CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Dean
April 22
“I DON’T WANT YOU TO TALK to her.” I tighten my grip on the phone. Anger seethes in my gut. Just because I agreed to this doesn’t mean I have to like it. On the contrary. I fucking hate it.
“Your wife actually saved me some time by contacting me first,” Ben Stafford says on the other end of the phone. “I’d intended to call her soon to set up an appointment. I just need to ask her some basic questions to verify everything you’ve already told me.”
“There’s no way you can leave her out of it?”
“It’s procedure, Professor West. When will you be back in town?”
“I don’t know. I’m chairperson of a Medieval Studies conference that’s taking place in July. I have to be back for that. I want to come back sooner.”
“I’ve gotten pretty busy with several other cases, but I should have yours wrapped up well before the end of the semester so I can make my recommendation to the board.”
Which could be even more of a disaster for me. I end the call and dial our home number, clenching my teeth when Crystal’s voice comes over the line.
“Olivia West’s residence,” she says.
“It’s Dean,” I tell her. “Where is she?”
“At the café, I suppose. How’s Italy?”
“Italian. Tell Liv I called.”
“Of course,” Crystal says. “Did she relay the message from the lawyer?”
My heart seizes. “What lawyer?”
“Sterling and Fox,” she replies. “I took the call. I thought maybe Liv had contacted a divorce lawyer.”
“No, goddammit.” Though I hate letting Crystal get to me, the words Liv and divorce crash in my brain like missiles.
“Well, all evidence points to you having marital problems,” Crystal continues, “but I saw that’s not Sterling and Fox’s area of specialty.”
Cold foreboding prickles my skin. I want to hang up, but I can’t. I need to know what she knows.
“What did he say?” I ask.
“Just asked for you to return his call.” She pauses. “I imagine sexual harassment is like a rape charge for a man. No matter the outcome, the stigma never goes away. And Liv will have to deal with being married to a man whose reputation is ruined.”
A red haze coats my vision. My voice drops to a dangerous level. “I want you out of my house. Away from my wife.”
“My daughter,” she says. “Look, I’ve been in… compromising positions before, Dean. I’m sure Liv has too. If you just—”
I hang up on her before my fury unleashes. My hand shakes as I try Liv’s cell again. I could give a shit what Crystal Winter thinks of me. But if she knows what happened to Liv at Fieldbrook, if she uses it against her—
I throw the phone on the bed.
The arrows are flying at my wife from all directions. And I’m five thousand goddamned miles away.
I want to be back with Liv right now. I need to be. The urge to shield her from this shitstorm is visceral, instinctive. It’s the only thing I can do.
Shoving aside my anger, I sit down and try to work for the next hour. I stare at a photo of Liv above my desk, one of the more modest pictures of her I’d taken at the Butterfly House.
I told her once that I’d move heaven and earth to give her whatever she wanted. I still would. I’ll fight forever to give her all the things she never had as a child—love, safety, happiness, protection—but now there’s something else, a desperate urge to give her a marriage filled with more, to give her things she didn’t even know she wanted.
To give her a life beyond what either of us has ever expected.
Need boils inside me. I fumble for my phone again and push the speed dial button.
“Dean?” Liv’s voice, breathless. “What time is it there?”
“Uh… eleven, I think. Where are you?”
“At home.”
“Is your mother there?”
“No, she’s out looking for another place to stay. She’ll be gone before you get back.”
“She wants you to leave with her, get on the road again.”
“I’ll never go anywhere with her, Dean, you know that.”
“When did she find out about Sterling and Fox?”
Her breath catches. “Yesterday, but how did you—”
“She answered the phone when I called earlier.”
“I’m sorry. I was at the grocery store.”
“Why didn’t you tell me she knows about the goddamned charge?”
“I didn’t know she’d figured it out until this morning. What did she say to you, Dean?”
Liv will have to deal with being married to a man whose reputation is ruined…
My throat tightens. I can’t push any words past it.
“Are you okay?” Liv asks.
No, I’m not okay. I’m not okay five thousand miles away from my wife. I’m not okay with my career and reputation hanging in the balance. I’m not okay with being powerless.
“Dean?”
“I need to be with you. I need to do something.”
“I know you do.”
“Liv.”
“I’m here.”
“Tell me you know this is all bullshit. That Maggie Hamilton is lying.”
“Of course she’s lying.”
“You never thought it could be true?”
“What?”
“Not once did you wonder if it was possible?” My heart is suddenly pounding hard. “That I could have hit on a student?”
“No, of course not. Why would you ask me such a thing?”
“I’ve lied to you before.”
“Oh, Dean, don’t.”
“How can you just trust that I’m telling you the fucking truth?”
“Because I know you, you ass! You’re the man who looked up the university rules before you asked me out.”
“Years ago.”
“So, what, you think I’m suddenly going to doubt you now? After all we’ve been through?”
“It’s happened before.” I can’t stop, have to get it out. “Other female students, professors… some of them have come on to me over the years.”
“I know.”
“You know?”
“Of course! You’re so handsome, successful, intelligent, so… you. Women have always fallen over themselves for you, and I’m not so naïve to think they don’t still flirt with you.”
“I’ve never—”
“Dean.” Her voice sharpens. “You don’t even have to say it.”
“Why do you just believe me?”
“Because I know you. I’m your girl, dammit.”
Of course she is. That’s an unbreakable, rock-solid truth.
“Dean, please. My mother has been trying in her insidious little way to convince me that there are cracks in our marriage, but—”
“What the fuck? What has she said to you?”
“Nothing that means anything. Nothing I believe. But this is why I knew you had to leave again. I need you to understand that I meant it when I said I could handle my mother alone. Just like I can handle talking to Ben Stafford. I know the truth. So don’t you dare lose your faith in me or in us.”
“I never will, but I can’t stand this.” My chest feels like stone. “I know what you’ve been telling me. I can’t protect you from everything. I get it. But goddammit, Liv, I’m not supposed to be the one hurting you again.”
“You’re not! The only thing hurting me is that we have to be apart.”
“Then I’m coming home.”
“Dean, you—”
“I talked to Simon this morning about figuring out a way I can do the work from home. Maybe with one or two short trips to Altopascio. I’ll make it work. I can’t stay away from you until the end of July. I won’t.”
My heart hammers as I wait for her response. She was the one who wanted me to leave in the first place, convinced it would be good for me, for us. And I’ve been okay with going on the dig—been grateful for the job, even—and the dating thing Liv and I are doing has admittedly been fun.
But ultimately it all means that I’m away from my wife. When the only place I want to be is with her.
“Oh, Dean,” Liv says. “You know I want you to come home. We need to be together, but—”
“No. There’s no but in this conversation, Liv. I’m coming home.”
“Frances told you to stay, that it was good for your career.”
“I don’t care what Frances said.”
“She knows you’re doing well there.”
“Yeah, I’m doing well here.” I shove off the bed and start to pace. “I’m doing well because I know how to work. But nothing I do here is going to make a damned bit of difference if I have to abandon you. And I’m sick of it. I’m sick of being away from you, not seeing you, talking to you only once a day, jerking off every night because I can’t be with you… No. Fuck this, Liv. I’ve never hidden before. I’m not going to start now.”
My chest heaves. I press a hand to the wall and suck in a hard breath.
“Liv.”
Suspicious silence on the other end.
Oh shit.
“Liv, don’t cry.” I bang my forehead against the wall. “Please don’t.”
“I’m not.” Her voice sounds thick. “Dean, please… look, I know it seems like nothing is within your control, but—”
“It doesn’t seem that way,” I interrupt. “It is that way. It’s been that way since last fall when things got so fucked-up and I couldn’t fix them. Then that mess with my parents, the miscarriage, this bogus charge against me, the suspension… Jesus, Liv. I told Frances I’d quit my job to stop this whole thing.”
“You told her you’d quit?”
“What the fuck else can I do? Stafford’s forcing me to sit on my ass until he finishes his investigation. You’re getting dragged into this shitstorm right when you’re starting a new business. And I can’t give you anything, Liv, not even a guarantee that I’ll still have my job next year. At least if I quit, I can stop it from getting worse.”
“For God’s sake, Dean, you’ve never quit anything in your life. But you’re going to let that girl force you out of a job that you love?”
“Damn right I will, if it’ll—”
The words stop abruptly in my throat.
Silence vibrates.
“If it’ll protect me,” Liv finishes.
Goddammit.
Anger breaks inside me. I grip the phone harder.
“Look, I’m not going to apologize anymore,” I snap. “Yes, I want to protect you. You’re my wife. I’d fucking kill for you, Liv, and if that makes me a possessive bastard of a husband, then fine. That’s what I am. I’m not going to change either. I love you too goddamned much.”
“I know you do!” she cries. “I know you would. That’s why it scares the crap out of me to think of you back in Mirror Lake before the investigation is over.”
I stop. “What?”
“Dean, I wanted you to leave because I knew you wouldn’t be able to stand doing nothing here, but I also…”
“What? You wanted to stand on your own, right? Well, you have. Now you still don’t want me to come back?”
“No! That’s not what I—”
“Not what you meant?” I stalk across the room. A thousand sharp edges cut into my chest. “What did you mean then, Liv? That I should stay away until it’s convenient for you that I come back? That I should jerk off and talk dirty to you until you finally decide it’s okay for us to be a married couple again? That you don’t want me to come back because you need to do everything by yourself now?”
“Dean, would you shut up and listen to me?”
She’s crying. My throat aches.
Is that it? Have I been stifling her so much that I can’t see any other way? Is that why she insisted I leave? Does she really think she can’t do anything with me near her?
I stare out the window. The courtyard blurs in front of my eyes.
Do I love my wife too much?
“Dean? Dean… are you there?”
“I’m here.”
I’ll always be here. She could rip me open, tear me apart, and I’d still crawl back to her. She’s had me whipped since the day she stood in front of me on the sidewalk with her hair all windblown as she asked me about medieval knights.
And while I’ve been trying my damnedest to give her what she wants—I’d promised her I would—I can’t stand the thought that she’d ever believe us being apart is a good thing.
I try to breathe. My heart is racing. The walls are closing in.
“I need you to listen to me, Dean.”
“I am.”
Liv takes a breath. “When I asked you to leave, when you left, yes, I knew it was a chance for me to stand on my own. And I have. But I also…”
“What?”
“I knew… I knew that if anything happened here, if Maggie started spreading rumors, if something got out about the charge, I knew you’d be safer if you were gone.”
I sink onto the edge of the bed, all the wind knocked out of me.
“You—”
“I wanted you to be safe,” Liv admits, her voice still thick. “It was… it was the only way I could think of to protect you from anything bad that might happen here. And to keep you away from my mother. I told you I don’t want her to poison my life any more than she already has, but more than anything I don’t want her to poison you.”
“She… she can’t hurt me.”
“She already has. You’ve always been angry with her for what she did to me, for what she didn’t do. I just… I knew if you went back to Italy, she couldn’t touch you. But because you are such a stubborn ass, I also knew you’d fight me tooth and nail if you thought my mother was the reason you had to leave again. I can handle her. But I don’t want you to have to.”
“Liv.” I picture her all curled up in my office chair, hugging her knees to her chest, her hair sliding over her shoulders. I’m about to break in half.
“I’m here,” she says.
“Okay.” I shut my eyes. “Okay. I love you.”
“I’m yours,” Liv whispers. “I’ll always be yours. You told me once that I became your world the minute you saw me. It was the same for me. I’ll never forget it, Dean, the instant I looked up and saw you. Something opened in me, something I didn’t even know existed. And then when you reached out to touch me… I couldn’t believe how I was reacting, this intense, hot pull, like I already knew I belonged to you.”
“Damn right you belong to me.” My voice roughens. “You belong with me. I’m not doing this anymore. I’m not staying away from you. I need you, dammit.”
“Oh, Dean.” Liv’s breath escapes on a rush. “Whatever you need from me, you know I’ll give it to you. I’ll do anything for you.”
“Anything?”
“Anything.”
“Then get ready for me. I’m coming home.”