Suspiciously Obedient (12 page)

That simple statement seemed to make him collapse. She had imploded the great Michael Bournham. Now it was her turn to get the information that she wanted. This wasn’t about him coming in here and giving her his narrative, it was about her taking back what little self-respect and integrity she could claw away. “You said two years ago”—she stared him down—“you met me at that orientation and you were attracted to me and you said nothing.”

“Yes,” he said simply.

“Because I was just an administrative assistant?” Acerbic and pissed off, she decided that she didn’t care that he was the great Michael Bournham. She didn’t care in this angry moment that he wasn’t Matt Jones. What she cared about was that he was going to cough up whatever she needed to know so that somehow, in the great melée of this chaotic clusterfuck, she would have some piece of him that he gave to her willingly. Or not.

“You’re right,” he admitted, “there’s nothing to stop this, it’s a juggernaut that’s completely out of my control.”

“Nothing’s out of your control.”

“This one is, Lydia, just like I was completely out of control when I made love to you.”

“Which time?”

The question shocked him, and he tipped his head, an expression of emotion she couldn’t name, so raw and so real that it almost broke her resolve and made her fling herself at him, wanting the comfort of his arms one more time, his lips on her neck, his body pressed against hers.

“Both,” was all he said.

Whatever Mike had thought this moment would be like, what he was experiencing was ten times more grueling. He had expected her to refuse to see him, or to be angry, or to storm off or scream at him, but instead she was doing exactly what he would have done in her place. Hold his feet to the fire, not let him get away with trying to shunt off responsibility, and carefully extracting whatever information would help. He’d give it to her, no problem, but she was asking questions that he hadn’t even considered, probing him in ways that were uncomfortable. Could he say “I love you”? That he’d loved her since the day he met her? No, that wouldn’t be true and it wouldn’t be fair, because she would know it wasn’t true. Could he say that he was swept up by lust and not a small amount of love? Yes, and if he
could
say that he
should
say that.

“I did not follow up with you after we met two years ago because I believed that
you
thought that I was an ass.”

“I did.”

“And I’m not in the habit of spending time chasing down women who have a predisposed desire to dislike me.”

“I had no such thing,” she argued.

“You surely did.”

“You acted as if I were some lowly administrative assistant and questioned why on earth I would be in such a position.”

“Yes.” It was his turn to answer with monosyllabic responses.

“And you don’t see why I would find that offensive?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Was I wrong?”

That seemed to take the wind out of her sails. She sighed deeply and looked down at the floor, thinking about the statement. Her eyes flashed with a righteous response. “You were the one man who could have changed that.”

“True,” he said, shrugging.

“So, why didn’t you?”

“I don’t have an answer for that, Lydia.”

“You captivated me but life went on.”

“Yeah, life went on.”

“So, did life go on in the office the other night? You forgot about the cameras because life went on in your pants?”

“Life went on in a hell of a lot more than just my pants, Lydia.”

She blushed, and it pleased him. It wouldn’t solve anything, and he certainly would leave here with empty arms, but it made him happy, at least as happy as he was capable of being in the middle of what was about to be a tsunami of indescribable proportions that wiped out his career, his life, and possibly his heart.

“You really didn’t plan this.” Her tone of voice was between a question and a statement. She seemed fearful of replying, as if choosing one or the other would commit her to hating him or believing him.

How could she understand the truth? He had gone to a place inside himself with her, enraptured by her, and had forgotten who he was, and what he was doing. This was his one chance to tell her. “I really forgot. I…live a life of such total control, Lydia, and then I met you.”

Lydia made the first move, stepping close to him again. He needed her to have as much control as possible, and when she pressed the flat of her palm against his beating heart he knew he had no right to the hope that coursed through his veins. Her eyes were tortured; he imagined that his were even worse, more twisted.

“Matt, oh…” She stopped herself, flinching.

“Mike is fine,” he said, steadying his breath, hoping that she would give him a chance. He didn’t know what was coming next, but if all he could have was a kiss, an embrace, a chance that there might be a future, then he could weather the storm.

“Mike,” she said, with a hint of a smile on her face, “I have to know that you didn’t plan this.”

“Absolutely not,” he said hoarsely, flat and firm. “You were never, ever any part of any marketing policy…” He fumbled for words. “Or stunt, or a way to increase profits. I swear to you, Lydia.” Taking a chance, he covered her hand with his own. She didn’t pull away. “You have my word on that.” Something went veiled and hooded in her eyes, and he realized how little credibility he really had. Vulnerable and stripped naked, Michael Bournham now stood here in this little apartment in a part of Cambridge that a couple of months ago he’d never have even driven through, standing in front of a woman he had noticed two years ago and had never had the guts to pursue. Why had it taken the facade of Matt Jones to break through?

She stood on tiptoes and put both hands on either side of his face. “It’s the eyes,” she said. “I always knew they were fake. They were too green to be real.”

“Some people say that about my blue eyes.”

“No,” she protested, “they’re exquisite and very real.” And then, she leaned forward for the kiss that he had craved, for what had felt like a lifetime of waiting. Her lips were no surrender and his response was no claim, it was simply two people trying to find common ground, and to see if the desire that each had could fit into the equation of the ruins that both faced.

“Lydia!” Her grandmother’s voice snapped them apart. “You need to come see this.”

“Grandma, no, I’m talk—”

“Now.”

The old woman’s demeanor and the way that she looked at Mike as if she wished her eyes were lasers and could burn him into a tiny, little pile of soot made him realize that something was wrong—something
more
was wrong, if that were possible. The sound of the television screen voice came through from the bedroom; it cut in mid-statement: “…Producer Jonah Moore says that the viral sex tape of Michael Bournham and the undisclosed young woman from the office was part of the reality TV show’s production all along.”

Lydia practically ran away from him, down to the bedroom, where Krysta and Lydia’s grandmother stood. He walked on faltering feet, hearing, suddenly, Jonah’s voice. “Oh, yeah,” he said, in rapid-fire speech, “this was all part of
Meet the Hidden Boss
’s plan. Michael Bournham came to us and he wanted to play a middle manager in his own corporation so he could understand how everything worked, and then he added, ‘And by the way, I have this great idea for how we can really make this go viral.’” Lydia’s grandmother pointed the remote at the TV and shut it off. Suddenly six daggers posing as eyes were pointed at him.

“Get out,” Lydia spat.

“No, no, Lydia…” He closed his eyes, turning away from her. There was absolutely nothing he could do. Stripped powerless, he simply walked, one foot in front of the other, further and further away from the love of his life, the woman who had taken him to places so far from the constructed life of Michael Bournham the CEO, that he’d forgotten their simple humanity, and for that she was right—he needed to get out.

Chapter Four

A phone call would have been a waste, so Lydia had invited Krysta to just hop in the car and drive the four hours north, both of them calling in sick—
cough, cough—
for the next day. Her decision made, Lydia had emailed, called, faxed and scanned, signed and agreed to the promotion in every manifestation possible short of smoke signals. She did this for two reasons; one, time was of the essences and the very nervous HR woman who had a special number she didn’t recognize had asked her, before any other question, “Do you have a passport?”

Lydia had laughed. “You know, I couldn’t have said yes to that even six months ago but I do, because I needed to go Canada for a big camping convention and my mom made me get one. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have.”

“Oh…oh, I see,” said the woman, whose name was Joanie. “I see.” She sounded like she was about sixteen and her voice was shaky as she asked, “And have you spoken uh with—uh…with umm…your boss, Matt Jones, about the transfer?”

“No, he was out sick today.”

“Oh…oh yes, that’s right, uh…he informed me of that.”

If Lydia had been a little less happy, a little less excited and a little less gobsmacked by how her life was careening toward a stratospheric trajectory to awesomeness, she might have wondered why this fellow admin was so odd. Finally, she had gotten off the phone, had cleared her schedule, filled the gas tank, and she and Krysta, each with a small overnight bag, were about to surprise Sandy.

Lydia needed the element of surprise on her side because the joy that her mother would feel at the last-minute unannounced visit would have to carry through to the morning that she would go through when she dropped this bombshell on her.
You thought moving to Boston was bad, Mom
, she thought, t
ry Iceland
.

“Your mom is going to kill you,” Krysta said.

“I know.”

“She hates to fly.”

“I know.”

“But she’ll do it for you.”

“I know.”

“Well, and it’s not like you’re moving a continent—well okay you are—oh no…shit…well…”

“Shut up, Krysta.”

“Okay.”

The drive to Maine took them up I-95, over the bridge into Portsmouth, and then across the state line, leaving them with three more hours to go. Portland became a blur and then they hit the much, much wider open road, more moose than cars, at one point. Lydia decided to pop off of 95 and take Route 1 up, knowing that it would take longer but loving the drive regardless.

The little towns in Maine looked like something from sixty years ago, with the occasional sign “free wifi here” telling you that there were no places that were true throwbacks to the ’50s. Maine’s rocky coast never disappointed her. From a distance, the shoreline here and there, in small towns they crept through at 35 to 40 mph, had a grayish tint to it, with large, jagged rocks jabbing through marshy ocean sections and, of course, ports in nearly every town with small lobster boats and other well-worn dinghies.

This was not a fancy Cape Cod ocean, the well combed beaches of Wellfleet or Eastham. This was Maine. If you wanted to go swimming you put on water shoes and you prepared to get scraped up, and the water was a good, solid sixty-three degrees at the end of July. If you wanted to swim in Maine, you needed to be prepared to tough it out. If you wanted to swim somewhere else, go to Truro.

She could smell the salt in the air as she took her little red Honda Fit along the well-worn curves, along a road that she knew all too well, and had known all her life. She took the final, familiar turn, the right into Escape Shores Campground. She and her brothers had painted the giant billboard in front of the entrance. It had been, what…five or six years? Her second year of college. It was an enormous starfish, a giant…well, no one had quite figured out whether it was a narwhal or a dolphin, their art skills inhibited by absolutely no talent, and lettering that made a fourth-grader’s handwriting look professional. But what they’d lacked in style, they made up for in enthusiasm, and their father had dutifully put up the floodlights and added a couple of proper professional signs just for clarity, and so the gaudy billboard had stuck.