Page 24 of Stranger to Love

I pulled up her staff profile on the library computer: Office Hours: 9:00 a.m. until 11:00 a.m. every Tuesday.

I shoved my things into my backpack. If anyone was going to tell me if I was on the right track, it was going to be the woman marking it.

When I reached the main faculty wing, I slowed my pace. The door to her office was slightly ajar. I walked past first, spying inside. She was alone behind her large desk, entirely focused on her laptop. Her dark hair was pulled back tight, and she was wearing a fitted shirt in a deep, threatening crimson. Yep, definitely a villain.

My stomach twisted with a sudden, frustrating knot of nerves, prompting me to keep moving down the hall. I turned on my heel and looped back for a second glance, confirming she hadn't moved an inch. Panic rising, I kept walking, took a lap around the stairwell to gather my courage, and passed her door a third time, catching a faint waft of her perfume.

Taking a deep breath, I forced my feet to stop their pacing, turned around, and stepped through the open doorway.

“Dr. Carter?” I paused just inside the threshold.

She didn’t look up from her screen, her voice level and entirely devoid of emotion. “Is three your lucky number?”

I just stared at her. “Er, no?”

“Then I assume I make you so nervous that you had to walk past my door three times before walking in.”

Holy fuck. I wished the floor would collapse underneath me. “Yeah,” I cleared my throat. “I have no comeback to that.”

She hit the enter key with a decisive click, slowly closed her laptop, and finally looked at me. “Take a seat, Alex. Since you made the effort to be punctual for my office hours.”

I sat across from her, instantly feeling tiny beneath her sheer presence. “I was hoping you could look over my coursework before I submitted it. I hadn’t done an assignment with formal references before.”

She raised an eyebrow with a flicker of genuine surprise, then held out her hand.

I hesitated. “I haven’t printed it.”

She rolled her eyes, a sharp, quick gesture. “You could have just said that instead of staring at my hand like you were expecting me to do a magic trick.”

I grinned. “Sorry. Didn’t think it through.”

She gestured to my bag, “Get your laptop out.”

“I don’t have a laptop.”

She narrowed her eyes. “And how have you been doing your work?”

“On the library computers. Look, sorry, I shouldn’t have come. I’m wasting your time,” I said, standing up quickly, feeling like a complete idiot.

“Sit down, Alex,” she drawled. She typed rapidly on her laptop, then spun it toward me. “You can log in.”

I walked around her desk, trying not to have a full-blown heart attack at the thought of invading her personal space. Sitting in her leather chair, I logged into the portal. I could smell her perfume—a deep, woodsy scent that matched her perfectly.

Before I could even think about moving out of the way, she leaned over me to look at the screen. One of her hands rested lightly on the back of my chair; the other slowly scrolled.

Mother of Christ, she was close. Her jawline was sharp, and through the crimson fabric of her shirt, I could see the subtle muscle definition in her arms. She definitely worked out. Her lips moved slightly, mouthing the words as she read.

“It’s rude to stare,” she said, making me jump.

Trying to regain a shred of my usual swagger, I kept my eyes locked on her profile. “Red suits you.”

Her fingers froze on the trackpad for a fraction of a second before she continued scrolling. Yes. Enough to know I wasn't totally imagining the heat.

“The quality of your research is excellent, Alex,” she said, her voice dropping into a purely academic register. “Your application of the Scarcity Principle is sound.”

I released a breath. “So… it’s okay?”

“I didn’t say it was okay,” she countered. She tapped a heavily highlighted sentence on the display. “The style is too conversational. You’re writing an academic paper, not a club monologue. This line here—‘If demand’s high and supply’s low, the punters pay whatever we ask,’—while accurate, must be translated into formal economic terminology. Use concepts like inelasticity of demand and market equilibrium.”