Just Like a Man (37 page)

"Hannah," he said, opening his eyes, "I swear to you, I never meant for it to turn out like this."

She chuckled morosely. "Oh, I'm sure you didn't. I'm sure you never anticipated getting caught."

"No, I mean the way it turned out between us. You and me. I never meant to fall in love with you the way I did."

Oh, my. Had she thought she was in pain before? That was nothing compared to what she felt after hearing that. Forget the knife in the back. This one went straight through her heart.

"You don't love me," she told him. Because if he'd loved her, he would have been honest with her. Of course, he wasn't the only one who hadn't been honest, was he? she taunted herself. But her dishonesty hadn't been nearly as damaging as his had been. And when she'd been dishonest with him, she hadn't realized she loved him. Now, though…

Oh, God.
Now
.

"Yes, I do love you," he said.

She shook her head. "No, you don't." And before he could deny it again, she added—again, since he still hadn't answered her—"So what else do you know about me?"

"There's no reason for us to go into this," he said, not answering her again.

"Oh, I think there's every reason." Then she fired point-blank. "Where did I live before moving to Indianapolis? My address, I mean, not just the city of Chicago."

He sighed heavily, a sound of surrender, of resignation.

"Six twenty-four Peabody Street, Naperville, Illinois, 60540."

Heat stabbed Hannah in the belly as he recited perfectly her old address. "And before that?"

He sighed again, but there was weariness mixed in with the sound this time, too. "You had a loft apartment in Evanston, near the Northwestern campus."

"Address?"

"Thirty-two fifteen Organdy Street. A brick Victorian. You lived on the top floor."

Wow. It was even worse than she'd thought. He really had been thorough. "What's my favorite restaurant?" she asked.

"Well, you seem to eat at the Blue Iris Cafe an awful lot," he told her.

Yes, she did. As a matter of fact. "And what did I do every Saturday afternoon during summer vacation this year?"

"You had a ceramics class. That damned dragonfly vase never did turn out as well as you would have liked."

Oh, God…

"Where was I born?" she asked him, even though she knew if he already knew those other things about her, he'd surely know that.

And he did. "Tampa, Florida."

"What were my parents' names?"

"William and Audrey Frost."

The next question she wanted to ask was the one she most dreaded hearing the answer to. Because if Michael got this one right, then it would be clear he knew far more about Hannah than Hannah wanted anyone to know. Least of all the man with whom she had fallen in love. Because she knew then that she did indeed love Michael. That could be the only reason for why this hurt as badly as it did.

"What," she began slowly, "did my father do for a living?"

When he didn't answer her right away, a brief, gasping flicker of hope sputtered to life in her chest. Maybe he didn't know, she thought. Maybe her father had covered their tracks so well that Michael would think he really was vaguely self-employed, as she'd told him that night at his house. Maybe Michael had no idea that her father had been—

"A con man," he said softly. "Your father was a con man."

And that little flicker of hope in Hannah's chest stuttered right out.

"Con artist," she corrected him automatically. Because if there was one thing her father had insisted he was, it was an artist. He'd told her often that only people of exceedingly gifted qualities could rip folks off with the skill and finesse he had, leaving them so befuddled, it was months before they realized just how badly they'd been soaked.

"So if you know who my parents are, and what my father did for a living, then I guess you know they got divorced shortly after I was born."

"I do know that, yes."

"And you know I haven't seen my mother since."

"Yes."

"So you know she never told me the reason they didn't have another child was because they loved me so much."

He said nothing for a moment, then, very quietly, "Yes."

"And you know I don't have a Great-Aunt Esmeralda," she said.

He nodded slowly. "Yeah. I know about that."

"Or a Cousin Chloe."

"Yes."

"Or a Nana Frost or a best friend Patsy."

"Yes."

"You've known since the beginning."

"Yes."

Hannah nodded, feeling sicker still. "So then you know I lied about all of that. About the storybook childhood and the picture-perfect family and the Norman Rockwell holidays."

He said nothing in response.

"And being the smart guy that you are," she continued, "I guess you know that the reason I made all that stuff up was because I had such a crummy childhood and I'm ashamed of it."

"Hannah, there's no reason for you to—"

"And here the reason we met," she interrupted him, because she didn't want to hear him make excuses for her, especially not when she didn't even want to do that for herself, "was because I called your son to the office after he told what I thought were enormous lies. Bet you think I'm a real hypocrite, huh?"

More silence met her comment.

"Although, really, now that I think about it, I imagine what you've probably been thinking is… well… that I'm pretty pathetic."

"Hannah, that isn't true at all," he said quickly.

But she ignored him, since she knew he was lying. "No wonder you thought I'd be such a pushover. You're probably surprised I held out as long as I did."

"Hannah…"

"I think you should go, Michael. You're probably late getting Alex anyway."

"Alex will have more time to spend with his friend. He'll be delighted I'm not there on time," he said in that swift, certain voice. "I'm not leaving yet, Hannah. I'm not going anywhere until we hash this out."

"There's nothing to hash out," she said, feeling even more swift and certain than he sounded. "I think it's all perfectly clear. You misled me. You used me to get through to someone else. I foolishly believed something I should have known better than to believe." She looked at him again. "So I guess were even, huh? Except that you never loohshly believed me, because you already knew you were being misled. You just let me go on talking because you didn't want me to know you already knew. Because if you'd told me the truth, then you never could have gotten close to Adrian, could you?"

He studied her in silence for another moment, as if he were trying very hard to figure out what he should say. Finally, though, he told her, "Hannah, you are so far off the mark here, I'm not sure I'll ever be able to pull you back onto it."

"Then don't try," she said, giving him the out he needed. "Just go, Michael. And let's just pretend this never—"

She stopped herself when she heard what she was saying. Yeah, pretending had always worked for her before. She'd pretended a whole life and family for herself. This time, though, pretending just didn't seem like it was going to be quite as effective as it used to be. And it certainly wouldn't make her happy, as it had in the past.

"Just go," she repeated. "Go back to OPUS and tell them we failed in our mission." She couldn't help the strangled laugh that punctuated the comment. "With Adrian, I mean," she added. "You don't have to tell them how badly we failed at everything else. Though if everyone else at OPUS is like you, I'm sure they probably knew it before we did."

She felt the bed shift then, and the old springs groaned as Michael rose. He pulled the sheet with him, wrapping it around himself, and uncoiling it from Hannah, so that she had to reach for the quilt at the foot to cover herself again.

"I'll go," he said, turning to look at her, "but only because there's no way we can talk about this civilly tonight. We aren't finished, though, Hannah, not by a long shot."

This time Hannah was the one to remain silent as she watched Michael make his way to her bedroom door, out to where he'd left his discarded clothing heaped in piles with her own. But he halted before walking through, turning around to look at her one more time. One last time, she corrected herself. Because there was no way she was letting him back in again after this. Not into her house. Not into her life. And not into her heart, either.

"I love you, Hannah Frost," he said. "That, if little else, has been true all along."

And then he was gone. And Hannah was alone. The way she had been before she met him. Except that this time, she had the echo of his final words to haunt her. And this time, she had memories of a reality unlike anything she had ever known before. And the reality was far better than any fantasy had ever been.

So good, she knew, that fantasy would never be enough for her again.

"Hey, Harry, you know what the absolute best thing is about being self-employed?" Pax asked his personal assistant early Wednesday evening when Pax was ensconced upon the oxblood leather sofa in his home office with his laptop, and Harry was sitting at Pax's desk pretending to be fascinated by the task of answering Pax's correspondence.

Without looking up, Harry replied, "The reeking piles of filthy lucre?"

"Besides that," Pax said.

"No," Harry replied. "Do tell. I am all atwitter wanting to know. What
is
the best thing about being self-employed? Because having always been at the mercy of the mendacious promises and capricious whims of often despotic employers, I wouldn't have any experience with such a thing myself."

Implicit in that statement, Pax was sure—aside from Harry's calling him a lying, fickle tyrant, he meant—was Harry's not caring one whit what the best thing about being self-employed was. But that was okay. It had been a rhetorical question anyway. Pax was going to answer it whether Harry cared or not.

"It's being able to work at home," he told his assistant.

Harry took a break from feigning an interest in his work and gave that some thought. "Considering the fact that your home is located in the same building as your place of employment, thereby making them one and the same, I'd have to conclude that your choice of the best thing about being self-employed is… oh, what's that delightfully American term I'm looking for… ?" He pressed his fingers to his forehead and made a series of tsking sounds before looking up again with an
A-ha!
sort of expression.
"Lame.
That's the word."

Pax rolled his eyes. "The fact that my home and office are in the same building is beside the point, Harry."

"Is it?"

"Yes."

"I'm sorry, then. I must have missed the point."

"A not unusual occurrence with you," Pax said.

"Mm," Harry replied.

"The point," Pax told him, "is that if I don't want to put on a monkey suit and go down to my office, I don't have to."

Harry gave that some thought, too. Or, at least, pretended to. With Harry it was always hard to tell. "But considering the fact that you're the owner and CEO of the company you work for, why should you feel compelled to put on a monkey suit—or go down to your office, for that matter—in the first place? And the fact that you're working on a Wednesday when the rest of your employees are at home with their loved ones after hours leads me to also conclude that even the best thing about being self-employed—according to your own definition, I mean—isn't particularly… oh, what's that delightfully American term I'm looking for… ?" He did the head-tapping, tsking, and
A-ha!
expression thing again.
"Awesome.
That's the word." He grinned before punctuating the statement with, "Dude."