Susan Mallery - In Bed With The Devil

“Leaving.” She didn’t bother to look at him.

“All of you?”

She nodded. “We’ll finish the work elsewhere.”

Work? He didn’t care about the work. He cared about Meri. “Where is she? She can’t leave. She has to stay the month.”

He’d known that from the beginning. That she was stuck here, too. Just like him. They couldn’t escape each other. Hadn’t that been the point?

Betina looked at him. “She doesn’t have to stay here. That was just something she told you. Hunter’s donation has nothing to do with her. It was always about his friends.”

She’d lied about having to stay? Why? So he wouldn’t force her to leave? To make him think he had time?

“Where is she?” he asked again.

“I’m not going to tell you. If she wants you to know, she’ll get in touch with you herself.”

He didn’t understand any of this. Why had Meri been here in the first place? What had she wanted? Why leave now?

“Is it Andrew?” he asked. “Is she upset because I told her what he was?”

Betina’s expression was almost pitying. “It’s a guy thing, right? This failure to comprehend the most basic of human emotions? It has to be. I can’t believe you’re honestly that stupid.” She smiled, then shook her head. “It always comes down to smart and stupid. How strange.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Nothing,” she told him. “Meri came here because she thought she wanted closure. She got it, in a way. She’s been in love with you all these years. But the man wasn’t really you. He was someone better. The person she thought you would be. Meri embraces life. She loves and is loved. She cares about people. She thought you were all those things, too. But she was wrong. And now she’s gone.”

Meri loved him? She couldn’t. Not after what he’d done. Not after he’d let her down time after time.

“She can’t,” he whispered.

“That’s what I keep telling her, but does she listen?” Betina closed the box. “I’m done here. Colin and I will be gone within the hour. Then you can have the house to yourself. You’ve got a few weeks left, right? I hope you enjoy your time here.”

She started to leave. He grabbed her arm. “You can’t leave it like that. There has to be more.”

“Why? You don’t want there to be more. It’s not like you really care about her. She’s just Hunter’s little sister, right? An annoying responsibility. Your problem is you didn’t know what you had until you lost it, and now she’s gone forever. Goodbye, Jack.”

He released her and let her go because there was nothing left to say.

Fine. He could be fine his last few weeks here. It was just three weeks, and then he’d go back to Texas and bury himself in his work. He would stay busy and he would forget. He was good at forgetting.

Three days later, Jack knew he was damn close to slipping into madness. The house was empty. Too empty. The silence mocked him. Worse, he found himself missing Meri’s nerd friends. He missed the arguments about string theory and the scraps of paper with equations that had dotted every surface. He missed walking into a room and not understanding a word of what was being said despite the fact that everyone was speaking English.

He missed the closeness, the way Meri bullied everyone to get outside, to live life. He missed her insisting on a better telescope because the stars were so beautiful. He missed the sound of her voice, her laughter, the way her body moved. He missed her quirky sense of humor, her brilliance and how her smile could light up a room. He missed her.

She wasn’t the teenager he’d known all those years ago. The young woman who had intrigued him and at the same time scared the hell out of him. Not just because she was Hunter’s sister but because there was a quality about her that warned him she would expect only the best of herself and those in her world.

For a while he’d thought maybe he could live up to those expectations, but then Hunter had gotten sick and he’d known he would only hold her back.

He’d let her go for a thousand reasons that made sense at the time. She didn’t need him. She had to grow up on her own. She was better off without him. He was afraid. They’d both been so young and his feelings for Meri had been confused. So he’d walked away and stayed away. He’d kept tabs on her from a distance. He’d taken the coward’s way out.

He hadn’t expected to ever see her again. Then she’d been here and he’d been thrown. She’d wanted to seduce him and he knew he couldn’t let that happen. Because of what he owed both her and Hunter.

He walked into the empty living room and stared at the perfectly arranged furniture. It was all so comfortable. He wanted to throw things, break things, mess it all up. Because life wasn’t tidy or comfortable. It was a pain in the ass.

He turned to leave, then spotted a DVD case on the floor, by the sofa. Someone had dropped it. Or left it on purpose. Meri? Betina? Hunter?

He picked it up and stared at the plain black cover. Someone had stuck on a piece of paper covered with a single word.

Hunter.

Against his better judgment, Jack walked to the DVD player and put in the disk. Then he turned on the television and braced himself for the pain.

Someone had taken the time to transfer Hunter’s home movies, he thought as he watched snippets of the first confusing days at Harvard. There were shots of Hunter’s friends. All of them. And Meri. She was always hanging on the fringes.

She’d been the one to show them around, list the best places to get pizza at three in the morning. She’d been there since she was a kid.

There were shots of snowball fights and a late-night party by a bonfire.

He leaned back against the sofa and lost himself in the images. A vacation here, a camping trip there. Seven guys who had become friends. No. Brothers. Brothers he hadn’t seen or talked to in years.

The scene shifted to a yacht vacation they’d all taken one spring break. The camera panned to show the guys stretched out in the sun after a very late night. Meri walked on deck and paused, looking awkward and unhappy. She turned her gaze to him. He had his eyes closed and didn’t see the look on her face. The one that clearly showed she loved him.

He felt it then, the cold slice of pain that was almost familiar. It took him a second to place it and then he remembered the knife attack in a Central American jungle. At first there had been nothing-just a breath of expectation, followed by the warm sensation of liquid as his blood flowed out. Then there had been the sharp sting that had quickly grown into agony.

It was the same today. As if razors had sliced his heart and his soul, as he realized he’d lost something precious. Something he could never replace.

He picked up his cell phone and pressed the buttons that connected him to his office.

“I don’t have anything,” Bobbi Sue snapped by way of greeting. “If you’d stop calling me, I might get a chance to find her.”

“She has to be somewhere.”

“You think I don’t know that? She turned in the rental car at the airport in Los Angeles, but she didn’t get on a plane. If she’s in a hotel somewhere, she’s using cash and a false name. I’m checking all her friends to see if they’ve used their names to register her. It’s taking time.”

He didn’t have time. He had to find her now. He’d spent every minute of the past three days thinking he had to go after her himself, but leaving meant blowing the donation, and Meri would hate him for that.

“Keep looking,” he said and hung up. To give his assistant the time she needed.

Jack stood and paced the length of the living room. He wanted to be doing the search himself, but he was trapped in this damn house. Trapped with memories and ghosts and a burning need he’d acknowledged three days too late.

He loved her. He had for a long time. In college, he’d assumed she would grow up and they’d get together. The plan had existed in the back of his mind, as if he’d known they were meant for each other. Then Hunter had died and everything had changed.

His cell rang. He reached for it.

“You found her?”

“I’m not looking for her.”

The voice was familiar. “Colin?”

“Uh-huh. So you’re looking for Meri?”

“I have my entire staff on it.”

“You won’t figure it out. Besides, what does it matter?”

“It matters more than anything.”

“I want to believe you.”

Because Colin had information. Why wouldn’t he? Meri would tell Betina where she was going and Betina would tell Colin.

“I have to find her,” Jack said hoarsely. “I love her.”

“What if that’s too little too late?”

“I’ll convince her.”

There was an excruciating minute of silence.

“I kind of believe you,” Colin said. “Okay. When your month is up there, I’ll tell you where she is.”

“What?” Jack roared. “You’ll tell me now.”

“Sorry. No. You have to stay. It’s a lot of money on the line.”

“I’ll pay them the difference myself.”

“Okay, yeah. You’re probably good for it. But leaving now violates the spirit of what Hunter was trying to do. You really think Meri will be happy about that?”

“You think she’s happy thinking I don’t care about her?”

“Good point, but I’m not going to tell you. Not until the time is up.”

The call ended. Jack picked up the coffee table and threw it through the sliding glass door. The glass shattered with a satisfyingly destructive sound.

“Dammit all to hell,” he yelled into the subsequent silence.

And no one answered.

Meri was thinking maybe she should get a dog. One of those small ones she could travel with. From her corner room at the Ritz-Carlton in Pasadena she could see down into a beautiful grassy area, with plants and paths where people walked their small dogs several times a day. At least then there would be something else alive in the room with her.

She glanced at her watch, then sighed. Her team wouldn’t arrive for another half hour, which meant time to kill. Maybe it was just her, but the days had gotten much longer in the past few weeks. The things she loved no longer made her as happy as they once had. She found it more difficult to laugh and sleep and be really excited about Colin and Betina’s announcement that they were getting married.

Not that she wasn’t thrilled for her friends. There was nothing she wanted more than their happiness. It was just…

She missed Jack. Yes, that was crazy and made her an idiot, but there it was. She missed him-his voice, his touch, his laugh. The way he took charge and wasn’t the least bit intimidated by her. She’d loved him most of her life. How was she supposed to stop loving him?

“Therapy,” she murmured as she continued to stare out the window. It had helped her before-to figure out what normal was. Maybe talking with a paid professional could help her get over Jack. Maybe she could find a really cute male therapist and do a little emotional transference, because getting over anyone else had to be so much easier than getting over Jack.

She closed her eyes against the pain. He would be gone by now. His month at Hunter’s house had ended at midnight. Had he already started back to Texas or was he just getting on the road? What was he thinking of her? Would she ever be the one who got away or was that just wishful thinking on her part? She knew he would come back for the reunion, but for now, he was gone.

There was a knock at the door. Housekeeping, she thought. Okay. That was fine. They could clean while she walked the grounds and made friends with the little dogs. Maybe an owner or two could give her some advice on which kind to get.

Jack would be a big-dog kind of guy, she thought absently. Of course, if she had his feelings to consider, she wouldn’t need a dog in the first place. She would have a husband and a family, although a dog would be nice, too. Maybe one of-

She opened the door and stood staring. “You’re not housekeeping.”

Jack pushed past her into the room and shrugged. “I can go get you more towels if you need them.”

“I don’t need towels.”

She stared at him, unable to believe he was here. He looked good-tired and maybe thinner but still powerful and sexy and the man of her dreams.

“You’re supposed to be heading home,” she said. “Your four weeks are up.”

He looked at her. “Is that what you think? That I’d put in my time, then walk away?”

“Sure.”

“Because it’s what I’ve always done. Put in my time, kept my distance, not gotten involved.”

Her stomach flipped over a couple of times. Okay, physically it couldn’t turn, but the churning caused by anxiety did a really great imitation.

She wanted to throw herself into his arms. She wanted him to hold her and tell her it was going to be all right. Only he wouldn’t, because nothing in her life had ever been that easy. She had no idea why he was here. Maybe to offer her some advice or something. She would smile politely, listen, push him out the door, then have a private breakdown. She was getting good at those.