Filed to story: Shhh Professor! Please Don’t Tell! Novel Free
I put my head in my hands. How could I have made a mistake like this? I didn’t even know what mistake I’d made. I’d thought she loved me. I’d been sure she was ready for what we’d done she had assured me she was. She’d acted as though she was. What could have happened to cause her to react like this? Surely, she owed me at least an explanation. I needed to know why.
I rubbed my face with my fingertips.
“I’ll ask her,” I said. “As soon as I see her again, I’ll ask her.”
I didn’t see Ellie for another two weeks. I did my best to stop thinking about her. She seemed to want me to move on, and I refused to be the kind of man that kept pining after a woman who didn’t want him. I forced myself to become numb to the ache.
Then, I did see her. One breezy, cold afternoon in February, I was walking back to my office from the campus coffee shop when I saw her walking out of the history building.
She stopped for a moment but didn’t move away. She stood at the bottom of the stone steps, as if she were waiting for me to reach her. As if she knew that I needed to talk to her.
“Ellie,” I said, when I was a few feet away from her. I smiled a calm, polite smile. I wondered if my eyes were giving away the fact that my whole being felt like a hurricane was tossing around inside of me.
“Hey, Professor Steele,” she said. Like we barely knew each other.
She was wearing her red coat and white hat. Her hands were tucked into her pockets. Her backpack looked heavy. I shouldn’t keep her talking long.
“Ellie, what happened?” I whispered. “Please tell me.”
She glanced to the side. She turned around and glanced up at the windows of the history building, as if she was worried someone might be standing at one of them, watching us.
“Do you have time to go for a walk?” she asked me.
Thank God.
“Yes, I do,” I said. “Can I take your backpack for you?”
Her lips parted and she blinked. No, of course I couldn’t. I couldn’t be seen publicly acting like her boyfriend.
“I can drop it off in my next classroom,” she said. “I was going to go to the library for a while, but I can study later.”
“Will it be safe in there?” I asked.
“There’s an old cupboard in the back of the room I can hide it in,” she said, smiling. For a moment, her old warmth was back. Then she turned around and hurried back inside the building.
I paced slowly back and forth in front of the steps, sipping my coffee. I should have offered to buy her a coffee while she was hiding her backpack. No, I shouldn’t have. It wouldn’t take her that long. And I couldn’t be seen giving her coffee.
I was surprised she was willing to go for a walk with me. Wouldn’t that get people talking?
She appeared again in the doorway to the history building. She paused for a moment and looked down at me. Her whole energy seemed lighter, lifted. More than from the loss of her backpack. Did she want to talk with me as much as I wanted to talk with her?
“Thank you for being willing to talk with me,” I said as soon as she reached me. “Would you rather meet with me in my office? There would be less of a chance of people misinterpreting our relationship that way.”
I winced after I’d said it. Misinterpreting? We’d had sex. I was in love with her. What I’d just said made it sound like I didn’t want people to think we were an item. I didn’t want to be an item and not because it was the impossible thing I wanted more than anything else.
“No,” she said, hesitant. “Let’s just walk by the ocean.”
“Sure,” I said, smiling, even though my heart ached with anxiety. Would she be uncomfortable being alone in a room with me?
We walked in silence for a few minutes. The wind sighed in the trees. It was as if we had an unspoken agreement to wait to talk until we were well off the common walkways.
When we were walking on the lawn under the trees, Ellie spoke.
“I’m so sorry, Jackson.”
My eyes rushed over to her face. She looked back at me, her eyes soft and warm. She’d called me Jackson. Her tone had sounded kind and affectionate.
“I was trying to protect you,” she said. “Professor Spaulding told me before the Egypt trip…well, he implied that he knew you were seeing a student, or there were rumors you were, and he knew it was me or it seemed like he did. So, I was trying to be careful, but then he saw me in the hallway after we’d slept together. He knew I was coming from your room and told me that he wouldn’t do anything this time, but if anything like it ever happened again, you would be fired.”
I listened, my heart pounding. A barrage of emotions rattled through me.
I felt betrayed by Professor Spaulding. I’d considered him to be a friend, and I was fond of him. He seemed to be fond of me. Why hadn’t he come to me with this instead of Ellie? I knew he’d had her best interest in mind, and he was trying to protect her, but I felt angry. I couldn’t help it. The realization of what kind of man he must think I was left a bad taste in my mouth.
I felt relief. Complete, blinding, intoxicating relief. Ellie wasn’t upset with me. I hadn’t hurt her by sleeping with her; she had been trying to protect me.
“Ellie,” I said. “I’m a billionaire. Why do you think I would care about being fired from a professorship?”
“I…” she stammered, gazing up at me. “Your reputation.”
“You are worth losing my reputation,” I said.
She stared at me. Her eyes traced over my face, slowly, lovingly.
“Ellie,” I said, “I love you.”
She closed her eyes. I watched her take a deep breath. She smiled.
“I love you, too, Jackson,” she said.
She opened her eyes.
We stood there, smiling at each other. The world around us seemed to brighten. The wind picked up and blew wisps of hair across Ellie’s face. I reached out and tucked a strand behind her ear.
“What now?” I asked.
“Can I come home with you?” she asked.
My lips parted. I’d meant in the next few months. My mind was already racing ahead to the next few years. I wanted to marry her. I hadn’t meant right now, today…
But what an answer.