I vaguely registered Gray’s presence standing behind her at his desk, but I couldn’t make my gaze shift to him, worried that if I did, everything would spill out.
“You did a great job in class today,” she said. “You’re really starting to get the material.”
Oh god. She was just being friendly and it was a totally nice, normal thing for a professor to say to a student. But it only highlighted the differences between us.
They were professors. They didn’t fumble in front of seventy-four of their peers. They knew who they were and what they were doing. Well, more than I did, at least. For the first time since I’d known Gray, I felt like a stupid kid playing at being an adult.
“Thank you,” I mumbled, ducking my head, unable to stand looking at her for another minute.
She was blonde, pretty, sophisticated. She had to be a couple years older than Gray, but I doubted he would care. Guys my age thought she was hot, why wouldn’t he? I wondered if he’d told her about his past, if she knew or cared. I wondered a lot of things I had no business wondering.
Fuck.
And then the pang in my chest got so much worse.
She turned back to smile at him. “Maybe we can do lunch another day, Gray.”
She’d come to have lunch with him. She called him Gray. Fuck.
I thought I said bye to her, wasn’t really sure over the roaring in my ears. I struggled to keep my composure, pushed the sick, sinking feeling out of my stomach. Tried to, at least. He hadn’t done anything wrong. He was single. I was his student. We weren’t dating; we weren’t anything.
He hadn’t done anything wrong, and yet everything about this felt so fucking wrong. Despite the age difference, and his messy past, and the fact that I was his student, it felt like he was supposed to be with me.
I sat in one of the empty chairs across from his desk, busying myself with taking out my lunch, my fingers trembling. They brushed against the stupid extra brownie and a lump clogged my throat. What was wrong with me?
I didn’t meet his gaze, couldn’t, but I heard him get up from his desk and close the door before going back to sit across from me.
I took a breath, reached deep, pasted my campaign smile on my face, and focused on a point over his shoulder, next to his head.
“Blair.”
God, that voice. It washed over me, bathed me in heat, curled around, slipping inside, filling me with want and need.
It wasn’t his normal voice, not the one I heard him use around school. This one was husky, raw, and sent a chill down my spine. I’d heard it before—when he kissed me, when he held me—somehow that made it even worse.
“Blair, look at me.”
“I am.”
Lie.
“You’re not.”
Fuck.
I added campaign eyes to the campaign smile and met his gaze.
His stare pierced me, cutting through the pretense I clung to.
Gray
I’d spent days going over this moment in my mind, trying to mentally prepare for seeing her again. Clearly it hadn’t worked, because all it took was the sight of her pale face, her cheeks two splotches of red, and my heart ached.
I hated the look in her eyes, the pain in her voice. I’d been so afraid of hurting her, so concerned that I could, and would, break her. But now, seeing what it felt like, even in the smallest, most indirect way, I knew I would do everything in my power to never, ever cause her harm.
“We had plans to go to lunch. The dean encourages the faculty to get to know each other. She’s new this year, too, so she reached out to me. When you told me this was your only break in the day, I canceled with her.”
Her gaze was wary. “I thought you might be angry with me,” she said, and I knew she was thinking of the way we’d left things after the carnival.
I was a lot of things—confused, aroused, angry with myself, but never with her.
“If I were angry at every person who pointed out when I was being an idiot and a dick, I’d pretty much be pissed off at the world.”
A ghost of a smile played at her lips again. “I thought you were pissed off at the world.”
“I’m trying to be better. Someone told me I should get my head out of my ass.”
Another twitch. “I’m pretty sure those weren’t my exact words,” she murmured.
“Message was the same.”
“You could have just told me you had plans. You didn’t have to change them for me.”
There was no censure in her voice, no anger. She delivered the words matter-of-factly, as if we were both little more than two people working on a project together.
I gave her the truth, because as dangerous as it was, I couldn’t stand the uncertainty in her eyes.
“I didn’t change them for you. I changed them for me. I wanted to have lunch with you.”
Only you.
Danielle Larson was beautiful, intelligent, and genuinely a nice person to be around. And I wasn’t stupid. I knew she was interested, knew her invitation to have lunch wasn’t just about us as professors. She was a catch. But she wasn’t Blair.
“I’m not interested in Professor Larson. Not like that. She’s a friend, nothing more.”
We danced around the line again. I technically didn’t owe her an explanation; she wasn’t my girlfriend, we weren’t dating, and yet, the tie that bound us, the part of me that she held in her hands, that I hadn’t given to anyone but her, demanded an explanation.
“I’m not interested in anyone else.”
Only you. Even though I shouldn’t be. Even though you deserve more. Only you.
Blair’s voice was tight. “She’s an attorney, a law professor. Your age. She’s nice.”
“She is.” I took a deep breath, and then gave her the promise I couldn’t resist giving. “I wouldn’t do that to you.”
She paled even more. “You don’t owe me anything. I know that—”
“Blair.”
Her mouth closed.
“I wouldn’t do that to you.”
I had no illusions about who I was, or the kind of things I’d done. I had some fucked-up mistakes in my past, and I still wasn’t sure I would ever be the man she deserved. But with the words that left my mouth, I knew.
Whatever this was between us, I only saw her. And until she broke the connection, until it died between us, there would only be her.
Blair nodded, the move shaky. She was usually so calm, so confident, but the look on her face reminded me that she was only twenty-three. And she’d been through a lot.
She broke eye contact and reached into her bag before she pulled something out and set it down on my desk.
I stared down at the brownie, wrapped in clear plastic from the cafe downstairs. I blinked. Stared back at her face.
“You bought me a brownie.”
She nodded, a slight flush on her cheeks.
Gutted me. Every time.
“Thank you.”
A soft smile played at her mouth that was at odds with the lingering sadness. “You’re welcome.”
She started talking about Thanksgiving, and I didn’t know if it was the way she pushed the sadness out and her eyes lit up, or the brownie in my hands, but either way, she wrapped me around her finger and pulled me close.
And I loved it.
Chapter Fifteen
Spotted: Blair Reynolds at Will Clayton’s election party celebrating with her sister, Jackie Gardner. Senator Reynolds might have put this election in the win column, but with his children noticeably absent, there are signs that his forces are weakening. He won the battle, but will he lose the war?
—Capital Confessions blog