“Someone tell me about the relationship between the story and the way it’s told in Pushkin’s The Queen of Spades.”

I lifted my hand in the air.

“Anyone?” Luca’s gaze swept over the class, sliding over my extended hand as though it were invisible.

Gritting my teeth, I waved my fingers. Just a tad. I even tried to lengthen my arm by sitting forward in my seat.

“Not even a guess?” He regarded the lecture hall with disappointment. When no one else moved, he pulled out the class roster. “Emma Nixon. Tell me about The Queen of Spades and why Pushkin’s method of telling the story is as important as the story itself.”

His target sat directly in front of me. I watched as she straightened and fiddled with the pencil she held.

“Is this about his use of numbers? Because I didn’t understand that.” Emma was a good student, just not great with the philosophical models characteristic of Russian literature.

I let my hand fall quietly to the tabletop and tried to hide my frown. I didn’t know why I bothered anymore. Four weeks into the semester and he hadn’t called on me since that first day.

Luca tilted his head to one side, considering her. “Do you understand the concepts of fabula and syuzhet?”

Emma shook her head, now twirling the pencil between her fingers with nervous abandon. I could tell she was frustrated by her lack of ability to engage with him. But he took her nerves in stride, re-explaining the concepts in a new way and encouraged her to help him fill in the blanks. He even gave her a small smile of praise when she arrived at the right answer without him having to spell it out.

Bitterness blossomed on my tongue as I watched their exchange. I glanced at the big clock over the board, five minutes left before the end of class. Five tortuous minutes.

Obviously, I hadn’t dropped the class three weeks ago when I’d had the chance. If I were being honest with myself, the reason I didn’t drop out was because I wanted to see him again.

Also now obvious, Professor Kroft wasn’t enamored with me. His sister had been delusional, although I was still inclined to like her.

Meanwhile, I’d become completely enamored with him.

I should have listened to that woman with the ring. You don’t get a ring like deathbringer without knowing what’s what.

Professor Kroft had both kept and broken the promise he’d made to me weeks ago. He didn’t pick on me any more than the other students. The problem was, he didn’t pick on me at all. He pretended I didn’t exist. And this was a special kind of torture because Luca Kroft was a fantastic teacher.

Like, the best I’ve ever had.

He engaged his students rather than talked at them. He forced them to become a part of the narrative, grow invested in Tolstoy and Gogol. He challenged them to confront their ideas about life, nature, morality, and—yes—even the human soul.

Last week he’d made several groups of students act out a scene from The Brothers Karamazov, casting women in the roles of the men, asking them to explain their motivations as though they were the characters. I’d wanted desperately to be chosen for the role of Ivan, but I was passed over, given no role except silent spectator.

So, I guess he did pick on me by not picking on me.

Every week—his charisma, intelligence, patience with and passion for his other students—had me falling a little more head over heels. And I wasn’t the only one.

Taylor, the troublesome talker from the first class, along with at least seventy-five percent of the other students, had basically become his disciples. The books she’d scoffed at on that first day now littered her desk, pages flagged and earmarked. She’d invited me out to dinner last week with a few of our classmates and we’d spent the entire meal debating the superiority of Tolstoy over his contemporaries.

Luca Kroft had made them all Russian literature zealots.

After each class I’d leave feeling both energized and despondent. I wanted to debate with him, with the other students. I wanted to be a part of what felt like a movement and an awakening. Instead, I’d been relegated to the sidelines.

I was frustrated.

Yet enamored.

Even if I’d never met him months ago in his leather pants, I was pretty darn sure I’d still be smitten with him now.

Abruptly, Luca glanced at his watch. “Ah, times up.”

A quiet murmur of regret rippled through the class. This was customary at the end of his lectures. If he heard or noticed it, he never made a sign.

“I have your papers from last week at the front, stacked alphabetically. Letters ‘A’ through ‘H’ are here, ‘I’ through ‘M’ here, and so forth. Pick them up before you depart. If you have any questions about your grade, schedule an appointment through my secretary.”

I perked up at this news. He’d warned us before we turned in our first paper that he was exceptionally critical. Most of us could expect Ds and Cs, but that he anticipated we would improve over time.

Determinedly, I spent every free minute on my paper for a week and a half, crafting it, perfecting it. Plus, I loved the subject matter: Onegin’s relationship with the young Tatyana Larina and how the role of superfluous man shaped their combined destiny.

Since Luca refused to call on me during class, I poured every ounce of frustrated thoughts and feelings into the paper.

He left through the side door and I turned to my classmate. “Hey, Taylor? Could you watch my stuff? I’ll grab our papers.”

“Sure, but—”

Not waiting for the rest of her sentence, I jogged down the steps and power-walked to the front table, waiting my turn for the ‘A’ through ‘H’ stack. Upon reaching the papers, I grimaced.

He hadn’t been lying about being critical. The top paper—and all the others I flipped through—looked like they’d been bled upon. Red pen colored every page—crossed-out sentences, questions in the margin, culminating into at least a paragraph of comments at the end of each paper, in what I presumed was his scrawling handwriting.

I pulled Taylor’s from the stack, noticing how red it was, but making a concerted effort to avoid seeing her final grade.

Then I found mine.

My heart stuttered. And then it dropped to my feet. Adrift, I blinked at my paper, dumbly flipping through the pristine pages.

Except for the final grade—which was a B—he hadn’t written on it at all.

Not at all. Nothing. No thoughts. No questions. No comments.

A potent mixture of confusion and anger swirled in my stomach. Tears pricked behind my eyes. My hurting heart sent a wave of heat up my neck and to my cheeks.

He’d ignored me.

Again.

“Hey, Anna? Are you done?”

I glanced over my shoulder and realized I was holding up the line. Clutching my paper to my chest, I quickly moved out of the way and numbly climbed the stairs to a waiting Taylor.

“Ah! I’m so nervous. I don’t think I did very well.” She accepted her paper, flipping through his red marks without reading them and searching for her final grade. “Damn. I got a D.”

I gritted my teeth, irritated with Taylor. Actually, I was jealous. She had a treasure trove of Luca’s comments and insights, and she’d ignored them, instead focusing on the grade. I wanted to throttle her.

“I did, too,” Jordan Washington, the boy who sat on her other side chimed in. “And so did Carter, Jayden, and Gretchen, and everyone I’ve talked to so far.”

“What did you get, Anna?” Taylor eyeballed me, her frowning gaze moving to the paper I held clutched to my chest.

I shrugged and stuffed it into my bag, trying to keep my tone even. “I guess everyone got a D,” I said without outright lying.

“Don’t take it so hard, Harris,” Jordan gave me a sympathetic smile. “He did warn us.”

I huffed a bitter laugh, shaking my head but saying nothing, and hoisted my bag to my shoulder. My stomach hurt and my eyes felt scratchy.

“See you guys later.” I gave my classmates an uneven wave and, for no reason in particular, walked down the stairs. This would take me to the side door of the lecture hall and into the Russian Studies Department instead of outside and to the parking lot.

I left the large classroom, turning toward the faculty offices—for no reason in particular. I stopped at the reception desk, where the department secretary usually sat, and stared at it. Unsurprisingly, no one was there. Class ended at 8:00 p.m., well after the end of normal business hours.

It took that long—the walk from my desk in the lecture hall to the desk of the department secretary—for my brain to catch up with the intentions of my feet. I scanned the top of the desk, looking for the administrator’s business card. My aim was to find her number, call her in the morning, and make an appointment with Professor Kroft, as he’d instructed, to ask about my grade.

Because I had no idea why I’d received a B instead of an A, or a C, or a D, or an F. He’d given me nothing to go on.

So, yeah, I had questions about my grade. I also had questions about why he was such an arrogant asshole. Given my state of mind, I decided to make the appointment for next week; hopefully time would help me simmer down so I could focus on my grade, and not his assholeishness.

Something out of the corner of my eye snagged my attention. I glanced to the right just as a blur of movement at the end of the hallway disappeared into an office. I stared at the open door, at least thirty feet from where I was standing. It was a corner office at the end of the hall and the door faced out, toward the secretary.

I spotted a window, a desk, a shelf laden with books, stacks of books next to the desk, and white fringe on a red carpet.

Then I spotted a man walking around in the office. My pulse ticked up, because the man was Luca. I recognized the clothes he was wearing from earlier, but more than that I recognized the way he moved.

I faced the hallway. My feet and my brain discussed the situation very, very briefly, a la:

Feet: He’s right there.

Brain: Go get him.

Feet: Roger that, we’re on our way.

Then my feet moved me toward the open door of the office. My heart beat loudly between my ears, not with nerves this time but with irrational anger, and the misguided determination that accompanies aforementioned irrational anger.

I halted at the doorway to his office and found him standing in front of an open file cabinet, his profile to me. Tangentially, I noticed his office was large, much larger than the ones I’d been in over the course of my college career. But then most of my courses were in science and engineering, where the buildings were newer, more efficiently designed. This building was over one hundred years old.

Glaring at my professor, I knocked on the doorjamb.

He glanced over his shoulder, his pale blue eyes distracted. And then he did a double take. He stiffened, frowning severely as his attention flickered down and then up my body before capturing my gaze.

He looked . . . guarded.

“Are you lost?” To my ears, he sounded gruff and argumentative.

I shook my head while I stepped into his office, shut the door behind me, and dropped my bag on a brown leather sofa at my side.

Luca’s eyes followed my movements as he turned to face me, slowly shutting the file cabinet drawer. He stuffed his fine fingers into his pants pockets. But he said nothing.

I yanked the term paper from my bag and held it up between us. He glanced at it, then moved his guarded scowl back to me.

I had so many questions. So many angry, hurt, irritated, frustrated questions. I had a torrent of them.

Instead, I asked, “You gave me a B?”

He swallowed before responding. “I didn’t give you a B, Anna. You earned a B.”

I felt my frown intensify. “How so?”

His lips parted as though he was actually going to answer, but I cut him off by obnoxiously balling up the term paper and dropping it in his trash can. He watched me do this, his attention lingering on the waste bin for three or four seconds before he blinked and glared at me again.

“How did I earn a B? Tell me, because I have no idea. I have no idea.”

Luca set his jaw, his eyes narrowing, again regarding me in silence.

Luckily, I didn’t need him to respond; the momentum of my anger had carried me too far to listen or to engage in a meaningful discussion. I didn’t care what he had to say. I needed to be heard.

“Do you know why I have no idea? Because you give me nothing. Nothing. I get nothing from you.” My voice broke. I had to clear my throat before I could continue. “You won’t call on me in class. You won’t even look at me. Why am I suddenly invisible to you?”

“You’re not invisible to me.”

I huffed a bitter laugh in response, shaking my head, because the last three weeks painted a different picture. Plus, I was too preoccupied with the crushing burden of thoughts and emotions I hadn’t realized I was feeling.

“You said you wouldn’t pick on me any more or less than your other students, but you lied. You’re an outstanding teacher, Luca, but you’re also a liar. Why won’t you teach me? Everyone else gets to debate with you, share ideas, challenge you, be challenged by you. Everyone else gets papers so covered in red ink with your thoughts and ideas that they look like evidence from a crime scene. But mine is white. Mine is blank. Mine is empty. You give me nothing.”

An irritating tear rolled down my cheek and I swiped at it angrily, furious with myself for crying even a little.

“Everyone else gets to have you,” I whispered brokenly. “And I get nothing.”

The muscle at his jaw ticked, but otherwise he remained still. Standing like a perfect, impervious statue. Glaring at me.

I needed a minute before I trusted my voice again and looking at his impassive features made my chest hurt, so I dropped my eyes to the carpet and gathered several steadying, mindful breaths.

What am I even doing here?

My anger deflated in the face of my foolishness, leaving me feeling wretched—truly wretched—and miserable.

What do you hope to accomplish, Anna? You’re making a fool of yourself. What do you want from him?

“Something. Anything,” I whispered to myself.

That’s pathetic. Why are you doing this?

I sighed sadly, the ache in my chest intensifying. I had the sudden sensation of being hollowed out, because the voice inside my head was right. I was pathetic. I had ridiculous, unrequited feelings for a statue.

I needed to leave.

I turned from him and reached for my bag, tugging it on my shoulder. I couldn’t bring myself to look at him again, so I directed a short wave at the room. “Right. Well . . . as always, thanks for the stimulating chat.”

My hand closed over the knob and I’d opened the door just three inches before it was slammed shut again. Luca’s open palm was pressed against the wooden door, level with my face. He’d pushed it closed and now stood directly behind me.

I didn’t have a moment to register shock, because in the very next second I was turned. He pulled the bag from my arm, pushed my back against the door, and kissed me.