Page 1 of The Worst Man

One

The only thing I hated more than traveling to Las Vegas in the middle of the hottest June on record for a work conference was having to make the trip with my sworn enemy, Professor Hank Talbot.

I’d literally gotten down on my knees and begged our boss’s secretary not to book Hank and me on the same flight, yet here we were, sitting next to each other some thirty thousand feet in the air. And in coach, no less.

“Do you mind?” I nudged his arm back into his own space.

“Would you stop already? It’s not like I actually want to touch you.” Hank shuddered with disgust. “There’s not enough room in these damn seats, and you know it.”

“Why didn’t you just upgrade to first class like a normal rich person? Then we wouldn’t have to see each other at all.”

Lord knew if I’d had the cash to upgrade a last-minute flight on a whim, I certainly would have. And since Hank was filthy stinking rich, I couldn’t understand why he hadn’t. The Talbots were one of the first families to come over from England, back when America was still just a tiny rebel colony. They had spent the ensuing centuries amassing their wealth, which meant Hank didn’t actually have to work. The fact that he’d gone into teaching still baffled me.

“How much longer until we land?” he asked, leaning across me to try and look out the window.

I slammed the shade down. There was nothing to see out there anyhow, and I didn’t want him tempted to keep leaning into my space whenever he got curious. “An hour,” I said, mentally offering up a prayer of thanks to the big man above. Now if he could just speed up the space/time continuum so that the next sixty minutes passed by in a flash, that’d be fantastic.

Hank flopped back against his seat, shaking mine in the process. “Ugh. I just want to get there already,” he groaned, his minty fresh breath filling the cabin.

I was annoyed to note that even though we’d been locked together in this flying tin can for almost four hours, he still looked—and smelled—like he’d just stepped out of the shower. I didn’t want to examine too closely what it meant that I knew he always smelled like a combination of mint and lavender.

“Why? You have a hot date lined up or something?” It pained me to admit it, but Hank’s perfectly fresh breath wasn’t the only thing he had going for him. With thick, wavy brown hair and crystalline blue eyes that were rimmed by full, dark lashes that I secretly coveted, the asshole was as handsome as they came—and he knew it. Having very publicly broken up with the latest in a string of twenty-something models foolish enough to fall victim to his charms, he’d made no secret of the fact that he was single and ready to mingle. His words; not mine.

He flashed me a wolfish grin. “Why? Are you jealous?”

I snorted inelegantly. “I assure you that I am not.”

He stared at me for a beat. “I don’t believe you.”

I flashed him my best you have got to be kidding me look. “Why do you insist on being such a cocky asshole all the time?”

He smirked, and a perfectly placed dimple popped in his freshly-shaved cheek. “It’s not cocky if you have the goods to back it up.”

“God grant me the confidence of a mediocre white man,” I whispered under my breath. Not quietly enough, it seemed, for him not to have heard.

“And there it is. You managed to go nearly four hours without making a snide comment about how much you hate men.”

“I don’t hate men,” I countered. “I just hate you.”

“Why?” His head was cocked to the side as he studied me far too intently for my liking.

I broke eye contact, my gaze falling to the in-flight magazine clenched in my hands on my lap. “You know why,” I murmured.

“To be honest, I really don’t.”

My eyes bounced back up at the note of sincerity I detected in his voice. How could he not remember the night three and a half years ago he’d absolutely humiliated me in front of our entire department—including the new Chair.

Showing up to the faculty Christmas party alone had been bad enough, but having Hank joke that my lack of a date was because I was more frigid than a cold New England winter had been utterly mortifying. The fact that I sometimes secretly worried that he wasn't wrong had been the cherry on the shit sundae.

“Come on, Hank. Don’t make me say it.”

His gaze flicked over my face for a few seconds that felt more like an eternity. His voice came out harsh when he asked, “If I don’t know what I did, how can I be expected to fix it?”

“I don’t know that you ?????? fix it.” Too much time had passed between then and now. Too many barbed jibes and harsh insults exchanged between us.

He thought I was a humorless prude with a chip on my shoulder the size of Maine, while I thought he was an entitled, egotistical waste of flesh. It was amazing we could even pretend to be civil with one another at this point in our acquaintance. Frankly, the only reason I even made the effort was because I was afraid that if I didn’t, his family had enough influence at Thackeray to send me packing. I was this close to getting tenure, and until I did, I wasn’t taking any unnecessary chances. Tenure was everything in academia, and I wouldn’t let my feelings toward this spoiled man-child ruin my chance for professional security. I’d worked too hard and sacrificed too much to get here.

“No, I wouldn’t suppose so,” he mused quietly. “I think you enjoy being angry at me all the time. It goes so well with the angry feminist thing you’ve got going on.” That bomb dropped, he leaned his perfectly coiffed head back against the seat rest and closed his eyes.

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