James: A College Girl Romance (21 page)

I smiled back at him and settled into my seat.

“Well, I’ve recently had some practice dealing with a charming, morally challenged libertine. I think we’re even.”

Unfortunately, we
weren’t
even. Not even close. I had just said that to make myself feel better. Admitting—even just to myself—that I felt something for him put me at a disadvantage, and trying to pretend I didn’t feel anything wasn’t going to make it any better. But there was no way in hell I was going to tell James how I felt. When he gestured toward my champagne flute, I shook my head and set it down.

“You want to tell me something about your mother and stepfather?” he asked.

“Let’s see. When they first met, he was her professor—”

James started laughing.

“
What?
Did I miss the joke?”

“I’ll tell you some other time.”

I smirked and shook my head.

“You’re always saying that. Someday you’re going to have to pay up. Anyway. My father was out of the picture from way early on, so Mom and I were super tight while I was growing up. I told her everything. Then she went back to grad school while I was high school, and Michael was her graduate advisor. He started coming over for dinner after she finished her master’s, and then—
poof
—I had a stepdad. Honestly, though, I think he wishes my mom hadn’t had a kid. And my mom, who’s this outspoken, sharp woman, always acts like a 1950s housewife around him. It’s really bizarre.”

I looked down at my hands. Like I could talk. I had gone from paying my own way to being—what? James McDevitt’s slave? His employee? His entertainment? Maybe that was why it was so important to me to hold my own with him. Sure, I had essentially let him pay me for a weird battle of wills, but I wasn’t going to be submissive and obedient. Besides, if he hadn’t liked my attitude, then he probably would have given up on this whole game by now.

The part that killed me, though, was knowing how easily James could walk away when I knew this experience would take a piece of me with it. I wanted to hate him. Instead, I hated myself for falling in love with him.

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re beautiful when you’re deep in thought?”

I looked up.

“No one’s ever called me beautiful before you.”

“Proof that most men are fools.”

“Or just proof that you’re a charming libertine.”

If I never saw him again, I had to believe that eventually these feelings would fade. When my eyes burned with unshed tears, I reached up and squeezed the bridge of my nose. Then I turned and spent the rest of the flight staring out the window. As soon as we landed and stepped off the plane, I saw a full-on limousine waiting on the tarmac. I turned and stared at James.

“A limo? Really?”

“It’s L.A., lovely. No one in his right mind wants to drive on the freeways here if it can be helped—you should know that.”

With stop-and-go traffic, the drive from the airport took a little more than an hour. I had grown up in apartment complexes all over L.A. and Orange County, but right after I had graduated high school, Mom and Michael had bought a house just north of L.A. County. I didn’t know the area well, and coming back to visit never felt like a homecoming—just a stopover in unfamiliar territory.

When James reached over and squeezed my hand, I looked out the tinted window and saw that we were parked in front of Mom and Michael’s house. The driver opened my door, and I stepped out as the sun set over the red rock hills that surrounded their neighborhood. As soon as James took my arm, I started to panic.

All I could think was:
This is such a bad idea
.

I
shook my head as I looked around the sprawling stucco-and-red-tile tract homes of Cass’s parents’ well-to-do suburban neighborhood. Dinner with the parents. A week ago I would have laughed my ass off if someone had told me I would be here.

I rang the bell as Cass stood next to me. She shifted her weight and grasped at the hem of her dress. I was starting to worry she might turn and sprint down the street when the front door swung open. I looked back and forth between the woman in the apron and Cass.

There was no mistaking the resemblance. Their facial structure was almost identical, but Cass was by far the fairer skinned of the two, emphasized by the fact that she was blushing bright pink. Her mother brushed her golden-brown hair away from her face and gasped.

“Cassia! My baby! You’re wearing a dress—and high heels!”

Cass quickly stepped forward and hugged her mother. When they separated, her mother ushered us into the tile foyer and stared up at me with a curious look. Cass slipped off her heels and left them next to the stairs.

“Cass, you didn’t tell me you were bringing someone. Are you going to introduce us?”

“Mom, this is—”

I held out my hand.

“Cass’s boyfriend, James McDevitt.”

“Oh!” her mother said, obviously startled.

I smiled as she took my hand.

“It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Agnew.”

“Call me Cynthia, James. And it appears you know more about me than I know about you.”

“That’s true. Your daughter has told me a lot about you …”

And my associate Matt Irving has spent the week digging up dirt on you and your husband
, I thought darkly. When I glanced down at Cass, she was glassy eyed, bordering on catatonic. Her mother began leading us into a great room off the kitchen where there were two other couples. The men were both in their late fifties or early sixties, and the women a decade or so younger than their spouses. A short balding man with glasses was standing next to the TV.

“Honey, look who’s here!” Cynthia Agnew said with exaggerated enthusiasm.

Michael Agnew paused the slideshow on the flat screen and walked over to us.

“It’s good to see you, Cassia,” he said stiffly.

“Happy Birthday, Michael. This is … it’s for your birthday.”

She gave him an awkward one-armed hug as he took the bag. Ignoring the card, he pulled out the bottle of wine. His eyebrows shot up.

“James picked it,” Cass said as though she was expecting to be dressed down.

Michael Agnew looked over at me with an appraising expression.

That’s right, asshole. You were drinking this five-hundred-dollar Burgundy last month in the Côte d’Or while your stepdaughter was working in a strip club.

“I didn’t know what you liked, so I went out on a limb. I hear it’s an excellent vintage.” I held out my hand. “James McDevitt. Cass’s boyfriend.”

Her stepfather recovered himself and shook my hand.

“I didn’t know Cassia had a boyfriend,” he said flatly before turning to the company sitting on the sectional. “Cassia, you remember Professor Stein and his wife Donna. And Thomas and Pam Wexler from up the street.”

“James? Would you like something to drink?” her mother asked from the kitchen.

I gestured to Cass.

“Um, I’ll have red wine,” Cass mumbled.

“Whisky, neat, if you have it.”

Cass’s mother returned to rushing around the kitchen like a mad woman while her husband went back to his slideshow of the Loire Valley, which he had set to French folk music. At the wet bar, Cynthia Agnew opened up one of the cabinets beneath the sink and took out a box-store jug of cheap whisky. She poured a lowball, and I smiled as I took the glass from her. It was going to be a long night.

“Mom? Do you want me to set the table?”

Her mother handed her a glass of cheap red wine from a bottle that had been in the refrigerator.

“Sure, honey. There are candles in the hutch,” her mother said distractedly as she took something from the oven.

“Cynthia?” her husband called from the TV. “Can you open up another bottle of wine? Maybe that Pinot we got last year?”

Cass’s mother stopped what she had been doing and hurried over to a wine chiller off the kitchen. She removed a bottle, opened it with admirable finesse, and brought it over to her husband before collecting five glasses from the bar and bringing those over as well.

As soon as she had poured the wine, her husband went back to his slideshow. Cass came back from the dining room and started bringing dishes out to the table. I caught her hand on her second trip back.

“You want to show me around?”

She looked surprised.

“Um, okay.”

I followed her as she began walking toward the front of the house. She pointed to a closed door.

“That’s Michael’s office. He keeps it locked. All his financial stuff is in there.”

She pointed toward the formal living room and then began walking up the stairs. At the landing, she gestured toward another closed door.

“That’s their room.”

There were framed photographs and folk art on every surface. Not my style. Trying too hard to be bohemian in a million-dollar tract home. A few photos of Cass’s mother and stepfather. None of Cass. She pointed toward an open door.

“That’s Michael’s music room.”

There was a saxophone on display and posters of John Coltrane and Charlie Parker. The next room had an elliptical machine and a giant weight machine that didn’t look as though it got much use. Across the hall was a small room with easels and art supplies scattered throughout. A few watercolor paintings. Not bad, not great.

“This is Mom’s studio.”

“Where do you stay when you’re here?”

She pointed at a futon in the corner and smiled.

“It’s going to be really nice to have my own place finally. My roommate—my ex-roommate—was kind of tough to live with toward the end, so I tried staying out of the apartment as much as possible.”

“Irving sent me pictures. It was a shit hole.”

“Well, that shit hole cost me most of my paychecks. It’s hard to get ahead when you’re struggling just to pay rent.”

“
Cassia
! Dinner!”

I began following her as she hurried toward the stairs. When we reached the first floor, I passed the dining room and went to the kitchen. Cass followed me as I retrieved our drinks from the kitchen island. She quickly took the glass of wine and drank the entire glass before taking out the bottle from the refrigerator.

“He’s not going to open the bottle you brought?” I asked with a smirk.

“And share it? Oh, hell no.”

Then she grinned and filled her wine glass all the way.

“I’m gonna need it,” she said.

By the time we reached the dining room, everyone else was seated. I pulled out Cass’s chair before taking the seat across from her. Her stepfather, who was standing at the head of the table, cleared his throat.

“I would like to thank you all for joining me at the beginning of my sixty-first year on this planet we call Earth. Tonight, join me in enjoying the freshest food directly from the farmer’s market today. As I always say—live well, eat well, drink well, be well.”

“Here, here!” boomed Thomas Wexler.

When Cass caught my eye, I wondered how many times she had listened to one of Michael Agnew’s speeches. I noted that there was no mention of the person who had prepared the dinner, namely Cass’s mother. At least two of the guests weren’t going to notice the food. Thomas and Pam Wexler were well on their way to being thoroughly shit-faced. And now I realized where I had seen Wexler before. He was a corporate litigator, a damn good one—when he was sober enough to remain upright. He had been a guest lecturer when I was in law school.

“I hope the food is okay,” Cass’s mother said nervously as she began passing around serving dishes. “I think I may have over-salted it.”

Cass gave me another pointed look and then shrugged and took a gulp of wine. The dinner conversation that ensued mainly revolved around the middle-aged men at the table, each of them subtly trying to one up each other where money, travel, wine, or academic credit were concerned.

I pegged the drunken litigator for having the most money, and travel and wine went to Cassia’s stepfather. The third man, Robert Stein, had mentioned his latest academic paper multiple times—most likely because no one would have heard of it otherwise. The prize for biggest pretentious ass definitely went to him.

In the middle of dinner, Thomas Wexler got up unsteadily and disappeared into the kitchen before returning with a lowball filled to the brim with cheap gin. By this point, it was a fucking miracle he could still form words or walk in a moderately straight line. The wife wasn’t much better off. She was knocking back Diet Coke and Jack Daniels.

“The Bolognese is really good, Mom,” Cass said.

Cynthia Agnew didn’t notice her daughter’s compliment, and it wasn’t hard to see that Cass had become the invisible daughter in the wake of her mother’s marriage to this bombastic narcissist.

Her mother’s cooking was good. Trying a bit too hard, maybe, but it deserved mention. Cass’s stepfather was too busy playing man of the hour to notice his wife. And I had seen enough. I ate a polite amount, left my cheap whisky alone, texted the driver, and then waited for dinner to end.

“So, James,” her mother said, finally turning her attention to me. “Where did you and Cass meet? You don’t look like an undergraduate.”

I smiled.

“Well, Cynthia. Truth be told, I met Cass at the strip club where she was dressed as a naughty schoolgirl while serving drinks to pay for her last year of school after you and your husband defaulted on her tuition two years ago.”

Conversation ground to a halt, and I watched as the blood drained from Cynthia Agnew’s face. With a startled cry, Cass jumped up, sending her chair crashing to the floor. Her mother looked on with a shell-shocked expression as her daughter ran from the room. The front door slammed behind her a few seconds later.

“Oh, and your husband has an extraordinary gambling problem. I would recommend looking into your finances.”

“How dare you—” Michael Agnew sputtered.

I held up my hand.

“Save your indignation for someone who gives a shit. Cynthia, your daughter is an exceptional woman. I would get out from under your husband and repair your relationship with her before it’s too late.” I rose from my seat. “Thank you for dinner.”

By the time I made it outside, the car was just turning up the street, and Cass was halfway down the block. As soon as the car stopped in front of me, I opened the door and slid into the backseat.

“Pick up the girl who’s walking down the street, please.”

The driver nodded and took off. When he stopped at the curb where Cass was walking, I stepped out.

“Cass, get in the car.”

She turned toward me, her face lit up in the headlights. Her cheeks were tear-stained and her eyes were flashing with tears and indignation.

“Hell no! You just humiliated me in front of my only non-incarcerated family! For fuck’s sake, I’m an adult! I can take care of myself. I didn’t need you telling my mom what I did to go back to school—”

She cut off in a sob and covered her eyes with her hand.

“I quite rightfully humiliated your stepfather, and I told your mother the truth. You have no reason to be ashamed of working to pay for school.”

I walked over and put my arm around her, urging her toward the car. As soon as we were both inside, I sent up the privacy screen. Cass leaned her head back and laughed bitterly.

“What a fucked up night.”

I reached over and touched her cheek.

“I can’t promise that tomorrow will be much better.”

“Great. Thanks for letting me know,” she sniffed.

“Have you ever thought about taking time off before going back to school?”

Still reclined on the headrest, she rolled her head until she was facing me.

“Are you serious? I’ve taken off enough time. The only reason I wouldn’t go back is if I didn’t have enough money.”

“What about traveling? A year abroad?”

She laughed again.

“Right. After I win the lottery or find another sugar daddy.”

Her words dug into me like hooks. The image of her—sweaty and writhing beneath someone else—made me sick. My jaw tightened, and I grabbed her. I lowered her onto the seat and followed her down as my lips came down on hers. I pulled her to the edge of the seat and spread her legs wider with my hands before slowly running my fingers along the inside of her thighs. My tongue plunged into her mouth as my fingers brushed across the silk panties she was wearing.

She moaned into my mouth, and in seconds I had torn the flimsy material. When my finger skated across the swollen bud of her clit, I pulled back, watching her face as she arched and cried out. I teased her clit over and over, devouring her whimpers and moans. Fuck, she felt too good.