Confessions in the Dark Read online

  “It is if one lesson was enough to teach you that.”

  He was taunting her now. Obviously, these were from the bakery, with their perfect icing and the golden crispness to their edges. He’d been a good teacher, sure, but he wasn’t a miracle worker.

  She raised one brow. “And if I told you I had made them?”

  He met her challenge. “Then I’d ask you for your recipe.”

  For a long moment, they stared at each other, neither willing to give in first. Oh, this was ridiculous.

  “Fine.” Rolling her eyes, she waved her free hand at him. “I bought them.”

  “Shocking.”

  “Oh, be quiet.” She gave him a halfhearted shove with her elbow, taking care not to upset his balance. For the first time since the physical therapist’s office, she looked up at him. Deep into dark, liquid eyes, and he didn’t force his gaze away. Something in her went soft, a lump forming and sticking in her throat. She glanced toward the main building of the school, then back at him. “You really want to come inside?”

  He shrugged, but he missed casual by a mile. “If this is what I’m preparing Max for, I might as well see it, hadn’t I?”

  There wasn’t really any harm.

  She nodded. “Sure.”

  It wasn’t the quickest walk of her life. Cole’s steps were labored, his exertions of the day clearly taking their toll, but he soldiered on regardless, letting her get the door for him without so much as a protest. To her relief, the main office was still open, the lights all on.

  She took another deep breath before stepping inside.

  Only to falter the instant she saw who was behind the desk.

  Oh well. Nothing for it. Plastering on her best smile, she strode forward. “Mrs. Cunningham. I’m so glad I caught you.”

  The woman in question was a fifty-something-year-old nightmare of good manners and bad intentions all rolled up in a designer pantsuit. As the assistant headmistress looked away from her computer, the most withering, condescending expression pinched her mouth.

  “Ms. Hartmann. So delightful to see you. Again.” The derision the woman could put into one word. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  The whole thing made Serena feel about three inches tall, but she kept smiling through it all. “I was just in the neighborhood. Thought I’d stop in and grab the latest schedule for the entrance exams.”

  “Yes, it has changed so much since we printed it in February. Or since we placed it on our website.”

  Serena’s mouth hurt from the effort it took to keep the corners lifted. “Well. Max, my nephew, you know, he’d just be so disappointed if we missed out on anything.”

  Sighing, Mrs. Cunningham gestured toward the display in the corner of the room with all the prospective student information. As if Serena didn’t know where it was.

  Right. “I’ll just help myself, then.”

  Still clutching her plate of cookies, she headed that way, her stomach twisting low in the pit of her abdomen. Two minutes of thinly veiled dismissals with this woman had wrung her out.

  Her face warmed, her eyes tingling, and she buried her gaze in the rows of brochures.

  Maybe she’d been kidding herself all along. She wanted this so badly for Max. A fresh school, a better school...Serena couldn’t give him his mother back—couldn’t make her sister decide to be involved in her own incredible, amazing kid’s life. But this was something she’d imagined she might be able to do for him. Something she could give him.

  But she didn’t belong here. Hell, she was probably hurting his chances just being here.

  Before she could sink too deeply into her own little pity party, the dull thumping of crutches on tile caught up with her. It sent a fresh wave of annoyance humming through her veins. She’d thought Cole had been right behind her, but now here he was. She glanced back at him, but at the sight of him, she had to stifle a groan.

  Here he was in gym clothes, jaw shadowed by two days’ worth of stubble and his hair a sweaty mess.

  God, Mrs. Cunningham was going to throw him out on his ass. Meticulously politely, but still. And here Serena’d been trying to make a good impression.

  In despair, she wanted to drop her head into her hands. But as she lifted her fingers to her temple, Mrs. Cunningham called out, “Can I help you?”

  Serena’s head jerked up. That was not the woman’s usual tone.

  In what felt like slow motion, Serena turned around. Her gaze darted comically between lean, handsome, tousle-haired Cole and old sour-faced Mrs. Cunningham, and before her eyes, the scene inverted itself. How could she have been so wrong? Mrs. Cunningham wasn’t going to throw him out. From the looks of it, she might dive right across the counter and eat the poor guy alive.

  And it wasn’t as if she’d forgotten the experience of meeting this man for the first time. She still got shivers just looking at him sometimes. But it was another thing entirely to watch someone else going through it.

  Then he went and opened his mouth, and it got both a hundred times better and a thousand times worse.

  “No, thank you.” The smooth rolling lilt of his accent trilled its way through her, and through Mrs. Cunningham as well. He nodded toward Serena. “I’m with her.”

  Mrs. Cunningham’s eyes widened as she looked Serena’s way. “Oh.”

  Serena was going to hell. Her moment of insecurity disappearing, she seized on this new development and held on to it with both hands. “Cole, this is the assistant headmistress of Upton. Mrs. Cunningham, this is Cole.”

  To his credit, he seemed to catch on without missing a beat. “Cole Stafford.” He approached the counter and tucked his crutch against his body to offer his hand. “It’s a pleasure.”

  “Likewise.” Mrs. Cunningham gripped his palm in hers, and the hairs all stood up on the back of Serena’s neck. She knew the warmth and the strength in that grip. She knew what it could do.

  With a smile that somehow managed to radiate both discomfort and charm, Cole withdrew his hand. “Lovely school you have here.”

  “Well, we do our best.”

  “Serena’s nephew is so looking forward to enrolling. I’m working with him to get him prepared.” His mouth softened, the curve there becoming less forced. “He barely needs it, of course. Such a bright young man.”

  Serena just about choked on her own tongue when Mrs. Cunningham’s smile deepened, too. “We look forward to his application. It’s a wonderful stepping-stone, attending here. Seventy percent of our graduates go on to Ivy League schools. Harvard, Yale. Cambridge, even.”

  “Ah. I was an Oxford man myself. For university. Princeton for my doctorate.”

  Serena never would’ve believed it if she hadn’t seen it, but Mrs. Cunningham just about swooned. “Marvelous institutions.”

  The whole time they’d been making small talk and showing off their pedigrees, Cole’s gaze had been sweeping the room. He paused, tilting his head to the side. “Serena, dear. Did you see this?”

  Dear? Serena might be about to follow Mrs. Cunningham into her fainting spell. Swallowing, she moved to join him beside the counter. “What’s that?”

  He pointed to a glossy placard set on a stand toward the end of the counter.

  She scrunched up her nose. “A benefit?”

  “Yes.” Mrs. Cunningham slid the placard across the glass. “To help raise funding for our library expansion.”

  It was the first Serena had heard of it. Unease went rolling through her abdomen. She looked up from the fancy script of the announcement. “Are other applicants’ families attending?”

  For the first time since Cole had walked in, Mrs. Cunningham’s jaw went tight. “Some. It’s certainly not required.” Her voice went a fraction gentler. “It’s two hundred and fifty dollars a plate.”

  Serena’s head spun. Not just at the number, though that was bracing on its own. But at the way the woman said it.

  Of course she knew Max would be a scholarship student. Serena had asked for that application al
ong with the general one the very first time she’d come by.

  She took an instinctive step back. Only for Cole to put his hand at the base of her spine, sending heat humming all the way through her nerves.

  “A small price,” he said. “For our children.”

  Mrs. Cunningham let out a sigh of relief. “I’m so glad you agree.”

  “We’ll take two.”

  Serena couldn’t quite stop herself from gawking. Turning to him and asking, “We will?”

  Cutting her a pointed look, he managed not to be ruffled. “Of course we will.”

  He dropped his hand away from her back to reach into his pocket for his wallet. As he passed a card across the counter, Serena’s whole body threatened to sag. She didn’t want Mrs. Cunningham to hear this, but she couldn’t let it go unsaid. Leaning in, she dropped her voice. “You don’t have to do this.”

  Everything in Cole seemed to say, We’ll talk about it later, but he kept his smile fixed firmly to his face. “It’s no matter.”

  Five hundred dollars was definitely a matter. But that was only the tip of the iceberg.

  What was he doing? He seemed to like her kid, and when he wasn’t telling her they couldn’t be together, his body certainly seemed to like hers. But this level of investment, this swooping in and offering to help her with problems she hadn’t even known she had...

  Explaining all the while that this was usually the office assistant’s job, Mrs. Cunningham floundered with Cole’s credit card, but eventually she managed to make the transaction. She passed the card back to him with two letterpressed pieces of ivory card stock, and he accepted them blithely, only to turn around and hand them straight off to Serena.

  “We’ll see you next Saturday, then,” Mrs. Cunningham said.

  “We’re looking forward to it.” Then Cole gave Serena an expectant look.

  It took her a minute to decipher it. When it struck her what he meant, she could’ve slapped herself. They seemed so irrelevant now, but her little offering of baked goods was still clasped tightly in her grip.

  Swallowing her pride one last time—at least for today—she raised the plate above the level of the counter. Casually, as if she hadn’t brought them just for this purpose, she asked, “Mrs. Cunningham. You don’t happen to like lemon cookies, do you?”

  Mrs. Cunningham paused. Cole had already softened her up so much with his shoulders and his accent and his fancy degrees. For once, she didn’t bother to hide her interest. “Lemon?”

  Pay dirt.

  “I had extras,” Serena hastened to explain. And this was the tricky part—crafting a statement so it wasn’t exactly a lie. “You know how some recipes make a ton, right?”

  Oh dear God. Was that actually a laugh? “I don’t think my mother-in-law has any that aren’t portioned to feed a small army.”

  Was that actually a personal anecdote?

  Scarcely able to believe anything she was hearing, Serena placed the cookies on the counter and peeled back the edge of the plastic. “Please. Help yourself.”

  “Don’t mind if I do.” She plucked one out, then made as if to re-cover them.

  “Keep the plate. I’m sure some of the others in the office might appreciate them?”

  “I’m sure they would.” It was the kindest expression Mrs. Cunningham had ever turned on Serena. “Thank you, Ms. Hartmann.”

  They beat a fairly hasty retreat after that—as hasty of one as Cole could beat with his leg, in any case. As they traversed the halls, questions bubbled up in her by the dozens. Questions and protestations, and she was fit to burst with the effort it took to hold them in.

  How dare he? What was he after?

  And maybe, more importantly...how could she ever begin to thank him enough?

  Thin ice. Cole felt like he’d been treading on it for weeks now. Every single day since Serena had stormed her way into his life, the cracks had been forming. He’d been skating too close to his promises and too far from the safety of the shore, and now he’d overstepped so badly. She’d scarcely spoken to him the whole way home, and it wasn’t just the tension that had pulled between them after his PT appointment. She was stewing on something, and it was probably those damn tickets. The way he’d barged into her conversation.

  Could she really fault him, though? The irony of it cut to the bone. She was the one who couldn’t stand to let an opportunity to help slip by. Cole had seen his chance to do the same, to maybe begin to repay a little of her kindness, and he’d seized upon it. Dreadful, snobby people like that woman weren’t any stranger to him; he knew how they worked. With scarcely a word, he’d had her eating right out of the palm of his hand. He’d only done what anyone in his position would do—what he’d imagined Serena would want him to do.

  So why did he feel like she resented him for it?

  Finally, she turned onto their street. He bobbed his good knee up and down, clenching his hands and releasing them over and over as she parallel parked. Without looking at him, she unhooked her seat belt and got out, and his anxiety and his resolve wound higher.

  They made it all the way to the door of her apartment before he broke.

  “I’m sorry.” The apology came tearing out of him, and he should have left it there. But this hot, burning center of his pride lodged up in his throat, and he shook his head. “No. Actually, I’m not.”

  At least that got her to turn around. She studied him for a long moment before asking, “Well? Which one is it?”

  “Both.” He wasn’t making any sense. “I’m...I’m sorry if I overstepped, but I’m not sorry for what I did.” Unless...maybe this was about his making her feel obligated? “The tickets are yours. Take whomever you want.”

  Her brows rose on her face, disbelief making her eyes go wide. “Are you kidding me?”

  What? “I—”

  “Don’t think for a second you’re getting out of going with me.”

  That didn’t sound like anger in her voice.

  “You want me to?”

  “Seriously? You had the assistant headmistress of the school practically swooning at you. I’ve never gotten that woman to so much as smile before.” Glancing down, she shook her head. “It was incredible. You were incredible.”

  Oh. “I’m glad I could help.”

  “Also, you were totally overstepping.”

  He was getting whiplash.

  “But,” she said, “that’s okay.” A grin played with the corners of her lips. “Did you really go to Oxford and Princeton?”

  “I did.” His shoulders rose in preparation for defensiveness.

  He should have known better, though.

  “That’s pretty impressive.”

  “Not nearly as impressive as it sounds.”

  “Listen, though.” Her smile dimmed, her expression growing serious. “If you want me to pay you back for those tickets—”

  Ah. Maybe that was it. Her self-consciousness about not having been able to afford them on her own. He cut her off before she could get any further. “It’s not a problem.”

  “You’d have to give me a little time to get the cash together, but—”

  “Serena.” Her name came out sharp on his tongue. She jerked her head up, her protest dying mid-word. “I said it’s not a problem.”

  She was a public school teacher, for fuck’s sake.

  She wrung her hands, and an edge of vulnerability crept into her voice, squeezing his heart. “I just don’t want to put you out.”

  Didn’t she understand? Did she have no idea? “You’re not.”

  She’d barged her way into his life, all right, but she had never put him out. She’d breathed life and lightness into all the darkened corners of his endless, wasted days. A few hundred dollars was nothing.

  An unhappy frown twisted her mouth. “I don’t even know what you do for a living. Can you afford—”

  “I can.” The forceful way the words left his lungs seemed to take her aback. He drew in a deep breath.

  She wanted to know
what he did for a living. Fuck. It was the last thing in the world he wanted to talk about, but all at once the answer was forming itself.

  What was it about her that did this to him? From his pathetic, broken confessions about his wife to this. She drew these stories out of him. These truths he rarely admitted, even to himself.

  “I...” He flexed his jaw, trying to summon the words. “I don’t do anything. Not anymore.” And this was the hard part. He couldn’t keep the bitterness from his tone. The anger, at the past and at his life and at himself. “I got let go.”

  “Oh, Jesus, then you don’t need to—”

  He cut her off again. “Right after my wife died.” And for a second, he was back there, standing alone in that empty, aching house. He could still smell her on his skin, could still hear her voice.

  Even today, he could taste the burn of liquor on his tongue.

  “I...didn’t handle it well.”

  He’d lost his fucking mind was what he’d done. Guilt and grief and rage had been a storm inside him, the howling winds of it tearing him to pieces.

  “It’s funny. You’re a teacher, so you wouldn’t understand, but professors—we’re there for the research. I liked the teaching well enough, but I was rubbish at it. Talking to people, handling their personal problems, and after—” Helen. He couldn’t even say her name. “After she was gone, I stopped trying. I screamed at students. Showed up drunk.”

  Serena’s face twisted before him. Horrified. Well, she should be.

  A shuddering echo of a breath tore through his lungs. “I didn’t last long after that.”

  Administrative leave, they’d called it. When it had come time to revisit, to plead for his job back, he’d blown the hearing off. To have to face them all again...to see the looks on their faces…

  In his mind, he was there. His brother-in-law, Barry, had been the dean, and he’d given Cole so damn many chances, and he’d aggressively pissed away every one. When Barry’d finally shown Cole the door, Cole had wanted to rear back, to let his fist fly in his face and give the restless anger in his bones a place to go.

  But then he’d looked in his eyes, and he’d seen the same grief that lived in his own.