Scandalous (9 page)

There was no such thing as a secret at Cambridge. Like all universities it was a hotbed of gossip and intrigue. Within a month of their first tryst in the St. Michael’s wine cellar, news of Professor Dexter’s love affair with his star pupil began to spread. Rumors in the Senior Common Room became whispers at high table. Soon every science fellow in the university knew—or thought they knew—about Dexter’s latest extramarital escapade. Among Sasha’s friends, however, the affair was still a deadly secret. As instructed by Theo, Sasha had told nobody, not even
Georgia. The Chinese wall between fellows and undergraduates meant that the gossip was effectively contained. Theo got to bask in the envy of his peers, safe in the knowledge that nothing could be proved against him, while Sasha found herself becoming more and more isolated from her friends, unable to confide in them or share what was rapidly becoming the most important part of her life.

As for Theresa Dexter, cocooned by her own blind love and distracted by the twin imperatives of her Shakespeare research and her efforts to conceive, such whispers as did reach her ears were dismissed as malicious nonsense. Theresa was used to other women fancying her husband. But as for Theo having an affair, well that was just nonsense. Theo loved her. They loved each other. Besides, why would he want an affair when their sex life was undergoing such a renaissance? Recently it was like they were newlyweds again. He could barely keep his hands off her.

“I can’t bear it. How can it be summer already?”

Sasha lay her head back against the picnic blanket and gazed up at the cloudless blue sky. Theo had driven her out to Houghton Mill, an idyllic village about a forty-minute drive northwest of Cambridge, for a romantic afternoon. Keen to discuss her latest research findings, Sasha had brought her laptop with her. Theo, needless to say, had other ideas. Unfolding the blanket in a secluded field, hidden from the lane by a high hedge on one side and a thicket of beech trees on the other, he’d asked her to take her top off and started taking pictures; from the front, from the side, and (his favorite) from behind, a glorious shot of her naked back with Sasha looking shyly at the camera over one shoulder. That had got him so hard he’d had to take her on the spot, bringing her to climax after climax with his mouth and hands before finally allowing himself to come. A light lunch of champagne
and smoked salmon sandwiches had restored both their strength, after which they made love again with noisily blissful abandon. It made a nice change from sneaking around in Theo’s rooms at college, always half-listening for a knock at the door.

“I know.” Rolling onto his stomach, Theo picked seeds out of Sasha’s hair. “Every year seems to go quicker than the last. This term was over in a blink.”

“It’s all right for you,” moaned Sasha. “At least you get to stay here and carry on with your work. I’m banished from the lab for
fourteen weeks
.”

She made it sound like a prison sentence.

“Oh, so it’s the Cavendish you’ll be missing? Not me?” It was childish, but Theo felt piqued.

“I’ll miss both of you,” said Sasha truthfully. “More than you know.”

The thought of going home to Frant for the long summer filled Sasha with despair. Of course the village was still lovely. And she knew how much her father was looking forward to taking her around to the Abergavenny Arms and pumping her for information on St. Michael’s and her friends and the progress she’d made on her research. Sasha still loved her dad as much as ever, but the prospect of their long-awaited chat made her sad. Intellectually she was now so far ahead of Don; it was impossible to talk to him about her studies in any meaningful way. As for her personal life, the one thing she longed to share with her parents—her relationship with Theo—was completely off limits. Sasha and her father had always been so close; this growing apart was painful. Most painful of all, though, was being separated from her beloved research laboratory. And, of course, from Theo.

Sasha knew he’d agreed to start IVF with his wife, against her doctor’s advice and quite clearly against his own wishes. It was incredible to her how Theo could be so strong in all the other aspects of his life but so weak when it came to Theresa’s bullying.

But maybe I shouldn’t call it weakness. Compassion, that’s what it is. He knows how desperately she wants a child and he’s too softhearted to refuse her. Especially when she keeps blackmailing him with her depression, threatening to kill herself all the time. I don’t know how women like that live with themselves.

Theo had assured her that the chances of them actually conceiving a child were nil. That it was all a question of managing Theresa’s mental illness. That when she was well enough and able to take the blow, he would begin the process of leaving her. By then, hopefully, Sasha would have graduated. Theo would no longer officially be her professor. Everything would be easier.

Even so, the thought of leaving him in Cambridge for the summer, knowing that he was sharing a bed with his wife, was a bitter pill to swallow.

“It hurts me as much as it does you,” Theo was fond of telling her. “You can’t think I
enjoy
sleeping with Theresa?” Sasha tried to take comfort in his words, but it wasn’t easy. Part of the problem was that she’d never actually
seen
Theo’s wife. There were no photos of Theresa in his rooms at St. Michael’s, and Mrs. Dexter never stopped by the college to see her husband. In one way, of course, Sasha was thankful for that. But in another, it made it easier to fill the wife-shaped void with some supermodel-beautiful goddess of Heidi Klum–like proportions. Theo always described Theresa as “ordinary” or even “plain.” But Sasha found this hard to believe. As he clearly couldn’t have married her for her personality, she simply must be beautiful. Images of the two of them together haunted Sasha nightly, to the point where they were threatening to disrupt her research. She had to get a grip.

“Here. I wanted to show you something.”

Still naked, the sun dancing on her pale, now lightly freckled skin, Sasha leaned forward and pulled her laptop out of its case. Turning it on, her fingers raced nimbly across the keyboard, pulling up a string of impenetrable graphs and equations.

“You’re not serious. Now?” Theo groaned. Sometimes Sasha’s passion for physics was too much, even for him. The summer holiday would provide a welcome break from her relentless enthusiasm. Not to mention a chance to make some progress on his own work. It was a little unnerving how much more productive his nineteen-year-old girlfriend was than he.

“Please, darling. It’ll only take a minute,” she cajoled. “I don’t want to overreact. I mean, I mustn’t get ahead of myself. But I feel as if I’ve stumbled on something really important. Remember, I told you on Tuesday?”

Theo scratched his head, then his balls.
Tuesday. Tuesday…we had a supervision at noon. Can’t remember what it was about. Then I fucked her on the couch. Was that Tuesday?
Reluctantly he focused his attention on the screen of Sasha’s computer.

Five minutes later, he was still staring at it.

And five minutes after that.

Was it possible?
He read the equations again and again. Each time the adrenaline in his veins coursed faster and faster.
Jesus Christ.

“What do you think?” Sasha’s voice was so tentative that at first he didn’t hear her. “Theo?” She tapped him on the shoulder. “You’ve gone awfully quiet. I said, ‘What do you think?’”

Theo’s mind was racing. Shock, excitement, and disbelief at what he was reading made it hard to find the right words. Unless he’d made some very fundamental misunderstanding—which he might have done; he was tired after all—Sasha had stumbled across a theory so simple, and yet so radically
new
…it could change the face of modern astrophysics. No, not could.
Would.
More than that, it would alter the way that human beings thought of space. Of their own planet’s place in, and relation to, the universe. Theo Dexter could have worked twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, for the rest of his life, and he would never, ever, not in his wildest fantasies, hope to come up with something so brilliant. Blindingly,
obviously
brilliant. Like all
profound ideas, once he’d grasped it Theo couldn’t imagine why it had taken someone this long to come up with it. But there it was, in front of him on Sasha’s computer, in black and white: the theory of his dreams.

And all at once, sitting naked in that field, it came to him.

I could claim it. I could say that it was my idea. Who would know?

A theory like this would make him as a physicist. It would silence all the envious mutterings about him being a phony academic, a pretty face with a head for numbers but not a
real
scientist. It would change his life. But would he get away with it?

Why not? It’d be my word against hers, a professor against an infatuated undergraduate.

“Theo!” Sasha’s voice brought him reluctantly back to reality. She’d pulled on a T-shirt and panties, but still had that flushed, tousled, postcoital look that never failed to give him a hard-on. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” He closed the file, making an effort to keep his tone casual. “There’s some interesting stuff here. Definitely.”

Sasha’s face lit up.

“But it does need work. Particularly in the first section, some of your equations look shaky to me. Given how much you’re extrapolating from those foundations…hey, don’t look so crestfallen.” He kissed her. “This is good stuff, Sasha. You can’t expect to get it pitch-perfect on a first draft.”

“I suppose not.”

“Look, I tell you what. Make me a copy of it. If you like I’ll look at the problems in more detail over the summer.”

“Would you really have time?”

“Well, not really. But I’ll make time,” he said magnanimously, pulling on his jeans and buttoning up his shirt. Sasha looked so utterly ravishable he was half tempted to screw her again. But until he had that document safely in his possession, he knew he wouldn’t be able to think about anything else.

“I’ll e-mail it to you when we get back to college,” said Sasha.

“No, no, don’t do that,” said Theo hastily. “I hate e-mail. Just stick it on a disc and drop it in my mail slot before you go.”

Sasha watched him stand up and brush the grass and dust off his clothes.

He’s so perfect. Handsome, brilliant, kind, the whole package. How on earth am I going to survive the summer without him?

Two weeks later Theresa Dexter sat at her desk at home, watching Theo scribbling feverishly at
his
desk, and said a silent prayer of thanks.

Thank you, God, for making him happy again. For bringing him back to me.

Eighteen months ago Theo had been as miserable as she’d ever known him. Theresa knew that the spiteful gibes of his fellow physicists were hurtful to him. She also suspected that her husband felt the absence of a child in their lives much more keenly than he admitted to her. But she felt sure that his depression was more than that. Something was wrong, and as hard as she tried to discover what it was and to reconnect with him, she couldn’t.

Then miraculously, around Christmas of that year, Theo’s spirits had lifted. He still came home tired. But he
left
home full of the joys of spring, bouncing out of the house like Tigger. It made Theresa’s heart sing to watch him. By the spring, their sex life had begun to revive, and in the last six months it had positively exploded. It was like dating a teenager, the energy, the
enthusiasm
…Theresa’s hands were shaking when she screwed up her courage and asked Theo if they could try IVF. Ever since the meeting with Dr. Thomas, he’d been implacable on that score: it was expensive, and it wouldn’t work. But to Theresa’s delighted amazement, he agreed right away, even taking her out to their favorite curry house to celebrate the decision with chicken
jalfrezi and two large Cobras. Walking home hand in hand, happily bloated on naan and beer, Theresa realized what had been missing in her marriage for so long: fun. She didn’t know what had wrought the change in Theo, and she didn’t care.
We’re going to be happy again.