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“No wonder they’re all failing my class. They’re too busy getting high and roughhousing, rather than studying literature given to us by some of the most talented minds of the past three centuries,” Alastair huffs beside me, crossing his arms over his broad chest, which stretches the deep emerald fabric of his vest.

I can’t help but to chuckle—his love of literature rivals my own. He’s unforgiving toward those who do not treat the classics with the same respect as we do.

“You know, I was wrong earlier,” I tell him, shutting the window. My breath gets lodged in my throat as I face him. The moon illuminates him through the stained glass, the rainbow of color dancing along the walls in the small reading nook on the library's top floor.

His gaze feels heavier, darker somehow than usual. It's as if a baleful cloud looms overhead, casting a shadow over his light eyes. And before I can search his gaze, the eerie presence is snuffed out, leaving me believing it a creation of my own imagination.

“Everything alright?” he asks, tilting his head, a loose auburn curl flopping over his forehead.

I shake myself out, a smile returning to my face. “Of course, just a trick of the light. Nothing to be concerned about.”

His brow furrows as he searches my gaze, but he nods after a long moment passes between us in heavy silence. “Alright. Well, what was that about you being wrong earlier? That must be a broken rule of sorts, Calista, for you are never wrong.” He waggles his brows. “Or so you say.”

It takes me a moment to rack my brain for the thought, but blessedly, it returns. “I’d said you were always so unserious, but I’d forgotten just how unforgiving you can be when it comes to literature. Your one true love.”

He swallows, the knot in his throat bobbing, a muscle feathering in his jaw. “Yes, well, perhaps a man can have two great loves.”

I inhale a sharp breath. He notices, but remains silent as my brain fights for a response to ease the growing tension between us that the insinuation of his words has caused.

The grandfather clock positioned in the corner of the room beside an emerald chaise chimes, alerting us to the time and breaking the spell we’d been under.

Midnight has fallen on us, which means our time together has come to a close, far too soon for my liking. I always feel safest with Alastair, as if my gut knows his truth, even if he can never know mine. Not wholly.

And maybe that's why it’s become excruciating to leave him each night, returning to my bed chambers alone.

“Seems that’s our cue,” I say, making my way down the winding staircase to the largest of the library’s floors, my fingers gripping the wrought iron banister. Alastair follows behind me, his warm palm and the gentle brush of his calloused fingers remaining at the base of my spine. How an English Literature professor who spends his days stretching minds and turning pages manages such coarse flesh, I am unsure.

“Do I get to walk you to your room tonight?” he asks, his voice a low rasp, matching the atmosphere of the library lit by the last glow from the fireplace.

The embers illuminate the shiny ornaments lining the fourteen-foot Douglas Fir positioned in front of the floor to ceiling windows to our right. Every year, I’m determined to bring some holiday cheer to this place, and every year, it ends with Alastair doing the brunt of the work. He chops down whatever tree I request be sacrificed for the occasion and drags it inside without complaint as if my requirements don’t grow by a foot each year.

I smirk up at him, my chest warming at the way his eyes remain glued to me, even when they should be focused on the steps before him. Though he’s never been as clumsy as me.

“I suppose I can make an exception, but just this once.”

The way his smile grows wide, eyes lighting from within, I know I’ve made the right decision. The potential consequences of my actions are worth the weight lifting from my chest at the sight of his smile, devastating in its beauty.

We walk down the dark corridors, flanked by stone and brickwork, Alastair keeping me safe from my many near-falls on the uneven path, and all too soon, we’re standing in front of the tall wooden door of my bedchamber.

Alastair lifts a hand, resting it on my cheek. His eyes hold mine, and a breath gets lodged in my throat, so much emotion bursting through us both in one simple look.

I love him.

I’ve loved him for far longer than I’d loved my late husband before his…incident. And yet, I cannot have him.

With love comes loss, and I’ve suffered too much of that for this lifetime.

This thought must be reflected on my face because he drops his hand, and takes a step back. A small, sad smile twists his lips, my soul shuttering and withering in the tomb where it resides. “Goodnight, my ruin,” he whispers before turning on his heel and down the hallway we’d come from.

Journal Entry

It has been just over a year since Calista and I began our little tryst, and as you well know, it is anything but.

She says she’s committed to only sharing her body with me, but I find that while I love the voluptuous vessel containing her soul, it’s her mind I’ve become enraptured with.

Her love of literature in any form, most especially the romance genres, has me even more taken with her. I can only hope that one day she’ll allow me to show her that the kind of love she reads about in her books is tangible, and that she is worthy of it in abundance.

It is more than our shared love of literature and the arts that has me falling hard and fast for her. It’s in the gentle confidence she carries in her shoulders, her chin always tilted fractionally upward as if showing the world that she’s earned her confidence through many hardships, and I’ve no doubt she has. Her ability to make quick friends of anyone, dragging them into her orbit with a curve of her maroon lips and a twinkle of her honey brown eyes. And the kindness she gives freely, as if she’s walked through every possible version of hell and is able to not only sympathize, but empathize with everyone, no matter the circumstances.