Chapter 3

Charles looked down at her hands, splayed across his shoulders, firmly holding him at a distance. What could she possible have to tell him that would compel her to press pause on this moment? He squeezes her hips and smiled down at her.

"Whatever it is, I doubt it will make me want to leave this room, leave you, anytime soon, Liza. I want this. I want you." A small smile crossed her face as he looked into her eyes, trying to convey all his feeling to her, for her, in that one look. A shadow of sadness crossed her face as she took a deep breath.

"You should sit down." She pushed him in the direction of the bed and broke apart from him, leaning back on the edge of the dresser that was positioned a few feet in front of the bed.

"Liza, just tell me what is going on. I don't understand. Is it Josh? Are you two back together?" His mind was racing, all of his worries and insecurities about this relationship flooding to the surface.

She sighed. "No, no, it's not Josh. We've been broken up for a few weeks now. We wanted different things and I couldn't stay with him knowing that we were headed down separate paths. Plus, these feeling I have for you, Charles, I've had them for a while, and they're growing stronger."

"Then I don't understand what the problem is. If you have something you need to tell me, please just do it."

Inhaling slowly, she looked down at her dress and smoothed the wrinkles in the skirt. "Well, I'm, I'm not who I say I am, Charles. I'm not 26. I lied about my age to get the job with Diana at Empirical."

Charles felt like a deflated balloon, like all the air had been sucked out of the room. What was she saying? "So," he started slowly. "How old are you?"

"I'm 40. I'm divorced, and I'm a single mom. I have a daughter in her freshman year of college. Her name is Caitlin."

Charles got up and crossed to the window, looking out onto the beach, to the waves crashing onto the sand.

"Well, this certainly is a curveball I wasn't expecting. You have a daughter?"

"Yes, she spent last summer in India and moved back to the city in the fall. She stayed with me for a few weeks and spends a lot of her time in New Jersey with her dad. She works for him part time. He's a dentist."

Charles smirked, the picture of Liza, his Liza, with a 40 something dentist, flashing across his mind. Then it all came crashing down. He turned to look at her. She had her arms wrapped across her chest and was looking down at the floor.

Things began to click and fall into place for Charles. "So, I'm guessing "Take My Breath Away" wasn't your babysitter's prom song?"

Liza choked back a laugh. "Yeah."

"And the case study in the Deciding Decade, that was you, wasn't it?"

She nodded, still not looking up at him. She was scared to see his face. She didn't know if she could deal with Charles being disappointed in her, or angry with her, but she knew she was doing the right thing.

Charles let out a deep breath and sat on the edge of the bed. "This is a lot to process, Liza. I'm, I'm not sure what I'm feeling right now. Why did you feel like you had to lie? Who else knows? Kelsey, Diana? Did Josh know?" The questions were coming fast and furious, and he could feel a bubble of anger or frustration or something, rising in him. He knew right now that he didn't give a rat's ass about her age. If anything, that was a weight off of his shoulders. He knew he wasn't a pervy 45-year-old that was attracted to the hot, young assistant. He had always known that Liza had an old soul, and now he knew why. But she had lied to him for over a year now, and it was going to be tough to get past that.

"I need the truth, Liza. I need to know everything."

Liza crossed to the bed and sat a safe distance away from him. And told him everything.