Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Rachel Moore stared at Dr. Taylor just a little too intensely. She had always been an attentive student, and, after all, he was standing in front of a lecture hall full of students; it was natural to pay attention. She was sure her classmates didn’t notice anything strange about the way she was looking at him. But she noticed. She loved chemistry and was fascinated by it. She knew what it felt like to be completely absorbed in a lecture—but this wasn’t that. In fact, she was only half-listening to what Dr. Taylor had to say. It had been that way for weeks.

Of course, she always reviewed the lecture slides as soon as she got back to her apartment in the grad student housing complex. Her grades were consistently stellar. But she wasn’t getting anything out of the lectures themselves. It wasn’t that Dr. Taylor was a bad teacher—quite the opposite, in fact. He was funny and charming, and very good with complicated explanations. That was probably why he was so highly rated on Ellison University’s teacher reviews website. The problem was that he was just too good-looking. He was quite possibly the most attractive man on campus, Rachel thought. If not on the entire island of Manhattan.

He looked thirty or so, but he didn’t dress like a lot of the younger professors, in jeans and corduroy jackets—if they wore jackets at all. Dr. Taylor was always professionally dressed, in a full suit and a maroon or navy tie. He was so put-together that Rachel couldn’t help wanting to rumple him up a little, to run her hands through his black hair—medium-length with a slight curl—until it was flying in all directions. Even with the layers of neatly ironed clothing he wore, it was obvious that he had a nice frame: slim but well-muscled. He was at least six feet tall, and probably closer to 6’3” or 6’4”—it was hard to tell from the back of the room, but Rachel had always been too nervous to get any closer. His brown eyes were piercing even from this distance; who knew what they could to her up close.

She knew that other girls in the class (and maybe some of the boys) had mild crushes on Dr. Taylor. She’d even giggled about him with her only friend in the class, Janelle, a couple of times. In fact, that was probably part of the reason he was so successful: Students who were attracted to him would have an added incentive to do well, since everyone wants their crush to think they’re smart. Plus, anyone who wanted to take the second half of Chemistry 405 with him in the spring needed to pass this semester first. But she was pretty sure no one else had it this bad. Nobody else was petrified at the thought of sitting closer to the professor, let alone talking to him.

She wasn’t usually this shy. Actually, she prided herself on being direct with men, even when she was attracted to them. But it was different with Dr. Taylor. Maybe it wasn’t just attraction, but also a hint of intimidation. She

Impressum

Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 25.08.2016
ISBN: 978-3-7396-7054-6

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