Unhinged was not a good word.
“How is he paranoid?”
“He went through my email once when he thought I was cheating on him. I never was, but if he thinks something is up he might snoop.”
Michelle nodded, glad for the warning. She’d dealt with this before with spouses. “I will help you through it all.”
Shayla left first, mouthing a heartfelt thank you. As Michelle gathered her purse and started to shut down her laptop, a sense of calm washed through her. She’d done something positive for a long-time patient. She’d held her hand, metaphorically, and helped her walk into the dark, dangerous woods of the unknown. As she closed various browser windows, she spotted a few new emails that looked important, but she resisted the urge to check. That was why she had a phone. Well, two, really. Anything that had come in at seven o’clock on a Friday could be dealt with later. Once her computer was off, she locked the door and left, checking her work email in the elevator.
She scrolled through some notes from colleagues, answering a few brief ones on the ride down. As the elevator doors opened at the lobby, she clicked on the next note and nearly squealed for joy. One of the European journals she’d submitted her paper to loved her research and wanted to talk to her about the next steps for publishing it.
Michelle beamed, because this journal was the European equivalent of Psychology Today. To have an article run there had been a dream of hers, and would be a huge career high. She’d been wanting this, craving this, hoping for some sort of placement for her research. This could serve her quite well in her field, and earn her more recognition. But more importantly, this placement had the potential to spread her findings far and wide. Which, in turn, meant that more of her colleagues would be aware of how to better help patients struggling with love and sex addiction.
Equal parts pride and happiness filled her as she let those words echo through her body—next steps. Then she saw there was more to the note. She read on.
We are so excited about your research and findings that we want to introduce some of them at our upcoming conference. I know this is completely last minute, but one of our speakers fell through for our conference in three weeks. Perhaps the timing is fortuitous though. Would you be available to keynote? The conference is in Paris, France, and all expenses will be covered, as well as a stipend supplied.
Sincerely,
Julien
Excitement roared through her veins. And a tiny touch of nerves too. As she walked through the lobby, she re-read the email, and replied with the only answer there was, yes, when she smacked right into a tall man with dark hair in need of a cut, and square black glasses.
“Are you okay?” he asked, as if he were dreadfully concerned that he’d just walked into her.
“Yes, I’m fine,” she said, even though she winced slightly from the bump. His hand was on her elbow, steadying her, and she stared at it.
“Oh,” he said, and it registered. Time to stop touching. “I’m so sorry.”
“No problem. Now if you’ll excuse me,” she said, gesturing to the noisy avenue where cars and cabs and buses were slogging along through the end of rush hour. She stood on the curb, thrust her hand in the air, and snagged a taxi in ten seconds. She might have been unlucky in love, but she was remarkably successful at snagging a cab. As she shut the door behind her, she noticed the guy with dark hair was still standing outside her building, eyes narrowed and fixed on some unseen point straight ahead. Something about him bothered her.
Then he snapped his head down to look at his phone.
Perhaps he’d simply been staring off into space, figuring out what to say on a Facebook status update, or contemplating a reply to a last-minute email, as she’d been doing. Yes, either option seemed reasonable. There was no need for her to consider anything more of him. Especially not when she had a date with a beautiful man who wanted her, and when she’d been invited to keynote a conference in Paris.
Just twenty-four hours ago she’d still been concentrating on letting go of her last residual feelings for Clay. Tonight, she felt different.
The tide was beginning to turn. True, nothing like love would come from a man like Jack Sullivan, and she certainly didn’t expect it. He seemed tailor-made for a good time though, and she could use a little fun in her life. She’d take one more night with him and then she’d walk away. Because a man like that—no matter how stunning he was in bed, no matter how fascinating he was out of it—would never be good for this woman’s heart. Michelle had given her heart stupidly and foolishly to a man who’d never returned her feelings. She was going to protect her heart much better now. She was going to keep it encased in steel.