Dark Blue: Study in Seduction, Book 1 (16 page)

“Good. Fine. Glad I’ve seen you. Rana wanted to know if you’d like to join us for a drink next week at the university club. It’s social, mainly, but you might meet a few people who can help with your junior fellowship application.”

Michael’s eyes lit up. “Sure. That would be great.”

“I’ll drop you an email with the times and some info on who’s going to be there, if you like.”

“Thanks, Alex.”

Alex paused as Carla stood by like a spare part, longing for one of them to leave, preferably Michael.

“See you later, then, Carla,” said Michael, grabbing his mail. “And I’ll be in touch, Alex.”

Carla’s good-bye was slightly too enthusiastic, and Alex eyed her suspiciously. She mouthed
great timing
at him, and he nodded briefly, then asked her something about the dissertation she was supposed to be writing for her exams. Other students came and went, and the porters chattered on the phone as she tried to process the surreal moment.

In her mind, she felt his touch on her bare skin, from the cool whisper of his breath on her nipples to the sweet sting of his palm across her behind. No one would ever know what they had shared and planned to share as they stood together talking of banalities in the most public spot in all the college. Imagine if people could see right through her—inside her? See her nipples stiffening, every nerve tingling, her honeyed response?

“So, I’ll see you at our next tutorial. I trust you’ve done the reading.” Alex’s stern tone snapped her back to reality.

“Yes, Professor Lemaitre.”

His eyes glittered with mischief. “Alex, please.”

“Yes,
Alex
.”

She walked away from him, buzzed with adrenaline and lust, straight to the college library. In a dusty corner of the antiquarian section, she sat back with a sigh. Wow, that had been intense. She would have to tell Michael straight if he asked her out again, because it wasn’t fair to keep him dangling. When she’d calmed down a little, she got out her laptop and opened her mail while it booted up.

She tossed the advertising leaflets in the waste bin under the desk, but there were two handwritten envelopes, both posted in Oxford. One was a thank-you card from the leader of her power-walking group, and the other was a letter.

It was just one sheet of thin, pale blue paper with just one line written in black ink in tight, quite old-fashioned writing. It was anonymous, of course. Carla didn’t recognise the curving script at all, but the words made her stomach twist into a tight knot.

I’ve seen you with him.

She couldn’t possibly mistake the meaning. Someone had seen her at the pub with Alex, or possibly outside the hostel or, even worse, heard or guessed what had been going on in his rooms. Yet it wasn’t possible. They’d been so cautious, and no one knew she even liked Alex. In fact, she’d been careful to act either indifferent or hint that she found him demanding and cold.

Though she shoved the note away in her bag and tried to concentrate on her reading and latest essay, a sick dread had settled in her stomach like an iron ball. She tried to push the spiteful words aside, knowing that the sender probably wanted to impose on her happiness and disrupt her normal life. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t help but wonder who the hell it was and what they hoped to achieve.

Chapter Sixteen

Over the next couple of days, she didn’t see Alex at all beyond the odd glimpse of him around college, and she barely acknowledged him. She forced herself to finish the first draft of her dissertation. The deadline was looming. As her tutor, Alex was forbidden to even read it, so she was on her own.

Yet even as she slaved over the dissertation, the note burned away at the back of her mind. She’d taken it back to the hostel, debating whether to bother Alex with it but deciding not to. The truth was she had no idea what his reaction would be. He might laugh it off or point out that the note hadn’t mentioned him and could refer to anyone. Or he might freak out and decide that it was too risky to continue seeing her.

Her heart squeezed. She didn’t really expect him to do that, but she also didn’t want to take the chance. She didn’t want things to end like this, before they’d even begun, and yet she had another two years of study to get through before they could openly acknowledge their relationship. Could they carry on that long in secret?

Was that what the malicious sender of the note really wanted, to make them give up on each other?

She pushed her laptop across the desk and massaged her temples. The tension of studying and worrying had brought on a headache. Sitting and brooding in the same four walls wasn’t going to make either situation any better, so she may as well go for a walk.

She pulled on her trainers and headed towards the city centre and past St Cuthbert’s on a well-trodden route that led into the peace and green spaces of the parks. She knew she should have walked right past the college, but her feet were drawn to the lodge.

Every day since the note, she’d checked her pidge with a racing heart, anticipating another pale blue envelope, but there had been a whole week now of nothing more scary than an invite to the UFO Spotters Society by Gideon.

She had to check again, just once more, like a child burned by the fire. If there was nothing today, she reasoned, maybe the sender had given up for good. She walked up to the rows of wooden boxes and put her hand inside her space. Whew. She had to check her audible sigh of relief. There was nothing more than a faculty notice. The note must have been a one-off, a spiteful prank by someone in college who’d imagined that Alex had singled her out. Now she could claw back some semblance of normality.

“Carla, love?”

As she stuffed the faculty notice in her pocket, the college porter called her over. She smiled broadly because she liked Bert, and she was high on relief. The exercise had already begun to give her some fresh insights for her paper, and she was ready to head home and get started while her mind was buzzing.

“Hello, Bert. How are you?”

“Oh, mustn’t grumble. Glad I caught you, love. I’ve got a parcel for you that’s a bit too big for the pigeonhole.”

Bert dug the package out from under the desk. It was shoebox size and wrapped in brown paper, Sellotaped and addressed with a typed sticky label.

“The postman brought it yesterday afternoon.”

Carla realised she’d have to carry it all the way back to the hostel but smiled at Bert. “Thanks for saving it.”

She rattled the parcel as she walked out of the lodge and back to the hostel. It felt incredibly light, almost as if it was stuffed with cotton wool. There were no sender’s details, and it wasn’t her birthday. She certainly wasn’t expecting anything from her mother or in-laws. Her heart pitter-pattered. It wasn’t a note; it was nothing like the note, but…

She stopped as she reached the parks and sat on a bench. She couldn’t wait any longer, so she ripped off the tape and found a cardboard shoebox inside. She lifted the lid with a leaden stomach.

Fuck.

Nestling amidst a tangle of red paper shreds was another letter. Same paper, same handwriting, same cryptic message, same lurch of panic in the gut.

I know what you’ve done with him.

Anger flooded her. How dare this person—this nuisance, this pest, this
stalker
—have the power to occupy her thoughts so completely? She should have been walking home now, feeling refreshed and ready to tackle her work again or dreaming of Alex making love to her, rather than trying to get inside the mind of a malicious bitch—or scumbag—whichever it was.

She hated the way this saddo made
her
feel guilty and ashamed when she’d done nothing wrong.

Carla took out the note and stuffed it in her tracksuit pocket. She rifled through the box for any other messages, then dropped the box in the nearest waste bin, keeping hold of the wrapping paper with the address label.

Her steps dragged as she walked out of the park towards the main road. The handwriting gave no clue as to the sex or identity of the sender, or perhaps it did… Perhaps Alex might recognise it.

And even if he didn’t, she needed to share this burden with him.

She made a decision, took a left and headed the half mile or so to his house. Her trainers crunched as she approached the door and gave the bell a gentle push. She waited, screwing up the paper in a ball in one hand, the note feeling as if it were burning a hole into her thigh. She pushed the bell again and heard the muffled clang within. Maybe he was showering or in his garden. Or maybe he wasn’t in at all.

Her heart sank. She so needed him to be in. A few seconds later, he opened the door, barefoot, a frown creasing his brow. He’d obviously been working, and now he’d been interrupted.

“Oh, Carla.” His face relaxed as he registered her.

“Are you busy?” she asked, alarmed at how her voice had risen.

“Very. I’m going through the edits on a script for the TV programme.”

“I’d better leave you to it, then.”

She turned away, but he grabbed her arm. “No. Get in here now.”

“I know it’s not our day to meet,” she said, following him along the hallway and into the sitting room. “And that I should be working. That you should be working too.”

He folded his arms and stood as she sat in the armchair. “The script can wait. How’s the dissertation coming along?”

“Okay, I suppose. Ish. But we’re not supposed to discuss it.”

“No, we’re not, and I won’t, because you are more than capable of turning in a first-class dissertation without my help.”

“Hmm.” She picked at a thread on the cushion.

“Is this why you’re here? To talk about work?”

“Not really.”

“Didn’t think so.” He unfolded his arms and sat down next to her. “What is it?”

She handed him the brown paper and pulled the note from her pocket. “This was delivered to the lodge in a parcel yesterday and…it’s not the first one. I got another posted in Oxford a few days after we’d been to the pub.”

He scanned the paper, and his lips twisted. “Fuck.”

Yes, fuck. He’d instantly taken it seriously.

“You think we should worry about it, then?”

He raked his hair back off his face. “Not worry, exactly. It could simply be a jealous student putting two and two together.”

And making exactly the right answer
. “I wondered about that too.”

“Then again, I suppose we could have been seen in Woodstock. I knew I should have chosen a pub fifty miles away from here. This bloody place is rife with gossip, and there are far too many bored and sad individuals willing to interfere in other people’s business. I’m not the most popular person in some quarters. The senior common room is as bitchy and petty as any school playground at times.”

“You really think it could be one of the dons?”

“Possibly. The writing is quite traditional compared to student scrawl. The brightest people can be the least perceptive when it comes to their own sanity.”

“Or the writing could be a disguise?”

“I suppose so.”

“So what should we do?”

He gave a deep sigh. “I’ve a horrible feeling that the answer to that is nothing.”

It wasn’t what Carla wanted to hear, even though she agreed with him. “What? Because we should ignore it, or because there’s nothing we
can
do?”

“Both.”

“Have you no idea who it might be? I can’t help thinking that we ought to be able to work it out, pick up some subtle clues.”

“This is just one line on a piece of paper. Most of the time, we spend our lives analysing whole texts and never knowing who the author really was.”

“Yes. I just hoped…maybe…” She hesitated, remembering Michael’s comments about notes in pigeonholes and when she saw the scarlet woman kissing Alex. Could either of them have anything to do with the malicious letter?
 

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing… Alex, I need to ask you something. I’m sure they’re not connected, but that night before you met me outside the nightclub, I saw you with a woman.”

He frowned briefly, then reached out and touched her cheek. “You must mean Tia. She’s a producer from the company who are making my TV series.”

“Ah.” Carla scrunched up her face in embarrassment. “I just vaguely wondered.”

“If she might have sent the notes, or that I was seeing her?”

There was no point hiding her suspicions from him. “It was a crazy idea.”

“Not crazy, and the answer is ‘no’ to both. Tia is definitely not interested in me that way. She had, however, just asked me to help her write her speech for her civil-partnership ceremony.”

Carla burst out laughing in relief. “Okay. I’m sorry, Alex. I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions.”

“No, you shouldn’t, especially as I’ve devoted half the term to making sure you learn precisely how
not
to do that,” he said, mock sternly. “Now. Read my lips, Ms. Jonas. You will be more than fine in exams, and I’ll do my damnedest to try and find out who’s sending this sick crap. I promise.”

She nodded, knowing he couldn’t promise anything. Yet, as he kissed her and her body responded instantly to his touch, every rational thought was banished.