“Can everybody please make sure they have their answers to the discussion questions completed for next time? I’d like to actually have a discussion where everyone can contribute…”

 

A mass of students packing up their bags, throwing on sweaters, and slowly starting to chatter again all but drowned out Professor Lincoln at the front of the room. Eliza Truman, however, was one of the few who actually waited until her professors were done speaking entirely to pack up her things. The young professor’s eyes scanned the room, the final slide of his lecture still up on the board. When those beautiful bright blues met Eliza’s, she nodded enthusiastically, wanting him to know at least one person was paying attention. His gaze moved on, and finally he drifted forward to shut off the projector.

 

Even though she looked enthusiastic about tackling discussion questions, Eliza was far from it. To say she was wholly and utterly burned out in her last year of law school would be an understatement—and they weren’t even through the first month yet. October loomed in the very distant future, and she still a full year before her final final exam so she could earn that law degree her father was so keen on her getting.

 

Hooray.

 

She sighed heavily, shifting in the uncomfortably hard lecture hall seat so that she could stretch. Something in her back cracked noisily, and she settled back down with a wince, knowing she’d have to wait until the row of students on either side of her left before she could get out anyway. Eliza always chose to sit in the middle of the lecture halls, especially the ones with an amphitheater-style setup. It was where the acoustics sounded best in pretty much every building—and it gave her the opportunity to just blend in with the sea of faces until the class was over.

 

Many of her law professors simply loved calling on random students to answer questions that none of them knew the answer to. If Eliza could hide, she’d do it.

 

Truth be told, she was tired. She wanted nothing more than to hurry back to her dorm and crash for a late afternoon nap—but something kept her going.

 

Well, not something. Someone.

 

She’d run into ridiculously handsome Nash last week on her way out of a morning lecture. Head down, she’d been in the middle of texting her dad about their dinner plans that night—she’d needed to cancel to get some prep time in for a quiz the following morning—and she’d crashed headlong into the most gorgeous man she’d ever seen in her life. And made a total fool of herself in the process, dropping all her books and skinning her hands as she caught herself in the fall. It was better than landing on her face, but it had certainly been one of the more humiliating episodes of her year thus far.

 

Since then, she and Nash had been seeing a lot of each other—more than she’d expected when he took her to lunch after her fall. She thought, at the time, that he was smoothing things over, hoping the dean’s daughter wouldn’t go after him for hurting her. Accident or not, a lot of people treated her as if she was made of glass at Blackwoods University, and she’d assumed Nash was no different.

 

But then he’d invited her on study dates. They’d enjoyed more lunch outings. Usually their time together was spent in silence, both of them studying—he was in the prestigious business school, and his work ethic and focus on his assignments was commendable. Still, the silence didn’t bother her. An introvert at heart, Eliza was a people-watcher before anything else, and she couldn’t count the number of times she’d caught herself studying her new study partner, admiring the muscular bulge of his biceps and the swell of his broad chest with each breath.

 

He’d caught her staring, too, and as she turned away, pretending it had only been a fleeting glance, she swore she noticed him grinning.

 

At this point, she had no idea what their situation was, but he asked her to hang out with him at least once a day almost every day—excluding the weekend—and Eliza wasn’t about to question it. She usually didn’t “do” study partners unless assigned to a group by a professor. Her father’s expectations weighed heavily on her shoulders, and ever since leaving high school, she’d had her nose buried in the books. No late-night parties, only late night cram sessions. No boyfriends. No spring break trips. Nothing. Her father was paying for her education, and she wasn’t going to waste his generous donation to her future by getting distracted.

 

But somehow it had happened. Just as she was about to stand, her phone vibrated softly in her pocket, and sure enough, there was a text from Nash waiting for her when she fished it out. He’d snagged a good table on the quiet floor in the library.

 

See you soon ;) was the second text that arrived seconds after she finished reading the first. Unable to stop the enormous smile from blooming across her cheeks, Eliza grabbed her things as fast as she could and made a beeline for the door, pushing by other students in the process.

 

She was in her final year and her grades were great.

 

A little distraction wasn’t going to hurt her GPA. Besides, she only saw Nash when they were either studying or eating, both of which were an absolute necessity for her survival at Blackwoods. What harm could it do?

 

But for now, she was keeping Nash a secret from her dad. What he didn’t know couldn’t give him a heart attack and earn her a huge condescending lecture, right? As far as she was concerned, Nash “The Hunk” was her dirty little secret. Everyone was entitled to at least one dirty little secret in his or her life, and seeing as up until this point Eliza had had a grand total of zero, Nash was perfect for her first.

 

Shouldering her way through the crowd of fellow law students, Eliza picked up the pace and hurried to the library, eager to settle in next to him for the next two hours between her classes. Eager to catch a whiff of his masculine scent. Eager to see the corners of his mouth twitch up in a grin dripping with sarcasm. Eager to feel his arm resting on back of her chair.

 

Eager for him like she’d never been for a guy before, which was kind of frightening.

But also incredibly exciting.