Page 41 of Arrogant Professor

Elle - Six months later

Vincent and I left East Regent University in our rear-view mirror and never looked back. On the outskirts of Albany, we stumbled across an old shop that used to house antiques. It still had that rustic charm, with polished oak counters, hidden little nooks, and an entire wall of floor to ceiling windows. There was a cute little apartment above the shop, too.

Vincent bought the place for a song, and we started sprucing it up right away. By the new year, we had moved in and filled the shelves with books. By February, The Professor’s Bookshop was open for business.

While I went back to school part-time, I picked up work as a tutor, teaching kids to read. Most of the lessons were conducted online over video chat. Although a few of my students were local. So, we met at the shop or the library. Together, we poured over books bursting with illustrations, excited to discover a new adventure hidden away between the pages.

My lessons made such a good impression on the head librarian that she offered me a job on the spot. And I accepted.

I enjoyed it so much that I was toying with the idea of getting my Master’s in Library Science. The bookshop was Vincent’s passion project, and I would gladly help him in any way I could. But becoming a librarian was rapidly developing into a dream for me.

Maybe I saw myself in those shy, quiet, lost kids who drifted through the shelves, searching for a story they could escape into.

Or maybe it was the fact that working as a librarian was as far away from the corporate business world as I could get. My father would be furious to hear I handed out free books for a living.

During the first few months after the bookshop was up and running, I held my breath, half expecting my father or Helene to hunt me down and destroy everything that Vincent and I had built.

But nothing came. I never heard a peep from them.

Sometimes, it stung.

More often than not, it was just a relief.

Vincent found out that Dean Wilcox was quietly fired from the school, placed under investigation for accepting bribes on more than one occasion and endangering students.

I woke to the steady rhythm of Vincent’s heart pressed to my cheek. My bare body was tucked against his side with my leg hitched over his hips. He had one hand on my back, fingers idly tracing up and down my spine in random patterns, while his other hand held a book propped against his stomach.

Six months of living together had flown by, and I still managed to find little ways to fall in love with him even more. I took advantage of the moment and studied his profile—that strong jawline, his tousled salt-and-pepper waves. Still as handsome as the day I met him.

“Would you read to me?” I whispered.

Vincent turned his head to meet my gaze.

“What would you like? Byron? Keats? Dickenson?”

I shrugged and wiggled closer, if that was possible.

“Whatever that book you have in your hand is fine.”

The corner of his mouth tipped up in a wry smile.

“How do you know what it is? I could be reading something terribly dry. Ethics, perhaps. Philosophy. The history of economics.”

I hooked an arm around his middle and kissed his neck, breathing in the faded smoky-sweet scent of his cologne.

“I trust your judgment,” I replied. “I just like hearing your voice.”

Vincent brushed a kiss to my forehead and adjusted his glasses.

“Flattery will get you everywhere, love.”

Then he cleared his throat and started to read.

“She half enclosed me with her arms,

She pressed me with a meek embrace;

And bending back her head, looking up,

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