by Caro Carson
She was preparing to fly out of the proverbial nest. She was about to embark on a new phase in her life, just like every other woman who took her diploma and left Masterson behind. Just like every other woman who wanted a boost in her self-confidence after a divorce, every woman who wanted to reassure herself that she was still sexy as she faced a milestone birthday. Just like all of the women he’d liked, let leave, and didn’t miss.
Delphinia, he would miss. And yet, she’d be the one who wouldn’t leave Masterson when she moved on. Their paths might still cross. She’d smile, even kiss him on the cheek, but he’d know when he looked into her eyes that she’d moved on, and it would hurt.
“A new apartment,” he said. “Good luck with that.”
She frowned at him, and—and petted him, smoothing her palm down his chest, because, of course, now she thought she had the right. He’d kissed her intimately, openmouthed. He knew her taste now, and she knew his.
“I’ll tell you when I get the apartment,” she said. “You can come over.”
And be the charming bartender in her bed? Discuss the business degree she so blithely assumed he had? Plan field trips for her 300-level classes?
He didn’t know what 300-level meant, and she didn’t know him. Those brown eyes weren’t looking at the real Connor. She hadn’t kissed the man who’d eaten out of a dumpster. She was touching the wrong tattoo.
“That’s not going to happen,” he said. “I won’t let you make that mistake.”
Her hand stopped. “How can seeing you be a mistake? Are you seeing someone?”
He looked up at the ceiling and laughed. “No, but you are.”
That thrum of arousal was still strong between them, so she leaned close to kiss him again, as if that would make everything okay between her and the man she thought he was.
He stopped her with his hands on her pure, ink-free arms. “The honest truth, Rembrandt, is that I am very sorry I kissed you.”
Her lips parted in silent shock. She searched his face, and he let her, because then she’d see he was sincere. He would never be able to get her out of his mind now. He’d never be able to stand in his own hallway without remembering this moment, her taste, her touch, how it felt to pull her body into his. It was too late to change it, and he regretted making that memory already.
She recoiled slightly, hurt all over her face, but her eyes didn’t fill with tears of want and hope again. She didn’t beg him to change his mind.
Instead, she stiffened her posture and put a little schoolmarm into her voice. “You didn’t kiss me, Connor McClaine. I kissed you.”
She turned on her heel and walked to the employee exit, three angry paces, before she whirled around, eyes fierce and chin defiant. “And I’m not sorry.”
“Don’t go out that door,” he ordered—or begged, an angry kind of begging.
She hesitated, hand on the door, a touch of hope in that defiant expression. Hope, because she wanted him, and he’d said something that sounded like stay.
The universe was cruel. Connor hadn’t meant to be.
“I’ll unlock the front door for you.”
She slammed the employee door open and stomped down the single step. Connor was at the door in a second, stopping it with his palm before it swung shut, but he only watched as she marched past the dumpster and out into the sunshine on the sidewalk. With a swish of shining brown hair, she was gone.
He waited an eternity, but no tires screeched. She was gone, but she was safe. That mattered.
It would always matter.
But he’d already known that.
* * *
On Thursday, Delphinia wore her little black dress.
It fit her perfectly, hugging her waist and her hips, stopping just above the knee to show some leg without sacrificing an inch of elegance. The portrait collar exposed a generous amount of décolletage in a classic, silver screen way. She’d spent her empty hours pinning up her hair to complete the look. She did not look like her parents’ little bookworm. She did not look like the fourth generation of college professors.
She wished Connor could see her in this dress, because she wanted him to think she was beautiful.
She wished Connor could see her in this dress, because she wanted him to eat his heart out.
Vincent was the man who would see her tonight. He’d said this dress was too distracting when he wanted people to notice him, but tonight was a dinner date, and the other couple were already his friends. He’d appreciate that she’d dressed to impress this evening. Maybe.
Maybe not. Her instincts sucked. Her gut feeling was that Connor wanted her and Vincent cared very little for her, but the facts pointed the opposite way, and facts did not lie.
She’d asked a man to share her kisses, her passion, her future, and he’d said no. Connor hadn’t left her any room to hope. That’s not going to happen was blunt. I am very sorry I kissed you had been said with brutal honesty.
Fact: Connor did not want her.
Vincent wanted her to meet his friends. At the end of tonight’s date, he would kiss her, and he would not say he regretted it.
Fact: Vincent wanted her.
Delphinia stood inside the portico doors, consciously keeping herself as together on the inside as she looked on the outside. It shouldn’t be so difficult to do, but a piece of her had broken loose after kissing Connor, and she couldn’t force it back into place.
It rattled with impatience, threatening to explode out of her. She was fed up with her job, she was tired of Vincent’s cool control, she wanted her own damned kitchen, she wanted to tear her hair down and scream at the world.
She could quit working, stand Vincent up tonight, pack a suitcase and move to a random spot on the map. She could run barefoot across the green and howl at the moon, but it wouldn’t change the way her heart ached for Connor. It would only derail her life.
She touched her hair. Her pearl-tipped pins were holding nicely.
“Don’t you look lovely, dear?”
She turned, surprised to see her parents leaving the house dressed as they were. Her father’s blazer was his most casual tweed. “Where are you going?”
“We thought we’d take a cue from you young lovers and go out to dinner before tonight’s get-together,” her father said. “Several councilmen want to know the university’s position on the pedestrian bridge your Vincent told us about. The new sheriff will be there. We haven’t met him yet, have we, Rhea? There should be a lively discussion.”
The bridge—the accident—Connor picking her up from the sidewalk.
She ignored the rattle of that broken piece inside her and smiled politely at her parents. She could do this. Her life was still heading in the right direction, slowly but surely, toward classes she was more interested in teaching and toward a place where she would be more comfortable living. “I didn’t realize there was an event this evening. I didn’t see any caterers in the kitchen.”
“The meeting is not being held at Dumas House.” Her mother slipped into that bizarre, new conspiratorial tone. “So, if anything exciting happens this evening, you’ll need to reach me on my cell.”
“What kind of exciting thing?” The jagged edges of the broken piece tore at her throat, but she swallowed it down. “Not a proposal. Mother, we discussed this. He didn’t ask you already, did he?”
Her mother admonished her father. “Don’t you dare say one word, Archibald.”
Her father rocked on the balls of his feet. “I’ll only say that I cannot imagine our daughter marrying a more suitable man. She’ll soon understand why I removed her name from the waitlist for faculty housing.”
“Father. You did not. Tell me you did not. You had no right.”
“I have every right to review your benefits. I am the dean. One of the faculty apartments came open today. Imagine my surprise when your name appeared on the
list. It would have been a complete waste of resources to have you move into an apartment and then right back out again.”
“Move out again? To live with whom?” A sharp sliver escaped, not in rage, but in despair. “You assumed I would say yes to a question that I don’t even want to be asked.”
But this marriage proposal was her destiny. She was going to be asked, sooner or later, to marry a man against whom she had no more rational objection than I don’t want to. Everyone would be disappointed in her, angry at her, disgusted with her—and there would be no escape, because she would still be living under the same roof with the two people who would be the most upset.
She wished a hero would appear, lift her out of this mess and carry her close to his chest, because she was his heart, and his chest was where his heart should be.
What a useless, adolescent wish that was.
Vincent pulled into the portico. Dully, she said goodbye to her parents. Dutifully, she got into the car.
Then Vincent drove her where he wanted her to go, because her fantasy that she had taken control of her life was over.
Chapter Seventeen
Vincent’s fellow attorneys were not deliriously happy newlyweds.
They were a pair of sharks, and Vincent enjoyed swimming with them. With an expensive bottle of red wine on the table and rare meat on their plates, Vincent and his rivals wrested respect from one another by telling stories that proved their prowess at manipulating people. They talked about it like it was a sport, wins and losses tallied in courtrooms, high scores awarded for getting valid evidence dismissed or for convincing a jury to ignore a reliable witness.
Delphinia cut her potato into even, precise pieces. Nothing jagged. Nothing torn. “Perhaps you would be happier if you went back to your law firm.”
“And go back to billing eighty-hour weeks?” Vincent laid one arm on the back of her chair, but he rolled his eyes with his friends at her suggestion. “Being a professor gives me control of my time. There are other opportunities to enjoy the thrill of the kill. Political opportunities.”
“You’re considering running for office?” She ought to be told these things before a man asked her to share his life. Then again, that might be the point of this dinner. Mother knew best.
“Not running for office. Controlling those in office.”
Vincent casually fondled the back of Delphinia’s exposed neck. She couldn’t stop the shiver he triggered. It was a reflex, undignified, unbecoming.
The shark husband challenged him. “You’re delusional if you think you can pull the puppet strings in Masterson. You haven’t lived here a year.”
“It only took me a semester to make the right connections. It’s time to strengthen a select few. A bridge project has split the city council. I’m going to help kill it, and those who wanted it dead will become my grateful allies.”
Mr. and Mrs. Shark nodded in grudging approval. “Who’s opposing it?”
“The sheriff, for one. He was appointed after the elected sheriff resigned—cancer, whatever it was.” He dismissed a man’s life with a wave of his hand. “The new sheriff’s appointment was a political favor, naturally, but he has to win the next election in a matter of months. The system has given him an incentive to do favors now for those who can help him get elected later. Having a sheriff in my pocket will be...entertaining.”
With a subtle hiss of his name under her breath, Delphinia pleaded for him to stop saying such outrageous things. “Vincent.”
Vincent’s fingers circled the back of her neck and stayed there, a steady pressure. “The sheriff tells me Joe Manzetti isn’t in favor of the bridge, either. Since I still haven’t been introduced to Manzetti, I’ll have to take his word for it. Won’t I, sweetheart?” Had his hand been on the front of her neck, it would have choked her.
She wasn’t imagining this.
“Just think. Manzetti is the wealthiest man in town. If he opposes the bridge and I oppose the bridge, you’ll be on my arm at his Christmas party next year, my pretty Miss Ray.”
That’s not going to happen. Connor had said those words to her with calm sincerity. She wanted to stand and scream them at Vincent. I am very sorry I kissed you.
But his hand was heavy on her neck.
“You have my father convinced that the bridge is a get-rich-quick scheme for the Irish pub. He’s meeting with Dr. Marsden this evening to discuss it.”
“Is he? What a coincidence.” Vincent took his hand off her neck. His slow, satisfied smile was for his friends, not her. “The bridge is dead.”
“Even though the woman you love was nearly hit at that intersection,” she said under her breath.
Vincent’s hand settled on her knee under the table. “Speaking of your father, is the dean pleased with your classes this semester? Any difficulties with your Tuesday and Thursday schedule?”
“None at all.”
I’m going to teach Shakespeare at BCC again, starting this Saturday. Othello, to be exact.
She wished she could say that, but Vincent had a way of swaying her father’s opinions. He would ensure her father pressured her to quit teaching Othello if she argued with Vincent in front of those he wanted to impress.
“That’s good to hear.” Vincent’s smile was charming. Under the table, he gave her knee a quick squeeze. It was not approval; his thumb and finger dug into pressure points for a harsh second. He let go to dash his signature on the check. “Shall we call it an evening?”
There was no question this would be the last date she’d ever have with Vincent Talbot. He manipulated people as a game. He was as ruthless as the villain in Othello, who’d ingratiated himself with all the right people, who’d whispered in all the right ears at all the right times in order to convince Othello that his devoted bride was cheating on him and laughing at him behind his back.
Delphinia had been critical of the play as a doctoral candidate, because Shakespeare had failed to give the villain a motive. The villain had destroyed an honorable man just because he could.
She would not criticize the play again. Shakespeare had been right. For some men, that was motive enough, and she was looking at one of those men now.
Vincent drove her home in silence. Her role was now hideously plain to see. Her parents were respected and influential at Masterson University, which meant they were influential in Masterson, the town. As long as Vincent pretended to adore their daughter, they would think he could do no wrong—which meant Delphinia had value to him.
He was not going to let her go easily.
Without any explanation, he drove past the turn that would have taken them back to campus. She looked at the dark road ahead of them, so aware of her vulnerability. If Victor didn’t stop the car, there was no way for her to get out.
Don’t panic. Stick to the facts.
This was real life, not a Shakespeare play. Vincent Talbot was not a murderer. He was a normal man, a colleague of hers and her parents. He relished manipulating them all for his political ambitions, but he was not going to physically harm her. She was not a door.
She rubbed her knee. “Where are we going?”
“I thought we’d get an after-dinner drink.”
It was shocking that he could resume courting her, as if she hadn’t heard his chilling plans. He picked up her hand and kissed her knuckles, as if she hadn’t felt his fingers wrapped around her neck.
“You mentioned that your parents are meeting Dr. Marsden this evening to talk about bridges. It sounds stimulating, doesn’t it?”
“We weren’t invited.”
“Your parents aren’t going to refuse when you ask to sit with them.”
“They aren’t at the house. I don’t know where they’re meeting Dr. Marsden.”
“I know where.” Vincent turned onto Athos Avenue. “Haven’t you guessed? I thought you were a fan of the Tipsy Musketeer.”<
br />
Connor. Relief left her light-headed. Connor might be sorry he ever kissed her, but he was still the man who’d carried her in his arms when she’d been vulnerable, the man who’d protected his waitress from an aggressive customer. He would not let Vincent hurt her.
But, as they circled the block, looking for a parking spot, Vincent was as focused as a shark who’d caught the scent of blood in the water. He was coming here to win. To do so, he was going to paint the owner of the Tipsy Musketeer as a greedy monster, sinking his reputation with everyone influential, from Dr. Marsden to the sheriff to her parents.
Delphinia wasn’t Vincent’s target. Connor was.
* * *
Connor knew he was in trouble.
When a woman walked into a bar wearing a killer black dress and a determined expression, it never meant she planned a happy and carefree evening.
When the woman was Delphinia, it meant—
Hell, it meant she looked amazing in a little black dress. He couldn’t think beyond that as she walked toward him.
But he had to. He was standing right in front of her mother and father.
“Mr. Murphy gave the most charming toasts,” Dr. Ray—the mother—said to him. They stood with the city council members who’d congregated around a large corner table.
“Long toasts, but nobody minded listening to that Irish brogue.” Dr. Ray—the father—clapped Connor manfully on the upper arm. Connor expected him to say Isn’t that so, old chap?
They were friendly people, in their amusingly formal way. That Delphinia’s parents were the third generation of college presidents was easy to believe. That they’d produced a daughter who was so passionate about life, about her books, her students, his architecture and him, was harder to grasp. Delphinia did not kiss like she was the fourth generation of college presidents.
