The Perfect Deception (The Perfect Match #3)

Chapter Two

Chap-ter Two

D ina walked into the li-brary Mon-day car-ry-ing a stack of books. As planned, she’d spent the week-end read-ing, com-ing up for air oc-ca-sion-ally to eat. It had been ages since she’d had the time to do that, and it had been just what she’d needed. Her smile was huge as she ap-proached the cir-cu-la-tion desk.

“Whoa, those are all yours, Dina?” Her friend, Tracy Bat-ton, laughed as she reached out to steady the pile on the desk. “How in the world can you read so many?”

“Speed read-ing. And they were great. Well, most of them. This one,” she pulled one from the mid-dle of the pile and then jumped to pre-vent the pile from top-pling, “wasn’t fab-u-lous.”

“Not a bad ra-tio. Guess I know what you did this week-end.”

“In its en-tirety.” Well, ex-cept for Fri-day night.

“I envy you. Joe and I spent the whole week-end home with a sick baby.”

Dina’s smile faded. “Oh, poor thing. But I ac-tu-ally envy you, Tracy. Be-cause you’ve got your life to-gether and you have some-thing to show for it.” She’d give any-thing to have a life like Tracy’s.

“Come on, Dina. You do too. You’ve got a job you love, great friends…what’s wrong?”

“I’m prob-a-bly just dread-ing my high school re-union. I just got the in-vi-ta-tion to my tenth.”

“So don’t go.”

“I’m tempted. I’m pretty sure I at-tended high school with ev-ery mean girl on the planet. And they all grew up into scary PTA moms, nasty soc-cer moms, and bitchy ex-ec-u-tives. But they all have some-one to take with them and as usual, I’ll be go-ing alone.”

“Want to bor-row Joe?”

Dina burst out laugh-ing. “That would be hi-lar-i-ous. But no. I’m prob-a-bly not go-ing, any-way. Only about twenty to thirty per-cent of alums ac-tu-ally go. Don’t mind me, I’ll fig-ure it out.”

She went to her cu-bi-cle in the of-fice on the sec-ond floor and spent the rest of the morn-ing up-dat-ing files, and cat-a-logu-ing. Usu-ally she loved her job, but to-day she found her mind wan-der-ing. What was she go-ing to do about her ten-year re-union? There was no point in go-ing if she was go-ing to be mis-er-able, but a part of her wanted to see how peo-ple had turned out. It was kind of a big mile-stone, and prob-a-bly the last one she’d go to.

Would her high school class-mates re-sem-ble the women she of-ten saw in the li-brary pe-rus-ing mag-a-zines—long straight hair, slip dresses, phones out? Would the guys she re-mem-bered still have their hair, or would they be like the man sit-ting at the com-puter this morn-ing, sport-ing a bald spot and a ring of hair like a monk? How many of the women would al-ready have chil-dren? She thought about the woman she passed in the chil-dren’s sec-tion, preg-nant, with four chil-dren at-tached to her like ac-ces-sories, hang-ing from her arms and her skirt and grab-bing her leg, drag-ging her to-ward the stuffed chairs, and won-dered when it would be her turn. Would her class-mates even re-mem-ber her? Her shoul-ders slumped.

Jim from In-ven-tory knocked on her cu-bi-cle and she jumped. “Just got a new ship-ment of books and I was told to ask if you had time to start on them?”

“Sure.” She loved the new books. Get-ting them ready to be shelved and even-tu-ally bor-rowed was sure to im-prove her mood. Not to men-tion, give her a pre-view of what to add to her Tbr list. She fol-lowed Jim to the ac-qui-si-tions room and set-tled in among the boxes. The first box she opened was ro-mances and as she as-signed them their own Dewey dec-i-mal num-ber, she made note of which ones she wanted to read. The next box was full of ref-er-ence books. She was al-most fin-ished en-ter-ing them into the com-puter when she came across one about the his-tory of comic books. Her heart rate in-creased as she re-mem-bered what Adam had said about lik-ing su-per-heroes. He’d prob-a-bly find this fas-ci-nat-ing. Pag-ing through it, she won-dered if she should let him know about it. He prob-a-bly has no use for ref-er-ence books. He’s not a re-searcher.

How-ever, once Adam en-tered her mind, she had a hard time let-ting him go. She’d had a sur-pris-ingly good time with him at the diner. When she’d first seen him, af-ter she got over the idea that he might be a se-rial killer, she’d pegged him for a play-boy—fancy car, nice clothes, plat-inum credit card. Over-all, not some-one she’d choose to spend time with.

She wasn’t usu-ally at-tracted to good-look-ing men. Not as good look-ing as Adam, any-way. From her ex-pe-ri-ence with them in high school and col-lege, they tended to be shal-low and looked for women as gor-geous as them. She’d ex-am-ined her-self too many times in the mir-ror to be-lieve that a guy like Adam would fall for her. Red-dish blond hair, green eyes, lanky, and as her mother would say, good bone struc-ture. When he smiled, she’d spot-ted a dim-ple in his left cheek and he had an in-trigu-ing divot in his chin. His voice was like aged whiskey and even now, she could re-mem-ber its tim-bre.

But some-thing about Adam was dif-fer-ent than how he ap-peared. Be-yond his looks, he was smart. Dur-ing their con-ver-sa-tion in the diner, his in-tel-li-gence had come through, turn-ing her ini-tial con-clu-sion about him on its ear. That made him even more at-trac-tive to her. He’d ob-vi-ously stud-ied hard if he was a lawyer and he was in-ter-ested in top-ics other than just law. And de-spite their rep-u-ta-tion, su-per-heroes were a fairly com-plex sub-ject, tack-ling is-sues like race re-la-tions, women’s rights and gov-ern-ment, among oth-ers. Which brought her back to the box of books.

Should she con-tact him to tell him about the new book?

Shak-ing her head, she moved onto the next box. She was never go-ing to see him again. And if he wanted to do re-search, he knew where to start. He didn’t need her giv-ing him use-less in-for-ma-tion.

Her shoul-ders cramped. She stretched. Grab-bing her lunch, she took it out-side, and sat on a bench to watch passersby as she ate. A few mo-ments later, Tracy joined her.

“Per-fect day for this,” her friend said.

Dina nod-ded. “Af-ter un-pack-ing books all day, this is ex-actly what I need.”

“Feel-ing bet-ter now?”

“Dina?” A husky bass voice vi-brated through the air.

She looked up. Her stom-ach flut-tered. “Adam? What are you do-ing here?”

He walked down the path to-ward where they were sit-ting, all pressed pants and shiny wingtips, and stopped in front of their bench. He stood with his back to the sun, mak-ing her squint.

“I needed to get out of the of-fice for a lit-tle while,” he said with a shrug, mov-ing so he wasn’t back-lit. “I thought I’d stop by and say hello.”

“I was think-ing of you ear-lier.” Why had she said that?

He smiled and his eyes lit up. “Is there a prob-lem with your car?”

“My car? Oh, no, my car is fine. But we just got this book in that I thought you’d be in-ter-ested in. Or not, since it’s a re-search book. But it made me think of you.” Way to bab-ble, Dina.

His face tight-ened in wari-ness. “Oh?”

“ The His-tory of Su-per-heroes .” She turned to her friend. “You know the book I’m talk-ing about, right? He loves that stuff and it would be per-fect for him, don’t you think?”

He swal-lowed and stuffed his hands in his coat while eye-ing Tracy. “Uh, okay. Most peo-ple think of me be-cause of my charm-ing per-son-al-ity.” He winked and Tracy started to laugh.

Dina stiff-ened. “It’s not on the shelves yet, but give it a week or so and it should be avail-able if you want to take a look at it.”

Adam shrugged. “I don’t get to the li-brary very of-ten, and like you said, I prob-a-bly won’t have time to read for plea-sure, es-pe-cially such a child-ish sub-ject.” He flashed his per-fect teeth in a wide grin at Tracy. “Hi, Adam Man-del.”

“Tracy Bat-ton. How do you two know each other?”

“Damsel in dis-tress on the side of the road with a flat on Fri-day. No big deal.”

Dina flinched. Some-thing was off. She barely knew him, but the Adam talk-ing to her friend was the guy she thought he was when she first met him—not the po-ten-tial se-rial killer part, but the shal-low guy she’d dis-missed.

“Re-ally? You didn’t tell me about your knight in shin-ing ar-mor,” Tracy said, turn-ing to her.

Two could play this game. She shrugged.

He blinked. Be-fore he looked away, she thought she saw re-morse in his ex-pres-sion, but she couldn’t be sure.

Tracy looked be-tween the two of them and cleared her throat. “I guess I’ll be go-ing in-side, now. Nice to meet you, Adam. See you later, Dina.”

Dina rose. “No, I’ll go in-side with you. Bye, Adam.”

With barely a back-ward glance, she fol-lowed Tracy in-side. Once the door closed be-hind them, Tracy spun around. “What was that about?”

Boy, had she been wrong about him. Bet-ter to find out early though. Next time, she’d lis-ten to her first thoughts. “No idea.”

Adam ad-justed the starched sleeve of his shirt be-neath his wool suit jacket and pulled on his silk tie. Even he rec-og-nized he’d been an ass.

In what seemed to be be-com-ing a reg-u-lar oc-cur-rence, his morn-ing had sucked. His fa-ther was giv-ing him busy work, the par-ale-gals in the of-fice were whis-per-ing about him, and James, his main com-pe-ti-tion for a pro-mo-tion was walk-ing around like he’d just won the lot-tery.

Ap-par-ently, some-one had spread the news and had im-plied he was try-ing to throw Ash-ley un-der the bus.

He’d needed a break, so he’d taken a walk, en-joy-ing the early spring day. As his steps led him to-ward the li-brary, he’d de-cided to stop by to see if Dina was there. Some-thing about her had piqued his in-ter-est. In fact, her face popped into his head at the odd-est times—once while he was at the gym, Sat-ur-day night at a bar with the guys, and to-day while he was driv-ing to the of-fice.

When he saw her sit-ting out-side, he’d stopped to watch her for a few min-utes, try-ing to fig-ure out what about her in-trigued him. She wasn’t his type phys-i-cally—she was short, rounder than he was used to and her clothes and hair would never be fea-tured in a mag-a-zine, un-less it was a “Tame Your Frizz,” ar-ti-cle. But her smile when she was talk-ing to Tracy had warmed him. He’d wished the smile were di-rected at him. So he’d walked up to her.

And ev-ery-thing had fallen apart.

Be-cause she’d talked about his love of su-per-heroes. No one knew that about him. It was some-thing he and his mom had shared. And then she’d left. He wasn’t stupid enough to think she’d left be-cause of his love for Cap-tain Amer-ica, but she’d known him bet-ter than any-one. She’d sup-pos-edly loved him. Yet she’d left any-way. His dad was an ass, so if he thought about it, he could un-der-stand why maybe she’d wanted to leave him, but her son? She must have seen some-thing ter-ri-ble in him if she’d left with-out tak-ing him with her. Ob-vi-ously there was noth-ing su-per-hero-like in him. So he buried what was in-side and worked hard to main-tain his im-age—that of a fast-ris-ing, über-suc-cess-ful lawyer. Noth-ing was go-ing to get in the way of his mak-ing the right con-nec-tions, climb-ing the lad-der of suc-cess, and draw-ing the right peo-ple to-ward him. Those were the peo-ple who would en-sure his hap-pi-ness. If his im-age caused peo-ple to draw false con-clu-sions about him, that was a risk he was will-ing to take.

Dina had acted like it wasn’t weird. Maybe it wasn’t, but it wouldn’t help his im-age, any more than his love of sci-ence fic-tion or in-die bands. Im-age was the only thing that kept peo-ple from walk-ing away. Hear-ing Dina men-tion su-per-heroes in front of Tracy had thrown him, so he’d re-acted with-out think-ing.

He owed her an apol-ogy for his at-ti-tude.

Which was why right now, at the end of the day, he was wait-ing out-side the li-brary for her. With flow-ers.

The door opened for what seemed like the hun-dredth time. It still wasn’t her. He gave a vague smile, the kind that said, “I’m not wait-ing for you,” and shifted from one foot to the other as his im-pa-tience grew. It was cold now that the sun was go-ing down. Maybe she’d got-ten off early. Maybe she’d left through a dif-fer-ent en-trance. Maybe she’d de-cided to stay af-ter the build-ing closed in or-der to avoid him.

Just as he was about to give up, she walked out-side.

“Dina.”

She stiff-ened. He’d swear she was think-ing about go-ing back in-side. A sud-den vi-sion from his child-hood of his mother walk-ing away snaked into his head. He blinked to clear it. Like at lunch, her dark frizzy hair was pulled back in a pony-tail, but it showed off her cheek-bones and the shape of her face. Rais-ing her chin, like she was gear-ing up for bat-tle, she ap-proached.

“Adam.”

“These are for you.” He held out the bou-quet of flow-ers.

Her vi-o-let eyes soft-ened to heather. She reached for the flow-ers and frowned. “Why?”

He tipped his head back. “I’m sorry about be-fore.”

She shrugged and started to walk past him. “Don’t be.”

Heat flushed through his body. He hur-ried to catch up with her, match-ing his stride to hers. “I was rude.”

“It doesn’t mat-ter.”

“Yes it does.”

She spun around to face him. “The flow-ers are lovely, but there’s noth-ing to apol-o-gize for. Give them to your girl-friend.” She held them out to him, but he didn’t take them.

“I don’t have one at the mo-ment.”

She raised an eye-brow as if she didn’t be-lieve him. Frankly, he couldn’t be-lieve it ei-ther. Af-ter two months of be-ing sin-gle, it was his long-est dry spell since he could re-mem-ber. But he wasn’t go-ing to tell her that. “Then give them to your mother.”

He swal-lowed. “Don’t have one of those ei-ther.”

Now her eyes re-ally did soften. He cursed him-self for say-ing any-thing.

Dina stepped closer.

If she in-ter-ro-gated him about his mother, he was go-ing to turn around and leave.

She held out a fin-ger, ran it along the petal of one of the yel-low roses. “They’re pretty.”

“Women like roses. I thought yel-low suited you.”

“Ac-tu-ally, my fa-vorites are daisies.”

He’d seen a bou-quet of those, but he’d thought they looked cheap. Roses made a bet-ter im-pres-sion. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do you like daisies?” Why the hell did he care?

“They’re cheer-ful and over-looked, usu-ally, for more ex-pen-sive, pret-tier smelling ones.”

Her re-ac-tion tugged at his heart. “Seems like an odd rea-son to like them then.”

She shrugged. “You asked.”

“If I asked you out, would you say yes?” Whoa, where had that idea come from?

“You’d never ask me.” She started walk-ing again.

He fol-lowed. “I just did.”

“No you didn’t. You tested the wa-ters, like what a po-lit-i-cal can-di-date does be-fore an-nounc-ing his can-di-dacy.”

“I’m pretty sure you’re in-sult-ing me,” he said, be-gin-ning to en-joy him-self.

She stopped in front of her beat up car. When she didn’t speak, he filled the si-lence. “Go out with me.”

“No.”

He stepped back. “Why not?”

“Be-cause you don’t re-ally want me to go out with you. I’m not your type.”

“How do you know what my type is?” He stilled.

She looked him up and down, like a piece of meat. “Pretty, wealthy, pop-u-lar and not too smart. Not dumb, but av-er-age.”

His face burned as he rec-og-nized the truth in her state-ment.

She laughed. “Go home, Adam. Thank you for the flow-ers.”

He watched her drive away. He wasn’t sure what just hap-pened, but it wasn’t what he’d in-tended.

The next day, she found him stand-ing out-side the li-brary when it opened.

“Don’t you have a job?” Dina asked.

He shifted from one foot to the other, an ac-tion she found en-dear-ing, even if he an-noyed her. “For the mo-ment.”

“You’d prob-a-bly have a bet-ter chance of keep-ing it if you were there, rather than here.”

He chuck-led. “Prob-a-bly.”

“Then why are you here?”

“I wanted to talk to you.”

She sighed. “Give me a minute.”

When he started to fol-low her she paused. “Wait here.” She pointed to the lobby, and waited un-til he’d set-tled him-self onto a bench be-fore en-ter-ing the em-ployee area. She de-posited her purse and sweater at her desk, waved to her boss and re-turned to the lobby. Adam was still there. Her stom-ach lurched. She shook her head. He was an an-noy-ance, like in-di-ges-tion, noth-ing more.

“Yes?” For some rea-son, she didn’t know what to do with her hands. When they started flut-ter-ing at her sides, she folded them across her mid-dle. Bet-ter to look the stern li-brar-ian than like a bird about to take flight.

He rose and shifted from one foot to the other. “I’m sorry about the other day.”

“You al-ready said that.”

“I know, but I want to make it up to you.”

“Why?”

“I have no idea.”

“Is this nor-mally how you woo women? If so, does it ac-tu-ally work?”

He blew out a breath, re-mind-ing her of a race-horse. “I’m usu-ally a lot smoother than this.”

Her in-ward smile was get-ting harder and harder to hide. He re-minded her of Dorothy in the Wiz-ard of Oz, when she dis-cov-ers she’s not in Kan-sas any-more. She kept that to her-self, how-ever—he didn’t seem like the type of man who would ap-pre-ci-ate be-ing com-pared to a girl, even if that girl was a char-ac-ter in a lit-er-ary clas-sic.

“Threat-ened by the smart girl?” She held her breath as the words es-caped her mouth. She meant it as a joke, but some jokes weren’t funny. Then again, he’d been dis-mis-sive of her the other day.

“If I say yes, will you take pity and go out with me?” A smile played about his mouth.

He was per-sis-tent, she had to give him that. The last time a “pretty boy” had pur-sued her this hard was when she was a fresh-man in high school, tak-ing a se-nior-level chem-istry class. One of the se-nior boys wanted to cheat off her lab re-port. She hadn’t let him cheat then, be-cause she was morally op-posed to it. He’d con-tin-ued to bother her about it for the rest of the year, as if the nag-ging would change her mind. It hadn’t worked back then, but it was start-ing to work now. And that would never do. Maybe the best way to get rid of Adam was to agree to go out with him.

“Fine.”

She’d ex-pected him to grin some plas-tic, car sales-man-y grin. In-stead, his eyes light-ened to emer-ald, back-lit with a warm glow. Her heart lurched.

“How’s Fri-day night?”

Blink-ing, she tried to fo-cus on his words. “Um, ac-tu-ally, I go to tem-ple on Fri-day nights.”

He nod-ded. “Okay, how about Thurs-day night? There’s a bar in Newark that has live bands Thurs-days. They’re usu-ally pretty good.”

A bar? He wanted to take her to a bar? In Newark? Vi-sions of a quiet din-ner or a show popped her bub-ble. She re-signed her-self to an-other night where she didn’t fit in. High school all over again. It was too late to back out now. “Okay.”

He con-firmed her phone num-ber and gave her his, promis-ing to call later in the week to ar-range specifics. He’d prob-a-bly change his mind. But she wouldn’t tell him that. Fi-nally, he left and she re-turned to her desk.

“You have a date, how won-der-ful!” Rose, an older woman who worked with Dina, clapped her hands in glee.

“I wouldn’t get too ex-cited. He’s to-tally not my type.”

Rose winked. “Some-times, those are the best kind, sweetie. Shave your legs and bring pro-tec-tion.”

“What?” Dina couldn’t be-lieve Rose was say-ing this to her. In a li-brary of all places. “I would never sleep with him on the first date.”

The salt-and-pep-per-haired woman gave a know-ing smile. “You do know you don’t need pro-tec-tion for sleep-ing, right?”

“You mean you weren’t talk-ing about ear plugs for noise?” Dina asked, eye-brow raised.

“He’s hand-some and likes you. Just be pre-pared.”

As Dina re-turned to her desk and thought se-ri-ously about bleach-ing her ears, she dis-counted Rose’s as-sess-ment. Adam didn’t “like” her. He felt guilty, sure. He was con-cerned about what she thought of him, okay. But like her? Please.