Love and Learn (Voretti Family Book 2) Read online

  “I know Diamon would never have taken you on as a teaching assistant if I hadn’t recommended you. You’ve never even taken a Human Sexuality class.”

  Her heart was going so fast she could no longer keep track of the beats, though she knew exactly what they were trying to tell her. Listen to the man. Even if he is a jerk.

  Instead, she clutched the Evolution of Human Sexuality textbook to her chest and gave her heart strict instructions to slow down. She was not going to pass out. Not in the middle of the Powell lobby, while undergrads streamed toward the lecture hall. “But you did recommend me. And now it’s too late for me to get another TA assignment.”

  “I’ll explain everything to Diamon. And I’ll take over your sections until he can find someone else.”

  “What about me?”

  Christian gave her a blank look. “You get out of TAing a class you never wanted in the first place. Now that we’re not together…” His voice trailed off, his gaze following a blonde undergrad with an impressive display of cleavage. “I’m sure you can see it would be best for everyone if we weren’t forced to work so closely together.”

  Translation—you were such a terrible lay, I don’t ever want to see you again.

  The windowless lobby area—stuffy under the best of circumstances—closed in on her. Her ribs followed suit, tightening around her lungs, and she wanted more than anything to agree. Why should she spend her last quarter in graduate school TAing for a class whose mere name made her internal organs shut down in terror?

  But she’d been avoiding the class for her entire five years at San Diego University, TAing for every single other undergraduate course offered by the Evolutionary Biology department. Avoiding everything to do with sex hadn’t helped her get over her hangups. Maybe, if she forced herself to do this, she could finally have a normal relationship. A normal life.

  The crazed thumping inside her chest slowed a notch below heart-attack level, and she pulled in a breath. “I need to TA this class, Christian. It has nothing to do with you.”

  The look on his face—one part annoyance, two parts confusion—was almost worth it.

  “But Amy is seriously considering a thesis project on the evolutionary roots of BDSM. Do you really think it’s fair to take the position away from someone with a genuine interest?”

  “I have just as much interest in the material as Amy. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I don’t want to be late for the first lecture.” She pushed through the heavy double doors into the dimly lit lecture hall.

  With several minutes remaining before class started, the room was only half full. She chose the middle seat in the completely empty front row.

  Diamon looked up from the laptop he was setting up on the podium. “Anna? Christian told me you’d taken a different teaching assignment.”

  “I’m afraid that was a miscommunication. I’m really looking forward to TAing for this class.”

  “And you’re certain you’re…comfortable with the material?”

  “Of course.” She ignored the pulse fluttering way up in her throat. Probably, Diamon asked all his new TAs that same question. There was no way Christian had shared the details of their disastrous sexual encounter with his research advisor.

  “And you’ve reviewed those supplementary papers I passed along?”

  “Absolutely.” Not only had she read every single one, she’d highlighted the key passages and taken color-coded notes.

  “And you understood Haselton and Miller’s theory regarding the way women’s mating preferences change according to their ovulatory cycle?”

  “Yes. Although I have to confess that I found Gangestad’s thoughts on the subject more compelling.”

  “Hmm. Interesting.” Diamon nodded, like she’d passed an important test. He pressed a button on his laptop, and the title of his lecture blinked to life on the giant screen at the front of the room. The Evolution of Recreational Sex. “That should get their attention, don’t you think?”

  Her cheeks warmed.

  She held her breath, trying to reverse her body’s automatic response, but it was no use. Heat spread from her scalp, moving inexorably down her body until even her toes had to be bright pink. At least Diamon had the lights set to presentation mode, leaving the seating area in shadows.

  She glanced to either side. None of the students were close enough to notice her freak-out; in the time-honored manner of the hung-over, the undergrads were filling in seats starting in the back. Diamon was tapping at his smartphone, oblivious to her blush.

  Finally, the fire blazing over her skin died down. She cleared her throat. “You’re right. That will keep everyone awake.”

  She sounded almost normal.

  So she’d blushed a little. A year ago, when her advisor had first suggested she TA for the class, she’d run out of his office, then sent him an email begging for a reassignment.

  Now she was here. She wasn’t dizzy or nauseous. She’d already confronted Christian, which meant the worst was behind her. She was finally making progress. Finally ready to put the past behind her.

  She swiveled around, taking the opportunity to survey the students she was soon to be teaching. Hunkered in their seats, mainlining coffee, they looked young and impressionable and much too worried about their own lives to question her qualifications as a teaching assistant. They’d happily absorb her insights about the material without even considering that it came from detailed study of the textbook rather than hands-on experience with the source material.

  Though the back two-thirds of the lecture hall was nearly full, the stragglers charged toward the few remaining seats, scrambling over backpacks and messenger bags. All except one student, who ambled down the center aisle toward the front.

  He scanned the room. Though Annabelle was too far away to get more than the vaguest impression of broad shoulders and dark eyes, she knew the minute he saw her.

  He went totally still, like the sight of her was so overwhelming he couldn’t handle anything else.

  Awareness slammed into her. Her skin flushed and her knees went weak.

  She forced her gaze away. Dragged in a breath.

  Get a grip, Annabelle. Yes, TAing for this class is scary, but better to deal with that fear head on than to manufacture some ridiculous lust-at-first-sight distraction.

  That stern mental voice was usually enough to set her back on the right path, but today her rebellious body tuned it out like the rest of the conversations around her. Though her gaze was now safely focused on the screen, she saw the dark-eyed student instead of Diamon’s slides. His close-cropped hair. That hint of stubble she must have imagined, because she couldn’t possibly have seen it all the way across the dim lecture hall.

  He was watching her. She could feel it.

  You’re being ridiculous.

  She must have been even more stressed about the class than she thought, because her brain was in full-on distraction mode, even manufacturing the sound of the dark-eyed student’s footsteps. He was coming toward her. Closer. Closer.

  The footsteps stopped.

  He was right next to her. There was no other way to explain why she was having so much trouble with instinctive bodily functions, like swallowing and breathing.

  Turn around, and you’ll see he’s still half way across the room.

  She finally found enough muscle control to turn her head. And there he was, not two feet from her, watching her intently.

  Almost like he knew her. Like he was waiting for her to recognize him.

  She shivered. He looked almost like—

  “Annabelle.” His voice poured over her, warm and rough and devastating.

  Ty.

  Her mouth went dry. Her heart raced ahead of her brain, which was still trying to figure out what was going on. It couldn’t be Ty. Not here. Not now.

  Asking him to prom seven years ago had been her first big mistake, the bad decision that set her on the road toward that terrible night with Christian. She hadn’t seen Ty since then. No w
ay had he just happened to drop in on the class she was TAing.

  She was going to take a closer look and realize this guy was actually a student from the Evolution of Infectious Diseases class she’d TAed last quarter. Then she’d give herself a blistering mental lecture on getting over it. This obsession with Ty had to stop.

  She turned in her seat, facing him head on. “I’m sorry. Can I help—”

  The rest of the sentence curled up and died inside her throat.

  He was seven years older—a man instead of a boy. Sexy stubble covered his jaw, and he had enough tough, corded muscles to kick his high-school self’s ass, but those piercing green eyes were straight out of her memories. Her dreams. Her tall, dark, and handsome fairytale prince.

  If only someone had explained back in high school that fairytales only tell the shiny, happy side of the story. They tell you about the big, romantic date to the ball, but don’t mention the morning after, when your prince decides it was a big mistake. They skip the part where he’s so keen to avoid you that he enlists in the military and gets himself shipped half a world away. They don’t tell you about his weekly letters and emails—the ones you keep reading on the off chance he’ll say he made a huge mistake, and if you’ll wait for him to come home, he’ll never leave you again for the rest of your life.

  And they definitely skip the worst part. That you write back to him every single time. Because there’s this little part of you that still believes in the fairytale. That is certain, despite all logic, that one day your prince will wake up, remember that dance back in high school, and want to pick up where you left off.

  “Annabelle? You okay?”

  “I’m fine.” Her voice was thin and wavering and several octaves higher than its normal pitch.

  Somehow, after all this time, Ty was here.

  “Missed you, sweetheart.” He smiled, and it was like the sun had finally come out after seven years of winter—it was too stinking bright and she wasn’t prepared.

  He took blatant advantage of her confusion, pulling her out of her seat.

  His strong arms maneuvered her gawky limbs to the perfect angle, so that they fit together as easily as the prince and princess dancing their way to happily-ever-after on the last page of a fairytale.

  Panic blazed through her skull, incinerating those foolish daydreams. She couldn’t do this. Not again.

  She shoved Ty back. “What are you doing here?”

  CHAPTER 3

  TY HAD PICTURED this reunion roughly two hundred and thirty-nine times in the past two months. He’d imagined it while he was boxing all his possessions for the cross-country move. He’d gone through it on the long drive in the U-Haul. And he’d definitely thought about it when he’d emailed Annabelle his weekly update, conveniently forgetting to mention his location so he wouldn’t ruin the surprise.

  He’d known she wasn’t going to jump into his arms and promise to love him forever. Not after the jackass way he’d taken off back in high school. But never once in his imagination had she asked why he’d come to see her.

  Good thing the SEAL teams had taught him to think on his feet. “I enrolled at SDU starting with this summer’s session. Figured I might as well use that GI Bill. I would’ve told you, but I wanted it to be a surprise. Only, you know—the happy kind.”

  “I…you…” Those delicate blue eyes widened. “Wait a minute. You’re in this class?”

  “In your section, too.”

  “You’re in my section?”

  “Is that weird? I can switch.”

  “No. That’s okay.” She crossed her arms over her chest.

  Was she cold? He started to take off his jacket to give to her, except—damn the always-perfect San Diego weather—he wasn’t wearing one.

  He fought the urge to wrap her in his arms again. To demand to know why she was frowning so he could kill the asshole responsible.

  The asshole is you, asshole.

  No, that didn’t make sense. They’d written or emailed every week for the past seven years. They were friends.

  Yeah. As long as you’re a minimum of two-thousand miles away.

  He shoved the voice deep into his subconscious.

  He was finally back with Annabelle, where he belonged. She’d been his lifeline through his injury even though she’d been thousands of miles away. Now she was right in front of him, so close he could touch her. Except, that cold glare was telling him in no uncertain terms to keep his hands to himself.

  He should’ve known she didn’t like surprises. Why hadn’t he known that? “Sorry. I shouldn’t have sprung this on you all at once. I didn’t want to say anything until I knew it was going to work out, and then—”

  “No.” She took a deep breath, and now she looked more like he’d imagined. “I’m sorry. I’m always nervous on the first day of class. And I wasn’t expecting to see you.”

  “No reason to be nervous. You’ll do great.”

  “I don’t know. I’m not really up on the material. Diamon didn’t give me the syllabus until last week.” Her forehead was all wrinkled, like it used to get back in Chem lab, when she was trying to measure exactly five milliliters of hydrochloric acid. She’d never liked his suggestion that they guestimate.

  He grinned. “You’re over-thinking this. You’ll be lucky if anyone has opened the textbook yet.”

  “Just because you faked your way through every class doesn’t mean everyone else does too.” Her exasperated expression was so comfortingly familiar that he wanted to kiss every inch of those pursed lips.

  She didn’t think he was broken. And, when she looked at him like that, he wasn’t. He was the same Tyler MacKinnon who’d convinced the principal to set a staff in-service day for his birthday because he wanted to go to the beach. “You’ll be fine, sweetheart. If you could ace lab with me dragging you down, you can help a few hung-over undergrads with their homework.”

  “It’s just this class. I’ve been stressing about it for the last month.”

  He hadn’t gotten a hint of that in her emails. She’d described every detail of Professor Massey’s chicken walk when he tramped out of the monthly Evolutionary Biology Department seminar because the guest speaker’s research contradicted his own findings. She’d given him a play-by-play of her parents’ blowup when her little sister Liv had shown up for family dinner drunk. But she hadn’t even mentioned she was TAing Evolution of Human Sexuality. He’d gotten that bit of intelligence from the online course catalog.

  At the time, he hadn’t thought much of it, but now it seemed like a huge, blinking neon sign he’d walked right past. “So what’s the deal with this class?”

  “No deal. It’s…” She pulled out her cell phone, glanced at the screen, and cut herself off. “I don’t want to go into it now. Class is about to start.”

  “Lunch after? We can catch up.”

  She waited a beat to respond, turning away from him to face the front. “I can’t. I have my first section tonight, and I need to prepare.”

  “Come on—I know you. You had that textbook highlighted from cover to cover weeks ago.”

  Though she wasn’t looking at him, he could see the tension straining her shoulders. What the ever loving fuck was going on?

  “Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think you do.”

  The perfect joking follow-up that would diffuse this tension he couldn’t explain was on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t get it out. Because he didn’t know her. That was obvious now. He had no idea why she was sweating this class. She hadn’t even wanted him to know she was teaching it. She might have written to him every week, but she hadn’t given him more than a superficial glimpse into her life.

  And he hadn’t even noticed.

  Well, now that he was here, that was going to change. He was in her life now, and he was planning on staying.

  “I’ll see you tonight,” he said. “We can talk more then.”

  “Tonight?”

  “I’m in your section, remember?”
>
  “Oh. Of course.”

  His leg was starting to bother him, so he sat next to her. The hinges in the old chair creaked in protest, but Annabelle didn’t even glance his way. Instead, she rummaged through her bag, pulling out more notebooks, folders, and highlighters than should be able to fit into the slim leather satchel. When she’d completely emptied the bag and had yet to turn his way, he finally got it.

  She was trying not to look at him.

  His muscles twitched with the urge to bridge the distance, but he finally got what the universe was telling him. Annabelle needed some time and space to get used to the idea that he was back in her life.

  Okay—he could back off for now. He’d give her the five hours until section to adjust. Then he was going in.

  No way was he walking away. Not when being with Annabelle felt so right.

  *

  “Where have you been? I’ve been calling for hours.”

  Ty grinned at the sound of his sister’s frantic voice coming over the line. Whether Keri was calling to see if he wanted to catch a movie or to make sure he’d survived a terrorist bombing, it was always an emergency. “I was in class. You want me to get busted for using my cell phone on my very first day?”

  “I forgot today was your first day. How did it go? Wait—don’t tell me yet. First, we have a bit of a…situation to deal with.”

  Ty leaned back against the stucco wall next to the San Diego University sign, enjoying the sun. “Trap it under a glass and then move it outside. Most spiders can’t hurt you.”

  “For goodness sake, Ty, I’m not talking about a spider. It’s Sean.”

  The gentle light transformed into the harsh glare of the desert sun. Ty’s heart slammed into his ribcage. He was surrounded by smoke and dust and deafening noise. Blood and burnt flesh.

  He had to find Sean. He had to—

  The I-spent-all-night-partying rasp of a passing student startled him out of his waking nightmare.

  “…so I told her to buy her own drink,” the guy was saying to his buddy. “If she’s not down to fuck, I’m not interested.”

  Ty focused on the fraternity insignia on Asshole One’s shirt. He was in San Diego, not the Middle East. Sean was here too. Whatever his drama-queen sister was freaking out about, it wasn’t an IED blast or a firefight.