked her to move in with him. Alluded to marriage. Convinced her to take a semester off and go to Italy. Discussed her summer job and how she couldn’t just quit because they needed her.
In retrospect, that was rich.
“I dropped her off last night because she said she was opening this morning.”
“And what happened when she went back up the mountain?” Paul folded his arms over his filthy apron. Bad morning all around if Paul had gotten that much food on himself.
“She didn’t. At least I didn’t see her. I dropped her off and planned to pick her up about now. What did Angela say?”
Ida touched her hair in that nervous gesture she used when things weren’t working the way she wanted them to or when she was flirting. She wasn’t flirting. “When Alex didn’t show this morning, we called over. Angela said you dropped her off last night and about a half hour later she came tearing out of her room wanting to borrow the car. She went up the mountain and was gone maybe half an hour before she came back and demanded to be taken to the bus station so she could go back to school.”
Marc scratched his head. “I don’t know what happened. I’ll see if I can reach her.” He walked out feeling like there was a white-hot spotlight on his head. In the car, he called her but wasn’t surprised when there was no answer.
To text or not to text.
She could only be running away from him. The last thing he wanted was to end up as a Twitterverse wonder because she posted a screen shot of his pathetic attempt to contact her. Poor Marc Wells, chasing a woman who was too young for him like a washed up old man who was never very talented in the first place. Next stop, a reality show with Andrew Ridgely, John Oates, and Art Garfunkel.
Marc swallowed and slid the phone in his pocket.
He was supposed to be the guy in the band with his shit together. Ty was the charismatic one. Jason was the artist. Brian was the friendly one. Bear used to be the fun one, but since he married Maureen, he’d become the romantic one. Marc had always been the strong, responsible one. The one who read the contracts, made the connections, and didn’t screw up.
Who had just fallen flat on his face over a woman. A woman too young for him. The band was going to give him shit about this for years. If the tabloids got ahold if it, Twitter would be the least of his worries. They’d hunt down every girl he’d ever dated for comments. Dez would have no money worries for a while because she’d demand top dollar for her insight as his ex-wife. He was going to be publically humiliated on every channel.
The only feasible plan was to pretend like Alex didn’t mean that much to him. A little summer lovin’. Go home to California where he could make himself busy and hope Alex’s magic touch hadn’t worn off. Ronnie was depending on him to keep Shep from looking ridiculous, and if he failed, he’d never get another chance like this again. He’d spend the rest of his life as the other guitarist in Touchstone.
* * * *
Alex opened up her dorm room. Fucking elevators. Who closed both elevators at the same time for maintenance in a ten-story building? People who thought no one would be in the building, that was who.
All the way here, she’d been looking back down the road, half fearing, half hoping to see Marc’s car chasing down the bus. She’d imagined him stopping the bus and carrying her off, promising to fix everything. Convince the dean that she had nothing to do with the thesis Roger submitted in her name. Tell her he didn’t care that she’d pursued a married man. That it was Roger’s choice, too. And that he still loved her. Most importantly, that he still loved her. Marc could do that. He’d waded into the utter disaster at the diner and fixed it all. If he could do that, he could make all this go away.
Like that was going to happen. Roger was right. She’d made herself into a siren, designed for him, and lured him away from his wife. Now he had to keep her by whatever means necessary, even if it meant the destruction of her career.
And causing her to lose Marc.
Not that Roger cared about that. As long as he had what he wanted, he didn’t care about the aftermath. She’d been blind to never notice that before. He wanted to be worshipped. Someone to bring him coffee, write his papers, and play captive audience to his tragic story. All this time she’d believe
d he loved her. Fool didn’t even cover what she was. In the next few days, she needed to get the smarts to extricate herself from this mess.
Not that she’d been planning on the relationship with Marc going anywhere. If he hadn’t thrown her out the moment she told him the truth, it would have grated between them like sand in an oyster shell. In an oyster that became a pearl, but between people, it could only be a festering wound. And if she had to tell him the whole truth? The ice cream analyzing, Googling, short skirt and high heels wearing sham she’d created to lure him into her clutches?
Nothing short of disaster. Complete, humiliating disaster.
The whole thing had nearly come unraveled last week at the diner.
Not last week. Two days ago. Alex sat down on her unmade bed and rested her forehead on her knees. Two days ago.
A soft knock interrupted Alex before she dissolved. Her shirt had ridden up her back so she jerked her it back into place, hoping the act would pull her brain back together, too. It didn’t. Neither did the pause to check her face in the mirror on the way to the door.
Cheryl, the resident director, stood outside with her usual pleasant smile. “Hey, Alex, I thought I— What happened?” She stepped inside, closing the door behind her as if there were anybody in the entire building to eavesdrop. “Alex, what happened?”
“Bad romance.” That summed it up well enough.
“Honey, are you sure? You look like the world ended some time yesterday. Do you want to talk about it?” Cheryl put her hand up in anticipation of Alex’s protest. “I know you like to keep to yourself, but it’s just the two of us in this big old building.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“All right. I just noticed that you’d come back early. The elevators are going to be out for at least a week so you’re going to be hoofing it up and down the stairs if you plan to stay here.”
“That’s fine. I like the idea of starving in my garret. Maybe I’ll get my thesis done before classes start.”
Waiting for a Girl Like You Page 11