Tainted Love (Sweetest Taboo #2) (19 page)

“Well make up your mind, Isabel,” Marcus muttered impatiently. “I’d like to make other plans if you can’t make it to dinner tonight.”

I wrinkled my nose in distaste. It never sat well with me when he made those eloquent threats, though it must have seemed fairly innocent to everyone else. Marcus always wanted to show me, in one way or another, that he had alternatives. Why couldn’t he just say something like,
I’d really love it if you joined me for dinner tonight, Isabel.
Those gracious words would do wonders.

Although his repeated allusions to having other things to do or people to see really got to me, I was already annoyed with Marcus. I didn’t want to tell him so, but I was dragging my feet about going to dinner because I just didn’t know if I was ready to spend another night with him. We hadn’t been getting along well recently. Or rather, I’d been getting more and more frustrated at the way he treated me. What I’d told Susie was the truth – he acted like I was a child, and like he was doing me a favor by dating me. Personally I didn’t see the benefits. I’d never spent so much time doubting my own value, or myself for that matter, and it certainly wasn’t making me feel good. We hadn’t even made any progress on my thesis, and though I had one and a half years before I had to submit the final product, I wanted it to be perfect and new that the topic would require a great deal of research and would prove to be time consuming.

Instead of offering his guidance on my thesis or having dates like normal couples, we were always having dinner at his house, followed by an hour or so of sex in his bedroom. The truth is, I really enjoyed having sex with Marcus. In spite of the circumstances of our relationship, in spite of the lack of romance and emotional connection, I felt as though Marcus
made love
to me every time. He was incredibly sexy, he took his time with me, he caressed me, kissed me passionately, stroked my hair, kissed my neck, ran his manicured hands all over my body in an expert fashion, and made love to me with every last bit of effort he could muster. It was so easy for my body to respond to his touch, to his movements, to his mouth, his tongue, his thrusting hips. It was as if my body detached itself from my head and heart when I was in bed with Marcus. In fact, I was just a carnal entity taking in the full pleasure of passionate sex with an incredibly attractive man. I was void of emotion or love. I was just a body reaching ecstasy over and over again. I didn’t really want to admit it to myself, or anyone else for that matter, but it was becoming clear that both Marcus and I were simply using each other for sex.

He must have heard the hesitation in my voice because his tone suddenly changed and he sounded kinder and softer. “Listen Isabel, I know it’s been a long week, and I’m sorry if I sound impatient. But it’s Friday night and I want to spend time with you, unwinding from the week. Can’t you just make a bit of time for me tonight?”

I took a deep breath. If he was going to be nice about it, I could reconsider my position. “Well…”

“Plus I have a surprise for you,” he added quickly. “Something I’ve been meaning to tell you about. I think tonight might be just the perfect time.”

I grinned, in spite of myself. I wasn’t a materialistic girl, by any stretch of the imagination, but I had trouble turning down gifts from Marcus, a man I had been trying to enamor for months. “In that case, I’m free tonight,” I responded sweetly. “What time should I stop by?”

As soon as I’d given in, of course, Marcus’ tone changed again, to the older, more experienced man, talking down to the young inexperienced girl he was dating. “Wonderful,” he said dryly. “Come over at six. I’m out at the moment, but you know where to find the keys. I’ll meet you there as soon as I finish up my business.”

I narrowed my eyes at the change in tone, but I knew I shouldn’t be surprised. This was the Marcus I had known since the first night of passionate sex in his bedroom; sweet and caring one moment, condescending the next, and leaving in a rush the moment after that. His moods were mercurial and hard to track, and sometimes they could hurt. I never really considered, until this point, that he was using me just for sex, a toy if you will, and it bothered me that I would succumb to his controlling behavior.

It was a good thing I’d promised Susie that I wouldn’t take Marcus too seriously. I wasn’t expecting much from him anymore, thank goodness. If I had higher expectations of Marcus and of our relationship, I would have been heartbroken time and again.

I would take the metro at five o’clock, to make my way to his neighborhood of brownstones with a bouquet of flowers in my hands, in order to get there before he got home. Arriving early would give me the opportunity to arrange a nice welcoming centerpiece in one of his antique vases from Europe. More importantly, arriving before Marcus did would give me the chance to do some snooping. Marcus’ life was like a closed book. He never shared anything about himself, about his real self. All he was willing to share were details about his academic self. There was clearly something he was hiding from me and I was determined to find out what.

***

“Suz, I’m going over to the professor’s for dinner,” I said quickly, rushing through the living room and grabbing my things. “I’ll be home late, okay?”

She looked up from the book she was reading, surprised. “What’s the rush? You don’t even look like you’ve showered, and I know you’re not wearing that!”

I glanced down at myself and grimaced. She was right – I was in such a hurry to get to Marcus’ that I was running out of the house in an old pair of jeans and a ragged Lincoln University sweatshirt I wore only around the apartment. Getting there early to snoop around wouldn’t do me any good if Marcus showed up and saw me looking like I was out of clothes and doing a load at the Laundromat in my grunge wear.

“You’re right,” I groaned. “God, I’m really losing it. It’s just that he’s invited me over for dinner, but says that he won’t be there right away. He told me to go ahead and let myself in with the key that he keeps in the planter so that I can start on our evening meal. And if I get there before he does…”

“You’ll have time to look around and see exactly what he’s hiding,” she finished, grinning. I smiled back, every single one of my teeth gleaming in her direction. Susie was one of the only people I knew who could read my mind so effortlessly. Besides, she had plenty of information to work with – I’d been keeping her up to date on my relationship with Marcus right from the start. She knew just as much as I did about him, and knew exactly how he had been treating me.

And she realized, just like I did, that his habit of rushing out on our dates, taking phone calls in the middle of the night, and hiding me from his friends probably meant that he was actually hiding something else. We’d often wondered what he was hiding and took turns guessing at the skeletons in his closet.

“Exactly,” I confirmed, moving back toward my room to find something suitable to wear. “If I get there quickly enough, I should have time to go through his office,” I shouted down the hall. “If there’s anything to find, I’m sure it’s in there!”

Suddenly she was at my door, watching while I picked out clothes, and scrunching her face in thought. “Do you think he’d hide things in plain sight, though? I mean, what if he’s a member of the mob? Or some famous jewel thief? Surely he’d want to hide things like that in a safe somewhere, or some place less obvious than his home office?”

I glanced at her, giving her my own version of
the look
. “Suz, really?” I asked sarcastically.

“You’re right,” she sighed. “That’s way too romantic for a boring and stuffy college professor. Still, what do you think you’ll find?”

I shrugged. “No clue. Whatever it is, though, I want to know about it sooner rather than later. He’s just so secretive about things, and I feel like, well, like I have to know. After all, I don’t want to be dating a member of the mob. Think of the danger to my life!”

Susie laughed at that, and nodded. “If only I could come with you. I’m so bored! Snooping around the professor’s house would really make my night.”

“Susie, no,” I said, shaking my head firmly. “If I get caught sneaking around his office, Marcus is going to be pissed off and he’ll probably grill me the entire night. It would be even worse if I got caught snooping around with you!”

“Oh, come on,” she wheedled. “We could say that I just came over to help you get dinner started, or that we were studying while you waited for him. Let’s do it, Izzy!”

I paused, considering it. Those were two excellent excuses, and they were perfectly plausible. After all, if I didn’t think he’d be there, how could it be a problem to bring my best friend over to keep me company?

Susie noticed my pause and started jumping up and down like a child on Christmas Day. “Come on, Iz! It’ll be perfect. You know it! I just came over to keep you company while you waited, and I started helping you prepare the fancy dinner. What could he possibly say? Besides, if I’m there, we can cover twice as much ground! Think of all the delicious snooping we could do!”

I sighed, but finally nodded. Susie was right. I was going over there early to find out what Marcus was hiding from me, and it would be easier to search with four hands instead of two. Maybe I could get her out of the house before he even saw her, I thought to myself.

“Okay, okay,” I muttered, giving in. “But put something else on, and act like we’ve just come from the library or the bookstore.”

Susie squealed with excitement and darted toward her bedroom, chattering excitedly about where we would begin our investigation of Marcus’ alleged hidden secrets. I groaned. Susie was terrific, but she could be overwhelming when she got excited about something.

“Susie, hurry it up, we don’t have all night!” I shouted. “And if you can’t keep your mouth shut for at least one minute, I’m not taking you along!”

The stream of conversation from her room cut off abruptly, and within seconds she was back at my door. I’d changed into the skirt and blouse Marcus had bought for me and secured my favorite delicate pearl necklace around my neck. A second later, we were out the door of the apartment and on our way to our very first spy mission.

***

As we crept up the stone steps toward the front door, looking anything but subtle, and even less like we were actually supposed to be there, I was hissing instructions at Susie.

“If he gets home, just say that you’re helping me cook,” I demanded, my voice low and secretive. “If I hear the key in the door, I’m going to try to get you out the back door before he gets in, so that we don’t even have to explain your presence. I’d rather not have you in the house at all when he comes in, okay? I don’t see how he could have a problem with it, but I don’t want to deal with it if I don’t have to. So if I tell you to go, don’t argue with me and just go!”

“Okay, okay,” she muttered in an exasperated tone. “God, you sound like we’re going to murder the president or something. Calm down!”

Susie was right. This was no big deal, and I was blowing it out of proportion. I wasn’t lying, though, when I said that I didn’t want to have to explain Susie’s presence to Marcus. Dealing with Marcus was difficult enough, at times. And though it shouldn’t really be a big deal if he saw her in his house, the potential always existed that he would make a mountain out of a molehill. Unfortunately for me, I would be the one having to face the consequences.

“Let’s just try to get you out of here before he comes home,” I finally answered. “And try not to mess things up. Leave everything in its place because Marcus is a neat freak and super orderly about the things in his office.”

“Fine,” she ground out. “Can we just go inside already? This whole sneaking around thing is going to be a lot easier if we’re not in plain sight.”

I giggled inwardly at that, and reached above my head to the hanging planter where he’d told me he kept a key. I felt around gently, and found it without any trouble. When I slipped it into the lock, it went in without argument, and after a moment we were safely in the foyer.

Susie looked around, awed at the sight. “Wow, when you say he’s rich you’re not kidding,” she observed breathlessly. “This place is almost as nice as my parents’ house in the city.”

I grabbed her hand and towed her toward the office, where we were going to being our mission. “We don’t have time for you to stand around gaping, Suz, it’s not like you’ve never seen a huge house before. The quicker we get started, the quicker we’ll be finished, and the quicker you can get out of here!”

I dropped my bags of groceries at the door to the office and reached slowly for the doorknob, biting my lip, my heart pounding against my chest. Marcus didn’t have any kind of alarm system in his house, but what if he’d secured his office in some way? What if there were cameras recording what went on inside? What if the door was locked? A million other ridiculous thoughts raced through my mind as I reached for the doorknob, as doubt began take over. Before I had the chance to back away and rethink the whole snooping mission, Susie decided to take control of the situation.

“Oh for God’s sake,” she hissed, reaching past me and shoving the door open. I watched it swing inward, shocked at Susie’s boldness, and froze, waiting for an alarm to start sounding or flashing red laser beams about the room in warning.

Instead, there was nothing but a deep and chilling silence in the house. No blaring sirens sounded, no laser beams flashed.

It was clear that we were free to move about the house at our own leisure.

“Well I guess that’s that,” I whispered. “We’re in.” With that, I remembered that we were in a hurry, and took a couple of quick steps into the office. Susie followed, and we looked around, taking stock of our environment. It was decorated in the same way as the rest of the house – deep, rich woods, burgundy carpets, and plush red curtains. All four walls were lined with ceiling-high bookshelves, though the room was dominated by the largest desk I had ever seen.

Everything was neat and tidy, put perfectly in its place.