“It was crushingly obvious,” she snapped. “Héloise was seduced and abandoned by her professor. Your message was crystal clear!”
“But the textbook…” he began. He searched her eyes. “The photograph.”
“I found it tonight when I was unpacking my books.” Her expression softened. “Before this, I thought you were telling me that you’d tired of me.”
“Forgive me,” he managed. His words were woefully inadequate, but they came from the heart. “I…Julianne, I need to expl—”
“We should go inside,” she interrupted, peering up at the windows of her apartment.
He reached out to take her hand but thought better of it, letting his arm drop to his side.
The thunder and lightning continued as they climbed the stairs. By the time they entered the studio apartment, the lights had flickered and gone out.
“I wonder if it’s just this building,” Julia mused. “Or if it’s the whole street.”
Gabriel murmured his response, watching impotently as she felt her way across the room. She pulled back the blinds to let in as much light as possible. Mount Auburn Street was dark.
“We could go somewhere with electricity.” His voice sounded at her elbow, and she jumped.
“Sorry.” He placed a hand on her arm.
“I’d rather stay here.”
Gabriel resisted the urge to insist, realizing that he was in no position to demand that Julia do anything. He looked around the room.
“Do you have a flashlight or some candles?”
“Both, I think.” She found a flashlight and handed Gabriel a towel while she retreated to the bathroom to change into dry clothes. By the time she’d returned, he was seated on the futon, surrounded by a half-dozen tea lights, which were spread artfully on the furniture and across the floor.
Julia watched the shadows flicker on the wall behind him. Unearthly shapes seemed to hover around him, as if he were trapped in Dante’s Inferno. The lines on his forehead had deepened, it seemed, and his eyes appeared larger. He hadn’t shaved recently, the scruff of his beard covering the planes of his face. He’d smoothed his damp hair back with his fingers, but a single curl had rebelled, clinging stubbornly to his forehead.
Julia had forgotten how attractive he was. How, with just a glance or a word he could make her blood heat. He was as dangerous as he was beautiful.
Gabriel reached out to pull her to sit next to him, but she curled into the opposite corner.
“I found a corkscrew and a bottle of wine. I hope you don’t mind.” He handed her a glass that was half-full of an inexpensive Shiraz. She was surprised he’d bothered, for it was the kind of wine he would have disdained in the past.
She took several long sips, savoring the wine on her tongue. She waited for him to cough, sputter, and complain about the appalling bathwater. But he didn’t. In fact, he didn’t drink at all. Instead, he stared at her, his eyes coming to rest unapologetically on the swell of her breasts.
“Are you changing schools?” His voice sounded husky.
“What?”
He gestured to her sweatshirt.
She looked down. Boston College.
“No, Paul gave this to me. He went there for his master’s, remember?”
Gabriel stiffened. “I gave you a sweatshirt once,” he observed, more to himself than to her.
Julia took another long sip of wine, wishing there was more of it.
He watched her drink, his eyes resting on her mouth and throat. “Do you still have my Harvard sweatshirt?”
“Let’s talk about something else.”
He shifted uncomfortably but couldn’t drag his gaze away from her. He longed to run his hands up and down her body and press their mouths together. “What do you think about Boston University?”
She looked over at him warily. In response to her suspicion, the bravado seemed to leak out of his gaze and he chewed at the edge of his mouth.
“Katherine Picton told me to introduce myself to the Dante specialist in the Department of Romance Studies. But I haven’t gotten around to it. I’ve been busy.”
“Then I need to thank her.”
“Why?”
He hesitated.
“I’m the new Dante specialist at Boston University.”
He searched her eyes for a reaction. But there wasn’t one. She sat very still, the candlelight flickering over her fine features.
He chuckled mirthlessly, pouring more wine into her glass. “That isn’t the response I was hoping for.”
She muttered her annoyance, tasting the wine again. “So you’re—here to stay?”
“That depends.” He looked at her sweatshirt significantly.
The heat of his gaze seemed to scorch her. She resisted the urge to hide her breasts from him, keeping her arms at her sides.
“I’m a full professor now. Romance Studies doesn’t have a graduate program in Italian. The university wanted to be able to attract graduate students in Dante studies, so they cross-appointed me with Religion. They have a graduate program.”
He gazed at the shadows that surrounded them, shaking his head. “Surprising, isn’t it? That a man who spent his life running from God should become a professor of Religion.”