She felt a rising sense of outrage on his behalf.
You don’t know he didn’t do it.
—He said he didn’t.
You’re too trusting.
—Bugger off, Henry.
“You have a good lawyer, right?”
“An excellent lawyer, but … the way the money was taken, it’s called vendor fraud. We have a lot of programs, and we pay many vendors, and someone managed to create a large number of invented vendors. I’m the most logical someone.”
“But you didn’t do it.”
“Without knowing who did do it, it’s hard to clear suspicion from me. So it will probably go to trial.”
“But they’ll get you off, right?”
“It’s possible—my lawyer says probable, even, that they won’t get a conviction, if I’m lucky—but the point is, I would understand if this turned you off. I’m damaged goods. No job, the possibility of a criminal conviction, jail time. I’m low on funds. I’m going to look for other work, but my name’s been in the local papers, so I don’t know if I can even get it. Your friends would tell you to run the other way. Stat.”
Nora tried to imagine what Rachel would say. Back away from the possible criminal, Nora. Turn and run now. Don’t look back. Yeah, that was about right.
But she didn’t. Couldn’t. She’d known before he’d told her, as soon as she’d known there was something he wanted to tell her, that very little he could say would make her turn and run.
Probably Henry was right. She was too trusting. Too lacking in all the skills necessary for self-preservation.
In too deep, too fast.
In, for better or for worse.
She shook her head. “Well. That sucks. A lot. For you.”
“For you, too.”
“Does it?”
“ ‘Mom, I’m dating this guy. He’s charged with embezzling three hundred thousand dollars from an organization that feeds kids.’ ‘Oh, hon, that’s great!’ ”
“I’d say, ‘Mom, I’m dating this guy. He’s been falsely accused of embezzlement, but he’s innocent.’ ”
“Would you?”
“Of course I would.”
He closed his eyes, and Nora couldn’t figure out the look on his face for a moment, until she realized he was trying to keep some emotion in check.
“Miles?”
“Give me a minute.”
She did, and when he opened his eyes again, he said, “At the New Year’s party? I was on the rebound, too. Or something like that. My fiancée had just dumped me. Because she found out about the investigation.”
“Oh, God, Miles.”
“So … I might have … I didn’t … I wouldn’t have taken it for granted that you’d stand up for me, that’s all.”
His fiancée. The woman he’d been planning to marry. Someone who should have stood by him no matter what.
“At least you found that out about her,” she said.
“I thank God for that every day. Also, I wouldn’t have been single on New Year’s if she hadn’t left me. And I probably wouldn’t have been quite so—”
He stopped.
“I told you that you were a fuck-you to Henry,” she said. “You can hardly say anything more obnoxious than that.”
“I was going to say that I was ‘hard up’ that night.”
She hooted with laughter. “Okay, yeah, that’s pretty bad.”
“I was,” he said. “I was a mess. Angry, sad, all kinds of bad. The worst. Probably capable of wreaking havoc.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.”
“You danced with me.”
“Yes.”
“And kissed me.”
His eyes were dark on her face. Steady. “Yes. But then, if you’ll recall, I tried to beat some guy up for also kissing you.”
“True. Not smart. But kind of a turn-on.”
“We can be glad our exes were such idiots,” he said.
“Definitely.”
He stepped toward her then and kissed her forehead, her cheeks, her nose, rested his head against hers. They stood there, and she could feel the forces that drew them together, but quieter now, at bay for the moment. Later tonight she’d want him to tear her clothes off again and make love to her slowly, thrusting and withdrawing, his body over hers, his breath against her cheek when his mouth wasn’t on hers. But right now she wanted this. This time together, a sacred space in the madness, an acknowledgment of the magic.
* * *
“What made you want to be a sixth-grade science teacher?”
They sat at a cozy table in a corner of his favorite restaurant, the Farmhouse Table in Cleveland Heights. Two music venues and the art-house theater were right near there, and they could linger as long as they wanted at dinner and then decide what they were in the mood for next. And Miles had in the back of his head that maybe they wouldn’t be in the mood to go out after. Maybe they’d be in the mood to go back to his place. That was what he was already in the mood to do, because he’d spotted a scrap of royal-blue satin on top of the pile of clothes she carried into the bathroom to change for dinner. He’d bet it was somewhere on her person. He bet if he peeled off her pretty flowered top and lifted her long brown skirt, he’d find it.