“Absolutely,” she finally replied. “I’m at the library and can come now if that will work.”
Ten minutes later, when Serena walked into the English building, the woman from the phone gave her a warm smile. “Serena, we really appreciate you coming in this quickly. If you could follow me, I’d like to introduce you to Professor Cynthia Adams.”
Standing in an office doorway, an attractive middle-aged woman in a well-tailored black suit held out a hand. “Serena, it’s lovely to meet you.”
“It’s nice to meet you, too,” she replied, though she still had no idea what was going on.
“I apologize,” Professor Adams said as the receptionist left the room and closed the door behind her with a soft click. “I should have asked them to let you know before you walked in that I have taken over your History and Theory of the Novel class.”
As a model, Serena had been trained to control her expressions under every possible circumstance. But even that didn’t mean she could contain her surprise today. “But what about Professor Fairworth?”
The woman’s expression twisted into one of pure revulsion. “I believe he has decided to take a sabbatical.”
“He has?” Serena knew she must be making a terrible first impression, but she was so shocked that she couldn’t pull herself together.
“He has.” Her new professor looked more than a little angry as she said, “He admitted to what he tried to get you to agree to, Serena, and for the way he inappropriately spoke to you and touched you. I’m very sorry you had to go through that.”
“I was just about to come here to report what happened.”
“I’m glad to hear that, because they will likely need to interview you about the incident, or incidents as the case may be, to make sure they have everything well documented. But for now, I thought you might like to know that it is extremely unlikely that he will return to teaching at the end of his break. Here or anywhere else.”
Now that she’d had a few seconds for it to sink in, relief—and pure joy—broke through. “Thank you for telling me all of this.” She couldn’t stop smiling and couldn’t wait to tell Sean the amazing news.
“Now,” Professor Adams said as she opened up a file that had Serena’s name on the tab, “I know you recently gave your midterm presentation on the Brontë sisters. However, because I haven’t yet had the pleasure of working with you, I’d appreciate it if you’d be willing to repeat it for me. Early next week, perhaps, so that I have some time to settle in with the class first?”
“That would be great.” Serena could hardly believe her good luck. Everything that had gone so wrong had completely turned around to be even better than she could have imagined. “Thank you so much.”
“I must warn you, however, that I am going to have very high expectations.” She pulled out a set of papers. “I read the paper you wrote a couple of weeks ago on the same subject. My specialty is Jane Austen, but I know enough about the Brontës to be very impressed with your initial analysis of their impact on the modern novel.”
Serena was so bowled over by the unexpected praise—Professor Fairworth had told her that her paper had only skimmed the surface—that she almost didn’t realize why the woman’s name was so familiar. “You’re the leading academic in the field of Early Romantic literature. Your book last year on Jane Austen was pure genius!”
Professor Adams grinned. “I’m sure there are several people who might like to lay claim to leading, and who might argue with genius, but just between you and me, I’ll take them both.”
A handful of minutes later, after Serena had admitted to being a total fangirl who had read everything the professor had ever written, she all but skipped out of the English Department.
* * *
“Thank you.” Serena got to the stadium just as Sean was walking out of the locker room. She threw herself into his arms and kissed him, loving the way he smelled of soap and totally yummy him.
“You’re welcome.” He kissed her again, before he drew back enough to ask, “What great thing did I do now?”
She laughed. “You know what you did. And even if his career is ruined, the truth is he brought it on himself.”
“Wait a minute, did something happen with your professor? I didn’t think you had class with him today. You know I wanted to go with you the next time.”
“It wasn’t class. The English Department called me in for a meeting. The thing is, I was already going to see them. I decided they needed to know what happened.”
“There’s nothing you won’t face down, is there? But if you’re the one who got him fired, then why are you thanking me?”
Finally, she realized he’d meant it when he said he didn’t know what was going on. “Fairworth is already gone. I didn’t even have to say anything, because they already knew! And now I have a new professor. A really nice woman, who happens to have written the definitive book on Jane Austen and is a legend. And on top of all of that amazingness, she told me she was impressed with my paper on the Brontë sisters. Very impressed!”
“Seriously, do you have any idea how hot it is when you start talking about books?” He pulled her closer. “Tell me more about these Brontë sisters.”
He always made her laugh—and burn so hot, too. She loved it, but she also needed to know, “What do you think happened?”
“I don’t know for sure yet. Although—” He pulled out his phone. “—Drew sent me this text earlier. Now I’m wondering if this is what he was talking about.” He showed it to her.
SMITH TOOK CARE OF IT
At her confused expression, he said, “I was talking to Drew about how Smith wants his songs on the soundtrack to his new movie, and of course my brother asked about you. I mentioned that you’d had trouble with a professor. We talked about a few possible plans to deal with the guy that I was going to run by you, but I’m guessing he said something to Smith before that. And now the guy is history.”
Amazing. She didn’t just have the Morrisons behind her. She had the Sullivans, too. Not to mention Abi, who had offered at least a dozen times to ambush Fairworth and kick him in the balls hard enough that he wouldn’t have any reason to hit on a student ever again. That is, when Abi wasn’t raving about how gorgeous and perfect and sexy Drew Morrison was.