22. Chapter Seventeen George Devereaux
Chapter Seventeen: George Devereaux
T he day of the Italy trip had arrived. I mentally reviewed the short list of four students and one TA who would be going. Due to the limited amount of study abroad funding for the class trip, I’d had to narrow down the list to ensure it wouldn’t be too much of a financial burden for each individual student, who would have to foot more of the cost themselves.
I’d created a rigorous vetting system for the group to choose who would go on the trip. I had figured that at least half the class wouldn’t be able to afford the trip or simply would have scheduling conflicts since it was summer. Though, it was a class of two hundred people, and there were still thirty students interested in the trip. Each applicant had submitted an essay through a secure online platform; I didn't have access to names or even student ID numbers that way. I didn’t need to be accused of favoritism again. The girls from office hours were already jealous of Georgia cutting the line once.
The result was that I had four merit-chosen students coming, with my TA Hunter also tagging along .
Now, the day was here. Everyone was responsible for booking for their own airfare and meeting at the hotel tomorrow by ten am. After going through security, I walked toward my gate in search of a coffee shop. Only to see Georgia. Was she also going on the trip?
If so, I was still surprised she had applied to go to Italy at all—and wondered which anonymous essay was hers.
She wore a pair of light-wash, straight-leg jeans and a white button-down top with an oversized grey blazer. All of it seemed purposefully constructed to conceal her frame, but even from here I could see how far her collarbones jutted out as she glanced up at the departures sign. She was painfully thin.
Were we on the same flight?
I checked my seat number on my boarding pass. 27A . I’d assumed Georgia would be taking a private jet or a chartered flight if she went to Italy at all, given her family’s wealth.
Apparently not.
Rolling my suitcase over to her and pushing past a throng of tired-looking travellers making their way to their gate, I called her name. “Georgia!”
She didn’t turn around, but I saw her fingers tighten on her pink and gold suitcase, which had her initials monogrammed into it. When I rolled my suitcase to a stop next to hers, she pulled her shoulders back. “Mr. Devereaux.”
While I’d teased her about calling me that on the first day of class, the truth was, I missed hearing my first name on her lips. She said it like no other woman ever did—or maybe she did things to me that no other woman ever had.
I caught the flight number from the boarding pass in her hand, and held up my own. Surprise and anticipation flooded my chest, mingling with anxiety. “I see we’re on the same flight. ”
“Yep.” She checked her boarding pass. 27D. We’d missed each other by just three seats.
God, why ?
I shouldn’t have questioned it. After all, if anything it would be a blessing. Having her so close to me and pretending our relationship was only professional—yes, that would be good for me. It would at least help me practice being professional around her in public. Because the last thing I wanted was to get my hopes up by pretending we were anything else.
I found a coffee shop and bought a latte, then sipped it as I leafed through a book on Renaissance art. Half an hour later, the flight attendants called our boarding zone number. I filed into line behind Georgia. She shifted her purse strap on her shoulder while fishing something out of the duffel bag she’d stacked on top of her suitcase. She muttered a curse as her oversized purse kept sliding down her arm.
I held up the tote bag for her, ignoring how bony her arm and shoulder felt through her boxy clothes. At least, I tried to ignore it. But anyone who looked at her could see that she was more frail than she’d been when we met.
Had her modelling really taken that much of a toll on her since we’d met? Or… was it me?
“Thanks,” she said, quickly straightening and yanking her bag back up onto her shoulder.
We showed our passports and boarding passes, then boarded the flight. As I put my suitcase into the overhead compartment with ease, I noticed Georgia struggling to heft hers over her head.
“I didn’t ask you to help,” she said, as I took the suitcase from her hands and hoisted it into the bin.
“Good, because I don’t expect you to thank me for it either,” I said, taking my seat .
She took her aisle seat, pulling a makeup bag out of her purse and reapplying her red lipstick.
She looked beautiful in red, but then, she looked beautiful in everything. It was why I’d painted her face so many times, in so many different things. Had used the curves and lean lines of her body as a muse for so many paintings that I’d lost count.
Then, after Sebastian, everything had fallen apart. I hadn’t painted in God knew how long.
But now, with only a foot of space between us, I was consumed by the urge to sketch her in profile: the ski-slope ridge of her nose, the way her lashes fanned out over her cheeks when she glanced down, the softness of her cheeks and chin.
“Excuse me, would you mind switching seats?” A frazzled-looking middle-aged woman asked Georgia. “I’m in seat 27B. My husband and son are across the aisle. We couldn’t get seats all together at the last minute.”
A red-faced toddler and his tired-looking father were sitting in 27E and 27F. The boy was jumping on the seat, heedless of his dad’s commands for him to get down, and playing with the buttons that controlled the light and air vents.
“Of course.” Georgia jumped up, grabbing her purse and moving two seats over. Her hair brushed my face as she sat down and pulled it back into a ponytail.
I shouldn’t have thanked God for the stranger’s misfortune of not being able to book seats with her family. But I did.
Thank You, God, for Georgia’s presence in my life, on this flight. Even if she ignores me the whole time, at least I get to be next to her.
** *
Pulling out my laptop and grading almost two hundred essays shouldn’t have been enjoyable. But as I kept an eye on Georgia—who had fallen asleep almost immediately after the plane had taken off—my heart warmed. The seat next to hers, 27C, remained empty. I’d expected her to move over by one seat to get away from me, but to my surprise, she didn’t.
I’d never seen her asleep. I supposed she had thought unconsciousness was a more palatable option than having to make conversation with me.
But seeing her half-closed eyelids and hearing her gentle breaths was more intimate than the handful of kisses we had shared. Seeing her let down the always-composed, always-perfect guard she always kept up, even if it was involuntarily in sleep, made me long for her all the more.
I kicked myself for letting her go.
Maybe I should have clung to our charade and continued our fake relationship. Would having part of her—even if it was only pretend—have been better than this strained tension between us now?
As the flight attendants rolled carts of beverages and snacks down the aisles, Georgia stirred. Her scent of orange blossoms and almonds drifted over to me. I had the strongest urge to stroke her hair and tell her to relax and that everything would be alright.
But no teacher who wanted to keep his job would do that to his student.
So I closed my laptop and let her wake up on her own as the beverage cart rolled down the aisle toward us. She blinked awake sleepily, yawning in the most adorable way. Few people would call Georgia Philips adorable—she was too tall, too fierce, too intimidating—but to me… to me, she was everything. Everything I could ever want.
When she realized her head was resting on my shoulder, she jumped upright in her seat, her body going rigid .
“How long was I asleep?” she whispered, her tone harsh.
I shrugged. “You basically fell asleep as soon as the plane took off.”
“And you didn’t wake me?”
“You looked like you needed the sleep.”
“Telling a woman she looks tired is always the best approach.”
“I figured you didn’t want me to tell you you’re beautiful. You could get that anywhere else.”
She opened her mouth, then closed it again. And in my heart of hearts, I knew—even if I knew nothing else about her—that she hated to be complimented on her looks.
“What can I get you to drink?” the flight attendant asked.
I ordered an Earl Grey tea with cream. Georgia got a black coffee, and the lady in the aisle seat asked for a ginger ale.
“Since when do you drink your coffee black?” I asked Georgia once the flight attendant had finished giving us all our drinks. The lights had dimmed around us after the beverage carts were put away, and most people were sleeping, so I kept my voice quiet.
She shrugged. The sleeve of her blazer slipped down and I could see the sharp edge of her collarbone. Seeing her waste away like this made me want to break something—whether it was the rules, my own heart, or whoever was telling her not to eat, I hadn't decided yet.
“Since I started liking how it tastes.” She took a sip and grimaced.
I pointed at her scowl. “That is not the face of a woman who likes her coffee black.”
“How are my dietary habits any of your business?” she snapped, still keeping her voice hushed. She stared longingly at the little packet of cream I’d been given by the flight attendant. I opened it and dumped it into her coffee.
“Since you’re my student. Getting enough sleep and eating a healthy diet are important parts of learning. ”
“Stop pretending you care about all your students equally, Mr. Devereaux.”
“Then stop pretending you don’t care about me at all, Georgia.”
She downed her coffee and glared at me. “I don’t have to pretend.”
“Is your reverse psychology working on you?”
Looking at her was dangerous. I wasn’t sure I’d ever want to look away.
“Okay, fine.” Her voice was a murmur. “Even if I cared about you—which I don’t—it’s only in a completely academic way.”
Very academic , I wanted to say. I wanted to slide my hand toward her until it brushed hers. Wanted to lean over and kiss her, tray tables and other passengers be damned.
“Even if I were only your teacher,” I said quietly, “I’d care about you. And I’d care about the fact that I haven’t seen you eat anything more substantial than rabbit food in the past few months.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. I eat.” As if on cue, her stomach growled. I wished she could have proved me wrong—that she could have vindicated her own protests. That she was healthy and happy and sleeping enough, instead of looking placidly at the flight map in front of her with dark circles beneath her eyes and too-hollow cheekbones.
“Or do you pretend to eat? Pretend that you’re healthy and everything is going perfectly in your life when it isn’t?” I studied her profile again in the faint lighting. If I were a sculptor, I’d immortalize her in marble and call the statue woman in denial .
“Ugh.” She shut her eyes, pressing her palms against her face. I thought for a moment that she might cry. The thought pierced my heart like a thorn, and I felt a twinge of remorse for pushing her. “I’m fine, George. Stop hovering over me. We both know you don’t care about me when you’re the one who ended things between us. ”
“Because they were fake ,“ I hissed. “Because I wanted them to be real.”
She jerked her head over to look at me. “Don’t lie to me, George.”
I didn’t have time to savour the sound of my name on her lips before she continued.
“Admit that you ended things between us because we both had gotten what we wanted out of it. We only got together so you could stay in the States and so I could get back at Sergio. Stop pretending it was anything more than that.”
“ Stop pretending ?“ I repeated in an incredulous whisper, grateful there was no one in the seat next to her. The family across the aisle was glued to a movie on their screens. “ You’ve been pretending all these months that you’re happy and fine. Pretending that you like modelling. Pretending that you’re still the lively, carefree spirit you were when I met you, before modelling sucked the life out of your bones.”
Her electric blue eyes flashed like thunderclouds. I knew I’d gone too far, but if it shook her out of her shell, I had to keep going.
“I am fine. I don’t need your pity or your concern.” She scoffed. “You’re the one who can’t even get a real job on his own and needs to rely on nepotism. You’re the one who can’t stay in one place for too long, who’s always running away from the past that haunts you. You’ll never stick around. How could things ever be real between us when you’ve disappointed everyone who’s ever loved you?”
We were both breathing hard, facing one another now. Her eyes were an ocean I wanted to drown me. How could one woman be the source of so much pain, yet still draw me in so strongly with her gravitational pull?
As if on cue, a baby wailed behind us, and our staring contest broke. We both turned back to our respective pastimes: she pulled out a fantasy book while I opened my laptop to resume grading.
By unspoken agreement, neither of us spoke a word to each other for the rest of the flight.
And I couldn’t help but remember how I had gotten us to this place.
***
Three Months Ago
I paced the small coffee shop next to the place where I’d once gotten hot chocolate with Georgia. My untouched coffee lay on the table, getting cold, but I picked at a biscotti instead as I waited for her.
The marriage license had been purchased. We only had to visit the courthouse and walk out as a married couple. The purpose of our coffee shop meeting was just to discuss the final details.
I should have been excited to go through with marrying her. Any sane man would’ve been. She was intelligent, witty, and exciting. She’d inspired half a dozen paintings of mine before we’d ever spoken, not that those would ever see the light of day.
Yet I couldn’t help but feel a deep sense of wrongness permeating my bones. We were going about the right thing in all the wrong ways. I shouldn’t have been marrying her to get a visa, and she shouldn’t have been marrying me to get back at her ex-boyfriend. We should have been in love. Happy. Picking out an apartment and touring venues and hiring wedding photographers .
Instead, I was turning my biscotti into crumbs at the cafe she’d agreed to meet me at, growing more nervous by the second.
My phone rang and I jumped to grab it. “Hello?”
“Mr. George Devereaux? This is Edwin MacCallum, the dean of the Art and Classics department at New York University.”
“Yes, this is George Devereaux. It’s a pleasure to speak with you. May I ask why you’re calling?”
“I’d like to inform you that your application to be a guest lecturer for the summer term has been accepted. You’ll receive an email with more information later this week.”
I nearly dropped my phone. I’d never expected to get the job, even with the help of Aaron Steele’s professor friend. “Thank you so much, Mr. McCallum.”
After a few pleasantries and confirming a meeting date, he hung up. Just then, Georgia walked in.
Her cheeks were pink from the cold outside, and she wore a long coat over knee-high boots, her face partially concealed by an oversized scarf. It was an ordinary spring outfit, but she wore it differently. With the kind of grace and ineffable allure that I struggled to capture in my artwork, no matter how many times I painted her.
“George,” she said when she saw me. “I hope that coffee is for me.”
I held out her chair for her. When she was seated, I pushed the drink toward her side of the table. “Here.”
“You look so somber,” she said, arching a brow. “Something on your mind?”
“I got the job at NYU.”
“Congratulations!” She put down the coffee cup and grabbed my hand, squeezing it with jubilant affection. “I knew you could do it.”
Her belief in me warmed my heart more than it should have. “Thank you. ”
She sipped the coffee. “So, tell me about the job! Did they hire you as a janitor?”
Her teasing smile transported me back to the day we’d met. With a painful squeeze of my heart, I wondered again what things between us could have been like if only I’d fought harder for her. Asked her to stay. Asked her to be mine, for real.
“No, actually, believe it or not, I know a thing or two about art. They asked me to be a guest lecturer for an art course.”
“That’s wonderful!”
I ordered another cappuccino, a drink I’d often had in Rome. It was better in Italy, of course. Georgia must have been thinking the same thing, because she asked, “Do you ever miss Italy?”
I didn’t know if she meant the country or our time together there. Those few weeks had been the highlight of all my time in Europe. No amount of artistic success could compare to the sheer joy of holding her hand as we’d walked down cobblestoned streets, her smile sweeter than the gelato we’d shared.
I was scared to ask. I didn’t want to find out our time together hadn’t meant anything to her. Because I was certain it’d break me in ways I couldn’t put back together.
“All the time,” I said. “But I’ve missed being in North America. It’s nice not to have to think about my words before I say them.”
“Oh, like you ever did that in Italian?” A playful glint came into her eyes. “I could’ve sworn you were the kind of guy who talked first and apologized later.”
I was, and I hated that about me, but I didn’t tell her that. Couldn’t tell her that. “You know me too well.”
She toyed with her cup, tilting it around to watch the dregs swirl around the bottom. “Sergio seemed to believe that you and I are a real couple. He congratulated me on our engagement.”
My blood heated at the mention of the man who had broken up with her so callously. “I guess we put on a good show for him at his engagement party.”
“I just got a text from my family’s private investigator,” Georgia said as she glanced down at her phone. “Sergio and his fiancée left the country on a one-way chartered flight out of New York to Italy. He’s not my problem anymore. Not that he ever was, but…”
“I know what you mean.”
She got up, as did I, just before she flung her arms around me. I squeezed her back just as tightly, the emotional rollercoaster we’d been on since agreeing to this fake engagement finally settling into a plateau.
Before I could think or stop myself, with her face a breath from mine, I let my mouth brush against hers. Her sweet scent and softness overwhelmed me in one aching, exquisite wave, before we separated again, still holding each other.
The words ‘ I love you’ sprung to my lips. If we were a normal couple—if our relationship were real—I would have said them. I would have said them until she was sick of hearing them. We would have shared our highs and lows together, celebrated victories like these and commiserated in the defeats together.
But we weren’t real.
So this kiss had to mean the end of our fake relationship.
I rested my palm on the small of her back, revelling in the comfort of her warmth before I had to let her go. “Georgia.”
Her blue eyes met mine. “Yes, George?”
I love you.
“I guess this means we don’t need to be fake engaged anymore.”
Georgia blinked, her long lashes fluttering. The weight of my words sunk in, and she released me. A wave of cold struck me with her absence as she stepped back, fidgeting with her fingers .
“I guess I don’t need this anymore, either.” Georgia pulled the engagement ring off her knuckle and handed it to me.
I took it numbly, the circlet of metal still warm from her skin as she pressed it into my palm. What could I even say in response? ‘ It was enjoyable being fake engaged to you. Let’s do it for real sometime’?
“I guess third time’s the charm,” I said instead, sliding the ring into my coat pocket.
“What?” A frown knotted her brows.
“You’ve had two fake relationships in a row. I guess the third guy you date will be the one,” I said.
“Right. Because that’s what this was. Fake,” she said.
I wanted to take back my words right away, but it was too late. Yes, we’d kissed in the Steele penthouse, but that had been in the excitement of seeing each other again. Not a sign of a real relationship—she clearly didn’t want one of those. And I never knew where I would settle down, so how could I lead her on when I wasn’t sure if I would stay in New York long-term?
I could never be good enough for her after what I had done. How could I burden her by asking her to give me something real when I could never be worthy of her love?
I shoved my hands in my pockets. “I’m glad we’re in agreement, then.”
“And that kiss just now—was that fake, too?” she snapped.
I swallowed the truth screaming to break free in my throat. “Yes.”