ELENA

The heavy oak doors of the lecture hall creaked behind me, sealing out the humid afternoon air of the campus.

I was late, and in Professor Julian Thorne’s class, being late was a sin punishable only by public humiliation. I clutched my leather messenger bag against my side, trying to slip into the back row unnoticed, but I should have known better.

Julian Thorne didn’t miss anything.

He was standing at the mahogany lectern, his sleeves rolled up to reveal forearms built with muscle and dusted with dark hair. He was forty, looked thirty, and acted like he owned every woman’s heartbeat in the entire school. He was the...