“May I kiss you?”

If my heart wasn’t already on the verge of beating out of my chest, his whispered question would have definitely ramped it up. I felt like I was sitting on the edge of my seat during a movie—waiting for that exciting scene that I knew was coming but wasn’t happening fast enough.

I didn’t trust that my voice wouldn’t come out as a breathless squeak, so I raised on my tip-toes and kissed him.

The instant our lips were together, he closed the remaining distance between our bodies and it felt like he was everywhere all at once. The hand on my hip roamed up my back while the other went behind my neck to hold me in place.

Like I had any intention of stopping this. This was the kind of kiss people longed for—the kind I’d always wanted and had yet to experience until now.

This was the kiss of a man who knew what he was doing. The thought should have made me cold, but his comment about not dating much stuck in my mind like glue. Was he simply a natural or was it something else?

When his tongue slipped between my lips gently, I realized I didn’t really care. At least not now. There’d be plenty of time to question things later, when I didn’t have a sexy man groaning against my lips like he was dying to have me.

Yet when I met his tongue with mine and moaned, I felt him freeze. I clutched at his shoulders in protest as he started to put distance between us. My eyelids felt too heavy to open even when his hands gripped my wrists and pulled my hands away.

“I have to stop now,” he whispered breathlessly. “Not that I want to.”

“Then why—”

A finger was placed on my lips and I forced my eyes to open, desperately searching his for an answer. There was a firm resolve there that I knew I couldn’t break through.

“Yes.”

“Huh?”

“Yes, I know you.”

With that, he took three large steps away from me. I wasn’t quite sure how to respond and I idly wondered if that was the whole point. To distract me so much with his kiss that I couldn’t think straight.

“You’re the host, aren’t you?”

“Promise me you won’t leave,” he said as he continued backing toward the door, completely ignoring my question. “Please, kitten. There’s something I need to attend to right now.”

“I won’t leave,” I promised. What else could I really say? I was too busy scanning his face and my memory while trying to make a match.

“Thank you. I’ll see you soon.”

Then he was gone. I was thankful that he left me relatively close to the ballroom, so at least I wasn’t totally lost. But I couldn’t bring myself to go straight there.

First, I needed a mirror to check how bad my hair and lipstick looked. I touched my lips gently, wondering if they appeared swollen. They certainly felt that way.

His kiss felt like a brand.

There weren’t any mirrors in the room that I could see, so I took a moment to fiddle with my hair and make sure it at least felt straight until I could make it to a bathroom. Once I was satisfied and had my wild heartbeat under control, I took a deep breath and headed for the door.

It flew open when I was only a few feet away, startling me once again.

“I know it’s Halloween, but you’re seriously going to give me a heart attack if you—”

My sentence cut off when Bryan entered the room, his expression one of concern. He scanned my face for a moment, his eyes flashing down to my lips. I reached up to cover them due to an unexplainable force of habit. The movement made his frown grow even more prominent.

“I’ve been looking for you. Where’s Stone?”

“Stone?” I asked dumbly.

He shook his head and corrected, “The Phantom. Where’d he go?”

“I-I don’t know. He said he had something to attend to.”

Bryan nodded and reached his hand up, crooking his fingers and gesturing for me to step out. Instead of turning back toward the ballroom, he led me further down the hall and opened a random door.

“You know how to get back to the party, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. If any of the staff hassle you just tell them you have my permission to be down here.”

He gestured to the open door before marching down the hall. I felt along the wall and flipped the light switch, thankful when I realized it was a bathroom.

Standing in front of the mirror, I realized I did a horrible job of straightening myself. My lipstick hadn’t been completely ruined but it was smudged enough to make what we’d been doing very obvious. I hastily turned on the sink and dabbed my mouth with toilet paper, doing my best to clean myself up. Only after I was presentable did I lean against the sink and allow myself to go over all the information I’d gathered thus far.

The man at the door—Jonas—and the flare of recognition I couldn’t place.

The spark of familiarity when The Phantom first startled me.

‘Don’t I get points for honesty?’

That question brought forth the memory of a brief conversation I had in April. I frowned as I relived it, able to remember the scene like it had just happened.

“Where were you yesterday?”

My tongue began to formulate a lie, but it died at the almost amused look on his face.

“I... I stayed up late binge-watching Game of Thrones and slept through my alarm.”

There was a long, awkward pause before a grin stretched across his lips and he chuckled, the warm sound sending a shiver down my spine.

“Well, I’ll give you points for honesty, but try not to let it happen again.”

No. No, it couldn’t be him. The build and the voice were the same, but the eyes were the wrong color. I would never forget those eyes. It couldn’t be him.

‘Yes, I know you.’

‘Where’s Stone?’

“Oh crap,” I whispered to my reflection before leaning over to rest my palms flat against the countertop. “It has to be a coincidence. There’s just no way.”

Another memory—this one from February—came floating back and I knew it was true. It couldn’t be a coincidence, no matter how much I tried to convince myself of it.

I was sitting in the front row of my management and labor relations class, chatting with an acquaintance while we waited for class to start. The Professor was running ten minutes late when a loud clap came from the podium.

“Can I have everyone’s attention?” Dean Lillington called out, waiting until the chattering stopped before continuing. “I’m sorry to say that Professor Neville has been diagnosed with an illness that will be keeping him out for the rest of the semester.”

An uproar of questions began and Dean Lillington motioned with her hands for everyone to quiet down.

“Both the doctors and Professor Neville are sure that he’ll be perfectly fine, but he’ll need time to rest and recover. We’ll talk later about organizing a get well surprise for him after his surgery. In the meantime, I’d like to introduce your substitute for the remainder of the year.”

A well-dressed man stepped out onto the floor, attracting a fresh wave of whispers—mostly from the girls in class. He seemed to revel in the attention, giving a lazy smile to the class as he stepped up beside Dean Lillington. Before she could introduce him, he addressed the class himself.

“My name is Chase Stone.” The whispers got louder, but he continued, “Anyone who has heard of me knows I’m more than qualified to teach this class, despite it being my first time in this position.”

It was true. Chase Stone was a captain of industry. Everyone in the class knew who he was. How could we not when he was exactly the kind of man we studied during our previous business courses? A number of people in my last class even wrote their thesis on him.

“Professor Neville is a personal friend and I’m filling in for him as a favor. I’ll be keeping him up-to-date on all his classes and keeping you informed about his condition.”

This time, he paused to wait for the noise to die down, his gaze traveling over the crowd in the meantime. Those brilliant green eyes moved continuously over the faces of my classmates right up until they landed on me.

I swore my heart stopped in my chest as his gaze froze. The noises around me faded away. It felt like I was stuck in quicksand, unable to move or even look away.

His eyes remained locked on me as he finished his introduction, his lips curving into a smile as he loudly said, “I look forward to getting to know you all. You may call me—”

“Professor Stone,” I whispered. “Oh my God, it’s really him.”