Текст книги "Mid-Life Love"

Автор книги: Whitney Gracia Williams

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Текущая страница: 3 (всего у книги 26 страниц)

Chapter 2.5

Jonathan

Summer 2002

It was raining. Hard.

Streaks of lightning were dancing across the sky, and rain bullets were beating across my window pane.

As I looked outside, I saw the reflections of my miserable life in the downpour: Both my parents were denied an early release from prison, my little sister had been sent to live with yet another foster family, and my own terrible excuse for a foster family was trying their hardest to convince me to stay in state for college; they knew that if I stayed, they would get a bonus check from the Children’s Welfare Office for successfully raising a child who remained in state for college.

I knew that my life was bound to be terrible if I spent any more time in the hell hole that was Ohio, so that night I made a plan to get out.

I told my foster parents that I’d decided to go to the University of Dayton, and that right after my graduation ceremony, I wanted to go to a nice restaurant and celebrate. The greedy look in their eyes almost made me hurl on the spot, but I kept playing the part.

I smiled and told them I was grateful for all they’d done for me over the years. I just left out the part about them hijacking my parents’ prison letters, taking me clothes shopping at Goodwill while their biological kids were allowed to shop at real stores, and reminding me day in and day out that I would “end up just like [my] parents one day—a cracked out meth-head who deserved to rot behind bars.”

When the day of my graduation came, I set my well thought out plan in motion: I stuffed my best pants and shirts into a backpack, five hundred dollars I’d made from secretly doing college kids’ computer science homework, and a few essentials for a life on the run.

“What’s that backpack for?” My foster-mother Luanne walked into my room.

“It’s my outfit I’m going to wear after the ceremony. I want to dress more casual at dinner.”

“Oh! Of course! No one wants to get their fancy suit dirty at dinner.” She adjusted my tie. “It’s too bad you weren’t born into this family. We could’ve bought you a better suit, but you know how it is. The state only gives us enough money to feed you, not clothe you.”

I tried not to flinch as she ran a lint-brush against my shoulders.

“Your high school graduation is going to be the highlight of your life.” She sighed. “You probably won’t last that long in college, but don’t worry, neither me nor Bob expect you to.”

“Thank you very much...”

“I still can’t imagine what it must have been like to have meth-dealers as parents. It must have been awful! I think about it every day and I feel so bad for you.” She stepped back to look at me. “But then I say to myself: Luanne, thank god you saved that boy, even if it is only temporary and he becomes a druggie just like his pitiful parents. At least he’ll have some fond memories to look back on while he sits in prison!” She smiled. “I’m going to get my camera!”

She left and I thought about jumping out the window right then and there. But I knew that was futile. We lived in the middle of nowhere and I needed the family car to get me into the city.

My foster brother Corey walked into the room and shut the door behind him. He crossed his arms and stared at me for a long time.

I was tempted to tell him that today would be the last day I would ever see him, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. He and I had actually become great friends despite his parents’ treatment of me, and if I wasn’t so broken on the inside I would’ve stayed a little longer—just for him and his little sister.

“I’m sorry about my parents.” He sighed. “But I want you to know that I really liked having a brother—a lot. Are you going to forget all about me and Jessica when you leave and start over? I can’t blame you if you say yes.”

“What are you talking about? I’m not—”

“Don’t worry.” He picked up my backpack and stuffed a brown paper bag inside. “I’m not going to tell my parents. I’ll act like I don’t know anything. Just promise me that when you prove them wrong and do something big with your life, you’ll find me and Jessica and hang out with us again.”

“Promise. Are you still going to Notre Dame in the fall?”

“Yeah, but you’re not going to the University of Dayton. Are you?”

I froze. I wasn’t sure what to say. “I—”

“I know I’m not as good as you are with computers, but you do know that I’m a master hacker right?” He laughed. “I hacked into the university’s list of confirmed students for the fall and your name wasn’t on it. You weren’t on any lists at any college that accepted you. So, I started thinking about what I would be planning if I were you, and I—”

“I don’t want you to think that I don’t trust you, Corey. I just couldn’t—”

“We can email each other to stay in touch. Whatever you do, don’t look back once you leave. You need to stick to buses and cabs—take alternative routes even if it forces you to go out of your way. Oh, and don’t open that brown bag I gave you until you’re out of the state.” He stood up and gave me a brief hug. “Jessica knows too by the way...She’s too hurt to say goodbye, but she understands and she says she loves you.”

“Oh my god! Look at the two of you!” Luanne burst through my door with the camera. “I need a picture of my sons! Well, a photo of my foster son and my real son! Both of you stand together! Smile on three! One! Two!—”

“Hey! Kid!” The cab driver snapped me out of my thoughts. “Wake up! This is as far as forty five bucks will take you.”

I looked outside and saw tall stone buildings, but I couldn’t make out what any of them were. I’d been hopping from bus to bus and cab to cab for days and I’d lost all sense of location because everywhere I went it was raining.

“Thank you.” I handed him the money and stepped out of the car.

Within seconds, the thin jacket and tattered jeans I was wearing were completely drenched. I had an umbrella in my backpack, but I knew pulling it out now was useless.

I walked through what appeared to be a college campus—there was greenery and buildings every few feet, but each building I attempted to get into was locked.

I apparently needed an access card to get in. A Harvard University access card.

I’d been accepted into Harvard months ago, but I never wrote back to confirm. As soon as I’d read that their top computer science graduate from the past year was a guy who developed a mini computer—something I’d done when I was fourteen, I decided that there was nothing they could teach me.

I saw a group of students holding the door to a lecture hall open, so I rushed past them. I walked down the hallway, peering into every classroom, cursing when I saw that they were all filled.

Once I was at the end of the hall, I slipped inside a dark classroom and breathed a sigh of relief.

“Nice of you to join us on time. Have a seat in the back please.” The lights came on and a blond haired man in a tweed suit stood up behind a podium. “Anytime now, son...”

The class laughed and I walked up the steps, taking a seat in the last row.

I ignored the itchy feel of damp denim against my skin and looked up at the board: Summer Course, Advanced Software 4100.

All the students had laptops and state of the art data configuration boards on their desks. All of them looked way older than I was.

I guess this is a senior level course...

“So...” The professor moved the projector screen from the center of the room. “We’ve been deconstructing our hypothetical company ‘Beta Link’ and so far we have three people in the running for the best computer: George Hamilton II, Lindsay Franco, and William Dane. Could the three of you come up here and show the class what you’ve built please?”

They took their places up front and explained their computers in the most mundane voices I’d ever heard. It was bad enough that their computers sucked, but their sense of arrogance and know-it-all attitudes were even harder to bear.

They have access to the best technology in the world and this is the best they can come up with?

“Very impressive!” The professor clapped. “To everyone else in this room, you have quite the competition if you’re going to get an A. Does anyone have any questions for George, Lindsay, or William?”

No one raised their hand.

“No one? No one has a question about how they developed their processors? You’re just going to let them walk away with the top grades? I can only give out a certain number of A’s you know. There is a very steep curve in this class and I will be putting it to use...”

I raised my hand.

“Yes, you.” He pointed to me. “What do you want to ask?”

“Those aren’t really the best computers, right? You’re just using those three as an example to make the rest of—the rest of us work harder, correct?”

The room erupted into murmurs. Everyone looked back and forth between me and the professor.

“No. I’m not,” he said. “These are indeed the best computers in the class, and seeing as though you didn’t bring yours to critique today makes me feel like they’re definitely better than whatever you built. But, since you seem to think that—”

“George’s computer will crash in six weeks.” I crossed my arms. “He’s over-compassing the ram drive with unnecessary wiring. One too many shut downs and it’ll never turn on again. Lindsay’s computer, if you want to call it that, is using all the wrong materials. Unless everyone else in this class is using sticks and stones, a computer with recycled coils and used wiring should never be considered a good computer. Technology isn’t up to date enough for eco-computers yet. And William’s computer, though impressive to look at, is—actually, he pretty much copied Dell’s earliest model and re-drafted a few mechanisms. Any high-school student with half a brain can do that.”

The room fell silent.

The professor took off his glasses and rubbed his forehead. “Class dismissed.” He shook his head and the students rushed out of the room, as if they were scared he was about to explode.

I stood up and walked down the steps, ignoring the intense glares that were coming from the three computer clowns who were putting their toys away.

“Wait, you.” The professor waved at me. “I want to talk to you for a second.” He waited for everyone to leave the room. “What’s your name?”

“Bill Gates.”

“Your real name...”

“Jonathan Statham,” I murmured.

“Mr. Statham, you’re not a student in this class are you?”

I shook my head.

“Do you even go to this school?”

“No...”

“So, what made you come here today?” He motioned for me to sit in the front row. “You look like you’re still in high school. Are you still in high school?” He waited for me to say something, but I only blinked.

“Okay then...” He sat down next to me. “Tell me how someone randomly shows up to Harvard and knows more about computers than my senior honors students.”

I sighed. I thought about coming up with a lie, telling him that I really was a student and just wanted to drop in on a high level class, but I was tired of lying, tired of running.

“My parents used to—” Accept electronics for the meth they sold sometimes? “They used to um, leave electronics around the house and I would look at how all their parts worked...And I would steal—I mean, I would borrow books from the library and read about computer mechanics...”

“You never went to a tech camp?”

“No.”

“Hmmm.” He rubbed his chin. “So, your goal is to sneak into Harvard?”

I rolled my eyes. “If I wanted to come here, I would’ve accepted the offer.” I realized he was probably going to call the cops on me for trespassing, so I put on my best apologetic face. “I’m sorry for today. I won’t interrupt your kindergarten class again. I’m gonna go—”

“I’m not going to call security on you.” He laughed. Then he suddenly looked serious. “Where are you from?”

I didn’t say anything.

“Okay...Do your parents know you’re here? I’m sure they’re worried sick about you...”

“They’re in prison.”

He looked sympathetic. “Well, your legal guardians must be looking for—”

“I’m eighteen.” I wasn’t a ward of the state anymore. I didn’t belong to anyone, and if his classroom wasn’t so warm I would have walked out as soon as he asked me what my name was.

“You must have made pretty good grades in high school to get accepted here, Jonathan...What number were you in your class?”

Why do I feel like I can trust this guy?

“First. I gave a speech and everything.” I reached into my backpack and pulled out my crumpled speech, tossing it to him. I was hoping he would actually read it for some reason—unlike my foster parents who’d seemed completely oblivious to the fact that I was the valedictorian.

As he looked over the speech, I realized I hadn’t opened the brown paper bag from Corey. I peered into the bag and saw a framed picture of me, him, and Jessica, a flash-drive with “read” scribbled across it, a stack of my parents’ unopened prison letters, and a one thousand dollar check addressed to me. There was an orange post-it clipped to the back of it: “Cash it some place sketchy—like a liquor store or a bail bonds place so I can re-route the information about where it was cashed...Your welcome, Corey. PS—Please let me know if you find the Fountain of Youth while you’re traveling...I’m convinced it’s in New York now...”

“Jonathan, what if I told you that I’ve been looking for a student with your potential to help me out on a new computer that I’m developing?” The professor caught my attention. “A computer that would change everything?”

“I would say I don’t believe you. Then I would say I hope it’s not one of the computers that I saw today.”

“Fair enough.” He chuckled. “Well, what if I said I wanted to help you?”

Ha! “No thanks. I’ve had enough help to last me a lifetime.” I took my speech from his hands, stood up, and headed for the door.

Before I could turn the knob, he jumped in front of me. “I have a one year assistance scholarship that I can award to any student. It’s supposed to be for graduate level students only, but if your background checks out...It’ll cover one year of tuition and a small part of your room and board. You would still have to find a job or two to cover the rest, but I honestly think you would make an excellent student and an even better developer one day. And, if you work hard enough during your first year, I could convince the academic committee to consider you for other scholarships.”

What?

“I’ll do a background check on you tonight.” He adjusted his glasses. “If you are who you say you are and you agree to work with me on this project, you’ve got free classes at Harvard and a once in a lifetime opportunity to work on a national project. What’s your phone number so I can—”

“You think I have a cell phone?”

“I’m sorry...” He looked me over, probably noticing that I was still soaking wet and carrying a dingy and holey backpack. “I just assumed that you...Where were you planning on sleeping tonight?”

I didn’t answer him. I just looked around the classroom. I figured that since my next bus wasn’t scheduled until tomorrow that I’d hide out in the building and sleep underneath a staircase once the janitors were done cleaning.

“My name’s Mr. Lowell, Jonathan.” He walked over to his desk and grabbed his briefcase. “If you don’t have any prior obligations, Mrs. Lowell is making pasta tonight and we have a guest room you can use for a few days while we sort this thing out.”

I looked away from Mr. Lowell and shook my head. I was ashamed of myself. I’d broken every rule of living on the run in a matter of minutes: I wasn’t supposed to talk to anyone. I wasn’t supposed to trust anyone. I was supposed to keep to myself until I arrived in New York—until I stormed into IBM headquarters and forced them to listen to my ideas. Yet, there was sincerity in this man’s eyes, and a national project with access to the best technology in the world was too tempting to pass up.

For an entire year, I used every free minute I had to work on Mr. Lowell’s project. In between soaring through my classes and working three jobs to cover the expensive dorm and food costs, I managed to help him earn a seven hundred thousand dollar grant to build more of his impressive L-tech laptop.

Right after he was officially awarded the money, he handed me an envelope that contained a twenty thousand dollar check, saying that it would help me pay the remaining part of my sophomore year’s tuition.

I was about to run to the bank and cash it immediately, but he snatched it back.

“You know what, Jonathan? You’re better than this.” He shook his head. “Tell you what, instead of this check, I’m going to give you something even better.”

“A bigger check?”

“Funny.” He snorted. “I’m going to be the first investor in your company. I’ll even host a dinner with my wife to get you other investors this weekend. I don’t think you need to waste any more time taking classes with people who aren’t as smart as you. You need to drop out and start working on your own company. I’ll help you in any way that I can for the first year.”

“What are you talking about? I don’t have a company, Mr. Lowell...”

And I want my check back!

“Statham Inc.? Statham Enterprises? Statham Industries! It has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?” He slid my award check into his briefcase and picked it up. “Trust me, in five years, you’ll have the amount of this check times a hundred. As of now, it’ll just be my consulting fee.” He patted my shoulder and walked out of the room.

Chapter 3

Claire

Today was one of those days when I honestly felt like I’d wasted the best years of my life. I’d spent all morning watching the Lifetime channel, going through old photo albums, and listening to one of my other San Fran friends—Helen, talk about how she’d been nominated for “Lawyer of the Year.”

She went on and on about how the ceremony was going to be in Vegas, how they’d booked a celebrity for a guest speaker, and how she just couldn’t wait to lounge in a rooftop pool; all the nominees were entitled to the five star treatment, which included having their own penthouse suite.

Although I was extremely happy for her, I was also slightly jealous. Helen was thirty nine years old too, but unlike me, she seemed to have it all together: She had her own law firm, traveled somewhere new and exciting every month, and the stories she told me about her sex life made me wish I’d had more experience before tying myself down to Ryan.

As a matter of fact, anytime Helen, Sandra, and I had a ‘girls’ night,’ she always overwhelmed us with salacious stories about her newest lover. At first, I thought she was just doing it to brag, but after a while I realized that she was doing me a favor. She was making me see how pathetic my nonexistent sex life was, trying to help me get in tune with something called an “inner goddess.”

But, since I refused to date, I relied on vibrating friends to get the job done: They were effective, easy, and I didn’t have to worry about them cheating on me.

Once I was off the phone with Helen, I decided to do some work. I started looking over my associates’ latest slogan submissions and proposed ad ideas. I read through three of them and shut the folder, making an immediate break for my car.

I’m going to need some serious wine to get through this today...

I rushed over to the grocery store and made my way to the magazine section. I figured I would buy yet another set of magazines to show my associates the difference between good advertisements and bad advertisements.

I picked up InStyle, Vogue, Us Weekly, and stilled once I caught a magazine with “Divorce Edition” scrawled across its cover.

I picked it up and flipped through the pages, shaking my head at the stupid advice the so-called “experienced divorcées” were giving: “Forgive him and let it go! That’s the easy part!” “Try to schedule time for yourself to cry in private!” “Travel alone and see the world as soon as the ink on the papers dries!”

Any woman who was cheated on and says her self-esteem wasn’t crushed is a goddamn liar...

I stopped reading the “How I Kept My Esteem Intact After the Affair” article and sauntered down the spices aisle.

Pepper...Bay leaves...Parsley...Paprika...Paprika? Ryan’s favorite...

I picked up the paprika and froze. I was supposed to brush the thought of him away as soon as he entered my mind. I was supposed to say, “The collapse of my marriage was not my fault,” take a deep breath, and move on to doing something else.

That didn’t work today.

I felt a soft lump rise up my throat and choked back a sob. I closed my eyes and tried to think of a happy memory, but only the worst one came...

I was trembling, shaking so violently I wasn’t sure how I was standing up straight. I was in my kitchen, staring at Ryan, watching him pick up the incriminating photos off the floor.

“Claire...” He picked up the last one and sighed. “Can we please talk about this?”

“About what?” I hissed.

“About what you...about me having an affair.”

“Oh yes! My husband fucking my best friend! For over a year! Let’s discuss that, shall we?”

“You don’t have to be so loud, Claire. I’m trying to—”

“I can be as loud as I want! You’re having an affair with Amanda! She was my maid of honor for Christ’s sake! I don’t even know where to start, Ryan! How could you?”

“Our daughters are upstairs. We—”

“Our daughters? Our daughters! Don’t try to act like you suddenly give a damn about this family! You weren’t thinking about any of us when your dick was buried in—”

“Enough!” He began to cry and walked over to me. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry...I messed up and—”

“You messed up?” I felt my heart constrict.

“Yes...I messed up and I’m—”

“Ryan...” I put my hand over my chest to prevent my heart from jumping out. “Messing up is picking the girls up late from school. Messing up is leaving the chicken in the oven for too long. Messing up is forgetting our anniversary—which is in two weeks, by the way. Cheating on me? Sleeping with my best friend? That’s fucked up. And it’s unforgivable. How long has it really been going on?”

He sighed and I slowly backed away from our cutlery set.

“Hello? Ryan! How long has it been going on?”

“Claire, listen to me—”

“Tell me! Tell me right now!” I looked away from his eyes because deep down I didn’t really want to know.

“I’ve always had feelings for Amanda...”

My heart gave out and crumbled inside my chest. My knees buckled and my body slumped down to the floor.

He continued, “I had feelings for her but I never acted on them because...” He sat down on the floor. “Because I was in love with you. I never intended to act on those feelings, but last January we were both drinking and one thing led to another and—”

“And you had sex?”

“Yes...And I—”

“Where?”

“Where, what?”

I took a deep breath. “Where did you have sex that time? Where was this happening?”

He avoided my eyes. “Here...You were out of town at that Parker Brothers conference...And I know that I should’ve stopped that day. I should’ve told you, but I couldn’t. I honestly didn’t know how to break it to you because it was more than just sex between us. It was—”

“Are you the father of her baby?” I needed to hear him say it.

He didn’t answer.

“Are you the father of her baby?!” I screamed.

“Yes.” His voice cracked. “I...I’m so sorry you had to find out this way and that I put you through this...I’ll do whatever it takes to earn your trust again. I’ll have to pay her child support, but I’ll let her go. I’ll go to counseling and we can—”

“Are you in love with her?”

“Claire, don’t—”

“Answer me! Are you in love with her?”

“Yes.”

“Do you still love me?”

“Of course I love you, Claire. I—”

“Are you in love with me?”

His silence was the loudest answer he’d given all night. His lack of words unraveled me and forced me to break down right in front of him.

He began talking over my cries, saying words of some kind, but all I could hear was the roaring of blood in my ears, the literal shattering of my heart.

I curled into the fetal position and cried my eyes out. I kept saying, “Get away from me, it’s over,” but he wrapped his cold arms around me and refused to let me go.

I wanted to believe that we could get through this together, that he could fall in love with me again and we could put this affair behind us. But as his clammy fingers caressed my shoulders, I realized that I didn’t trust him anymore. And I didn’t want to hurt myself even more by having to learn how to trust him again.

In the morning, with the one shred of dignity I had left, I calmly told him that I wanted a divorce.

“The collapse of my marriage was not my fault.” I exhaled and opened my eyes.

I felt my phone vibrating and held it up to my ear. “Hello?”

“Mom, I need some Pop-Tarts.”

“Caroline, you have a car and a part-time job. Go to the store and buy them yourself.”

“I spent my last check on an iPod! Besides, Ashley said you were at the grocery store and I can’t do my work without Pop-tarts. Can you get some for me and drop them off at the library? Please?”

Sometimes, I swore that my daughters weren’t related to me. They couldn’t be. At sixteen years old, they had all the book smarts in the world, but their common sense IQ was probably negative.

“How old are you?”

“Sixteen.” She sighed. “Oh my god! Oh my god! Let me call you back mom! The ice cream truck is coming up the street! I have to get an Elmo-sicle!”

Just as I was about to put my phone back into my purse, my other daughter called. “Yes, Ashley?”

“How long was I supposed to keep that bread in the oven?”

“You weren’t supposed to touch that bread at all, Ashley. I said it was for dinner. It was going to go with the spaghetti and—”

“I was hungry! What was I supposed to eat?”

“Leftover chicken salad, sushi—”

“I’m a vegan since last night mom.” She gave me one of her ‘you-just-don’t-understand-me’ groans. “Remember? I can’t eat meat. Can you get me some soy products while you’re out? And I’m totally sorry, but I completely burned that bread...Shouldn’t the oven have made a sound to alert me? And why does every plastic pan I put in the oven burn up? What’s that about?”

Oh my god...

“I’ll see you when I get home, Ashley.” I hung up.

My daughters were not related to me. If I was sixteen years old with a job and a shared car, I wouldn’t be calling my mother about anything. Then again—I scrolled down my phone’s list and called my own mother. “Mom, are you still coming over for dinner tonight?”

“Sure. What time should I be there?”

“Seven o’ clock. And I need you to bring some bread over. I had some ready but Ashley put another plastic pan in the oven.”

“You need to get those girls checked out, Claire. I told you they were born with half a brain.”

“Tell me about it. See you tonight, mom. I’ll—”

“Wait! Robert Millington told me you still haven’t called him. He really wants to take you out. I think he’d be good for you!”

I tried not to groan. Robert was the son of my mom’s best friend. He was two years older than me, but he wasn’t attractive and he was extremely dull—worse-than-watching-paint-dry dull. His idea of great conversation was discussing the differences between American and British politics.

“No thanks, mom. Not interested.”

“Why not? He’s a good guy! He has his own law firm, he’s in great shape—”

“And he’s boring. I’ll pass. See you tonight, mom.” I hung up.

I made my way down the beverage aisle and grabbed a carton of dry milk. I headed for the meat section and grabbed a few pounds of beef—soy beef.

As I walked by, I looked up at the reflective glass that hung over the chicken display. I still had problems recognizing myself on some days. I was still coming to terms with the new and improved me—the woman who actually enjoyed putting on make-up and spending more than twenty minutes on her hair.

You still got it...You still got it...You still—

I pushed my basket straight into a display of cereal boxes.

Great...

Stooping down, I began putting it back together the best way I could. I wanted to fix everything before the snotty manager came over and said his infamous, “Mistakes like this are what drive our prices up.”

“Need some help?” A deep voice said from behind.

“Sure.” I didn’t look up. I kept stacking the red boxes in between the yellow ones, making sure each box was perfectly aligned into the tacky half diamond formation.

As I stacked the last cereal box atop the display, I turned to look at the man who’d helped me out.

OH. MY. GOD...

He had one of those faces that belonged in a Ralph Lauren ad—stark blue eyes that gleamed with the faintest hint of light, a perfectly chiseled jaw line with a light sexy stubble, and full, well-defined lips that looked inviting enough to kiss all day.

He was dressed in dark blue jeans and a black sweat shirt with “San Fran” in white letters. And for some odd reason, he was smiling at me.

He’s probably a student at the law school down the street....If only I could go back in time...Oh well...

“Umm...Thank you for your help.” I turned away and went back to my basket.

“Wait a minute,” he said as he walked over. “I didn’t catch your name.”

How cute...

“Claire.”

“Nice to meet you, Claire. I’m Jonathan.” He reached out to shake my hand. “I know this may seem forward, but I can’t leave the store without knowing if I can I take you out tonight.”

What? Did he just ask me out? For tonight?

“Umm...”

“You can pick the place.” He smiled a perfect white smile and ran a hand through his jet black hair. “And we can meet there if you don’t want me to pick you up.”

Stop looking at his smile and avert your gaze somewhere lower...Not that lower!

“I would but...” I literally couldn’t take my eyes off him. He was the sexiest man I’d ever seen—his face had to have been personally sculpted by the Gods, and I was starting to feel this strange rush of warmth coursing through my veins. “I can’t.”

“Is it because you’re seeing someone else?” His eyes veered to my bare left hand. “Are you married?”

He has to be kidding me...

“No. I’m not married or seeing anyone else. I’m—”

“So would eight o’ clock tonight be fine? Where exactly do you want to meet?” He looked directly into my eyes and I almost collapsed onto the floor.

The look he was giving me should’ve been reserved for a seductive scene in a romance movie and his dreamy smile was lethal...