Page 14 of The Naughty Professor
I reached my car, fumbling for my keys with shaking hands.They slipped once, twice before I jammed them into the lock.I slid into the driver’s seat, slammed the door, and dropped my forehead onto the steering wheel, my glasses falling to the floorboard.
My breath came in shuddering gasps.
“I’m nothing.A fucking nobody.”
The tears came hot and fast, dripping onto my hands clenched tight around the wheel.
And then, between sobs, a thought surfaced.A bitter, desperate truth.
To hell with it.
I had nothing to lose.
Grandma was wrong.I wasn’t the spitting image of my father.I wasn’t handsome or charming or worth noticing.No haircut or new shirt or trip to the gym would change that.
But Hargreaves’s formula…
If he’d given a broken woman six months of life, even at the cost of her future, wasn’t that better than never living at all?
I swiped at my eyes, staring through the windshield at the blurry glow of the neon sign.
“I’m going to make it,” I whispered to myself.My voice was hoarse but steady.“I’m going to make Hargreave’s serum.I don’t care what it costs.”
Fear pricked at the edges of my mind—fear of what could go wrong, of ending up like that woman, hollow and broken.But fear was nothing new.I’d lived with it my whole life.
What I couldn’t live with anymore was being invisible.
ChapterFive
Thorne
The stack of essays on my lap blurred together, the words bleeding into one another like a watercolor gone wrong.I set down my pen, stretched until my spine cracked, and yawned so hard my jaw popped.
The condo was silent except for the hum of the refrigerator in the next room.My gaze drifted across the living room to the flat-screen mounted on the wall.A thin layer of dust coated the top edge, visible even in the soft lamplight.
How long had it been since I had turned it on?Weeks, probably.Maybe months.I preferred a book anyway.At least a book made you think.
I pushed the essays aside, rubbing my eyes.
That’s when my phone buzzed against the coffee table.
I glanced at it.Joan.
A groan escaped me before I could stop it.Joan Stanwyk hadn’t given me a moment’s peace since the divorce.When Mark and I had split, she’d been a lifeline—dragging me out of my apartment, forcing me to eat, making sure I didn’t drown myself in bourbon and work.She’d been a friend when I needed one most.
But now?It was relentless.Calls, texts, invitations to dinner.At first, I told myself it was kindness.But lately, I couldn’t shake the suspicion that she wanted something more.
But she knows I’m gay, I thought.She knows.
I let the call go to voicemail.
A second later, another notification chimed, higher pitched.The unmistakable ping of the dating app TrueMatch.
I groaned again, pinching the bridge of my nose.
Every date I’d been on from that app had been a disaster.Men who looked nothing like their pictures, men who only wanted a quick hookup, men who thought “intellectual conversation” meant listing off their favorite Marvel movies.
I ignored it, grabbed the essays again, and tried to focus.
