By Jove by Marissa Doyle Page A

recent.
    “Sorry for what?” she said, her voice too high and sincere.
    “I’m sorry I ran away last weekend when it all became too much for me.”
    “Oh, that. Well, it’s—it’s not a big deal. I understand if you—”
    He rubbed his chin and stared at her, and she wished she weren’t standing with her back to the wall.
    “You understand if I what?” There was an odd bleakness in his eyes.
    “If you don’t want—you know.” She colored and looked away. “If you don’t want me to—to love you,” she whispered, and tried to pull away again. “I shouldn’t have said it that afternoon. I didn’t mean to.”
    He gripped her shoulders and pulled her close. “No. You’re not running away. You were brave enough last time to talk. Now you’ll have to be brave enough to listen, before this gets any worse.”
    “Not here!” Not in front of everyone’s offices. She pushed against him.
    He let go of her reluctantly. “All right, not here.” He took her arm and shoved the stairwell door open, then froze. Julian stood there looking startled, his outstretched hand still reaching for the door handle. He blinked at them, then smiled.
    “Perfect! I was just looking for you, Theodora. Hello, Grant. Mind if I talk with Miss Fairchild here for a few minutes?” He looked at their faces. “Of course, if this is a bad time—”
    “No, Julian, it’s not.” Theo fought to steady her pounding heart as she looked at Grant. “I’ll talk to you later,” she said quietly.
    His mouth opened, then closed. With a nod, he pushed past them down the stairs.
    Julian was silent as he led her to his office, for which she was grateful. There were no windows in the stairwell doors, thank heavens, and the doors were thick, so he couldn’t have seen or heard any of their conversation. That would have been too embarrassing.
    “Drink, Theodora?”
    “Hmm?” She snapped her attention back to Julian.
    “I said, would you like a drink? Sun’s over the yardarm—what sun there is, this time of year—and I for one could do with a bracer.” He opened a cabinet behind his desk and waved a glass at her.
    A bracer. That sounded like what she needed too. “Yes, I would, thank you.”
    He opened another door in the cabinet, and she was amused to see a wine refrigerator behind it. “I’ll bet that’s not standard university equipment, even for department heads.”
    He smiled as he pulled out a bottle and uncorked it. “No, it’s not. It’s my own addition. We classicists are a thirsty lot. Surely you’d noticed?” He poured two glasses of light golden liquid and brought them around the desk. He handed her one, then held his out in salute. She touched hers to it.
    “To scholarship,” he said.
    “To scholarship,” she echoed.
    “And to my scholars—the best of them,” he said with a smile, then drank.
    Theo felt herself flush once more and took a sip. It was similar to the wine he’d served at the department dinner, deep and fruity and potent. She breathed its bouquet through her open mouth, letting the dusty grapeyness fill her, and felt a tingle not unlike that of Dr. Waterman’s fish food permeate her head. “It’s wonderful. Where is it from?”
    “Do you like it? It’s—well, I don’t like to brag. I happen to have a small property in southern Rhode Island that’s mostly given over to vines, and—”
    “It’s your own wine? You grew it?”
    “Well, yes.” He shrugged modestly.
    “Wow. University professor and a vintner too.” The wine was having an effect already, leaching the tension caused by her encounter with Grant from her bones like magic. She breathed its bouquet once more, and drank.
    Julian nodded approval. “I think you needed it too. You looked a little upset when I saw you in the hallway just now. That’s why I asked you up here, if you’ll pardon my subterfuge. Is everything all right between you and Grant Proctor? Sometimes teaching in such close tandem with another person can be