It never quite succeeded in distracting him from what he’d lost, though. Ten years later, he was still mooning over Violet DeWitt and how different things would have been if he’d settled down with her after all.
Footsteps clicked on the linoleum flooring of the school, bringing him back to the present. An endless moment later, the classroom door opened. Jonathan lifted his head.
There she was, standing next to the heavy wooden classroom door, a faint, disappointed frown on her face, as if she’d expected to see him but had hoped otherwise.
Just like that, his palms began to sweat again.
She was different than he remembered. That was to be expected—he wasn’t the skinny nineteen-year-old boy with questionable skin and a lack of chest hair anymore. If anything, though, Violet had grown more beautiful than the last time he’d seen her . . . and more sedate. Gone was the wild, devilish look he’d loved so much, and the waist-length, streaked braids. This Violet was still tiny, but her lean figure had softened to lush curves, outlined by a demure black skirt and cream-colored blouse with a bow at the neck and long, billowing sleeves. She had plain black kitten heels on, no jewelry, and the long hair he remembered was cut into an asymmetrical black bob that was tucked behind one small ear and swung at her chin.
This was his wild Violet? It looked like her . . . and yet, not. Married life suited her, that was clear. She was as gorgeous as when he’d last seen her, and the thought of another man in her life made him ache inside. It should have been him at her side, but he’d been a selfish ass.
“Jonathan,” she said in a flat, polite voice. “What a lovely surprise.” Her voice indicated that it was neither a surprise nor lovely.
“Just a reminder, Ms. DeWitt, that visitors need to be checked in to the office in the future,” Principal Esparza said, casting another friendly smile in Jonathan’s direction.
“Of course. My apologies,” Violet said, ever so polite. “Won’t you come in, Jonathan?” She gestured at the classroom.
He gave a nod to his security guard, who turned to stand at the doorway in an alert pose. Not that Jonathan was expecting trouble at Neptune Middle School, of course, but he had found out a long time ago that looking important got you as many places—and sometimes more—than greasing palms did.
Violet’s little heels clacked as she returned to sit at her oversized desk at the front of the room. He noticed she didn’t offer him a seat, and eyed the rickety student desks lined up in neat rows. Her classroom was colorful and bold, pictures of exotic locations and maps of the world covering the walls, along with charts and flags. Despite the surroundings, the school was old and dark, the wood paneling warped with age, and he was pretty sure the tiles in the ceiling were going to fall down due to water damage. “Nice place. Where are your students?”
“It’s three thirty,” she said in that too-smooth, too-controlled voice. “Class is over. This is detention.”
He turned to look over at her, grinning in what he hoped was his best flirty smile that had never failed to melt her in the past. “Guess I’ve been naughty.”
Violet clasped her hands on her desk. “Mr. Lyons, I think we both know why you’re here.”
“Jonathan.”
“Mr. Lyons,” she echoed, her even gaze almost daring him to contradict her. She stared him down for a moment longer, then reached into her desk drawer and pulled out an envelope and held it out to him.
He approached, taking the familiar envelope from her, noting that the seal on the back was still intact. “You didn’t open it?”
“I’m quite familiar with my father’s little games. I don’t need to open it to know I’m not going to play along. This is all a ploy of his for some purpose I haven’t yet figured out, nor do I care to.”
Jonathan wondered at her icy demeanor. Violet was being downright chilly to him, and he hadn’t done a thing. “You still holding a grudge from the past?”
Her eyes narrowed.
That would be a yes. “Look, Violet. I was a kid, you were a kid. We were young. We did stupid things, made stupid mistakes. Can’t we get past that and work together?”
“Work together? On what?”
He pulled his own envelope out of an inner pocket in his Fioravanti suit jacket and held it out to her.
She simply gazed at him, arching an eyebrow.
All right, he was going to have to do this the hard way. He flicked the envelope open, pulled out the paper inside, and read it to her. The first line was the middle school’s address. The second line said: “My daughter Violet holds the key.” He looked over at her to see her reaction to the cryptic statement.