The Pretend Boyfriend (The Pretend Boyfriend #3)(14)
Author: Artemis Hunt

He picks out a photo from the middle of the jigsaw. “This is the earliest she has taken of me. I think she started stalking me two years ago.”

“Does the name Adele Jankovic ring a bell? She intimated that she might have known you in college.”

He leans back, cross-legged, and frowns. After a long while, he says, “I really, really can’t remember.”

She picks out a photo. It is the one she took of the plain woman. “You know this girl?”

Brian takes the photo and peruses it, his brow furrowing. “Adele Jankovic . . . Adele Jankovic . . . college.”

“It mightn’t have been in college,” Sam says helpfully. Delilah could have been talking about someone else. But now, thinking back to the strange, premeditated conversation, there were undertones and undercurrents that had been obvious. Delilah was speaking about Brian – and she had wanted Sam to know it. And to let it seep back to Brian as a clue.

Brian’s handsome face suddenly goes very still. Sam’s heart leaps.

He says hoarsely, “Fuck, I think I know who she is. And she has a reason to be mad at me. Very mad.”

12

It was his senior year in college.

Brian was the most popular guy on campus. He had the looks, the pedigree, the height, the smarts, and the casual athletic grace as he glides across the Ivy League grounds on his lanky legs. Most people think he coasted into college on his uncle’s money. But what they didn’t know was that he scored 2320 on his SATs. What’s more, he was good enough in soccer to get in on a scholarship.

But he didn’t need a scholarship, and he didn’t want to use up a place that could have been given to a more unfortunate student – one who wasn’t blessed with his financial circumstances. Brian had only one caveat for choosing his college.

He wanted to get as far away from home as possible.

The scars were fading, but not completely gone. They will never be gone. Dr. Robertson had hooked him up with another shrink in town, but Brian hadn’t gone for the sessions. He had adjusted to being a high-functioning human being, and he didn’t think he needed psychoanalyzing anymore. In fact, the therapy he was indulging in more than anything else – besides cigarettes, pot and booze – was sex.

He was addicted to sex.

Girls flocked to him like bees to a male flower with a very prominent stamen. It wasn’t just that he was good in the sack. (Fuck that, he was superlatively great in the sack.) They were attracted to his devil-may-care attitude, the fact that he never seemed to be very interested in them . . . unless he was horny, of course; and the way his large bedroom eyes flitted over them in casual ‘I don’t give a damn if you find me attractive’ message in the cafeteria.

He wasn’t usually nice to anyone outside his inner circle of friends either. And even within his friends, he tended to be snarky and so brutally honest that his words actually stung.

He was a master at playing cool, and cool was what they liked. Even the girls who weren’t into guys like him were intrigued. He certainly wasn’t an Ivy League type. He wore Hugo Boss leather jackets and looked like he’d be more comfortable in a streetcar named Desire than poring over books in a brightly lit library with a pencil tucked neatly behind his ear.

His grades were incredible, and he seemed to coast along with hardly any effort at all. He didn’t feel the need to let you know them too. He had a photographic memory, incredible reasoning and analytical skills, and he was personable and charming when he chose to be.

No one would have known that he was an abused child – emotionally, physically and sexually. He certainly wore his mask well, with all defenses up like walls and a moat he has built around himself. What they certainly didn’t know was that inside it all, underneath all that barbed wire, he was scared and insecure – and he made up for it by pretending not to care about anyone or anything.

Just three days before April Fools’ Day, his best college buddy, Warwick, set him up on a dare. They were in the library, studying. Not pretending either, but really studying.

“You see that girl over there?” Warwick said.

Brian looked up to where Warwick was surreptitiously indicating. “The hot blonde who looks like she can eat men for breakfast?”

“No, I mean the not so hot brunette beside her.”

“What about her?” The brunette was nondescript. Certainly someone Brian wouldn’t notice in a crowd.

Warwick grinned. “That’s virgin Adie, Goldie’s cousin from Detroit. Five hundred bucks says you can’t pull this off.”

“Pull what off? Something involving my dick?”

Warwick outlined what Brian had to do. Brian grinned. “You kidding me? I can do that in my sleep.”

“Yeah, so go to it.”

“Take a first row seat and kindly observe the master at work.”

Brian detached himself from his chair and walked over to where Adie was sitting. He didn’t know her full name, of course; not that it mattered. The hot blonde, Goldie, looked up, smiling. She was probably thinking that he was coming to talk to her.

But Brian ignored her and took the seat beside Adie instead.

“Hi,” he said. He was gratified to see a funny look on Goldie’s face.

Adie turned to Goldie, and then looked back at Brian. “Uh, you talking to me?”

“Yeah. I’m Brian Morton. And you are?”

“Adele,” she stammered, unable to believe that this incredibly hot boy – the most desired stud on campus, if the rumors were to be believed – was speaking to her and not Goldie.

“We call her Adie,” Goldie put in. “I’m Goldie.” She held out her hand, refusing to be outdone.

Brian shook it, and then turned back to Adie. “What are you doing tonight?”

He was aware that she was shell-shocked that he would even be talking to her. She was unable to take her eyes off him, taking in his large brown orbs, his carelessly mussed-up hair, his sensuous lips. Out of the corner of his vision, Brian observed Warwick, who was trying very hard not to giggle.

“Me? Doing?” Adie squeaked.

“Yeah.” Brian refrained from mentioning something about whether she needed a hearing aid.

Goldie dug into Adie’s side, and she winced.

“Um . . . I’m studying. Here. No, not here. Back in my room. I think.” Adie blushed a bright scarlet.

She wasn’t so bad-looking, really, he mused. A little make-over wouldn’t hurt, and a hairstyle change would be necessary. But she wasn’t that bad-looking for a plain Jane. Maybe it was her confidence quotient that made her ordinary. It didn’t rise above sea level.