Chapter Nineteen
7:42 a.m.
He’d been calling Mila’s school office since six a.m. Of course, it was Sunday, so he shouldn’t be surprised there was no answer, but still…
“Fuck.”
Every time the call went to the school’s answering machine, his mind—his goddamn writer’s mind—took him places he didn’t want to go. What possible reason could make him not love her? Was she already married? Was she hiding a husband somewhere? Kids?
Every fucking time. Every fifteen minutes.
“Surely someone goes in and works there on a Sunday?” He killed the call mid recorded message.
Reaper whined and jumped up onto the sofa.
Thomas sighed. “Sorry, buddy.”
A night of pacing, of brooding, of fighting his creative mind had put him in a bad mood.
Ha. Bad mood. Definitely an understatement there. Worse yet, he hadn’t written a word since Mila left.
He’d tried.
Had tried to distract himself with the penultimate confrontation between Gabe and the Child That Never Was.
Words wouldn’t come. Or when they did, they were crap. Deleted as quickly as they were typed.
7:42 a.m.
No words. No answer at Mila’s school. No last name for her.
“Fuck.” He threw his phone across the room.
Reaper yipped, scrambled off the sofa, and bolted from the room.
Dragging his hands through his hair, Thomas dropped onto the vacated cushion. “Shit.”
Silence. Too much silence.
He threw himself from the sofa, crossed the room to where his phone sat on the floor, and snatched it up.
He’d ring the school again. It was almost goddamn eight o’clock. Someone had to be there by—
His phone rang.
Darth Vader’s theme.
Shelby.
He punched accept with his thumb. “What?”
“I know who she is.”
His throat slammed shut. He didn’t want the answer. Ignorance was bliss and all.
“Tell me,” he growled.
More words he didn’t want. Words he couldn’t delete.
Fuck.
“I heard Hart tell you the name of her school, so I contacted someone I know at the Times who writes for their education section. Asked them to hit their contact on the—”
“I don’t want a novel about how you found out, Shelby. If I wanted a novel, I’d write one. Just tell me her last name.”
“Elderkin.”
The air evaporated—all of it—and then rushed back in, crushing him. Hot and prickling and suffocating.
He closed his eyes. Slumped back in the sofa.
“I’ll contact your lawyer,” Shelby said. He had to give it to her, she sounded almost regretful. “Get him started on—”
“No.”
There was a second of silence. “What?”
“No. That’s it. No.” Hell, where had all the feeling in his body gone? “No lawyers, no calls, no contacting Mila, no speaking to the media or letting anything slip on social media. No anything.”
“But, Thomas?” Not regret now, just shock. “Mila is M.E. Elderkin. She’s the—”
“I’ll call you later, Shelby.” He opened his eyes and stared at nothing. “For a while, I want you to pretend I don’t exist. That you’ve never heard of Thomas St. Clair, okay?”
He hit end on the screen and let his phone drop to the floor.
She’d conned him.
He’d opened himself up to Mila, exposed who he was, who he really was, and she’d conned him.
He’d fallen in fucking love with her, and she’d conned him.
He closed his eyes and scraped his hand over his mouth.
Love.
How could he have been so goddamn stupid? Love was a ludicrous notion propagated by Hallmark and rom-com films that only fools believed in. He wasn’t a fool. He’d stopped listening to his heart years ago. He’d learned the harsh lesson and swore he’d never let what happened to his parents happen to him.
And yet here he sat in his home alone, his dog so scared he’d run from him, Mila Elderkin tearing him apart without even being in the room with him,
All those conversations where he’d opened up about himself, and she’d known.
All those times he’d shared with her how his life had been irrevocably shaped by the very article she’d written.
All those times making love to her, moving inside her, holding her, losing himself in her…
All those times and she’d been…
What?
Using him? To what end? To mock him? Humiliate him again? Was she writing another article about him? About what a fool he was?
Had it always been part of her plan? From the second he’d opened the door to her the night of his alma mater dinner? Or had she just acted on a coincidence too good to miss? Was she an opportunist as well as a liar?
Liar? No. She never lied. She never blatantly told a mistruth. In fact, she more than once implied he wouldn’t like her if he knew everything about her. She tried to warn him.
“And still your fucking heart keeps talking.” He shoved himself from the sofa and crossed to the bar. The morning sun streamed through the window, glinting off the cut-crystal glasses sitting beside a bottle of sixty-year-old Scotch.
He wouldn’t touch the bottle until his current manuscript was finished. A tradition started with his very first book, the one M.E. Elderkin—Mila—called a metaphor for his personal demons.
The night he’d finished that very first book, Night of Whispers, he’d snuck into his father’s study, poured himself a glass of Johnnie Walker from the bottle his dad kept hidden in the cupboard, and drank it, sitting on the floor, watching the moon through the window.
A lonely seventeen-year-old, just trying to navigate the hell that was his family life with the only tools he had. Words.
Every book since, he did the same: after typing “the end,” he would pour a glass of Scotch, sit on the floor of whatever place he called home at that moment in his life, and watch the sky through the window, regardless of the time.
A tradition. The only things that had changed since that first Scotch were the location and quality of the alcohol.
For his last four books, he’d completed the tradition with a glass of Chivas Regal. Not the most expensive Scotch on the market, but a smooth one. One that filled him with subtle warmth.
For this book, he’d planned to celebrate with a glass of Glenfiddich. He’d bought the rare bottle for just under a hundred grand the day after he’d bared his soul to Mila in Central Park. Had planned to share it with her when he’d finished. Had planned to ask her to move in with him.
It was time to begin a new tradition, he’d decided back then. No more drinking alone on the floor, looking at the world beyond the window. He would share the celebration with Mila, the first person he truly felt real with.
“Real.” He grunted, closing his fingers around the bottle’s neck. Screw traditions. Screw love. Screw real. Real was a joke.
He picked up the bottle and then stopped.
Squeezed his eyes shut.
“I like you a lot, Thomas St. Clair.” Mila’s words, the last she’d spoken to him, whispered through his head. “The real you. Please remember that.”
“Goddamn it.” He slammed the bottle back down. All he wanted to do was get good and drunk and forget she ever existed, but she wouldn’t let him. Even when she wasn’t here, she was affecting him, messing with him.
Stripping away his facade until he stood raw and exposed and incapable of denying the truth.
He loved her.
That was real. That was his truth.
A cold fist slammed into his chest, and he opened his eyes. “Fuck that truth,” he snarled, lifting up the bottle again and twisting open the cap.
…
Mila gripped her phone tighter. Should she hit send?
Eyes burning and chest tight, she read the text she’d finished typing almost seventy-two hours ago.
I’m sorry, St. Clair. I wanted to tell you. From the very first night. I tried. More than once. I just got caught up in everything and it robbed the words from me. Please forgive me. I hope you are writing. I hope you will one day forgive me. M.
It had been seventy-two hours since she’d left Thomas’s house. Seventy-two hours since she’d told Sebastian Hart the school she worked at.
Seventy-two hours without hearing from Thomas.
She’d expected something. If not from him, then from Shelby. Or a lawyer. Or some kind of media statement declaring her a lying harlot to counteract the images of them together that now existed in cyberspace.
She’d expected pain and hell, and she’d deserved it.
Instead…nothing.
It was like she and Thomas St. Clair had never interacted.
No calls. No texts. No threatening messages from Shelby.
Nothing.
She didn’t understand.
Neither did Josie.
Shanti had a theory, a ridiculous one in Mila’s opinion. One not worth the heartache of broken hope it brought. That Thomas loved her too much to cause her pain.
Yeah. Completely not the case.
Couldn’t be. If that were the case, he’d have reached out by now.
But he hadn’t.
Maybe it was time to break the silence?
She stroked her thumb over the send button, the words of her message blurring.
Do something. Anything. You can’t stay in this ridiculous holding pattern forever.
She hit send.
The whoosh of the delivered message damn near strangled her.
“Mila? Is this you?”
She let out a choked squeal at the sound of a familiar male voice and spun to face the door. “God, Graeme, don’t scare me like that.”
Graeme Abernathy, sixth grade teacher and the school’s resident gossip frowned. “You okay?”
“I’m fine. Aren’t you meant to be holding auditions for the school play right now?”
Damn it, she didn’t want company. Not after the text she’d just sent.
“Yeah, yeah.” Abernathy continued into her room, waving a dismissing hand as he studied a magazine in the other. “Is this you? There’s a bet going around it is, and I’ve got ten bucks on it.”
Oh no.
Pouring every ounce of indifference she could into her face, she took the magazine and cast the page it was folded open to a quick glance.
Yep. There she was, sitting beside Thomas on the grass, his hands holding one of hers, Reaper stretched out on his back beside her. She and Thomas were looking at each other, and even with the sunglasses hiding their eyes and the baseball cap pulled low over Thomas’s face, it was impossible to deny what they felt for each other.
Now it’s different. Now…
Her stomach clenched. Shaking her head, she handed the magazine back to Abernathy. “No. That’s not me.”
His frown deepened, and he held the page up beside her face. “Are you sure? I’m ninety-nine point nine percent convinced I’ve seen you wearing that same dress.”
“Graeme”—she arched an eyebrow and swiped the magazine away—“I’m an inner-city grade school teacher. Why would I be in a magazine with… who is that? Is he an actor?”
Abernathy burst out laughing. “It’s Thomas St. Clair. The horror writer. Clearly, you’re not a fan.”
She snorted. Twisted knots replaced the churning mess of her stomach. “Not a fan.” Liar. “Also not me. But thank you, I think. Whoever she is, she looks pretty.”
“Did you just give yourself a compliment, Elderkin?”
“Go collect your ten bucks, Graeme.”
He sighed, tossing the magazine on her desk. “No, I lost the bet. I said it was you.”
She flashed him a smile. “A fool and his money, eh?”
Abernathy scowled. “Ever wondered why no one comes and sits with you in the staff room, Elderkin?”
“Never.”
He stomped from the room. Because she’d insulted him or because he’d lost money because of her?
The magazine sat on her desk, mocking her. It was a celebrity gossip magazine, the kind Josie bought occasionally. Josie had told her she and Thomas had appeared together in the back pages of a few more than once, the pages dedicated to blurry paparazzi shots. She’d never looked. Never gone out and bought the ones Josie listed.
She had no desire to see her and Thomas’s interactions printed on paper. It was enough to see the links Josie sent her to tweets and Instagram posts. Links she never clicked on.
And yet…
The magazine taunted her. Called her.
“God help me.” She slid the magazine closer to her.
Damn, he looked so good. She looked good. A smile played with her lips in the image, relaxed and unforced. No frown on her face. No tension in her shoulders. So unlike any photo she’d ever seen of herself.
Did she look like this in all of them? No wonder Josie kept insisting she check them out.
Was it Thomas’s doing? Did she only look like that when she was with him? If someone took a photo of her with Josie or with a group of her fellow teachers, would she appear as relaxed? As happy?
A hot, prickling sensation crawled up the back of her neck and over her scalp.
“Shit.” She dropped her face into her hands. “Shit.”
She was in love with Thomas St. Clair.
Goddamn it, she was in love with the annoying, flippant bastard.
Except he’s not a bastard. And he’s only flippant to hide who he really is. And he hasn’t been annoying since the night you brought Reaper home to him. Not once.
“Shit.”
Great, the first time she’d ever been in love and the object of her affection most likely hated—
Her phone rang, Josie’s face appearing on its screen.
Mila connected the call. “Hi, sis. Your timing is impeccable. I’ve just realized I am in love with St. Clair, and I need you to help—”
“Mila.”
Why did Josie sound so serious? The prickling sensation turned to a thousand fire ants creeping over her scalp. “What?”
“Mila, school is over, right?”
“It is.”
“Are you at home?”
“Josie, just tell me whatever it is you called to tell me.”
Silence. Deafening silence. For a beat. “I need you to click on the link I’m about to send you.”
“Okay.”
Josie sighed. “God, I hope your…” She trailed off. A second later, Mila’s phone chirped with an incoming message.
More ants scurried over her scalp. She clicked on the link.
A website came up, an entertainment news site. On its homepage, damn near filling the whole screen of her phone was a photo of Thomas and a stunning, tall blonde wearing what was clearly meant to be a dress, but looked to Mila like a narrow strip of black material wrapped around her a couple of times.
Thomas and the blonde stood together. Close together. Like they were joined at the hip. His arm circled her waist—her freaking almost non-existent waist. The blonde’s full, pouty, ridiculously glossy lips were pressed to Thomas’s cheek. Her immaculately manicured fingers were slipped beneath his open-collared black shirt.
New Muse? the title read under the photo.
Something cold and hard punched her in the chest.
“Mila?”
Someone was calling her. Someone a long way away. She swallowed. Thomas was smiling in the photo.
“Mila?” That distant voice again. “Honey?”
Eyes burning, Mila read the lines under the photo.
International bestselling horror author and renown player, Thomas St. Clair attends a gallery opening in So-Ho with British model Toni P. When asked about the mysterious woman known only as Mila he’d been spotted with recently, he responded with ‘A muse is a muse.’”
“Mila?”
A muse is a muse.
“Mila? Please talk to me, honey.”
Closing her eyes, she closed the page.
“I’m here, Josie.” Wow, was that calm, steady voice hers? “Want to go get drunk with me tonight?”