A Kiss Remembered by Sandra Brown Page A

those lingering at the party to the front door. If he noticed heads curiously turning in his wake, he didn’t show it. Shelley only prayed that the color in her cheeks wasn’t as vivid as she felt it was and that her knees would continue to support her until they were at least through the front door.
    In fact, they held up until she reached the car. As soon as Grant opened the door of the passenger side she slumped into the seat, overcome by trembling.
    It wasn’t until Grant had sped down the lane to the main thoroughfare and wheeled the sports car into the sparse traffic that he said, “I’m starving. What sounds good to you? Pizza?”
    She turned her head to stare at him with incredulity. “Pizza! Grant, the chancellor of the university just threatened to fire you.”
    “Something he can’t do without a majority vote from the board. And despite the adverse publicity I’ve received and the aura of scandal that surrounds me, some of them are star-struck and want to keep me around. Others realize that I’m a damn good teacher.
    “The only thing that makes me mad as hell is what he said about you. That sanctimonious jackass. If he had the opportunity, don’t think he wouldn’t like to see you on a ‘social basis.’”
    “Grant!” Shelley cried before covering her face with her hands. Her obvious distress sobered him. After covering the distance to her house in silence, save for an occasional muffled sob from Shelley, he whipped the car to the curb and braked abruptly. His earlier suggestion about dinner was forgotten.
    For long moments they sat in stony silence. Grant’s profile, lit by the soft glow of the streetlight outside the car’s window, was just as forbidding as that of Chancellor Martin. Shelley gathered enough courage to say, “We can’t see each other anymore, Grant. Not like today.”
    He turned in the bucket seat to face her, his clothes making a rustling sound in the darkness. He braced his arm on the back of his seat and gave her a level stare. “You’re really going to let a parody of respectability like Martin keep us apart?”
    She exhaled wearily. “I know what he is, and if he didn’t hold the position he does, I wouldn’t give him or his opinion a thought. But he
is
the chancellor of the university and you
are
in his employ.”
    “There was no clause in my contract about whom I date.”
    “But it’s an unwritten law that teachers don’t date their students. I tried to tell you weeks ago what people around here would think of us. You wouldn’t listen. This isn’t the more progressive-thinking East or West Coast. This is mid-America. Such things just aren’t done.”
    “What are we doing that’s so bad?” he shouted, finally losing the composure he’d tried so hard to hold on to. When he saw her flinch, he cursed under his breath and let out a long, exasperated sigh. “I’m sorry. I’m not angry at you.”
    “I know,” she said quietly. It was the hopelessness of the situation that angered him.
    Grant found it hard to admit to that, however. “I don’t want another upheaval in my life. Hell, that’s the last thing I want. I especially don’t want one that could in any way touch you. But dammit, I can’t give you up either.”
    “You’ll have to. How do you think I’d feel if you lost your job on account of me? Do you think I could live with that?”
    “I’ve lived through much worse, Shelley. Believe me, I’m a survivor. It wouldn’t bother me.”
    “Well, it would bother me a great deal.” She placed her hand on the door handle. “Good-bye, Grant.”
    He caught her arm with a hand like a steel talon. “I won’t let them force us apart no matter what they threaten. And I won’t let you throw it all away. Shelley, I need you. I want you. And I know you want me just as much.”
    His other hand shot across the interior of the car and caught the back of her neck, hauling her against him. “No—” she managed to force out before he clamped his mouth