Billionaire Romance Boxed Set (9 Book Bundle) (30 page)

“Are you a student here?”

“Yes,” I said, stuffing the
handkerchief back in my pocket and retreating my hand back to the coffee cup.
It was much easier to avoid awkwardness while holding something, I found.
“Actually, I have to go to my study group. I’m already late.”

“What subject are you studying?”
He had turned to face me, his knee lightly pressed against mine. The touch made
me dizzy with a desire that came from some unknown depths in my body. It scared
me and thrilled me at the same time. Immersed in my studies and my work, I
didn’t have time for a relationship. At least, that’s what I told myself.

“Math.”

“Ah! Mathematics!” He reached
out and clasped his hands around mine, which were still holding the coffee cup.
I would have pulled them away, but his blue eyes hypnotized me with their
sudden intensity, and his long fingers held mine firmly, as though I belonged
to him. Every nerve in my body jumped at his touch, and my heart pounded in my ears.
The steam from the coffee rose between us and mingled with the white of our
breaths. His face bent down, just above my own.

“It’s the most beautiful
of subjects,” he said. “As beautiful as nature is beautiful. As beautiful as…”

What was he doing?
I
froze in my seat, my hands still ensconced by his. He looked at me as though he
saw my soul inside of me, his gaze familiar and possessive. At that moment, I
knew he wanted me, desired me. I could feel threads of attraction stretching
across the small space between us as tangibly as if they had been visible,
hanging in the cold white air.

It was over in a second.
He pulled back quickly, as though he had touched his lips to coffee that was
too hot, and the connection was lost.

“I’m sorry,” he said. He released
my hands, and I almost dropped my coffee all over my lap. None of my muscles
were listening to me anymore. Not after the touch of his hands on mine.

“Sorry?”

“I shouldn’t have. It was
presumptuous. I’m not…” His stare was lost again in the distance.

“Not what?”

“Not whole. Not ready. I don’t
know.” He shrugged his shoulders, obviously distraught but trying to hide it.
“Excuse me. Thank you, thank you for the coffee.”

“It’s okay. Really.”

He looked up at me, and I saw a
deep longing in his eyes. Not knowing what I was doing, I reached out and
touched his cheek on the side of his face that was scarred. My thumb rested on
his cheekbone, and with my hand obscuring his face the scar was erased from
view, peeking out only slightly from under my palm. I caressed the white seam.
His dark hair fell over my fingers and his eyes flashed dangerously, as though
he were not the prince after all, but the wolf.

His strong fingers closed over
mine, stroking the back of my hand with his thumb. I instinctively leaned forward
into his pressure but stopped as he opened his mouth to speak. He paused,
seeming to change his mind about what he would say.

“You’re a lovely girl.” His
voice was nearly a whisper, and I heard in it a note of sorrow so deep that it
made me want to throw my arms around him. I could tell he was hurting, that he
wanted me and the wanting hurt him somehow. I didn’t know how, I didn’t know
why, but I recognized the pain in his gaze as easily as I recognized my own
face in the mirror each morning.

A student walked around the
corner of the library into view, and I instinctively sat back upright,
realizing the insanity of the situation. This was a man I did not know at all,
a stranger in the snow, and I was ready to fall into his arms as quickly and
easily as if I had known him all my life. I stood up from the bench, scared by
the intensity of my attraction to him, unlike anything I had felt before.

“I have to go,” I said. “My
study group.”

“Yes, of course,” he said, still
sitting. He did not seem anxious at all to see me go, but as I moved past him
his hand shot out to stop me, catching me by the elbow.

“May I ask your name?” he said.

I hesitated for only a split
second. “Valentina,” I replied. “Valentina Alastair.”

“My name is Eliot. Thank you for
the coffee, Valentina,” the man said. He let go of my arm and I walked quickly
toward the library, forcing myself to only look ahead. I thought that if I
turned to look at him, I would not be able to leave him. But at the library
door, I gave into curiosity and let myself glance back at him.

There was nobody there. He had
vanished, like a snowflake that falls onto your cheek and melts into water
before you feel it touch your skin. Above the bench there was a wisp of white
breath that curled into itself, fading, until it dissipated into the air. Under
the bench no footprints left any indication to where he had disappeared. The
sheets of snow whipped along the sidewalk and brushed away any trace of the man
who held my hands in his so possessively.

The snow continued to fall and I
blinked once, hard, then went inside.

CHAPTER TWO

“Dr. Herceg! Dr. Herceg! Wait!”

Eliot turned to see the
department chair fairly skipping to catch up to him.

“Eliot, please,” he said,
shaking Patterson’s hand in greeting.

“Eliot. Yes. Excellent. I’m so
glad I could catch you,” he said.

“What can I help you with?”
Eliot asked, faintly irritated. With gray hair and spectacles resting on his
thin nose, the department chair resembled just about every other mathematician
Eliot had ever known. Dr. Patterson had been running the department for as long
as Eliot could remember, although he tried to avoid the man as a rule.
Patterson preferred conversation about office politics to those of mathematics,
and Eliot’s disdain for the academic rat race had not endeared him to the man.
Eliot’s position as a fellow had been granted as a special exemption so that he
could remain in America to study, and he knew Patterson resented the way
Eliot isolated himself.

“I wanted to talk to you about
your internship prize. And your work in general.”

“Of course.” Eliot paused, then
realized the man didn’t want to speak in public. “Your office?”

“Yes, please, this way. Crazy
weather we’ve been having, isn’t it?”

Eliot murmured his assent as the
gray-haired man led the way down the hall and into his office.

“As you probably know, there
have been rumblings about the internship program. Please, sit.” The department
chair sat behind his desk. Eliot scanned it quickly. On the desk were a number
of official-looking papers: grant proposals, staff recommendations. A picture
of a slim, blonde wife and two children. A half-empty glass of water. A gilded
clock on a marble base. A framed plaque of commendation from a mathematical
society. He had no mathematics on his desk save a pile of student homework
papers.

Eliot eased himself into the
leather chair in front of the desk. His frame was too long, his elbows jutting
out over both armrests.

“Rumblings?” he said.

“On the email lists for the math
department.” Patterson raised his eyebrows meaningfully, but Eliot didn’t get
the meaning.

“I don’t read them.”

“Ah, hmm.” Patterson shifted in
his chair. “But of course you’ve talked with the other professors in the
department about your work.”

“No.”

“Well,” Patterson said. He
tapped a pen on his desk. “Well.”

Eliot stared ahead calmly. The
clock on the desk filled the room with its ticking.

“It’s just that…” the department
chair began. He coughed.

“Just that what, Dr. Patterson?”

The man coughed again into his
hand, evidently not wanting to bring up the subject. Eliot leaned over and
pushed the half-empty glass of water toward him.

“For your cough.”

The gray-haired professor looked
startled, his eyes glinting with suspicion. Eliot met his gaze coolly.
Patterson set the glass aside without taking a drink and leaned forward over
his desk.

“It’s been some time since
you’ve last published anything, Dr. Herceg—”

“Eliot.”

“—and many in the
department feel as though you have been too selective in your internship
program. Dr. Carrey, for example.”

“The one whose son was rejected
last year,” Eliot said. The math professor had called Eliot to beg for his
child’s acceptance. That conversation had not gone well.

“That’s right.” Patterson did
not meet Eliot’s eyes. “Many here take his side.”

“Good for them.”

“And many have noticed that you
have not visited your internship program in Budapest at all since its
inception.”

“I manage the students
remotely.”

“Some say you don’t manage at
all.” Patterson breathed heavily, as though under a great weight.

“I have tried to do my best
working from here. I need to focus on my research.” Eliot felt his skin heat up
slightly. He hated to lie, even a lie by omission. Truthfully, he could not
bring himself to return to Hungary.

“That’s another thing. Since
your contributions to the mathematical profession have waned…”

“I’m working,” Eliot said,
lightly touching his fingertips together, “on a difficult problem.”

“So you may well be. But since
you do not—or cannot—publish, we feel that it would be beneficial for you to
increase your contributions in other areas. For example, taking on more
students for your internship.”

“I take on many students each
year to the academy.” Eliot tilted his head to one side, casually
cracking his neck.

“But only one from this
university!” Patterson pointed one finger in the air, as though he had made an
important issue clear. “Only one!”

“Are the students from Pasadena
inherently more qualified than those from other universities?”

“No, but many are qualified who
are not picked. Dr. Carrey’s son, for example.”

“Dr. Carrey’s son is
incompetent,” Eliot said. “He should not be practicing mathematics at all, let
alone at the Hungarian Academy.”

Patterson licked his lips but
ignored the insult.

“Then surely you could pick
others. More than one!”

“Surely. But why should I favor
Pasadena?”

“Pasadena University supports
you and your fellowship, Dr. Herceg.”

“Eliot, please.”

Patterson leaned forward, his
eyes narrowed, and Eliot knew just then what was on his mind.

“Your fellowship here is
continued, in part, because of your contributions to the prestige of this
university.”
Oh. So that’s what he was driving at.
Eliot realized why
the department chair had been so eager to talk with him. This conversation had
nothing to do with mathematics. Eliot spoke his next sentence carefully, as
though wading through a particularly difficult proof. He wanted the point to be
perfectly clear.

“Because of my financial
contributions.”

Patterson paused.

“In part, yes. Yes, you are
correct. This would all be much easier to handle if you continued to be as
generous to our department as you have in the past.”

“What contributions do you make
to this department, Dr. Patterson? Apart from teaching the mandatory lectures.”
Eliot brushed his thumb against the stack of homework papers on Patterson’s
desk.

“I teach all of the higher level
courses I can manage with my schedule.” Patterson seethed. “But then again, I
happen to
enjoy
making a contribution to this university.”

“The last
contribution
I
made,” Eliot said, “was handed out as bonus grants to already-tenured
professors.”

“Not at all!” Patterson cried
out. “The money came from the general fund.”

“I’m no idiot,” Eliot said. “The
year before my contribution there was no money for grants. I wonder where you
happened to find such funds?”

“The grants were handed out to
those who increased the prestige of the university!”

“By publishing reams of tedious,
uninspired dreck. I fail to see how that does anything for Pasadena’s
prestige
.”

Dr. Patterson flushed a bright
red. Eliot tried to remember how much of the bonus the department chair had
claimed for himself. Although he couldn’t remember names, he remembered math,
and the chair’s papers had been supremely lacking in actual mathematics. He
focused his research almost entirely on statistical economics, and for the past
few years had been pushing out newly-polished computer generated statistics on
the same basic market algorithms, over and over again.

“But then…what of your research,
Dr. Herceg?” Dr. Patterson said, trying to regain the upper ground. His
forehead was beginning to glisten unattractively with tiny beads of sweat.
“When was the last time you published anything?”

“I’m sure you know that better
than I do,” Eliot replied. “As I said, I’m working on a difficult problem.”

“Surely you can publish
something!”

“The problem has not been
solved.”

“But surely…surely—”

“I won’t publish my work until
it’s done,” Eliot said.

Patterson exhaled loudly through
his nose.

“When do you expect your work to
be done and first ready to publish?”

“When it’s done,” Eliot said.
“And not a moment sooner.”

“That’s unacceptable!” Patterson
rapped the top of his desk with his hand. “A completely unacceptable answer!
You haven’t published a single paper in the years you’ve been here!”

“What did Gauss say about
Dirichelet’s publications?” Eliot leaned forward, his face growing hot with
anger. “
Jewels are not weighed on a grocery scale
!”

Patterson sighed. “Your
reputation has waned in this country, Dr. Herceg. I can’t force the department
to keep your fellowship on for another year like this.”

“Then don’t.” Eliot paused. “
Are we finished?”

“You’ll lose your visa. You’ll
have to go back—”

“
Are we finished
?” A
streak of fury flashed behind Eliot’s eyes and he hissed the words.

Patterson stood up behind his
desk. He leaned forward across the papers and extended one trembling hand. His
gaze flickered over to Eliot’s scar, then quickly back.

“I look forward to seeing your
work published,” he said.

“So do I,” Eliot said. He shook
the man’s clammy palm once, forcefully, turned on his heel and left.