Chapter 10
2501 Words
Rachel
The phone under the counter buzzed as I slipped my hand and saw unknown numbers. Who could it be? “Hello?”
“Miss Williams?”
“Professor Dunn? Wait, how did you get my number?”
“It was in your proposal, remember?”
“Oh, okay. Um, is there something you want to discuss?”
“Not quite, but I want to talk to you.”
“Sure, please excuse me for a second.” I looked at Zara just came out of the staff room. “Hey, can you cover me for five minutes?” I asked. She nodded. I walked out of the shop. “I’m sorry about that.”
“Are you busy?”
“I’m working on Saturday.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I won’t take too much of your time. I wanted to thank you for what you did last night. I honestly didn’t realize my present fell from my bag.”
“That’s okay. Does your wife love it?”
“She absolutely adores it. Thank you so much for your help, Miss Williams. I didn’t know what I would do if I lost it. I didn’t care with its price, but it would screw my plan.” I smiled at his confession. He loved his wife so much. Everyone exaggerated it. Dunn felt nothing about me. He was being kind and a good professor to his students. Even I could tell how he loved his wife.
“That’s not a problem at all. I just couldn’t leave it alone, knowing the box was yours. And it was a good thing I knew where you were heading so I could leave it to Stefan.”
“It was my lucky day. I will be more careful next time.”
“Please do. Did you enjoy your dinner last night?”
“Of course. Your father manages the place well. Monica, my wife, would love to come back.”
“I’ll put a word to Stefan, then.”
“Ah, thank you, Miss Williams. Listen, this might be inappropriate and I’m ready if you want to hurl. Would you like to have dinner with me? A gratitude for last night.”
“What? Don’t think about it too much, Professor Dunn. I did what I thought was the right thing to do.”
“I know. But I want to properly thank you. Just dinner, nothing more.” Not that I wanted more. If I were being a b***h, I could ask him to give me an A, but I was no b***h, and I refused to blackmail my professor. It was not in my nature.
“Okay, dinner.”
“Great! Tonight?”
“I’m working today. I couldn’t ask for permission right now.”
“Oh, okay, how about tomorrow?”
“That will be perfect. I can ask it now.”
“Awesome. Do you want me to pick you up?”
“I think it’s best if we go separate ways, just in case there are students or professors around us.”
“Ah, good point. I know they mean no harm, but just in case.”
“Right.” I nodded.
“Well then, I’ll see you tomorrow, Miss Williams.”
“Sure. Thank you for the invitation, Professor Dunn.” I pulled my phone and exhaled. So, that’s that, then. I honestly thought it was not a big deal. I couldn’t be a bad guy and make my professor miserable. And by talking to him, I knew how big his love for his wife it scared him he would disappoint her. “All right.” I went inside. “Hey, Zara, thanks for the cover.”
“No problem. Was that Cameron?”
“No. Professor Dunn thanked me for delivering his present to my father’s hotel.”
“Oh? What happened?”
“He dropped his fancy rock. I found it and delivered it to the hotel. And he invited me for dinner.”
Zara gasped. “There’s nothing between us, okay? He was being nice. He loves his wife.”
“I still think you’re too naïve, Rach. Maybe he pretended to sound like that so you would let your guard down and sink his c**k into your virgin v.”
“Zara!” I scolded her. I looked around, grateful no one heard us. I looked back at my friend’s brown eyes and said, “Dunn will never do that. Besides, if he tried to, I will break his balls.”
“If you have the balls to do that,” she sarcastically said.
My shoulders dropped in disappointment. “Don’t you trust me?”
“Not now, no,” Zara shook her head. “But well, I will try to trust you this time. But don’t tell me I didn’t remind you.” I believed nothing would happen. Everyone worried too much it seemed I didn’t need to tell Mackenzie about it. I prayed she had a job until midnight so I could go and come home without her noticing tomorrow.
The next day, I searched my closet for what I should wear tonight. Honestly, I think I shouldn’t be dressing too much. I was having dinner with my professor, not my date. Dunn invited me to a simple restaurant downtown. He said the place served a good burger and people from the university rarely came to the restaurant. The place was hidden and not everybody knew. Burger, huh? Maybe I should wear something comfortable. It was not fine dining anyway. “All right then.” I grabbed my white one-piece dress and covered it with a denim jacket. I wore my black ankle boots and grabbed my dark brown pouch. “Gosh, you look pretty,” I said to my reflection.
I walked out of my bedroom and got out of the apartment. My prayer was answered. Mackenzie had been working since morning. She said she wouldn’t be back until midnight. I ordered an Uber and went to the restaurant Dunn told me about. He was already there when I arrived.
And I saw a woman next to her. Oh, his wife? I didn’t know she was going to join us. Perfect.
Dunn was dressed in a maroon blue shirt and a white T-shirt underneath while his wife was in a blue sweater. Whoa, I never saw him dressed like that. Dunn had always been so formal and professional, I never imagined Dunn on Sunday and so casual.
He saw me from inside and smiled while standing up. His wife with pixy hair looked at me. I walked in and headed to their table. “Miss Williams.”
“Professor Dunn.”
“This is my wife, Monica. Monica, this is my student, Miss Rachel Williams.”
“Hi, Rachel,” she warmly greeted and smiled.
“Good evening, Mrs. Dunn.” I sat down. A waitress approached us. Dunn hadn’t ordered anything. “I apologize if I was too late.”
“Not at all. You’re ten minutes earlier.”
“Then, you’re early, too.”
"I didn’t want to let a woman wait for me.” Wow, what a charmer.
In the end, I ordered a cheeseburger. Dunn had a spicy buffalo. Monica had a mushroom burger.
“How was your dinner last night?” I asked them.
“Amazing. When I walked in with my wife and told the manager I had a reservation, he quickly handed the box to me,” he explained. Dunn nervously chuckled before he continued, “I didn’t expect to give Monica the present in that situation, but she laughed at me to be so careless. I rarely did that. Almost never.”
“I can tell.”
Our drinks arrived. As I sipped my cola, Dunn confessed, “Monica has been asking about you.”
Blinking my eyes, “You have?” I asked.
“I have. Hector told me you’re his student and Ricardo Williams’ daughter. Thank you for delivering my present, Rachel. He told me a lot about his students, and I know how he adores you for being a great student,” Monica explained.
“Oh, I’m not that great. My grades are average.”
“My husband thinks you are, Rachel.”
“Why?” I asked. She narrowed her eyes and looked at her husband as he drank his cola. His eyes were anywhere but not at her wife's. She scoffed and looked at me again. “You know how attractive my husband is, right? He told me before some students were hitting on him.”
“Oh… Yeah, I heard the rumors.”
“But you never did that.”
“Professor Dunn is my professor. I don’t see him that way. It’ll be kind of awkward, right?”
“Miss Williams, I’ve been in the teaching industry for eight years now. I could tell which students have nasty intentions and which one is not. You are one of the rare. And I hold a code that I would never lie to my wife. For the record, it was my wife who suggested this dinner with you.”
“What?” I was utterly shocked. It was his wife’s idea? I looked at her as she nodded her head.
“And I know, too, you fear someone would see you with your professor, especially when he’s the one supervising your final project. I know it’s important. I didn’t want to come, but I feel terrible if both of you get into trouble. So, just in case someone spread a rumor in the university, I can back you two up,” she winked. Instantly, I liked her. Monica was so nice and she didn’t think badly about me. Jesus, I wanted to cry.
“Thank you, Mrs. Dunn.”
“Oh, she’s so cute she looks like she wants to cry. Sweetie, I like her,” she said to her husband.
“I knew it.”
“I don’t like girls so much because of my husband. I’m glad one of his students is immune to him,” she confessed. I giggled. Our burgers arrived, and Monica continued with her investigation of me. “Do you have a boyfriend, Rachel?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Please, just call me Monica. What, do you want to focus on your study first before you get yourself one?”
“I was thinking about that,” I said and cut my burger in half.
“Do you have someone in mind?” Cameron’s face flashed in my brain without me having to think of him first. Goddamn it.
“It’s…complicated,” I said.
“Love sometimes can be. Do you have a crush on someone?” she asked. I nodded. “Is he a student, too?”
“He’s older than me.”
“Oh, sexy.”
“Monica,” Dunn lightly scolded her.
“Did you guys date before?”
“No. Something happened to us so it’s kind of difficult to talk with him again. It’s one-sided. He’s not interested in me.” Except considering me as his doll.
“How can you tell?”
“I know so,” I said as I pushed a small burger into my mouth. “He’s so popular. He has a lot of choices out there. I’m nothing to him. I don’t know if this feeling is something special.”
“Do you think of it as special?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, if you wanted to spend the rest of your life with someone, did you think of him?” Yes. I didn’t even think of Chris or Knox or Jesse. It was Cameron. Always Cameron. But it sucks since Cameron didn’t like me. No matter he said he only wanted me, maybe that was his way to get what he wanted by screwing my mind. “Do you have male friends, Rachel?” Monica asked.
“Yes, I have.”
“How do you feel about them compared to this special man?”
“Like brothers,” I easily said. “But with him,” I paused. With Cameron, I… “It’s too difficult to explain.”
“Then, make no mistake, it is something special,” Monica said. She held Dunn’s wrist as they looked at each other. Love flashed in their eyes. Adoration covered their bodies. “I once thought I would never get married.”
“Oh? Why?”
Monica looked back at me. The sadness beamed in her lovely blue eyes. “My parents died when I was young, Rachel,” she confessed. Oh, s**t.
“I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay. At first, I didn’t want to have a husband. I didn’t want children. A child never appeared in my mind. And then, I met Hector and my world changed. He brought a new breeze into my life and made me able to see life from a different perspective. It was magical. If I wanted to get married, have a husband, children, it has to be with Hector. I chose to stay single forever if it was not him.” Aw. My heart squeezed tightly. I wanted that. This sounded like my parents’ love story. I wanted that, too. A man who could make me see lives differently. “You’re still young, Rachel. It’s never too late to do anything anyway. I’m sure, if he feels the same way, he will soon figure it out.”
I smiled. “Thank you, Monica.”
We spent two hours at the restaurant. They kindly took me home. Monica gave me her number just in case I wanted to talk about boys without her husband around. “Thank you for the lovely dinner,” I told them.
“It was great talking to you, Rachel.”
“Thank you for the lovely company, Miss Williams. My wife was entertained.” We both laughed. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Miss Williams. Good night.”
“Good night. Oh, I have good news for you tomorrow,” I told him.
He nodded. “I can tell what it is, but I’ll wait until tomorrow.” He drove his car as I looked at it until it turned into an intersection.
I just turned to the building when I heard a car screeching, I had to cover my ears. Who the hell? It was not that late to be street racing. I turned and my heart dropped to my feet. That shining Jesko. It couldn’t be. Cameron wouldn’t be back until tomorrow. What was he doing here? He pushed himself out. His face thundered. He slammed the door hard it made me jump with the assault. His blue eyes glared at me. “Cameron? What are you doing here? I thought you were in San Francisco,” I said.
Without answering me, he stomped toward me and rudely asked, “Who the f**k was that man?”
- Writer
