Tame the Beast (Loverly Cave #4)

Prologue

"Honesty is the key to a relationship. If you can fake that, you’re in." – Richard Jeni

Zoe

H ave you ever woken up in the morning, feeling the teasing rays of a spring sun caressing—or more like mocking—your skin with its false sense of warmth and just knew that everything is about to go to shit?

I have.

Today. This morning. I woke up scowling at the sun, accusing it of lying right to my face since spring in Chicago might as well just be called winter two-point-oh, or better yet an encore, and yet the star around which the earth orbits was glowing like a virgin around her long-lost crush.

So, if the sun was lying, then what could be said of everything and everyone else?

Does it sound like I have some trust issues?

I have. But I prefer to call it intuition derived from years spent honing that ability.

Still, I picked my sore body off the bed and tracked over to get ready for the day. I have no idea why suddenly my muscles decide to cramp up and hurt like tiny whiny assholes because I haven’t worked them out anywhere near this level of strain.

I am a scientist, for Pete’s sake. My version of work out is running down to the lab and back. But I do like to take care of my body, so I do some light cardio daily. Again, emphasis on the word “light,” so, why in the world my back hurts like a mother…I have no idea.

I must’ve pulled a muscle when I was running around, playing fetch for my boss—the best, most awarded pathologist in the country, Doctor Joy Levine. Also known as the evil witch of the wicked seas in KePah University and really, everywhere else too.

The woman is abso-fucking-lutely brilliant when it comes to science and medicine, but human interactions, empathy or a sense of humor is as foreign of a subject to her as it perhaps is for me. And that is why I am the only assistant who has been able to stick around for longer than one week.

It’s been two years since she came into my class as a substitute for one day and hired me on the spot.

Why, yes, maybe I am a little brilliant myself. But trust me, that didn’t come naturally. It was rather honed out of me by years and years of hard work—and my mother’s pressure on me. But that’s just what you have to do if you want to end up in KePah University.

The place is like a Fort Knox of educational institutions. And my mother really wanted me to end up here.

And while it is absolutely riveting to dive into my childhood trauma, today is not the day for it.

Or for my back pain and intuition.

And although we are not friends, I respect her, and I want to be her when I grow up. Despite her running me ragged each and every day—hence my strained back. Probably. Most likely.

Because today is too important to feel off.

Tonight is our annual—ridiculous—awards ceremony and dinner at KePah University. It’s the biggest thing of the year meant to honor the hard work of our faculty members throughout the year. KePah is very old and takes its traditions to extremes so when I say the awards dinner is not just a mere show to placate the employees, I mean it.

We are talking about a red-carpet—which is blue in our case—style event with high end catering, cameras and cocktail dresses that cost an arm and a leg. The kind you only wear once and then stick to the back of your closet to meet its maker or moths.

Every year, the board selects—supposedly fairly, but not really—a few of the most accomplished professors, deans, and so on, to present them with special awards. Followed by the fancy dinner I don’t have to—don’t want to—go to. Neither is it expected of me since I’ve never attended before being a mere assistant, but I will grit my teeth, don the over-priced dress I got and listen to the tedious talks and butt licking because my boyfriend is getting his award tonight.

It is still surreal to say that out loud. Justin Hunt is my boyfriend. The Justin Hunt. The brilliant cardiologist and a professor at our university. He, and my above-mentioned boss, Dr. Levine, worked on a project together for which they are being recognized tonight but that is also essentially how I really met him.

I was there every step of the way, helping and researching alongside them and Justin took notice of me. This god of a man with tall, lean figure, blond luxurious hair, and a dazzling smile, took notice. The most influential man on campus, the heir to the KePah dynasty, asked me out to dinner two weeks after we all started working together.

I had to pinch myself a few hundred times when he slipped into my office after hours, saying he could no longer hold back. Could no longer just watch me from afar and needed to ask me out for a dinner. Even if that was all I’d give him. He would take it.

I am not one of those girls who was ever easily impressed by a guy, but Justin? He took my breath away and I knew I was falling for him even before we made it to that dinner and a few dates later fell into bed together. Because Justin is someone who fits my life plan. He fits so well I still can’t believe I found him. He is everything I’ve wished for since I was young girl—smart, well-established, career-driven—so, when he approached me, there was no way I was going to resist in any way, shape or form.

Sure, our relationship is not conventional. We don’t see each other every day and sometimes it’s only once a week or two, but we are both busy adults and I understand that. Even though sometimes I wish for more.

And maybe, just maybe, that weird feeling I woke up with has something to do with him taking the next step in our relationship? What if I am getting all these strange feelings because things are about to change and not in that dreadful way I am anticipating?

My brain is just programmed to think of the worst-case scenario. That is what I have been taught from a young age, and being a scientist doesn’t help.

Putting away the thought of my childhood and current warning bells inside my head, I get ready and hurry to work, running around the fancy lab and helping Dr. Levine get ready for dinner tonight while pretending she doesn’t still slightly terrify me after working together for so long.

I go through the motions of checking up on the bodies we are working on currently, finishing up the reports time on those and making sure her dress arrives on. Yet those warning bells I’ve tried to put away start blaring louder and brighter as the day goes on.

Especially after yet another unanswered text from Justin.

But I keep shoving them down further and further through the evening and the walk to the auditorium. I shove them down through the flashing lights from cameras that I avoid because that kind of attention was never my thing. I shove them down through some mindless conversations with a few colleges who have also come out tonight.

I shove them down and down until I am so numb and have convinced myself that the world is made up of unicorns and rainbows. I don’t realize I’ve shoved my heart so far down, it is numb to what my brown eyes are seeing. To the shift in the atmosphere.

I don’t realize that it is my boyfriend in a perfect black tux with a woman on his arm. A gorgeous—even if it’s in a fake kind of way—woman clinging onto him with her nose tipped up as if the rest of the world is beneath her. And why wouldn’t she feel that way?

That is exactly how Justin Hunt makes me feel. Only na?vely, I didn’t realize I wasn’t the only one. He has someone else. Somehow in the span of one week I haven’t seen him, he found someone else. Someone so important he brought her with him to show the rest of the world. And he looks so damn happy with her there, blessing everyone with that blinding smile of his.

But then what was I?

Justin is shaking hands with everyone around them, accepting congratulations on his award while the woman at his side bristles with pride, and runs her hands all over him as if to make sure there isn’t a single soul in here who doesn’t realize the claim she has on him.

And what a claim it is…

Forget a simple shift in the atmosphere. It's a full-blown earthquake inside my chest.

I must still be too numb, too crumbled beneath the rubble of my heart, otherwise I am sure my knees would give way when my eyes fall onto her arm, the one she has him in a death grip with. There, just at the end, where the ring finger is, lays a diamond so big I’m not sure she’s able to lift her hand up with that on it.

Additionally, there is a platinum band on his ring finger as well. One I’ve never seen before.

He got married in a week? Or was he seeing her at the same time as me?

Oh, hell…Zoe…stop being a naive fool.

Late night calls. Seeing each other so scarcely. Unanswered texts. Avoidance of showing me his place or to make our relationship public…

No, he didn’t just get married. He was married. He is married.

I have been in love with a married man for a year.

I have been dating a married man for a year.

Suddenly, all the pieces of our dysfunctional relationship fall into their rightful place. It all makes perfect sense. It all fucking makes sense, and despite the PhD I earned I was stupid enough not to see the biggest lie right in front of nose.

I should walk right up to him and claw his face out. I should damage that blinding smile of his and make sure everyone sees him for what he is, but I don’t.

Instead, I turn and run as fast as I can, because after an earthquake there is generally a tsunami that follows. And the waves of mine are washing up the shores already. Alongside a healthy dose of nausea.

Fuck you, sun.

You won’t fool me twice. Yesterday I might have fallen for your lies and false sense of warmth but not today. Not after I saw through the fuzzy sunrays and revealed the murky skies full of lightning and thunder.

Yes, I might be completely losing it because I am having conversations inside my head with the sun. But since everything else is going to shit why not add insanity into the mix? Obviously, I’ve been having the symptoms for a while now with all the weird emotions, nausea, and sore back.

It doesn’t help that I couldn’t get a wink of sleep the whole night—tossing and turning, searching in my head for the answers to questions I’ve been asking myself far longer than just last night.

Why? What is so wrong with me that I am the one being lied to all the time? What is so wrong with me that I am not deserving of that love I so desperately want. Maybe I should know better…

Jesus, how could I be so na?ve?

Me!

A person, who is basically a know-it-all in deceit and lies department since I was born, fell for it blindly. But just because we are parched for some water, doesn’t mean the sand will magically become it.

Once again, I feel the stinging sensation crowding the sides of my eyes as my chest tightens and my stomach recoils from pain and agony and I want to—so desperately want to—curl up and let the destruction within me lose once again. I want to just give in to the weakness begging me to give up and admit defeat, but I can’t.

I won’t.

I won’t allow another man to walk all over me again. Those men can go to hell and take those sneaky tears with them while I will keep going. Keep climbing up. Keep living and proving that I am worth it.

Only, my resolve lasts all of one hour before I make my way into the lab in hopes of distracting myself with work, yet as soon as I step inside the chilled building with beautiful architecture, memories of us hit me like a train wreck. The first touch happened just there below that white table where he was explaining his idea to Dr. Levine and me.

It was barely a caress, yet his eyes snapped to mine right that second, and I had to suck in a lungful of pungent, formalin-scented air around us to keep from falling off that stool. I remember telling myself it was nothing and I shouldn’t get any ideas but the next day he did it again and this time there was no mistaking his intention. Or shall I say, lie…

The first kiss we shared was right around the corner, in the hallway where anyone could see us, but Justin said he didn’t care, actually his exact words were, “Let them see who managed to get the prettiest scientist all to himself.”

And I melted like an ice cube in the dessert.

Evaporated straight into him.

When in reality, he chose the time of day when no one but me was in the lab. There would be no one to walk in and see anything.

The memories assault me from each corner and all of a sudden, the only thing I want is to drop to the cold, tiled floor and wail like a baby once again. I am not a crier, so just why the hell am I feeling so much all of a sudden? Why is this pain raging and blasting through me like a serrated knife?

Breathe, Zoe! Time will heal you. And maybe a few cut off penises, even if they come from the corpses in our lab. It will still make me feel better.

I have just managed to put on my lab coat without breaking apart when a voice startles me.

“Zoe?” I whip around—or more like jump out of my skin while clutching my heart—to see my boss frowning at me from the door to her office.

“Oh my God, Dr. Levine,” I say in a breathless voice, and I swear I see a small smile tug on the corner of her lips.

What is this? The official apocalypse? In two years, I’ve never once seen her smile.

“Sorry to spook you. What are you doing here?” she asks me when I should be the one asking her that.

Dr. Levine never shows up on Saturdays, therefore, I thought it would be a safe space for me to hide and distract myself today.

“Um, I-I’m always here on Saturdays. Catching up on work.” I stumble on my words slightly because she still frightens me at times. Joy Levine is beyond beautiful with her long, rich dark brown hair, dark, deep eyes that seem to see more that you are willing to show and a lush curvy figure that turns nearly every male eye, however, I haven’t seen her give anyone a time of day. Not once.

Dr. Levine is the epitome of a gorgeous workaholic.

“You are?” she asks with surprise because I’ve never told her I come to catch up on work during the weekends. Because like an idiot I was always alone during them, believing my boyfriend had study groups, conferences or business meetings.

“Y-yes. Um, there is a lot to do, and I can’t quite do it all during normal hours,” I admit to my inadequacy and cringe, dropping my head down as I await her lashing out that I’m too incompetent to finish the basic tasks she gives me during the week, yet it doesn’t come.

Nothing comes out of her mouth for a long, pregnant minute, forcing me to lift up my eyes and only then I see her shoulders drop, the hands she had twisted in front of her chest, loosening and her face morphing into a weird mask of confusion, pain and sympathy?

“Zoe, go home, I’ll take care of it today,” she finally says with a long exhale and all I can do is blink in return.

“Um, what?”

“Go home; I got this today.” She waves me off.

“But you’re never here on Saturdays.” The words tumble out of my mouth before I can think better of them because who the hell do I think I am talking to her like this but once again she doesn’t give me that death glare I expect. No, her eyes are full of some other emotion I can’t understand.

“Well, that’s no longer true, and I’ll be here all the time from now on.” Bitterness. That’s what I see in her eyes. “So go, live your life. Don’t be stuck like I am.”

Live my life? No, thank you. I have tried and tried again but living my life is not for me. “Um, if you don’t mind, could I stay?”

Dr. Levine pierces me with an assessing gaze, and I wish I would take her offer of leaving because like I said before, my boss seems to see way more than anyone else, and asks me, “What’s wrong, Zoe? What happened?”

“N-nothing.” My voice shakes, the truth just begging to be allowed to climb out and spill right at her feet. To share this pain with someone else but I don't exactly have any friends and my boss seems to be the last person who I should spill all of my crappy life choices to. I can’t. However, Dr. Levine keeps pushing and when she utters my name in that authoritative doctor’s voice of hers, I break.

I break into messy, ugly wailing. That beast inside my chest squeezing my insides all too hard. Why does it hurt so much?

“Please, let me stay here. I can’t go home today. Please,” I plead, because even in a room full of memories I feel better than alone in my small apartment where all I have are my own vicious thoughts to be lost in.

But is this any better? What is wrong with me? Why can’t I stop crying? And in front of my boss nonetheless. Damn it.

Out of nowhere, I feel Dr. Levine’s hand on my shoulders, patting me awkwardly like that action is a foreign gesture for her.

“Zoe, how about you calm down and tell me what happened so I can help you, okay? I don’t have solutions for tears; I need real words.” Damn it, I am messing up everyone’s day today, and now my boss has to deal with my antics which makes me sob even harder, shaking under her touch. “Zoe!” she calls out in a demand, and that right there does the trick.

“I saw him with his wife,” I mumble out, the admission to my failure tumbling out of me without my permission and evidently it shocks her just as much as me because all of a sudden, she grows stiff next to me.

“You saw who?” she says almost in a whisper but still wielding it with authority and a dark edge I haven’t seen before.

I swallow hard before answering her, but maybe I swallowed too much of my sanity along with that lump because I spill it all. Along with more damn tears. “My boyfriend. My stupid, stupid boyfriend. The one w’s been lying to me for the past year. He is fucking married, and he showed up with his wife at the ceremony yesterday.”

Instantly, Dr. Levine’s naturally golden-toned face pales and she says softly, “Zoe, are you talking about Justin?” My eyes snap up to hers so fast, I felt my irises strain.

“H-how did you know?” Oh, God, please don’t tell me she knew this whole time? Knew that I was stupid enough to date a married man and make a fool out of myself. Did she catch us after all?

I am awaiting her to tell me what an idiot I am or at least look at me with disgust when something so unexpected happens, I am lost for words.

She laughs.

Laughs.

A belly-deep, tears-down-your-cheeks kind of laugh but it had a sardonic note. But she keeps laughing and laughing as if some kind of dam broke loose inside her and now, she can’t stop. I even forget to be concerned that she might be laughing at my pathetic self in my worry for her.

“Doctor Levine? Are you okay?”

“Oh, Zoe, I think we need to move on to first name basis after this,” she says, while wiping the tears underneath her eyes, as she keeps laughing but not as hard anymore and takes a long, assessing look over my whole body, glancing over my ordinary blonde hair, dull brown eyes and an unflattering figure that I tried to work hard on for Justin but could never get to be an extra small in size. I am not as beautifully curvy as Joy is, but I am not skin and bones either. Like I said, unflattering. But the way she watches me makes me want to tug on my coat to hide it all.

Jesus, what is going on?

After a moment, she looks up and says, “I guess he has a type. Shame his wife doesn’t really fit the bill, huh?” I feel my brows furrow further into confusion at her comment.

“What are you talking about, Doctor Levine?”

“Joy,” she says all of a sudden and before I get a chance to ask why she is telling me her name that I already know, she dumps an atomic bomb on my already shattered heart.

“Women whom I have shared a boyfriend with get to call me Joy.”