Beneath the Beauty Read online

  “The way they used to look at you. You were the handsomest man on campus then. And when you wore your uniform? None of the girls could keep their eyes off you back then.”

  “Stop,” he said dryly. “You’ll flatter me.”

  “Oh, don’t tell me you’re offended. If there’s one thing we’ve had between us, it’s honesty. Your face is not handsome anymore. I can live with the scarring.”

  “Funny, that’s not how I remember it.”

  Melinda gave him a small smile, a pout that he assumed was contrite. “You have to admit it was a lot to handle.”

  Long-buried frustration surfaced. “Which part, Melinda? Because I didn’t ask you for a damn thing before you walked out my door for the last time.”

  His bandages hadn’t even come off yet. “It just isn’t going to work out between us,” she’d said, but inside he’d heard, you’re hideous, you’re disgusting.

  Over time his anger at her had dissipated, because he was hideous. He was disgusting. And he’d been stuck in that place for a full year, swinging back and forth between waking depression and haunting dreams of his time overseas, of a blast that had shredded his life to ugly, misshapen pieces.

  Then one day, he’d woken up amid pizza boxes and soda cans and realized that if he were going to keep on living—and since he hadn’t died yet, he supposed he was—then he could at least live cleanly. So he’d pulled up the local job board and posted a message. Erin had replied and… Ah, Erin.

  She had been a shot of healing heat in a bleak winter. Slowly he had improved himself, each day becoming a little stronger, coming back into his old self when he hadn’t thought it was possible.

  Melinda circled the desk, coming to stand beside him. Some unknown curiosity had him letting her. Was anything left, any of the love and devotion he’d once felt for her? It seemed hard to believe he could have spent the rest of his life with her…when now he felt nothing. Like looking at a stranger smile at him, like feeling the cool back of her palm touch the unmarred side of his face, the part that was normal.

  He moved her hand from his face. “We’re done, Melinda. You made that clear once.”

  “I was young,” she said softly. “I thought appearances mattered.”

  He laughed bitterly. She was only a year younger than him, and if he wasn’t mistaken, her dress suit was still designer. Her shoes probably cost five hundred dollars. “And I suppose now you’re interested in what’s on the inside, right? Or is it just my bank account you want back?”

  She jerked her head back as if slapped. “That was low, Blake.”

  “Maybe.” He sighed. “Yeah, it was. I shouldn’t have said that. But this ends right here. I don’t want you to come to my office unless you have school business to discuss.”

  A smile curved her lips. “You have yourself a deal.”

  She left, seeming entirely too pleased with herself. Probably plotting, if he knew her well, but he could handle her if she tried anything. He sat back, trying to focus. He was glad things had been squared away with Melinda. Maybe some closure there was a good thing. And he would fix things with Erin tonight when she came over.

  So he wondered why it felt as if the small amount of ground he’d covered was crumbling beneath his feet.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  On autopilot, Erin threw her backpack into the passenger seat and pulled out of the packed parking lot. She spent the drive to her apartment going over the outline for her research paper. She’d been sketching it out for months. Now she could finally get feedback and start writing it. The thought excited her—and terrified her. It was only her entire future. Maybe she could run her ideas by Blake tonight.

  Tonight.

  They had a standing date to see each other in the evenings she wasn’t working. Though it wasn’t a formal agreement or anything. She had taken up the habit of showing up at his door with a DVD in hand. He’d order Chinese delivery, and they would eat greasy noodles and crack open a fortune cookie to share between them for good luck.

  They’d only watch the first half of the movie because by the middle he would be kissing her and she’d have her hands down his pants. It had seemed like bliss only a few days ago. Now it all paled, darkened under the shadow of a woman who could ruin it all.

  But maybe Erin was being dramatic. Hopefully so. Old wounds causing pain in the winter. This could all mean nothing. Professor Jenkins meant nothing. Though still new and even fragile, her feelings for Blake felt breathtakingly real. That was all that mattered, wasn’t it?

  God, she hoped so.

  She pulled onto the dappled concrete beneath the large elm tree. The apartments farther away from campus were much cheaper. Unlike the manicured gardens near campus, the beautiful foliage here was allowed to grow and bloom—even if it was only to save on trimming costs.

  Even the old building had a certain charm—she imagined the mottled brown shingles and faded yellow shutters had been very pretty when they were brand new. And if she had to put up with the old pipes breaking every month and backing up questionable water onto her bathroom floor…well, she didn’t really have a choice. This was all she could afford.

  She unlocked the door and waved to Courtney.

  Her friend and roommate didn’t glance up from the thick, spread-eagle textbook. Her sleek, straight black hair fell around her face. “How was lover boy’s first day?”

  “Oh, swell.”

  Now Courtney did look up, her eyebrows arching in question. “Uh-oh, that doesn’t sound good. What happened?”

  If only Erin knew the answer to that. Had she witnessed a meaningless encounter with an ex-lover? Or a long-anticipated reunion?

  Erin grabbed an orange from the bowl and sat down. She peeled the fruit on the table, pausing to gesture while she talked. The sharp citrusy scent burst into the room, invigorating her after the deflating ride home. “Well, things started off pretty good. Scratch that, really good.”

  “Sex?”

  “Oh yeah. The best kind. Sort of frantic and breathless. And extra urgent because someone might have come in.”

  Courtney moaned. “Stop. I haven’t been laid in like five years.”

  “You broke up with Derek a month ago.”

  “Yeah, but we hadn’t had sex for a month before that.”

  Erin rolled her eyes, suppressing a smile. Two months wasn’t very long in her book, considering she’d gone for two years without it before Blake. But she could understand better now. The orgasms, the intimacy—it was all so wonderful that she didn’t want to go without it ever again.

  “So,” Courtney prompted, nabbing one of the sections of orange and munching on it. “Great sex, and then?”

  “And then Professor Jenkins stopped by.” At her friend’s blank look, she added, “She’s one of the professors in my department. She’s also on the board, which means she’ll be one of the professors signing off on my final research paper. She has a reputation for being kind of mean, or at least harsh, but she always seemed nice enough. Or so I thought.”

  “The plot thickens.”

  “You have no idea. Because it turns out, she and Blake were…well, they were friends. Like friends.”

  Courtney cocked her head. “Why are you saying it that way?”

  “Some kind of relationship. It’s not like they spelled it out for me with a line graph or anything. It was just there between them, really obvious. They had clearly been close at one time.”

  “How awkward.”

  “Then Professor Jenkins—Melinda, that’s her first name—she starts going on about how they can go back to the way things were.”

  “Even more awkward.”

  “Then Melinda asks me to leave.”

  Courtney gasped. “She didn’t.”

  Erin waved her hand. “There was this weird excuse about me cleaning his office, because no one at the university is supposed to know about us, so she thought I was just working there. Anyways, I bolted before Blake could even explain anything, but I’m going over th
ere tonight, and you have to tell me how to not freak out.”

  “Girl, you go ahead and freak out. I’m freaking out for you. I mean, you’ve been dating him for like two weeks. And then the ex comes back in the picture? No, that’s freak-out material.”

  “Surprisingly, this is not helping me calm down.”

  “You’re trying to be rational and mature about this? Sometimes I don’t know why we’re even friends.”

  “Trying is the operative word. I’m not succeeding very well.”

  Courtney looked sympathetic. “I know you were really into him. Are,” she corrected herself. “You are really into him.”

  “Oh God,” Erin moaned. “You do think it’s over. Should I not even go over tonight? I shouldn’t. Should I?”

  “Of course you should go. Be mature and rational, yes. But also be sexy and irresistible, and then ask him what the deal is. I bet he’s very happy with what he has now and was just taken by surprise when she was there. But if he turns you down, at least you’ll leave him wanting more.”

  Erin looked down at her plain T-shirt and well-worn jeans. Her sneakers had turned grey and scuffed two years ago. “I don’t really do sexy and irresistible.”

  Her friend smiled. “You do now.”

  * * *

  The lace-covered wire in the bra cut into Erin’s sides, making it hard to breathe. The high-heeled shoes pinched her toes. It had taken a whole extra hour to get ready, but it was all worth it, because she had to admit, even to herself, that she looked pretty damn sexy. It wasn’t an image she could keep up for any length of time, but then Blake was used to seeing her in drab, plain clothes. The slinky black dress and heels were Courtney’s. The lacy underwear was her own, something she’d grabbed in a bargain bin at the mall but forgot to wear for Blake before tonight.

  She was dressed for battle, primed and ready to wage a sex war, where the only rules were pleasure and both of them would be victors. At least, she only hoped it led to a night of hot sex…not her walking out the door, leaving him “wanting more,” as Courtney had said.

  She turned off the main paved road onto the rough gravel one leading to his house. This wasn’t exactly the country, still just twenty minutes from downtown. But somehow this area hadn’t been populated thickly. Houses were sprawled across gently rolling hills, invisible at night, as if they were far from civilization.

  Her old car grumbled softly as it bumped and jittered over the rough-hewn road. She patted the dusty leather dashboard. “You can make it, buddy.”

  She hoped so, anyway. She broke even every month, spending what she earned cleaning on her share of the expenses plus textbooks and food. There wasn’t any margin for error, no room for a tired car to give out.

  The farmhouse spread before her. It was relatively new and certainly large, but it was missing any pretension. Down to earth. Inviting and warm, like Blake.

  The presence of another car parked off to the side squeezed her heart. A sleek blue roadster sat where Erin usually parked. It could have been anyone’s car. But all her dread culminated, and she knew.

  Professor Melinda Jenkins.

  Please be wrong. Be somehow horribly mistaken about this whole thing. Maybe he has a friend over and didn’t mention it when we talked about me coming over. Maybe Blake bought a new car sometime between his afternoon class and now.

  Not likely.

  She pulled her car up behind the other car and stepped out, grimly noting the contrast between the expensive car and her own. Surely that transmission had no problems running over gravelly roads. It probably purred while it went.

  Her heels were shaky on the pebbled pathway. That was something she hadn’t anticipated. She decided to cross between the cars and use the sidewalk, something she didn’t do often because it really wasn’t all that convenient, shoved up against the house and overgrown, with palm leaves blocking the path.

  But this way she could walk without tripping and falling on her face. The last thing she needed was to sprain her ankle and get caught out here. Stuck in another awkward three-way, watching Melinda make googly eyes at Blake while Erin did her best impression of invisibility.

  Orange light glowed from the kitchen window. A particularly far-reaching agave plant nipped her ankle, and she stumbled, catching herself against the brick wall. As she turned her face up to the light, she froze.

  Standing at the counter was Melinda, but not as she had been before. Not put together in a business suit with her hair pulled into a bun. This Melinda was wearing only a shirt, a white business type of shirt that hung to her thighs. Her red hair fell down her shoulders, clearly mussed. She looked like a woman who had just been made love to. Like Erin must have on the nights she slept over.

  As if to twist the knife and plunge it deeper, Melinda picked up a white container of Chinese food and fished inside with a fork. She took a bite, tilting her head and chewing thoughtfully as if to gauge the flavors. A cat-got-the-cream smile curved her thin, wide lips.

  Erin’s stomach churned, that familiar sick feeling of being on the outside looking in. God, she had wanted to believe it was all in her head. She had wanted to be wrong, but this was her nightmare, exactly so. Worse because of how comfortable Melinda looked…how smug. Erin didn’t know what that would feel like to be so sure of her position, her desirability, her man’s commitment to her that she could walk away and he’d be waiting when she came back.

  Even in the fairytale hours after she’d first hooked up with Blake, she’d managed to push down the doubt—but God, it had been there. What if she wasn’t pretty enough, smart enough? Rich enough? Not that Blake would ever be shallow, but the financial divide could manifest in many ways. She had learned that lesson the hard way.

  Feeling a heavy weight and a sickening sense of history repeating itself, she carefully pushed away from the window and returned to her car. She pulled out slowly, half expecting Blake or even Melinda to come outside and see. Surely they would notice the headlights through the window or hear the car engine.

  But maybe they were too wrapped up in each other to notice or care.

  Disappointment was cold and slippery in her gut, a chilling companion for the ride back to her apartment. She parked in her usual spot, but instead of heading directly inside, she wandered over to the shaded courtyard. The night was cool for a walk, but she wanted that: the darkness, the quietude. She let it envelope her as she tripped along in her borrowed three-inch heels, gathering blisters on her feet for no reason.

  The end of the courtyard was marked by nothing but a curb leading onto a sloping street. During the day this was busy, but now the road was empty. She could see lights glittering from the downtown. Campus was indistinguishable from the rest of the city.

  A bench had been installed beside a stop for the city’s bus line. She sat down, feeling more contemplative than gloomy. The concrete reached through the thin fabric of her dress and chilled her.

  What was she doing, getting all wrapped up in a man, in a relationship? Stress and drama. That wasn’t why she was here. It wasn’t why her mom cleaned houses twelve hours a day back in Laredo. Not why Erin herself busted her back at Blake’s house and her other clients’, plus taking up extra hours cleaning the liberal arts computer lab when the custodial staff got overworked.

  She was here to make something out of herself and her life, to be someone powerful enough that no one could mess with her—or her mother—ever again. You and me against the world.

  When she and Blake had first made love, it had been amazing, sensual, unlike anything she had experienced before. A high in contrast to the low she felt now, when she shouldn’t be on the roller coaster at all.

  So what now? Avoid him? She wasn’t sure that was possible because she needed the income from that job. And they might run into each other at school anyway. Confronting him didn’t seem like the right choice either. She didn’t want to make him feel bad about any of this…but she’d have to do one or the other. She couldn’t continue in limbo. He deserved
a fair accounting from her.

  With a sigh, she pushed herself up. Her skin had goosebumped while she sat, and now she ran her numb fingers up and down her arms, trying to rub some warmth back into her. Her nipples had tightened in the cold, pressing through the thin material of her bra and dress. She crossed her arms and ducked her head against the wind as she slowly hobbled back.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Blake knocked his head back on the brick wall. The wind howled softly, starting to pick up speed as the night wore on. The small alcove in front of her door blocked most of its bite, but he couldn’t feel it over the coldness inside.

  Dread had built inside him, from the first expression of shock on Erin’s face, to watching her flee down the hallway, him helpless to stop her, through the long, agonizing day of watching his new students whisper about what was wrong with his face. And he hadn’t cared about the last part as much as he’d thought he would because he was too worried he’d screwed things up with Erin.

  She was always cautious with him. Even when they were making love, a part of her remained guarded, waiting for him to lash out, and he wanted to beat the shit out of whoever had made her feel that way.

  He tried to keep things as light as possible…which wasn’t all that light where she was concerned, because he was crazy about her. So they made vague plans to meet up, and thankfully she’d pulled through every time.

  Except tonight. He’d known something was seriously wrong when she’d left his office today. He had hoped to explain about Melinda…at least, as much as he could. Not the whole story, which would embarrass them both. Just enough so he and Erin could go back to the way things had been. But when she’d been later than usual, he’d known things weren’t right.

  He’d said fuck it to playing it cool and come to see her instead, except she wasn’t here. He’d caught her roommate—he hadn’t known she had a roommate—on her way out the door. At least he hadn’t freaked the girl out too much. Courtney, she said her name was. She’d taken one look at his face and said, “Hi, Blake. Nice to meet you.”