My Professor(41)

“Just to be clear, I’m trying to keep my distance from you just like you asked. You’re the one gripping my arm.”

His gaze pierces me. “Don’t be a child.”

“I’m not a child. You know better than anyone that my birthday just passed. I hardly think a twenty-five-year-old is a child.”

“It’s not your age. It’s how you are, so naive and petulant. Even now you won’t come with me easily—I’m having to drag you down the hall.”

I nearly laugh.

“Perhaps you could try being polite for once?” I give him examples. “Emelia, please come with me. Or even Emelia, take my hand.”

His grip only tightens on my forearm. “You wouldn’t respond to that, and we both know it.”

His words set me ablaze.

How can he do that? How can he dig inside me and find that pearl of truth so easily? No one else can, so why him?

I should keep quiet and let this play out quickly. He’ll leave me on the curb outside and hurry back to the gala to schmooze with all of his rich, fancy friends. Beautiful women will get the pleasure of looking at him in his tuxedo all night, and I’m so envious I could scream. I want more from this exchange. I want to hide under the effects of my two drinks and pretend none of this matters. None of this is real. Tomorrow, everything will be right back to the way it was.

We reach a heavy metal door, and he pushes it open.

Already, a black SUV idles by the curb.

I panic as he pulls me toward it. The opportunity has almost passed.

“You haven’t said anything about my dress, Professor Barclay.”

“You don’t want to hear my thoughts about you in that dress.”

Oh but I do. I really, really do.

“One word won’t hurt,” I say, smiling in innocence.

He opens the back door of the car and deposits me inside. His blue eyes are level with mine as he leans in to click my seatbelt into place.

“Lethal.”

Then the door gets slammed, and I’m left alone in the back seat, blinking.

I think on that word the entire way home while I bite back a self-satisfied smile. Then, in bed that night, I look up the definition just to be sure I’ve caught every nuance of his compliment (or was it a critique?).

Lethal (adjective)

1) of, relating to, or causing death

2) gravely damaging or destructive

3) very potent or effective





Chapter Fifteen





Jonathan



* * *



I think if I run hard enough and fast enough, I can escape my feelings for Emelia.

I pound the pavement until I feel like my knees might explode. I should have stopped two miles back, but I still haven’t managed to erase the insane urge to pounce on my poor little employee, so I continue to punish myself.

It’s the Monday after the gala, and I can’t stop thinking about her. I’m no poet, but I could write a sonnet about her in that dark red dress. I saw her from across the ballroom as she was making her way through the crowd toward the exit. Her head was bowed and she was trying so hard to sneak around people and stay in the shadows. Little did she know, she lit up that room like a firework. A red seductress. A woman I wanted to possess wholly.

Heavy, dark rain clouds seem to mimic my mood.

A call from my mother interrupts my thoughts and my run, and I take it, hoping she’ll prove a good distraction.

“I’m looking at pictures of Saturday night,” she tells me. “I see you skipped the step-and-repeat. Would it have killed you to stand there politely and smile for charity? They could have splashed the images all over their website. No matter—they managed to catch you inside while you were standing with Christopher and some woman in a red dress, and that’s why I’m calling.”

“You’re kidding.”

I was with Emelia in public for one second. Half a second. How did they get a photo of us?

“She’s stunning. I’ve sent her picture to your sister as well, and we both think you two would make lovely children.”

I slow to a walk, breathing hard from my run.

“I’m hanging up.”

“Now don’t get testy. I can see there is quite an age difference between you, but your father and I have a gap between us and that’s only served to spice things—”

She doesn’t finish getting her sentence out before I’ve hung up on her.

My phone vibrates with a text a few seconds later.

Oh you’re no fun. I expect updates from you soon on Ms. Brunette. Like I said, STUNNING.

So much for her helping me forget about Emelia.

I stuff my phone in my pocket and turn back toward home, finally ready to throw in the towel. I’m less than a mile from my house when the dark clouds that taunted me my entire run finally decide to put their money where their mouth is. Big fat raindrops pour down as I sprint up my stoop and through my front door.

I fling off my dirty shoes and shirt and shorts, tossing the clothes into the laundry room on my way to take a shower.

In a few minutes I’ll go to work and endure another day with Emelia just out of my reach. I’m trying my hardest to keep my distance from her, to give her the same courtesy she’s giving me. Not only to avoid hypocrisy, but because I’m trying to do what’s right, what should be done.