Grace watched as he set the phone down with precision before slowly swiveling his chair around to face her. “We’re stuck with this, Grace, so we’re simply going to have to find a way to make the most of it. It’s only ten days.”
She glanced at the generic clock hanging on one wall. Two work weeks. Ten business days. Seventy-seven hours and eight minutes to spend with the man who had taken her higher and driven her lower than any man ever had. To watch the man whose mind she respected, whose body she coveted, whose smile she craved, as he helped people. “And if I quit?”
His eyes flared. “Don’t even joke about that.”
“If. I. Quit.”
He sighed, scrubbing his hands over his face and muffling his answer. “You’d have to wait until next semester and apply for a new practicum.”
Not an option. She had to get out of this town. She’d saved every dime from her work-study jobs, every extra dollar from scholarship monies and every penny she’d found on the sidewalk in order to have a tiny nest egg stashed for her move to Baltimore. She’d bought a few key wardrobe pieces for her job and had enough left to secure an efficiency apartment, set up utility deposits and stock her pantry, probably buy a decent bed. That was it. If she had to use it to re-enroll in school? No. It wasn’t an option. He was right; they’d have to make it work.
Shrugging out of her blazer, she settled deeper into her seat. “So, how do you want to do this?”
He narrowed his gaze. “You couldn’t manage to take five minutes to fight with me yesterday, but you’re agreeing to stick this out?”
Her throat tightened, and she fought to swallow. “Yeah.”
“Why?”
“If I ruined your life, you reminded me what was most important.”
“And what’s that?”
“Survival.” The one-word answer was barely a whisper, but it scraped at her throat as if it had been shouted. When he looked at her quizzically, she shrugged one shoulder. If she spoke, her quavering voice and broken words would have given her away. She couldn’t live with herself if she cried in front of him.
“Look, the best thing to do is to have you find another mentor who can give you an unbiased grade.”
“Do you intend to fail me?”
“What? No!” He wove his fingers together, staring at them for several seconds before speaking. “No. I would give you whatever grade you earned.”
“Then I’m staying.” He opened his mouth, likely to protest, but she rushed forward. “What happened between us shouldn’t have happened. I get that. But I can’t afford another semester of school, Justin. I need to get a job, get the hell out of here. I can’t do that without this practicum.”
“It seems wrong to me.”
“If you give a damn about anything but your own narcissistic drive to be viewed as pious and above reproach, you’ll understand that letting me proceed here is what’s best for me. Do you dispute the fact that part of the definition of right and wrong is fairness?”
“No.”
“If that’s true, do you believe it’s fair to punish me, to make me put off my life for as long as six more months because you’re mad?” She fought the urge to rub her clammy palms against her skirt.