Deception (20 page)

“Is he going to come back?”

Julian looked out the window toward the lobby. “I don’t know.” He leaned against the mahogany desk that took up half the room and folded his arms across his chest. “Let me text Everett.”

While they waited for instruction from Everett, Maura thought about Julian’s plight. He needed to let go of the pain and anger. If he couldn’t do that, he wasn’t useful to anyone. No matter how much she’d fallen in love with him, she couldn’t love him enough for the both of them. “You know you could teach ballet.”

Looking up from his phone he scowled at her. “What?”

“Pass on the knowledge of something you love and hold dear to your heart. Working with kids would be refreshing, and they would sit in awe, soaking up your expertise like little sponges. That’s why I love teaching.”

“I don’t think it’s for me.”

“How do you know until you try it?”

“Fair enough, but how would I try it?”

Maura shrugged. “I would think by volunteering at a dance studio.”

He nodded. “It’s an interesting idea.”

He hadn’t said it was interesting to blow her off. She could physically see him actually pondering her suggestion. A series of electronic beeps had him looking down at the phone in his hand.

“He says that we should go to conference room twelve.”

Maura sat around the campus fountain with three of her female colleagues. They shared breakfast pastries and lattes and enjoyed the drop in temperature as cooler weather settled in.

The big crescendo at the bank had gone off without a hitch just as the Davids had promised. Alan had been apprehended and Maura had so far been spared from testifying against him in court. Luckily, she didn’t have to witness his hostility at the bank either. By the time she and Julian had arrived at the conference room, the FBI already had Alan cuffed and in the car. To her horror, the large sum had earned a significant amount of interest and the investors insisted she keep it for her troubles. However, she wanted nothing to do with the money or Alan ever again.

Maura saw Julian approaching and stood. Even though Alan now sat behind bars, and their relationship had kind of fizzled, he’d still insisted on driving her to and from work. “You left your phone in my truck.”

Everyone quit talking when he approached so he removed his sunglasses and greeted the circle. “Ladies, how do you do?” He smiled a smile so devilish it sent need straight to her sex.

He handed her the cellular. “Thank you.” She gestured to the women. “Julian, this is Dr. Bartlett, Dr. Stewart, and Dr. Pierce.”

“It’s been a while since I’ve seen you at Mass.”

“Yes it has, Dr. Stewart. I do apologize, but I have no good excuse to offer.” He nodded to the other two professors. “Dr. Bartlett. Dr. Pierce.”

“Maura, I’ll see you around later.”

They all watched him walk away. The perfect swagger coupled with a hint of cockiness had her thinking of how he danced in bed to the tune of her body.

“I watched that boy complete the holy sacraments,” Dr. Stewart said.

“So have you uncovered the mystery of all that is Julian David?” Dr. Bartlett asked.

Maura giggled. “I don’t think there are any hidden secrets there. He’s intense and serious. His face tells all.”

“Not all.” Dr. Pierce cocked her head. “He once spent time in jail because he set fire to the house he shared with his fiancée after he found her in their bed with another man.”

Maura didn’t want to hear this from her work colleagues. Spouting gossip just for the sake of having something interesting to talk about and for shock value was heartless. Maura refused to listen to any more.

“I think it’s going to rain.”

“Personally I’d be a little leery of him after he set fire to his fiancée, but he’s as rich as Croesus. And that body…”

“You could do a French literary journey.”

“Et le soir je vais faire un voyage de son corps.”

The girls at the table laughed, but Maura stood. She knew French and didn’t think the play on words funny.

“I don’t want to talk about someone’s misfortune.” God, what if they used the worst events of her life as fodder to keep themselves occupied when she wasn’t around? Gossip was vicious and needed to be squelched before it destroyed the lives of others.

“Sorry Dr. Douglas, we were just playing around.”

“But it’s not playing around. You’re taking the most horrible events of his life and using them for your enjoyment. I would never do that to any of you. We are colleagues, and until today I thought we were friends.” She threw her breakfast into the courtyard’s iron receptacle and made her way back to her office.

Later that day a large vase of yellow roses found its way onto Maura’s desk. Her colleagues’ names were all represented and they’d written a nice message. They popped into her office one by one and apologized in person. At the end of her working day she collected her things, and then she hoisted the roses into her arms.

Julian met her halfway across campus and relieved her of her attaché case, just as he always did, but then he stood before her, preventing her advance. He placed his sunglasses on top of his head and regarded the roses with an arched brow. He removed the card before she could stop him. Confusion bit into his forehead. “What did they say?”

“It was nothing.” She reached for the card, but he held it out of reach.

He held the card with dramatic flair. “We apologize for any upset we caused you when speaking so carelessly about Julian.” He cleared his throat and glared down at her. “English professors don’t mince words. What the hell is this about?”

Maura maneuvered around him to resume walking. “After you left they started to say some things about you that I didn’t want to hear.”

He followed behind her. “What did they tell you?”

“Something about a fire and jail time.”

“Well you didn’t need to be a martyr, Maura. Everything they said is true.”

She turned violently and water sloshed from the vase. “But it’s not true. That’s not who you are anymore. Acquaintances of yours shouldn’t run all over town spewing out the worst moments of your life to anyone who’ll listen.”

“That’s what they do in this town. It’s what’s done in most towns.”

“Well I didn’t want to hear about it from them!”

“You think I should have told you the most vulnerable, most horrible things about myself?”

“I told you about mine.”

“You didn’t have a choice.”

“Fine.” Maura ground her teeth so tightly her jaw ached.

“Maura, I just—”

“It’s okay, Julian. Just unlock the door.” He punched the key fob in his hand and the doors of the truck unlocked. Maura climbed up and buckled her seatbelt while Julian stood, preventing her from closing the door.

He placed her attaché case behind the seat. The sweet smell of the roses in her lap curled her stomach. “Maura, I didn’t tell you because I figured you already knew. You can see how the whole town talks about us.”

“Us?”

“My family.” His hands brushed through his hair in a frustrated move. “I don’t want to taint what we have with the past.”

What they had was nothing. They wouldn’t get passed the hiccup in their relationship until he accepted her unconditionally, flaws and all, just as she accepted him. It saddened Maura that he still failed to realize there was nothing he could say that would make her stop loving him.

“It was an accident.” The words bled from his pores. He needed her to believe him. His green eyes were marred with pain as they tightened before her.

“Of that I have no doubt.”

“Still, it should have never happened. The power was out due to an ice storm. Candles had been lit all around the house to compensate for the lack of light. When I saw them together in our bed I fell to my knees, knocking over pillar candles stacked around the hearth. The house was old and on piers, not level, and the candle rolled to the bedclothes and immediately flared. Karina had the bed decorated with silks from Eastern Europe. They were highly flammable. Whoever she was with just ran, fled the scene. Left her there to burn. Her hair caught fire and I tackled her to the floor, ripping the curtains on my way down. The curtains, having been made from the same material, just added fuel to the fire. By the time I managed to contain the fire, she was already dead.”

His chin trembled with the pain he held back. Maura placed the flowers on the floor of the vehicle and unhooked her belt. Standing toe to toe she reached for him, pulling him in to her and hugging his neck tightly.

“If she would have just told me she didn’t want me anymore I would have let her go. Sometimes I wonder if I did it on purpose. Karina was the prima ballerina who’d had me dismissed from my role. I’d hated her then, but had I hated her still?”

“Julian, it was an accident.”

There was nothing for her to say that he hadn’t heard before from friends and family.

“I was arrested and held until arson investigators confirmed my story.”

Maura squeezed Julian’s warm hands in hers. “Tragedy is difficult to overcome, but with each obstacle that you push through you become that much more unstoppable.”

“How is that possible?”

“Because tragedy doesn’t strike the same place twice.”

“You’re making that up.”

“Maybe, but I completely believe it.” Maura smoothed the hair back that had fallen over his forehead. “You’re so serious, so intense all the time—afraid that if you let love find you, darkness will also.” Maura touched his jaw. “Julian, find your forgiveness in the love that others have for you—learn to see yourself as they see you. Your mom, dad, brothers, and sisters. Stop defining who you are by the mistakes you’ve made. What an impossible standard you’ve set.”

“What if I’m so vindictive that I held that hatred inside of me until the best possible moment to strike her down? What if I’m that guy, Maura?” He released her to lean against the truck. “Karina’s dead. I don’t deserve to be happy.”

“That’s not true.”

“Explain to me why I stayed with her after what she’d done to me. She’d had me removed from my role and then I got into a relationship with her. I asked her to marry me. I didn’t even like her. I think it’s because I thought one day I would have the chance to ruin her.”

Maura covered her face with her hands. She couldn’t watch him tear himself to pieces.

“You can’t even look at me.”

Maura removed her hands, her tears swiftly tracking down her face. She looked him in the eye, neither of them blinking. “Julian, I love you. I want to be with you, but you can’t trust me until you learn to trust yourself again. Trust that you won’t hurt me. Trust that you didn’t deliberately set out to hurt another human being.” Her hands cupped his jaw. “I believe in you.” She kissed his lips knowing that would be the last time.

The last week of the semester was a slow one. The English department’s teaching assistants administered all the finals, which left Maura with not much to do but wait for the tests to come in so she could complete final grades.

“Guess who?”

Looking up from her desk Maura saw a beautiful lily floating in the doorway of her office.

“Bailey?”

“Surprise!”

Bailey burst into her office in grand fashion, throwing her arms in the air and thrusting her hips out.

“I’ve come to whisk you away.”

Maura frowned.

“I’d hoped to be met with a little more excitement.” Bailey’s excitement deflated. “I thought we’d go to lunch.”

“I’d love that, of course. It’s just I made an appointment with an ob-gyn.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, I haven’t had a period since all this stuff with Alan started.”

“Same thing happened to me when I was under the stress of dialysis and work.”

“I remember.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“Oh, you don’t have to do that.”

“Are you kidding me? After all that dialysis and those appointments you accompanied me to so that I wouldn’t be alone. I’m—going—with—you.”

Maura smiled, happy to let Bailey go with her. “Okay, and afterwards we’ll get lunch.”

Maura sat alone in an exam room, waiting for the doctor. She hadn’t seen Julian since last week when he’d finally revealed the darkness of his past. Bailey confirmed he hadn’t been home. Maura had left message after message, but he didn’t return any of them. Bailey said he’d even taken vacation from work. He was so tormented that he believed he’d acted out of revenge and was responsible for Karina’s death. Maura shed a tear for him. She’d hoped she could help him overcome his demons but she’d failed.

When the doctor entered she immediately knew she would like him. He was getting close to retirement age and wore a bowtie. His offered smile reached his eyes and he sported a full head of salt and pepper hair.

“Ms. Douglas, Dr. Gregory. I’m reading the notes the nurse left. I see you’ve not menstruated for two cycles.”

“Yes, that’s right. I’ve been through some stress these last few weeks.

“Stress can cause your symptoms, but I’d like to rule out pregnancy.”

“I have an implant.”

“What date was implantation?”

“Let’s see, it was when I was finishing up my graduate work so I believe in twenty ten.”

“Do you recall the brand?”

“No I’m sorry, I don’t.”

“Let’s start with a urine test.” Dr. Gregory handed her a cup and indicated the direction of the restroom.

While she sat precariously holding the cup just so, she thought about her predicament. She hadn’t considered pregnancy. She hadn’t even known if it was possible for her to become pregnant after the trauma to her body. The doctors had told her everything looked fine, but she remained skeptical because she’d never felt exactly whole after she’d lost Audrey.

Atop the examination table, as she waited for the results of her test, a kernel of hope started to bloom deep inside of her. When she shifted her leg the paper atop the table crinkled, overly loud in the small room. Faux pine paneling covered the walls of the space and the countertop had seen it’s better days, but someone had attempted to dress up the room with a yellow Roman shade and daisy dotted wallpaper. Hanging on the wall, a needlepoint rendering of Snoopy finished the space.