Beauty and the Professor (A Modern Fairy Tale Duet 1)

Ah, but they wouldn’t. She loved him, simple as that. And it superseded so much. She wasn’t willing to sacrifice her degree for that love, or her future, but she’d give up her pride. It wasn’t worth much anyway.

Blake

A low growl emanated from Blake as he watched Erin leave the office. Their sexual encounter had been mind-blowing, more than he’d ever expected or hoped for, so much that his usual sense of foreboding had abandoned him completely, but it had all come crashing down.

Because of Melinda.

She was still here, coming up behind him, giving that trill laugh he’d once thought endearing. Fuck, he should have handled that better. Should have handled her better.

He’d been so damned surprised. Bowled over by the orgasm with Erin, by the shock of seeing Melinda after so long. And her innuendo that they might rekindle their relationship. Shit. No way in hell, and he’d been ready to tell her that.

He’d been ready to throw the position away. What did he need this job for anyway? He had already turned it down once. It wasn’t worth upsetting Erin, and it sure as hell wasn’t worth losing her. So he’d been about to tell Melinda exactly who Erin was, but maybe it was best that she’d interrupted him.

Erin was more than his lover; she’d been his ray of light in a dank, dark place. He wasn’t even sure she knew how much he had relied on her presence, looked forward to her visits.

If he told her, she might run.

Hell, he thought with a sinking feeling, she’d already run. Down the hallway might as well be to the moon for all he could talk to her now, with Melinda breathing down his neck and a meeting with the dean in twenty minutes.

The students outside his office sounded like a herd of elephants, their voices augmenting one another and bouncing off the white-bright walls until his head pounded. His palms were sweaty, his heartbeat erratic, and it wasn’t just the great sex or awkward encounter. He thought he was over these damn flashbacks, but it turned out he’d been avoiding them, staying home where no one ever came. Now he was immersed in people and drowning, suffocating.

Melinda propped a hip on the edge of his desk. “I think that girl might have a little crush on you. Fire her before she gets the wrong idea. Did you see the way she looked at you?”

Jesus, he needed to end this. “Probably the way everyone looks at me. Like my face was blown up and then sewn back together, which is exactly what happened.”

“No, she looked at you the way they used to look at you. You were the handsomest man on campus then. And when you wore your uniform? None of the girls could keep their eyes off you back then. I’m sure it feels good to have even one crush now.”

“Stop,” he said dryly. “You’ll flatter me.”

“Oh, don’t tell me you’re offended. If there’s one thing we’ve had between us, it’s honesty. Your face is not handsome anymore. But I can live with the scarring.”

“Funny, that’s not how I remember it.”

Melinda gave him a small smile, a pout that he assumed was contrite. “You have to admit it was a lot to handle.”

Long-buried frustration surfaced. “Which part, Melinda? Because I didn’t ask you for a damn thing before you walked out my door for the last time.”

His bandages hadn’t even come off yet. “It just isn’t going to work out between us,” she’d said, but inside he’d heard, you’re hideous, you’re disgusting.

Over time his anger at her had dissipated, because he was hideous. He was disgusting. And he’d been stuck in that place for a full year, swinging back and forth between waking depression and haunting dreams of his time overseas, of a blast that had shredded his life to ugly, misshapen pieces.

Then one day, he’d woken up amid pizza boxes and soda cans and realized that if he were going to keep on living—and since he hadn’t died yet, he supposed he was—then he could at least live cleanly. So he’d pulled up the local job board and posted a message. Erin had replied and… Ah, Erin.

She had been a shot of healing heat in a bleak winter. Slowly he had improved himself, each day becoming a little stronger, coming back into his old self when he hadn’t thought it was possible.

Melinda circled the desk, coming to stand beside him. Some unknown curiosity had him letting her. Was anything left, any of the love and devotion he’d once felt for her? It seemed hard to believe he could have spent the rest of his life with her…when now he felt nothing. Like looking at a stranger smile at him, like feeling the cool back of her palm touch the unmarred side of his face, the part that was normal.

“I thought I was going to marry Blake Morris. The Blake Morris, with a whole future ahead of him, maybe even a run for Congress one day. You looked so different. It wasn’t just your scars. You were angry, withdrawn. I didn’t know how much of you was left.”

He moved her hand from his face. “You didn’t stick around to find out.”

“I freaked out. You can forgive a girl for that, can’t you?”

“We’re done, Melinda. You made that clear once.”

“I was young,” she said softly. “I thought appearances mattered.”

He laughed, the sound bitter and sharp as razors. She was only a year younger than him, and if he wasn’t mistaken, her dress suit was still designer. Her shoes probably cost five hundred dollars. “And I suppose now you’re interested in what’s on the inside, right? Or is it just my bank account you want back?”