The teaching assistants were good at helping me fend off questions at the end of lectures, but that still left me with a string of students out the door, which after thirty minutes since the end of my lectures, I was only just finished with. I enjoyed their enthusiasm and clever questions. They had time to think, discuss, and debate—I’d forgotten how thrilling and stimulating being a student could be. I’d felt like them once, back when it hadn’t become a job, when it hadn’t taken over my life. Occasionally, the questions got a little personal. I was surprised at how confident some of the women were in asking me about my relationship status, but I managed to be suitably vague without encouraging them or lying.
When the final student had left, the teaching assistants and I picked up the leftover handouts and headed out. Ready to lock up my office, I was looking forward to my second full weekend in New York. For the first time in as long as I could remember, I had nothing specific to do.
“Is this your first time in New York City?” Gideon, one of the teaching assistants, asked.
“I came once as a student, but that was a long time ago. I’ve never worked anywhere but London.”
“I would love to work in England. And France,” he replied. “Perhaps in Asia. I see myself as some kind of nomadic law professor eventually.”
I hoped he’d fulfill his dream. It seemed so much more sophisticated than mine had been at his age. I’d just wanted to get a tenancy and start earning some money. I never thought beyond that—I’d simply walked the path my father had walked. Looking back, it seemed so pedestrian.
“We’re all going for a drink, if you’d like to join us,” he said as we came out of the double doors and into the main corridor.
“I—”
I stopped dead in my tracks. Violet stood directly opposite, leaning on the wall looking straight at me. My heart began to pound. Christ, she was beautiful. Had she been waiting for me? Was she here to talk?
Whatever she wanted, I didn’t want to hear it in front of my TA. I turned to Gideon, and he held out his hand to take the papers I was carrying. “I’m sorry; I can’t make this evening. Another time. Enjoy your weekend,” I said.
He nodded and went on his way, the chatter of the TAs mellowing the further away they got.
I turned back to Violet. She smiled, but it wasn’t her breezy office smile. This was intimate, knowing. “Hi, Professor Knightley.”
“Violet King, fancy meeting you here.” It was so good to see her, to reanimate the memories I constantly replayed in my mind. It comforted me to see she was still the same, to know her curves would still fit against my body in the perfect way they always had.
She tilted her head. “I had to come and see if it were true. Had the Alexander Knightley really decided to come Stateside to teach?”
God, I’d missed her teasing—she never let me take myself too seriously. “Well, here I am.”
“You were very impressive in there.” She lifted her chin in the direction of the lecture hall.
Had she been in my lecture? “I’m not sure what you expected.” I wanted to reach out and touch her, to pull her close and never let her go.
“I suppose you were who I thought you’d be.”
I smiled. “I’m very glad that your expectations weren’t completely dashed.”
“Not completely.” She held my gaze as if she wanted to say more. “Anyway,” she said, pushing off the wall and standing straight. “I heard you were new on campus. I thought you might need a tour, an orientation of sorts.”
I narrowed my eyes. Was she trying to be my friend? Did she want to talk? I didn’t care as long as she was here. “I was just thinking that an orientation was just what I needed.”
Silently, we started toward the exit.
When we got to the doors, I held one open as she walked through and out into the frigid, fresh air and toward the quad. I followed, and as we started down the stone steps she began to speak. “Before I left London, on that Saturday night when you came back late—”
“You will never know how sorry I am. If I had just set an alarm—”
“I know. But I need to say I’m sorry to have left like I did. I was trying to act like it was no big deal.”
I exhaled, conflicted because as much as I missed her, I knew that she’d been right to leave. I was desperately sorry I’d let her down, but her leaving me had been exactly what I needed. “You did the right thing,” I said.
We stopped at the bottom of the steps, and I watched as she looked out over the quad, avoiding my stare.
“You didn’t want me to stay?” she asked.
I took a deep breath, keeping my hands in my pockets to stop myself from reaching out. “I have learned a great deal since you came into my life. First and foremost that you deserve to have a wonderful life with someone who worships and adores you. I also learned that I didn’t know how to do that, not properly at least.” I sighed. “I don’t think you made the wrong decision by leaving, Violet. I wouldn’t have been the man you needed me to be. The man you deserved. Not then.”
“And now?” She lowered her gaze to the floor and balled her hands into fists.
“I want things to be different. I’m trying. I want to prove that I’m more than a barrister.”
She gazed up at me, a crease between her eyebrows as if she wasn’t sure she’d heard me.
“I’m just trying to take each day at a time; to spend these weeks in New York proving to you that I can be a man who deserves a woman like you. I know I want to be that man. But I need practice. I just know that I’m not ready to let you go. I won’t ever be ready.”
“That’s why you left London?” Her gaze dipped to where I had my hands pushed into my pockets.
“I didn’t want to pursue a profession that required me to sacrifice everything else in my life. And . . .” I couldn’t hold back any longer. I reached out and trailed the back of my finger down her cheek, then lifted her chin so she was looking at me. “I came for you. To show you how I feel. I’ve never wanted a woman like I want you—I didn’t realize I was capable of these feelings.”
The delicate blush that bloomed across her cheek was something I’d savor forever.
“You leaving was a huge wake-up call for me. It almost broke me. I’ll never be the same again. But when you left, it forced me off the relentless road I’d been on. For the first time, I’m doing what I want to do rather than what I feel I should be doing.”
“And now you’re here.”
“I am, for you and for me. I want to prove to you how serious I am about you.”
She put her finger on my lips, silencing me.
“I left London because I knew that however much you wanted to do anything else, you were hardwired to put work first.”
I nodded. She was completely right.
“But now you’re here . . . I don’t know what to think anymore. I never imagined you’d leave chambers for a weekend, let alone three months. It makes me think that you’re right, that maybe something has shifted for you. Maybe there’s a chance . . .”
My instinct was to push, to ask her to take me back, to try again to see if we worked. But I wanted her to want it as much as I did.
Her gaze fluttered around the campus behind me as if she were searching for answers. “You’ve switched on this part of me that lay dormant for a long time—the bit that wants to look forward to the future. But whenever I picture what lies in front of me, I’m always standing next to you.”
I had to close my eyes for fear that I was dreaming. Did this beautiful, accomplished woman want to take a chance on me?