Page 44 of My Forbidden Professor

He’ll never give up.

God, oh God, oh God.

Jacob knows, he knows, he knows.

My cold fingers strangle my cell as I hold it to my ear. My surroundings slowly filter back around me. I catch someone looking at me and drop my head, covering my face with my hair. I end the call and stare at my cell.

His distance makes sense now. Horrible, drastic sense. Why would he want to be around someone like me?

My cell rings and Jacob’s name flashes on the screen. I said I would call him when I landed and I haven’t.

I won’t.

I can’t.

I have to.

Things will never be the same between us again, no matter how desperately I might wish otherwise.

The cases begin to cycle on the conveyor belt. I stand back and let the crowd take their cases and depart. I stand until my one case circles around. People from the next flight begin to filter in to wait for their cases before I take mine, blindly walk outside and hail a cab. Dread and heartache war within me as I give the driver my address and settle into the back seat. I want nothing more than to rewind time and somehow prevent this entire catastrophic event from cracking our world.

But I can’t do the impossible.

I wonder if Jacob paid Daniel before our weekend. Black oil coats my stomach and I gag.

“You all right, miss?” The driver shoots me a concerned glance via the rearview mirror.

I plaster a smile on my face. “Never better.”

The campus sprawls ahead, a looming monolith of brick and concrete that was once my safe haven, my sheltered academic cocoon. Now it feels more like a minefield waiting to detonate. We pull up in front of my building. I pay the driver and slide from the back seat.

Need to see him.

I don’t wait to drop my case inside. Instead I grip the handle, knuckles white, use the weight to center me and force one foot in front of the other across campus. Students stop and stare. I see them look at me, even with my head down and hair covering my face.

Word gets around quickly on campus. And why wouldn’t it? I’m big, juicy gossip. The center of the very thing I’ve avoided for so long.

The cacophony of whispers and furtive glances prickle over my skin. Each murmured utterance, each poorly-veiled stare in my direction, slices through me anew—a stark reminder that my private world has been blown irreparably wide open.

I keep my expression calm. But deep down, anguish claws at my throat as flashes of that searing image—Jacob’s euphoric expression as he takes me from behind—sear through my mind. I can’t unsee it, can’t unhear Daniel’s words. My worst nightmare and reality combine.

Daniel knows about us.

Jacob paid Daniel.

Everyone knows who I am.

A ragged breath shudders out as I finally reach the door to Jacob’s office. I wait for students to pass behind me before I draw in a fortifying breath and muster the strength to rap my knuckles against his office door. The door swings open and Jacob is there right in front of me.

I want to launch into his arms. Want to cry. Want to rage. Want to love.

For a suspended moment, he just...stares, those ocean blue eyes drinking me in with surprise, bewilderment, happiness before morphing into shuttered caution as realization dawns. I thought I’d masked my expression, but he’s seen something there. Something I can’t hide. Dread plunges into the pit of my stomach.

“Professor Black?” My voice cracks on the formal address, and I hate how it makes me feel...diminished somehow, like the easy intimacy we’d built has already crumbled to ash. “I was hoping I could speak with you about our dissertation now that I’m back?”

I make sure to raise my voice enough that the words carry down the corridor. The words are pointed, deliberately audible for anyone who might hear and assume this is simply a casual visit between student and teacher. But we both know the truth.

Nothing will ever truly be casual between us again.

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