Page 4 of The Artist and the Muse

“I’m a guest lecturer, not a professor,” he said. “I got the gig from your uncle’s friend, remember?”

Right, after the investor dinner that Uncle Aaron had arranged for George to attend so he could find a job.

“Good for you. That doesn’t explain why you want to talk.”

“Georgia,” he said again, instead of an explanation, his tone pleading, his hazel eyes wide and desperate as he ran a hand through his dark, wavy hair. “Please.”

“You have no right to ask anything of me.” My voice should have been calm, but a sliver of barely restrained fury threaded through it. “Not after you broke things off.”

“We were never real.”

Somehow, that makes things worse, I wanted to scream. “That doesn’t change that my feelings were—”

No. Not real. My feelings couldn’t have been real since I knew who he was: a player, not a saint. A nomadic, wandering artist, not a man capable of commitment. “My feelings weremildlyimpacted.”

“I’m sorry.” He stepped closer to me, slightly taller than me on the same step of the staircase. At five-ten, not many men towered aboveme. But George had never been like most men in my eyes. Until he was. “I know the way we ended things was less than ideal. Still, I’m going to be teaching this class for the next two months. Unless you want to withdraw—”

“No.” I couldn’t do that when getting a degree was so close to the finish line.

My degree mattered, even though I’d had lucrative modelling gigs for the past few years of my life, which made more in a month than most people made in a year. Seeing my framed Anthropology degree, the symbol of my accomplishments—something I’d actually earned—would be a milestone.

It would be concrete evidence to disprove the mocking in the back of my mind. The voices that said people only cared about me because of who I knew or how I looked. Not what I knew or could do.

“I’m not dropping the class,” I said firmly.

“Then we’ll have to be friends.”

“Are you planning on being friends with all two hundred of your students?”

“There are one hundred and ninety-seven of them, actually, but no.”

“You and I have been a lot of things,Mr. Devereaux, but friends has never been one of them.”

“Say that again.” The smirk playing on his lips shouldn’t have been legal. It was bad for my health to be three feet from him while he looked at me like that.

“Friends—”

“No.Mr. Devereaux.”

I rolled my eyes. “We are not friends. I am your student, and you’re teaching this class. I’m going to pass with flying colours, graduate, and spend the rest of my life avoiding you.”

Turning on my heel, I bolted up the rest of the stairs, taking them two at a time. If only I could have convinced my heart to believe the words I’d just spoken.

Chapter Two: George Devereaux

Dear Mr. Devereaux:

This is an automatic reminder of your meeting with the Dean of the Arts and Classics Department, Mr. Edwin McCallum, on Monday at 4:30 pm. Please ensure you arrive at least fifteen minutes early to Dean McCallum’s office on the fifth floor of the Social Sciences building, in room 504.

I read over the email one more time to ensure I wasn’t missing anything, then gave my temporary office a once-over. When I wasn’t in my studio, painting up a storm, I liked my workspace to be neat and tidy. Most people made assumptions about my untucked flannel shirt and distressed jeans, guessing that I was a dishevelled lumberjack or that I didn’t care for beauty. Both of those presumptions were untrue. Well, nottotallyuntrue. I had once spent a summer chopping wood when I was sixteen, but that had been part of summer camp.

Each of my five pens was neatly arranged in a forest-green desk tray; a laptop sat in the drawer of the otherwise-empty desk, and the wallclock read four-oh-five. Plenty of time to get over to the fifth floor, since my office was on the third floor. With nothing else to do but give into thoughts of Georgia Philips’ presence in my life and classroom, I made my way up to the dean’s office.

Rapping on the frosted glass door that readOFFICE OF ARTS AND CLASSICS, I was greeted by a slight, middle-aged woman with a motherly demeanour. “You must be Mr. Devereaux. I’m Annie, the dean’s assistant. He’ll be right with you. Can I get you a coffee or something to drink?”

I was too wired for coffee after seeing Georgia this morning, but thought of my sister Katerina’s favourite drink, chamomile tea. “Do you have any herbal tea?”

She rattled off a list of them, her smile never faltering as she took in my appearance. I’d combed my hair and worn my least paint-stained jeans with a slightly rumpled button-down shirt, but it was vastly different from the suits and blazers I’d seen others wearing around these halls.

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