Escapade

by Lisa Marie Rice

Oh man. She was just so beautiful sitting there, a naked princess with flat cheap pillows around her for a throne.

  “So.” She smiled at him. “What’s the news? Is Kreizler going to let your name be on the paper?”

  Cal frowned. Fuck, he’d forgotten about that. He’d done most of the work on a big paper on the elastic properties of graphene, staying up nights at the lab, laboriously recording tension and yield test results. Kreizler had made a half-assed promise that Cal’s name would go on the paper but Cal had just seen the program for the World Conference of Materials Science to be held next March in Dublin and, nope. His name wasn’t on the paper.

  But that didn’t make any difference now. He was going to leave Kreizler in the fucking dust. Leapfrog right over the bastard who treated him like hired help.

  “Nah. He’s not sharing. Didn’t even have the nerve to tell me himself, I found out by checking the paper online. But, who the fuck cares?” He picked up her hand, soft and slender, and brought it to his mouth. “Because something better is on the horizon.” He tried to control his breathing. “I got it. Anya, I got it.”

  He was trying to keep the excitement down but his voice turned hoarse. He cleared his throat.

  She took her other hand and smoothed away a lock of his too long hair. Damn, his hair grew out so fast and he didn’t have the money to keep going to the barber. She smoothed the lock of hair behind his ear, still smiling gently at him. “Got what, darling?”

  He was looking deep into her eyes but he closed his. He didn’t want to watch her face when he told her the news because then … well if she teared up then so would he and if he started crying the Man Police would rip his Y chromosome right out of him.

  He swallowed heavily, held her hand tightly. “I got that post-doc fellowship at Stanford. Working with a top-tier research team headed by Habericht, who has a Nobel, and by Loren, who won a McArthur Genius Award three years ago. And that’s not all. I got an offer from Benson Labs for a part time job that will become a full-time job after the fellowship. And the salary from Benson Labs will pay off my student loans in the first year.”

  He gave a sigh that came from deep in his chest. He was drowning in student debt.

  This was like a dream come true. Cal smiled, opened his eyes — and froze.

  Anya’s lovely face was utterly blank. Not warm and welcoming, not happy for him, not anything. Just blank and … cold?

  What the fuck?

  “Anya, honey, I —” But he didn’t know what to say. Because all of a sudden, he wasn’t touching her anymore and he hadn’t moved. She had. She’d moved … away from him.

  And, oh fuck, she was out of bed, bending to pick up her clothes on the floor.

  What had he said? Had he thought he’d told her about Stanford but instead something else had come out of his mouth? Had he had a stroke or been struck by one of those weird syndromes where only profanities came out of his mouth?

  Fuck, no.

  He remembered precisely what he’d said. I got it. Which was supposed to be her cue to cry out with joy and hug him and maybe he’d get another round of sex before asking her to marry him.

  That was the way it was supposed to go. So what was happening right now? Something bad was happening, that was what. And he was powerless to stop it.

  His muscles were paralyzed as he watched her pick up her dainty, lacy underwear from the floor. She always dressed simply. Bra, underpants, sweater, yoga pants, socks, boots and finally parka.

  Cal was too dumbfounded to stop her, ask what she was doing. That was pointless anyway because it wasn’t hard to figure out what she was doing. She was leaving. Instead of spending the night the way he’d hoped, she was going home.

  He had just enough money left on his card to order pizzas in and the plan was to snuggle up with her and watch some pirated movie on his ancient laptop. It hadn’t even occurred to him that that was not the way he was going to be spending his evening, the way he’d spent so many evenings. With her.

  But she wasn’t staying.

  As she laced her boots he shook off the frozen spell he was under.

  “What are you doing?” His voice croaked, cracked.

  “Seems clear what I’m doing.” Her own voice was cool, controlled.

  “You’re leaving?” The idea was still so strange he had to hear it from her mouth.

  “That’s right, ace. I’m leaving.” She zipped up her parka, flipped up the hood and turned to face him. She was like ice. It was warm in his room but a chill emanated from her.

  It was so unfair that she was still so beautiful, even somehow angry at him. The hood of the parka was lined with dark fake fur that looked like the real thing. It framed her face like that of a princess in a fairy tale, the kind where the princess wandered into the dark forest and made the big bad wolf fall in love with her.

  Her beautiful face was closed to him, eyes like shards of ice.

  What the fuck? What was happening?

  He was getting screwed, is what was happening to him. And not in a good way. A spurt of anger flashed and he repressed it immediately. He’d never gotten angry at Anya, ever. And he wasn’t going to start now. He didn’t want to start now.

  But … what the fuck?

  After staring at him coldly for a long moment, Anya turned on her heel and walked to the door. Opened it. Walked out.

  Hell.

  Cal stared at the door stupidly. His muscles felt slow, his brain felt mired in mud. He couldn’t react. He could barely breathe.

  What just happened? Was there a pod in the lavish wine cellars of her father’s mansion, eating the real Anya after extruding a fake alien? No, that had been the real Anya he’d made love to. Her skin, the sounds she made, the way she clutched at him … those were all real.

  Loving Anya was the best thing that ever happened to him. She loved him right back, he was sure of it. They were young but neither of them were dummies. They’d lucked into true love at a young age but they both realized what they had. It was rare and precious and needed protecting.

  He loved her and she loved him. Or, up until five minutes ago, she’d loved him. Then something … changed.

  Misery was setting in, a dark cloud of it rising like some dank fog from the nether regions of the earth. From caves and crevices where dark creatures dwelled. His head ached. His bones ached.

  Too late, he realized he should be chasing her. Cal moved forward, but slowly and painfully, like he’d just taken a bad beating at the dojo. He was good in the dojo, it had been years since anyone had been able to hurt him. But this felt like he’d been beaten to within an inch of his life.

  He’d opened his door and was walking out before he realized that he was buck naked. Much as he wanted to, he couldn’t chase her like this. They’d arrest him. So he went back in, pulled up his jeans over his hips, jerked on his shirt without buttoning it and jammed his sockless feet into his ancient running shoes.

  He limped down the stairs as if both legs had been broken. Something in him was broken. He threw open the front door of his apartment building and stared out in dismay. As usual, the light over the door and every other street light was out. He never let Anya walk alone after dark in his area. The fact that she had … he couldn’t go there. The idea that she’d rather court danger than stay with him was so painful he batted the thought away instantly.

  It was snowing hard. Not pretty snowflakes gently settling on the cracked ground, but frozen rain flooding from the sky. He could see her boot prints but they disappeared two feet from the door. Right was a long slog to the subway, left was a bus stop. But she’d have to change three buses to get home. She usually took the subway. But never alone after dark, ever.

  Her boot prints went to the right. She’d opted for the subway, which — damn it! — was not safe. Neither the streets to get there nor the station itself.

  He took off running. He was a martial artist, not a track star. Cal was powerful, but not a runner. Still, he made good time, following her footsteps un
til he couldn’t any more, the thick falling snow smudging them out.

  But he knew the way to the subway and he ran as fast as he could.

  She wasn’t there. Cal frantically searched the filthy, graffiti-painted station. There were a couple of drug addicts, an ancient alcoholic preaching the end of the world and some tired workers.

  Cal stared at the dirty station through eyes that stung, one hand braced against the wall as if he would fall down any second as he anxiously screened every passenger. Even when the train clanked in and came to a screeching stop, he studied everyone who boarded and stalked up and down the platform, peering into every car. On the crazy chance that she’d … what? Run two miles to the previous station and gotten on there?

  Well clearly she hadn’t headed for the subway. Maybe she’d doubled back. Probably she’d called a cab. He hadn’t even thought of that, because cabs never entered into his calculations. He could probably build a rocket to fly him to the moon before he could cab it everywhere.

  Finally, he trudged up the stairs and out into the freezing cold. Fishing his cell out of his jeans, he thumbed her number. It was the first on his contacts list. The call went to voice mail.

  The call went to voice mail all night. He must have called a hundred times but he never left a message, not trusting his voice.

  The next day he called, then went to her apartment. Her father had bought her a pretty little studio apartment in a nice part of town. He stood at the front door ringing her bell for an hour until the super came out and chased him away.

  The super’s name was Mac, or that was what Cal called him. He was Polish and his name had enough consonants to sound like a sneeze. Cal and Mac were friends. Cal had helped him with building repairs a lot of times. But Mac wouldn’t look him in the eye and pretended that his English had deserted him.

  Cal called the mansion, though the idea of accidentally catching Mr. Voronov scared him. No danger of that, though. The housekeeper always answered, assuring him in icy tones that Miss Anya was not there, no she didn’t know where Miss Anya was or when Miss Anya was coming back and by the way don’t bother calling again.

  He sent emails, pouring out his heart. She couldn’t hear the tears in his voice in an email. But the emails remained unopened and never answered. Three days later, when he called her cell he got an announcement that the number was no longer in use.

  He lost ten pounds that first week and missed all his classes. When he almost missed the deadline for accepting the job with Benson Labs, Cal knew that his future was on the line.

  He could obsess over Anya and mourn her or he could get his act together and move forward.

  He faxed his acceptance and bought the ticket to San Francisco with the last of the money in his bank account

  Ten days after Anya walked out on him, on a bitterly cold, sleety day, Cal packed his few belongings and flew out West, toward his future.

  Without Anya.

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  Escapade ©2018 by Lisa Marie Rice.

  Published by Lisa Marie Rice

  Cover Design & Formatting by Sweet 'N Spicy Designs

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Lisa Marie Rice is eternally 30 years old and will never age. She is tall and willowy and beautiful. Men drop at her feet like ripe pears. She has won every major book prize in the world. She is a black belt with advanced degrees in archaeology, nuclear physics, and Tibetan literature. She is a concert pianist. Did I mention her Nobel Prize?

  Of course, Lisa Marie Rice is a virtual woman and exists only at the keyboard when writing romance. She disappears when the monitor winks off.

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