Page 9 of Royal Academy

CHAPTER 5

Lia could hardly rip her gaze away from Nick’s sculpted chest. How was it possible that someone that hot could be teaching at the Academy? It didn’t make sense. Nor did his abhorrence to her. Lia knew that she wasn’t traditionally gorgeous, but she was pretty.

A girl didn’t make it to twenty-five these days without some indication of how the male species felt about her. Granted she believed that she might be the only twenty-five-year-old virgin on the planet but that was beside the point.

She had her older brother Benedict to be thankful for that little gem. He always had someone on the lookout for Lia if he wasn’t there himself. The one night he left her on her own she just happened to get hammered and ended up dancing topless on a table.

Just one night! But the rest was history. Now she found herself being marched unceremoniously back to the castle in an athletic shirt that was strangely appealing despite the fact that it smelled of cologne, sweat and him.

Nick, what was it about that man that just wedged itself under her skin? Was it the condescending way that he spoke to Lia? Because she didn’t like it, at all. Nor did she care for the way he was acting like an angry…

“Wait a minute,” Lia stopped abruptly causing Nick to run into her.

“Damn it, woman, what is it now?” he demanded crossly.

Lia had turned and was just catching sight of those six-pack abs, scrumptious.

“Lia!”

Her eyes snapped to his blazing ones, “What?”

Nick looked like he wanted to wring her neck, “Why in the bloody hell did you stop?”

“Oh,” Lia brightened as she remembered and then scowled, “Why are you acting like an angry older brother? Are you friends with Benedict?”

Nick was looking like a deer in the headlights.

“I knew it! I knew that he wouldn’t trust me to come here on my own.”

She started off down the path again not waiting for Nick to follow. But looking down she realized that she still had his shirt on. Angrily she yanked it over her head and threw it at him.

“I don’t need you or my brother’s help!” Lia demanded hotly and then turned and began to run.

Nick grabbed his shirt that had landed in a tree rather than where Lia had intended and started after her. He was rather surprised at how fast the chit could run.

“Lia, stop it this instant!”

Lia scoffed to herself as she broke out in a faster speed. There was no way that she was going to do anything that Professor Leham wanted her to. Damn it, why didn’t Benedict trust her? It was bad enough that her father, the king, felt she was a screw-up.

Lia had always been rather good at running. And at top-speed, few could catch her. She was just starting to see the castle come into view when she felt him gaining ground.

“Not today,” she muttered under her breath and put in a final burst of energy. There were students in the corridor that stopped what they were doing to stare at their new teachers racing at top speed.

Whatever conversation had been going on was silenced at the appearance of Princess Amelia racing into the gardens in nothing more than a sports bra carrying a bloody garment.

Not far behind her was Professor Leham who was also topless. The female students nearly swooned at the sight of his sculpted body and heaving pecs. This was indeed not something that they had been used to seeing from the previous faculty members.

“And another thing,” Lia whipped around to shout at Nick. “I don’t need your help, your shirt, or your babysitting. You can tell Benedict that as well!”

Nick was murderous, not only had that little termagant outran him, but she just humiliated him in front of half the students at the Academy. He felt some of the stares at his body and remembered too late that he hadn’t put his shirt back on yet.

Jerking it over his head, Nick stalked through the students not speaking to any of them. Lia’s eyes widened when she saw his face. With a squeak, she raced into the castle taking the stairs two at a time. She was almost to the top when her toe caught on the rim of the stairs and she went sprawling forward.

Nick, hot on her heels, didn’t have time to stop himself and he fell directly on top of her.

Lia cried out as her shins smacked the stone steps.

Nick was careful not to hit her head, but the impact had to hurt regardless. Nick rolled to the side and looked down to see the Dean staring in horror at the debacle.

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