Now:
Clark Kent was thrilled. He was about to walk off the elevator and interview with Perry White of the Daily Planet in Metropolis, New Troy. It was the culmination of one of his dreams, and only two things might top it. The first was that he might actually get hired.
The other dream was that he might meet a woman with whom he could spend the rest of his life, free from conflict and pressure and filled with love, each for the other. That one, though, was far less substantial than the other, and the one with which he’d had the least success. Only twenty-six, his adult life so far had been filled with failed romances and interpersonal strife. Only one of his girlfriend relationships had ever gone past the casual dating stage. He was so tired of the conflicts in his life that he never wanted to hear a man and woman argue about anything, no matter who they might be to each other.
He’d take that stress, though, if it meant earning a job with the Daily Planet.
He glanced around and stopped short for a moment when he saw the seated redhead from the back. She reminded him of Margaret, the first woman – and so far, the only woman – with whom he’d been intimate. Occasionally he still wondered what had happened to her, where she’d gone, why she’d lied to him, why she’d put his heart through a Veg-o-matic and left him wondering what had happened between the two of them and how much of it was really his fault.
But the past eight years had melted his emotional ties to her. He didn’t know what he’d say or do if he were to meet her again, though he suspected that he’d never be able to trust her with his heart. Somehow, though, somewhere down the line, her ability to hurt him deeply had vanished in the wind. He no longer went to sleep thinking about her or woke up with her at the forefront of his mind.
Although he considered himself over her, she was still the third party beside any woman with whom he shared a meal, a soft look, a kiss, a walk with linked hands, anything tender or romantic. Her presence all but haunted him on those occasions, and the wound in his soul still ached, still kept him awake occasionally, still tugged on his heart at the most unexpected times. Worst of all, he knew the problem was his, not Maggie’s. And certainly not the women he’d met, liked, and been pulled up short of love with and commitment to by his persistent memories of Mags.
He gritted his teeth for a moment and once again pushed the memories away. Margaret Mayfield was his past, not his future. She was surely somewhere else, with someone else, maybe even in love with that someone else, and he once again put her out of his mind to focus on impressing Perry White.
*****
Lois leaned back in her chair behind her desk and laughed softly at the punch line of Cat’s story, then looked over her friend’s shoulder, still smiling. “Looks like another poor little lamb has lost his way.”
“Huh?”
“Good-looking guy alert, on your six and heading into Perry’s office.”
“Oh?” Cat turned in her chair and looked over her shoulder, then spun back and put her head down. “No! It can’t be!”
Lois took in her friend’s sudden panting, her bloodless face, and her arms wrapping around her belly and realized that something was seriously wrong. “Who is he? What did he do to you? Where do you want the body hidden?”
“What? No!” Cat reached out and grasped Lois’ wrist with a trembling hand. “That’s – he’s the guy from Met U!”
“What guy from Met U?”
Cat took a forced shuddering breath and let it out quickly. “I met him on my first undercover job! He’s the one I – the one I hooked up with!”
Lois’ slow blink was the only thing that kept her eyeballs in their sockets. “I thought he was a farmer in Iowa or someplace like that!”
“He is! At least, he was! What’s he doing here?”
Lois looked into the office. “He’s showing samples to Perry. He’s either selling something or applying for the opening Baker left when he went to Chicago.”
Cat lurched to her feet. “He can’t see me! I can’t see him! Please, Lois, you have to cover for me!”
Lois stood beside Cat and walked her toward the ladies’ room, keeping herself in the line of sight between Cat and Perry’s office. “I will, don’t worry. He’ll never know you were ever here.”
As the redhead stumbled toward the bathroom door, she muttered, “Thank you, Lois. You’re a lifesaver.”
“And me without a hole in my middle.” Cat gave her a trembling smile, then Lois asked, “Do you want me to ask Perry not to hire him?”
Cat shook her head. “No. He and I – the whole thing between us was more my fault than his. This is Perry’s call. If he’s good enough he should get the job.”
“Okay, if that’s the way you want it.” They pushed through the door and into the front lounge, where Lois sat beside her friend on the couch. “I’ll tell Perry you need the rest of the day off.”
“But I have that theater—”
“Uh-uh. You need to go home and recover from this.” She gave her friend a crooked smile. “You’d help me hide the body if I had to shoot someone.”
Cat gave her a defeated look. “Yeah, I would at that. Hey, just let me know when the guy’s gone, okay? I’ll hide out in here until then.”
“Will do.” Lois stood and shook her head. “Cat, I have never known you to dodge any man for any reason. I’ve seen you run them off when you’re through with them, seen you make them slink away, but never the other way around. Just what happened on that assignment?”
Cat closed her eyes and exhaled slowly. “Come over for dinner tonight and I’ll tell you everything.” She looked at Lois for a moment, then turned her head away. “I’ve never told anyone else exactly what went down back then.” She hesitated, then added, “Not even my therapist. I guess – maybe I need to tell someone.”
Lois thought about asking another question but decided that she’d get the whole story tonight. “Want me to bring anything?”
Cat blew air through her lips and shook her head. “A hearty appetite, a listening ear, and an understanding heart.”
Lois nodded. “Will do. Nineteen hundred hours – I mean, seven o’clock okay?”
“As long as the pizza delivery guy is on time, sure.”
*****
Clark took the folder back from Perry. “What do you think, sir?”
Perry shrugged noncommittally. “You can write, Kent, that’s for sure. This series on corruption in the Public Defender’s office in Boise is excellent. I just don’t know if your skills will translate to investigative reporting or features in the big city.”
“Mr. White—”
A knock interrupted him. “Sorry, Kent, this should only take a minute. Perils of a big-city paper.” To the person knocking, he called out, “Come in.”
An impressively beautiful brunette with short hair and a no-nonsense demeanor opened the door, leaned in, and snatched the breath from his lungs with just her face. “Perry, Cat needs to go home. She’s sick.”
“Oh? Will she be back in the morning?”
Clark tried to pull his eyes away from her but couldn’t. “I don’t know,” the woman answered. “She didn’t look very good to me when I left her in the bathroom.”
The editor sighed. “Can you do that theater closing piece for her?”
The woman’s brow knit with concentration. “I’ve got that EPRAD investigation going, Chief. I really don’t have an afternoon to shoehorn it in.”
“Okay. I’ll give it to someone else. Go take care of Cat, and I’ll see you in the morning and Cat whenever she’s better. And bring me something good on the space program.”
“Thanks, Perry. Sorry to interrupt.” She turned away and pulled the door shut.
Clark was glad for the extended interruption. When he’d seen the brunette, he’d forgotten to inhale. The time she and Perry spent talking gave him the time to get himself under control again.
Now that he’d seen her, he couldn’t just walk away from her.
“There goes half of the second-best reporting team I’ve ever seen,” Perry said softly. “Let me see, Kent – oh, yes. I don’t know if I have a slot for you—”
“Then let me have that theater piece you just mentioned. If you like what I give you, it’ll be my first feature in the big city paper. Or you can look at it on spec.”
Perry leaned back and frowned in thought, then nodded. “Let’s do that. I’m out of people today, and if you can get this done I’ll consider it your audition. Think you can handle it?”
Clark stood and offered his hand. “If I didn’t think I could turn in a quality story, Mr. White, I wouldn’t have offered to do it.”
The editor laughed and took Clark’s hand. “You don’t lack for confidence, do you?”
“A man ought to know his abilities as well as his limitations.”
“Good enough for me. We’ll see if your written words equal your spoken ones.”
“I’ll do my best, sir.”
“You know, son, I think you will. In fact, unless you surprise me in a bad way, you ought to get used to calling me ‘Chief’.”
Clark smiled. “Maybe I should turn in the story first.”
He’d had to offer to do the story. He had to have this job, if only to find out why – unlike every other woman or girl he’d ever met, including Maggie – she affected him so.
As he walked across the newsroom to the steps leading to the elevator bank, he realized he hadn’t thought about Maggie from the time he entered Perry White’s office until just a moment ago.
*****
The guy was seriously good-looking. Lois found herself hoping he could write half as good as he looked in that suit.
Then she shook her head. She hadn’t had a date in far too long.
Three days before, Lucy had told her – nervously and from the far side of the living room – that she didn’t have dates, just interviews. After thinking about what Lucy had said, Lois had decided that it wasn’t quite true.
After seeing the new applicant, though, Lois decided that it wasn’t quite false, either.
He was a bit over six feet tall, broad-shouldered, and walked with a light step almost as if he were a dancer. The glasses made him look a little dorky, as did the I’m-too-busy-for-the-barbershop hair, but those were easily fixed. He either spent significant time in the gym or he worked out like a fiend, which might mean that he thought quite highly of himself. Still, he’d make a good-looking escort to any party she chose to crash.
On the negative side of the ledger, though, was his uncertain status with her best friend. It was unlikely that he’d applied at the Planet just to find a certain redhead in a city nearly as stuffed with them as was Boston, but Cat’s reaction to him emphasized that at least one of them still held some strong feelings for the other. And Lois didn’t have so many close friends that she was willing to push one away because some random guy she’d never seen before looked good in a suit.
Lois didn’t particularly like waiting, but dinner with Cat wasn’t a bad way to find out more about the mysterious beefcake. And none of the details of the story would change before then.
*****
Cat nervously arranged the place settings yet again. It was just dinner with Lois, something they’d shared many times before, but tonight she’d confess one of her most shameful secrets to her friend – perhaps her most shameful secret.
She glanced at the clock over the doorway. Four minutes to seven, which meant that Lois was due to arrive in three to five minutes. Cat had finally convinced her not to be twenty minutes early for social occasions, but Lois’ military training still had priority in her life. She was the only person Cat had ever known who would be on time for an interview or for dinner or even for her own execution and act like she was late. Interestingly, she actually believed it.
Cat had just set out the glasses for their drinks when a knock sounded at the door. Another glance at the clock confirmed that Lois was one minute and forty seconds early and would probably apologize for making Cat wait for her.
And that’s exactly what happened. As Cat opened the door, Lois breezed in, calling out, “Sorry, sorry, there was a lot of traffic on Schuster because of a fender bender so I had to take the Madigan bypass. How late am I?”
Cat managed a grin. “As usual, you’re right on time.” Another knock sounded. “And there’s the delivery guy.”
Cat sensed rather than saw Lois back up and put her hand inside her purse as Cat opened the door again. “Thanks, Mickey,” she told the young man. “You want me to pay for this now or put it on my tab?”
The young man – boy, really – glanced at Lois, then returned his attention to Cat and said, “Naw, I’ll put it on your tab, Ms. Grant. You can pay it all at the end of the month. Probably bankrupt you, especially when you include the generous tips you give me.”
Cat laughed. “Okay. Thanks!”
“You’re welcome. You ladies have a good dinner and don’t eat the cardboard this time.”
Cat laughed again and closed the door, then put the box on the table. “I keep telling you, Lois, you don’t have to carry a gun everywhere you go.”
“And I keep telling you, the correct nomenclature is weapon or firearm, not gun.” Lois pulled her hand out of the purse and hung it over the back of her chair, which was facing the front door. “I’ve also told you that I’m not giving up my Beretta any time soon.”
“Is that still the one you carried in the Middle East?”
“Same model, different item.” She waved her left hand at the table. “Don’t we have a dinner to eat?”
“Yes. And I’m sorry it doesn’t have all four food groups.”
Lois shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know, it’s pretty close. The cheese is dairy, the pepperoni and sausage are meats, the crust is grain, and three out of four ain’t bad.”
They both laughed at the old joke, then settled down to eat.
*****
There were still three pieces left from the large pie when Cat leaned back and put her hands on her stomach. “I’m done,” she announced. “That’s all the room I have, and I’ll be paying for it in the gym for the next two weeks.”
Lois nodded. “Me too. You want some more Dew?”
“No thanks. I’ve had my innards tickled enough for one night.”
Lois refilled her own glass, then leaned back and fixed her friend with a soft glare. “Are you ready to tell me about the hunk now?”
Cat picked up her glass and watched the ice fragments as she swirled them at the bottom. “Did you know he played football in high school?”
“Tight end, right?”
Cat didn’t smile or lift her eyes. “No, running back and safety.” She didn’t speak for a moment, then said, “I did throw him a forward pass, though.”
Lois knew the teasing was done and “the talk” had begun. “How forward?”
Cat put her glass down and kneaded her hands together. “Very.”
“Did he catch it?”
Cat nodded. “Like a pro. Cradled it like it was a baby. He couldn’t help but catch it, though. I hit him right in the breadbasket with that pass.” Then she shut up.
Lois waited for nearly a full minute – she knew because she could see the clock above Cat’s front door – then gave up waiting and softly said, “You fell for him, didn’t you?”
“Like a rotten tree in the forest.”
Lois’ voice softened even more. “Is he why you haven’t found a steady guy yet?”
Cat looked up with surprise on her face, then lifted the glass again and slid a small piece of ice into her mouth. “Huh. Never thought about it like that. Maybe I need to change therapists, give you some of that money.”
“We can talk about that later. Right now it would help for me to know a little more about this assignment you were working on.”
Cat swallowed and all but dropped her glass onto the table. “I was supposed to find a student-led prostitution ring if there was one to find. There was one, and I did find it. He and I met at my dorm’s Disco Mixer the second weekend of school, and we clicked. As friends.”
“Disco Mixer, huh? Was he a regular John Travolta?”
“Not quite, but he was graceful and smooth and fun to dance with. Couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, though.” They shared a chuckle, then Cat continued. “That’s when I found out he was there to get a journalism degree. After that, Clark helped me by pretending to be a john, doing the legwork a woman couldn’t do and getting answers from the guys that I couldn’t get to, he made a great sounding board, and he got mad like a jealous boyfriend just because I was asked to charge for sex on dates, which I never did, of course. Have sex on any dates, I mean. I went on a lot of dates with him, a few as an escort to establish my cover plus several just because I wanted to, and I spent two nights in his dorm room with him working on my notes.” Cat looked up at Lois’ tilted eyebrows, then said, “No, really, we were working on the story those nights.”
“Uh-huh. We had some names for guys like that in my platoon.”
“You’ve got the wrong idea. Clark was always a perfect gentleman. Besides being a really nice guy and my unofficial bodyguard for about nine weeks, he helped me write the story. He’d been on his high school paper and did some pieces for the local twice-a-week rag back home, and he was a natural.”
Lois watched Cat withdraw and almost shrink in on herself. “The night before Perry printed the story – it was just before semester finals – I invited him to my room to make him dinner. I had every intention of telling him everything and getting his permission to put his name under my byline. Somehow we never got that far. I was so excited – my first investigative piece was coming out and he’d helped a lot and he was just so – anyway, I put my arms around his neck and kissed him and he kissed me back and suddenly I was overcome with something I thought was love but now I know it was nervous energy and need and lack of confidence turned to lust and I kissed him again only this time I really meant it and he kissed me the same way and all I could think of was how beautiful he looked and how gentle and powerful he was and – and before I knew it we were in bed together and he called me Mags and he almost told me he thought he loved me and – and I suddenly realized how stupid I’d been.”
Cat paused for breath and Lois asked, “Why did he call you Mags?”
“My undercover name was Margaret Mayfield – Maggie May as a general nickname, Mags as his pet name for me – and I tried to tell him I’d been looking for the escort service to expose it and I started to tell him the whole truth but he got the idea that Maggie – that I was just using him to get the story and he got furious and refused to listen. He stormed out of my room and I – I never saw him again until today.” She sighed and rubbed her face with one hand. “Up to that night, I really dug being Mags when I was with him.”
“Are you telling me that you didn’t look for him? That’s hard to believe.”
“Oh, yeah, I did look. Hard. All this went down just before finals week and I went to his room after his last test but one of his neighbors said he’d taken his tests early and he’d moved out. I tried to find him through the registrar’s office, but they wouldn’t tell me a thing and he’d never told me what town he came from and I never knew how many high schools in the Midwest use ‘crow’ as their mascot. That’s all I knew about him. Somehow we just never talked very much about his hometown.”
Lois cocked one eye at her friend. “And he never bothered to look you up and try to fix things?”
Cat exhaled deeply. “I’ve gone over that night and the next morning in my mind so many times that I don’t trust my memories anymore, but I don’t think I ever told him my real name. He would’ve had a harder time finding me than I ever did trying to find him.”
“All this happened when I was in the Army, didn’t it?”
Cat nodded. “You probably would have been in boot camp then. Or maybe your first MOS school.” She wiped her face with one hand. “I tried looking up Clark Kent at the colleges in the Midwest using the Planet’s Internet resources until Perry told me to cut it out because I was spending so much time trying to find him. I did some searches for him on my own dime, but it was like he disappeared into thin air. I realized he was gone from my life, and I quit looking somewhere about April of the next year. Since then I’ve been both terrified and eager to see him again and try to explain what happened.”
Lois hesitated, then asked softly, “Is that why you ended your engagement to Mark?”
Cat sighed and nodded. “He couldn’t handle what I’d done. And I can’t blame him. I haven’t talked to him since the day he said goodbye forever. That assignment cost me a fiancé, a lover, and a lot of my self-respect.” She sat back and crossed her ankles. “It’s just as well. Looking back, I know Mark and I weren’t right for each other. I know I’m a terrible person for feeling this way, but even though I was engaged to Mark, I loved Clark way more than I ever loved Mark.”
Lois nodded slowly, trying not to let Cat know how important the next question was. “Do you want to see him now, talk to him?”
“You mean Clark?” Lois nodded. “Yes,” Cat sighed. “I feel like I need to explain what happened and why, whether he understands or not.”
Lois looked down at the glass in her hand. “Do you want to get together with him again? Romantically, I mean?”
“No.”
She glanced up. “No?”
Cat shook her head. “I never should have had sex with him in the first place. I didn’t really love him then – not the right way – and I don’t know him well enough to love him now. Back then, it was as much a celebration of getting published, of exposing a wrong and making it right as it was the natural progression of a relationship between us. I know you know that feeling.” Lois nodded again. “And there’s a lot more water under the bridge between me and Clark now. We’re talking about seven years – no, almost eight years since we’ve seen each other, and I can’t accept that he’s been pining for me all that time. I sure hope not, anyway.”
Lois chuckled. “Lucy would think it both tragic and romantic for Clark to be pining for you for eight whole years.”
Cat gave her friend a hooded glare. “Lucy would think that Godzilla’s backstory was a tragic romance. That’s hardly a recommendation for a guy to carry a torch for a woman for that long a time. Besides, I don’t know whether or not Perry’s planning to hire him.”
“I think so. I read the theater closing piece Perry gave him as an audition.”
Cat stared. “Theater closing? That was my story!”
“You had me tell Perry you were sick, so Kent asked for it. Perry said okay and made it Kent’s audition piece, and the kid knocked it out of the park. Jimmy was impressed, too. It was way better than anything I would have turned in, and it was almost as good as anything you’ve had printed recently.”
“You mean he can still write?”
“I don’t know about ‘still’ because I didn’t know him then, but he wrote this one and did a great job. Read it tomorrow and let me know what you think. It’s the lead story in the Metro section. Personally, I think he’ll make a go of it at the Planet.” Lois drained her glass and smacked her lips in satisfaction. “Assuming, of course, you don’t run him off by the end of the week.”
Cat rocked in her chair a few times, then said, “I won’t run him off on purpose, and if he’s as good as you say he is he’ll be an asset to the paper. That’s the most I can promise without talking to him.”
Lois nodded. “Sounds fair to me. Hey, you want some of that ice cream in your freezer?”
Cat laughed. “You’re kidding, right? Strawberry ice cream on top of pizza?”
“Aren’t strawberries from that fourth food group that wasn’t on the pizza?”
The two women shared a laugh, relief in both voices. Cat spooned out two bowls of strawberry ice cream and handed one to Lois.
As they ate and joked together, Lois envisioned what might happen tomorrow. She wasn’t encouraged. But through gentle gibes and friendly touches and more than just a few tears, Lois finally got the detailed report of Cat’s breakup with Clark.
It was enough to put together a plan of action for the morning.
*****
Then:
Clark had made some vague plans for the evening with Maggie, but he was more than willing to go with the flow and see where it led him. She was not only a good cook, a good writer, smart as a whip and beautiful, she was full of fire and determination to be her best. She could be anything or anyone she wanted to be. And Clark found himself hoping that they might come to some agreement about their future together.
Maggie had made spaghetti and meat sauce for dinner in her dorm room, which Clark had proclaimed “beyond excellent.” Her roommate had dropped out of school six weeks into the semester, citing exhaustion and a need to “find herself.” Clark knew that Maggie’s roommate had really left because she partied too much, refused to crack a book, and was about to flunk out anyway. It was too bad for her, but great for Clark and Maggie, who was now living alone. It gave them all the privacy they could desire to put the story together.
Or build on their relationship, something he’d been thinking about more often as the days went by.
He’d worked with her on crafting a real story from the information they had on the escort service, a story that was too big for the weekly Met Union on campus. He’d fantasized about seeing their shared byline on a real newspaper, one which actually paid them. They’d spent their spare time kissing, embracing, and telling each other stupid jokes. He didn’t know much about her past beyond what he’d learned the first two weeks they’d known each other, including her divorce and a recent painful breakup, but he told her that he didn’t care and she apparently took him at his word.
Clark walked up behind Maggie as she worked on the dirty dishes and kissed her once on the neck just below her ear. She sighed, then turned and wrapped her arms around his neck.
He nuzzled her neck again and asked, “Want me to do the dishes?”
She shook her head. “No, I’ll just set them in the sink and let them soak.”
Her smile, usually so bright, was muted, and that evening it didn’t light up her eyes as it normally did. He put his hands on either side of her waist and drew her closer to him. “Hey, Mags, what’s wrong?”
She didn’t look at him, but said, “I turned in the story today.”
“I know. You did a bang-up job, too.”
“You helped a lot. No telling what they might have done to me if they’d found out I was – ummmm, you taste really good.”
“It’s the spaghetti sauce.”
She gave him a wan laugh. “I don’t think so, Mr. Kent. I think it’s just you.”
He kissed her again and murmured against her lips, “You taste pretty good yourself.”
She pulled back a little. “Clark, we need to talk about – mmmph.”
She was a good kisser, he thought. And he really liked that about her. Maybe they really should have that talk – the one about him and his special skills. And about the “forever and a day” kind of love that he thought he wanted from her. He didn’t care that she’d been divorced – he believed that he loved her.
They kissed again, this time with more enthusiasm. Maybe they could talk later.
She put her hands on his shoulders. “Clark, I’m trying to have a conversation here.”
He grinned and caught her lips with his. “You aren’t trying all that hard.”
“I should be.” She pressed her mouth to his and slipped her tongue over his teeth. After a long moment, she muttered, “Maggie isn’t my name.”
“I know, it’s not Maggie, it’s really Margaret—” his lips slipped down to her throat “—but I like calling you Mags most of all.”
“No, I – I don’t – I’m not who – we need – need to – ohhh, you – you are so – so very – good at – at that—”
He felt her knees go weak. His weren’t doing so well either. And her sofa was right behind her, too.
The bed in the miniscule dorm room was just as close.
It was time for the next step in their relationship.
He had no idea that it would be the last step.
*****
Cat drifted between asleep and awake for a time she couldn’t measure, then rolled toward the depression in the middle of the bed and reached out. Her hand found a firm young man beside her and she suddenly realized where she was and who was with her.
And what they’d done together.
Her eyes popped open and she saw Clark, wearing a satisfied grin and nothing else, propped up on his elbow and resting his head on the palm of his hand. “Hi, beautiful,” he whispered. His other hand gently stroked her hair.
The enormity of what she’d done hit her like a nine-pound hammer.
She’d been stupid, completely and totally and insanely stupid. She’d not only slept with Clark, she’d opened her heart to him. This was not the ending she’d envisioned for this assignment.
She might as well tell him everything now.
“Clark, I need to tell you something. Several things, actually.”
Instead of listening like she’d hoped he would, he leaned closer and lightly kissed her forehead. “I need to tell you something too. Mags, I’ve never felt like this before. It’s about what my parents call the ‘forever and a day’ kind of feeling. I’ve never even come close. I think—”
Her hand stopped his lips. “No, Clark, I need to go first.”
“But I want to tell you—”
“I mean it!” she snapped. “I have to tell you something very important.”
His grin evaporated and he raised himself on his elbow. “I’m listening.”
“Just – please listen to everything before you blow up at me. Okay?”
“This sounds serious.”
“It is. So let me just jump in head-first.” She closed her eyes and drew a deep breath, then opened her eyes and let it out. “My name isn’t Margaret Mayfield. I’m an undercover reporter. I was looking for the escort service we—”
He jerked back as she said her name wasn’t Margaret. “What? You what!”
“Clark, please, let me finish what I—”
“You’re a reporter? Now? Not just studying journalism?”
“My boss assigned me this story—”
“You were undercover?”
“Yes. My job—”
“You’re still undercover.”
“What do you—? No! This – last night had nothing to do with—”
He grabbed the sheet and pulled it back from her body, exposing both her nudity and her duplicity to her own eyes. “You’re undercover! What were we doing a few hours ago if you weren’t?”
She reached for his upper arm. “Clark, please listen to—”
“Why? So you can lie to me again? Or so you can lie with me again?”
The accusation hit her like a slap to the face and drove the air from her lungs. As she struggled to breathe, he lurched up out of the bed and pulled on his pants.
His teeth ground together and his nostrils flared. “Whoever you are, goodbye.”
“Please, Clark! Let me explain what—”
He yanked the pullover shirt over his powerful shoulders. “Oh, I think you’ve explained everything you need to explain.”
She tried to capture his wrist in her hands, but that shrouded strength in his arms effortlessly pulled away from her grip. “Clark, please,” she begged, “listen to me! Please let me explain!”
He bent down and picked up his shoes. “I don’t listen to liars.” He grabbed the doorknob and yanked the door open. “Goodbye, whoever you really are. Good luck with your next victim.”
The door slammed shut behind him. Cat struggled with the bedcovers attacking her legs, then grabbed her robe and threw it on. She ran into the hall to stop him and tell him everything, to tell him that she wasn’t the woman he thought she was, that the woman she really was really loved him.
But the hallway was empty. He was already gone.
She staggered back into the room and flopped onto the bed, her tears flooding her pillow.
She’d broken a cardinal rule and gotten personally, intimately involved with someone who was part of the story. And she’d slept with a man who had never known her real name. Worst of all, there was no one to blame for it but herself. It was the stupidest thing she’d ever done in her life.
It was a lesson Cat wasn’t sure she’d survive learning.
