Claiming Caroline (Claimed 3)

Chapter Four

King

"I need to see the records of every student we have named Caroline," I snap at our Registrar, glaring daggers at him over the top of his desk. I'm not in the mood to be placated or put off. Caroline didn't show up this morning. I waited until 9:15, but she didn't come. I don't know if something happened to her…if she's hurt or scared. The possibilities are driving me mad.

"Ah, I'm afraid I can't–"

"You can," I growl.

The balding, slack-jawed Registrar, Mr. Webb, shrinks visibly in his seat, his face paling. Still, he persists in gainsaying me. "I'm sorry, Professor King, but I can't just allow you access to the records of students not enrolled in one of your workshops. It's against policy."

"Fine. Then what records can you allow me access to?" I take a deep breath, pinch the bridge of my nose…it doesn't help. I've been on edge all morning, desperate to find my princess again. She's…my God, I think I may be in love with her, as impossible as that sounds.

I've always scoffed at the notion that two people could meet and fall in love so easily. There are no two people so suited to one another that they instantly just know they're destined to be with one another. How many times have I disabused my students of such fanciful notions? Demanded they strip themselves of that belief and attack relationships realistically in their writing?

I was wrong. There's no sugarcoating it or making it an easier pill to swallow.

Love like that does exist, rare though it may be. It is entirely possible to spend one night with a woman and know in the deepest, darkest recesses of your soul that she's the one meant for you.

Call it obsession. Call it whatever you will. But Caroline Kennedy is that one. My muse, my princess. My one. I've thought of nothing but her since the moment she left my side. Wherever she's at, whatever she's running from…she's mine. And Mr. Webb is going to help me find her. I refuse to accept anything less than his cooperation.

Call me arrogant. Call me cocky. Call me an asshole. I'll use whatever I have to use to find her.

I have to find her. Not because I sat down to write for the first time in years last night, but because I think I might die if I don't have her back in my arms soon. They ache without her.

"Ah, names?" he squeaks.

I give him a sharp look. "You can give me the names of the students enrolled here?"

"Yes?"

How someone lacks the basic knowledge of what he may and may not do when performing his duties as the university's Registrar, I do not know. But every word from his mouth sends irritation prickling at me. Then again, when is the last time I wasn't perpetually irritated?

Last night, my mind whispers. With Caroline.

The thought draws me up short, halting irritation in its tracks.

Sweet, sensual Caroline wouldn't snap and snarl at Webb like an unruly beast. She would take pity on him. I know it as instinctively as I know she's meant to be mine. She would find a way to put him at ease, treat him better than I have since I barged in here and demanded his help.

I take a deep breath and exhale it slowly.

Finding her isn't enough. I have to deserve the trust she put in me when she called me her daddy and gave my life purpose again.

"I'd like the first and last name of every student here, please."

"All of them?" Mr. Webb wipes sweat from his brow.

"Unless you can give me just those named Caroline."

"I can do that." He seems relieved to be able to provide me with something other than a resolute no. "I'll email it to you as soon as the report is ready."

"Thank you." I start to turn away from his desk and then hesitate. I'm almost certain Caroline is her real first name, but better not to risk being wrong. "Include anyone named Kennedy as well."

"Of course, Professor King. No problem."

I duck out of the office, headed back toward my lecture hall on the far side of the campus. It's cool out, a noticeable bite in the air. Gusts of wind kick up dead and dying leaves, sending them swirling across the campus. I shove my hands into my pockets, touch the pair of panties hidden there.

"Where are you, sweet baby?" I murmur, plagued with an emotion I rarely feel. Uncertainty.

Why didn't she show up? Did I come on too strong? Frighten her? Did she find out who I am and run? That lost thought…that's the one that worries me most. I know my reputation. I know what students say about me. It never mattered until now. I never cared if they liked me or not. My goal has always been to make them stronger writers, more capable of defending their art.

Talent matters, certainly. But talent alone doesn't sell. It takes grit and guts and the ability to keep plugging along even when the drawer of rejection runs over and a yes seems like a dream that'll remain forever out of reach. That's what I prepare them for.

God knows, no one prepared me. Despite growing up in the literary world, I didn't have a fucking clue what waited for me. My first agent wanted in my pants. My second wanted the dirt on my family to launch her own writing career. My first book never made it out of the box in my office where it still sits, twenty years later. My second was hammered by critics. My third fared little better.

I found success only with half a dozen years of hard-learned, painful lessons under my belt. Lessons that, quite frankly, almost killed every bit of drive I had in me. I lost the rest of that drive when my own team betrayed me. I fought through hell to get back what rightfully belonged to me. And I haven't written since.

Writers give up and walk away every day. They lose their passion, their purpose. No grinds it right out of them. Rejection stings like a bitch. Betrayal hurts even worse. I teach writers to suck it up and bite back before they lose their passion and their purpose like I did.

But maybe I've become so focused on the end goal that I let the means justify it when I shouldn't have. I make them tougher, true. If they can make it through me, they can make it through anything. Perhaps I've let myself become the enemy in my quest…too much like the machine that grinds ambition right out of them.

Jesus. Is that what I've become? Another voice shouting them down?

The thought is chilling. It's also become increasingly familiar of late.