3

 

 

Upstairs Claire climbed quickly into bed and gathered the blankets and quilts around her again, but she couldn’t sleep.

Oh God oh God oh God. He doesn’t remember. The bastard doesn’t remember.

Claire didn’t know whether she was more hurt or angry, but it was a nasty mix. She curled herself into a tight ball, pulled the quilt over her head, and wallowed in cold misery. She fought back tears, then reminded herself that Jonathan Daulton didn’t deserve her tears.

She remembered him—all too well, despite all her efforts to forget. That conference. She had just finished her second year of teaching, and she had been on top of the world. Her students liked her and had given her glowing reviews. She had made friends with a number of compatible people on campus, and the members of her department were collegial and didn’t play politics. The invitation to speak at the prestigious conference in Chicago had been no more than her due, she had thought. Maybe she was only a panel member, not a keynote speaker, but she could wait. She was a rising star and her time was coming.

The conference had been everything she hoped it would be: exhilarating intellectual exchanges with her peers, splendid accommodations, even outstanding food. She had been happier than she could ever remember until she had noticed one of the other members of her panel: Jonathan Daulton. Who was he to muscle in on a serious academic discussion of the representation of women in popular culture? Based on that silly, offensive book of his? It bordered on insulting.

When she had learned that they would share a podium, she had picked up a copy of the book and raced through it in a couple of hours, which had been easy. When she had finished, she was more than ready to rip him to shreds in front of her colleagues. But she had never had the chance. The panel convened, the questions began, and Jonathan Daulton sat like a lump, uttering monosyllabic replies and refusing to elaborate. There was no way she could take jabs at him, because he didn’t say anything worth challenging. With an effort of will she had gathered her wits and responded brilliantly and effectively to the questions tossed at her. And he hadn’t even noticed. He remained in a black funk, and Claire had wondered if he had been drinking.

Theirs had been the last panel of the day, and a gala dinner had followed. Claire had sat with a delightful mix of friends and mentors, and had preened herself as she accepted the accolades of her colleagues. It would have been a perfect evening, except for the presence of Jonathan. He had sat morosely at a table not far from hers, and she kept catching glimpses of him out of the corner of her eye—usually when he flagged down a waiter to refill his drink.

No one had wanted the evening to end, and somehow the group she was with had adjourned to the hotel bar, where they continued to regale each other with insider stories—and to drink. And drink. Giddy with relief that her part in the conference had gone so well, Claire had consumed more than she was accustomed to. She had been witty and effervescent, charming and erudite. At least, she thought she had; her memories grew increasingly muddled as the evening wore on into the early hours of the morning.

And still Jonathan Daulton had hovered in her peripheral vision, at the back of the bar. He seemed to be carrying his own personal cloud of gloom around with him, and his drinking had not slowed. Claire had managed to ignore him until they had bumped into each other—literally—returning from an inescapable trip to the loo. And something had happened, although Claire was never quite sure what. Maybe it was the drinks—many, many drinks—combined with the unexpected physical contact. Maybe it was the way he looked, like a brooding Heathcliff, even if his eyes were not quite focused. Maybe she just wanted to keep the celebration going, and using this sham of a writer for her own pleasure had seemed a fitting end to the day. Hell, Claire, you were drunk, and you had stopped thinking a few hours earlier. For some reason she had never been able to explain to herself, she had fallen in immediate—well, she’d have to call it lust with Jonathan Daulton, who she despised.

Whatever the reason, somehow they had ended up in his hotel room, and somehow she had ended up in his bed. She had awakened very early the next morning with a full bladder, a parched mouth, and a pounding head. She had taken one look at her companion, lost to the world and snoring lightly, before dashing to the bathroom and spewing whatever was left in her stomach. When she came back to the room, Jonathan hadn’t stirred, so she had quietly gathered up her clothes and slipped out, back to her room, where she had gulped down several aspirin and fallen back to sleep.

When she had awakened again, it was nearly noon—too late for any of the closing festivities for the conference. And she couldn’t face Jonathan Daulton, so she had checked out and slunk home. She had not seen him since, and she had done her best to blot out what fragmentary memories she had of that night. He had never tried to contact her, and after a while she had stopped worrying about it. But she had made very sure that she never drank that much at a conference again.

Still, a small part of her flinched whenever she came across his name. Luckily for her, his book’s early popularity, or more accurately, notoriety, had faded, but it was still occasionally held up as an exemplar of its genre, whatever that was. Despite all her efforts to put their encounter out of her mind, she still cringed at the memory. Animal lust, she figured. Heat of the moment. Never to be repeated, she had promised herself.

And now he was here, no more than twenty feet away—and he acted as though that night had never happened. What malignant force had dropped him back into her life now? It didn’t matter: she was going to shove him out of it again as fast as she could in the morning.