Mr. James: A Forbidden Romance (11 page)

***

Connor was sitting in his office when his desk phone rang. He picked it up and heard Jeanie’s voice from the Dean’s office on the other end of the line. He told her that he would be in right away and he wondered what in the world he was being called to the dean’s office for.

When Connor was shown into Dean Hargrove’s office, he found the old man with an utterly humorless expression on his old and wizened face.

“Sit down, please, Mr. James.”

Connor sat across the desk from him.

“Connor,” the dean began more informally, “I had a visitor this morning who came to report a rather sensitive complaint against you. I want to know what you have to say for yourself.”

Connor’s stomach tightened. He had a sneaking suspicion that he knew very well what the reason was that he had been called into the dean’s office, and it sent a wave of panic through him, though he was careful not to register the panic on his face or in his eyes. Years of playing poker with the wiliest poker players in his college had made him adept at hiding his emotion when he wanted to.

“What complaint is that, sir?” he asked simply.

The dean leaned forward and placed his elbows on the desk in front of him. “The complaint is that you are having an affair with a young woman by the name of Catalina Marshall. Is that true?”

The dean’s eyes were locked on him. Connor never hesitated.

“Yes, Sir, it is true. We did spend a brief time together, but since that time we have mutually and amicably ended the affair.” Connor held his head up, though he felt like crawling beneath the dean’s desk.

Dean Hargrove sighed and leaned back in his chair, folding his hands together and looking over the top of them at Connor. “Thank you for your honesty. That saves me a good deal of time and work.”

Connor remained silent as he watched the dean and listened to him.

Dean Hargrove sat forward again and placed his hands on the desk in front of him. “Connor, I like you, you’re a great educator and a good man, but you really screwed up this time. Our college cannot develop a bad reputation in this town, and your actions are inexcusable. If this was not your first offense, you’d have been relieved of your position. However, in consideration of the fact that this is your first offense during your time at this institution, rather than losing your job, you will instead be placed on suspension pending a hearing.

“Your classes will be taught by a stand in until we determine what the final action is to be taken in regards to this complaint. Your suspension is immediate. We have a zero tolerance policy for this sort of behavior, Connor, and I am disappointed to have to see you involved in this in any way. I thought very highly of you until today.”

Connor felt his stomach turn to lead and begin to sink through the floor beneath him.

“Do you have anything further to add to this?” Dean Hargrove asked sternly.

Connor shook his head. “I do not, sir.”

The Dean stood up and extended his hand to Connor. “Thank you for coming in, Connor. I hope I don’t ever see you back in here for any disciplinary action. The office will be in contact with you about the outcome of the investigation into this.”

Connor nodded and stood up. He shook the dean’s hand, and then he turned and left the office, going straight back to his office. He had not felt so nauseated since his final exams in his last year of college. He felt like a complete failure.

He closed up his office and went home for the day. The next morning when he returned to his office to try to prepare for his stand-in replacement and the work that he wanted his students to do, he had gone from nauseated to miserable.

He wasn’t seeing Catalina any longer for the sole purpose of protecting his job, which had not been protected, and from which he had been suspended because he was seeing Catalina. The timing was all off and it had caused him so much heartache. He still missed her terribly, and seeing her in his classes had proven to be far more difficult than he had anticipated.

She would watch him, and he could feel her eyes on him, her beautiful blue gray eyes, and he longed to go to her and touch her, to hold her to him, but there was no way that he could do that. All he could do was glance occasionally at her from afar and hope that no one noticed the look of longing for her in his eyes.

He had no idea how the dean had found out, and he didn’t want to ask him. All he wanted to do was fix what he had done wrong so that there could be some semblance to his life again, because it felt to him like everything in it was falling apart faster than he could piece it together.

There was a knock at his office door and he looked up to see Deborah Hargrove strutting through the doorway. He sighed heavily. Of all of the people that could have walked through his doorway, she was undoubtedly the last one that he wanted to see.

She gave him an irritated look and pointed at the sofa. “Come talk with me. Get over here.” She turned her back to him and swayed her hips dramatically as she walked toward the sofa, sitting on it and patting the space immediately next to her on it.

“You really screwed up this time, Connor. I can’t believe you had an affair with a student. That’s so trashy and blasé. How could a man of your morality and character do something like that?” she asked him in irritation.

He remained seated at his desk. She frowned darkly at him. “Connor, I said get over here so I can talk with you, and I meant now. I don’t have a lot of time to try to help you.” She gave him a meaningful eye and he sighed heavily again and pushed himself up out of his chair, going toward her and sitting almost at the other end of the sofa from her.

She slid across it until she was beside him. “There, now… that’s better,” she said, laying her hand on his knee and giving it a squeeze.

He glanced down at her hand and then back up at her dark eyes. “How do you know about anything that’s going on?” he asked in amazement.

She laughed and rolled her eyes. “Darling, my uncle is the dean. Do you think there’s anything going on in this school that I don’t know about?”

He pursed his lips in chagrin and remained silent. She leaned toward him and he glanced down at her blouse, wondering if she ever buttoned her blouses up further than the base of her cleavage.

She saw him glance at her breasts and she moaned and laughed a little, giving his knee another squeeze. “Now, there’s my sweet boy. You can have me here and now if you want me,” she said in a low and sultry voice, her eyes steady on his.

“I’m not in the market,” he said dryly, looking away from her and pushing her hand off of his knee.

She sat back a little and gave an exasperated noise as she gazed at him. Then she lifted her arm and slid it over the back of the sofa behind him, effectively pulling her already wide open blouse further open.

“That’s precisely what I’ve come to talk with you about, baby.” She purred as she moved her leg next to his and began to rub it against his leg. He looked over his shoulder at her and she gave him a flirtatious air kiss.

“What are you talking about?” he asked, certain that he could be doing anything more important at that point, like ironing his carpet.

She sighed and sat up, leaning close to him and sliding her hand through the crook of his arm as he rested his elbow on his thigh.

“Well, darling, I talked to Uncle Hargrove, and I told him how close you and I are, and how much you mean to me, and I suggested that if you were engaged or married that he wouldn’t need to suspend you at all because you would no longer be a threat to the young women who attend this institution for an education.

“You’d be committed to one woman, and you would be a model husband who was closely integrated into the founding families of this college and you would become an asset instead of a liability.” She leaned closer and let her lips brush his ear as she spoke into it.

“So, my precious Uncle Hargrove thought that I had such a good idea, that he told me if we were engaged immediately and married within the next few weeks, why, then he didn’t see any reason at all to hold those charges over your head and your suspension would be lifted, and you could start working again right away.

“I told him that I would come… talk you into it…” she whispered seductively into his ear as she slid her hand along his inner thigh toward his groin with a sexy giggle.

He clamped his hand over hers and stopped the motion of it. Then he turned and looked at

her, pushing her hand away from him.

“Are you telling me that you’re here to blackmail me into getting engaged to you and marrying you in three weeks?” he asked incredulously as he stared at her with wide, disbelieving eyes.

She shrugged and nodded. “Essentially, yes. I’m here to save your job, darling,” she cooed at him. She reached her hand up behind him and ran her fingers through his neatly combed hair, ruffling it a bit.

“What do you say, baby, do you want to drop down on your knees and offer me the rest of your life?” she asked with a wide red-lipped grin.

He stood got up off the sofa so fast that he was unsteady for a moment.

“Hell, no. Get out of my office. I can’t even believe that you came here thinking that I would ever go for an idea like that,” he said in disgust as he walked toward his desk and shoved his hands down in his pant pockets.

She was quiet a moment and then she stood up and sauntered toward him as he turned to face her, leaning against the front of his desk.

“Oh….tsk, tsk, darling. That’s too bad, because you see, I’m the head of the investigative board here, and I’ll be the one overseeing your… case,” she said with a pouty smile as she reached him.

His heart fell through him to the floor.
She couldn’t be
, he thought
. She just couldn’t be.

She leaned up against the front of his body, straddling her legs around his and placing her hands on either side of his hips as she drew her face near to his. “Listen, baby, I know marriage seems like a big commitment, but it’s not. All I’m going to really want you for is a good time in my bed. All the time. Now, I know you like the younger women, and who could blame you, but what I might lack in younger years, I certainly make up for with… experience,” she told him in a silky voice.

He suddenly felt nauseated again, but he didn’t move, he held his ground in his office, leaning against the front of his desk.

“So, you can either get engaged to me, and we can have a really…” she said softly, pressing her lips up against his seductively, “…really…” she kissed him again and he did not move, “…really good time…” she told him, sliding one hand from his hip down to his crotch where she began to rub her fingers firmly over the bulge there.

“God, we could have such a good time--” she said with a grin, “Or,” she said, squeezing her fingers tightly around the bulge she was handling, “I can decide that you are a menace to all of the young women here and in every college, and you can kiss your career goodbye.” She began rubbing him again and then she leaned in and kissed him long and hard.

He pushed her away from him and wiped his hand over his mouth. “Don’t ever touch me again,” he told her in absolute disgust.

She sighed and pouted. “Well, well. It looks like you need a little time to think it over, baby. I’ll be back in touch with you,” she chuckled, “really soon. So if you want to save your career at all, you’ll go ring shopping for me. I like big diamonds, just so you know.”

She let her gaze wander over him seductively and he nodded to the door. “You can leave now.” She shrugged and turned to walk out of the door, blowing him a kiss over her shoulder.

Connor groaned and dropped his head into his hands. He had no idea what he was going to do about her or his job or his aching need for Catalina. Everything seemed to be spiraling out of control.

He felt totally alone and completely confused about what to do, and the only thing he felt sure of was Catalina. He knew that he shouldn’t do it, but he texted her and asked her to come to his office right away, and he asked her to delete the text when she got it.