My Professor(60)

As if that’s not enough to keep me away from his office, there’s also the underlying motive to be the one person in Professor Barclay’s life who isn’t at his beck and call at all times. Yesterday, I was on my knees for him. I won’t do it two days in a row.

I respond simply, 11:15 isn’t a good time for me.

At 11:15 on the dot, I pick my mug up off my desk and take my sweet time walking over to the break room. Meera and Inés are crowding the coffee pot, looking at something on Inés’ phone. Inés looks relieved to see me.

“Oh good—you can be the tiebreaker. Do you think this dress is too risqué to wear to my boyfriend’s father’s birthday? Meera thinks I should find something else.”

The dress in question has a halter top with a deep V-neck and a skirt that’s barely there. The model wearing it looks like she’s on her way to a music festival, not a family get-together.

“I mean, it’s pretty, and I see why you’d like it, but I’m not sure if I’d go that route.”

She groans. “Okay, hold on. What about this one?”

She starts swiping through pictures on her phone.

“Emelia?”

I turn to look over my shoulder and find Hugo dipping his head into the kitchen, looking alarmed.

“Your work phone is ringing off the hook. I’ve let it go to voicemail twice, but the person seems insistent. Do you want me to go answer it?”

My eyes widen in panic. No one, and I mean no one, has my work number.

“No!” I say, already rushing out past him, my coffee mug long forgotten on the break room counter.

I hear my phone ringing from down the hall and pick up the pace. Once I reach my desk, I answer the call without bothering to take a seat or get comfortable.

“Emelia Mercier,” I say with a clipped tone.

“You’re late.”

Professor Barclay’s voice sends a shiver of delight down my spine, even if he does sound seriously pissed.

My brows furrow. “Did you check your email?”

“The email is irrelevant. I said 11:15. You should have been outside my door at 11:10.”

“And you should get your eyes checked, because I told you that time wouldn’t work for me.”

I swear I hear a dark chuckle on the other end of the line, but it’s too faint to make out.

Hugo catches my gaze from his side of the cubicle wall.

“Who is it?” he mouths.

I shake my head. “No one,” I mouth back.

“The engineering department has a set of plans I need to review. You’ll go down and retrieve them for me.”

“I—”

“Emelia, have you forgotten your role here at Banks and Barclay? If I ask something of you, you do it.”

If any other person—man or woman—spoke to me the way Professor Barclay is speaking to me right now, I would hang up the phone and take it up with HR. I’m not a doormat for the general population. I’m submissive to a singular man who happens to have his last name plastered on the side of the building I’m currently standing in.

The moment of silence hangs heavy between us, and he must know he’s regained the upper hand when I fail to say another word. I hang up the phone gently, tell Hugo I have to run an errand, and make my way straight down to the engineering department.

I have no idea who I’m supposed to report to once I arrive, but it turns out not to be a problem. When I step out of the elevators on the sixth floor, a guy waves me over to his desk and hands me an oversized cylindrical tube filled with rolled-up paper plans.

“He wanted to see these. I’d hurry if I were you. He seems more annoyed than usual today.”

Yes, because of me.

I head straight for the elevators again, avoiding Zach’s curious stare from over at his desk. I’ve never needed to venture down to the engineering department before, and if Professor Barclay had it his way, I likely never would again.





Chapter Twenty-Three





Emelia



* * *



Candace looks up from her computer as I walk in front of her desk.

“The plans?” she asks, reaching her hand out to take them from me.

“Emelia, bring them in,” Professor Barclay says from his office.

The door is cracked enough that there’s no pretending I don’t hear him.

Candace widens her eyes in a silent show of solidarity then tacks on a mouthed, “Good luck.”

My ankle wobbles in my heels as I continue on, past Candace’s desk. I feel dread akin to a child on her way to the principal’s office, and in those final steps before I make it into Professor Barclay’s office, I repeat to myself that I’ve done nothing wrong.

His workspace is a study in order versus chaos. He’s sitting at a long desk in front of a row of built-in cabinets and bookshelves that are expertly styled. Near his computer, other than a phone and notepad, the surface is spotless, but down on the left-hand side there are unfurled plans held down by paperweights, rulers, pencils, and an empty coffee cup.

He motions for me to come closer, and I’m conscious of the fact that I’ve left his office door open behind me. Not wide, but enough that it makes a point, I think.

Professor Barclay notices.