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  A Lover’s Secret

  By Bethany Bloom

  Text Copyright © 2014 Bethany Bloom

  [email protected]

  All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

  This novel is a work of fiction. The names, characters, incidents, places, and events portrayed are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events or localities is purely coincidental.

  Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  About the Author

  More Novels by Bethany Bloom

  “This is how I would die

  Into the love I have for you:

  As pieces of cloud

  Dissolve in sunlight.”

  —Rumi

  One

  Jake

  Jake Lassiter felt a racing deep inside, and his chest lifted with more freedom and power than he’d felt in months. He was going to make it. He was actually going to make it out of here. Alone. His hands trembled as he flung open the door. And then… there she stood.

  Damn.

  Elizabeth’s face was hard and unflinching. Waves of buttermilk blonde tumbled around her face as she pushed at his chest.

  “Seriously? Now? You’re leaving?” Her eyes blazed as she jerked her hand toward the suitcase. “You were just going to sneak out of here?”

  How could someone so breathtaking be so exasperating? Elizabeth thought everything was under her control, but it wasn’t. Lucky for her she was so adorable when she was angry. Her wide, smooth lips were so hypnotic that Jake sometimes forgot to listen to what she was saying, even when she was yelling.

  “With all the progress we’ve made…you’re willing to throw it all away?” she demanded. “All the risks you’ve taken?”

  His reply was even, unhurried. “I’ve got to go, Elizabeth. I just do.”

  “It could put you in a lot of danger.”

  He smirked at her, and she let out an embittered sigh. Then he tilted his head and jerked it to the right, a silent demand for her to move aside.

  “Well, Miranda isn’t going to like it.” She folded her arms.

  “So don’t tell her.”

  “How is she not going to know? And what if someone finds out? Everyone knows you now. Everyone recognizes you.”

  “I’ll be back in seventy-two hours. That’s all the time I need. And I’m not going to tell anyone. Trust me.” He squared his shoulders at her.

  “Seventy-two hours, Jake. If you’re not back here in seventy-two hours, I’m coming to get you.”

  He shrugged. “Now,” he said, his eyes flashing. “Kindly move out of my way.”

  Elizabeth stepped aside and twisted her hands together. “Just… tell me why you’re doing this. You hardly even know this guy. Why—all of a sudden—are his bachelor party and his wedding so damn important? So important that you’re willing to risk…everything?”

  He shook his head and kept moving. It wasn’t the groom who was so important. It was the groom’s sister. It was Jess. And this would be his only opportunity. This was it.

  ***

  Jess

  Jess’s skin prickled. Her legs wobbled, and her ankle turned a little in her four-inch heels. The last place she wanted to be was a bachelorette party. The very last place.

  It had always been rather an effort for Jess to make small talk. To laugh with perfumed, worldly women, who she feared could see straight through her. At some point in her life, Jess had learned to screw on a particular face for unnerving situations. To choose a particular voice for the moment. But she didn’t have a point of reference for events like this one, and it had been too long now. It had been nearly eight years since high school—since she’d seen any of these women—and she couldn’t remember which voice she’d used with them. She couldn’t recall which face she had put on.

  She wished it helped that her sister, Monica, was entering the party alongside her, but it didn’t.

  “I know what you’re all freaked out about, you know,” Monica said.

  Jess swallowed. She doubted that very much.

  “You’re worried that everyone here wants to see you go down.”

  “Why would you say that?” Jess blinked and scanned the crowd. “Do you think they do?”

  “Well, wouldn’t you?”

  “No, actually. I don’t believe I would.”

  “Sure you would. If someone just like you got straight A’s and got into med school and had her whole future laid out, all perfect, you would want to see her fall, smack down. Crash and burn. You’d want to see her bleed. Right from the face. It’s human nature.”

  Jess shuddered, deep in the center of her chest, and she felt an empty space all around her. Bleed from the face?

  “People love that you failed out, Jess. Trust me. Everyone will be nicer to you now than they ever were in high school. You’ll have a whole new identity.”

  “People were plenty nice to me, and I didn’t fail—”

  “And if you’re not going to make yourself known, I’ll help. It’s better like this…quick, like whisking off a Band-Aid.” Monica squeezed Jess’s arm and spun her to face the crowd. “Look who’s back everyone!”

  A few of the women whirled to see. Their dewy faces brightened and blinked, and then, all at once, chains of bright, cheery words tumbled toward her.

  “Jess Madigan! How can you look no different?” one woman cooed. “Just like the day we graduated?”

  “I know, right?” another said.“She’s still so cute. Like a little doll. Like I could pick her up and put her right in my pocket—”

  “And those great big eyes.”

  Jess blinked twice, fast, and everyone laughed. “Oh, and she still knows how to use them.” Two of the women turned to one another and fluttered their eyelashes.

  “And don’t worry about that trouble in med school, Jess. You’re in good company now.”

  “Yeah, none of us know what we want to do with our lives either.” A roar of laughter and a clink of glasses.

  Jess pressed her lips together. She tilted her head and tried to look amused, but they had all turned their attention to something else. Something bride-to-be Kelly was saying.

  Jess went on standing on the outskirts, looking, in, where she was accustomed to standing. In a few days, her twin brother would marry one of these women. A girl who had enjoyed a far better social position than Jess had in high school. Then, as now, these women were always cordial and kind but also had an odd way of making Jess feel as though her zipper was down or her breasts were shaped wrong.

  “See?” Monica said. “That wasn’t so bad.”

  Jess nodded and looked at the floor.

  “Now, I know you think you need me to be around you all night,” Monica went on, “And I know you are terrified, like you tend to be, but, for heaven’s sake, just start mingling. You know all these ladies just as well as I do.”

  Monica was right. It hadn’t been as humiliating as she’d imagined. These women seemed to have no trouble going right back to ignoring her. Good. She had been dreading this since she left campus last week. She had been dreading the soft, tender moans and pitying sighs.

  In a community like this, news of someone’s fa
ilure traveled fast, and she had failed hard. After four years of pre-med, followed by three years and eight months of medical school, she had taken off her scrubs for the last time. She had determined that she would never be a doctor. Not ever. The very idea of it squeezed the air from her lungs. It made her heart palpitate and her insides twist.

  And now that she had left it all behind, there was only this hollow feeling, every breath rattling in and out through the husk of her body, which walked about and smiled from pure muscle memory, while the person she truly was had been lost.

  Jess knew a certain amount of pity was inevitable, and it nearly inhibited her from coming home at all. But, then, there were the facts: As of today, she owed two hundred and sixty seven thousand dollars in student loans and had no job. Plus, in a few days, her brother would be marrying that giggly blonde. The one wearing the hot pink bedazzled tank top and the penis-festooned tiara. The one Jess hardly knew at all because she had been too busy. She had been away.

  She was struck suddenly by the realization that, if she had stayed here, if she had not gone to college or med school at all, if she had not worked her ass off for nearly eight years, she might actually fit in somewhere. She would have a job and no debt and at least some degree of sophistication. She would have some kind of a life. She would have options and free time and maybe even something to giggle about… Her throat closed.

  “You know, Monica,” Jess managed to say. “I think I might go home.”

  “Oh, no you don’t.” Her sister’s hand felt cold as it clinched Jess’s elbow. “You’ve got to be at least the tiniest bit social. As the new sisters-in-law, we should probably be throwing this party, so the least we can do is make our rounds.”

  “The truth is, I’m not feeling well.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Okay…I just really want to leave.” She swallowed. “I don’t want to be here. I can’t be here any longer.”

  “Well you can’t leave. The strippers haven’t even shown up yet.”

  “Oh.” Jess’s chest clamped shut. “There are going to be strippers? Like, male strippers?”

  “Yes, there are going to be, like, male strippers.” Monica laughed and then let out an animalistic growl.

  “Well…” Jess whispered, suddenly embarrassed. She had never seen a male stripper before, and the thought of it made her feel quivery and awkward inside. “When are they supposed to be here?” she asked, hoping to determine when she should go hide out in the bathroom.

  “I think, like, an hour ago.”

  “Well, what happened to them?” Maybe they wouldn’t arrive at all.

  “I don’t know, Jess. They’re strippers. I don’t think they operate on a very strict timetable.”

  “Oh.”

  Monica snorted. “Jess, only you would be worried that the strippers are late.” She flicked her eyes toward the ceiling. Monica’s face had become more round in the past couple of years, along with her shoulders and her belly, but her shiny black hair still curled in tousled loops around her head. Her lips still glistened with cherry red, the exact shade she had worn since middle school, and when she drank too much, it still ended up on her teeth.

  “Punctuality isn’t everything, you know.” Monica laughed. “but when you get married, I’ll remember. I’ll make sure your strippers aren’t late.”

  Jess pressed her lips flat.

  “Alright.” Monica sighed. “I get it. No strippers for Jess. No biggie, since you’ll probably never find a man anyway.”

  Jess looked at the floor. Her legs started to tremble, as though her knees had grown tired of holding her up.

  Monica continued. “That might mean giving up control over certain things: your bedtime. All your precious quiet time.” She snorted. “When was the last time you had a date, anyway, Jess? Have you ever even been with a guy?”

  Jess tried to laugh in response, but it came out sounding hollow, as she knew it would. Monica had been cruel to her since she’d left town eight years ago. Jess hoped their relationship might improve now that she’d returned. Maybe she just needed a little while longer, or maybe it was Monica who wanted to see her bleed. From the face. Jess shuddered and then said, quietly, “Don’t rub it in, Mon. I haven’t had a lot of time.”

  “Well, you are all about efficiency.” Monica raised her voice now, addressing the group. “Jess is all freaked out because the strippers are late!”

  Several of the women laughed. “I guess you are just going to need to get out your whip then, little Miss Jess Madigan,” someone said, followed by another roar of amusement.

  Jess felt a shiver of vulnerability and then a silence, a loneliness that rushed through her chest, even as she stood there with her weak and wobbly smile. What in the world would she do with a whip?

  ***

  Jake

  The plane rocked and squeaked. There was a time when the turbulence over the Rockies would have made him clench his teeth and squeeze at the armrests. But now, each pitch and lurch of the aircraft made him feel more alive. He stared down at the tiny mountain peaks, still blanketed in white, and he imagined reaching out his hands and crushing them. Reducing them to rubble. Up here, he could defeat anything.

  Jake felt a rising inside, and he took Jess’s photo out of his breast pocket. He smoothed at the edges with his thumb and allowed himself to remember. Just after the “Hallway Incident,” he had cut her senior photo from the yearbook and laminated it with clear packing tape. He kept it with him, always, as a reminder. A reminder of what never to do again.

  Now he cradled the photo in his palm. Jess Madigan. Her eyes Persian blue, pretty and innocent and glittering like sapphires. Her smile, tentative but kind. Those lips, full and moist, and her glorious, tousled black hair. The hottest yearbook photo ever. He imagined sliding his hand behind her neck, feeling the luscious thick and silky strands between his fingers.

  He wondered, then, if she’d ever discovered how beautiful she was. In high school, she didn’t have a clue. He smiled at the memory. It was just one of the things that made her so irresistible. Her complete ignorance to her own beauty and power.

  A lump rose in his throat. Before he saw the inside of another plane, he was actually going to see her. And, he had decided, he was going to make her his own. She was the one challenge left in his life. The one thing he hadn’t prevailed over. Except of course, for that other matter, but he vowed not to think about that. Not for another—he glanced at his watch—seventy hours.

  The captain’s voice crackled over the intercom, announcing their arrival time, and Jake smiled. He would be just in time for Andrew’s bachelor party, and he and Margot had everything pre-arranged so, even if the car journey took longer than expected, things would still go as planned.

  He felt a little guilty for taking things over from Stan, the best man, but Stan sure hadn’t seemed to mind. Not that any red-blooded American man could possibly mind what Jake had planned for them tonight. He laughed. Stan the Best Man. He had a new plan. This night really was going to be poetry. It was these little jolts of humor, and of pleasure, that kept him going. Lost amid the anguish, the bitterness, the despair of life, if you couldn’t somehow locate the laughter, if you couldn’t find the fun, then life had won.

  He had written an entire book about that. A book with royalties so high, it was stupid. Jake snorted. Stupid. It was one of the reasons that, every month, he tried to use some of that money to blow someone’s mind. To give some unsuspecting bloke an experience so profound, so life-changing, that he couldn’t help but remember, forever, a little bit of what life was about. This month—tonight—it was Andrew Madigan’s turn. And, of course, all his friends. Lucky bastards. Jake laughed again.

  The flight attendant placed her hand on Jake’s shoulder then, and when he lifted his face, he was met with a set of grass green eyes, admiring and eager. “I hate to bother you, Mr. Lassiter, but could you please sign this? For me?” She held Jake’s book with a shaking, well-manicured hand. Jake winked because
he couldn’t help himself. “My pleasure,” he said, because it was.

  This was what he would never get used to. This total lack of anonymity. He couldn’t go anywhere anymore without someone wanting something. Without women wanting to show him their admiration, and… well, many other things besides. Not that he didn’t like it. He would have adored it, except for that one thing. That truth, which was slowly strangling him, dropping its frozen shadow over everything and choking out the light, no matter how much he tried, now, to manufacture more of it in the world.

  Jake took a deep breath and pressed hard against the back of his seat. As long as no one discovered his secret, he told himself, he would be alright. He could continue on, just like before. For a while, at least.

  ***

  Jess

  Jess’s eyes blinked open and she wondered whether it was a sunny day. The windows in the basement of her parent’s home were shrouded by window wells, eight feet deep, so, in order to see the color of the sky, she had to push her face against the glass and peer upwards. Not wanting to be bothered by that just yet, she sighed and rolled to her side, yanking the covers toward her chin and marveling at how little this home had changed. The only development that had taken place over the past eight years was that her grandmother had moved in. But besides the extra bed in Jess’s basement room, and the attendant humidifier, denture cream, and prescription bottles, everything was the same.

  This place would always smell faintly of urine, owing to the old cut-pile carpet and all those many years of cats. The walls would always be an orangey shade of taupe, which Dad said “soothed as it energized.” There would always be faded motivational posters and peeling particle board and vases filled with withering flowers—all those that didn’t sell in the family’s flower shop and that were too wilted to donate somewhere.

  Since returning home last week, Jess found these things to be imminently comforting—these things that would never change. At the hospital, everything could happen so fast. Even if you knew all you were supposed to. Even if you had memorized the textbooks and you had all the correct answers on all the tests and you knew the names of every muscle, bone, and tendon, and even if you had practiced sticking a needle into a grapefruit eight thousand times until you were the best in the class, when someone came in to the room and began to scream at you and call you filthy names and spit at you and breathed his whiskey fumes straight into your face and tried to grab at you and flail his arms, and you couldn’t get the needle in right, and you accidentally hurt him, and his eyes riveted you with betrayal, and then the screaming began again, and your hands needed to stay steady, and you wondered how on earth you were ever going to do this for a living. Why on earth you had chosen this to want to do. Why you hadn’t given it more thought, before you were in so deep that there was no way out…