Professor Love (10 page)

Max’s gleaming wingtip and argyle-covered ankle were starting to look more appealing than the kneeler as a target. She crossed her legs daintily and twisted her gloved fingers together.

“Do you know they’re not getting remarried?” she asked him in a low voice.

“Of course. I suggested they have an affair, and that’s all...” he trailed off and his face turned as white as the calla lily perched in the vase at the end of the pew.

“
You
suggested they have an affair. This was
your
idea?” She couldn’t believe her ears.

An elderly lady in a blue-feathered hat in front of them turned her head and glared. “Shh!”

Max leaned towards Sophy. “Your parents have passion back. That’s enough, and you should be happy for them, no matter what they decide to do, or not do. Grow up.”

Her stomach twisted at the admonishment. Her father had said that as well. Could she have been wrong about true love?

“You think passion is enough?” she asked, not sure if she really wanted to hear the answer.

“Sure.”

Sophy’s heart suddenly felt as cold and as hard as the stone floor her heel was scuffing on. She
was
in love with him. Not with the Earl of Maxmara, but with Dr. Max Wright, anal-retentive psychology professor.
Sensitive but demanding lover, friend to small animals and children, remember?
Her experiment had worked, right down to the wooing of ladies.

Shame and regret flooded her. She had been trying so hard to make him into a hero, she hadn’t realized that she was falling in love with a man. A real man, with real flaws and real virtues. Her hero was real, and she had been too blinded by her ideals to see it. And now it was obvious that Max didn’t feel anything other than passion for her.

“You know what, Max? It’s not enough, not for me. I want flowers and violins and stupid sappy boxes of candy. I want to feel like every love song was written just for me. I want to be woken up by somebody pawing at me that’s not the cat. I want to have someone for date night, to nag to take out the garbage and pick up the kids from clarinet lessons.”

“Clarinet?”

“I want someone to go couch shopping with. I want to fight over the remote, and be happy about it when I win. I want to be wined and dined on my birthday and Valentine’s Day, and all the days in between.” She inhaled deeply, the scent of roses filling her nostrils. “Smell that? That’s true love.
That’s
what I want.”

He was silent. All she could hear was the rustling of the assembly and the officiant’s voice ring out in a kind of special mockery directed at her. At least that’s what it felt like.

Tears began trickling down Sophy’s cheeks and she wiped them away angrily with her gloved hands. “Our time is up, Max.” Her voice started to crack and she swallowed tightly. “Walk away.”

She stared at the blue hat in front of her, determined to avoid the pity that would surely be in her hero’s eyes.

A whisper of his aftershave and the smell of his sun-warmed skin drifted past her as he rose from the pew, and brushed past her without a word. Tears blurred her vision as she heard him walk away.
What had she just done?

Sophy clutched the back of the pew in front of her and shot bolt upright to her feet. Maybe she could stop him and apologize. Maybe he was right, and passion was enough. Maybe her mother was right, and passion was the best she could hope for.
Maybe lust was good enough.

“Do you have an objection?” a voice rose from the altar.

She blinked to clear her vision and saw the crowd watching her curiously.
Oh.
She was standing. Nobody else was.
She knew what this part was.

“Speak now or forever hold your peace,” he advised.

Sophy slowly looked around the church, and two hundred people turned in their seats to watch her. She stiffened.
Okay, might as well make a point.

“Yes, I have an objection.” She directed her attention to the bride and groom, who looked nearly ready to faint in tandem. “Do you love each other?”

They nodded, and Sophy whirled around to confirm that Max standing near the door, watching her. He leaned against the wall, his arms crossed and an incredulous look on his face.

She turned back to the couple standing at the altar.

“Really love each other? You’re ready to deal with meddling in-laws and whining kids and the invoice from this...” She waved her hand around. “This production?”
What had Tom said?
“Sticky dogs, mortgage payments and jobs that you have to take so that you can pay the bills?”

They nodded. The bride paled to the color of her dress and her soon to be husband was starting to look very nervous.

“We’re in love,” the groom squeaked.

Sophy turned to Max with a smug expression. “Good. That’s all I needed to know.”

Max frowned and straightened. His shoes echoed loudly as he marched up the aisle. As he approached the altar, he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a card.

“When you start having problems, give me a call.”

The bride’s eyes started fluttering back in her head and the priest steadied her. The groom took the card from Max. “You a divorce lawyer?”

“No, a marriage counselor.”

The bride finally fainted, taking the priest with her. Pandemonium erupted in the church. Max pivoted and strode back down the aisle. He stopped at Sophy’s pew and straightened his tie.

“This is what you want?”

He tilted his head towards the groom hovering over his bride and one of the ushers trying to extricate the priest from the folds of wedding dress like a fish from a trawling net.

She stared at him, still in shock at what he had just done. Could she love a man who would go to such cold extremes to prove a point? But didn’t she just do the same thing?

“Not like
this
,” she said faintly, realizing he was right all along. True love didn’t exist. If it did, they would be together and none of this would be happening.

His blue eyes turned to ice. “Then I hope you get what’s coming to you.” He headed for the door.

Sophy closed her mouth, her eyes suddenly stone dry. She reached down and pulled off her right shoe. The bone-colored leather was smooth under her fingers and still warm from her foot. Her heart breaking, she hucked the shoe at Max.

“You’re a coward!” she screamed as he slipped out the door.

Sophy’s eyes widened and her gut twisted as her pump hurtled into the birdcage and the door clanged open.

A dozen white doves escaped, flying frantically around the church. Looking for a way out.

“Oh no,” she murmured.

She felt the flapping of wings over her head and watched as a large glob of white goo plopped onto the blue-feathered hat. Its blissfully ignorant owner swiveled in the pew and smiled at her.

“Don’t you just love weddings?”

Sophy burst into tears.

C
larissa Templeton was going
to hell in a brass-trimmed barouche with the devil himself sitting beside her.

Charming. Beautiful. Well-mannered. Clarissa snorted indelicately and stared out the window at the passing countryside, which was still dripping from the morning’s thunderburst. Well, she had certainly proved her unworthiness to the Earl of Maxmara. In fact, she had gone out of her way to demonstrate to him just how unsuitable she could be.

Her lips quirked in memory. Her charm had been noticeably lacking at the dinner she had attended at his grandmother’s stately home. Much to Maxmara’s horror and his grandmother’s amusement, Clarissa’s appeal had faded the moment she accidentally set fire to the drapes. Granted, they were moth-eaten and ugly, but the little misadventure had inspired her.

Surely if she were to prove to the earl that she was not in possession of those virtues he sought in a potential life’s mate, he would cease his pursuit of her more, well, hidden attributes. As tempting as his velvety eyes and hard body were, Clarissa feared more for her sanity than for her reputation should they tumble into that satin abyss again. The night they had spent together was a mistake she would not soon repeat.

Well, not until tonight, that was. Clarissa sighed heavily and glanced over at Maxmara. He would undoubtably be expecting a reprisal of that passionate encounter. It was their wedding night, after all.

She fingered the heavy gold band on her left hand and her mouth twisted with irony. It had been her own valiant effort to persuade him of her inappropriateness that had landed her in this situation.

When her act of arson had failed to deter him, she had tried to destroy her own reputation as a beauty. It hadn’t been too difficult to scorch her hair with hot tongs until it fell out in large clumps, nor had it been hard to find gowns in styles and colors that suited her most ill. She had even approached a young woman in Whitechapel for a brief tutorial on the art of over-rouging. But her efforts were in vain.

The earl had simply held her still as he scrubbed her face clean with a wet flannel, and then shoved her back in her bedchamber to change her clothes. Clarissa remembered the humiliation and frustration that had consumed her as she ripped off the jaundiced gown and his voice rose mockingly from behind the door, proclaiming that he saw only her inner beauty, that no amount of rouge nor poorly designed gowns could displace.

She tilted her head slightly and peered at Maxmara again. His long legs were propped up on the seat opposite and his arms were crossed over his broad chest. He slouched against the back of the carriage, his eyes closed and his expression peaceful.

Clarissa fumed inwardly. Somehow it didn’t seem just that he should be so relaxed when she herself hadn’t had a moment’s peace since their first meeting in her father’s library. The earl’s head bobbed slightly as the carriage dipped into a rut, but he did not wake. It was unfortunate, Clarissa thought, as he would likely now be alert come evening. All evening. And there would be no escape for her.

He hadn’t let her out of his sight for two weeks, not since her last escapade. She bit her lip at the memory, realizing that she had indeed been a little overzealous in her impropriety.

The idea of posing as Maxmara’s ill-mannered mistress had been inspired at first, but she rapidly lost all control over the situation when he discovered her little joke, and was not amused. He blackmailed her into marriage, promising that he would convince her doting father that she was indeed his mistress if she did not accept his “proposal”.

And the one thing that Clarissa could not—would not—do was hurt her father.

Carefully she unclenched her fingers and reached for the sash at the window. Air. She needed air. She struggled with the latch, her clammy fingers squeaking as they slipped over the dusty glass.

“Let me do that.”

Clarissa flattened herself against her seat as the earl reached past her to open the window. She could smell his skin, only inches away from her, and noticed a small spot on his jaw where his razor had missed. She screwed her eyes shut. Air. She needed air.

“There. We’re almost home,” he announced, and settled back into his seat. Clarissa ignored him, turning her face to the window. The damp air soothed her fiery cheeks and mist collected on her eyelashes like tears.

“I hope you’re satisfied.” Her voice trembled with anger and frustration.

Maxmara propped his legs back up and replied caustically, “I will be soon.”

“My lord, it cannot have escaped your notice that I am an unwilling partner in this fraudulent... union.” She grimaced, as though the word left a bitter taste in her mouth. “Most unwilling. Can we not let bygones be bygones and go our separate ways?” Her gaze shifted from the passing shrubbery to his curved lips.

He rested his head against the back of the carriage and closed his eyes lazily. “And ruin your reputation? Think of your father, Miss Templeton. No, it will not do. I am eager to discover those qualities I am sure you possess which I did not articulate to you before.” He tilted his head at her and opened one eye.

His gaze raked insolently over her well-fitting travelling gown and the flush in her cheeks. “Yes, I’m sure you will meet those requirements. You see, Clarissa, you do indeed have the qualities I was searching for in a wife.” He closed his eyes again and smiled. “I was just not aware of what I really wanted.”

Clarissa gaped at him, her heart pounding beneath her pelisse. She was in more dire straits than she had previously thought. She had sold her soul—and her body—to the devil. Wringing her hands in her lap, she jerked her head around to stare blindly out the window.

Where was that sharpened quill when she needed it?

S
ophy stared
at the screen and sighed. She was two weeks past her deadline, and Clarissa and the earl still wouldn’t behave. Sophy wondered if perhaps they weren’t meant to be together after all. She snorted and ran a hand absently over the furry lump in her lap.

“You’ve got it made, Herc. You don’t have to worry about women at all.”

Hercules flicked his tail indignantly, as if to remind Sophy that losing his masculinity was not his decision. She was the one who put him in a cage and dragged him to the vet’s office.

Sophy knuckled his ear and sighed again. “You know what? I think maybe Max was right—true love doesn’t exist. It would certainly explain why there are so many lonely, single people in the world.”
Of which I am one
, she added silently.

She glanced up at the calendar. The giant red X had multiplied, and now every day in the last two weeks and the next two were stained crimson.

Her gaze drifted to today’s date, where something had been scribbled in blue felt pen underneath the mocking red X. Sophy peered at it, realization dawning on her. Today was Max’s lecture. He was going to present his paper on romance novels at the university at three o’clock this afternoon.

Even if she hadn’t written it on the calendar, the email would have reminded her. Appearing before the announcement sent to the whole department, almost as a challenge, was “Aren’t you curious?”

It was Max to a tee—enigmatic, provocative, and totally perplexing. Sophy had shoved the folded piece of paper into her desk drawer, where it lay now like Poe’s ticking heart.

Her body stiffened and Hercules jumped off her lap in protest. Slowly she lowered her head to the desk, thinking. Wondering if she should go. Mentally listing all the reasons why she shouldn’t go. The computer started beeping frantically and she raised her head from the keyboard as if in a daze.

She
had
to go, if for no other reason than to remind herself that he was a pompous, funny, insensitive, smart, disappointing, kind, romantically-impaired jerk who didn’t understand what she wrote about or what she wanted out of life. Her lips twisted into a grimace as she realized that these days, she wasn’t sure herself. The only thing she was sure of was that she was still in love with him, and going to his lecture would be masochistic.

She sighed. “Damn.” The cat glanced up at her and she sighed again. “The course of true love never does run smooth, does it?”

She was going to go to the lecture. She would probably regret it later, but she was going to go.

She parked on the edge of campus and hurried across the quad to the auditorium. A brisk wind snapped at her hair and a dozen or so students sat on the browning grass between classes, lazing in the autumn sun. Sophy breathed in deeply, the faint smell of burning leaves gritty in the back of her throat. Curling leaves crackled under her feet, strewn across the sidewalk like scraps of burnt paper, as she ducked between two brick buildings pregnant with students.

It had been two months since she had seen Max, and summer had succumbed to Indian summer and then autumn outside the apartment where she had been holing up. Two months and sixteen days, to be exact. Sophy heard the crunch of a twig beneath her boot and smiled in satisfaction. She stopped to grind the broken wood into the concrete, pretending it was Max’s head.
Now
she was ready for his lecture.

She slipped into the back of the auditorium and the door slammed shut behind her like a gunshot. Dozens of heads swiveled expectantly, at which she shrugged apologetically. She scanned the stage, but Max wasn’t on it; apparently the lecture hadn’t begun yet.

Sophy settled into an aisle seat in the next to last row and shrugged off her denim jacket.

The students around her quieted as Max entered the auditorium from a side door and headed for the stage. He nodded briefly at some people in the front row, and Sophy craned her neck to see Dr. Chapaty and a few other people she remembered seeing at the department “whine” and cheese a million years ago.

Her breath caught in her throat as she watched him approach the podium. He was a little paler than she remembered, his hair darker as it flopped over his creased forehead.

Had he been sleeping as badly as she had for the past two months?

He adjusted the microphone on the podium and reached inside his briefcase for some papers. After shuffling them a few times, he took a sip from a glass of water sitting on a nearby table and looked out at the audience.

As his gaze pierced through the throng of students and interested faculty members, Sophy was overcome with the sudden urge to hide. She slumped down in her seat and stared blindly at the wad of greenish gray gum stuck to the underside of the desk. Perhaps she could just
listen
to the lecture; watching him was too dangerous. She was desperately afraid he would see her and get the wrong idea.

She wasn’t still in love with him; she just had a professional interest in his paper.
That’s all.

She sighed, blowing her bangs off her face and rubbed her aching neck. Her back started to cramp up and a red-haired girl three seats over stared at her. Realizing that she couldn’t stay on the floor for the whole lecture, Sophy straightened, keeping her head down and trying to remain inconspicuous.

Max cleared his throat and began. “Ladies and gentlemen.” He tilted his head towards the front row. “Colleagues. I began this study several months ago in the hopes of exploring some important issues in the effects of genre literature on women and their lives. Specifically, I was curious to see what impact the consumption of the modern romance novel had on women’s expectations of love, marriage, and sex.” He took another sip of water. “I was surprised by the results of this investigation.”

Sophy’s head snapped up and she watched Max carefully.

He glanced down at his papers and continued. “I initially expected to find that romance novels degrade and anesthetize women, fostering unrealistic expectations of heteronormative relationships. Perhaps this is true to a certain extent, but I also found it to be a genre of empowerment and political subversion.”

The students around Sophy whipped open their notebooks and started writing quickly. She glanced around and found several smug expressions on the faces of female students, and a few shocked male faces.

Max started explaining his research methods, but Sophy wasn’t listening. Her brain whirred and hummed at his astonishing about-face.

N
ot a bad turnout
, Max thought to himself. He wasn’t sure if the popularity of this lecture was a good thing or a bad thing. If the paper went over well, then at least his chair was there to see it. And if he fell flat on his face, well... that was a prospect he was hoping to avoid.

But after spending the last three weeks sitting at his computer for eighteen hours a day, he wasn’t sure what the response was going to be. The truth was that after the second week he wasn’t even sure what he was writing anymore.

He felt a strange pricking sensation in his palms and shuffled his papers to get rid of it. Frowning, he realized that the last time he had felt that sensation was when he walked into that church a little over two months ago.

“The existence of true love,” he continued, “is yet to be scientifically proven. There have, of course, been several clinical studies involving human pheremones and their place in the phenomenon of mutual attraction. But while the academic concept of true love is shaky, we can evaluate its... predecessor, romance, more accurately.” He cleared his throat noisily and his gaze swept over the auditorium.

“These books are about romance. They are about—” he broke off as his gaze met Sophy’s.

Sophy
.
She came
.

His eyes widened, then narrowed and she flushed. He should have known; the prickling in his palms should have told him. Max’s gaze slid over her reddened cheeks and he wondered what she was up to.

His gaze dropped to the papers on the podium and he cleared his throat again. “Excuse me.” He took a sip of water and re-focused his attention on the audience in front of him. “These books are about passion and lust, but more than that, they are about the pursuit of love. And that is what romance really is—the path to a perceived goal.
True love
, if you will.”