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And I was doing okay. Ignoring her and her outfits and her long blonde hair, and the way she blinks and chews on a pen when she’s concentrating.
Yeah, I was ignoring her just fine. Until today.
Today, when I called on her, she sat up, arguing with me, making my blood pressure shoot through the roof. Olivia’s stunning. There’s no denying that. But she’s not my usual type. Even though I know she’s twenty-five, she’s tiny and youthful and goes around in jeans and white sneakers. She’s got long blonde hair that I picture running down her naked back and her eyes are full of storm clouds.
When she argued with me today, I damned well wanted to dismiss the class and take her then. And I think she wanted it, too. Which is why I need to be even more careful.
Because I want her and she wants me and we see each other four times a week as it is.
The London Law School is one of the most prestigious schools in the country, if not the world. It has a much sought-after exchange programme with Harvard Law and the fees are astronomical. Olivia is in her last year and she’s academically brilliant. She’s worked hard to make it this far. If she holds it together, she’ll graduate with a swathe of offers from places to undertake her training contract. But even just flirting with a professor is the kind of thing that would get her in trouble here, let alone doing what I want her to do to me.
She is completely forbidden...and damn it all to hell if that doesn’t make me want her even more.
I’m not very good at being told ‘no’.
Even when I know it’s for the best.
I should have let her walk out of the damned classroom. Instead, I called her back. I stood over her, so close I could feel her soft breath on my throat, warm and sweet. I heard her breathing; I wanted to make her breathe faster. Harder. And all for me.
I’m not a spiritual guy but I believe in the powers of opposites and opposition. I think she could both redeem me and challenge me, and I need both. But what about her needs?
What would a guy like me do to her? I crave her sweetness but wouldn’t I only mark her with my darkness? Isn’t that more likely? The Donovan case sits heavy in my throat, the judgement the stuff of nightmares, my victory incontrovertible proof that I am too good at what I do. That I play to win, no matter the cost.
Where once a win was a win and the verdict would have puffed me up, it dances on the edges of my mind now like an incoming surge of the ocean, an impending surge of doom.
‘I’ll pay it. Show me what you got, Connor.’
I lift my eyes to Gary Austin, one of the well-known professors from the Contracts department, and bare my teeth in acknowledgement.
I lay my cards down and stand to grab a beer at the same time.
The four other guys make a collective noise of disappointment as my royal flush obviously beats whatever they’re holding. I play to win. Always.
I pull a bottle from the fridge and crack the top off it, throwing half back in one easy movement.
Olivia’s in class with me tomorrow.
I wonder what she’ll be wearing?
CHAPTER TWO
‘I’VE GOT CLASS until four,’ I murmur into my phone, my eyes glued to the door, waiting for the moment Connor will arrive so I can go back to pretending I don’t notice him.
‘Darling—’ my mum uses her most persuasive voice ‘—it’s a late lunch. Things will just be starting by the time you get there.’
Frustration zips through my belly. ‘I doubt that.’
‘You can’t just not show up.’
I would laugh except this isn’t remotely amusing. ‘I never agreed to go.’
She’s quiet and I know her lips are compressed. ‘Pietro’s counting on you.’
And there it is. The reason my mum has been nagging me about going to my cousin’s girlfriend’s birthday lunch for the past two weeks.
Because my saintly ex-boyfriend will be there—the man my parents are determined for me to take back. To forgive the fact we made no sense together, the fact we had nothing in common, the fact sex was perfunctory and our conversation, for the most part, dull.
Don’t get me wrong—I loved Pietro. But I realised, over time, that it was the kind of love one feels for a friend or, ick, a brother. Not a lover.
