Master Class: An Alpha Billionaire Romance (+ Bonus Book 'Silent Daughter 1') (3 page)

F
or as long
as Celia and I have shared a room, I cannot remember the last time she asked me about my day. The way we pursue our college life is so different that there are times where we hardly see each other, let alone speak to one another.

When I come home after a long day of classes and working at the library, Celia is usually about to get ready to go out or has already left, and when I get up in the morning, she is still fast asleep. She is smart and never picks a class that starts earlier than 10 in the morning, and even that time is a struggle for her.

This evening, she is sitting at her desk, in the middle of fixing her makeup when I walk in. Normally, I wouldn't get more than a simple 'Hi' from her, without even turning her head to look at me. Today, she stops what she's doing as soon as I open the door, looking at me with expectant eyes. "So, how was it?"

"How was what?" I ask, confused. "My day?"

She sighs and rolls her eyes. "No, silly. Your lecture with Mr. Awesome!"

I head over to my side of the room, throwing my bag onto my bed and let out an angry snort.

"Mr. Full-of-himself is more like it," I say. "He's such a douche bag! I cannot believe the University lets him teach!”

I sink down on the bed next to my bag and look over to Celia, who is eying me with an amused smile.

"He's not qualified at all," I continue. "No syllabus, no grades, no exam, no papers. I feel like he's going to spend the entire semester telling us about how great he is, and that's it."

Celia grins. "Oh, that's gonna make him even more popular, I bet!"

"With those brainless fangirls? Sure!" I say. "But you know, some people actually want to learn something..."

"Some people," Celia interjects. "You, maybe."

"And the way he exposed me...," I add, regretting it just a moment later as Celia's eye light up with excitement.

"Exposed you?" she asks.

She leans over the backrest of her chair, looking at me with a coy smile. "What is that all about? Spill the beans!"

"Don't you have to be somewhere?" I ask, nodding toward the makeup brush in her hand.

She waves me off. "Oh, don't try to change the subject now! Tell me!"

I sigh. Why did I even start this conversation? I could have just given her what she wants: tell her that Mr. Portland is as handsome as they say and that it's nice to have some eye candy in class - or something along those lines. By telling her the truth, I will only end up as the bad guy of the story. I always do.

But I have dug myself too deep, and I'm not quick-witted enough to come up with a good lie.

I give her a short version of the events that happened during Mr. Portland's introductory lecture, hoping that she'll content herself with it and leave me alone for the night sooner rather than later.

Of course, she doesn't.

"Oh, Lana," she says when I'm done. She is shaking her head and laughing at me. "You're unbelievable!"

I draw in a stuttered gasp. "What? Why? Those were legitimate questions!"

Celia winks at me.

"Sure they might be," she agrees. "But that doesn't mean you have to ask them the way you did! And scolding him for not doing things like a real professor - really?!"

"That's not exactly what I said," I try to defend myself.

"But it's what you implied!" Celia insists. "And he knows that!"

She leans in a little closer to me and narrows her eyes, throwing me a covert glance.

"Besides," she says in a soft voice. "I know what you're like. You don't exactly adhere to polite behavior when you think it's time to lecture someone."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I ask, huffing.

"You know exactly what I mean," Celia says, moving away from me and turning around to continue painting her face for whatever she has planned tonight.

"I bet he's pretty mad at you now, which can't be good for your grade," she assumes while applying some eye shadow.

"Well, remember, he's not going to grade us," I remind her. "It's probably best that he doesn't. He's not qualified whatsoever."

Celia rolls her eyes. "Yeah, and I'm sure you made sure he's aware of that."

"He doesn't need me to tell him," I say. "But you might be right... I should have been nicer and a bit more careful."

Celia's eyebrows arch up in surprise. "What makes you say that?"

"When I was about to leave, he asked for my name," I explain. "And he had this brooding look on his face. Very odd. Scary."

"Uh oh," she says, chuckling. "Seems like he's taken note of you, girl. Not surprisingly."

I don't add anything to that. My eyes fall down on my lap, where I'm nervously playing with my fingers, turning around the only piece of jewelry I wear on a regular basis - a black ceramic ring. My face softens every time I look at it. It was supposed to be a lucky charm for something I wanted a long time ago, and has been my companion for close to ten years. In a way, it has become a reminder of terrible neglect, but I refuse to look at it that way.

"You know that doesn't have to be a bad thing," Celia says, thinking that I'm worried.

I look up at her with a quizzical expression, meeting her eyes in her makeup mirror.

"That he's taken note of you," she explains. "It doesn't have to be a bad thing. Maybe he's impressed with your attitude or something. Who knows."

"Yeah, maybe," I say. "He said he liked me."

"What?!" Celia exclaims, abruptly turning around to me. "He said he likes you?! And you're just telling me now?"

I sigh. Why did I have to blurt that out? I made it sound as if he declared his love for me or something. How silly.

And where are these sharp palpitations coming from? Why does my heart do these silly jumps every time I recall that moment?
"I like you."
Those words coming from his mouth had a sting-like quality, as if he was poking straight into my insides. I don't know how to process that feeling. Did it feel good? Bad?

It certainly doesn't feel familiar.

"He said something along those lines," I admit, avoiding Celia's amused smirk. "After I accused him of wanting to take revenge on me."

Celia bursts out with laughter.

"You dirty girl!" she asserts. "Flirting with the hottest guest lecturer this school has ever seen. I knew there was a little bad girl behind all that rigid exterior of yours!"

I huff, shaking my head. "I wasn't flirting with him!"

Celia casts me a saucy smirk, before she turns her back to me to finish her makeup for the night.

"Sure you were," she insists. "I have a feeling you're quite smitten with him-"

"I'm not!" I object, sounding like a defiant child.

"I was gonna add that you wouldn't admit it," she concludes.

She checks herself one last time, grimacing toward her reflection and putting a few lose strands of her hair into place that she secures with hairspray before she jumps up from her chair.

"I gotta go," she announces. "Give you some time to dream about Mr. Perfect."

"I thought he was Mr. Awesome?" I ask.

She winks at me. "Whatever you prefer. See ya!"

* * *

C
elia is
out the door before I get a chance to reply anything to her final words. I exhale loudly and lean back against the wall, my feet dangling off the edge of the bed.

I don't think I could ever admit it to Celia's face, but she may be right about some things she said. Of course, I didn't flirt with Mr. Portland. He may not be a real professor but at least for this semester and for this class, he is a teacher. My teacher.

But there is just something about him.

Obviously, he is handsome as hell. It's that obvious kind of gorgeous that hits you right in the face. I would be an idiot not to admit it. Tall, dark and mysterious. What woman wouldn't like that?

Yet, that's not it.

It's the way he looked at me. That intense gaze. There was some sincere interest behind his stare. His eyes found mine again and again during the lecture, even after I stopped interrupting him with my disruptive comments. At first I thought he was just checking to see whether I'd raise my arm again. That thought filled me with pride, because it made me feel powerful, almost as if he was scared of me.

But after a while I began to realize that he was glimpsing at me for other reasons.

He wasn't checking for confirmation or making sure that I wouldn't have anything to object. He was just looking at me. Just like that. As if it was something he enjoyed doing.

I told myself that the reason why I stayed behind after class was for me to ask him about his nonexistent syllabus, but I knew I was lying to myself.

Seeing all those other students stay behind and swarm around him, discouraged me and I was almost ready to give up and leave. But he saw me standing there, lingering, waiting. If I had run away at that point, I would have looked stupid. Like a coward.

Now, I kind of wish I would have done just that, because as soon as I was alone with him, I was back to being my snooty self, trying to lecture him about his job. I couldn't help myself. He agitates me. His entire being challenges my ideals. My beliefs in education, degrees, proper scholarship and success.

I was born into a family of scholars. Both my parents are professors and highly regarded in their respective fields. They did everything in their power to make sure that my older sister and I were not only able to follow their example, but even go beyond their achievements. We were already born by the time my father finally got tenure at a renowned University, and my mother got hers two years later, not at the same University, but in the same city. Even as a young child, I was inspired by them. They love what they're doing, they live for it. Not once have I heard them complain about Mondays the way other people do. Not only that, they also received a lot of respect. I saw it in the way my teachers and other parents talked to them. Having a doctoral degree and working as a professor not only appeared to be the most fun job in the world, it also comes with a lot of esteem.

I wanted to be like them when I grew up, no question about it. I wanted to become a scholar like them - or so I thought. So far, I have to find the joy in what I'm doing. I chose the same major as my mother, Sociology, but the only satisfaction I get from it are good grades. Straight ‘A’s fill me with pride, but the work I have to do to get them doesn't make me happy. Not in the way it does for my mother.

I used to have something I enjoyed doing, and it is still there at the back of my mind: Coding. When I took my first computer class in junior high school, I was intrigued by it from the start. While that was years ago, long before smartphones and apps became commonplace, I'm still intrigued with the technology behind it all. It fascinates me that rows of inscrutable words and lines can lead to a functioning program that can do pretty much anything. Coding languages can turn a simple idea into something real, something that helps to improve people's lives. I've yet to be convinced that writing papers and books that are so out of touch with the mundane everyday ways of reality can do the same thing.

My mother thinks it does, and so do my father and my sister. They dwell in theories and intellectual games without touching the world and people they write about. To me, that's just odd.

Yet, I'm about to embark on the same route.

I sigh and look down at my ring again turning it around my finger, as I always do when I'm lost deep in thought.

In his introductory lecture, Mr. Portland loved to focus on everything that went wrong in his life. Failure. I’m not familiar with it. I've always been good at what I do. But I have this ring to remind me that I lack the passion for it.

I never failed, because I never tried.

His words hit a spot. It’s more than just the fact that I don’t respect him as a teacher that his speech agitated me. With just a few words and that piercing look, he opened a door I thought I had closed years ago. I've had this ring since junior high school and I've worn it almost every single day since then, but my thoughts hardly every traveled back to its original meaning anymore.

Until now. Thanks to him.

I'm not superstitious, but the way he looked at me was unsettling on so many levels. It was as if he stripped me naked with just his eyes - not even in a sexual sense. The intimacy is there, but it's not lust.

Not
just
lust.

I feel my cheeks and ears burning up again.

Fuck, he's getting to me.

I want to know more about him. I want to know who he is, I want to understand him. I want to understand why he unravels me the way he does. Why is he making me so fucking angry - and so confused.

He'll continue to talk about himself throughout the semester, but I feel like whatever he is going to tell us won't be enough for me.

I pull my legs up, hugging my knees as I pull them close to my chest, as if I could calm my racing heart down by doing so. I feel feverish, dizzy.

"Idiot," I hiss to myself.

I'm one of them. Blushing and swooning as my thoughts can't seem to let go of this man. This arrogant bastard. Why did he have to look at me like that? Is that what he does with challenges like me? He said he liked me, "
students like me
". What does that even mean?