“I’m not hungry. I’ll see you in the lobby in an hour.”

She looked down at the fifty dollars he’d left on the table. It was far more money than he needed to leave, and it was a measure of just how desperate he was to escape. The waitress brought her eggs and hash browns. Unlike Jack, she had not lost her appetite. She devoured it all.

They said hardly a word to each other during the drive back to Boston. When they finally pulled up in front of Taryn’s building, he did not get out of the car, did not offer to carry her overnight bag or walk her upstairs to her apartment. He just sat behind the wheel, shoulders slumped.

“Do you want to come in for a cup of coffee?” she offered.

“I need to get back to campus. Catch up on some work.”

“Well, now you know where to find me. I’m on the fifth floor, apartment 510.” She stepped out of the car. “Come by anytime, day or night.” As she walked into the building, she knew he was watching her, but she didn’t look back. Not once.

CHAPTER 23

JACK

He’d never known guilt could be so annihilating.

After he dropped off Taryn, instead of heading to campus, he drove home. He needed time alone to center himself and maybe knock back a stiff drink or two. Maggie should still be at Charlie’s house, so at least he wouldn’t have to face her yet. He’d have a few hours to resume his role of happily married man and upstanding English professor.

But as he pulled into the driveway, he saw Maggie’s Lexus parked in the garage, and his heart clenched. Why was she home so early? Had someone emailed her that he was at the conference with another woman? Had someone seen Taryn slip into his room just before midnight?

As he got out of the car, his phone chirped with a text message. It was from Taryn.

Last night we shared something that I will never forget. I love you.

Panicked, he deleted the message and powered off the phone, as if to erase the last twenty-four hours. For several minutes he sat in the garage trying to compose himself, but his heart wouldn’t stop thudding, and he half imagined it exploding out of his chest when he entered the house. But he could not sit in the garage forever. He inhaled the final breath of a condemned man, stepped out of the car, and walked into the kitchen.

Maggie was sitting at the counter, sipping a cup of tea.

“Hey, you. I’m glad you missed the snowstorm,” she said, smiling. “How was the conference?”

He shrugged. “Like every other conference.”

“How many students went with you?”

“What?”

“You said you were going to bring a few students with you.”

“Oh. Um, three.” When had he gotten so glib at lying?

“Lucky students. I never had a professor invite me to any conferences. Such great exposure for them.”

Great exposure. “Yeah.”

He was the Allegory of Deceit. A man who cheated on his wife. Who could tell lies on cue. A teacher who’d just slept with his student.

“We’re supposed to get ten to twelve inches of snow tonight,” she said. “So what do you say we send out for a pizza, light a fire, and snuggle up?”

Snuggle up—her old synonym for lovemaking. A little over twenty-four hours ago, he had snuggled up with Taryn. “Sounds great.”

While she changed clothes, he ordered a pizza from Andrea’s, made a fire, and opened a bottle of Malbec. He filled two Waterford crystals, and as he set them down on the coffee table, he was tormented by the memory of Taryn filling their wineglasses. The memory of what had happened after that.

He dimmed the lights to mask his shame. When she came down, Maggie was dressed in her pajamas and bathrobe, her face glowing. “The snow’s starting already. Maybe next year we should go someplace warm for a change. Aruba or Saint John.”

His nerves were buzzing. He could only respond with a rote, “Sounds good.” Saint John was where they’d spent their honeymoon.

She frowned at him. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, why do you ask?”

“I don’t know; you seem so distant. Did something happen?”

“No. I’m just a little wiped out. All that traffic, with this storm blowing in and all.”

“And being with all those students, you’re probably constantly onstage,” she added. “Well, you did a good deed, and I’m sure they all got something out of it.”

“Maybe.”

Taryn’s voice echoed in his head: Jack, please. Just for tonight.

They went upstairs. Made love with the lights off so she couldn’t read his face. When they were done, they lay next to each other in the darkness.

“Was that okay for you?” Maggie whispered.

“Of course.”

“Sometimes I forget to say it, but I love you.”

“I love you too,” he said, thinking that he had to end things with Taryn. He couldn’t live a double life, and he was not going to betray his wife again.

While Maggie slept, he tossed and turned, unable to think of any way to right all the wrongs he’d committed. Desperate for sleep, he finally reached for the bottle of Ativan and gulped down two pills. As he lay waiting for the drug to take effect, he thought: This is not going to end well.

CHAPTER 24

TARYN

For the better part of spring break week, she stayed away from Jack. She spent her evenings working on her “Love or Glory?” paper, hauling home books from the library. She exchanged half a dozen emails with Dr. Maxine Vogel to discuss the paper they were cowriting about Queen Dido. She stayed busy and focused because it was all part of her plan: Get into the doctoral program. Impress the department. Most of all, impress Jack.

She had no doubt he was thinking about her. How could he not be after what had happened between them? She imagined him lying awake beside his wife while longing for her instead. Had he told his wife about her yet? Eventually he would have to, and how relieved he’d feel when it was all out in the open. To start a new life, one must burn the old one.

And Sunday afternoon, when she received his text message, she knew he was finally ready to choose her.

At five fifteen that evening, her apartment bell buzzed.

She let him into the building, and by the time he climbed the stairs and rang her doorbell, she had already stripped off her blouse, her jeans. Half-naked, she opened the door, and he stepped into her apartment.

There was no need for words, for any preamble at all. She wrenched open his shirt, unzipped his trousers, and reached for him. He grabbed her hands as though to stop her, but she could feel he was already hard and ready for her. It took only a few strokes to make him surrender. With a groan, he shoved her toward the sofa, spun her around, and took her from behind. She cried out in pleasure as he thrust into her again and again, his need so urgent that he had no time to be gentle. This was a desperate fucking, and it was exactly what she wanted, what she craved. While he thought he was taking her, she held all the power, and when she climaxed, it was a cry of triumph. He was hers. He was hers.

They collapsed, panting, onto the sofa, where their naked bodies lay entwined. She pressed her cheek against his chest, listening to the gradual slowing of his heart. Here was where he belonged, and he knew it. Not with a wife who no longer thrilled him but with her. It was why he was here, why he could not stay away. She’d never doubted he would show up at her door.

She was half-asleep when he rose from the sofa. Only when he sat down to tie his shoes did she stir fully awake and see that he was already dressed and preparing to leave.

“Why are you going?” she asked.

“I have to. I’m supposed to meet my father-in-law for dinner.”

“Just your father-in-law? Or your wife too?”

The guilty look on his face was all the answer she needed. He reached down to stroke her cheek, and then he turned away.

“I love you, Jack.”

Her words paralyzed him. For a moment he stood torn between leaving and staying. Instead of the words she hoped to hear, the words a lover should speak, there was only silence.

“Taryn,” he finally said. “You know I care about you. But what happened between us—it never should have happened.”

“Why are you saying this? Right after we made love?”

“Because it’s not fair to you. You’re so much younger than I am, and you have your whole life ahead of you. I’d be like a rusty old anchor, slowing you down.”

“That’s not really what you mean.”

“Yes, it is.”

“No, you’re thinking about yourself. About how our affair affects you.”

With a look of defeat, he sank onto the sofa. “People are starting to notice. Starting to talk.”

“So what? Let them.”

“I could lose my job. Which might threaten your application to grad school.”

That was something she hadn’t even considered: that if Jack Dorian went down, he could drag her down as well. He had been her most powerful advocate. Without his support, without his letters of recommendation, what chance did she have?

“Then we have to be careful,” she said. “We might—we might need to stay apart for a while longer.”