Too Good to Be True - Kristan Higgins [72]
“So.” My voice was brisk and teacherly. “Anything else, Mr. O’Shea?”
“No.” But he looked at me, really looked, and it was awfully hard to maintain eye contact, let me tell you. Surely I was blushing, since my face was burning hot.
“No more spying,” he finally said, his voice gentle. “Got it?”
“Yes,” I whispered. “Sorry.”
And then he turned and left, leaving me standing in the middle of my living room, shaky and feeling like my stays were a little too tight.
Okay, okay, I admitted that I was desperately attracted to Callahan O’Shea. And that was not a good thing. First of all, I wasn’t sure he liked me very much. Secondly…well. It wasn’t just the ex-con thing. Sure, if he’d beaten someone with a pipe or something, obviously he’d be out of the running. Embezzlement, yes, it was also a crime. But not that bad, right? If he was sorry…plus, he’d served his debt to society and all that crap….
No. It wasn’t his past, though obviously, I put a lot of weight on the past. It was the fact that my whole life, I knew what I wanted. Andrew had been The One, and look how that turned out. What I wanted now, God help me, was another Andrew, just without the whole sister-loving complication.
Callahan O’Shea was ridiculously appealing, but I’d never relax around him. He was not the type to look at me adoringly. He… he… ah, crap, he was just too much. Too big, too good-looking, too appealing, too stirring. I felt too many things around him. It was disturbing, really. He made me irritable and lustful and sharp when I wanted to be sweet and loving and soft. I wanted to be…well, like Natalie. And I wanted a man who looked at me the way Andrew looked at Natalie. Not like Callahan, who looked like he knew my every dirty little secret.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
IWAS WORKING LATE AT MANNING one evening, putting together my presentation for the board of trustees, when Stuart paid me a visit.
“Hey, Stuart!” I exclaimed, getting up to kiss his cheek.
“How are you, Grace?” he asked politely.
“I’m okay,” I said. “Have a seat. Want some coffee or anything?”
“No, thank you. Just a few minutes of your time.”
Stuart looked awful. His eyes were shadowed and tired, and there seemed to be gray in his beard that wasn’t there a few weeks ago. Although we worked at the same school, Stuart’s office was in Caybridge Hall, a newer building on the southern side of the campus, far from Lehring, where the history department nestled appropriately in the oldest building at Manning. I rarely encountered Stuart at work.
I sat back behind my desk and took a deep breath. “You want to talk about Margaret?” I asked softly.
He looked down. “Grace…” He shook his head. “Has she told you why we’re… apart?”
“Um…” I paused, not sure how much I should reveal. “She’s said a few things.”
“I brought up the idea of us having a baby,” Stuart said quietly. “And she basically exploded. Suddenly, it seems, we’re having all sorts of troubles that I was completely unaware of. I’m quite boring, apparently. I don’t talk about work enough. She feels like she’s living with a stranger. Or a brother. Or a ninety-year-old man. We don’t have enough fun, we don’t just grab a toothbrush and rush off to the Bahamas—and here she works seventy hours a week, Grace! If I suggested we fly off somewhere, she’d kill me!”
He certainly had a point. Margaret was mercurial, putting it kindly.
He sighed wearily. “All I wanted was to talk—just talk—about the idea of having a baby. We decided we wouldn’t have kids when we were twenty-five, Grace. That was a long time ago. I figured we could revisit the idea. And now she said she’s filing for divorce.”
“A divorce?” I squeaked. “Oh, crap. I didn’t know that, Stuart.” I was quiet for a minute, then said, “But you know Margaret, buddy. She’s all thunder and lightning. I doubt she really wants…” My voice trailed off. I had no idea what Margaret really wanted. On the one