Gabriel's Inferno (Gabriel's Inferno #1)(106)

“Friends go to dinner. How about tomorrow night?”

She shook her head forcefully. “Why don’t you call me? I promise I’ll answer my phone.”

Gabriel frowned. “So when will I see you again?”

“At your seminar next Wednesday.”

“That’s too far off.”

“That’s just the way it is, Professor.” Julia gave him a half-smile and walked toward the door.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?”

She quickly checked her knapsack to make sure she had her keys. “I don’t think so.”

He stalked toward her, his eyes momentarily dark. “No kiss good-bye for poor, lonely Gabriel?” he whispered, his voice intentionally seductive.

Julia gulped. “Friends don’t kiss the way you do.”

He came closer, until her back was pressed up against the front door.

“Just a friendly peck. Scout’s honor.”

“Were you ever a Boy Scout?”

“No.”

Gabriel brought his hand up slowly so as not to spook her and gently caressed her cheek. He smiled at her disarmingly, and she found herself smiling back. He pressed his lips to hers, firmly but lightly, and held them there.

Julia waited for him to do something, to open his mouth, to move, anything, but he didn’t. He was frozen still, applying gentle pressure to her lips, until he pulled back and gave her a small smile.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” He chuckled as he traced her jaw line with the tip of his finger.

She shook her head. “Good-bye, Gabriel.”

As the front door closed behind her, he leaned up against the wall and rubbed his eyes, muttering to no one in particular.

After Gabriel returned home from a very unpleasant and slightly col-orful meeting with Christa, he grabbed a Perrier from the refrigerator and dialed the number of John Green, his lawyer. Gabriel hadn’t had need of John’s services for quite some time, and he preferred to keep it that way.

John had some shady clients, but he was the best, and Gabriel knew it, especially when it came to Canadian criminal law. However, John was not a specialist in employment law, which he pointed out to Gabriel more than once during their thirty minute conversation.

“I need to warn you, if observing the non-fraternization policy is a term of your employment, you violate it at your peril and at the peril of your job.

So let me ask you a question — are you sleeping with her?”

“No,” said Gabriel tersely.

“Good. Don’t start now. In fact, my professional advice to you is to keep your distance from this girl until you hear from me. How old is she?”

“Pardon?”

“The girl, Gabriel, the twinkie.”

“Call her that again and I take my business elsewhere.”

John paused. Gabriel was a tough son of a bitch, he knew, and a bit of a brawler. And John didn’t have the energy for a telephone altercation.

“Let me rephrase — the young lady in question, how old is she?”

“Twenty-three.”

John breathed a sigh of a relief. “Good. At least we aren’t dealing with a minor.”

“Once again, I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.”

“Listen Emerson, I’m your lawyer. Let me do my job. I can’t give you a professional opinion on your situation until I know all the facts. One of my partners sued the University of Toronto last year; I’ll get her to bring me up to speed. But for now, my advice to you is to steer clear of this girl, but whatever you do, don’t sleep with her. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“And let me be even more explicit. Don’t engage in any kind of sexual activity with her, at all. We don’t want to be drawn into a Clintonian debate about what constitutes sexual relations. Do nothing with her; it doesn’t matter if the activity is consensual.”

“What if we’re involved romantically, but not sexually?”

John paused for a moment and began cleaning his ear out with the tip of his baby finger. “I didn’t quite catch that.”

“I said, what if I’m seeing her socially but there is no sexual contact.”

John laughed loudly. “Are you kidding me with this, Emerson? I don’t believe you, and I get paid to. No one else will believe you, either.”

“That’s not the point. The point is, if I am not engaging in sexual activity with my student, does our relationship violate the policy?”

“No one is going to believe that you’re having a relationship with a student that does not involve sex, especially given your reputation. Of course, the onus is on the employer to provide evidence of the relationship, unless your chiquita files a complaint against you or someone catches the two of you in a compromising situation. Or she ends up pregnant.”

“That isn’t going to happen.”

“Everyone says that, Emerson.”

Gabriel cleared his throat. “Yes, but in this case, it would be beyond the realm of possibility. For more than one reason.”

John rolled his eyes and decided not to give The Professor a biology lesson. “Nevertheless, if you were caught, and there was no sexual contact, you’d likely face only a reprimand for an improper relationship. But I can’t state for certain without reading the policy, and I need to know from my partner what kind of precedents the university has set up for itself.”