Page 65 of The Roman's Woman (A Singular Obsession)

It should have felt good being surrounded by her possessions again. It didn’t. And it wasn’t because she missed the luxury of Gio’s penthouse. This place seemed…empty.

She was too much of a feminist to admit it aloud, but being alone felt strange now. Gio hadn’t taken over her life, but he had carved out a big space in it for himself. Even now when she was mad at him, she wanted to see him or hear his voice.

It wasn’t like those times she’d missed Richard. Each time her ex left town without her, for work or to see his family, she’d marked his absence and told herself she missed him. But it was nothing like this whole-body longing. She hadn’t yearned for him like she was doing now for Gio.

Ugh.Sophia took a deep breath. This whole being-in-love thing was turning her into a big pile of mush.

And this situation wasn’t anything like her time with Richard. Gio didn’t take her for granted. It was quite the opposite, in fact. Her former relationship had chipped away at her self-worth and made her feel unattractive and unimportant. Richard had taken his cues from her own father, constantly picking at her appearance and downplaying her accomplishments.

Now she was with a man who not only delighted in her success, but he made her feel beautiful and sexy. The way he had introduced her to his friends and family, with such obvious pride, had meant everything to her. It felt good to be important to someone so accomplished and kind in their own right.

She could only hope that things would settle down the longer they were together. Gio had no reason to be jealous of Richard. Or of any other man. Yes, her ex was being oddly tenacious, but she knew that he didn’t really want to reconcile.

Could it be that Richard’s hero worship of her father was inspiring this effort to win her back? If so, it was a half-hearted attempt at best. A few phone calls, and that one text. He had dropped by the lab once to try and take her to lunch, but she had already left for an early meal with Elynn.

Hopefully, once she sold him the Chevette, it would be the end of her involvement with him. She knew Gio didn’t understand why she wanted him to have it, but in her mind her father and Richard would always be tied together. Mentally she compartmentalized them in the same box—and their possessions belonged right there with them. Getting rid of it was her clean start.

Reassuring herself that she was doing the right thing, she finally turned on her phone. Only one missed call from Gio and one text that readPlease call me when you feel like talking.

Considering how they’d left things, he was showing remarkable restraint. There was a missed call from Richard, too, probably another inquiry about getting the car’s ownership papers.

Procrastinating, she decided to check her email before calling him back. At the top of her inbox was one from Kelly with the subject “Have you seen this?!!!”

Concerned something was wrong with Kelly or her husband she opened it. All the message said was, “Isn’t this what your father was working on?” and there was a link to the Sociology Department’s Homepage.

There splashed at the top of the page was a feature on Richard and his new appointment as the head of the department. It was the next paragraph that had her seeing red. It was praising Richard for his groundbreaking and insightful work on the evolution of online trolling and its impact on gender identity in the internet age.

No, it can’t be.

With a sinking sensation, she clicked on the link to Richard’s most recent paper. Scanning the abstract quickly, she found her suspicions were correct.

Richard had stolen her father’s research and published it as his own. Sucking in a breath, she went back to the original article on his appointment. The story praised Richard as a bright young star. It credited his most recent advancements in the field as the reason he was chosen for the prestigious Sotheby chair of Sociology. With the position came a sizable research grant and tenure.

I don’t believe this.

How could Richard do something so unethical? And how had he gotten away with it? Didn’t the other faculty know what her father had been working on during the last days of his life?

Probably not many of them. Her father had been a perfectionist. It was likely that he hadn’t detailed his work to his colleagues until he was ready to publish it. She was an exception, but only because he didn’t see her as a real scholar. In his eyes, she was a mere experimentalist who enjoyed getting her hands dirty—not a pure abstract thinker like him.

Her father had been about to submit his research project for publication the last time she’d talked to him. It hadn’t occurred to her to check and see if he’d actually done it.

But she should have thought of it. They hadn’t been close, but she still owed it to him to ensure that his legacy as a scholar was recognized. His work had been the most important thing to him—far more important than his marriage or his daughter. If anything, the fact that he’d bored her senseless detailing his research all those Sundays while he puttered in his drafty garage, meant the damn thing would be published under his name.

Was that why Richard wanted the house? Had he known her father’s unpublished work was sitting there unclaimed? And why the hell had he wanted the car? Was it guilt? Did he think claiming all the old man’s possessions somehow made it right to plagiarize his research as well?

At the time she had been grateful when Richard agreed to take her father’s personal belongings. Anything she hadn’t wanted was going to charity anyway, and she’d decided it should all go.

Well, it seemed that her decision to avoid the painful memories of her relationship with her father was coming back to bite her in the butt.

Furious, she picked up her phone and dialed Richard.

He picked up on the second ring. “Darling! I’m so glad you called!”

“You won’t be when I’m through with you!” she said.

“Darling?” The tone was simultaneously hurt and condescending.

“How could you? He was your mentor, you bloody thief!”

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