The Librarian Principle (25 page)

If she’d been smarter, she would have invited him in for a drink and ditched her ugly panties—screw the no-hanky-panky garbage. Instead, like an idiot, she’d allowed him to leave. Now she had to take care of the issue on her own—not nearly as satisfying as having Ryder do the honors. She technically wouldn’t have had to get undressed either. Losing the granny gitch and lifting her skirt would have done the trick.

Frustrated, she kicked off her shoes and stomped up the stairs to her bedroom; exasperation paired with unrequited lust doubled her need for relief. She went straight for the laptop on her nightstand and opened her folder of pictures. While the photoshopped images weren’t the same as the real Ryder, she made due.

Several orgasms later, she grabbed her phone. Ryder deserved a little payback in the form of naughty texts. The phone buzzed when she turned it on, indicating new messages. Maybe Ryder had had second thoughts. She could always invite him back over for a personal tour of her bedroom. But Liese’s grin faded when a familiar but unwelcome number flashed on the screen. Sean had sent her a total of sixteen messages in the last six hours. Talk about unnerving. And if that wasn’t cause enough for concern, he’d also left three voicemails.

Since he’d gotten hold of her new number—she still didn’t know how that had happened—he seemed incapable of going more than twenty-four hours without contact. Ignoring him had seemed the best option, but now that approach had increased his efforts.

The voicemails she deleted—she could predict the content without listening. But with her finger poised to delete the texts, Liese paused. One message caught her attention, and the words on the screen made her throat close. Dread hit her like a sledgehammer:

The all-caps freaked her out; it reminded her of just how angry Sean could become, and it didn’t take a whole lot to ramp him up. The fine hairs on her neck rose, and she flipped on the lights in her room to make her feel safer. She scrolled down to the next message, the content more troubling than the first:

There he went with the shouty-caps again. The threat in the message made her skin crawl. As she reread the texts, she decided he couldn’t possibly know anything about her date with Ryder. Sean lived in the city, hours away, and she didn’t have a landline, so he couldn’t look her up to know where she lived. Only her closest friends and family had her new address. And Liese had asked her previous landlord not to give out her forwarding information.

As she reread the message, which he’d sent about thirty minutes ago—coincidentally about the time when Ryder had dropped her off—another one arrived.

The man was delusional. One moment he was the jealous ex-boyfriend, and the next he was sweet and pleading. He hadn’t changed at all since she’d broken up with his crazy ass. Marissa might be right about a restraining order. The thought of running into him, even in a public place, scared Liese crapless.

Paranoid, she gathered her robe around her and tiptoed down the darkened hallway to the bathroom. She peered outside, but could only make out the reflection of the moon on the windshield of her car.

She debated whether to go downstairs and flick on the porch light, call Ryder and have him come back to her house, or make a run for her car and go to Ryder’s instead. She imagined herself sprinting the short distance from her front porch to her car, only to have Sean burst out of the shadows and tackle her to the ground. It seemed unlikely and ridiculous, but her imagination instilled enough fear that she stayed put.

In the end, she decided not to respond to Sean’s messages and not to text Ryder. She would need to tell him about her ex and his unpredictable behavior, but she wasn’t quite ready. It was embarrassing to have dated such a loser.

Once calm enough to be rational, she read the remainder of Sean’s texts—most of them ranting about how he missed her and wanted to talk to her. Only the last few focused on the possibility that she might be seeing someone else, and how could she if she was,
blah, blah, blah
. His tirades knew no bounds. Tired of the incessant ding of new messages, Liese turned off her phone and climbed into bed. But sleep evaded her.

It was almost two in the morning before she finally passed out, and when she woke three hours later, thanks to a family of raccoons pilfering through her garbage, she couldn’t fall back asleep. Groggy and grumpy, Liese forfeited rest for a shower. She put on coffee and milled around her kitchen. Even at her leisurely pace, she was still more than an hour ahead of schedule. But not wanting to be alone any longer, she left the house at six-thirty, just as dawn broke through the thin cover of clouds, coloring the world a soft pink over the inky grey of morning.

Liese stopped for coffee on the way to work, the extra caffeine a necessity to get her through the day. By the time she arrived at FAHL, the coffee had taken effect, and her tension had grown exponentially. Other than those of the janitorial staff, the parking lot was devoid of cars. She passed through the office to check her mailbox and debated whether to leave a note for Ryder. But waiting until the end of the day seemed better to tell him about her stalkerish ex. An angry Ryder wasn’t easy for anyone to work with. The less interaction they had at work today the better, as her body hummed with pent up energy, fretfulness superseding the residual sexual tension from the night before. Sean was magical in that respect: capable of killing a sex drive in one text.

Half an hour before first bell, her office phone rang, scaring the crap out of her. She rushed to answer it, recognizing the number as Ryder’s.

“
Hi,” she whispered as she turned her back to the students working on assignments.

“
Hello, Ms. Harper. How are you this morning?” Ryder’s formal tone was laced with a hint of teasing.

She hesitated and then answered with a lie. “I’m fine. You?”

“
I’d be better if I didn’t have a meeting. I won’t be in until lunch, but I wanted to talk to you. Do you have any free time this afternoon? I thought we might need to debrief after our meeting yesterday.”

“
Debrief? Is that code for something?” Liese twisted the phone cord around her finger.

“
I suppose. I wanted to make sure you felt okay about last night.”

“
I would have felt much better if there had been an option for extracurricular activities.”

She heard a rustling sound and then the distinct click of a door through the phone line. “Are you saying my company and conversational skills are lacking?”

“
Not at all. Your conversation skills are phenomenal—orgasmic even.” She glanced at the students on the far side of the library. No one was close enough to overhear. “However, your mouth is equally skilled in other areas, and I worry those were not adequately explored. I entreat you to reconsider your ridiculous clause before our next meeting, so I’m not forced to take matters into my own hands—again.”

“
Again?”

“
Mmm. Had you been able to assist me in the endeavor, I wouldn’t be so tired this morning.”

“
Maybe this is something we might rectify later.” Ryder’s voice cracked ever so slightly.

“
Does that mean the parameters of your clause have expired?”

“
Possibly.” Liese could hear the faint rustle of fabric followed by throat clearing.

“
What are you doing?”

“
Adjusting myself. What are you doing?”

“
Making sure none of the students is listening to our conversation. I’ll see you later today? We can discuss it then? Privately?”

“
Most certainly, Ms. Harper.”

She managed to keep busy for the remainder of the morning, but her thoughts drifted no matter what she did. Sometimes she thought about Ryder, but mostly she worried about Sean.

At the start of lunch, Liese headed to the main office to drop off paperwork for a new series of novels she wanted to purchase. It could have waited until the end of the day, but she was hoping Ryder had arrived and they could have the discussion he’d promised her. She also hoped somehow she’d be able to work in a segue to the Sean issue.

She came in through the side entrance, which led directly to the mailboxes rather than the front desk. From her vantage point, she could see the door to Ryder’s office, yet remain undetected by the secretarial staff. The sound of male voices drifted over to her as she peered around the corner. She froze when she heard the familiar whine that had inundated her voicemail recently. Sean was in the main office.

She couldn’t quite make out who the other person was until Blake’s voice rose ever so slightly. “I’m sorry, who did you say you were?”

“
Her boyfriend.” Sean sounded like his typical insecure self.

“
Really? Liese never said anything about having a boyfriend. Betty, did you know Liese had a boyfriend?” There went Blake, poking the proverbial bear.

Betty made a noncommittal comment, but Sean cut her off. Their voices were too low for Liese to hear anything beyond an occasional word or phrase.

“
Why don’t we call her extension again? If she’s in the library, she’ll pick up,” Blake suggested.

“
I don’t understand why I can’t just go there and see for myself,” Sean protested. “I’m her boyfriend.”

Liese wracked her brain for a way Sean could have discovered where she worked. Marissa would never divulge that information, but maybe a former neighbor in her building? After another minute or two, when it became clear she was not in the library, she heard Blake offer to personally deliver the message that Sean had stopped by.

“
It might be a good idea to plan a visit in the future so Liese can let the administration or one of our secretaries know you’re coming,” he offered.

More irritated mumbling from Sean followed. Feet shuffled, and the main door of the office opened and shut with a loud bang. Liese exhaled in relief as Blake and Betty resumed a hushed and anxious conversation. She backed toward the exit through which she’d come, intent on returning to the library to hide out.

Before she could make her escape, Ryder came through the door Liese was propped against, nearly knocking her down. He grabbed her arm to steady her.