The Perfect Guy: A Romance Novel Page 9

  She told us how much she loved her husband, but because of continuous miscommunication, the fights between them had become more frequent, and their son, Travis, was getting in between.

  Through their therapist, they heard about the program and decided that one of them would go while the other stayed at home with Travis. The therapist was luckily an acquaintance of Mr. Kellen, and so it could be arranged that one of his former students, who’d gotten very interested in the science behind the program and made his own research, could regularly make home visits to Mr. Denali so that he could also participate in the program in a way, all of this in the hope of understanding each other better.

  Tanya also believed that the time that they would spend apart would help as well.

  “It sounds like you’ve been married a long time,” Emily pointed out.

  Tanya didn’t have her eyes focused on any of us, but she smiled at Emily’s statement as if it had brought up a memory. “Longer than some, but not nearly long enough in my eyes. We’ve been married for ten years, but I vowed to spend my life with that man so those years feel like the blink of an eye.”

  I saw how a small tear escaped the corner of her eye before she quickly wiped it away. I felt my heart squeeze painfully when I thought of how this woman had what many only dreamed about, but she was still unhappy through her deep love for her husband. I sympathized with her even though I couldn’t quite understand it.

  “Wait? Ten years? But I thought you were only twenty-eight,” Jessica said before the silence could stretch.

  Tanya turned her head toward the younger woman. “I am. Ryan and I got married on my eighteenth birthday. We were high school sweethearts and were going to college together.”

  “Marriage isn’t exactly a requirement to do that anymore,” Jessica continued. I was surprised that she was the one pushing the issue, since I’d always thought of her as a girl with her too-romantic-notions-filled head up in the clouds. I thought she of everyone would sigh dreamingly and fantasize about her own prince on a white horse.

  “I know that,” Tanya replied. “But Ryan and I love each other. We didn’t have the typical teenage relationship, and we both wanted to be married before going to college.”

  Tanya’s story was so different from my parents’ story, even though Tanya had been younger when she married than Renée had been when she got pregnant with me.

  Renée had always showed an immature side of herself when she didn’t get her way, but Tanya’s story only made it even more obvious.

  My thoughts were interrupted by high laughter and when I once again focused on my surroundings I saw that Sam was in the middle of his impersonations again, and I was glad that he had because the mood had fallen during Tanya’s story and I didn’t go out tonight to feel sad.

  However, when the clock started to creep closer to midnight, we knew that we had to head back to the school, and since Tanya and I were the only ones who had stopped at only one drink, we were assigned to be the chauffeurs.

  During the drive back, I tuned out the others conversations and focused on the road. I wasn’t intoxicated—I wasn’t even feeling a buzz—but if we were stopped, it wouldn’t matter that I’d only had one drink—I was still driving illegally—and I wasn’t about to get a spot on my clean record.

  I had to use my stern voice a couple of times on the drunk people in the backseat, especially on Emily when she leaned forward between the seats to turn on the radio, but her inability to keep her balance caused her to fall into the side of my seat.

  “Sit back down, Emily,” I said, calmly at first, but when she didn’t listen to me and continued to reach for the radio, I snapped. “Sit the fuck back down unless you want to walk the rest of the way back.”

  The laughter from the backseat quieted down, and they all stared at me cautiously.

  I wasn’t completely sure what it was that caused me to snap at Emily. It was like I suddenly just exploded from pent-up emotions that had been simmering underneath the surface for a while.

  Was it a belated reaction to what had happened between me and James earlier, or was it something else?

  I didn’t have time to think about it because we drove in on the school grounds at that moment.

  Seth must have known that we had gone out, because he was waiting for us by the main entrance.

  He wasn’t alone, though.

  Next to him stood no other but James. I sighed in frustration since I knew that he was waiting for me. I had hoped that we could have waited to have this conversation until tomorrow, but I should have known better. When James wanted something, he made sure he got it. That much I knew about the man.

  I didn’t leave the car at first, not even after the others had already gone inside and Seth was still waiting for me to get out. I stubbornly remained inside while having a staring contest with James.

  Eventually, he broke the contact and made his way around the car. My door was locked so he couldn’t force me to get out; instead he knocked gently on my window and gestured with his hand that he wanted me to lower it.

  I did as he asked but didn’t turn my head his way. I wasn’t in the mood to have this conversation with him right now.

  From the corner of my eye, I saw how he bent down so that he could lean through the window, but he didn’t say anything for at least an entire minute.

  When I was becoming uncomfortable with him looking at me, he finally opened his mouth. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly, and I whipped my head his way in pure shock. That was the last thing I expected him to say.

  “What?”

  “I’m so sorry, Jenn,” he repeated. His eyes were wide and honest in their sadness. I had never seen that expression on his face before. “I think we need to talk.”

  Completely forgetting about my aversion to speaking with him tonight, I nodded and immediately exited the car before handing the keys to Seth.

  Once alone, James gestured for us to sit down on the stairs. When he heavily sat down next to me, I knew that our relationship would change in one way or the other tonight. I could feel it in the air around him.

  “How long has it been since you came here, Jenn?” he asked after we’d been sitting on the steps for a few minutes.

  “Around three months ago.”

  “So, basically, we’ve known each other for three months.”

  “Actually,” I protested, and James turned his head so that he was looking straight at me. “I don’t feel like I really know you. I met you three months ago, yes, but apart from your name, age, and the fact that you’re a musician”—I shrugged my shoulders—“I don’t know anything about you.”

  “You also know that I am from Chicago,” he replied in an attempt to make a joke, but I wasn’t amused, and even though he was the one making the joke, he wasn’t either. “I’m sorry.”

  I shook my head. “I’m serious, James. I know more about my favorite celebrities than I know about you, but you, on the other hand, know a whole lot about me.”

  “That’s not my fault. If you’d wanted, you could have been more private about your life,” he pointed out, but I wasn’t buying it.

  “As if you would have let me,” I muttered. He heard what I said, though.

  “Look, Jenn, there are a lot of things that I’ve done completely wrong since I met you, but I can’t do anything but to repeatedly tell you that I am sorry.”

  I crossed my arms across my chest in a defensive manner. “You could begin by telling me why you’ve tried to change me.”

  James leaned forward with his elbows on his thighs and his face buried in his hands. It was an act of vulnerability that I’d never seen James display before. There were a lot of firsts with James tonight it seemed.

  “I barely realized that I was doing it myself,” he said in an almost inaudible whisper. “It wasn’t until you pointed it out to me earlier that I actually saw it, and it scared me, because I immediately knew what it was I was doing.”

  “What?”

  His green eyes
were almost liquefied when he met my gaze, and it took a while for me to realize that it was because he was tearing up. James was actually about to cry.

  “When I first laid my eyes on you in that classroom, the first thing I noticed was how much you resembled my older sister. You have the exact same style of clothing and your features are very alike. Her hair’s longer and she inherited her eyes from our mother, just like I did.”

  I wanted to ask him what all of this had to do with anything, but this was the first insight I’d gotten into James’s past, and I thirsted for it. I wanted to know more, so I kept quiet.

  “Her name was Deborah and she would have turned thirty-seven this year,” he continued with a now very thick voice, and I saw how tears started to fall down his cheeks.

  It took some time for me to understand what it was he was telling me, and when I did, all I could think about was how I wanted to give him a hug and let him cry on my shoulder. It was obvious that he wasn’t over whatever had happened yet, and he needed to talk about it.

  “What happened?” I carefully asked when he didn’t continue. The question triggered more tears and my heart broke for the crying man. I couldn’t push down my instincts any longer and I slid closer to him and wound my arms around his shaking form. He leaned heavily against me before he circled his arms around my waist and held me as close as he could without having me on his lap.

  “She was hit by a car when I was eight and she was sixteen,” he mumbled into my body, but even though his voice was shaking terribly, I still heard every word, and the pain that laced them would be forever etched into my memory.

  “It was summer, and she was babysitting me. It was a sunny day, so we were outside in the garden, me on a skateboard that our dad had given me recently, and she was sun-bathing.” James released me from his hold and wiped his tears, but more were coming.

  “It was only my second time on the skateboard, and I continued to fall over all the time. I can still hear how Debbie laughed at me whenever I fell in a comical way.” He paused for a second to take a deep breath. “Eventually I was able to stay upright, but when I pushed forward with my foot, I used too much force and I rolled out of our garden and into the street. I heard Debbie call out for me to watch out, and that was when I saw the car coming toward me. I felt a push in my back, and when the skateboard hit the curb on the other side, I fell forward and broke my leg.”

  James looked away from me and into the dark night, but he continued to speak. “I cried, but not because of the pain in my leg. When I looked out into the street, I saw Debbie lying there with her eyes wide open and blood everywhere. So much blood.”

  I placed a hand on his back and started to rub back and forth, hoping that I was giving him some kind of comfort, but I had never been good with situations like this.

  “I think I unconsciously began to change you because you reminded me too much of her. Even your way of talking is just like she did.”

  Even though I knew that it wasn’t my fault, I felt guilty for causing James the pain he must have experienced whenever he was close to me. It stabbed at me like a knife in the stomach.

  “If you feel that it’s too hard to be my volunteer, I can speak to Mr. and Mrs. Kellen. I’m sure they’ll understand your need for a different student,” I tried. It was the best thing I could offer. To remove myself as his volunteer would relieve him from having to spend every day with me.

  “No!” he protested. “I don’t want a different student. I would just have to start all over again, and I trust you, Jenn.” James’s hand searched after mine and interlinked our fingers just like he’d done many times before. “You are the only one I feel that I can trust around here, and I’m sorry if I haven’t showed you in the right way.”

  I squeezed his hand. “No, don’t apologize. Obviously, there’s been a lot of misunderstandings between us, but I won’t hold that against you. I’m glad that you finally trusted me enough to tell me about Debbie, and you should know that I am always here if there’s anything else you need to talk about.” Before I could stop myself, I brought my free hand up to his face and wiped away a remaining tear underneath his eye.

  James closed his eyes at the contact and placed his hand over mine to keep my hand on his cheek. He sighed deeply, as if the physical contact helped him calm down and heal. I hoped that it was. I didn’t like seeing James in such pain.

  When he opened his eyes again, they appeared to be burning. “I really like you, Jenn, more than I think you know,” he said, and my heart jumped up in my throat and started to beat like crazy. How was I supposed to respond to that? Should I tell him that I liked him, too?

  I couldn’t tell him, because even though it was true, there was a side of James that I didn’t like, and that side stopped me from expressing my feelings. I was too careful with my heart to hand it to the man who had showed me immense trust at the exact point when my trust in him was waning.

  I hadn’t fully figured James out yet, and so all I could give him in that moment was another squeeze to his hand and a small smile.

  CHAPTER 13

  THE ART OF SEDUCTION

  James sat next to Jenn and studied her out of the corner of his eye while Professor Whitlock read from pieces of paper submitted by the class earlier in the hour. The purpose of the class was to educate the students about what men and women did that the opposite gender hated.

  James wasn’t really listening, which was kind of ironic since that was one of the things girls hated, but he didn’t really care. He was trying to figure out how to move forward with Jenn, and according to him, that was much more important than to pay attention in a class he’d participated in on too many occasions. The woman next to him was just so infuriating!

  He had hoped that after his little “meltdown” about his “sister,” she would be more willing to do what he asked, but instead, she questioned everything he said and did more than ever. He was making absolutely no progress with her, and he couldn’t understand why. This was supposed to be a case like any other. What made Jennifer Braun so different?

  The other women had been easy. Their minds and wills had been weak. They crumbled almost instantly. All he had to do was play on one of their instincts, but mostly their guilt, until they felt that it was an obvious thing to do as was asked of them, no matter what it was.

  He had known that Jennifer had been different from the start, but this was beginning to border on ridiculous. She had the strongest power of will he had every encountered. She was actually giving him a run for his money, which was saying something. And she was smart! As soon as she noticed him doing something even mildly suspicious, she called him out on it, and he would immediately have to play evasive and give an “explanation” for his behavior.

  This entire thing was a huge test for his imagination and people skills.

  However, at the same time, James was intrigued. Even though he hated that Jennifer was a hard nut to crack, he also enjoyed it. She presented him with a challenge he hadn’t gotten before. It was new and exciting. The other women had almost been too easy, and it had started to grow a tiny bit boring.

  And it wasn’t only his own determination that made it necessary for him to finish this case. It was a paying job, and unless he succeeded, he wouldn’t be paid, and that did not sit well with him. He needed the money. Not because he didn’t have them already, more because they had become an addiction for him.

  James was a greedy bastard, yes, and he had already admitted that to himself, but it wasn’t anything that had bothered him ever. He liked to spend money on expensive toys and gadgets. He liked to show off, especially to whatever lady he had for the evening that was always good for one thing only because they knew how to show appreciation for the chance of riding in a fast car next to him.

  In fact, James kind of loved his life. No matter what his father and aunt said, there was nothing lacking in that life. He didn’t feel the need for a woman to be around him all the time. He only needed a female body that could warm his fr
om time to time.

  So that was why he also had started to feel scared, although he never showed that weakness outwardly in Jennifer’s presence. He had started to enjoy, maybe even crave, her company. He liked that she could detect his bullshit from miles away. He liked her boldness, but most of all, he liked that she had never tried to hide her attraction for him, even though she had never acted on it.

  The difference between Jennifer and those women from past cases was that, while they had become nameless and faceless memories of strategies, Jennifer would be forever etched into his memory.

  He knew that he would actually dislike taking her personality away from her. She was something else and had grown on him.

  What scared him was that he was no longer looking at her in a neutral way. James Masen looked at Jennifer Braun with impressed curiosity, and fascination.

  Unfortunately, he had also started to take notice to her outer appeal.

  She was no classic beauty, and was in fact the complete opposite of the women he was usually attracted to. Her eyes were on the smaller side, her lips were uneven and her features weren’t completely proportioned, but all of this only served to mesmerize him even more.

  She made him lose track of time when he studied her. Suddenly, everyone in the classroom started to move around, making themselves ready to leave, and James had to take a second to compose himself. He couldn’t let it show that he had just lost ninety minutes in what felt like the blink of an eye.

  While Jennifer stood up, she gazed at him. “You didn’t participate a whole lot in the discussion,” she pointed out, and James wanted to groan with frustration. She noticed everything. Lucky thing was that he had a reply for her.

  “You know I’ve participated before. This isn’t exactly new.” He shrugged as if it wasn’t a big deal, but Jennifer narrowed her eyes.

  “If that’s the case, why did you decide to come back?”

  He wanted to curse and scream, but instead he bit his teeth together and swallowed the feelings that bubbled up inside. When he felt in control again, he exhaled slowly through his nose. He fervently hoped that his mask had not slipped for that small second.