Even Villains Fall in Love (8 page)

As a boy, I was precocious. As a teen,
I was handsome. I never wanted for attention or adoration, but I
always wanted more. Intelligent people often take up challenging
hobbies to pass the time. I took up the idea of world domination
and, unlike all the Goth aficionados in black lipstick, I didn’t
sit around paying lip service to the idea. I chased my dreams until
the day my dreams changed.

That happens sometimes. Even the best
plans need reconsideration when a better offer comes along. When my
choice came down to having the world or having Tabitha, I wanted
her more.

***

Evan scrounged around the makeshift lab in the
rented house. The small, four-bedroom brick Tudor near the
university wasn’t much, the only real selling points were the
partial basement for his lab and the fenced yard for the girls.
While his minions were still busy trying to unpack all the toys, he
worked like a maniac on the Morality Machine.

“Hert, did we find that part?”

“The crystal focus, Master? Yes, we have one
left.”

“Only one? I need a second one for redundant
back up. Using only one focus was my mistake the first time.”

The minion shuffled his webbed feet.

“What?”

“The other is in the Election Ray, sir. I would
have to cannibalize that—”

“Never mind.” Evan turned back to the Morality
Machine with a glare. “It’ll work. Start running the tests so we
can get this calibrated. I need to go get dressed.”

Hert frowned at him as he hurried upstairs. Evan
pointedly ignored the look. There were hundreds of things he needed
to be doing this week. Chasing down Tabitha hadn’t been on the
agenda, but he couldn’t put it off another day, not even another
hour.

“Daddy?” Angela walked over to him clutching her
stuffed dog. “Where is Mommy?”

“You said Mommy would be here,” Blessing
reminded him.

Maria and Delila joined their sisters. Four
pairs of eyes watched him with innocent expressions of hope.

Time to lie. “Mommy is working undercover to
stop something bad. I’m going to go meet with her tonight, and find
out how long this project will take.”

“I want to see Mommy,” Delila said.

“And I promise, Mommy wants to see you. Maybe
she can sneak out to see us tomorrow.” He made a mental note to
arrange that. “I’m going to get changed real quick, okay? Are you
girls all settled in? Do you like your new rooms?” They nodded. He
settled them in the living room where they could watch a movie with
Hert and the other minions could guard them.

Tabitha wanted to see him. That put it all in
perspective. She’d come to talk to him. Obviously, there was a
plan. He’d go to the mixer and get a clue. Who knew, maybe he
hadn’t lied about her being undercover. Maybe the whole mess the
other morning had been an act.

Evan made a mental note to have the minions
check for bugs and began pulling clothes from a hastily packed box.
He didn’t know what to wear. A classy tux? No. Mixer. What did
people wear to mixers? He pulled some faded jeans and a white
T-shirt from the box. He hated the generic, blue-collar look, but
Tabby loved it. Something about a man in jeans worked for her, and
never failed to get him laid. He needed a “No Fail” plan just
now.

The mixer was held in the biology department
building’s main lecture hall. The maintenance staff had cleared
away the chairs. Sad crepe-paper flowers in school colors lay amid
the greasy pizza boxes like the tattered standards of a lost
legion.

Evan tugged needlessly at his shirt, turned his
mini Agree-With-Me Ray to full, and stepped into the room with a
confident smile. He’d been to parties before—this wasn’t one. On
the scale of entertainment, it ranked somewhere between filing
taxes—something he never did—and attending a birthday party with
clowns and thirty crying toddlers.

Finding Tabitha was a matter of finding the
largest crowd of stuttering males. They surrounded her like
Neanderthals worshiping a sun goddess.

Across the semi-crowded room, their eyes met.
Blue eyes sparkled like sunlight on the waves. He’d never get tired
of that come-hither look.

Evan raised an eyebrow, a silent commentary on
her crowd of admirers, and walked to the buffet table to score a
cookie. Doctor Charm’s arsenal included flirting. Running to her
would only rank him alongside the rest of her adoring sycophants.
Husband or not, he had to follow the rules of the game.

When she was ready, she’d break free.

And she did. Evan nearly spit punch all over the
white linoleum when he saw her walking toward him with an easy
smile on her face. She didn’t look angry. One corner of his mouth
lifted in a half smile. That body... All those curves, the
satin-soft skin... He was in lust all over again.

“You broke away from the crowd,” he said,
sipping his drink to keep from claiming her lips. The memory of her
taste turned the sweet punch sour. “Is it always so lively?”

Tabitha shrugged, blushing. “We’re a department
of people watchers.”

“Maybe we should hire someone to party while we
watch.” He kept her gaze.

Tabitha licked her lips. He almost bent down to
chase her tongue and coax it out to play. She giggled, a sweet
sound that promised beautiful things.

Maybe he needed to find a dark corner and see if
she was interested in a fast anatomy lesson. No. Focus. Wife.
“So...” Evan cast around for a topic. “Are you here with
anyone?”

Why are we here?
was
an even better question, but she’d told him to be here, so the
answer to everything was here.
Give me a hint,
Tabby-cat.

“Oh.” She tucked a loose strand of hair behind
her ear. “I’m just here with my roommate, Hilary. There’s...” She
giggled again and looked at the floor. “There’s no one.” Blue eyes
looked up at him. “Are you seeing anyone?”

Evan took a breath. Deep cover was not a
comfortable place to be. Swirling the punch around his cup, he
shrugged. “It’s complicated.”

“How can it be complicated? You’re either with
someone or you aren’t.” Her hands went to her hips, the flirt was
gone. “So, status?”

“It depends.”

“On what?”

“Do you love me?”

She blinked, caught off guard.

“Zinnia! Zinnia, there you are.” A blond man
built like a rugby player cut between them. He looked vaguely
familiar. “There you are, Z-girl. Sorry I’m late.” He gave Evan a
passing glance. “Who’s your friend?”

“Evan Fascino, the new ethics professor I told
you about.”

“Ethics professor?” Rugby laughed. “You ever get
laid, or are you, like, the fifty-year-old virgin?” He grabbed
Tabitha’s arm and she winced.

“Are you all right?” Evan asked Tabitha,
blocking Rugby with an upheld arm.

Tabitha looked confused. “I’m fine. I hurt my
arm falling down some stairs.”

“Stairs?” The fight. He hadn’t even asked her
about the fight. “Let me see.”

“Dude, I got it.” Rugby pushed him back. “I do
sports medicine.”

More likely he did anything too drunk to
object.

Rugby pulled out an alcohol wipe, rolled
Tabitha’s sleeve up, and peeled back the bandage. An angry red gash
ran parallel to the scar he’d given her.

Evan felt his heart skip a beat. This was his
fault. All his fault. And now some chump was pawing his wife. “Can
I help?”

“No, I got it,” Rugby said, waving the wipe past
Evan’s nose. A sharp, super sweet smell assailed him.

Evan sneezed. “What is that?”

“This? Just a homeopathic recipe my grandma used
to use, mostly lotus blossom. Way better than alcohol. Doesn’t
smell bad either. Right, Z?” He shoved the wipe toward Tabitha’s
face.

She grimaced and turned her head. “Better than
alcohol, I guess.”

“Thane!” someone shouted from the other side of
the room.

Rugby frowned. “Be right back. Z, you wait for
me.”

“I’ll wait for you,” Tabitha said as her smile
faded. When she turned back to Evan her expression was vague,
uninterested.

“So, that’s your boyfriend?” Evan felt himself
losing his grip on reality as the storm of emotions swept him away.
His wife. His. Wife! And she let some strange man patch her up. “Is
he why you’re here?”

“What? I’m here because he asked me to wait.”
Her face filled with honest confusion. Tabitha rubbed her temples.
“I’m...I’m sorry. Sometimes I get these headaches. What were you
asking?”

Evan unclenched his jaw to say, “I was asking if
you and Rugby were an item.”

“Thane and I?” She shook her head. “He’s like
that with everyone. He’s a super...a super protective person.” Her
eyes lost their focus again. “He always wants what’s best for
everyone.”

“And that means bossing you around?” The
temperature of the conversation continued to plummet.

“I’m here alone. My parents live in Wisconsin.
I’m not a city girl. I feel out of place here. Thane’s a real
friend.”

Evan stared at her. “Wisconsin?” Tabitha’s
parents owned a condo in Miami. She’d grown up in West Palm. So why
did Wisconsin sound so familiar? He stepped back, not sure what was
happening anymore.

“Evan?” Tabitha touched his arm lightly.

He raised an eyebrow, not sure how to go on.

“Have you ever met someone that you trust
implicitly from the first time you see them?” She sounded so
hesitant. Fearful.

“A few,” he admitted grudgingly, letting her
soft touch reel him back in.

A warm smile brought life back to her green
eyes. “I feel like that with you. I don’t believe in past lives or
anything like that, but I feel like I know you.” She squeezed his
arm. “I’m so glad you’re here. We’re going to be great
friends.”

He stared at her.

“
I don’t even know you.”
She’d said as she walked out on him. The words reverberated
through his brain. Gently, he lifted her hand to his lips. “You can
trust me. With everything.” He kissed her hand as Rugby Thane
butted back in. “Ready to fly, Z? We’ve got kicking dinner plans
tonight.”

Tabitha turned to Thane, the smile falling from
her face. “Sounds great.”

Chapter Thirteen

I should probably say a word about my
competition. There is none. As far as you and the rest of the world
is concerned, I am the pinnacle of creation, and I have a machine
that will make you nod your head in agreement as I say
that.

There are other super villains, of
course. They tend to crop up like mushrooms in the wake of every
major disaster. I consider them useful. They keep the super heroes
occupied and out of my hair while I take over the world. Some of
them are even good enough to become reoccurring headlines. But they
aren’t as good as me.

Seeing Tabitha with another man,
seeing her smile and leave with another man, was a punch to the
gut. I’d give up major limbs before I let another man have my wife,
but what could I do? She acted like she didn’t know me. Like seven
years of marriage never happened. I couldn’t compete with
that.

If Tabitha wanted me, I’d fight to the
death for her. But when she walked away of her own free will, I was
lost.

***

Evan strode out of the building, ready to kill
someone for the first time in his life.

She didn’t know him.

She didn’t know him, and she was going to dinner
with another man.

He dialed the lab. “Hert, I need perfume
samples. Lots of them. And I need the Morality Machine dismantled
now. Now! There’s something wrong here. What? What girls?”

His girls. He was already going to hell for not
belonging to any of the right religions, stealing money, and being
a super villain. Compared to that, forgetting his daughters for a
few minutes while his life fell apart was... He took a deep breath.
Unforgivable. No wonder Tabitha didn’t love him.

Rubbing his wrist, he took the mini
Agree-With-Me Ray off. It hadn’t worked. Maybe it even hurt her. He
sucked in the pine-scented night air and tried to focus.

Evan could think of two possible explanations
why Tabitha didn’t remember him. The first, and the most obvious,
was that the Morality Machine had affected her memory and
personality more than he’d anticipated. She still seemed attracted
to him, so had he been breaking down her memories all this time,
rather than her morals?

The other option was that something else had
stolen her memories. A head injury in the fight? She hadn’t hit her
head on the ground, but maybe she had a concussion from the
creature hitting her? Or she was so angry with him she’d blocked
him out of her memory? Or...he dug through his mental file of
possibilities.

The smell of Thane’s homeopathic treatment
bothered him. Maybe because her shirts reeked of it when she came
home from the fight. Evan looked up at the cold starlight. The
smell, the T-shirts, and a tall blond man.

He’d never paid much attention to super heroes
and their identities. Some villains dedicated years to researching
a nemesis. A few went as far as fixating on super heroes, but that
was too creepy-stalker-freak for him.

Super heroes came, and after a polite chat, they
went away. Except Tabitha. He’d been too spellbound to speak before
she broke the Agree-With-Me Ray.

But the big, blond Thane, he looked... Evan
slapped his thigh. Time for the professor to do a little
homework.

At home, Evan pulled out all the reference
material he’d amassed on superheroes, super villains, and the
unsolved crimes of the last century. Most of it he’d stolen, some
of it had been compiled from court records and newspaper printouts
by the minions, and none of it was alphabetized.

Blessing snuggled on his lap as he flipped
through the reports on superheroes unmasked. Delila and Maria
helped the minions sort the Morality Machine parts, and Angela
thumbed through a thick book.