Page 81 of Love, Academically
“Fuck you.” There was more venom in his voice that he’d really meant.
“What else is going on, Rhys? This is more than you falling out with Lila, isn’t it?”
Rhys blew out a breath.
Telling Lila about applying for the Fellowship had made him warm inside. She’d been so excited for him, and perhaps Dan would as well.
“I’m applying for the Fellowship at the Royal Historical Society,” he blurted. “The application is due in soon and it’s just so weak. I don’t have a big enough body of work.”
“That’s fucking amazing, Rhys!” Dan said, but his grin soon turned to a frown. “Why are you applying then? Why not wait until next year or the year after, when you’ve published more?”
“You know what my father is like. I promised him I would do five years in academia and if I hadn’t made a success of myself, I would go back to the family business.”
“But you hated Dallimores. You’ve never been so miserable than when you were there after uni,” Dan said, pointing at him with his beer bottle. “What’s this ‘five years’ shit all about?”
“It was to ‘get it out of my system’, unless I became a success,” Rhys said. “Now I’m nearing the end of it and my Fellowship application isn’t likely to be accepted. I’ll have to go back.”
“Why?”
“Because I promised.”
“So? Don’t do it if you don’t want to. You’re a grown up.” Dan shrugged. Obviously, he had never met Llewellyn Dallimore. Rhys had staunchly kept him as far from his family as he could. The Dallimores had a tendency of flashing power and money, pulling you in and then using you to further their own agenda. He’d wanted to keep Dan as far away from that as possible.
“It’s not that easy, Dan,” Rhys said, and Dan nodded. There’d been enough conversation across the years for Dan to get it.
He turned back to the football. “Lila took your richy richness all right then, I take it?”
“She didn’t care at all,” Rhys said, with a little laugh. “It was refreshing, actually.”
“I think you’ll find most people don’t,” Dan muttered staring at the screen.
Lila
If Lila was in a spy movie, she thought, she’d be one of those glamorous film noir heroines with a pencil skirt, a slash of red lipstick and a long cigarette. Perhaps a French accent. As it was, she was wearing a deep purple woollen dress, tights and flat boots, no lipstick and certainly no cigarette. Sneaking through the History Department like she was in the French Resistance was both exciting and terrifying.
Exciting because peering round corners with her heart in her mouthwaskind of exciting. Terrifying, because what if she saw Rhys? Worse, what if she had totalkto Rhys? She’d explode from mortification.
Not that she’d let him see that, oh no. After her call with Jason (and the seven missed calls, fourteen unread messages and three unopened emails later) she was empowered. If Rhys didn’t want to sleep with her, then it was him who was missing out, not her.
And that was fine. Absolutely fine.
She did not need stupid Rhys Aubrey-Dallimore in her life.
Peeking around the door to the staff kitchen (you know, just in case), it was a relief to see that she could make her pot of chamomile tea without the presence of the devil himself. Well, you know. Rhys.
“Lila, what are you doing?”
“Oh, good lord, Sue! You scared the living daylights out of me!” Lila said, clutching her teapot dramatically to her chest.
“Okay,” Sue said, her face twisted in confusion. “But what are you doing?”
“Making a pot of chamomile tea,” Lila said, pretending that she wasn’t a French Resistance spy. “Do you want a cup?”
“Uh no. Chamomile tea tastes like drinking flowers,” she said.
Hate to break it to you, Sue…
“I’m glad I’ve caught you, Lila.” Sue pushed her glasses up her nose. “I’m going to need those intranet issues fixed before tomorrow. I’ve had more than one complaint and it’s getting quite bothersome.”
