The Seducer Read Online Free Page A

only fair, Michael thought, savoring the duplicity. Because in his mind, Karen’s choice was telling. Her parents and their antiquated morals were far more important to her than he was. In which case, he felt, rationalizing the worst of his behavior for the smallest of her infractions, he was also entitled to pursue other priorities. At the moment, he had three of them to be exact: not counting, that is, the scores of flings and one-night stands.
Chapter 2
    Michael walked briskly towards the Department of French and Italian . Since he was running late, he rushed into his office without stopping to banter, as usual, with fellow graduate students. As soon as he opened the door, Mireille, the officemate who had provided him with pleasant companionship for the past two years, greeted him. She lunged into his arms and plastered her lips upon his.
    â€œI’m late to class!” Michael announced as soon as he managed to regain his breath. “Which, incidentally, starts in about 30 seconds,” he added, glancing at his watch.
    At the moment, however, Mireille had a more pressing concern than his class. “Double D dropped by earlier this morning looking for you,” she said with an ambiguous look in her eyes, half-taunting, half-reproachful. “Double D” was their code name for Lisa, his well-endowed student from French 101. Michael preferred to avoid, as much as possible, crossing wires among his women. But Double D came by his office so frequently during the past few weeks that Mireille would have to be blind not to get the picture. Not that he felt that bad about it. After all, Mireille was no saint either. She was engaged to Jack, an all­American blond, tall law school student, through whom she hoped to obtain U.S. citizenship.
    â€œDon’t get me wrong, I love my fiancé,” Mireille had said to Michael when she first informed him that she was engaged. But this exchange of factual information didn’t prevent either of them from taking every possible opportunity to lock the office door and do whatever it took to make sure the desk would need cleaning up with plenty of Kleenex tissues dabbed in Evian water afterwards.
    Although Michael never erred on the side of caution in his actions, he was usually pretty careful with his words. “That girl’s so huge, she’s a freak show!” he tried to make Mireille feel more at ease with the whole situation.
    Fortunately, Mireille wasn’t one to hold a grudge for long. “See you at lunch,” she confirmed. “ Tu me manques ,” she added sweetly in her native tongue.
    In moments like these, Michael felt that it might be wrong to lead on the poor girl into believing that he loved her. But what else could a man do when, after having carnal relations with a woman on a regular basis for two years, she whispered je t’aime into his ear with such genuine ardor several times a week? Could he afford to say nothing in response? Michael was clever enough to realize that when you mess around with a chick for that long, you’ve got to have the decency to tell her “I love you” once in awhile.
    Besides, truth be told, he was genuinely fond of Mireille. He hated to sound superficial, but what got in the way of a deeper commitment was the gap between her two front teeth and her excessively lanky body, which looked downright skeletal at the shoulders and hips. Which is why he preferred to view her from behind: say, bent over a desk. If he positioned her like a master photographer and the light seeped through the blinds at just the right angle, one could plausibly claim that Mireille looked like a model, at least one of those anorexic, Twiggy types.
    Once in class, Michael found it difficult to focus on explaining the difference between l’imparfait and le passé compose . As usual, Lisa made goo-goo eyes at him from the front row. She occasionally passed her tongue over her lips and snickered into her hand,