Professor Feelgood (Page 23)

I stare at him, dumbfounded. My eye twitches. “No … you can’t be. You just … no.”

He looks at me impassively, waiting for me to accept the inevitable.

Why didn’t I see it before? All the clues were there.

Dark hair. Sharp jaw.

I glance at his arms. The long sleeves on the tight t-shirt he’s wearing are pushed up, showing firm muscles and intricate ink. Not only that, I can practically see his abs through the thick fabric. I didn’t notice before, because it was Jacob, and it will be sweater weather in hell before I appraise his body with anything but disdain. But now …

I feel like a whole bucket of ice has been thrown down my back.

“No,” I say, willing reality to morph into anything that isn’t this.

“Yes.”

Sweet Jesus, this can’t be happening.

“No,” I say again, more to myself than to him.

“You can say that all you like,” he says, irritated. “But it won’t make it not true.”

I stare at him for a few more seconds, trying to reconcile the conflicting concepts that are head-butting inside my brain.

Jacob Stone is Professor Feelgood.

Professor Feelgood is Jacob Stone.

Sonovagoddamnbitch.

EIGHT

____________________

The Mongoose and the Cobra

I DON’T REMEMBER SITTING back down at the table, or ordering the waitress to bring me a whole bottle of tequila and four shot glasses, but here I am seated next to Jake again with a burning thirst for a metric ton of booze. I will my stupid hand to stop shaking as I fill the glasses. When I’m done, I throw back two shots in quick succession. If I ever needed alcohol to calm me and dull my senses, it’s right now.

I have an urge to just grab my purse and leave, because that’s my default mode around him; to remove myself from the discomfort that being with him always brings. But then I get an image of Serena and Mr. Whip, and Joanna, and Fergus beating up the copier machine, and goddamn Devin the Deceiver thinking he’s better than I am, and suddenly, my ass feels like it’s super-glued to the seat.

Jake’s watching me with the intensity of a mongoose scoping out a cobra. I have no idea why. He’s the one full of venom. Why the hell else would he have pulled this stunt?

I throw back a third shot.

He takes the fourth before I can. “I would have thought you’d offer your new author a drink to celebrate our glorious union, but no. Not a great start, princess. This is going to come back to haunt you when I fill out your performance review.”

I scowl and refill the three glasses still in front of me. “Jacob, unless you feel like confessing that this whole Professor Feelgood ruse is a joke, and you’re not him and he’s not you, kindly shut up. You’ve done enough to ruin this night.”

He downs the shot in front of him and hisses as he swallows. “Man, you got bossy in the past six years. And mean. What happened to you, Asha? Who hurt you? Is it someone local? Can I shake his hand?”

I level him with a glare. “What did I just say about not talking?”

I try to quell the disappointment and anger I’m feeling with another shot, but I don’t think anything short of full-on alcohol poisoning is going to make this go away. Sure, my head is spinning, but it’s less from the booze and more from this viciously unexpected turn of events.

My thoughts stutter and stall, full of U-turns and contradictions. I despise Jacob Stone and all the ways he hurt me. But I respect the professor and all his raw brilliance

They can’t possibly be the same man, and yet the more I stare at Jake, the more I can’t deny the truth.

What the hell should I do now? What do I say?

With the way my stomach is rolling, you’d think I was suffering from motion sickness. Well, that’s not too far from the truth. The good ship Asha has just pulled a gut-churning one-eighty, and it’s going to take me a moment to get my bearings again.

Jake waits impatiently for me to speak. When I don’t, he nods and gives me a bitter smile. “That’s what I thought. Not so keen to publish a book now that you know it’s me, right?”

I’m still trying to get my brain to function around the huge cognitive dissonance that’s sitting in front of me.

“What do you expect me to say, Jake?”

“I don’t know. You could go on for a bit more about what a great writer I am and how you believe I can help people, but I guess those sentiments only apply to someone who isn’t me.”

“I’m still trying to grasp that those words came out of you. Did you even write all that stuff? Or is this some sort of sick scam? Passing off someone else’s stuff as yours?”

Now he morphs from irritated to plain old angry. “Christ, Asha, we’ve known each other since we were three years old. Do you honestly think I’d do that?”

I bite back a smartass reply. For all of Jake’s faults, I can’t deny he has his own strict moral compass. I don’t think ripping off another writer’s work would ever occur to him, which is too bad. If he’d plagiarized, it would have left the door open to my disturbingly detailed sexual fantasies being about someone who isn’t him.

Ugh. No such luck.

“So,” I say. “You’re telling me that your whole tortured ex-lover schtick is real? Jacob Stone was actually stupid enough to fall for a woman and get his heart broken?”

“Is that so hard to believe?”

“Considering your impressive roster of girlfriends during high school, yes.”

He gives a halfhearted shrug. “What can I say? When you meet the right person, you just know.”

“And who was this unfortunate lady?”

He hesitates, then looks down. “Someone I met while I was traveling. A fellow backpacker.”

“Name?”

“Ingrid.”

“So why’d she leave? Did she witness you peeling off your man-suit at the end of the day and emerging as a giant snake?”

He pauses, his expression darkening. “You know, your enjoyment of my heartbreak says a lot about you as a person.”

I pour myself another drink. “I’m not going to apologize to be reveling in your karmic bitch-slap. You deserve it for countless reasons, not least of which being tonight’s little prank.” Another shot goes down the hatch.

He steals my remaining glasses, so I’m just left with the bottle. I tighten my grip on it as he glares at me.

“In case you’ve forgotten, princess, you approached me about the book. If anyone had cause to believe they were being pranked, it was me. I mean, come on. Of all the people in the world, what are the odds of you calling me out of the blue and offering me a book deal? It’s ridiculous.”

“You could have leveled with me on the phone. Told me it was you.”

“Then you would have hung up on me.”

The truest of truths.

“So, instead you concealed your identity until I handed you a once-in-a-lifetime deal? You must have been laughing your ass off this whole time.”

“Not entirely. I still have plenty of ass left.”

“But surely the ultimate comedy payoff would have been revealing yourself to me in front of my bosses tomorrow morning. Why bother asking to see me tonight?”

After sizing up my expression, he exhales and gives me a contemptuous look. “I have no fucking clue. I guess …” He shakes his head. “I guess I wanted to see if you were different. If we could be different.” For the briefest of moments, there’s a flash of something in his face––a younger, gentler version of him. But then his jaw hardens, and he’s back to his signature glare. “Clearly, we can’t.”