Page 77 of The Perfect Deception

He pulled her close—or maybe his body just re­laxed enough to make her feel like he did—and rested his cheek against her hair. His breath puffed against her neck, send­ing shiv­ers down her spine. She felt him bob against her as he swal­lowed—once, twice, three times—and she fo­cused on keep­ing them mov­ing to the mu­sic and run­ning her fin­gers through his soft hair.

As she looked around the room, other cou­ples joined them on the dance floor, the lure of the mu­sic too much to re­sist. Yet they kept a safe dis­tance away from them, as if afraid of catch­ing some­thing.

The DJ changed the song to “Hips Don’t Lie,” and al­though ev­ery­one around them picked up the speed, Adam found a slow tempo hid­den in the song and kept them danc­ing to it. All around them, bod­ies un­du­lated to Shakira’s song, yet she and Adam swayed to their pri­vate ver­sion of the mu­sic.

But when the song ended, Adam took a deep breath—she felt it against her body—and pulled her off the dance floor. They grabbed their things from the ta­ble and headed to­ward the exit. Once again, her tor­men­tors/res­cuers/trou­ble­mak­ers con­fronted them.

“Dina, are you sure you want to leave with him?” Ann asked. Why was this woman, who hadn’t spared two thoughts for her in high school, look­ing out for her now?

“I’m fine, Ann.”

“That’s what I thought,” Ash­ley said, her ex­pres­sion sharp, lips pulled back in a sneer.

Adam ig­nored them, walk­ing to­ward the exit with sin­gle-minded pur­pose, and Dina in­creased her pace to keep up. At the door, she turned to take a last glimpse of the ban­quet room. The dec­o­ra­tions were fes­tive, but the peo­ple in­side were no more known to her now than they were when she was a stu­dent ten years ago.

She’d come, she’d seen and now she was leav­ing.

Adam handed her his keys when they reached the park­ing lot. “I think I had more to drink than I should have.”

She frowned as she re­moved her heels. He hadn’t ap­peared drunk, but maybe he drank more than she thought while she was stuck in the re­stroom with the harpies. Why else would he let her drive his car? Tak­ing a quick glance at his form in the pas­sen­ger seat—eyes closed, head back, legs stretched out, she fo­cused on the work­ings of the car and the road as she nav­i­gated them home.

The ride was silent. She wanted to dis­cuss what hap­pened back there, but if Adam needed to sleep off the al­co­hol, there was no point in try­ing to have a rea­son­able dis­cus­sion. Her ques­tions, which in­creased in num­ber with ev­ery mile marker they passed, would have to wait.

He opened his eyes when she pulled up to her apart­ment and he climbed out of the car.

She reached for him, but he took a step back.

“Why don’t you come in­side so we can talk?” she said.

He shook his head. “No, I need to get home.”

“I thought you had too much to drink.”

He stuffed his hands in his pock­ets. “I’m fine now, just tired. It’s not far to my place from here. Don’t worry.”

She gave him his keys and he took them, step­ping for­ward to kiss her fore­head. “We’ll talk later,” he said.

“Soon.”

But he pulled away with­out ac­knowl­edg­ing what she’d said. And the con­cerns she’d bat­ted away at the re­union came roar­ing back.

Adam paced the con­fines of his apart­ment. The space, which had once seemed so large, now re­stricted him, mak­ing him claus­tro­pho­bic. Floor-to-ceil­ing win­dows, white walls, clean lines of ex­pen­sive leather and mar­ble fur­ni­ture the sales­woman had picked were all sup­posed to con­vey light, air and min­i­mal­ism. Yet with one evening at a re­union, one scene at the ta­ble, one con­ver­sa­tion among many, it all evap­o­rated. And now he couldn’t breathe.

Dina was go­ing to leave him. And if he were half the man he thought he was, he’d show her the way out.

He shiv­ered and jacked up the heat on the ther­mo­stat. But re­gard­less of the tem­per­a­ture in his apart­ment, he couldn’t shake off the cold seep­ing into his bones.

Ash­ley had got­ten to her first. Well, maybe not Ash­ley, but her min­ions, which was worse. Even if he were in­no­cent, as he main­tained, the ac­cu­sa­tion was enough to damn him. And the fact that he was known for ob­sess­ing over his rep­u­ta­tion was an­other strike against him. Add in his fa­ther’s dis­be­lief, and he was toast.

His rep­u­ta­tion was in tat­ters. Why would any­one, much less Dina, want to be with him? She was go­ing to leave him, just like his mother had. His stom­ach tight­ened and bile rose in his throat. He’d vowed never to be in the po­si­tion of let­ting some­one leave him again. And here he was, back in the same damn sit­u­a­tion. At least this time he knew the rea­son.

But even if he wasn’t to blame for los­ing that par­tic­u­lar case, ev­ery­one knew his own fa­ther had fired him. They had even bled into Dina’s life—what were the odds she’d gone to high school with his ad­ver­sary? The si­lence in his apart­ment was deaf­en­ing. Even his neigh­bors were silent.

He pulled up short. What were the odds?

He shook his head. If it were any­one else, he’d think they were set­ting it up. But this was Dina. She was wicked smart, pas­sion­ate, funny. She was not ma­nip­u­la­tive. And she would never have been able to pull this off. He’d seen her face, heard her voice—she’d been as sur­prised as he was. She’d been an un­wit­ting pawn in all of this, not the chess mas­ter.

How­ever, it gave him the per­fect out, en­abling him to leave so he didn’t have to watch her leave him. Be­cause no mat­ter what the truth was, no one would stay with him af­ter this. And if he played his cards right, he could en­sure that he would be the one to do the leav­ing.