The Perfect Deception (The Perfect Match #3)

Chapter Twenty

Chap-ter Twenty

T he DJ started the mu-sic as soon as she walked out onto the dance floor with Adam. “I Gotta Feel-ing” drowned out the voices, but it couldn’t elim-i-nate the im-ages flash-ing through her mind—Cheryl’s and Ann’s con-cern, Ash-ley’s anger, Adam’s des-o-la-tion.

It was his des-o-la-tion, the hol-low look in his eyes that re-played more of-ten than the other im-ages. And made her push down her own fears and ask him to dance, rather than find out what the heck ev-ery-one was talk-ing about.

Pos-si-bly be-cause they were the only peo-ple on the dance floor, the DJ switched to a slow song. Now they had a rea-son to look as if they were hold-ing each other up. She’d never felt Adam so stiff, not even when they were at din-ner with his fa-ther. It was like danc-ing with a stone statue. His hands were on her waist and al-though it wasn’t painful, he gripped her like he thought she would run away. She wouldn’t. Against his chest, she could feel his heart pound-ing. And look-ing up at his face, his blank ex-pres-sion was set. She ran her fin-gers along his nape, try-ing to ease some of the ten-sion. When he glanced down at her, she spoke.

“Re-lax. We’re danc-ing. Don’t let them get to you.”

“Dina, I—”

“It’s okay. I don’t know what hap-pened back there, but they ru-ined my en-tire high school ex-pe-ri-ence. I’m not let-ting them ruin tonight.”

He pulled her close—or maybe his body just re-laxed enough to make her feel like he did—and rested his cheek against her hair. His breath puffed against her neck, send-ing shiv-ers down her spine. She felt him bob against her as he swal-lowed—once, twice, three times—and she fo-cused on keep-ing them mov-ing to the mu-sic and run-ning her fin-gers through his soft hair.

As she looked around the room, other cou-ples joined them on the dance floor, the lure of the mu-sic too much to re-sist. Yet they kept a safe dis-tance away from them, as if afraid of catch-ing some-thing.

The DJ changed the song to “Hips Don’t Lie,” and al-though ev-ery-one around them picked up the speed, Adam found a slow tempo hid-den in the song and kept them danc-ing to it. All around them, bod-ies un-du-lated to Shakira’s song, yet she and Adam swayed to their pri-vate ver-sion of the mu-sic.

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 ta-ble and headed to-ward the exit. Once again, her tor-men-tors/res-cuers/trou-ble-mak-ers con-fronted 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, look-ing out for her now?

“I’m fine, Ann.”

“That’s what I thought,” Ash-ley said, her ex-pres-sion sharp, lips pulled back in a sneer.

Adam ig-nored them, walk-ing to-ward the exit with sin-gle-minded pur-pose, and Dina in-creased her pace to keep up. At the door, she turned to take a last glimpse of the ban-quet room. The dec-o-ra-tions were fes-tive, but the peo-ple in-side were no more known to her now than they were when she was a stu-dent ten years ago.

She’d come, she’d seen and now she was leav-ing.

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

She frowned as she re-moved her heels. He hadn’t ap-peared drunk, but maybe he drank more than she thought while she was stuck in the re-stroom with the harpies. Why else would he let her drive his car? Tak-ing a quick glance at his form in the pas-sen-ger seat—eyes closed, head back, legs stretched out, she fo-cused on the work-ings of the car and the road as she nav-i-gated them home.

The ride was silent. She wanted to dis-cuss what hap-pened back there, but if Adam needed to sleep off the al-co-hol, there was no point in try-ing to have a rea-son-able dis-cus-sion. Her ques-tions, which in-creased in num-ber with ev-ery mile marker they passed, would have to wait.

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

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

“Why don’t you come in-side 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 pock-ets. “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, step-ping for-ward to kiss her fore-head. “We’ll talk later,” he said.

“Soon.”

But he pulled away with-out ac-knowl-edg-ing what she’d said. And the con-cerns she’d bat-ted away at the re-union came roar-ing back.

Adam paced the con-fines of his apart-ment. The space, which had once seemed so large, now re-stricted him, mak-ing him claus-tro-pho-bic. Floor-to-ceil-ing win-dows, white walls, clean lines of ex-pen-sive leather and mar-ble fur-ni-ture the sales-woman had picked were all sup-posed to con-vey light, air and min-i-mal-ism. Yet with one evening at a re-union, one scene at the ta-ble, one con-ver-sa-tion among many, it all evap-o-rated. And now he couldn’t breathe.

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

He shiv-ered and jacked up the heat on the ther-mo-stat. But re-gard-less of the tem-per-a-ture in his apart-ment, he couldn’t shake off the cold seep-ing into his bones.

Ash-ley had got-ten to her first. Well, maybe not Ash-ley, but her min-ions, which was worse. Even if he were in-no-cent, as he main-tained, the ac-cu-sa-tion was enough to damn him. And the fact that he was known for ob-sess-ing over his rep-u-ta-tion was an-other strike against him. Add in his fa-ther’s dis-be-lief, and he was toast.

His rep-u-ta-tion was in tat-ters. Why would any-one, much less Dina, want to be with him? She was go-ing to leave him, just like his mother had. His stom-ach tight-ened and bile rose in his throat. He’d vowed never to be in the po-si-tion of let-ting some-one leave him again. And here he was, back in the same damn sit-u-a-tion. At least this time he knew the rea-son.

But even if he wasn’t to blame for los-ing that par-tic-u-lar case, ev-ery-one knew his own fa-ther had fired him. They had even bled into Dina’s life—what were the odds she’d gone to high school with his ad-ver-sary? The si-lence in his apart-ment was deaf-en-ing. Even his neigh-bors were silent.

He pulled up short. What were the odds?

He shook his head. If it were any-one else, he’d think they were set-ting it up. But this was Dina. She was wicked smart, pas-sion-ate, funny. She was not ma-nip-u-la-tive. And she would never have been able to pull this off. He’d seen her face, heard her voice—she’d been as sur-prised as he was. She’d been an un-wit-ting pawn in all of this, not the chess mas-ter.

How-ever, it gave him the per-fect out, en-abling him to leave so he didn’t have to watch her leave him. Be-cause no mat-ter what the truth was, no one would stay with him af-ter this. And if he played his cards right, he could en-sure that he would be the one to do the leav-ing.

Dina frowned at her phone. She’d texted Adam twice—once in the morn-ing and once this af-ter-noon, and he hadn’t re-sponded to ei-ther text. Af-ter last night, she was con-cerned about him. Maybe he was sleep-ing it off? But it was four o’clock. Even a drunk would be up by now.

And Adam hadn’t seemed drunk.

When it rang, she tossed it up in the air, be-fore an-swer-ing it. “H…Hello?”

“Dina, it’s me. What’s wrong?”

Tracy’s voice usu-ally made her happy, and she tried to swal-low her dis-ap-point-ment when it wasn’t whom she was hop-ing to talk to.

“Sorry, Trace, I was wait-ing for a phone call.”

“So was I. You didn’t call to let me know how the re-union was.”

Dina gripped the phone. “I’m sorry. It was…event-ful.” She scrunched into the couch, drew a green afghan her mom had knit over her knees and told Tracy about last night. “I’m not sure what sur-prised me more—the way the pop-u-lar girls acted like we’d been best friends for years, or the way Adam just shut down. He didn’t even give me a chance to de-fend him. Adam is many things, Tracy, be-lieve me, I know. But he’s never in-di-cated he wasn’t in-ter-ested in pur-su-ing a re-la-tion-ship with me. He’s never sug-gested he’d up and leave if we got se-ri-ous. That’s not his style. But he won’t let me talk to him or ask him what’s go-ing on.”

“Wow. My tenth wasn’t nearly so event-ful, un-less you count the drunken pos-tur-ing go-ing on by the home-com-ing king and queen. As for Adam, are you sure he’s as into you as you think?”

Blood rushed to her head at Tracy’s lack of loy-alty. “Ab-so-lutely, Tracy. He’s big on im-age, but be-hind that, he’s car-ing and loyal and de-cent. There’s no way he’d go to all the trou-ble of tak-ing me to my re-union just to break up with me!”

“Hey, easy. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to up-set you. I just don’t like see-ing you hurt.”

Dina took a deep breath. “Okay, sorry, didn’t mean to jump on you. Yes, I’m pos-i-tive. No mat-ter what im-age he projects to oth-ers, he’s se-ri-ous about me. And I’d feel it or sense that vibe, even if I didn’t see it di-rectly.”

“You’re right. He doesn’t give off that vibe at all. It’s some co-in-ci-dence though that you went to high school with his para-le-gal.”

“I know. It re-ally is a small world. Now if only he’d call me so we could talk this through. I have no idea what’s go-ing through his head.”

“Din, don’t wait around. If he’s not an-swer-ing you, call him.”

She glanced at the clock. “You’re right. I will as soon as I get off the phone with you.”

When Dina di-aled Adam, she ex-pected her call to go to voice-mail, but he picked up af-ter three rings.

“Di-naaaa!”

Oh brother. Her hands trem-bled as she held the phone to her ear. “Adam. Are you okay?”

“Su-u-u-u-ure.”

She cringed at the way he was speak-ing. “You don’t sound it.” His voice was off. And he was giv-ing her the at-ti-tude she hated.

“Like you’d ex-pect any-thing else?”

Her skin tin-gled and her stom-ach felt heavy. “Adam, what are you talk-ing about?”

“Come on, Dina, you’re too smart to act this stupid.”

Her throat tight-ened and the room tilted. Reach-ing for some-thing to grab onto, her hand found the arm of the sofa and she sank into it. “You’re not mak-ing any sense. Do you want me to come over?”

“No, I don’t want you to come over.”

Al-though they hadn’t been on the phone long, it was as if time dragged, with each ques-tion and re-sponse elon-gat-ing and dis-tort-ing. She swal-lowed and gripped the phone tighter.

“Then why are you call-ing me?”

Adam’s hu-mor-less laugh echoed in her ear. “You’re the one that’s been tex-ting me all day.”

So he’d got-ten her texts and ig-nored them. “Be-cause I wanted to talk to you about last night.”

“I have no need to talk to you about last night, or any-thing else for that mat-ter.”

Sweat dot-ted her fore-head. “Adam, I re-ally don’t un-der-stand what’s go-ing on.”

“Oh, for once the id-iot gets to play the smart guy and en-lighten the ge-nius!”

His words stung. “You’re not an id-iot, Adam.”

“I must be, if I fell for your trick.”

Her mind raced as she tried to fig-ure out what he was talk-ing about. “What trick?”

“You set me up.”

“What?”

“Last night. You had me think-ing this whole time you were dread-ing your re-union, that you’d never fit in with any of your class-mates, when this whole time you were in league with Ash-ley.”

“What? No! That’s not true!”

“Come on, Dina. You went to school with her. You think it’s just a co-in-ci-dence? How stupid do you think I am?”

Her mouth dropped and her heart raced. “Adam, I swear. Ev-ery-thing I told you was true. Those girls never knew me in high school. I didn’t even know Ash-ley worked with you.”

His voice lost all the “drunk Adam” tone and hard-ened. “For-get it, Dina. Don’t pre-tend any-more that you don’t know my fa-ther fired me. You even pre-tended to try to help me im-prove my rep-u-ta-tion, when all along you knew, and you helped Ash-ley make it pub-lic. Well, con-grat-u-la-tion. We’re done.”

Tears welled and over-flowed down her cheeks as she dropped the phone and sank to the ground.

His own fa-ther fired him and he thought it was her fault.