“Professor West, you’re in the South.” He plucked the portfolio from her fingers, tucked a fifty-dollar bill inside, and handed it to the waiter. “You do not pay for the meal. Ever.”
Tamryn tipped her head to the side, as if thinking hard. “Exactly how am Inotsupposed to consider that sexist?”
“I don’t care how you consider it,” he said. “As long as your money never touches this table. I do have a reputation as a proper Southern gentleman to uphold.”
“Well, far be it for me to trigger the demise of your reputation. I shall just say thank you for the lunch and for finally granting me an interview.”
He came around to her side of the table and pulled her chair out. Against her ear, he whispered, “Much to my surprise, it was my pleasure. I don’t know why I resisted for so long.”
His warm, coffee-scented breath set off a throng of flutters through her stomach.
“You Southern gentlemen lay that charm on thicker than cream cheese,” Tamryn commented, rising from her seat and taking the container with her dessert.
With a chuckle, he said, “We pride ourselves on it.”
He cupped her elbow and led her out of the restaurant, helping her down the steps of the expansive porch that spanned the front of Emile’s and the two establishments on either side of it.
Once they reached the brick sidewalk, Matt released her arm and said, “Good luck with your research, professor. I’m sure I’ll see you around town.”
“Actually, you’ll see me at your office. Dr. Lawrence invited me to join him and his students when they return in a couple of weeks.”
Another of those lazy smiles drew across his face. “Gauthier is a small town. I’m sure I won’t have to suffer through a couple of weeks without seeing you.”
Tamryn slowly shook her head as she stared up at him. “Thicker than cream cheese,” she said again.
His eyes glittered with amusement, his dimple winking at her as he turned and headed back toward his office building.
“You’d better watch yourself around that one,” Tamryn murmured. After the beating her ego had taken courtesy of her ex-boyfriend, Reid, she was ripe for being swept off her feet by a handsome charmer with even an ounce of appeal. And Lord knows the man has appeal.
“Too much appeal.”
She headed for the car Phylicia Phillips had graciously loaned her after the rental company had been unable to deliver her another vehicle this morning. The trusting nature of the people in this town went beyond anything Tamryn had ever experienced.
Hours later, as afternoon melted into evening, Tamryn lounged back in the wooden Adirondack chair on her room’s private balcony. She’d delayed her arrival at Belle Maison by three days for the opportunity to get this room, and after only a couple of warm, relaxing hours out here, she’d concluded that it had been well worth it.
She sipped from the glass of freshly brewed ginger-peach iced tea Phylicia had insisted she try, then continued to browse through the academic journal on her tablet. But there was nothing in theJournal of Women, Politics, and Policythat could hold her attention, not when her mind was hell-bent on wandering to her lunch with Gauthier’s sexiest attorney-at-law.
Just the barest glimpse of that dimple triggered a wave of disturbingly improper thoughts. She hadsonot prepared herself for the likes of Matthew Gauthier. In fact, she had been prepared for the complete opposite of what he had turned out to be. Instead of battling the mulish hard-ass she’d encountered over her many emails and phone calls, she found herself fighting an even bigger internal battle to not fall for the magnetic charm that had obviously captivated every other woman in Gauthier.
“Be smart,” Tamryn warned herself in a quiet whisper.
She’d allowed stomach flutters and skin tingles to obliterate her good sense before. Her normal intelligence had the unfortunate habit of fleeing when faced with a handsome man who laid on the heavy charm. She was still tending to the scars left behind by the betrayal of the last man she’d had the misfortune of falling for, and Matthew Gauthier was ten times more handsome and charming than Reid Hayes.
She was just grateful she had several months before she would have to sit across from her ex in a faculty meeting.
Speaking of…
Tamryn switched to the email app on her iPad and brought up her university email. She’d emailed draft copies of the syllabi for the two classes she planned to teach next semester to the head of the History Department, Dr. Sanderson. She’d debated back and forth over whether or not to add her Impact of Civil Rights on the Women’s Liberation Movement course to this fall’s classes, but Reid’s repeated insistence that professors on the tenure track should spend less time in the classroom and more time conducting research had stuck with her.
He might be a lying asshole, but he was a lying asshole with tenure. He knew what it took to navigate the often-treacherous waters of academia.
Tamryn opened the email from Dr. Sanderson, but its contents were not what she had been expecting. Instead of feedback on the syllabi she’d submitted, the department head had replied with news that the scheduling of classes for the fall semester was on hold, pending a decision by Brimley’s Board of Regents on possible faculty cuts that might have to be made in order to comply with recent budget constraints.
Tamryn set the tablet on her thighs and tried to ignore the instant wave of unease that traveled along her spine. She was one of only a handful of professors in the entire School of Humanities who was not tenured. She didn’t want to think about what it would mean for her job—for her research—if a reduction in staff were imminent.
She wouldn’t think about it. Shecouldn’t.After all the work she’d put into this research, the implications of what it would mean to her career if she lost her position at Brimley were too painful to contemplate.
Chapter 4
