Page 2 of Kept

He hadn’t taken his hand off my back.

“This is mostly fiction and reference,” he said. “The archives are belowground, but Mrs. Clarke will be responsible for showing you those. Speak of the devil.”

She didn’t look like a devil, but an older woman with silver hair scraped back in a tight chignon and a pair of reading glasses hanging on a jeweled chain around her neck.

“Brontë!” she snapped, pointing to a bookshelf to my left. “Professor Headley requestedWuthering Heights.”

It took me a second to realize that she knew exactly who I was and what I was there for, and I’d just been given my first assignment.

Professor Spears drifted over to her as I stepped into the stacks, holding back a squeal of excitement and missing the warmth of his palm against me as I found theBs, with Charlotte Brontë’s books just a step too high to reach myself. The worn spine was just a few inches out of reach, and I glanced down the row. The shelves were so big they had rolling ladders. It was a fucking dream come true.

I rolled it down to theBs on a well-oiled track and stepped up, slidingWuthering Heightsfrom its place on the shelf, and dropped back down.

My heel caught the carpet and I wobbled, losing my balance. I clutched the book to my chest, one arm flailing out to regain my stability as my face flushed hot.

I thought I was in the clear until my elbow hit something hard. I heard the unmistakable exhalation of breath, the slosh of very hot liquid spilling from its container, and the thump of several items hitting the floor.

With my face bypassing tomato red and going straight to beet purple, I took in the results of my clumsiness. Books, a briefcase, and a travel mug littered the floor, the lid missing, and coffee seeping into the undoubtedly priceless rug. My gaze moved to the liquid-splashed shoes and up to the ruined shirt.

I finally looked up into dark brown eyes that were boring into me with laser-like intensity.

This professor was older than Spears, black hair touched with pepper against deep olive skin, a square jaw framed with a beard, and his once flawlessly-white shirt was now also brown. His sleeves had been rolled up to expose tan, muscular forearms, which were beaded with coffee as well.

Good job, mouse. Great first impression.

My throat seized as I searched uselessly for something to mop it up with. Maybe my brain fell out of my head when his coffee spilled, but my only solution was to drop the book, whip off my cardigan, and start dabbing at the stain on his shirt.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry, sir,” I said, as I pressed the cardigan to the stain again and again, though it was accomplishing nothing. At any other time, I might’ve been aware that the body under the shirt was hard as a rock and just as enviable as Professor Superman’s, but my panic overruled my hormones. He jerked a little under my touch. “I wasn’t looking, I didn’t mean to-”

He grasped my hand, pulling it away from his stomach. “That’ll do. The shirt is already ruined, Miss…”

Good god, I was going to curl into a ball and die. It was one simple task, and I’d already fucked up. “Jane. Jane Fawkes. Please, I can replace it, I feel awful-”

He held up a hand, cutting me off mid-sentence. “Never mind the shirt. I’m more concerned about the first-edition Twain that soaked up half my cup. Are you sure you can replace that, Miss Fawkes?”

Now shame joined the embarrassment still coloring my face. There was no way I would ever be able to replace that, not by a long shot. “Not… not now, but if you let me pay you back over time…”

The professor who made me feel like I’d shrunk to the size of an ant looked me over, his eyes lingering on my bare shoulders, the wisps of blonde hair that had escaped the French twist I’d barely managed to pin it into, the coffee-stained cardigan clutched in my hands.

“What sort of payment plan do you have in mind, Miss Fawkes?”

The silky way he said it sent a not-unpleasant shiver through me, because for a moment, it didn’t sound like he was talking about money at all.

“I’ll be working here,” I said quietly, wishing I could sink right through the floor. “You could garnish my wages.”

I couldn’t bring myself to meet his eyes. Maybe I’d been wrong about Bourdillon being a godsend. His scrutiny seemed to go on forever.

“Garnish your wages… hmm. There are more elegant ways for you to repay your debt than that. In the meantime, learn to control your flailing. You wouldn’t want to rack up more considerable debt.”

For a moment I felt like he’d punched me in the gut. How’d he know how much debt I was in?

Then I realized he was just talking about the book. Christ, I couldn’t imagine the fortune it cost. He’d have to garnish my wages for the rest of my life.

And he was a major asshole. I hadn’t meant to trip; like he’d never made a mistake in his life!

“It was an accident,” I said as I knelt to pick up one of the reference books he’d dropped among the Twain, but my voice came out in a whisper. We reached for a book at the same time, and when I withdrew like he’d burned me, he picked it up and stared directly at my face like he was trying to memorize every feature.

Despite his meanness, his brown eyes were rich and warm, impossible to break away from even though he looked like he was carved from the same granite that made up Bourdillon’s walls. My spine prickled uncomfortably, and I felt distinctly how a deer must feel when it sees those inescapable headlights blaze towards it.

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