Nanny and the Professor (19 page)

Straightening her shoulders, she moved toward the closest group. But then she heard the phrase "in vitro drug metabolism". The only in vitro she'd ever read about had to do with fertility– helping a woman become pregnant.
But drug metabolism?
What did that mean? How could she contribute to a discussion on a subject of which she'd never heard? She didn't bother to stop, but simply quickened her steps straight through the dining room and pushed open the door to the kitchen.

"Hi, Cassie."

"I've just come for a refill, Nathan," she said, relieved that she remembered the host's name.

"Help yourself."

Putting more concentration into filling her glass than was necessary, Cassie kept one ear on what Nathan was saying to the young gentleman opposite him.

"That's where an energy-conversion photometer comes into play," Nathan remarked.

Cassie's nervous anxiety forced her to cast a sidelong glance at the younger man. His rapt expression and blatant excitement led her to believe that he was a graduate student rather than university faculty.

"I learned about that in my freshman year," the young man said. "Let me see if I remember. A photometer converts the radiant energy of stars, right?"

"Yes, the conversion is made into a more measurable form of energy–"

"Electricity," the younger man eagerly provided.

"Exactly," Cassie heard as she left the kitchen and retraced her steps through the dining room.

She hesitated only long enough to hear the word "ethnocentrism" from one group, and the phrase "post-modernist bourgeois liberal" from the other before she decided to flee toward the patio doors.

As she passed Joshua, he reached out and captured her wrist without halting his argument.

"But without university research," he said to Garrett, "there would never have been the discovery of the gene that predisposes a certain percentage of the population to colon cancer." He lifted one hand in an effort to emphasis his point. "You must agree that research is a benefit to society."

"I'm not disputing that. But research must be left to private industry," Garrett debated heatedly. "Colleges and universities
must
keep education their primary concern."

"Cassie, can you believe what he's saying?" Joshua asked her.

Panic rose like bile in her throat. She tried to smile, but couldn't quite make her mouth obey. Finally, she answered him with a firm shake of her head. Then she whispered, "I'm going to step outside, if you don't mind."

Without missing a beat, Joshua turned back to the man and said, "Education
is
the primary concern, and always has been. You know that. And private industry is too focused on profit margin to make any real breakthroughs that won't feed the greed..."

The night air was warm and
still,
and Cassie moved to a deserted side of the patio. She closed her eyes and inhaled the delicate scent of summer, but she could find no solace in the blessed moment of solitude or the flowery fragrance wafting on the air.

Dear God in heaven, what was she doing here? How could she possibly have tricked herself into believing she could hold her own with Joshua's peers? These were highly educated people.
People who had fancy degrees and important careers.

"Cassie."

She froze and felt a painful wrenching in her gut when she recognized Susan's sly tone. Slowly she turned and saw the woman suck deeply on a cigarette.

After she exhaled, Susan said, "Come give us your opinion. We're discussing The Scarlet Letter and Hawthorne's hidden messages revealing the evil of the human soul."

Cassie wasn't completely stupid. She knew The Scarlet Letter was a classic piece of literature, that a great American novelist named Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote it, and that it had something to do with an adulterous woman. But she did have to admit she'd never read it.

She probably would have.
If she'd stayed in high school.

How could she give any kind of intelligent opinion about a book she'd never even read?

Her smile was jerky, she could feel it. "I'm not feeling well," she said, grasping the first excuse she could think of.

Susan's grin held not one iota of concern. "You look like you've eaten some bad sushi."

"Maybe a walk in the garden will help." Cassie hurried down the steps and rushed out into the safety of the darkness without looking back.

Once in the shadows of the leafy trees, she slowed her pace. The perspiration on her brow felt cool, but she swiped at it with trembling fingers.

Haunting questions welled up to torment her. How could she ever have thought she could date Joshua? How could she have seriously believed that she and a man like him could have anything in common? How could she have let herself become involved in this situation? It was embarrassing.
Humiliating.

After walking a few hundred feet, she noticed the heels of her shoes began to sink in the soft and sandy ground. The radiant moonlight glowed on the glassy surface of the pond. Cassie wished her emotional state was as calm as the beautiful scene before her.

A fat toad croaked in the marsh reeds, and when Cassie's presence frightened it, it hopped into the pond with a loud splash. She watched the toad as it swam away, the murky water sluicing over its head.

In Joshua's world of radiant moonlight, crystal goblets, and intellectual debate, she was like that toad: mossy green, bumpy, and ugly. She didn't fit in with the people of his circle. Just as most of the people at that party would find that wart-ridden toad distasteful, they found her distasteful.

She had nothing in common with those people.
Nothing.
She couldn't interact with them, not in any way that would interest them, anyway. Oh, she could explain the most efficient way to pack groceries into a sack: all the cold items together, canned goods on the bottom, breads, cookies and crackers on top. It might seem intuitive, but many store clerks she'd worked with hadn't been able to grasp the concept. Or she could discuss the best technique for soldering a wire to a circuit board. It took a light touch to get just the right amount of solder. Or how to measure a woman for the perfect fitting bra; Cassie would bet her last dollar that
Susan
, just like eight out of ten other women, was walking around wearing the wrong size bra. But Susan wouldn't be interested in anything Cassie might know. Neither would the large majority of those at that party. One quick stroll through the house had shown Cassie she couldn't even begin to understand the things they found to be gratifying or engaging or worthwhile.

This whole situation was hopeless. Joshua existed in a whole different world than she did. His days were filled with scientific hypotheses and campus classrooms filled with students, with staff meetings and lectures and cocktail parties. While hers consisted of finding and keeping a job,
any
job, that usually paid next to nothing and involved long hours and strenuous labor in order to make sure her brother was fed and didn't have to sleep in the back seat of her beat up Chevy.

The turmoil roiling inside her was troubling enough to have her burying her face in the palms of her hands.

Hell, it was almost too easy to imagine some of those people in that big fancy house laughing at her, shunning her. Joshua would never want someone his friends didn't accept. Oh, he wanted her, she knew that. They'd nearly eaten each other alive tonight before this stupid party. But once they'd slept together, once he'd sated that hunger he had for her, then where would they be? She certainly couldn't engage him in any sort of fascinating discourse. How could she when she didn't have two brain cells to rub together? It wouldn't take him long before he'd see that for himself.

How had she ever fooled herself into thinking she could have a relationship with Joshua?

It had all started with that statement Joshua had made. "We can work it out," he'd said, implying that there wasn't anything that should stop them from exploring the powerful attraction they felt for one another. She'd actually let herself begin to believe it might be true. The fantasies she'd created in her head had been like some highly addictive drug that had her wanting more.
And more.

And then there was that shopping trip to the mall where the salesclerk had mistaken them for a real family. The boys had loved it and Joshua had played along, letting Andy and Eric have their fun.

The trip to the park had been the final clincher. They had played together, had laughed together, just like a real family. Cassie had let herself dream that maybe they could be a real family.

Above everything else, though, it was that sexual chemistry that continued to simmer, melting away her powers of reason.

All these things had set her up for a huge fall, had lulled her into a sense of hope for the future– a sense of hope that was utterly and totally false.

When Joshua had made that statement, he'd had no idea what he was talking about. No idea! The problem that loomed between them wasn't something as simple as a bad past relationship. The problem between them was like a stone wall that was too wide, too tall, and too thick for either one of them to scale.

And this problem wasn't going away.
Ever.
She'd always be a high school dropout. No matter what she might accomplish, she'd always bear that horrible moniker like some ugly scar.

She slid her hands down over her face and pressed her fingers to her lips. How could she have let this happen? She was on a date with the man who wrote out her paycheck. She'd kissed him, touched him,
allowed
him to touch her. How had she gotten herself in this position? That question was sure to drive her mad before this was over. But, she thought again, how could she? How could she let herself fall in love with
–

Her eyes grew wide. Dear God in heaven! She'd fallen in love with Joshua. Her throat convulsed as she dragged air into her lungs. Thoughts whirled through her mind faster than she could comprehend them.

Clenching shut her
eyes,
she pressed tight fists against her temples to stop the questions, the criticism, and the self-condemnation that raced around in her head.

"You're a fool!
A stupid,
stupid
fool!"
Her harsh whisper carried on the still air over the pond. A fool, she silently repeated.

Finally she lowered her arms to her sides, her hands still balled into fists. Although she stared off over the dark water, she didn't see the scene before her. Her mind became as calm and serene as the pond's still surface.

She'd been an idiot to believe that she and Joshua could ever share any kind of relationship besides that of employer and employee. There was no way she could be involved with him and keep her secret, and there was no way, if he learned it, that he would want to have anything else to do with her. He certainly wouldn't want her taking care of his son, and he wouldn't want her in his life at all.

She needed this job.
For Eric's sake.

But even more than that, she needed her pride. Without her self-respect, she'd have nothing.
Absolutely nothing.

She must make Joshua believe that she wasn't interested in him in any way except as her employer. But how was she going to do that after the way she'd behaved so wantonly with him this evening? Had she really suggested they skip the party? And do what?
she
viciously wondered. Lay down in the weeds and skunk cabbage with her skirt hiked up around her waist?

Hot tears welled in her eyes when she realized she would have done it in a heartbeat. Had Joshua said the word, she'd have made love to him right there on the muddy, mosquito-ridden pond bank. How trashy was that?

The mere thought of his mouth on her made her blood heat and race through her veins like liquid lava. No one had ever made her feel so womanly, so purely sexual.

Rubbing her fingers across her forehead, she banished the image from her mind. She had to set things right. She had to protect Eric. She had to protect herself.