Page 2 of The Professor's Possession (Crystal River Billionaire Brothers)

As she stands there, she’s urgently calling out my name over and over.

“Spencer. Spencer.Spencer.”

And I am right here, so damn close to her. And yet, somehow, so far.

An imperceptible barrier seems to stand between us; an intangible partition preventing me from reaching her.

An invisible wall that can’t be breached.

She is desperately looking, her gorgeous soft eyes darting frantically around the park, unable to locate me, even though I am standing mere yards away.

I want to yell.

I am right in front of you!

And I am keenly aware it issomethingthat I have done that has ripped us apart like this. Somehow, it is my actions that seem to be preventing the beautiful girl from seeing me, even though we are so close. I don’t know what crime it is exactly that I have committed against her – or why I’ve done it - but I can tell it is bad.Realbad.

The worst thing is that I don’t even know her name. I don’t even know what to call her when she calls me.

I am trying to do everything I can to make her notice I am right here, but my dream chokes me down. I cannot speak. I can barely move. I am stuck, paralyzed, watching this nameless girl I so desire try, in vain, to find me.

And it’s clear she wants me just as much as I want her.

Yet, in every dream, as I stretch out my hand toward her, our fingers never touch. It is as though fate itself conspires to keep us apart, to ensure that we remain forever strangers. Never to meet.

And the pattern repeats, night after night, like torture.

Always the same park.

Always the same unbridgeable gap.

Always the same longing in her voice.

“Spencer...”

And then I end up in a sweat in my bed - far away from any imaginary park - just as I have done every night for the past week. My heart races as if determined to break free from the confines of my chest, its frantic beats echoing the urgency of what I’m feeling as I'm brought thundering back to reality.

I wake at the same time every night – exactly at three in the morning.

The witching hour. The time when demons and ghosts and ghouls are at their most powerful.

It always takes me a long moment to readjust to mundane existence after the dream about this girl; to come to terms with the fact that I have just roused from the deepest imaginings of my mind and that she is not real.

Why must I suffer this nightmare?

What I have been experiencing every night of the past week can be easily compared to the books I have loved to devour my entire life. It is a scene ripped straight from a classic Victorian gothic romance, but with hoodies and sneakers instead of cloaks and monsters.

I am certain that I have never encountered the girl in reality. If so, her face would surely be etched in my memory. She is just too irresistible to me. These untamed dreams have indelibly etched those gorgeous soft eyes, those full lips, and that silky hair onto my consciousness permanently - a mark akin to a guiding star, beckoning me to come and find her.

I have never come across something I can’t have, but I think I might have finally met my match.

I am Spencer Penmayne, and that name means something in the waking world. Money and power and influence come with just a mere whisper of my famous family’s title. I have an infinite number of resources at my disposal, and I am also a man who doesn’t back down from a challenge, no matter how far-fetched.

It is a dangerous combination, especially when it comes to women. Even impossible dream ones.

She must be real. She must be real. She must be real.

As I sit here, on my bed in the middle of the night, I make a silent vow to myself.

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