Chapter 19
“How is your friend, Andy?” He wanted to ask her if he got his way. Did he touch you the way I want to touch you? his mind screamed. He wanted to tell her Andy wasn’t a true friend. He wanted to tell her what the kid admitted to him so openly in his class. He only wants a piece of ass, Eva. He isn’t interested in you. Not like I am. “I hope I didn’t hurt him too badly.”
Eva started to laugh, covering her mouth with the back of her hand.
“He appeared out of nowhere,” Edward continued. “I still can’t believe I knocked him down so violently.”
She continued to laugh and shook her head. “He’s fine. You didn’t hurt him.”
“I didn’t? Are you sure?”
“I’m positive. I stayed with him for a while afterward.”
He wanted to ask her if they were a couple. He needed to know, but he didn’t know how to ask.
The silence filled the room again, but a hint of a new edge sliced through it.
“You didn’t call me when you got back to school,” he said, frozen where he stood.
Eva lowered her gaze and found that fingernail she needed to fiddle with again.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“Why not?”
“I’m pretty good at reading through the thick bullshit that guys like to dish out to me, as you are well aware from Andy and his little escapade.”
Edward had a bad feeling this conversation was going to veer off the path he had tried to cut out for it. Was she good enough to see through Edward’s escapade of changing his entire career and financial status to get close to her? “Yes, you seem to have the gift,” he said, trying to keep it light.
“I had a feeling about you, that night in Paris? You seemed… too good to be true. There was something off though, and I couldn’t figure it out. That’s why I left things so open toward the end.” She hesitated as she seemed to search for the words. “Monica said she saw you.”
“Monica? Oh, your friend. Yes, she did.” He remembered the night he met with Brian from Ardo. He was Edward Caldwell, successful entrepreneur again and Monica caught him. “I told her to say hello to you for me.”
“She did.” She pressed her lips together. “She told me you were with some guy, talking business and politics. You were all dressed up in a suit and tie. She said you looked like a million bucks.”
“In most instances, that would impress someone, not upset them,” he said lowering his head to look into her eyes.
“Well, at first it didn’t bother me, but then I got thinking about it and it seemed to fall into place with the other things about you I was unsure of.”
Without thinking, he stepped toward her and took her arms, “What do you mean, Eva? What were you unsure of?”
“The watch? The phone? Eddie.” Her tone faded away. “Are you rich? Were you lying to me?” Her eyes pleaded with him and it took everything inside him to keep the story going. He didn’t want to break it all to her like this. She was too fragile.
He locked his eyes onto hers and shook his head slowly. “No. I know how it must look, but I feel like I have to impress Brian.”
“Brian?” She furrowed her eyebrows.
“The guy I was with. I went to school with him and we have always been in competition with each other. He was always gloating on how he was so much more successful than I was. I didn’t want him to get the last laugh.”
“Why would you think that? Why would you care? You make an honest living and as long as you stay true to yourself, who cares what others think?”
Her words were like a knife in his conscience, but there was so much more to his life than lying about who he was. Yeah, maybe he should have been truthful with her from the beginning, but would she even have given him the time of day? He was tired of being the successful player who could get any woman he wanted. It seemed the women he did want, for more than a one night stand, read that about him and veered away from him. He couldn’t take that chance with Eva.
“He always told me I would never amount to anything. I guess I just let my sore ego get the best of me.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him close to her. “I’m sorry he made you feel that way. People can be so fake, such hypocrites.”
Her touch hurt him, deep inside. He didn’t know what she did to him, but he could no longer stand himself for lying to her. He wanted to tell her everything. Was he in too deep? There were so many variables and it was complicating his relationship with her.
“I’m sorry I didn’t say anything to you in the park that day.” Her voice was soft and her breath warmed him.
“It was sort of an awkward situation.” He pulled away from her, no longer able to bear his dishonesty toward her. “I’m just glad I didn’t hurt Andy.”
“How do you know him?”
“What?”
“You keep saying his name. How do you know him?”
“He is one of my students in my class.”
“Ah,” she said, nodding her head.
“I tried talking to him but he didn’t want to do too much talking with me.”
“He is a bit of a rebel,” she said, defending him. “He means well, but he has a hard time dealing with authority. He tries too hard to get what he wants.” She touched his arm with her hand the way she did in Paris when she carried on casual conversation.
He kept his eyes on her hand, enjoying the sensation of her touch. “What do you mean, he tries too hard? Is he your boyfriend?”
“Oh, God no. He only wants to nail me.”
Her rough choice of words and obvious analogy of the boy made him laugh out loud. When she joined in on the laughter, he felt a huge weight lift from his shoulders.
“Have dinner with me,” he said with a new sense of hope.
She hesitated, but couldn’t think of a reason to say no. “Okay,” she simply said.
“What time would you like to…?”
“How about now?” she interrupted. “It’s almost four thirty. Unless you have prior plans.”
“No!” he blurted. “No plans. Now is as good a time as any.” He felt a cloud lift him off the hardened ground he had been treading on.
“We should probably go out of town though.”
“Out of town?”
“There are policies against professors dating students.”
His smile broadened at the thought of their dinner as a date. “Anywhere you would like to go is okay with me.”
She leaned toward him, her lips brushing against his. “I’ve missed you,” she whispered.
He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into him, deepening their kiss and enjoying her in his arms again.