Sapphire Beautiful (13 page)

Or maybe runaway and hide somewhere. Preferably a very deep and dark hole where no one can find me.

But the Dean and Dante are already too close for me to escape.

“Are you okay?” Lucy whispers. “You look as white as a sheet.”

“I feel sick,” I whisper back. “Maybe I ate something bad for breakfast.”

As soon as Dante spots me his demeanor completely changes. Walking down the hallway with the Dean talking off his ear he looked utterly bored.

Now he’s wearing the slightest of grins and looking like the cat that ate the canary.

“I’d like to introduce you to the team,” Dean Harris says a little too proudly. He’s never been supportive of our department. Now we’re important because of the McNally’s money.

“Dr. Andrew Madden is the department chair.” Andrew puts out a hand and Dante shakes it.

“Dr. Lucy Serrano is our tenured faculty member.” She gives him a forced smile, but doesn’t extend a hand.

I’m not surprised that Dante just nods in return.

When Dean Harris turns his attention to me I feel like I’m going to pass out. If I believed in God now would be a good time to start praying that Dante pretends that we’ve just met. I know I’ve expressed to him how important my job is to me.

“This is Dr. Mary Pine. She’s applying for tenure this year.”

When Dante’s eyes meet mine the exchange of energy between us is almost overpowering.

“Nice to meet you.” He extends a hand.

As I place my hand in his my entire arm is shaking. “Nice to meet you,” I whisper because that’s the only sound that will come out of my nearly closed throat.

“That’s a beautiful necklace,” he says not taking his eyes from mine. “Someone special?”

I nod. My heart is beating so hard I’m surprised he can’t hear it.

“He must really care about you.”

All I can do is nod again.

“I’ll let the four of you get better acquainted,” Dean Harris says. “Dante got his undergraduate degree at Yale. He worked with a colleague of mine on his senior Honors thesis. He knows his stuff. I hope you all have research projects he can assist with. I know he’s anxious to get started right away.”

After the Dean disappears down the hallway Andrew looks back and forth between Lucy and I. “If the two of you don’t mind I’d like to get Dante started on some background research for the textbook I’m working on.”

“Go for it,” Lucy says before she heads for her office and slams the door shut.

Andrew looks at me expectantly. “That’s fine,” I manage to mutter.

“Great.” Andrew smiles. I know he’s been trying to get the textbook completed for a while.

I hurry into my office and lock the door behind me. As I wipe the sweat from my brow I try to remember the last time I sweated.

I rarely sweat.

Except when Dante is inside of me.

My stomach knots. How in the world did I get myself in this situation? I feel like every nerve in my body is completely frayed.

I’m not just sleeping with a student in our department, I’m sleeping with our new prestigious research fellow. And I’m getting paid to do it.

I’m not just being fucked. I am fucked. Completely and totally screwed in more ways than one.

I’ll have to end things with Dante, won’t I? I can’t continue with the arrangement now that I know he’s our graduate research fellow.

Then it occurs to me that maybe he’ll want to end things now that he knows I’m a faculty member in his new department. 

The moment I plop down in my chair I’m flooded with emotion. The last thing I want to do is cry at work on top of everything else, but I can’t seem to control it.

Tears stream down my face and I’m too emotionally drained to wipe them away.

I’m startled by a knock on my office door. I consider not answering, but whoever it is seems adamant about me opening up.

When I unlock the door I’m surprised to see that it’s Dante.

“I thought you were meeting with Andrew.”

He nods. “I am. I excused myself to go to the bathroom.”

“It’s down the hallway to the left.”

“Let me in.” It’s not a request.

I move over so he can enter my office. “You need a bigger office.”

“Are you going to ask your daddy to get that for you too?” The words sound more awful than I anticipate.

“The entire research fellowship was my dad’s idea. I had nothing to do with it. He decided it was time for me to go to graduate school. Earning a Master’s degree is now a stipulation to get my trust fund payments. He did give me the option to earn an MBA like my brother, but I’m not good at math. I’ve always been fascinated with medieval history, so here I am.”

“We’re going to have to end the arrangement,” I tell him.

“No.”

“No?”

He shakes his head. “That’s not something I’m willing to do.”

“We have to. We can’t continue to do—what we’ve been doing—and then work together every day.”

“Why not? His eyes twinkle when he looks at me. “Thinking about fucking a hot professor is getting me really turned on.”

“I can’t continue to—be with you. Doug ruined his career and killed himself because he got caught sleeping with his students. He told them he’d give them good grades in exchange for sexual favors.
Easy lays get easy A’s
was apparently his motto.”

“I’m not your student. I’m not in any of your classes. It’s not an issue.”

“You’re still a student in our department. You’re our research fellow. And you’re paying me to be with you. That’s not any better.” 

When he closes the small distance between us I gasp. I can feel the heat radiating from his body. My entire office is heating up with the sparks that are being exchanged between us.

He places an index finger on the sapphire pendant he gave me and plays with it for a few seconds.

“You’re mine,” he whispers in my ear. “Nothing is ever going to change that.”

My head is dizzy with so many thoughts and emotions. “I can’t,” I manage to say.

“I’ll make it worth your while,” he replies.

“How?” I feel like I’m getting ready to make a deal with the devil.

“How much do you still owe on your mortgage?” he asks.

I shake my head. “No. I won’t let you do that.”

“How much?” he insists.

“About three hundred thousand.” It didn’t seem like that much when both Doug and I were both making the payments, but now that I’m paying it on my own the debt feels crushing.

“You’ve got it,” he says matter-of-factly.

“You can’t pay off my mortgage.”

“I can, and I will, if that’s what it takes for you not to end the arrangement.”

Having my mortgage paid off would be like a huge weight taken off my shoulders, but there’s still too much risk involved. I don’t want to lose everything I’ve worked for.

My stomach knots when he removes his cellphone from his pocket. I have a feeling I know what he’s doing. He punches keys for several seconds then says, “Check your account.”

“You can’t do this.”

“Too late. It’s already done. You know The Club rules. Once the money is in your account I can’t take it back.” 

I remove my cellphone from my purse and log into my account with The Club. There’s three hundred thousand sitting there.

“Just like that. You have access to that kind of money.”

He shrugs. “My brother’s spent more than that in a single night playing cards in Vegas.”

My eyes are wide. “Seriously?”

“Yup.”

“This isn’t just about the money,” I tell him.

He eyes me. “That’s exactly what it’s about. I just need to figure out how much it will cost for you not to leave me.”

I shake my head. “It’s not just the money.” My voice sounds small and raw. I don’t even know any more if it’s the truth or a lie. It started out just being about the money. I never expected to feel anything. Now it’s like I feel everything. 

He crosses his arms over his chest. “Someone like you would never give someone like me the time of day if it wasn’t for the money. I’m smart, remember. Not that it takes a genius to figure that out.”

“What does that mean?” I snap a little too abruptly. He’s making me sound like a complete whore and I really don’t like it.

He frowns like I’ve just asked the stupidest question in the entire world. “You’re absolutely gorgeous. A total knockout. When you walk into a room every guy’s eyes are on you wondering if you’ll even talk to him. I saw the way Dr. Madden looked at you. That’s the way all guys look at you. Holding their breath waiting and wondering if they’ll be the chosen one.”

Before I can protest he continues. “I know I’m a geek. The mirror doesn’t lie and that’s who I see staring back at me every morning. I’m the nerd who couldn’t get a date to senior prom. Until my dad threatened the CFO of one of his companies with his job unless his daughter agreed to go with me. When she asked me to prom I was stupid enough to believe she actually liked me. And when she agreed to have sex with me after the prom I thought I was king of the world. Here was this cute girl who actually wanted to spend time with me and who wanted to be with me. For the first time in my life I actually felt normal. Then after we had sex she told me that the only reason she fucked me—her words not mine—was because she didn’t want her dad to lose his job. She said my father threatened her dad and their family was scared. She told me if her dad lost his job that she wouldn’t be able to go away to Stanford.”

He does his best to blink away the moisture in his eyes. “You can’t tell me this isn’t about the money when the only girl who ever had sex with me before you only did it so her dad wouldn’t lose his job and so she could go away to college.”

My throat feels so tight I’m not sure I can even speak. I try to swallow, but even that gets stuck.

“How much do you want?” He sounds desperate. “Just tell me how much it will cost for you not to leave me.” 

Now I’m the one blinking back tears. I’m not completely surprised by his lack of experience, but I’m shocked by the circumstances of his one sexual encounter before we met. How could his dad have done something like that? And how could that girl have told him?

My heart breaks into tiny pieces when I look at him. He’s already given me three hundred thousand dollars. That would take four years to earn at my current salary. And he’s willing to give me more—as much as I want—as much as I could ask for—just so I won’t leave him.

Not that I want to. If I’m honest with myself I’m starting to have real feelings for him.

“We’re going to have to be extremely discreet and very careful,” I warn. “No one at the university can know what’s going on between us.”

He pulls me into his arms and holds me for several long moments. “I would never do anything to hurt you.” 

“Okay.”

He places a soft kiss on my lips that leaves me tingly all over. Then he whispers in my ear. “Do you have any idea how badly I want you right now?”

“I have an idea.” I can feel his erection pressing against me.

He crushes his lips into mine reclaiming me with his mouth. 

“Don’t you have to get back to Andrew? He thinks you’re in the bathroom. It normally doesn’t take that long.”

He straightens my sapphire pendant. It got a little knocked out of place when we were kissing. “Think about me today.”

“I will.” It would be impossible not to.

“Good.”

When he exits my office I fall back down into my chair. I have no idea how our arrangement is possibly going to work now, but I feel like I’m in too deep to escape.

***

R
ight after my first class Misty finds me outside my office. Her eyes go wide when she catches sight of my sapphire necklace.

“Wow,” she blurts then catches herself. “Sorry, but that sapphire is absolutely amazing. Sapphire beautiful.” She recites the stanza from Dante’s
Divine Comedy
.

“Was there something you needed to see me about?” I try to change the subject.

She seems fixated on my pendant. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a piece that stunning. My grandfather owned a jewelry shop. I spent a lot of time there. The stone is nearly flawless. And the diamonds are of exceptional quality as well. It’s worth about twelve thousand. That’s not even retail.”

I gulp. I knew the pendant was valuable, but I had no idea it cost that much.

“I hope that wasn’t rude,” she says. “I tend to talk first and think later.”

“It’s okay. Was there something you needed help with?”

“I met the department’s new graduate research fellow. Dante McNally.”

My chest tightens at the mention of his name.

“He told me he’s working on a textbook with Dr. Madden. It’s a fantastic opportunity. I was just wondering if maybe you had some research I could assist with. I don’t expect to get paid. I just really want that experience. I realize I’m not quite Dante’s caliber. He’s absolutely brilliant, but I feel like I can make a contribution.”

Before I even have a chance to reply she reaches into her backpack and removes a packet.

“My vitae. I don’t have much on there yet. Obviously. But I did do some research as an undergraduate. And I have a few conference presentations. I’ve also included the Abstract of my Honor’s Thesis. I know my credentials aren’t as impressive as Dante’s. He’s already been published as an undergraduate, but I’m very eager and willing to work on whatever research assignments you have.”

Dante’s already been published
? How do I not know that about him? And how come she does? And she thinks he’s
absolutely brilliant
.

I feel a twinge of jealously and hate myself for it.

Luckily Misty isn’t paying too much attention to my reactions. She’s still talking. “If you give me this opportunity I won’t let you down. I promise.”

She removes another packet from her backpack. “I’ve already found the answer to every one of the questions I had. The ones you said I’d get extra credit for.”

I take the packet from her. It’s substantial. As I flip through the document she seems to have written at least a page in response to every one of her questions.

“This is great,” I tell her. “Let me give your proposal some consideration and I’ll get back to you later in the week. How does that sound?”