Page 87 of Apparently, I’m Trouble

She dropped the knife and turned around, leaning back against the counter as she stared up at me. My eyes dropped to her lips as she said, “Theo, this has to stay between us.”

Confused, I lifted a hand to push her hair back from her shoulder. She shivered as I ran my thumb along her neck. “It will. I know it could hurt your career if anyone found out.”

She shook her head. “It’s not me I’m worried about. It’s Lilly. She just got this promotion.”

I frowned. “Really? I thought she’d been head teacher for years.”

A sweet look of fondness tilted her features, and it made me want to push her against this counter and kiss her again.

“She should’ve been. Nobody cares like she does. But the parents were worried about her lack of experience, so Rutton turned it into a probational thing.”

“Ah,” I said, understanding. “She has to run your department smoothly, or she’ll lose her promotion.”

“Right. So if anyone finds out I’ve slept with the hot, grumpy dad I’ve been whining about all semester, it’s not me who suffers for it–it’s Lilly.”

I ran my thumb across her bottom lip and bent to give her a soft kiss. It was painful to kiss her slowly, gently. But we had time. I could be patient.

“No one will find out.” Not while I had Kira to worry about.

She sighed against me, her small hands now on my chest, slipping down and tracing the ridges of my stomach.

“This is weird, though, isn’t it?”

“What is?”

“You and me. Doing this. A few months ago, you couldn’t stand the sight of me.”

“Only because it hurt my eyes to stare at someone as pretty as you.”

She snorted. “Oh, come on. You hated me.”

“I didn’t hate you. But you were… rude, and I was grieving. I still am.”

A rough sound ground out of her throat. “I’m sorry I was such a bitch.”

Her forehead smacked against my chest, and I laughed as she mumbled, “I should’ve asked about Tash instead of acting like a dick every time you showed up. I was just so in my head about you and the universe.”

“The universe?”

She spoke into my skin. “Yeah. You know. The universe. People believe it controls everything.”

I frowned. “Do you believe that?”

She pulled back, turned, and started chopping. “I didn’t. But now? I don’t know. That day I ran into you at the bookstore, I was teasing Lilly about her enemies-to-lovers books on the phone.”

“Okay…” I reached over her and plucked the knife from her fingers. Gently, I slid the cutting board to one side and moved out from behind her, pressing my hip bone into the counter as I kept cutting the half-mangled onion.

She blinked at me, then lifted a nearby pot and put it on the stove.

“Then I ran into you at school, and it turned out that you bought the last copy of the book that I was trying to buy.”

I frowned. “Yeah. For Kira.”

“Yes, but I wanted to get it for her because I was her new mentor.”

“What does that have to do with the universe?”

“Well, after you bought the book out from under me, you reamed me out in front of my boss.” She paused, and I looked up to see the teasing twinkle in her eye.