While I had the patience to study historical documents and sources in a greater depth than most other people I’d ever met, I had none for insufferable males who had larger egos than Jupiter and assumed that they could have everything their own way. Maxwell Callaghan had managed to push every nerve laden button in my body and two weeks in a nunnery where men were not allowed to even breathe within a twenty-mile radius was becoming necessary.

Although totally not happening.

“That expression looks unbecoming.”

I looked up from my gloom to see James Jacob Howell III staring at me as if I was covered in pustules, or worse. I tried to smile.

“Fucking stupid men. I’m going to sign up for a nunnery,” I declared. “Fuckwits the lot of them. Thinking they can have everything their own way.”

“Your brother being a dickwad again?” Jacob, as he was known to everyone he was bothered about, sat down opposite me and immediately caught the attention of the waitress.

“Two margaritas please,” he said. “The large ones you do that look like they should come with a free goldfish swimming in the glass.”

The waitress beamed a smile at him that bordered on flirtatious and gave me a sour glance. Pity she’d be disappointed if she thought she would get anywhere with Jacob, given that his last partner had been six foot two, with eyes of blue and biceps bigger than my purse. He’d also been called Shane and Jacob had likened him to a cowboy for more than just his name.

“So why do you look like someone has urinated all over your well thought-out and carefully considered parade?” he said, leaning forward, his eyes like two pole dancers on speed.

I made a noise that sounded like a gorilla growling.

“You’re going to need to be more specific than that,” he said. “Let’s start with who, to be followed by where and when. And possibly how, but we’ll see how the first few go before more complex sentences are required.”

“Maxwell Callaghan,” I spat. “Dick of the year winner.”

Jacob’s eyes grew wider.

“Do you know him?” I asked, leaning in towards the table as if Jacob was about to confide some deep secret. I didn’t think Maxwell was gay, that wasn’t the vibe I got when I caught him assessing my boobs, but then not many people would think Jacob was.

Until they saw him during Pride wearing a feather boa and very little else.

“He’s a top lawyer. Of course I’ve heard of him. I’ve met him a couple of times too.” Jacob’s father was a judge and although Jacob had swerved anything to do with law as a career in favour of publishing, he’d been to several law-themed functions. “He’s all broody and mysterious. I remember seeing him at a law society ball once; he barely said a word all night then went home with some blonde. They must’ve communicated through hot looks alone. Although that’s all I would’ve needed. What’s he done to you? I can have him taken out, if you wish.”

I cracked a smile. Jacob was fiercely protective and when he wasn’t in dramatic mode could appear fairly menacing—as long as no one got him on the subject of the theatre, musicals or tweed. “He’s a professor at King’s and I’ve booked his room for my seminars. Not on purpose, I hasten to add.”

Jacob looked mildly confused. “First come, first served. Or doesn’t that apply to him?”

I shook my head. “He’d emailed the woman I’m covering for, but no one’s thought to check her mail. It’s sorted, but he’s in the room next to mine as opposed to the one he wants.”

“And he expected you to give in and let him have the room?”

“Correct.”

Jacob sat back and laughed loudly as our cocktails were brought over. “Sweetie, you won. Why be so mad?”

“Because he’s yet another man who thinks he has the God-given-right to have his way and I’m fed up of it. History is littered with them: cockwombles who think only of themselves,” I said, stuffing the slim straws in my mouth and sucking violently. I needed alcohol.

“And history is also full of decent men who thought about plenty other than themselves. Why was the room so important to Mr Maxwell Callaghan, or should it be Professor?” Jacob swiped some of the salt from the rim of his glass and licked his finger.

I wrinkled my nose. “Too salty,” I said.

“A bit of salt’s good for you,” Jacob said, delicately nibbling a finger. “Maybe you should try a bit of salt more frequently. Sweeten you up.”

“Fucker,” I said, giving him the finger and causing a middle-aged woman to raise her eyebrows in horror. I smiled apologetically, giving her the same gesture once she had turned her head. “He said the room was important as it was where some law or other was decided or discussed or something and it made it real for his students. He needed that room and time so it fitted in with the rest of his very important schedule, otherwise he said he couldn’t teach. Carol—the dean—almost had a heart attack when she heard that. I’m sure he uses her tongue as toilet paper.”

Jacob wrinkled his nose. “That’s a disgusting analogy, Victoria. You could be less uncouth. However, back to the cockwomble aspect: why exactly do you need that room at that time?”

I took a long gulp of my margarita. “Because the room has historical significance which will be useful to my students and it fits in with my schedule. Your point?”

“Would you have expected him to swap with you, if his email had been read when it should have been and the room booked as he asked?” Jacob lounged on his chair, margarita in hand. He looked like a male model; chiselled cheekbones and blonde hair, the iciest blue eyes that had never been photoshopped. I grabbed my phone and snapped a quick photo as he gave me his best blue steel gaze. He’d been my best friend for over a decade and we’d never had a cross word or a disagreement that we’d hadn’t solved before bedtime. I’d been his first and last kiss with a female when we were eighteen and that had been enough to solidify a friendship that was already older than most marriages I knew.

“Would I have expected him to swap with me?” I stuttered briefly, knowing exactly the answer. “Of course not!”

“I call bullshit.”

“Well, that room is more pertinent to what I’m teaching. And just because he’s some hotshot professor-lawyer doesn’t mean he’s worth more than me. Or that his subject is more valuable than mine,” I said, hearing the tinge of sulkiness in my voice.

“I’d say law is infinitely more valuable than history, sweetie. What are you earning compared to him?”

“I have no idea. I can pay my rent. And my fees. And scrape by on bread and beans.” Unfortunately, it wasn’t that far from the truth.

Jacob frowned. “Have you heard from your solicitors recently?”

“Nada,” I said, slurping more margarita, the alcohol going straight to my head. “I need to chase them. Again.”

“You need to find new solicitors,” Jacob said, gesturing to the waitress for two more drinks.

“I can’t. I’d have to pay the costs so far before my case could be transferred and I haven’t got the money.” It had kind of become a moot point by now. I was destined to plough my way through life without the inheritance my grandfather had wanted me to have. My half-brother had contested the will and tied it in enough strings to ensure that finishing my doctorate was going to drown me in student loans.

“I’ve already said I’ll lend you the money. For crying out loud, Victoria, I’d pay the fees for you if you’d accept. Or get a favour from a friend of my father’s who’d do a proper job and get you what you’re entitled to. You’re living in poverty and working for that law department when you don’t have to. It’s ridiculous. You should be completing your doctorate and starting your career properly as an academic.” He scratched his baby soft chin, so different to the beard-covered one Maxwell had sported in the office. My mind drifted back to the infuriating man I’d almost jumped over the counter to throttle and I suppressed another growl. “He’s really pissed you off, hasn’t he?”

I drained my glass of the remaining margarita and glared at my friend. “I think that might be stating the obvious.” It was possible that I had overreacted slightly in the office to Maxwell’s suggestion. It was possible that a calmer and more rational approach would’ve been more appropriate. It was also possible that I needed to smooth things over with the man in question as I would more than likely be working there until the end of the academic year, or until I had a job lecturing at a university, if I ever finished my doctorate. “It’s possible I should’ve been calmer.”

“Really, Victoria? You surprise me. Let’s consider this further: hot man enters, hot intelligent man. He asks for his teaching room to be the one he requested some months previously. Admin girl he has never met before refuses room, is completely uncooperative and what else might you have called him?” Jacob smiled, taking off his cufflinks and depositing them on the table.

I made a mental note to pick them up later and put them in my handbag as there was no way he would remember them.

“A typical male filled with his own self-importance.”

“And?”

“An obnoxious twat. But that was after he said history was an inconsequential subject unless it was being used to further understand a subject with more importance such as law or literature or even art.” I noticed I had clenched my fists. It was a good job Maxwell ‘don’t call me professor’ Callaghan wasn’t there, or else they’d have been pummelling his face.

“Apart from adding art into that equation, I think I agree with him, but that’s not the point. Victoria, sweetie, you know you have a rather instantaneous temper—did the dean hear all of this?” Jacob suddenly looked concerned. He knew I was suffering with a more than part-time admin role in order to make ends meet and complete my PhD.

I nodded. “She stayed outside up until I called Maxwell a clusterfuck of a person—in my defence he had referred to me as an over-polished-librarian at this point—and then she retreated into her office. I heard her laughing. After Maxwell had cleared off she came out and offered me a glass of wine.” I pushed my glasses back up my nose. I had a very low prescription just for reading but was accustomed to wearing them most of the time. Jacob pointed out on many occasions that I hid behind them, to which I usually just smiled. He wasn’t wrong.

“So she wasn’t pissed off that you were insulting one of her star professors and probably one of the biggest pulls to students studying there?” Jacob said as a different waitress returned with two more overly large margaritas: if there was any such thing.

I pulled my hair together and twisted it up into a bun before letting it drop down my back. It was thick and heavy and straight, and very, very sellable should I ever need an extra source of income to pay for rent or buy food. “She enjoys a good drama. I’ve heard more gossip from her in the past couple of weeks than I did during the whole of my master’s degree.”

“She didn’t mention Maxwell Callaghan?” Jacob looked dubious.

“No. Nothing. He only teaches two modules: a second-year undergraduate module on medical negligence and a module on the taught master’s course. He guest lectures sometimes for the medical undergrads on clinical negligence but he’s nowhere near being anything like part time.” This margarita was stronger. If I went anywhere near a third there would be a good chance I’d end up at whichever palace Maxwell lived in to launch some more well-deserved abuse at him.

“Google him when you get home later. And I don’t just mean look at the pretty images. Read about him. He’s from a legal dynasty—and one that’s got a future, not just a pretty history. Then look at the pictures with your vibrator close to hand. Did you get the one I recommended?” Jacob looked uncomfortably happy about the direction this conversation was taking.

I strongly debated the third margarita in order to simply survive the day. “No, Jay. I didn’t buy the vibrator you recommended as I needed to pay the subscription for some online journals and buy food. And I will google Maxwell ‘the prick’ Callaghan so I have more ammunition with which to assassinate him, but he has no place in any erotic fantasies.” That was possibly not entirely true. There was nothing I loved more than a good argument with someone who wasn’t scared of arguing back. The problem was that I looked every part of the delicate librarian who should be sitting quietly by a window, reading romances from before they got graphic and dreaming of a gentle alpha male who could take care of me and rid me of my virginity. As much as the said alpha male would be quite welcome, especially on evenings and weekends when I was too broke to go out, I certainly didn’t need taking care of and my virginity had been disposed of some time ago by a Spanish teenager called Miguel on a sun lounger in the Canary Islands when I was sixteen.

Maxwell had been stunningly and broodingly gorgeous. Dark, messy, slightly curly hair that was in need of a cut; deep, dark chocolate eyes, chiselled cheekbones and a beard that I’d like to get messier than it already was. He’d filled his suit in such a way that suggested it had needed to be tailored: broad shoulders, bulging biceps but unfortunately I didn’t get the opportunity to check out how well his trousers had been cut because by that time I’d seen red and was filling the room with insults. But Max had argued back, with heat and passion too, and at no point had I felt he was holding back. That had been a turn on.

Jacob looked disappointed. “I’ll treat you to one. The anal stimulator is like no other. It’ll open up a whole new world. Especially while you’re having a barren spell. You know, sweetie, it wouldn’t kill you to have a one-night stand. Lose the glasses, curl your hair, pop on those leather trousers and a halter neck and take home some stud-muffin for the night. Scratch an itch and all that.”

The glare I sent him should’ve pierced a lung at the very least. “I’m done with all that. Been down the pretty boy route but they inevitably either have a small dick or are secretly gay and lose the capacity to perform. Besides, I’d actually like someone I can have a discussion with.”

“Wouldn’t that be classed as a relationship?” Jacob once again looked concerned. He didn’t do relationships, just repeats of one-night stands where sex was the only item on the agenda.

“It’s not a fate worse than death, Jay. Besides, I’m way into my thirties. My biological clock is starting to gently tick every so often.” I took a very long slurp of my margarita and debated naming my first daughter after my drink.

Jacob shook his head. “You can adopt. Or have a sperm donor. I have several gay friends who would like to co-parent and your genes are shit-hot. Besides, you’ve got years left in you yet. I read about a woman in her fifties giving birth a few days ago.”

“Not. Something. I. Want. To. Do,” I said. “I’d like to look like the child’s parent when I pick them up from school and not be mistaken for their grandmother. Now’s not the right time to be thinking about this anyway.”

“You still thinking about America?” he said, frowning enough so that a faint line appeared on his head. Clearly the Botox was due for a top-up.

“Jerry’s mentioned there would be an opening at Johns Hopkins in September next year, as their World War One specialist is taking retirement. There’s no guarantee I’d get it, but it’s an option,” I said, confiding in him with something I’d been keeping as a small hope, a wish for some good luck, finally.

“A lot can happen between now and then,” Jacob said. “You might finally see sense and change solicitors, getting this inheritance that is yours and not your God-awful brother’s.”

He referred back to the small matter of a few hundred thousand sitting in a bank account while my brother continued to throw reasons for ignoring my grandfather's wishes that it should go to me. Unfortunately, my brother also had a hideous wife who had some money of her own and was determined to add to it. Secretly, I thought the only reason she’d married Francis was because of the promise of his inheritance. I couldn’t think of any other reason why a woman would’ve touched him, even wearing surgical gloves.

“You’re right; I might. In the meantime, I suppose I need to smooth things over with Maxwell Callaghan,” I said with a sigh.

Jacob looked at me, his head cocked to one side. “You’ve run out of insults. You didn’t give him a middle name.”

“I’m trying to be professional.”

He laughed loudly. I joined him.