I froze as she reached up and knocked on the door, three loud raps against the wood.
Her smile faded as she glanced back at me. “Are you all right? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
I shook my head. “It’s—ah. Nothing. I just—I must have misheard you. I thought you said I’m meeting with—”
The door opened.
A man stood in the doorway, green eyes sparkling behind thick gray frames. His black beard was full—fuller than it’d been when I’d seen him last through the stacks at the library. He wore jeans and a tight white button-down shirt that pulled against his shoulders and chest in ways that should have been illegal.
His eyes widened. His jaw dropped.
Jeremy Olsen said, “Corey? What are you doing here?”
My hot former professor was now my hot current boss.
God fucking dammit.
Chapter 3: I Am So Fucking Screwed (The Non-Porn Edition)
SINCE I could barely breathe, I could barely speak. So I stood there, gaping like a fish out of water, wondering what I’d done in a past life to deserve such torment in this one. At the very least, I must have been a terrible bank robber whose reign of terror across the country ended in a hail of bullets. Either that or I’d been a cannibal.
Marina looked back and forth between us, brow furrowing. “Do you two know each other?”
Jeremy—no, Professor Olsen—recovered first. “You could say that.”
He smiled crookedly, the lines on his face deepening in a way that should not have been as attractive as it was. I mean, his dark hair was sticking up all over the place like someone had been tugging on it, and that line of thinking needed to stop immediately. And there were flecks of gray in both his hair and his beard. It was like I’d been punched in the gut.
“Corey was a student in one of my graduate courses at the U of A. A great one, at that.”
“Ohh,” Marina said, sounding excited. “This is going to make things so much easier, given that you two have a history.”
“History?” I squeaked. “There’s no history! This isn’t historic!”
They both stared at me.
I rebounded gracefully. “I mean, what. What’s going on? What’s the haps? Yo, dawg.”
Marina looked curious but shook her head. “Well, then, I’ll just leave you to it. But don’t keep him for too long, Jeremy. I plan on putting him to work right away.”
“You’re not coming in with me?” I asked her.
“Nope!” she said, oblivious to what I was sure was a look of panic on my face. “I’ve got things to do, and I want Jeremy to have some time with you before we get busy.”
That didn’t sound so good. In fact, that sounded terrible. “Maybe we could—”
“Come on in, Corey,” Professor Olsen said as he stepped back into the office.
Marina turned and began to walk back down the hall. I didn’t know her very well, but I couldn’t believe she was betraying me like this. Who the fuck did she think she was? I would have my revenge, and she wouldn’t see it coming.
I weighed my options. I could either go into the office with Professor Olsen or flee this place and move to North Dakota and change my name.
And since the very idea of living in North Dakota sounded terrible, I swallowed thickly and walked past Professor Olsen into his office.
He closed the door behind me. I was trapped.
“This is a wonderful surprise,” he said. And he sounded like he meant it. Curse him. “Marina was telling me last week how excited she was for you to be here. I don’t know why I didn’t put two and two together.” He smiled again, and my pants almost fell off. “But this is going to make this summer even better. I’m a little out of my depth here, and it’ll be good to have someone I know and trust underneath me.”
I choked on my tongue.