“What are you doing here?”
“Well, I figured that dinner may be a little too soon, so I thought you’d be more comfortable with lunch or coffee. I’m inclined to have both, but it depends on you.” She closed up her notebooks and began shoving them in her large bag, getting to her feet.
“I would really appreciate it if you didn’t keep stalking me.” She went to move past him, but he stopped her with a hand on her arm.
“I have a proposition for you. One I think you’re going to really want to hear.”
She pulled her arm out of his hold, and glanced around to see if anyone saw that.
“I don’t think there’s anything I want to hear you say. We don’t know each other, not really.”
He folded his arms, and, satisfied that she’d shut him up, she went to move away. “How would your mother feel if her job was given to someone else?”
She froze on the spot, and slowly turned to look at him. “No.”
Tobias shrugged. “There are a lot of people who need a job. Probably more qualified.”
“She’s good at what she does.”
“So are a lot of people.”
“What do you want?” she asked.
“A coffee.”
“You’re blackmailing me for a coffee?”
“I tried to be nice, and you wouldn’t buy it, so I’m stepping up my game.”
She held her bag tightly on her shoulder, and took a deep breath before returning her gaze to his. “Fine.”
“Excellent. My car is waiting.”
“There’s a perfectly good coffee shop there,” she said, pointing toward the one near the campus.
“Not going to happen. I like good coffee. Come on, let’s go.”
He moved up behind her, and placed a hand on her back as he moved her toward his waiting limousine. She felt special in a twisted kind of way.
His touch affected her, and she tried to step away from his hand, but he wouldn’t let her. His control, his ultimatum, his touch—it opened up that rift within her, that dark place she wished didn’t exist. He opened the door for her, and she climbed inside. When he began to follow her in, she quickly moved over so she wasn’t too close to him. She needed to be strong to resist him. He only wanted her in his bed.
Holding her bag in her lap, he told the driver where to go before putting up the private partition that separated them from his driver. They were completely alone, and she didn’t have a clue what to say.
She couldn’t believe that he’d just blackmailed her by using her mother.
“That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
“I’d have preferred it if you’d not brought my mother into this. You know she’s good at her job.”
“I know she is. What do you have against spending some time with me?” he asked.
She took a deep breath. “We’re in completely different leagues.”
“No. I won’t calm down. Open the damn door now. I want out. I need out!”
She felt the anxiety attack begin to build. It had been years since she’d felt that clogging panic when she couldn’t breathe.
Calm down.
He’s not hurting you.
The limousine stopped, and the door finally opened when she pulled it. Bursting out of the limousine, she saw they’d stopped near an alleyway. Collapsing to the ground, she pressed her palms to the floor, not caring if it was dirty as her mind started to go fuzzy. Her stomach rolled, and she couldn’t quite get her head together.