The Roman's Woman (A Singular Obsession Book 4)

by Lucy Leroux

  Well, it seemed that her decision to avoid the painful memories of her relationship with her father was coming back to bite her in the butt.

  Furious, she picked up her phone and dialed Richard.

  He picked up on the second ring. “Darling! I’m so glad you called!”

  “You won’t be when I’m through with you!” she said.

  “Darling?” The tone was simultaneously hurt and condescending.

  “How could you? He was your mentor, you bloody thief!”

  There was complete silence on the other end of the line.

  “Well? What do you have to say for yourself? And how has no one in that damn department realized you stole my father’s research?”

  More silence.

  “Richard, so help me God, I’m going to go over there and I’m going to kick your ass into next week if you don’t start talking right now.”

  There was the sound of someone taking a fast quick breath. “Yes, come over. That’s exactly what I need you to do. I can explain everything. You’ll understand once I tell you what happened. Come over here to your father’s house. Everything will be clear. Just don’t do anything rash before you hear what I have to say.”

  Even angrier now, Sophia fisted her free hand. “There is nothing you can say to explain this away!”

  “Yes, there is! But I need to talk to you in person. Will you come?”

  Sophia ground her teeth and exhaled slowly. “All right. I’m on my way now. But I’m warning you, Richard. I’m not letting this go.”

  “I know that. I’ll be expecting you,” he said in a hollow voice.

  Sophia hung up and stormed to her bedroom, pulling off her shorts and t-shirt and taking out jeans and sweater. She started to put them on and then changed her mind.

  Her old clothes weren’t going to work for this confrontation. On impulse, she picked out a deep pink bodycon dress. It was part of her new wardrobe—one of the pieces that made her feel empowered. Deciding she could do with a bit of armor, she threw it on over her head. Finally she grabbed a pair of black motorcycle boots and tugged them roughly on her feet.

  She was about to run out the door when she remembered Gio. Right now, their conflict was nothing in the face of Richard’s deception. She needed to let him know that he’d been right all along to distrust her ex.

  God, he’s going to love that.

  Letting Gio tell her, “I told you so” was going to have to wait. First she had to go kick some ass. Grabbing her phone, she typed a brief message to her know-it-all Italian before snatching up her car keys and slamming her apartment door shut behind her.

  Chapter 23

  Gio should have been exhausted. He’d been up all night, unable to sleep since his argument with Sophia. Instead, he felt strangely buzzed, the lack of rest making him twitchy.

  It had taken all his willpower to keep from going over to her apartment last night. One phone call, which had gone unanswered was all he allowed himself. He couldn’t push her right now. She needed time to cool off. To that end, he’d sent her a text at two in the morning before trying to rest. But sleeping alone had been impossible.

  The bed felt empty without Sophia in his arms. She belonged there. It was the only thing that made sense. Deep down she knew it too, and he was sure they were going to be fine once they were past this point of contention regarding their exes.

  They had to be.

  His body needed more convincing. There was a rock in his stomach, a tangible reminder that he'd mishandled the whole thing.

  Sophia had a point that he was being unfair. If he was being honest, he knew she had a right to deal with Richard any way she chose. But something inside of him couldn’t accept that.

  His strongest instinct was to protect her, and it was telling him to keep her away from that man. Keeping her from hurt or harm was his priority. Those protective feelings had always been there, but after the incident with Lucca they had gone into overdrive.

  Intellectually he knew that overstuffed shirt Richard didn’t look like a threat to anyone else. An impartial observer would probably side with Sophia. Gio was being unreasonable about him, but he couldn’t seem to stop—which was disturbing in and of itself. After a lifetime of deliberate and rational behavior, he was acting like a madman. His only justification was this gut feeling that something wasn’t right with his rival.

  He spent the rest of the day trying to bury himself in work. It was a tried and true technique that had served him well in the past. Only this time it failed him completely. He kept checking his phone for messages every ten minutes, hoping against hope that Sophia had calmed down enough to speak to him again.

  He was contemplating hitting the gym to work out his frustration when he heard the text alert on his phone go off. Snatching it up, he quickly scanned through Sophia’s message.

  Gio, I’m sorry things got so heated last night. If it makes you feel any better Richard IS a piece of shit! You’ll never believe what he did. He stole my father’s research! I have to go read him the riot act but after, I’m going to come over so we can talk. I’ll call you as soon as I’m done.

  Oddio. He sat there staring at his phone for a long moment, letting the implications of her message sink in. For a second, he was elated. There was no way Richard was going to be able to win Sophia back now. That English idiot had just hit the last nail on his own coffin. However, his relief was short-lived.

  The man had committed academic fraud. Was that illegal? Even if it wasn’t, it was unethical. The University would have no choice but to fire him if it got out. And Sophia was going over to confront him on her own.

  If Richard had stolen Jorge Márquez’s research and passed it off as his own, what else was he capable of? Cornered rats could be dangerous. Especially now that his transgression had been uncovered.

  On impulse, he called downstairs and told Enzo to get him a car, a dark nondescript one.

  Sophia would be furious if he interfered with her handling Richard tonight, but what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. He was only going to drive himself over to the Englishman’s house and sit outside.

  If all went well, she would never know that he was there. But if there was any sign she was having trouble, he would be close by to make sure she was all right.

  ****

  Eight, nine, ten…

  Counting wasn’t working. Sophia was still so angry she couldn’t see straight. It was a small miracle she’d been able to drive without getting into an accident.

  She took the steps of her father’s house two at a time and knocked on the door with a determined balled-up fist. Several minutes passed before she saw movement at the curtains.

  “Richard! Open up!”

  Still nothing. He was sitting behind the curtain, watching her like some sort of peeping Tom. Did he think she was going to give up and go home? The entire house was lit up. It was obvious he was home.

  “I can see you behind the curtain damn it! Open the fucking door!”

  That finally did it. The door swung open and Richard stood there, a sour expression on his face. “Darling, I know I’m in the wrong here, but that is no reason we can’t have a civilized conversation like two decent people.”

  “Decent!” The man had some brass balls on him. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  A look of sheer panic crossed his face. Scanning over her head, he pulled her inside and shut the door.

  “Are you seriously afraid of what the neighbors will say? After what you did?”

  Richard stepped back and ushered her deeper inside the house. He had redecorated, replacing her father’s Spanish-inspired decor with heavier furnishings. It looked like the inside of an English lodge.

  Suddenly that made her furious. “What did you do—throw away all his things after you took his research and published it under your name?

  “Sophia, will you stop please and listen? I didn’t steal a single thing.” He stood up straighter and sta
red down his long narrow nose at her. “Your father stole from me.”

  She shook her head. “Unbelievable! I never realized what a liar you are.”

  He threw up his hands. “I’m not lying, and I’m insulted that you would believe I would. I'm aware we’ve been having a hard time lately but you are still my best friend in the world and Jorge was like a father to me.”

  He stepped closer to her and put his hands on her shoulders. “I swear I’m telling you the truth. I helped your father out from time to time and he took the idea to study online trolling from me. I had no idea he had pursued my idea behind my back. When I found out, I was crushed. Completely disillusioned “

  Her breath was trapped in her lungs. God, he was good.

  Sophia exhaled slowly. “Nice try. But he didn’t get the idea for the study from you. He got it from me.”

  She had never told anyone that, not even Kelly. It hadn’t been a big deal at the time. One freezing Sunday morning, she had been sitting there in his garage while her father worked on his car. They had run out of topics of conversation so she brought up a blog post she’d read recently on the harassment of female bloggers in the gaming industry. The article discussed how the Internet allowed for the evolution of online trolls, people who hid behind the anonymity of their computers to say and act with impunity.

  Since it was a question related to his field, her father’s attention had been caught and he started talking to her about it—really talking and not lecturing. It was the most two-sided conversation they’d ever had. Instead of sermonizing, he listened and they’d debated pros and cons until he came up with a unique angle he wanted to pursue further.

  Of course in time she regretted giving him the idea. Since she’d come up with the topic in the first place, her father assumed she would be eager to hear all the details. She had been privy to the evolution of his thoughts on the subject and then some. She knew way more about online trolls than she wanted to.

  “From you?” Richard finally asked, his face was twisted in dismay.

  “Yes. During one of our damn Sunday morning visits. So don’t stand there lying to my face and say he stole it from you because I know better.”

  He paled, turning a pasty gray. Staggering to the new leather sofa, he threw himself down on it and buried his face in his hands.

  In all her time with Richard, she’d never seen him display that kind of emotion. He was never at a disadvantage, and he never dropped that superior attitude of his. She almost felt sorry for him.

  Don’t even think about letting him off the hook. He had lied and until she called him on it, he’d expected to get away with it. She couldn’t let that happen.

  “You have to go to the dean of the University and tell him the truth.”

  He put his hands down and stared at her. “I can’t do that Sophia. I’ll lose my job! I was just tenured.”

  “You got tenure based on a lie. They gave it to you based on your amazing research paper, the one that you stole!”

  Richard rose and came towards her, his hands up. “Only you know that. Jorge was so secretive about his work. The rest of our colleagues have no idea what he was doing towards the end. And I did help him with a lot of it. He didn’t even finish. Once he was gone, it was only natural that I take over. My contribution was significant, too! He would have wanted me to have it.”

  Sophia laughed hoarsely. “You’re kidding, right? He would never have wanted someone else to steal his thunder. And what happened to your own project? The one on ethics?” she asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

  “I am still working on that,” he said. “But it wasn’t ready and the tenure issue came up quickly when your father passed away and Aaron Spitz took early retirement.”

  By now he was pacing around the room, wringing his hands and looking at her with a wild light in his eye. “The department wanted to keep me on, but there was another candidate with equal seniority—that obnoxious Leonard Cox. You remember him right? From the faculty dinner?”

  Her answer wasn’t important, and he kept right on going with his justification. “I needed an edge on Cox, and your father’s research provided it. I never dreamed it would overshadow my own work the way it did, or that it would be the reason they gave me tenure. It just happened. But Sophia, darling, after all that I went through with your father, don’t you think he would have wanted things to work out this way? I am his spiritual heir. He said as much several times.”

  “You’re not listening,” Sophia said with a slow shake of her head. She took a deep breath and tried to come up with a reason he would understand.

  “You have to come clean about what you did now before you permanently damage your career. Sooner or later, someone is going to find out. You can’t complete a study like my father’s without leaving a paper trail. Somewhere out there is evidence that he did it, not you. You can’t ignore that.”

  Richard seemed to crumble in front of her. His face fell, and he stared at her with bright wounded eyes. “No, believe me, I checked. But if somewhere down the road someone finds something suspicious, I can explain it away…as long as you back me up.”

  Her mouth dropped open in shock. “You expect me to lie for you?”

  “What I want—no, what I need—is your loyalty, like when we were together. If you could just be like that again, when I had your unequivocal support everything would be fine.”

  The truth slammed into her like a brick. “Oh, my God! That’s why you wanted to get back together. You knew I would eventually find out about this. It wasn’t about your feelings for me. All that noise about that two of us belonging together, finally meeting your parents, it was bullshit. You just wanted was to make sure that I would keep my mouth shut!”

  “No! That’s not it! I sincerely believe we are meant to be together. It’s what your father would have wanted,” he said frantically putting his arms around her and trying to pull her to him.

  Utterly disgusted, she pushed him away. Breathing heavily, she stared at him. “That is not going to happen.”

  “Why not?”

  She laughed shortly. “Well, for one, I am in love with another man. But even if I wasn’t, our relationship is over. It has been for a long time.”

  Richard made a face. “The Italian? Are you serious? He’s nothing but a spoiled playboy! No, he’s worse! Don’t you know about all the terrible things that man has done to his wife? It’s all over the Internet. All you have to do is Google him!”

  She held up a hand. “Gio is a good person. The only thing wrong with him is his ex-wife. She’s a deranged slut whose been smearing him in the press for her own ends. Seriously, she’s a mess. Although right now I’m not exactly in a position to throw stones when it comes to exes,” she added pointedly before standing up straight. “I’m done arguing about this. You have until Monday to speak to the dean.”

  Richard’s hands fell down to his sides. The manic look in his eyes dulled and his expression closed up. “If that’s what you want,” he said slowly.

  “It is.”

  “All right then. But can I ask you for one favor?”

  Sophia’s head drew back. “What is it?” she asked suspiciously.

  “I want you to take a few days to think about this—really think about it. Consider what I did for your father and what he wanted for me, for us. And then decide if asking me to sacrifice my career and reputation is what you want.”

  “I’m not going to change my mind.”

  “I understand. But please do it anyway.”

  Sophia wrapped her arms around herself. “I will, but I’m not making any promises.”

  He nodded. “Good, that’s good. Um…do you want to stay for dinner?”

  Unbelievable. “No, I can’t,” she said slowly. “Gio is waiting for me.”

  “Oh, of course.”

  Giving him a last look of frustration mingled with disgust, she started for the front door.

  “Sophia, wait.” He c
rossed in front of her, blocking her path. “I just remembered those things I found, the ones that belong to your mother. I put them in a box in the garage. Do you want them since you’re here?”

  Crap.

  All she wanted was to walk out the front door and never come back. However, if there was anything of her mother's here, she couldn’t leave without it.

  “It’s one box?” she asked, suppressing a sigh.

  “Yes,” he assured her, gesturing towards the kitchen.

  Determined to grab the box and leave as quickly as possible, she hurried through the garage door, leading the way.

  Behind her, Richard stopped at the threshold to flick on the light. Her father’s vintage Chevette was right where he’d left it. It didn’t appear as if Richard had moved it, supporting her theory that he bought the car out of guilt.

  Nothing else looked different either. Walking around the front of the car, she peeked on the other side. No box.

  “Richard, where is—”

  A sudden rush of movement behind her was her only warning. She started to spin around, but she wasn’t fast enough.

  Something heavy crashed into her head. There was an explosion of light and pain that burned across her vision like a meteorite before everything went dark.

  Chapter 24

  Gio checked his watch for the fifth time. He was sitting in a car across the street from Richard Selwyn’s house—Sophia’s father’s old place.

  When he’d asked Enzo for the address, he was unsurprised to learn his security chief already had it. The address had been part of the background check he’d run on Richard, one he conveniently neglected to tell Sophia about. It would have only pissed her off knowing he’d invaded her ex’s privacy that way. But again, what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.

  As soon as Sophia walked out the door, Gio was going to start the engine and drive back home. With luck, he would beat her there. She would never find out that he’d been here at all.

  Except it had been almost a half-hour and she was still inside. Her car was across the street a little up from the house, so he knew he hadn’t missed her leaving. How long did it take to tell someone off?