Chapter Four
Sadie
S hit. It’s him. The guy that’s been giving me hot and sweaty dreams since he sent me home in an Uber. He’s the new professor Jennifer’s been raving about. The one she taught as an undergrad and supervised through his PhD.
How the hell have I never seen a photo of him? How the hell did I not know who he was when he walked into the pub that night? Did I not ask his name? My mind races, sifting through my memories from the bar. I called him Solo Man because he came in alone. And I didn’t even realise it at the time, but I never told him mine. It didn’t come up. Which is weird in itself. The only excuse I have is that my mind was hormone addled. I’ll give myself a good talking-to about personal safety once I’m not in this eerily familiar position in front of my recent one-night stand.
I gaze up at him, frozen for what feels like multiple millennia, although it can’t be more than a few seconds. Because Jennifer is still rambling on about my PhD thesis and how it might dovetail with his work in Amarna and some other rubbish about the copy machine. Finally, I shake myself out of my catatonic state, scramble to my feet, and step towards him, hand outstretched.
“Nice to meet you, Professor Carter.”
As if we’ve rehearsed it, he follows my lead, steps forward, and takes my hand in a firm grip. The warmth and strength sends a shot of adrenaline—and sensory memory—straight to the place I need it least with Jennifer standing there watching us.
“Nice to meet you, too, Sadie. I’m looking forward to hearing about your plans. And please, call me Ethan.” I suppress the full body shiver the contact has sparked and attempt to shake his hand like a normal functioning adult.
He’s got one of the best poker faces I’ve ever seen.
Unless he doesn’t remember me. No. I was there. You don’t forget a night like that. I know I’m not mistaken about who he is. The smell of his spicy body wash and the feel of the callouses on his hands have haunted my dreams. It’s him alright.
“Okay, let’s go and grab some lunch,” Jennifer suggests, thankfully oblivious to the undercurrents in the cramped and overheated utilities room. He follows her into the hall with no more than a brief glance over his shoulder to imply he remembers what we did together.
I’m still standing there, gapping like a fish, when fellow PhD student, and my favourite person of all time—let me just wipe the sarcasm off that—Riley Hall, races into the copy room. We’ve been frenemies since we first laid eyes on each other when I transferred to this uni to do my master’s. I tried with her. I really did. But she’s just so vacuous.
“Who was that?” she squeals in a stage whisper, sticking her blonde head back out into the corridor and watching Ethan and Jennifer get into the lift.
“Who was who?” I live to irritate Riley, and playing dumb gets her every time.
With a cartoon-esque roll of her eyes, she sighs and waves her hand towards the lifts.
“That. The long drink of water getting in the lift with Professor Stone.”
“Oh. Him. Dunno.” If she wants the tea, she’s going to have to get someone else to spill it.
“Don’t give me that. You know everything around here. Oooh. Was it the new professor? Ethan Carter. Was it?” Her eyes light up like a couple of implausibly blue fairy lights caught between two hairy black caterpillars.
I weigh up whether telling her or withholding what I know will get rid of her quickest.
“Umm, yeah. I think so. Maybe. He and Jennifer were going to grab some lunch. If you hurry, maybe you can catch them up.”
The carpet practically catches fire she’s out of there so fast, twisting her hand at an uncomfortable angle to avoid breaking a long, hot pink nail as she jabs repeatedly on the down button for the lift.
I gather up the paper from the floor, bin it, slam all the doors shut and press ‘copy’. The sooner I get this done, the sooner I can get home. I need to tell Bella about this development.
“Are you kidding me? What are the odds?” Bella hands me a large glass of red wine and curls on the other end of the couch facing me.
“I know. Of all the gin joints in all the towns …” We’ve been Old Hollywood tragics since we discovered black-and-white movies in seventh grade English, and it doesn’t get much more tragic than Casablanca .
“In all the world, he had to walk into yours. And you just acted like you’d never met?”
“I didn’t know what else to do. It was a reflex reaction,” I mumble through the BBQ chicken pizza I’m stuffing into my mouth. I’m starving since I missed lunch in my rush to get the copying finished and get out of the office before Solo Man, I mean Professor Carter, returned.
“And you’re positive it was him?”
“Oh, yeah. You don’t forget a face like that. Also, there was his body wash.”
Bella nods sagely. “Yeah. You can’t fool the olfactory senses.”
“Exactly.”
“Am I the only one who finds this a little bit funny?”
I raise my eyebrows in question. Nothing about this is funny.
“The fact that his name is Carter? Talk about name is destiny.”
It’s a mark of how freaked out about the whole situation I am that I haven’t even registered that Ethan’s surname is Carter. I was making jokes about it only a week ago.
“Do you think he’s related to the Howard Carter?” Bella continues.
“I have no idea. Right now, his family tree is the least of my worries.” If he was related to Tutankhamun himself, I wouldn’t care.
“Hey, leave a slice or two for me, would you?” Bella grabs a piece of pizza before I hoover up the lot. “So what are you going to do?”
“I guess I’ll have to try and find a time to talk to him about it. Sometime when nobody is around. Because if this gets out, we’d both be screwed. And not in the good way.”
“I don’t see why.”
“You know why.” I top off our glasses with the last of the wine.
“What I know is that at some point, you have to stop letting what your parents did determine your life choices.”
“No. I really don’t. I wish I could, but there’s always someone there to remind me.”
Bella starts humming the old Dionne Warwick song. I appreciate her attempt at lightening the mood, but I’m not ready. Too soon. I give her the evil eye.
“Who the hell cares what happened nearly thirty years ago?” she counters.
“You know what long memories people have for scandal. Oooh, there goes Sadie Montgomery. You know her mother broke up her father’s first marriage. While she was his student. Gasp. Giggle. ” I flap my hands around in an imitation of Riley relaying what she considers juicy gossip.
“Hmm. Sins of the mother. And father.”
“Yep. I don’t need to do anything to encourage people to join those dots. Even if they don’t remember, who wants to be that cliché? The professor and his student. Jesus. It’s in such bad taste.”
“Aaah. If only your deep-seated need for paternal approval hadn’t led you to work in the same field …” Bella swirls her wine, shaking her head. She loves to scratch at the poorly healed wound left by my father’s absence. She tells me it’s like the debridement of a burn. Her theory is that, eventually, she’ll hit new, healthy tissue. No luck so far.
“Shut up.” I shove her with my sock-clad foot. I wish Bella was on board with my strategy of denial. I trust her advice implicitly. She’s been my bestie since primary school and always has my back. She was the one who insisted we find a flat and move in together, despite both being broke, when living with my mother became unbearable. It was always toxic. Then I decided to study ancient history, majoring in Egypt. If she’d been an attentive mother this wouldn’t have come as a shock. Let’s just say you could hear the argument three suburbs away. The animosity built up to a point where I seriously considered dropping out. But Bella stepped in. Now we pay a—thankfully—peppercorn rent to her parents for an investment flat they own. Which is the only way we can afford to exist. It’s hand to mouth but going back home is not an option.
“Anyway, this is different. You didn’t know who he was or that you’d be working together.”
“Like anyone will care when or how it happened. Or even believe I had no idea who he was. There’s no way I could stay on at the uni and listen to more gossip—again—if they found out, and I’m not going to risk my PhD for a one-night stand I don’t intend repeating. Not to mention the embarrassment. I’m guessing he won’t want that kind of gossip either. Who’d want to be compared to my father?”
“What if he wants to revisit your one-night stand? Even you said it was exceptional. Maybe he’d like to see where it could go. The way you described his house, it doesn’t sound like he’s married. Would giving it another round be so bad?” Bella’s face is glowing with hope—or should I say hopeless—romanticism.
“Have you not been listening? Hooking up with him could derail my PhD. I’ve worked too hard to risk that over anyone. And stop trying to pair me off.”
Bella’s bottom lip comes out in a disappointed pout. This is a conversation we revisit on the regular.
“Well, I’m not seeing the problem for him. Really, there’s no need for him to keep it a secret. In fact, you could make the argument it would be best for him to fess up now. Hiding it just makes it seem even more sketchy. And since he didn’t know who you were, and you’re well and truly over the age of consent, he’s done nothing wrong.”
“I’ll have to convince him we need to keep it quiet somehow, that’s all.”
“So, you talk him into agreeing to ignore it, even though not being honest may well put his career at risk, and you carry on as if nothing happened?” I hate that she makes such a good point.
“Yes?” It comes out as a question, and that doesn’t bode well. If I’m not certain it will work, I don’t imagine Ethan will be either.
“Right. I can’t see anything going wrong in that scenario at all.”
Unfortunately, I can see lots going wrong. Especially when I’m tucked up in bed, having polished off half a bottle of red and the better part of a pizza.
Everything I’ve been working towards is hanging in the balance. I learnt at a young age that men can’t be trusted with anything more important than your coffee order. And even then, you take the lid off to check before you sip.
Now I’m having to trust a complete stranger to keep a secret for no good reason other than I asked nicely.
There’s also the undeniable fact that there’s something about Ethan Carter that calls to me on a cellular level. And whatever that something is, I need to nix it right now. Which doesn’t explain why my hand creeps under the waistband of my fluffy pyjama pants.