Villain (Hero 1.50)

Once inside, I found Henry still asleep. Leaving him there, I put our baked goods in the kitchen and then quietly shut the door to my bedroom to change out of my coffee-covered jeans. My hands shook the entire time.

I made my way into the living room again and sat down in the armchair across from Henry, cuddling my knees to my chest.

There was no question now as I looked at him about what I’d do. In reality, there had never been a question.

I would not be blackmailed and I wouldn’t resort to extorting money from the man I loved.

Instead, finally, I was going to face what I’d known I would have to face all along.

The truth about who I once had been.

She wasn’t someone I was proud of but she also wasn’t me anymore. And I had to hope that Henry would see that. That he would forgive me for hurting an innocent person as badly as I had.

I don’t know how long I sat there, watching him sleep, waiting with knots in my stomach for him to wake up and thrust us into cold reality.

Finally, I heard his breathing change, he made a little groan, and he slowly turned on the couch. His sleepy eyes snagged on me sitting in the corner and he rubbed his forehead. “What time is it?”

I glanced at the clock on the radio. “One thirty.”

He groaned again and sat up, running his hands through his hair. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep,” he finished on a yawn.

When I didn’t respond, Henry looked over at me, studied me, and quickly grew alert. “What’s going on?”

My lips trembled. Every part of me was shaking. “Something,” my voice croaked and I cleared it, “something happened while you were sleeping.”

Henry threw off the throw and swung his feet to the floor. “What?”

I didn’t answer.

“Nadia, you’re chalk white. What happened?”

“I went to Flour and I got your banana bread. It’s in the kitchen. I got some cinnamon crème brioche too for me,” I recounted inanely. “And coffee. But it got spilled because… I bumped into someone. Someone I knew once.”

His brows creased in confusion. “Who?”

“His name is Quentin James. Professor Quentin James.” I released my knees and sat forward, expelling a shuddering breath. “Henry… I’m in trouble, I think. This man…” I looked at my feet. “He’s… I need to start at the beginning.”

“Nadia, look at me.”

“I can’t.” Tears escaped beneath my lids. “I’m ashamed and I can’t look at you and watch your expression when I tell you what I have to tell you. I… went to college in Florida. One of my favorite professors was Quentin James and in my senior year, we grew close.” I remembered the day we’d met in his office to discuss some connections he had in Florida in broadcasting. He’d been off, acting distracted, and at first I’d put it down to the fact that he’d separated from his wife not long ago, something he’d told me a few months before. When I asked him what was wrong, he said he knew it was wrong, but he had feelings for me.

“I’d been so excited, so naïve. We started an affair. He told me that he and his wife had been separated and that he was falling in love with me. And like an idiot, I believed him.”

“Nadia, look at me.”

I shook my head. “It went on for months and then one night we were fooling around in his office when someone let themselves in. His wife let herself in.” I closed my eyes remembering the way she crumbled in pain upon finding us together. Her anguish. Her hurt. And worse… “His pregnant wife.”

“Nadia—”

“I should have apologized, I should have felt remorse, but all I felt was betrayed and desperate. Later he told me that they had been separated but she found out she was pregnant so they were trying to make it work. He seemed so broken. He told me he loved me but that we had to stop because he had a responsibility to her. I didn’t want to hear it.” I forced myself to meet Henry’s gaze but I couldn’t see anything in his expression; all I could see were images from the past. “I was twenty-one and I thought I was in love. There’s no excuse for what I did next. I told you my dad wasn’t a good guy, Henry.” I wiped at my tears. “That he cheated on my mom constantly and I was pretty much invisible to him. My mom was so wrapped up in trying to keep her marriage together that I barely made a blip on her radar. I’d been a chubby, awkward kid and boys didn’t pay attention to me in high school either, and when they did, I soon found out they only wanted one thing.

“Quentin had been different. He made me feel special and needed. And I thought I was so mature back then. I thought that it would only hurt everyone in the long run if he stayed with his wife for the sake of the baby. So I went to talk to her alone.

“It blew up into an argument almost right away. I can still hear her screaming at me to get out of her house.” I flinched. “But before that, she told me that they had never been separated and that I was the third student she’d caught him with in the last two years.” I choked on a sob. “She looked at me like I was this evil whore and I was so ashamed and so betrayed and so sorry. She kept screaming at me to leave and I didn’t, I just kept trying to apologize, to tell her I didn’t know that he was still with her. Finally, she threatened to call the police and that got through to me. I left. But a few days later…” I stared in horror at Henry. “The baby went into distress. She lost it,” I choked out.

Henry’s eyes closed tight, his lips pinched together at my revelation.

I looked away. “Everyone in my class found out. Other professors. Quentin turned it all on me. Blamed me for his wife leaving, for her losing their kid. Said it was my fault, that I’d agitated the situation. He lost his job and everyone hated me. Those last few months were the worst of my life. I went home to escape but I didn’t know that the cousin of one of my classmates lived in our town. It was a chance in a million. But they all found out and my mom could barely look at me, let alone allow me to explain. She thinks I’m just like my father.

“I couldn’t get a job anywhere, and it felt as if everyone in goddamn Connecticut knew the story. And the more people make you feel like the bad guy, Henry, the more you believe it, you know. There has to be some truth in it. When I looked in the mirror, I hated my reflection. So I wanted to escape that person. I changed my name, dyed my hair, and moved to New York. I worked for an online meteorology broadcaster where my old boss at WCVB spotted me and offered me a job. I moved to Boston.”

Silence engulfed my small apartment as I waited for the man I loved to either forgive me or condemn me.

When he didn’t say anything, I stared straight into his expressionless eyes and whispered, “I’m sorry for being a hypocrite in the beginning. For making you feel like you didn’t deserve a chance with me when the truth was the opposite.”

His mask dissolved into anger.

“Don’t. That’s not true. I’m… I’m sitting here, trying to work out how I tell you that… I know Nadia is your middle name and that your real name is Sarah Nadia Raymond.”

What?

“What? How?”

Henry blanched. “My mother. After she found out I was bringing you to the Delaney charity ball, she had a private investigator look into you and she found out everything about Quentin and you. Except she made it out like you knew you were getting involved with a married man. My father once told me that when he and my mother were engaged he had a drunken indiscretion with a friend of hers. They separated for a while before he convinced her to take him back. He’s been loyal to her ever since, but cheating is a sore point for my mother.”

“Which explains why she hates me so much.”

“She doesn’t know you,” he said. “She told me about Quentin thinking it would change how I felt about you, but it didn’t. Because I knew there had to be more to the story.” He got up and crossed the room. I stared at him in stunned disbelief, veering between joy and confusion as he lowered himself to his haunches in front of me.

Henry took my hands in his and I was beyond relieved to see there was nothing but love in his eyes. “We all make mistakes and you were only a kid. For all I know, I’ve slept with someone’s wife or girlfriend because they lied to me about it. People lie, Nadia, and they can betray us, but we learn from it… and I know you. I know you learned from it. You have turned this into something much scarier in your head than it is. You didn’t murder anyone.”

“But their baby,” I whispered.

“Nadia,” pain brightened his eyes, “Quentin James was a serial cheater who got off on screwing innocent students, and you were merely one of the many times he hurt his wife. You simply happened to be there when the stress of his betrayal became too much for her. And he’s the asshole who put all the blame on you when everything that went wrong in his life was down to his own damn selfish disregard for those around him.”

“You really believe that?”

“I told you I loved you after I found out,” he reminded me.

“Why didn’t you tell me you knew?”

“Because I wanted you to trust me enough to tell me yourself… and God, Sunshine, you kept me waiting. I thought I’d be waiting forever.”