Page 27 of The Professor's Holiday Surprise

Chapter 11

Noah

After my office hours end,I go in search of my department chair, and find Chris in his office.

“You busy?” I ask after knocking on his open door.

“Just wrapping up for the day.” His chair squeaks as he leans back.

I close the door behind me and start pacing. “I need advice. No, scratch that. I need help. And preferably no advice, but if you insist, I will take that, too.”

“All right, you have my attention.” His chair starts to rock at the same tempo that I’m pacing.

“I have a conflict of interest in marking a student’s final paper and exam.”

“Okay. Ranch related?” Squeak. Squeak.

“No.”

The squeaking stops. “There are only so many reasons for a conflict of interest, Dr. Lowry.”

“Come on, Chris.”

“Please tell me that you bumped into this student in an underground poker game or something.”

“Or something.”

“Noah!”

“It’s not what you think.”

“I think you’re fucking a student.”

“It isn’t like that. Not yet.” The fact that I can still smell her pussy is beside the point.

“Notyet?”

“I’ve fallen in love with her.”

“Jesus Christ. You teach freshman, Noah.”

“She’s not—” I take a deep breath. “Cone of silence.”

“I’m not your fucking therapist. You don’t have any privacy here.”

“In the interest of protecting a student, then. She’s smart, Chris. So fucking smart. And this is her second attempt at college. She’s not some eighteen-year-old. She’s twenty-eight, and she deserves to have a college career unmarred by my weakness. She doesn’t even know that I love her yet. Fuck, she might not return those feelings exactly.” I scrub my hand over my face. “We met online. Didn’t connect two and two at first. I know it’s messy and wrong, but here we are. There’s just exams ahead of us. Literally just two marks remaining?—”

“All of her marks need to be reviewed.”

“All right.”

Swearing under his breath, he pulls a binder off the shelf, flipping angrily through the tabs until he finds the page he’s looking for. He rips it from the binder with a flourish. “Fill this out.”

I adjust my glasses. “What is this?”

“Declaration of a personal relationship.”

“I’m notina personal relationship yet.”

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