No one spoke. No one was that stupid.
“I didn’t think so. I expect you all to take extra notes today, and everyone who scored below A-minus will have extra studying tonight to bring your grades back up.”
I was thankful for my bangs covering my forehead as my eyebrows shot up in disbelief.
Like no one had enough. Not that it was my problem, of course. I had it down. Highest grade.#p#分页标题#e#
I was ridiculously smug.
Jake, however, was groaning into the palm of his hand. He wasn’t doing a very good job of masking it. He knew he was one of those with extra studying.
I knew I’d get the Mayday text message later that night.
Professor Keaton steamrolled into the lesson. He barely gave a minute for his words to sink in before he’d shucked his jacket off and grabbed his whiteboard marker. He furiously underlined his words on the board, and I heard the whispered curses of students as they loaded laptops and opened notebooks.
The sound of clicking pens reigned supreme. I guessed they wanted to get a head start while their laptops loaded. That was exactly why mine was always on sleep mode during the day. I had no idea why these other idiots didn’t do the same.
The lesson moved surprisingly quickly. Maybe it was because half of my attention was on the man teaching rather than the actual lesson, but I didn’t want to bet on that. Mostly because admitting such a thing to myself seemed so fucking ridiculous that I could barely stand it.
By the time it was through, he’d worked us to the bone and I was ready to go home and collapse onto my bed. Of course, I was probably exaggerating because of my exhausted state, but hey. I knew hard work when I saw it, and he was the biggest slave driver I’d ever met.
“You coming?” Jake asked as he packed this things up.
“I’ll meet you there,” I said quietly. “I need to ask him about my letter.”
“Didn’t you do that yesterday?”
I jerked my head from side to side. “I chickened out.”
“All right. Call me when you’ve convinced him, yeah?”
“Sure,” I agreed. I felt like total shit for having lied to him, but what else could I have done? I couldn’t have been honest, could I?
Jake wrapped an arm around my shoulders and squeezed. I smiled weakly at his embrace then shoved him off. He laughed as he headed for the door.
He paused to mouth, “Good luck,” before he walked through it.
I gave him a thumbs-up and slowly walked down between the desks, waiting until everyone had left the room.
I felt his eyes on me before I’d gathered the courage to look up at him. His gaze was burning with its intensity, and my knees almost buckled beneath the weight of it. I’d never been looked at so intensely in my life.
It was in that moment that I understood how a look could change your life. I’d had no idea of the decision I was going to make until that very second his gaze touched mine.
“Can I help you, Miss Hamilton?” Professor Keaton drawled, amusement hinting at the corners of his mouth.
“Yes, sir. Do you have time before your next class?” My tongue flicked out and swept across my lips. They were so dry, just like the rest of my mouth. Nerves flittered through me as I approached his desk.
“Take a seat. I’m sure someone as slim as yourself could fit their backside on the edge of my desk.”
Did he just say that? Of course he did. Don’t be dumb, Darcy. “Okay.” I perched on the edge of his desk right after I’d set my purse down at my feet. My dress flared out as I bent one knee and propped myself up with the other. “I’d like to talk about your…your…proposition…yesterday.”
“The agreement, you mean.”
“Don’t complicate it with bullshit terms, sir.”
His eyes flared with heat. “Talk. Now.”
“You gave me two options,” I said softly, dropping my eyes. I played with a loose thread on the hem of my dress. “Is there any way for a third… One that perhaps ends with neither of us disclosing details about yesterday? Or you about what you know about me?”#p#分页标题#e#
“No.”
I smacked my lips together. There went plan A. Right down the fucking shitty toilet bowl. There was always plan B, right?
Right.
I stood and walked around the desk. His gaze followed me as I approached him. He was like a viper stalking his prey, ready to strike, and I was almost too afraid to get too close to him. The tightness coiled in his shoulders only strengthened my perception of him.
Professor Jordan Keaton was wound so tightly that he was liable to uncoil himself and strike at any time.
“I told you, Darcy. I want you. There isn’t an instance in this where we’ll come out of this where I don’t get you.”