Page 78 of She Belongs to Me

I could think of so many more.

The ruthless man had caught me in the kitchen making a cup of coffee, half scaring me to death. He’d stood just inside the doorway staring at me for a full twenty seconds before daring to open his mouth for a greeting.

His words had been perfunctory, telling me he was headed to a meeting, but that we would spend the afternoon and evening together. I could swear the man was a damn robot or that an alien being had crawled into his body, taking over his highly intellectual mind given his stiff actions.

I’d stood there with a blank look on my face, longing to dare him to show some emotion, but I’d held off. One thing I could easily sense about the man was when he wasn’t in the mood to be fucked with.

He had a half dozen not so nice things on his mind. Interrupting him with innocuous bullshit or a single romantic thought could have pushed him over the edge.

But the moment had been weird, awkward. As so many of them had been. This afternoon upon his return, I would bet with everything I had that a light switch would be flipped, the darker yet passionate side of him spending the evening with me.

His actions were enough to make my head spin, for God’s sake.

Yes, they were fickle, but they were also cute.

And sexy as hell, especially when they were sleepy.

And perfectly dominating when they needed to be.

Plus Nico was damn good with his mouth and tongue.

Whew. Now I was hot and bothered all over. I fanned my face and forced myself to peek back down at my laptop screen.

One last short essay and I could consider my task done.

Daydreaming was out for now, even if a smaller part of me still considered it ridiculous behavior. At least I was no longer ashamed of myself.

Chuckling, I reread the question for the fourth time and was able to block him out of my mind.

The question was asking for a summation of what I’d learned.

That was easy for me and always had been. I had a photographic memory and could recite an entire chapter of a book word for word with ease after I’d read it.

I was also passionate about becoming a doctor, appreciating learning about the human anatomy.

But after writing the first six paragraphs, likely needing ten more, it suddenly dawned on me that so much of the last semester had been around blood vessels and various arteries within the body and the head.

Almost instantly, another image of the vivid fear on the man’s face followed by his hollow eyes only moments later as his head rolled toward me entered my mind.

Fuck. I was still so screwed up it was crazy.

I sat back, rubbing my eyes. I would not allow some brutal Greek criminal to derail my career. With a vengeance I returned, adding six more paragraphs to my original six.

After proofreading, I was more than satisfied, taking only a few seconds before hitting send.

I’d never been one for celebrating basic accomplishments. It was a part of me that felt the hard work was required, but I felt like doing a little jig all by myself in the room. Why not? It had nearly broken me thinking I couldn’t finish. After all the horror, I’d done it.

One more year left if I was a good girl then an internship.

I pushed back the chair, wishing I had music playing so I could dance to it. I did a little dance in my bare feet just like I’d wanted, even tossing my hair back and forth. The happiness slowly faded as reality attempted to climb back in, but that was alright. Unless I’d truly fucked up, I’d saved my career for now.

It would buy me time so that… So that what? Nico could figure out my life? So that I could enroll in an Italian university? Shit. I’d need a translator for months, another pushback of what I wanted to do.

Unacceptable.

I had to be able to push harder.

I had to find a way home.