That’s it. That’s fucking it, he thought.
Paul pulled Julia into his side protectively, curving his body around her as he watched The Professor’s shoulders begin to shake with rage.
“Class is dismissed. In my office, Miss Mitchell. Now!” Professor Emerson angrily shoved his notes and his books into his briefcase and exited the seminar room, slamming the door behind him.
Chapter 16
The graduate students sat in the now silent seminar room, stunned. Since the majority of the students weren’t Dante specialists, they quickly dismissed the altercation as an entertaining (albeit aberrant) internecine debate. Academics could be passionate about their subject matter; everyone knew it. Some, like Julia and The Professor, were more passionate than others. Today’s seminar was a train wreck, of course, but not entirely surprising. Not, thought Paul, as bizarre as some of the things that happened the previous semester in Professor Singer’s Medieval Torture Methods seminar…which turned out to be surprisingly hands-on…
As the students slowly realized that the steel-cage death match they’d just witnessed was over, and that there would be no second round (or popcorn), they began filing out, with the exception of Christa, Paul, and Julia.
Christa fixed Julia with narrowed eyes and went after The Professor like a co-dependent duckling.
Paul closed his eyes and groaned. “Are you suicidal?”
Julia seemed to be shaking herself awake from a dream. “What?”
“Why did you provoke him like that? He’s looking for a reason to get rid of you!”
She was only now able to grasp the gravity of her predicament. It was as if she’d been another person, spewing venom and anger, without any thought about the audience. And now that she’d vented she felt deflated, like a lonely and empty balloon left after a child’s birthday party. She slowly began packing her things and tried to steel herself for what she knew would be a very, very unpleasant conversation in The Professor’s office.
“I don’t think you should go,” said Paul.
“I don’t want to go.”
“Then don’t. Send him an e-mail. Tell him you’re sick—and you’re sorry.”
Julia thought about that for a moment. It was very, very tempting. But she knew that her only chance at saving her career would be to woman up and take her punishment, and try to piece her personal life together afterward. If that was even possible.
“If I don’t go to his office, he’ll be even angrier. He could kick me out. And I need this class, or I won’t be able to graduate in May.”
“Then I’m going with you. Better yet, I’ll speak with him first.” Paul drew himself up to his full height and flexed his arms.
“No, you need to stay out of this. I’m going to go and apologize and let him yell at me. And when he has his pound of flesh, he’ll let me go.”
“The quality of mercy is not strained,” muttered Paul. “Not that he would know anything about that. What were you fighting about, anyway? Dante didn’t have a mistress called Paulina.”
Julia blinked rapidly. “I found an article about Pia de’ Tolomei. Paulina was one of her nicknames.”
“Pia de’ Tolomei wasn’t one of Dante’s mistresses. There were rumors of mistresses and illegitimate children, so you weren’t completely wrong. But I’m sorry Julia, Emerson is right—no one believes that Pia was Dante’s mistress. No one.”
Julia chewed the inside of her cheek thoughtfully. “But he wouldn’t let me explain. And I just kind of…snapped.”
“You snapped, all right. If it were anyone else, I’d be cheering you on thinking that he got what was coming to him. The uptight prick. But in your case, I knew he’d overreact.” Paul shook his head. “Let me talk to him.”
“You’re writing your dissertation with him, you can’t have him angry with you. If it’s too much, I’ll leave. And I’ll file a harassment complaint.”
Paul gazed down at her with a very worried expression. “I don’t feel right about this. He’s furious.”
“What can he do? He’s the big bad Professor, I’m the little grad student. He has all the power.”
“Power does funny things to people.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Paul stuck his head outside the door of the seminar room in order to check the hallway.
“Emerson is a twisted fuck. He was involved with Professor Singer and that means that he…” Paul stopped suddenly and shook his head.
“That means that he—what?”
“If he has been harassing you, or trying to get you to do things, let me know and I’ll help you. We can file a complaint.”
Julia gazed at him blankly. “There’s nothing sinister going on here. He’s just a crusty Professor who doesn’t like to be contradicted. I’m going to eat humble pie in his office, and hopefully, he won’t make me drop his class.”
“I hope you’re right. He’s always been professional with his students. But with you, things are different.”
Paul walked Julia to The Professor’s office and without warning, knocked on the door.
Professor Emerson opened the door quickly, his eyes still an angry, sparking lapis. “What do you want?” he spat, shooting daggers at Julia.
“Just a minute of your time,” said Paul mildly.
“Not now. Tomorrow.”
“But Professor, I…”
“Tomorrow, Mr. Norris. Don’t push me.”
Paul gave Julia a very worried look and mouthed the words, “I’m sorry.”
The Professor waited until Paul had disappeared around the corner before stepping aside to let Julia in. He closed the door behind her and walked over to the window.
Abandon hope all ye who enter here…
The Professor’s office was dark, illuminated only by his desk lamp. He’d drawn the blinds and was now leaning as far away from her as possible and rubbing his eyes with his inky fingers.
Julia moved her knapsack in front of her like a shield, clasping it with two hands. When he didn’t speak, she busied herself by glancing around the room. Her eyes alighted on a chair—the very uncomfortable Ikea chair that she sat on back in September during her first ill-fated meeting with The Professor. The chair had been smashed to bits and was lying in small, bent pieces that were scattered across the Persian carpet.
Julia’s eyes slowly moved from the pieces to The Professor and back again. He smashed a chair. He smashed a metal chair.
His eyes opened, and she saw a strange and dangerous calmness in their blue depths. Here was the dragon in his den. And she was unarmed.
“If you were anyone else I’d have you expelled.”
Julia shook as soon as she heard the tone of his voice. It was deceptively calm and soft, like silk brushing across bare skin. But the undertone was steel and ice.
“That was the most disgusting display of infantile behavior I have ever witnessed. Your disrespectful attitude is absolutely unacceptable. On top of that, I can’t even begin to express the anger I have over what you said about Paulina. You are never to speak about her again. Do I make myself clear?”
Julia swallowed hard but was too upset to answer.
“I said do I make myself clear?” he growled.
“Yes.”
“My self-control is tenuous at best. You would do well not to push it. And I expect you to fight your own battles and not manipulate Paul into rescuing you from your own stupidity. He has his own problems.”
Julia looked at the carpet, avoiding his eyes, which seemed to glow in the darkness.
“I think you wanted me to lose my temper. I think you wanted me to get angry and make a scene, so you’d be justified in running away. You wanted me to behave like every other abusive asshole that has knocked you around. Well, I’m not an abusive asshole, and I’m not going to do that.”
She glanced over at the twisted wreckage of the chair—(a nice, Swedish chair that had done nothing in its short life to hurt anyone)—and looked back at The Professor. But
she didn’t argue.
His tongue darted out, and he licked his lips. “Is this a game to you? Hmmmm? Playing us off each other like something out of Prokofiev? He’s Peter; I’m the Wolf. What does that make you—the duck?”
Julia shook her head.
“What happened in my seminar today will never happen again. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Professor.”
She clutched at the doorknob behind her. It was locked. “I’ll apologize to the class.”
“And expose us to even more gossip? You will do no such thing. Why wouldn’t you talk to me? One phone call. One meeting. I could have spoken to you through a door, for God’s sake. And instead, you finally choose to talk to me in the middle of my fucking graduate seminar!”
“You put a bra in my mailbox…I thought—”
“Use your head!” he snapped. “If I’d mailed it to you, there would have been a paper trail. That would have been far more incriminating. And I wasn’t about to leave your iPod on your porch in the middle of a rainstorm.”
Julia was confused by his apparent non sequitur but decided not to question him.
“I started this clusterfuck by changing my lecture, but you finished it, Julianne, and you finished it with the equivalent of a hydrogen bomb. You are not going to drop my class. Clear? You are not going to drop out of the program. And we’re going to pretend this debacle never happened and hope that the other students are too wrapped up in their own lives to notice anything.”
Gabriel fixed her with an impassive look. “Come.” He pointed to a space on the carpet.
She took a few steps forward.
“Have you returned the bursary?”
“Not yet. The chair of Italian Studies has swine flu.”
“But you’ve made an appointment?”
“Yes.”
“So you made an appointment with him, but you didn’t have the courtesy to send me a two word text message when I was desperate to know how you were,” he growled.
Julia blinked.
“You’re going to cancel that appointment.”
“But I don’t want the money, and…”
“You will cancel the appointment, you will take the money, and you will keep your mouth shut. You’ve made the mess; I have to clean it up.” He glared at her darkly. “Understood?”
Julia held her breath and nodded rather reluctantly.
“The e-mail you sent me was disgraceful, a real slap in the face after all the messages I left you. Did you even listen to my voice mails? Or did you just delete them?”
“I listened to them.”
“You listened to them, but you didn’t believe them. And you sure as hell didn’t answer them. You used the word harassment in your e-mail to me. What the fuck did you hope to accomplish by that?”
“Um—I don’t know.”
Gabriel closed the gap between them, standing only inches from her. “It’s quite possible that your e-mail has been red-flagged by someone already. Even if I erase that e-mail, and I did, someone could still find it. E-mails are forever, Julianne. You are never going to e-mail me again. Is that clear?”
“Yes.”
“You seem to be the only person capable of pushing all of my buttons, and I do mean all of them.”
Julia glanced over at the door, wishing she could fling it open and escape.
“Look at me,” he breathed.
When she met his eyes he continued. “I’m going to have to do some damage control. I just handled Christa, and now I’m going to have to deal with Paul, thanks to you. Christa is a menace, but Paul was a good research assistant.”
Was a good research assistant?
“Please don’t fire Paul. It’s my fault he came to you. I’ll make sure he doesn’t say anything,” she pleaded.
“Is he who you want?” Gabriel’s tone grew glacial.
Julia fidgeted with her book bag.
“Answer me.”
“I tried.”
“And?”
“And nothing.”
“It doesn’t look like nothing when I see you in his arms in front of the mailboxes. It doesn’t look like nothing when he knocks on my door, like a knight, ready to fight me to protect you. Why can’t you tell me what you want, Julianne? Or do you only answer to Rabbit?” Gabriel’s voice dripped with sarcasm.
Julia’s eyes widened in surprise, but she said nothing. She didn’t know what to say.
“Fine. I give up.” He waved his hand contemptuously at the door. “Paul can have you.”
It took a moment for Julia’s brain to tell her feet to walk toward the door, but eventually it did. She walked with lowered head and hunched shoulders, looking remarkably like a butterfly that had had its wings torn off. But she’d kept her spot in his class, and she hadn’t been expelled. Small consolation for some of the other losses she had just suffered.
Gabriel stood motionless as she fumbled with the door. A whimper escaped her lips as she struggled with the lock. He stepped behind her and reached an arm around her waist to unlock the door, brushing against her left hip. When she didn’t flinch, he leaned closer, bringing his lips to her ear.
“So all of this agony was for nothing?”
She could feel the heat of his body behind her. It radiated from his chest to her shoulder blades. The silk of his bow tie brushed against her hair, penetrating it, until it grazed across the surface of her neck, causing it to explode into goose-pimples.
“You exposed us to malicious gossip for nothing?”
“You were cruel.”
“So were you.”
“You hurt me.”
“And you hurt me. Is revenge everything you dreamed it might be?” Gabriel continued whispering, his warm breath huffing across her cheek. “You’ve transformed from a rabbit into a furious kitten. Well, you scratched me deeply today, my kitten. You drew blood with every word. Are you happy now? Now that you’ve humiliated me in front of my students by reciting all my secret sins? It was a true bonfire of the vanities, with you lighting the flame.”
He brought his lips even closer to her ear, and the air from his mouth caused her to shiver. “You’re a coward.”
“I am not a coward.”
“You’re the one who’s leaving.”
“You’re sending me to him.”
“Like hell I am! Do you do everything people tell you to do? Where’s my furious kitten now?”
“I’m just a student, Professor Emerson. You’re the one with all the power. You could—destroy me.”
“Bullshit. Is that what you think? That this is a power trip?” Gabriel pulled her book bag from her tense and twisted fingers and cast it aside. He spun her around and grasped her face, moving his hands to the curves of her cheeks. “You think I’d destroy you? After our history?”
“I’m not the one with the memory problem. You think I’m happy? You think this is what I want? I’m miserable. To finally see you after all these years and to see you like this? I don’t even recognize you!”
“You never gave me a chance. How the hell would I know what you want, Julianne, when you won’t fucking talk to me? You tell me nothing!”
“Shouting at me won’t persuade me to talk to you!”
His mouth collided with hers, passionately but briefly, until he tore himself from her lips to whisper in her ear. “Talk to me.” His lower lip trailed temptingly along her earlobe.
She was silent as she felt the energy between them shift, like a serpent circling back on itself, swallowing itself whole, anger and passion feeding off one another.
“Tell me that you want me, or get out.”
When she didn’t answer, Gabriel slowly withdrew. She felt ill from the loss of contact and didn’t even think about the words as they tumbled impetuously from her lips. “I never wanted anyone else.”
He stared into her eyes before he initiated the kiss. Lips met tightly, warm breath against warm breath, mouths wet and slick. Gabriel’s right hand smoothed across Julia’s cheek and slowly p
ast her ear, before moving to the nape of her neck. As his mouth engulfed hers, he began to rub his thumbs across the surface of her skin, coaxing her to relax. Their lips floated together, sliding and smoothing. After a moment or two, he tilted her head back slightly—a silent plea.
Open for me.
Julia wasn’t breathing. How could she when the sensation was so intense? The taste of peppermint, the scent of Aramis, the way his breath consumed her. When she didn’t respond to his plea, Gabriel’s tongue slowly emerged, hesitantly exploring her lower lip, before curving over it and coaxing it backward dexterously into his mouth. Julia inhaled sharply at the strange but intimate sensation.
He pulled her lip between his, tugging and teasing. It was all so new, yet strangely familiar. Lips, teeth, the gentle play of tongue. Passion remained, but anger gave way to a bracing electricity that burned and crackled around them, as Julia answered his invitation and opened to him.
Her jaw was tense. He could feel it. Gabriel slipped his left hand from her cheekbone to the curve of her jaw and began stroking, willing her to loosen. As she relaxed under his fingers, he grew bolder. The tip of his tongue rolled over her lower lip as he tugged on it with his mouth, and slowly his tongue touched hers. There were timid introductions as their tongues met first as friends, shy and soft, then as lovers, sensual and erotic, as the heat exploded in their mouths and the dance of the two became a tango of one.
It was better than Gabriel imagined—so much better than in his dreams or imagination. She was real. Beatrice was real. As he pressed his lips to hers and explored her mouth, he could say in those moments that she was his, body and soul. If only for those moments.
So sweet, thought Julia. So warm.
She tugged Gabriel closer, her tentative hands tangling in his hair, pulling him until she was sandwiched tightly between him and the door, her petite frame pressed up against his tall, muscular one. Gabriel moved his right hand to cup the back of her head, protecting it with his knuckles while he groaned loudly against her mouth.
He groaned because of me.
The groan was loud, feral, and erotic. Julia would remember that sound and the way it vibrated against her lips, echoing into her mouth, for the rest of her life. She felt the blood course through her, hot and thick, as her skin bloomed under his touch. She had never wanted anything more than to feel his arms around her and his lips against hers.