Micki looked around uncertainly. “An office farewell party wasn’t enough for you? Are you here to help me pack my bags and make sure I get out of town?”
“That’s not even funny.” Jan swept into her office. “You don’t need help packing, you need help getting your head on straight.”
“What?” Shock made Micki nearly speechless. Jan ruled by the force of her personality, but she rarely insulted anyone.
“You heard me. You are by far the dumbest genius I have ever met.” Jan took off her coat and heaved it onto the nearest chair, then followed it, sprawling out as if she owned the place. She glanced around the office with disfavor and returned her gaze to Micki. “You need help.”
“Well, thank you.” Micki’s comment was wry.
“No thanks necessary,” Jan said darkly. “I’m just being honest.”
This was so unlike Jan. “And how did I earn your overwhelming honesty?”
Jan shook her head. “You know, I just can not believe you. There are hundreds of women who’d give anything to be in your place. Millions of women.”
“In my place doing what?” Micki asked, feigning puzzlement. “Moving to San Francisco?”
“Don’t you play dumb with me. Here you have the most fabulous man in the entire country practically falling over himself to marry you and what do you do?” Jan snorted in disgust. “You up and move away.” She narrowed her eyes and added, “Micki Vaughn, you love Adam and Adam loves you. It’s plain as day. The entire situation is so incredibly simple. Marry him. He’s a wonderful man. He’s handsome and smart and generous. Not to mention as rich as sin. And if you’re too blind and deaf to appreciate him, then by my word I’ll keep beating his praises into you until they finally make it through your thick skin and into that dim head of yours.”
“That’s completely unfair,” Micki snapped. “As I recall, the first time we ever talked about Adam, you warned me against him. You said he was a womanizer and I’d just be getting in over my head.”
“I only said that to protect you.” Jan gave a bark of laughter. “Imagine that! It seems my advice was misplaced, wasn’t it? He’s the one who needs protection from you! But who would’ve thought you’re the love ‘em and leave ‘em type.” Jan leaned forward to press her argument. “What could possibly keep you away from a man like Adam?”
“It’s a personal problem.” Micki nearly smiled at the understatement. “I don’t plan to commit to a relationship again. Not ever. It hurts too much.”
“What do you mean ‘commit again’?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” Micki rubbed her aching temple. First Adam, now Jan was pressing her for details about her past. She definitely had to get out of this town soon.
“Humph.” Jan sat back and stared at her for a long, full minute. “You are stubborn.” She stood up and gathered her coat. “But I tell you, if I had a man like Adam Laurence trying to marry me, I’d be moving heaven and earth to find a way to stay with him.” She paused at the door and added a parting shot. “Like I say, you’re a genius but you’re no brain trust.”
“Jan, wait!” A sudden thought had occurred to Micki. “How do you know that Adam wants to marry me?”
“Well, he told me, of course.”
“He did?”
“He loves you, you know. I’ve never seen him looking like that before. It’s as if a giant stomped on top of him and knocked him flat.” Jan’s voice grew more strident as she talked. “And shame on you for not taking him out of his misery.”
“You actually saw him?” Micki asked, eager for news of Adam. “When? Where?”
“He’s in the office today. That’s when and where. And let me tell you, he is in a bad temper.”
“Well, if he’s in the office, he didn’t manage to make it to my goodbye party.” Micki struggled to keep disappointment out of her voice.
“That’s because he was on the phone to your new employers. They had some questions about your resume. The call was from Salt Lake City, I think they said. I thought you were going to San Francisco.”
“They were talking to Adam about my references?” Micki stood up, aghast. “I told them not to call here.”
“Well apparently they got their wires crossed. Anyway, Adam’s the one who talked to them.”
“What did he talk about?”
“Everything,” Jan said with immense satisfaction. “He went through your resume line by line. Adam compared what they had with the checks we made before we hired you. And then he asked for a copy of your personnel file.”
“You didn’t give it to him, did you?” Micki could feel the color draining from her face.
“Of course not! I couldn’t do that, it’s illegal.” Jan didn’t appear to be as shocked as her words implied. She flashed wide eyes at Micki, then studiously picked at the knotting on her sweater as she added, “Of course, if he were to open my file cabinet while my back is turned, how could I stop him?”
“Oh, Jan. No!” The enormity of what Jan was saying sank in. “You actually gave Adam personal information about me without my permission?”
“I had to,” Jan defended herself. “He was really upset. Honestly.”
Micki’s voice was urgent. “What exactly does he know?”
“Just what we have on file. Your previous employers. Your business references. Recommendations on past performance. That kind of stuff.” Jan paused. “When it comes down to it, I don’t know very much about you myself.”
“How about my past addresses?”
“Oh, yes.” Jan was offhand. “Certainly. He has those too.”
“Oh, God. What should I do?” Micki held her hands against her head trying to control the pounding ache. “Oh, God.”
“Stop shaking.” Jan strode over to Micki and held her shoulders. “Oh, Micki. I’m so sorry. I’d never have given Adam that information if I’d known how upset you’d be. I honestly thought what I was doing would help the two of you get back together. I never meant to hurt you.”
Micki smiled wanly. “Leave it. There’s nothing he can do. And there’s nothing you can do. I just need to move on, that’s all.”
“You are planning to send me your new address, aren’t you?”
“Of course,” Micki lied automatically.
Jan nodded once and walked to the door again, pausing as she added, “You’re a terrific gal Micki and I value our friendship. But sometimes I think what you need is a good, swift kick in the butt.” And she swept out, her coat flowing behind her.
Micki sank back down into her chair, twisting it from side to side. Staring out through a distant window, she tried to empty her mind of all thought, a technique she’d perfected over the last few years. Deep breathing and shallow thinking. That was the key to a successful life.
A towering shadow snapped her out of her trance and she looked up with a start. Adam stood leaning against her doorframe.
“You didn’t make my goodbye party.” Her voice was flat as she stared at him with analytical curiosity. Tall, broad and muscular, looking a bit grim today with his shirt hanging loose outside his jeans. She made mental notes of his appearance, so she could recall the scene after she’d left.
Adam stared straight at her and made no response.
“Adam?” She held a hand out to him, but he ignored it and, after a moment, she dropped it back down to her desk.
When he finally did speak, his voice was brusque. “Salt Lake City now, is it? So you decided not to go to San Francisco after all. Were you ever planning to tell me, or were you just going to fly away and leave me to search for you in San Francisco?”
“I’m sorry.” Micki’s could feel the cake from her party whirling in her stomach, making her weak and nauseous. “I didn’t want you to follow me.”
“Not to worry,” he said curtly. “I have no plans to follow you anywhere. In fact, I don’t want anything more to do with you.”
“Adam?” Searching desperately for words to stave off the agonizing hurt, she picked sarcasm
, an old favorite. She stood up and waved her hand around her office in an elaborate welcome. “Please come in. My, it’s nice to see you too. You’re looking quite well.”
“Cut it out, Micki.” Adam sounded deadly serious and he remained ensconced in her doorway. “I don’t want to make a scene. I’m just here to say goodbye. I thought I owed you that in person.”
She had a sudden need to see him laugh again. To see the furrows smoothed from his brow. “Not yet.” She shook her head to emphasize just how wrong he was. “This is stupid. I’m not leaving until next Monday. We can still have a weekend exploring Seattle and—”
“Stop it!” He cut her speech off in mid-sentence. “I can’t stand all this polite talk, as if we’re just having a casual friendship.” His face was dark and remote as he stared into her eyes. “But there is one thing I would like to know before you go.”
“What?” Her voice was sharp with tension.
“What’s your name?”
The question came out of the blue and she shrugged her shoulders helplessly. “Micki. Micki Vaughn.”
He shook his head. “I mean your real name.”
“What are you talking about?” Her hands. were ice-cold She rubbed them again, trying to generate some circulation.
“As you well know, there’s no Micki Vaughn in the Des Moines city records.” His voice was even, but Micki could feel his anger, like an invisible force, surrounding her. “That is where you said you were raised, isn’t it? Des Moines, Washington?”
At her silent nod, he continued, “In fact, except for the last three years, nothing on your resume checks out. Your previous employers are all fake, your previous addresses don’t exist, there’s no record of a Micki Vaughn attending the schools you list. Now why is that?”
She flinched at his tone. “I don’t know,” she whispered.
“How did you manage to leave no trace? Did you get your name legally changed?”
She backed away from him, stopping only when she was pressed up against the wall.
“You’ve been lying to me all this time, haven’t you?” He shifted his position and ran a shaky hand through his hair. “Well, that’s fine. Lie to me and run away. Don’t bother writing, if you were even planning to. I don’t need to pursue a liar. The sooner I forget about you the better.”
“One last night out?” she urged desperately. “We need to say goodbye properly, not here in my office. Not like this.”
“I have no intention of playing out this travesty and going on a ‘last date’.” There was thick sarcasm in his voice. “Unlike you, I’m not that good an actor and I don’t like living my life like it’s a game board.”
“We were both playing a game, remember?” she said sharply. “The game of love, you called it. This shouldn’t be news to you. Both of us agreed.”
“This game isn’t fun anymore,” he spat out. “How about a new game? The game of truth. Have you ever even heard of it?” His voice seemed to crack. “Oh, Micki, I’m just so tired.” She could hear fatigue permeating his voice. “It isn’t fun and it isn’t even a game, really.” He sighed heavily and looked at her with a heart-wrenching smile. “It stopped being a game the instant I fell in love with you.” Adam straightened. Something in his stance warned her that he was about to approach.
“Adam.” She shook her head in alarm.
He took a step into her office. “I want a home. A family. We could build one together.”
“Adam, I can’t marry you.”
“You’ve said that already,” he interrupted savagely. “I don’t need to hear that bullshit again. I don’t believe you! You could make a life with me! If you’d just make a commitment for once in your life and tell me the truth.”
“For once in my life?” Micki stared at him. “You don’t know the first thing about it.” A roaring in her head overwhelmed her. She echoed his words as if in a dream. “Make a commitment for once in my life.” She was facing Adam, but didn’t see him. She shook her head wordlessly. Never again.
Adam watched her posture and searched her eyes with a sudden flash of hope, but as she stared unseeingly, his tired cynicism returned. He grimaced. “Who do I think I’m kidding? You don’t care, do you Micki? You never did care. I’m going home.” He turned to go.
“Wait!”
Adam had turned away, but at her shout he half turned back again, watching her with almost detached interest. Micki fought against the pounding in her ears. She had to stop the noise. She had to keep Adam from leaving in such terrible anger. If she just could focus on his face. But it was as if she were caught up in a world of white clouds. Sticky clouds that wrapped themselves around her and kept her from moving, or even speaking. They were slowly tearing her apart.
“Adam.” There. Now that one word was out, maybe she’d be able to force out more. “Please give us one last weekend.” Micki could feel the tears forming in her eyes and she blinked quickly to keep them at bay. She walked toward him and touched his shoulder. “After all the wonderful times we’ve had, I need to say goodbye to you properly. Please.”
“Give me one good reason why I should,” he dared. “Tell me something, anything, to make me think you might start telling me the truth.”
“You don’t understand.”
“You’re so right, little Micki. I don’t understand you at all.” The resignation in his voice was even worse than his anger. “It’s time to quit playing these games of yours, Micki. Or whatever your name is.” He shook his head in despair. “I thought I was falling in love with an exciting, adventurous woman. But you’re not a woman, are you? You’re just a little girl trying to act like she’s an adult. Playing around at love, toying with people’s emotions, with no concern about the devastation you’re leaving behind you. You have no idea what love is.”
“That’s not true!” Her vehement retort caught him by surprise and he narrowed his eyes at her. “Who are you to act so arrogant? You think you’re so all-knowing, don’t you? You think you know everything about me, don’t you? Got it all figured out, how I can put my life in order? Well you can go to hell!”
“I just might.” His response was made without rancor as he turned to walk away. “That’s funny, isn’t it?” He paused, then turned back around to face her. Fatigue etched his face.
“Tell me, is it your ex-boyfriend who did this to you? Is it because you hate him so much for abusing you? Is that why you refuse to face your life?”
There it was, out in the open again. It was the lie she’d started because she couldn’t bear saying the truth. This time she couldn’t let the lie continue. It was unfair to Adam and it was unfair to Danny. “I don’t hate him,” she said softly. “I loved him.”
She had finally managed to get Adam’s full attention. His mouth opened wide in surprise before he caught hold of himself. “What the hell are you talking about? You still love him?” he asked in disbelief. “You love the man who hurt you?”
“He didn’t hurt me,” she denied. “He never hurt me.”
Adam looked confused. “But you said he had.”
“I just didn’t want to talk about him, that’s all. You’re the one who brought it up. You said it. You kept asking and asking questions, so I agreed with everything you said to make you stop.”
“Ah.” His mouth twisted cynically. “All those earnest discussions we had. Those heart-to-heart talks. You were lying all that time?”
“Yes,” she admitted unhappily. “I’m sorry, but—”
“God! All women really are the same! Are you cheating on me too?”
“No!”
He paced around her office angrily, picking up a connecting wire she had out on the shelf and examining it intently. “I wonder why you’re telling me this now? Do you think this latest version of your life is going to make a difference?”
“I just couldn’t let the lies go on, that’s all. They’re starting to make me sick.”
“Your lies are making you sick?” he echoed. “What do you think they’re doi
ng to me?” Adam replaced the cable and began examining her table lamp with apparent fascination. “So, tell me Micki. What exactly is it that this almighty ex-boyfriend of yours did to make him so special?”
“Oh Adam, stop this.”
“I want to know,” he insisted. “You lied to me about him before. Don’t I have a right to the truth now?” Adam picked up her alarm clock, turning it round and round in his hands. “Tell me about him. What did he look like? How did you meet? What did he do for a living?” Adam threw the clock back down on the shelf with a vicious movement and faced her. Micki nearly shook from the anger in his eyes. “How can it be,” he insisted, “that you’d rather make love to a memory, than to a flesh and blood man like me.” He stopped abruptly. “Or is he just a memory? Are you still sleeping with him?”
She stared at him wordlessly. He gave a shout of fury and walked over to her, holding her shoulders and shaking her, as if he could force words out of her mouth by the sheer movement. Tears were flowing down her cheeks now. Giant rivers of tears that blurred her vision and made her feel like she was standing alone in a howling rainstorm.
He dropped his hands. “Tell me about him, Micki.”
She shook her head, mute. Words wouldn’t come out through the noise, the sheer, unadulterated, pounding noise that was beating through her head like a marching band.
“Does he kiss you like I do?” As if against his will, Adam reached out and touched her wet lips. The back of his hand caressed her cheeks. His touch was gentle, but his eyes were molten steel. She licked her lips, resisting the urge to bury her mouth in his palm. “Does he know how to make you tremble with joy?”
She felt a shiver run through her. “No,” she moaned. “It’s not like that at all.”
“I love you, Micki. All I want in the entire world is to make a life with you. But I can’t do that alone.” His voice grew soft and pleading, encouraging her to agree with him. “Can’t you help me?”
She had finally risen beyond the noise, as if the sticky clouds had enveloped her, lifting her up to a height far above her office. She could see Adam watching her, but from a distance. She was isolated, removed from their argument and she felt perfectly in control, just as she’d always wanted and completely alone. “No. I can’t help you.” She could hear her voice and it sounded kindly, like an exalted ruler, graciously explaining herself to her subject. “I won’t have much time, you see. I have to move next week. I’m going to start a new job soon, so I can’t stay here.”
Game of Love Page 13
