Page 10 of Her Filthy Professor

“Gabriel, I told you we would keep this quiet, but you were walking around holding hands with her in public—” Dean Carlton begins, his face turning red.

“I quit,” Gabriel says, interrupting him.

“What?” I ask, turning to him with a shocked face.

“If I quit, will that make this go away? Will Grace still be able to stay enrolled without going on academic probation?” He looks at me while he waits for a response.

“I suppose if you do, then the investigation could be called off, and Miss Simmons could stay enrolled,” the Dean replies, shaking his head. “But if you quit, you'll lose all of your benefits and your pension. There's going to be repercussions for quitting this position.”

“I don't care about any of that,” Gabriel says, shrugging his shoulders. “I care about her, and I know this means a lot. Besides, I can think of a much better use of my time right now.”

I sit next to Gabriel in stunned silence, thinking about the decision he made. Part of me is amazed and excited that he would do something like this for me, but another part feels guilty.

We leave the Dean's office knowing that the investigation is going to be over, and then I'm still a student, but there are a lot of other things Gabriel needs to work out with the university before he can officially quit.

“You didn't have to do that,” I say when we get in the car.

“You being here means more to you than teaching does to me.” He grabs my hand and kisses my knuckles. “Besides, I’ve been writing again anyway.”

I smile at him before leaning in to kiss him. Gabriel drops me off at his house, telling me that there's one thing he has to do before all of this can be put behind us. I sit in the living room, reflecting on everything that had just happened that day, thinking about how thankful I am to have someone like Gabriel in my life. He sacrificed a lot for me. For that, I’ll always be grateful.

A few hours later, he comes back with a dozen roses in his hands and a bottle of champagne. Gabriel excitedly sets everything down in front of me, grabbing my hands and staring at me with a crazy smile.

“What is all this?” I ask, smiling back at him.

He stares at me for a moment without saying a word before dropping to one knee in front of me. He pulls a small box out of the pocket of his pants, and I gasp, reaching my hand to my mouth to cover it in shock. We've only been together for a couple of weeks, and in any other situation, a proposal would be insane. With Gabriel, though, it isn't.

“I know it's early, but you and I both know that what we have is special,” he begins, grabbing my hand and holding it tightly. “You're the most incredible woman I've ever met, and I've known since the moment I laid eyes on you that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you. Since we've been together, you've inspired me. What I feel for you goes far past desire, I need you in my life.”

“Gabriel,” I whisper, tears forming in my eyes. “I love you so much.”

“And I love you more than I could ever describe. Grace Simmons, would you do me the honor of marrying me?”

I nod quickly, dropping to the floor in front of him and throwing my arms around his neck. “Yes! I’ll marry you!”

EPILOGUE

GABRIEL

Six Months Later

Grace stands on the porch of the cabin, looking out at the canopy of trees ahead of us. Whenever I need to focus on my writing, I visit my cabin in the mountains. It's a quiet refuge from the rest of the world where I can focus entirely on my work to feel inspired. Of course, I can't work on anything without my muse, my wife, coming along with me.

We've been married for about six months, and our relationship has been steady the entire time. Every morning for the rest of my life, I get to wake up next to Grace, and I know that I'm the luckiest man on the planet.

“We’ll need to send these last chapters to the publisher as soon as you’re finished,” my agent says over the phone.

“I know.”

He goes over the details of the book deal I signed while I keep my eyes on my wife.

Grace turns around, her hands resting on her stomach as she rubs the baby with a smile. The sunset creates a halo around her head, and she looks like an angel standing there, only giving me more ideas of beautiful things to write about.

I hang up the phone with my agent, and Grace walks into the living room of the cabin to sit down next to me. I reach over and rub her stomach.

After she said she'd marry me, I could hardly wait to get her pregnant. She's the most beautiful woman I've ever seen in my life, and pregnancy makes her glow so much more. I lean in and kiss her, lowering my mouth to her neck not long after.

“How could you possibly want to sleep with me right now?” she groans, looking over at me with a nervous smile.

---