LITMIR.BIZ

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immediately forced her eyes upward. What am I doing?

      It wasn’t like she hadn’t dated since Colin. Well-meaning faculty members had a never-ending stream of friends and relatives to set her up with, and she’d been on plenty of first dates where the conversation dried up long before dessert arrived. So, okay, she hadn’t really allowed any of those guys to go beyond a peck on the cheek. And none of them made her toes curl, but whatever she was feeling was a result of adrenaline. Too much was happening all at once.

      Alex took a deep breath, and she could feel his controlled exhalation. She should step back. Away from the tempting smell of his aftershave. Away from his comforting warmth. Her legs refused to move.

      “I’m not going anywhere. The senator knows about you now, and he wants to talk to you and your mother.”

      She stepped back. “You lied to me. I thought you said you didn’t have a way of reaching him, that he was on a plane.”

      “He is.” His tone kicked up an octave, almost imperceptibly so. “Planes have Wi-Fi these days, and he has access to his email. I didn’t want to bother him with this, but after your mother made that statement...”

      “You had no choice because we aren’t just a minor nuisance anymore.”

      “That’s not—”

      “You lied to me earlier. You told me—”

      “I told you he was on a plane.”

      “Right, not a technical lie in DC, but in the real world, we’d call that dishonest.” She balled her hands into fists so he wouldn’t see her shaking. “Now leave, before I call the sheriff to escort you out.”

      “Kat...”

      “Dr. Driscoll!”

      “Fine, let me—”

      The shrill ringing of a phone interrupted him. The APT Committee! She flew to her purse and dug it out.

      “Katerina Driscoll,” she answered with as much normalcy as she could muster.

      “Professor Driscoll, it’s Dean Gladstone.”

      He was the only dean at Hillsdale; he didn’t really need to specify, but he always insisted on formality in a school where everyone referred to each other by their first name. Kat suspected he did it to remind people that he alone had the power to change the course of their lives.

      She checked her watch. The APT Committee wasn’t scheduled to meet for another ten minutes. As usual, the dean got right to the point.

      “We’ve decided to postpone the APT meeting. Yours was the only application we were considering, and I didn’t think it was in your best interest to have the meeting today.”

      Her heart stopped. “So what does that mean for me?” She managed to control the tremor in her voice.

      “Professor Driscoll, I’ve personally reviewed your application and I have concerns.”

      She swallowed. It was happening all over again, just like it had with Colin. The media were blowing up a story, and she was paying the price. It had taken all of her savings and months of effort with a lawyer to get a small-town newspaper article retracted and deleted from the internet. No amount of money and lawyers could do that with a story this big; this would haunt her for the rest of her life.

      “You’ve obviously worked very hard, but I’m trying to raise the caliber of faculty in this school.” Kat’s heart sank. He’d canceled the meeting because they weren’t going to give her the promotion.

      “It’s hard for our little college to compete in Virginia when we have big-name universities that attract both students and faculty. We must ensure that our professors are of the highest standing.” He spoke with the kind of fake British accent that ivory-tower professors often put on. She felt like Maria in The Sound of Music getting a lecture from Mother Superior.

      She sat on the bench next to the entryway and let her head rest on the wall behind her. The dean had obviously made up his mind.

      While he droned on about his standards for faculty members, Kat’s mind wandered to thoughts of the senator. After all these years of wondering which shadowy politician was her father, she finally had the truth. What was he like as a man? Would he have stood by her mother if he’d known she was pregnant? Would her mother be the same woman if he’d been in their lives? Would Kat’s life have been different? Would she have picked a better man than Colin if she’d had a male role model growing up? These were all questions she’d asked herself a thousand times before, and she never came up with any answers. But maybe now...

      She sat up straight. When the dean paused to take a breath, she jumped in. “Dean Gladstone, I know you don’t like my newfound notoriety, but it could be a real opportunity for the school to gain a national reputation.”

      That was what Colin had done, hadn’t he? Turned the media attention to his benefit. So why couldn’t she do the same? Though he was silent, she knew the dean was still on the line because she heard his breathing. So she continued.

      “What if I do a few interviews with Senator Roberts and write some articles on this race and the impact of his defense policy?”

      “That’s an interesting idea,” the dean allowed. “One significant deficit in your tenure application is that you haven’t written a book.”

      Kat bit her lip. She hadn’t written a book because her ex-fiancé had stolen years’ worth of analyses and sold them as his own.

      “A book would make your application more competitive, particularly one analyzing your father’s policies and tracking this campaign through the election.”

      That was a lot more than what Kat had in mind. Maybe she should’ve thought through this half-baked idea before blurting it out. She couldn’t commit to being away from her mother for an extended period of time. “A book would be hard to write based on a few interviews.”

      The dean wasn’t listening. He talked over her. “I have a very dear friend at Harvard University Press, and if you can deliver a book in the next three months, I’ll twist his arm to publish it before the election.”

      She closed her mouth. A book? Published by Harvard University Press? In the academic world, that was like hitting the New York Times bestseller list. She might have a chance at living down this story. Other career opportunities would open up; maybe she could even return to a big-time university. But that meant spending two to three months researching with her father...and with Alex.

      “Dean Gladstone, covering my father through the election is a longer proposition than what I was thinking.”

      “Professor Driscoll, perhaps I haven’t made myself clear, so let me be blunt. Your current application will not get you a promotion. And your newfound notoriety gives me cause to consider whether to continue your contract for next year. I’m giving you a solution—I suggest you take it.”

      Kat couldn’t bring herself to hit the end button despite the insistent beeps in her ear telling her the dean had hung up. She closed her eyes. What have I done? If he didn’t renew her contract, it was too late for her to find another position. Her savings account barely held enough money to cover next month’s rent. She couldn’t afford to lose her position. More important, her mother needed the health insurance that came as a benefit.

      “I couldn’t help but overhear.”

      Kat opened her eyes to see Alex kneeling in front of her. She closed her phone.

      “This is none of your business.”

      “Actually, it is.” He squeezed the bridge of his nose, then looked up at her. “I’m going to put my cards on the table. No bull. I have a win-win solution for both of us.”

      She leaned forward, searching his eyes. He was a charmer, just like Colin. But she wasn’t going to be fooled. Not again.

      “The senator’s going to take a hit

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