Sheila managed a small smile. “What would I do without you?”
Her friend reached over to give her a hug. “You’ll never have to find out.”
The entire conversation was worked out in her head by the end of the day, but Sheila honestly had no idea if she’d actually be able to say the words. Assuming she even got the chance.
The little red light on the cordless extension in her kitchen was flashing. Setting her purse on the counter, she grabbed the phone. She had messages-just one, as it turned out, but it was the one she was waiting for.
“I’m home,” Morris’s recorded voice said through the speaker. Finally. “Sorry I didn’t tell you I was going out of town. It came up pretty quick. The Japanese investors wanted to meet in Vancouver-oh, hell, you don’t give a horse’s ass about that. Call me back, let me know if it’s all right to come over.”
It was more than all right. Twenty minutes later, Morris was ringing her doorbell.
She opened the door to see him standing there with the rain at his back, his dark hair plastered to his scalp, face haggard from a long day. But his smile was genuine and, to Sheila, he looked like Christmas morning.
He stayed on the porch, not moving. Without hesitating, Sheila stepped outside in her bare feet. He met her halfway, wrapping his arms around her and nuzzling her hair.
“Hi, darlin’,” he said softly in her ear. It was the best sound in the world. “I’m sorry I went AWOL on you. I’ve been an ass.”
Sheila pulled back and looked up at him. His blue eyes were kind. She stood on her tiptoes to kiss him. “Let’s talk in the kitchen. I ordered Thai food but it’ll be another thirty minutes.”
They sat across from each other at Sheila’s round kitchen table. His shoes were kicked off, his jacket thrown carelessly over the back of his chair. He had taken both her hands in his and was massaging her palms gently with his thumbs.
As she looked at him now, even though he was disheveled and tired, Sheila’s heart swelled. “Should we talk about what happened Saturday afternoon?”
Morris’s gaze dropped to the table. He withdrew his hands quickly, placing them in his lap. Something he did when he was nervous. “Of course we should.”
“It was my fault.” She was glad her voice didn’t waver. “You were right about me.”
“Oh, darlin’, I shouldn’t have-”
“Let me speak for a moment.” Sheila took a deep breath. “I was aggressive. You were right. You hit it on the head. I was aggressive because…” She paused, searching for the right words. “Because that’s what I can be. In bed. Not always, but sometimes.”
“Well, so am I!” Morris said, incredulous. “Most of the time, anyway. I don’t know what the hell happened. I’ve been waiting a year to get into your panties and the moment you drop them, I fold like a burrito. I think I was just nervous.”
“But I made you that way.” She kept her eyes steady on his face. “Because I held out for so long. Of course you think I’m shy about sex. The truth is, I’m not.”
“Okay, then. Well, that’s good to know. I’m relieved, actually.”
“Don’t be. There’s more.”
Morris sat back in his chair, his eyes searching her face. “What is it? You trying to tell me something?”
He had the gift of reading people, which made him so good at his job. “Yes. But I don’t know how to say it.”
The phone at Morris’s hip rang.
“Shit,” he said, detaching it from his belt and checking the call display. “Honey, I’m sorry, I gotta take this. It’s one of the Japanese investors-he’s so goddamned squirrelly. I’ll just be a minute. Okay if I use your office?” She nodded, and he ducked out of the kitchen and into her study, closing the door behind him.
He was gone for exactly eighteen minutes. It felt more like eighteen years. When he finally came back into the room, she hadn’t moved from her chair. She saw the amused look on his face.
“Hey, I can’t believe how big Mercury is!” Morris said, chuckling. He was referring to the goldfish that lived in an oversize bowl on her desk. “I gave him some food because he’s looking a little skinny. You might want to get him a bigger bowl, because he’s-”
Sheila couldn’t hold back any longer. “Morris, I’m a sex addict.” The words, once unleashed, came out in a rabbity rush she couldn’t control. “I’ve been in therapy to deal with it. And for the most part, I was doing okay. But then I messed up. I had an affair with one of my students. I’m so sorry. I love you.”
Morris stood in stunned silence, his phone still in his hand. The grin faded from his face, so slowly it was almost comical. He reached out, placing a beefy hand on the counter to steady himself.
“Hoo-ah.” Morris’s voice was heavy in the silence of the kitchen. “Well now. That’s a big problem.”
As if to punctuate his words, the doorbell chimed. The food had arrived.
CHAPTER 11
T he documentary chronicling Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram’s experiment on obedience to authority figures was at the halfway point. The video was part of Sheila’s undergraduate social psych course, and she always found it interesting to observe her students’ faces in the dim lights of the lecture hall as they watched it. A handful of kids snoozed; nothing could be done about that. But most were fascinated by the evidence that so many normal, morally conscious people could be coerced into severely electroshocking another human being simply because a person in authority told them to.
It was endlessly fascinating what people would do under pressure.
Ethan was in his usual seat in the first row, his face calm as he watched the giant screen above Sheila’s head. The son of a bitch looked well rested, as if he’d slept twelve hours the night before without a single disturbing dream. If only Sheila could say the same. She was horrified to see the bags under her eyes when she woke up that morning. She knew she looked like hell, because it was exactly how she felt.
She hated Ethan Wolfe. If she could hook him up to a machine and electroshock him with a thousand volts, she would. She had no doubt that he was a sociopath, a classic antisocial personality just as Marianne Chang had suggested. His superficial charm and extreme sense of entitlement mirrored Ted Bundy’s. Looking at him now, the comparison to the infamous serial killer didn’t seem at all absurd.
The student with the long, blond ponytail sitting next to Ethan murmured something in his ear, and he favored her with a smile. Even in the darkened room, Sheila could make out the faint blush that spread across the girl’s apple cheeks. Her resemblance to the late Diana St. Clair was striking.
Sheila was struck by a creepy sense of deja vu. As she thought back on it now, hadn’t Ethan had a thing with the swimmer? He’d never mentioned it, and Sheila had never asked him, but hadn’t she picked up on something back then? Overheard something, maybe? With a familiar pang the memory flitted out of her consciousness as quickly as it had entered.
Not that Sheila thought Ethan was capable of murder. Or did she? Did the police even talk to him? He’d been Diana’s TA, after all. They’d spent a lot of time alone together. He’d proctored at least two of her early writes and had provided extra tutoring at the swimmer’s request…
Sheila shook the thought out of her head. The last thing she needed was to become paranoid on top of everything else.
Checking her watch, Sheila walked over to the blackboard and jotted down the chapters to be read for next week’s class. Drowsy heads popped up immediately at the sounds of her chalk squeaking, and a few of the faces showed panic. Sheila smiled reassuringly at no one in particular. The smile would make the students feel better, even if there was nothing behind it.
Ethan caught her smile and grinned.
She shuddered.
Morris’s car was in her driveway when she pulled up to her townhouse. Her heart soared, though her stomach knotted like a ball of twine. She hadn’t seen or spoken to him in five days, not since the conversation where she’d finally told him everything. Were they still getting married? She was about to find out.
