Page 81 of The Professor's Possession (Crystal River Billionaire Brothers)

And that’s when he looks up at me finally. His expression is blank.

“Don’t you have somewhere else to be, Miss Weldon?” he asks me flatly from across the room.

“Um, yeah, sure.”

Any hope of any sort of deeper interaction between me and the man who took my virginity the other night is quickly dispelled as he carries on organizing the papers on his lectern, and I leave the lecture hall in very much the same way as I scrambled into it.

What a head spin.

I walk across the campus of Crystal River University holding my textbooks close to my chest as a kind of shield between me and the world.

It’s bad, isn’t it, that he has slept with me and hasn’t acknowledged either me or what we did together? Was all that just merely a one-time thing? Did he just make me sign an NDA simply to keep my mouth shut as he fucked me only the one time?

Is this not a relationship?

Not the deeper connection I had dared to hope it was?

You’re so naïve, Olivia. Of course this was going to happen. You were just too blind to an older, more experienced, gorgeous man with a deep silky voice and commanding tone.

It was only ever going to be casual.

I start to head toward the university cafeteria. It’s lunchtime. Maybe having a bite to eat will allow me to calm the crap down.

My mind is completely scattered, and I don’t know what to think about Professor Penmayne and the NDA and this weird sort of relationship we may or may not have. I hate how much energy it’s taking up, or how much rental space all these damn questions occupy in my mind.

But one thing is for sure, I’m pretty damn hungry.

37

OLIVIA

I siton the bench and open up my textbook after I’ve placed down my lunch on the table. My stomach rumbles in anticipation of the food. All day I’ve just been moving and stressing out and thinking, without a single moment to just be still and justbe. I put in my headphones to drown out the humming noise of the cafeteria around me and I take a big bite of my sushi roll. I’ve always been pretty good at studying and eating at the same time.

I take out a notebook and start to write in it, summarizing my textbook.

“Hey, Olivia.”

I’m snapped out of my tunnel vision by Ava. I take out my headphones and look up at my friend as she waves at me from a few yards away.

“Hey, Ava.”

“What are you up to?” she asks.

I gesture at my food and my textbook. “What do you think? Am I not being obvious enough?”

My roommate laughs. “May I join you, or are you going to be in a sassy mood and reject me?”

“I’d never.”

Ava takes a seat next to me. She nods at my open notebook.

“Any more dreams you’re writing down?” she asks.

It takes me a moment to understand what she’s meaning.

“Oh, no. This is not my dream journal. This is just boring coursework, I’m afraid. Nothing fun here at all.”

“Shame,” my roommate says. “I’ve been looking for some reading material, and I thought your deepest darkest fantasies would be perfect.”

---