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“Just make yourself at home.”
She jumped at the sound of his voice and shame soon overtook her. Blood rushed to her cheeks, warming the skin.
Dr. Merino spared her a fractional glance on the way to his desk and she caught a glimpse of his austere face and the overgrown, wavy hair framing it like a dark halo. His hand curled around a mug which he retired to an electric coaster. Kenna hoped some of his sternness would dissipate once he’d had his coffee.
“You scared me.”
“You are in my office, you realize?” He licked his thumb and sifted through a pile of papers. “The next time you arrive and find this room empty, wait in the hall. My line of work has given me startling accuracy with first impressions and with you, Miss O’Callaghan, I get the impression that you’re a nosy young lady.”
She offered a small smile. “Accurate, indeed.”
“Let’s review our rules, for the sake of formality, since the dean made it clear he’ll have my head if I mishandle this. I’ve read the contract your professor put together and I’m sure you’re well aware of everything there so I won’t waste my breath going over it.” With a crook of his finger, Dr. Merino beckoned her to the front of his desk. He pointed to a blank line at the bottom of the page. “Sign there.”
Kenna picked up the pen but faltered as it hovered over the paper. “Shouldn’t we go over the rules before I sign? What if I find something objectionable?”
“You made it quite clear you have no other choice.”
He indulged in a sip of his coffee while she signed the contract and she noticed it wasn’t coffee at all. A cotton string hung over the side, a red rose printed on its tag.
“I retrieved a copy of your schedule from the registrar, and filled out a semester-long calendar with dates and times I’ve reserved for your mentorship hours. They are not flexible. If I instruct you to arrive at 7 a.m., 1 p.m., whatever the case may be, I expect to see you in my office on the dot. Tardiness will factor into my final calculation of your performance. Are there any other obligations of yours, outside of your course schedule, that I should be aware of?”
His expectant gaze locked on hers. Her eyes followed the scar cutting along his cheek. The first two buttons of his dress shirt were undone, providing an incomplete glimpse of a thicker scar that swooped across his collarbone. Pink outlined its rippled white center. It required enormous strength to redirect her attention to his face and respond.
“I work part-time at Nicholson.”
“You’ll need to speak with the librarian or whoever’s in charge over there and get them to rearrange your shifts to suit our schedule.” The critical note in his voice shot down Kenna’s instinct to argue. “I do ask that you refrain from listening to music, podcasts, and the like. Headphones are not a loophole to this rule. Refrain from using your cell phone. Pretty self-explanatory. Most of this is common sense, which I pray you have at your age.”
She’d expected Dr. Merino to have harsher, borderline ridiculous rules. Though, she had a feeling he wasn’t finished.
“I don’t think we’ll encounter any problems.”
An unsettling intensity ruled his stare. “I would hope not.”
Something brightened in his eyes. A slathering of honey glistened against their foreboding umber. There it was, the elusive light she had thought him incapable of producing.
Her nose twitched like a rabbit’s.
If she were that small and helpless, adding her to his backlog of subjects would’ve been an easier feat.
Dayton knew he stared longer than was permissible but found it hard to look away. Her face, its delicacy, was enough to inspire insanity. The fine tip of her nose, the permanent pout of her bottom lip and seductive set of her cheeks.
Kenna O’Callaghan was ordinary, plain by all accounts, but within her there lived an otherness that clawed to the surface and bathed her features in irrefutable beauty.
Finally, he averted his gaze.
“If I assign you an errand, I expect you to do it without question. Should I ever be out, we will devise a time for you to recover the missed hours. In the event of your absence, you’re SOL, I’m afraid. I also expect your presence at any related events off-campus upon my request. There’s a run for self-harm awareness in March, so we’ll be participating together. I’d like us to exchange numbers should we need to send communications relating to the event or my unexpected absence.”
He pulled out his phone and copied her number into the contacts as she recited it. Dayton liked the way it looked on the screen, the way it sounded spoken aloud.
Pretty and to the point.
“I sent you a message. Check it later and save the number.”
“Is that all?” Kenna asked.
“That’s it.”
She returned to her seat, swinging one leg over the other. He envied the denim that clung to her porcelain skin. Skin that was so close but just out of reach, not yet his to touch, and he found their entire partnership cruel, that he should be kept from what he desired by layers of fabric and rules and the flimsy trappings of sexual politics.
