Impossible To Resist (BWWM Romance Book 1)

by Lacey Legend

  She pushed herself away from him and he stared at her in surprise, his mouth parted slightly and his eyes glazed with the heat of just having kissed the girl he loved. She gritted her teeth and shook her head, reaching her hand up to slap him in the face, hard. He blinked and shock registered in his eyes as she backed away from him.

  “Don’t you ever do that to me again, Reginald Brown. You keep your hands off of me and you stay away from me and from my dad. Go to hell, Reggie.” She spat at him and then she turned on her heel and stomped away from him.

  He watched her go and the expression on his face shifted from one of utter shock to one of complete dismay.

  ***

  Harold sat in the austere and richly appointed front office of the dean of the college, his hands folded together between his knees. He’d dressed in the only suit he owned; it was old, but it was clean and pressed. His hair was combed back and he had a tie on.

  He glanced over at the secretary for a moment as she typed away on her computer. She had told him that the dean would be with him shortly. He looked around him at the walls of dark wood, the bookcases that stood with books lining their every shelf, the fat leafed green plants that mocked the slowly dying trees of autumn outside. He drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to relax himself and keep his nerves still.

  The office was silent except for her typing. He sighed again and looked up at the big grandfather clock standing against one wall. He’d been waiting twenty minutes and each one felt like an eternity.

  Finally, the door behind the receptionist opened and the dean walked out and smiled at him in greeting. Harold rose to his feet and walked toward the Dean with his hand outstretched.

  “Good morning, sir, I’m Harold Marshall,” he said politely, feeling that he had never been more out of place at any point in his life.

  The dean nodded and shook his hand. “Good morning, Mr. Marshall. I’m Dean Hargrove. Please come in. May I have Jeanie get you some coffee or water?”

  Harold shook his head. “No, sir. Thank you. I’m just fine.”

  The dean nodded and closed the door behind them. They walked to his desk together and Harold waited quietly to be invited to sit down. The Dean looked at him and nodded, indicating the chair beside which Harold was standing silently.

  “Please have a seat, Mr. Marshall.” Harold sat stiffly and kept his eyes on the dean.

  “What is it that I can do for you today?” Dean Hargrove asked as he sat opposite Harold.

  Harold cleared his throat and felt like he was embarking on an impossible quest. “I’m here about my daughter, sir.”

  The dean nodded patiently. “Yes?”

  “Well, sir, it seems that one of your instructors has seduced her and has coerced her into having an affair with him, and I’m paying a fair amount of tuition for her to attend here for an education that she can use to make a good life for herself, not for her to get hauled into her professor’s office for an indiscretion. Something has to be done about this,” he stated firmly.

  He might feel intimidated by the old school, the wealth of the head of the school, the vast education around him that he knew nothing about, and the total unfamiliarity of the environment around him, but he wasn’t about to let any of that stop him from taking care of the mess his little girl had gotten herself into.

  The dean’s mouth fell open slightly and he stared at Harold, livid. “One of our professors here is involved romantically with your daughter?” he asked as if he might have misheard Harold.

  “Yes, sir,” Harold replied simply.

  Dean Hargrove sighed heavily and shook his head. “I’m gravely disappointed to hear it. We have a zero tolerance policy for things like this at this educational facility. Do you know the name of the professor by chance?”

  Harold nodded. “I do. His name is Connor James.” It had been tempting to him to go see Professor James on his own, but he wasn’t a rule breaker and he understood that there was a procedure for dealing with everything, including situations like the one his daughter was in.

  Dean Hargrove rubbed his forefinger over his lower lip as he shook his head. “Ah yes… our handsome young media professor.”

  Harold blinked in surprise. “Young, Sir? I was under the impression that he was quite a bit older than my daughter.”

  The dean looked up at him. “No, not really. I believe James is twenty seven or so. He’s not that much older than most of the students here, but he is quite a handsome fellow, and there are many in the student body, and if I was being honest, on staff, who tend to go after him. I’m not surprised that he is being reported for an affair, I guess it was bound to happen, but I am surprised that it took him being here this long before it did happen.”

  Harold furrowed his brow, looking at him in confusion. “This hasn’t happened before with him?” he asked curiously.

  The dean shook his head. “No, no this is James’ first offense of any kind with the college. He’s been a model professor up until now. I actually rather like him, and I’ll be sorry to have to discipline him in regards to this, but we must stand by our rules and regulations, Mr. Marshall.”

  He looked at Harold and pursed his lips, speaking delicately. “Have you spoken with your daughter about this situation at all?”

  Harold nodded. “I did indeed, sir. It was the first thing I did. She understands how serious it is. I’ve told her she is to have nothing whatsoever to do with him again.”

  The dean nodded. “It’s likely that she will be facing some sort of discipline as well. I hope that you understand that, Mr. Marshall. Affairs are two way streets, and both parties will be under investigation on this, and pending the final report, both of them will receive disciplinary action.”

  Harold nodded. “I understand, sir.” He was sorry to hear it, but not surprised. She had made a mistake and there were consequences to face for having done it.

  Dean Hargrove frowned slightly. “What year is your daughter in?”

  Harold lifted his chin proudly. Whatever mistakes she might have made along the way, she was very close to completing her time there, and that was an accomplishment that he felt deserved some recognition.

  “She will be graduating in the spring, sir,” he answered, and then he added, “Actually, she’s on the Dean’s List.”

  Dean Hargrove looked slightly horrified for a moment and then recovered, coughing subtly and rubbing his hand over his mouth and chin again. “Well, we will have to see what comes out at the end after we’ve talked to them both. Separately, of course.”

  Harold nodded. The dean looked at him intently. “I’ll speak to them and then let you know what course of action we will be taking. Will that work for you, Mr. Marshall?” he asked solemnly.

  Harold nodded and the dean stood up and extended his hand. “Thank you for coming in and letting us know about this. I’m sorry we couldn’t meet under better terms,” he said apologetically.

  Harold stood up and shook his hand. “Thank you for taking the time to see me, sir, and for taking care of this. I want the best for my little girl.”

  Dean Hargrove nodded and sighed. “We all want that, Mr. Marshall. You have a good day.”

  Harold nodded and left and then thanked the secretary on the way out of the building. He felt a little better after having spoken to the dean, and he was intrigued to have discovered that Connor had never been reported for an affair in all the time he had been there, which at such a young age, couldn’t have been very long, but it still made him wonder and think about what his daughter had told him.

  ***

  Connor was sitting in his office when his desk phone rang. He picked it up and heard Jeanie’s voice from the Dean’s office on the other end of the line. He told her that he would be in right away and he wondered what in the world he was being called to the dean’s office for.

  When Connor was shown into Dean Hargrove’s office, he found the old man with an utterly humorless expression on his old and wizened face.

  �
�Sit down, please, Mr. James.”

  Connor sat across the desk from him.

  “Connor,” the dean began more informally, “I had a visitor this morning who came to report a rather sensitive complaint against you. I want to know what you have to say for yourself.”

  Connor’s stomach tightened. He had a sneaking suspicion that he knew very well what the reason was that he had been called into the dean’s office, and it sent a wave of panic through him, though he was careful not to register the panic on his face or in his eyes. Years of playing poker with the wiliest poker players in his college had made him adept at hiding his emotion when he wanted to.

  “What complaint is that, sir?” he asked simply.

  The dean leaned forward and placed his elbows on the desk in front of him. “The complaint is that you are having an affair with a young woman by the name of Catalina Marshall. Is that true?”

  The dean’s eyes were locked on him. Connor never hesitated.

  “Yes, Sir, it is true. We did spend a brief time together, but since that time we have mutually and amicably ended the affair.” Connor held his head up, though he felt like crawling beneath the dean’s desk.

  Dean Hargrove sighed and leaned back in his chair, folding his hands together and looking over the top of them at Connor. “Thank you for your honesty. That saves me a good deal of time and work.”

  Connor remained silent as he watched the dean and listened to him.

  Dean Hargrove sat forward again and placed his hands on the desk in front of him. “Connor, I like you, you’re a great educator and a good man, but you really screwed up this time. Our college cannot develop a bad reputation in this town, and your actions are inexcusable. If this was not your first offense, you’d have been relieved of your position. However, in consideration of the fact that this is your first offense during your time at this institution, rather than losing your job, you will instead be placed on suspension pending a hearing.

  “Your classes will be taught by a stand in until we determine what the final action is to be taken in regards to this complaint. Your suspension is immediate. We have a zero tolerance policy for this sort of behavior, Connor, and I am disappointed to have to see you involved in this in any way. I thought very highly of you until today.”

  Connor felt his stomach turn to lead and begin to sink through the floor beneath him.

  “Do you have anything further to add to this?” Dean Hargrove asked sternly.

  Connor shook his head. “I do not, sir.”

  The Dean stood up and extended his hand to Connor. “Thank you for coming in, Connor. I hope I don’t ever see you back in here for any disciplinary action. The office will be in contact with you about the outcome of the investigation into this.”

  Connor nodded and stood up. He shook the dean’s hand, and then he turned and left the office, going straight back to his office. He had not felt so nauseated since his final exams in his last year of college. He felt like a complete failure.

  He closed up his office and went home for the day. The next morning when he returned to his office to try to prepare for his stand-in replacement and the work that he wanted his students to do, he had gone from nauseated to miserable.

  He wasn’t seeing Catalina any longer for the sole purpose of protecting his job, which had not been protected, and from which he had been suspended because he was seeing Catalina. The timing was all off and it had caused him so much heartache. He still missed her terribly, and seeing her in his classes had proven to be far more difficult than he had anticipated.

  She would watch him, and he could feel her eyes on him, her beautiful blue gray eyes, and he longed to go to her and touch her, to hold her to him, but there was no way that he could do that. All he could do was glance occasionally at her from afar and hope that no one noticed the look of longing for her in his eyes.

  He had no idea how the dean had found out, and he didn’t want to ask him. All he wanted to do was fix what he had done wrong so that there could be some semblance to his life again, because it felt to him like everything in it was falling apart faster than he could piece it together.

  There was a knock at his office door and he looked up to see Deborah Hargrove strutting through the doorway. He sighed heavily. Of all of the people that could have walked through his doorway, she was undoubtedly the last one that he wanted to see.

  She gave him an irritated look and pointed at the sofa. “Come talk with me. Get over here.” She turned her back to him and swayed her hips dramatically as she walked toward the sofa, sitting on it and patting the space immediately next to her on it.

  “You really screwed up this time, Connor. I can’t believe you had an affair with a student. That’s so trashy and blasé. How could a man of your morality and character do something like that?” she asked him in irritation.

  He remained seated at his desk. She frowned darkly at him. “Connor, I said get over here so I can talk with you, and I meant now. I don’t have a lot of time to try to help you.” She gave him a meaningful eye and he sighed heavily again and pushed himself up out of his chair, going toward her and sitting almost at the other end of the sofa from her.

  She slid across it until she was beside him. “There, now… that’s better,” she said, laying her hand on his knee and giving it a squeeze.

  He glanced down at her hand and then back up at her dark eyes. “How do you know about anything that’s going on?” he asked in amazement.

  She laughed and rolled her eyes. “Darling, my uncle is the dean. Do you think there’s anything going on in this school that I don’t know about?”

  He pursed his lips in chagrin and remained silent. She leaned toward him and he glanced down at her blouse, wondering if she ever buttoned her blouses up further than the base of her cleavage.

  She saw him glance at her breasts and she moaned and laughed a little, giving his knee another squeeze. “Now, there’s my sweet boy. You can have me here and now if you want me,” she said in a low and sultry voice, her eyes steady on his.

  “I’m not in the market,” he said dryly, looking away from her and pushing her hand off of his knee.

  She sat back a little and gave an exasperated noise as she gazed at him. Then she lifted her arm and slid it over the back of the sofa behind him, effectively pulling her already wide open blouse further open.

  “That’s precisely what I’ve come to talk with you about, baby.” She purred as she moved her leg next to his and began to rub it against his leg. He looked over his shoulder at her and she gave him a flirtatious air kiss.

  “What are you talking about?” he asked, certain that he could be doing anything more important at that point, like ironing his carpet.

  She sighed and sat up, leaning close to him and sliding her hand through the crook of his arm as he rested his elbow on his thigh.

  “Well, darling, I talked to Uncle Hargrove, and I told him how close you and I are, and how much you mean to me, and I suggested that if you were engaged or married that he wouldn’t need to suspend you at all because you would no longer be a threat to the young women who attend this institution for an education.

  “You’d be committed to one woman, and you would be a model husband who was closely integrated into the founding families of this college and you would become an asset instead of a liability.” She leaned closer and let her lips brush his ear as she spoke into it.

  “So, my precious Uncle Hargrove thought that I had such a good idea, that he told me if we were engaged immediately and married within the next few weeks, why, then he didn’t see any reason at all to hold those charges over your head and your suspension would be lifted, and you could start working again right away.

  “I told him that I would come… talk you into it…” she whispered seductively into his ear as she slid her hand along his inner thigh toward his groin with a sexy giggle.

  He clamped his hand over hers and stopped the motion of it. Then he turned and looked at

  her, pushing her hand away
from him.

  “Are you telling me that you’re here to blackmail me into getting engaged to you and marrying you in three weeks?” he asked incredulously as he stared at her with wide, disbelieving eyes.

  She shrugged and nodded. “Essentially, yes. I’m here to save your job, darling,” she cooed at him. She reached her hand up behind him and ran her fingers through his neatly combed hair, ruffling it a bit.

  “What do you say, baby, do you want to drop down on your knees and offer me the rest of your life?” she asked with a wide red-lipped grin.

  He stood got up off the sofa so fast that he was unsteady for a moment.