Dark Blue: Study in Seduction, Book 1 (14 page)

Carla flailed, unable to ask what she really wanted, so Alex responded. “If you mean previous partners, I’m sure you know I’ve been married before and that I’ve also been divorced for quite some time.”

She hoped she wasn’t blushing. “I had heard. That part’s on Wiki.”

“My ex, Deanna, lives in the States. That may not be.”

“No. It isn’t. Do you see much of her? Sorry, that’s probably a really intrusive question.”

“I think the time is past for either of us to consider the other intrusive, don’t you?”

Her cheeks warmed. “I guess it is.”

“Occasionally, Deanna comes over here, and I hear from her every few months by e-mail, usually when there’s some crisis or other. She’s a brilliant academic. Unfortunately, her love life’s been—how can I put it—a bit of a roller coaster since we split.” He gave a sigh. “Since she met me, I should say, because I hardly gave her a period of stability.”

Carla wanted him to go on. Had he had an affair? Did he cause the roller coaster? She hoped not. She really didn’t want him to have feet of clay. Not be another Stephen. She could endure any fault or behaviour apart from betrayal and lies. She was too hurt—and too determined—not to be deceived again by someone like Stephen.

“Since then I’ve worked at St Cuthbert’s and as a lecturer for the university as part of my professorship. I like running and playing squash. I’m passionate about the Metaphysical poets and banned texts.” The look he gave her seemed to flame her body. “I’m not a Janeite, although I could warm to her, given recent events.”

Carla bit her lip, fighting the urge to leap on him in the middle of the pub. “What about your family?” she asked, moving the conversation away from sex for her own sanity.

“They live in Provence, or at least my mother does. I’ve got a younger brother, Olivier, who’s an artist. When he feels like it, that is.” His expression was rueful, and Carla got the feeling that Alex’s little brother cost him sleepless nights.

“Is your father alive?” she asked.

He sipped his Coke before replying. “As far as I know. We don’t have anything to do with him.” It was said so firmly that Carla knew better than to probe at this stage, but he’d piqued her curiosity. “What about
your
family?” he added. “I know you go home to visit your parents sometimes. I’ve heard you telling Emma. We tutors aren’t as deaf as students think we are.”

“You also have the advantage of knowing about me from the admissions process. You must have seen that I put Mum and Dad as my next of kin.”

“I only know what I’ve read from your file and what I heard from Dr. Bhide about your academic and personal circumstances in as far as they might have affected your application.”

Carla didn’t dare ask if Alex would have chosen her if he had been interviewing that day. They’d have instantly recognised each other at the party, and they’d never have dared even speak to each other. How depressing that thought was, that she might never had had this chance. It showed her just how much she already felt for him. The idea of losing him already made her stomach lurch.

“I was married to Stephen almost ten years before he died,” she said, forcing herself to concentrate on the here and now. “He was killed actually, in a car accident. It’s been four years ago now, and a couple of weeks ago, I went home to the Gathering.”

He said nothing to make her pause—certainly not
I’m so sorry
or any of the other well-meaning yet empty platitudes she’d heard when she told this story. There wasn’t even a comforting pat on the hand, and she was glad. The last thing she wanted from Alex was pity. At the mention of the Gathering, she could see he was curious but too polite to interrupt, or perhaps he simply wanted to hear the story fresh, without any influence.

“The Gathering’s a memorial party—nothing formal, just a family gathering. That’s why it’s called a gathering, naturally…” She was tongue-tied again, and he encouraged her with a tiny smile. “I think it’s time we didn’t have it anymore, you see. The problem is that my mother and Stephen’s mother too, everyone in fact, expects it. They need to do it, and I want to make them happy. I don’t want to upset them but…shit.” She dabbed a finger under her eyes. “My mascara will run.”

Alex handed her a spare serviette. “Don’t stop.”

“No, I don’t think I will, because, you see, this is the first time I’ve told anyone that I want to stop the Gathering. I just want to think of Stephen now in my own way. I wish—I hope—that some of them might be ready to… Oh God, cliché alert…”

“In the circumstances, I think clichés are impossible to avoid. Please carry on.”

“I think that…we should maybe move on.”

“Do you think that’s too much to expect of them?”

He understood her so well; she wanted to punch the air in relief. How inappropriate was that when speaking about your dead husband?

“Yes…and…”

The words were on her lips. Alex understood, he
would
understand, and even though talking about ex-partners was the dating handbook’s biggest no-no, in this case it felt exactly right. She had to tell him what she’d never told anyone else, the secret she’d buried so deep inside—not even her secret, but Stephen’s.

Chapter Fourteen

“Stephen was having an affair.”

There, it was out. For the first time in her life, she’d given substance to the most painful experience of her life so far.

From Alex there was silence, just a brief narrowing of the eyes as if he’d taken her revelation as a physical blow, as if she’d communicated all that long-suppressed pain right from her heart to his. Then he blew out a soft breath.

“That’s incredibly tough, and am I right in guessing that only you know about this?”

“The family have no idea. I only found out while I was sorting out his things after he died. There were credit card receipts in an old briefcase in his car. They were for restaurants and hotels he’d never told me he’d been to—country manor houses rather than the chain hotels he usually stayed in on business. And there was a photo of him with her.”

“Did you know her?” Alex asked.

She nodded, residual hurt still gnawing at her, even after all this time. “Slightly, by sight. She was a woman who worked for one of the company’s clients. I’d met her at a business do once. I’m not sure if he was seeing her back then, but some of the receipts dated back a while. Two years, in fact.”

“Jesus. I am sorry.”
 

“I was…numb at first. I spent months trying to come up with a reason why he was standing on a beach kissing her. Wondering who took the picture and if they knew what Stephen was doing. He looked so happy, and I tore myself apart in asking why. What had I done or not done to make him want to look for happiness with someone else? It clearly wasn’t just sex between them. It’s been more recently I got angry.” It was anger that had finally quashed any guilt she’d felt at quitting work and applying for Oxford. “Do you understand?” she asked.

Now, perhaps, he would confess if he’d been the cause of his split with his wife.

“I understand what it’s like to be hurt, but not what it’s like to be betrayed like that. I understand…” He hesitated.

“Yes?”

“I understand what it’s like to lose someone you loved.”

She held her breath, waiting for the rest of the story he had just started. Who had he lost? She needed to know…

“Why didn’t you tell your family about Stephen’s affair?”

No. Not back to me
. Carla could have cried out in frustration. It was clear the intimacy he was willing to share didn’t go anywhere near as far as hers yet. Would it ever?

“I suppose… I know I just didn’t want to make their grief any worse than it was.”

“Hiding the truth from the people you were close to must have made your own grief even worse.”

“Yes. No. I don’t know. I…know this must sound ridiculous and that it was Stephen who had the affair, but I felt as if I’d failed in some way. Our marriage had been, if not perfect, as good as I thought it was ever going to get. At least…”

“Carla?”

“Nothing. It
wasn’t
perfect, but I loved him and he loved me. I still believe that. It’s been four years now, and finally I have some perspective on it. I have a new life and perhaps, in a way, if Stephen hadn’t had the affair I wouldn’t be here today. I thought long and hard about whether to give up my job and spend the money on putting myself through college. Stephen would have been surprised I chose to do this. In fact, he’d have been astonished and, perhaps, not happy about it, but I came to the conclusion that I deserved this chance.”

“How could he not love you?” Alex had taken her hand. She almost wished he hadn’t, because she didn’t want to get emotional in the pub.

“When it first happened, I didn’t think I would get through it, yet day by day, I just carried on living. You see, for a couple of years before Stephen died, we’d been trying for a baby. Nothing had happened and it hadn’t been that long, but you start to wonder. I’d booked in for some tests. Stephen had said he would too, and I believed him. Of course, it was too late then.”

He said nothing, and she thought she’d gone too far. What could he say to that? She’d dumped the whole emotional lot on him in one go. She could hardly believe she was telling him this. Alex, a virtual stranger, was the only person she’d ever told how she felt, but he wasn’t a stranger. He was the man she had been more intimate sexually with than her husband. The man who knew her deepest, darkest desires and now knew one of her biggest secrets.

How had she trusted him in so short a time with such dangerous thoughts?

“I’m sorry. You probably don’t need all of this.”

“I think you needed to tell me. I do want to know you. This isn’t just about sex for me. I can’t make you any more promises than that right now.” He squeezed her hand, then said, “Another drink, I think, and shall I order some food?”

They chose dinner, and he went to order. Slowly she was learning to interpret the subtle ironies of Professor Lemaitre, even though it was painstaking work. She might take a lifetime to ever know him well. She couldn’t imagine ever getting a lifetime; she could hardly think beyond the next week at the moment. It also meant they had to broach the subject they’d been skirting around, no matter how awkward.

The dark and forbidden sensual bond they shared.

When he came back, she asked him, “When I said we shouldn’t be doing this…in your office last week, you teased me, but I was right. We both know we really should not be doing this.”

“What do you think this is?”

“Having an affair.”

“It can’t be an affair, because I’m not married or remotely involved with anyone else.”

The image of the scarlet woman popped into her mind. Should she believe Alex? Could she? Would Stephen have denied everything if she’d ever had the chance to confront him? “It’s like an affair because no one must find out about us.”

He sighed. “Yes, that’s true. I wish I could say I don’t care and it doesn’t matter if the whole of the college knows, but it does. You know I want to be honest with you all the time and never deceive you, even to be kind—and from what you just told me about your husband, I think that honesty and openness matter to you more than anything now.”

Her heart skipped. He
did
understand her. “Yes. After what Stephen did, I’ve found it hard to trust anyone.”

“I can see that, and I’m going to be honest. I could lose my job for sleeping with a student in my care, any student. In public, no one must ever know we’re together, but that’s not what really worries me about this—us. It’s the effect it could have on you, your work and…more, if it all ends.”

If, not when. She loved that word, and it hadn’t been chosen carefully; it had come naturally. “I understand the position. Don’t think I haven’t thought about it as much as you, though I am a very big girl. Do you think that I can’t cope with this after what I’ve had to go through with Stephen? I survived that. I’m sure I can live with this, whatever happens.”

“I know. I ought to know that…” He hesitated. “I would hate to hurt you, and I can’t guarantee that one day, I won’t.”

A sharp little twist to the statement. Part of his brutal honesty. Carla made a joke of it. “I think that we’re way past you being gentle with me if my tutes so far have been anything to go by.”

He didn’t smile. They both knew he wasn’t talking about physical harm. It was a cloud on her sunny day, yet it opened up the chance to ask questions of her own, ones she had to hear some kind of answer to, even if she didn’t like the response, but just then the waiter brought their meals.

After they’d eaten, she felt more relaxed and still wanted to ask Alex about his other relationships. His statement about not being able to guarantee he wouldn’t hurt her one day niggled like a burr pressed into her skin.

“Can we speak somewhere more privately?” she asked.

“Of course. We can walk down along the river, if you like.” They headed out into the evening sun and along the path that led away from the pub. Alex slipped his arm around her, and it felt incredibly good, like it had always belonged there. “Alex—this thing we have,” she said as they strolled under the willow trees. “What we do—what you do…”

“Name it. You need to. I want you to.”