And really now. If those students seriously thought she was just going to let them paw at her boss...
Not on my watch, missies.
And as for the favor William owed his cousin...
Cassidy walked down the hallway of classrooms until she found IV-A. The professor, recognizing her as William's executive assistant, readily excused 22-year-old Audra Perkins from her class. The girl was slim and flaxen-haired, and with such a friendly smile that Cassidy couldn't help but warm up to her in spite of her usual reserve.
"Wow." Audra's tone was one of genuine amazement. "It really is you."
"You sound like you were expecting a monster," Cassidy accused.
"I was," Audra confirmed cheerfully. "Everyone pretty much says to run the other way if you're around."
"Oh." Cassidy relaxed. "I thought it was something a lot ruder."
The younger girl choked back a laugh. "Having other people run away from you isn't rude enough?"
"People who run away when seeing me usually have good reason to do so," Cassidy said with a shrug. "And you might feel the same way, too—-"
"Am I in trouble?" Audra asked with a wince.
"Depends on how you look at it. I was asked to deliver a message—-"
"It's bad news?"
Cassidy gave the other girl an exasperated look. "Will you please let me finish first?"
Audra smiled sheepishly. "Sorry, Ms. Dawson."
Cassidy started to speak, only to be interrupted again.
"But I just can't think of any reason why would you—-"
Chatterbox, Cassidy thought with a reluctant smile. This girl's ability to talk a mile a minute was as maddening as it was ridiculously adorable, and Cassidy just couldn't find it in her normally merciless heart to dislike the girl for it.
But since she did have a task to accomplish, work to return to, and a boss to win over...
"Ahem."
Audra gasped. "I did it again, didn't—-"
Fearful that the girl was about to ramble off again, Cassidy quickly cut her off, saying, "I have a message from Dr. Lucian...Stanhope." Her words slowed down at the end, Cassidy having noticed the way Audra's expression gradually lost its cheerfulness, and by the time she finished, the girl was pale as a ghost.
"Are you alright?" Cassidy asked worriedly.
"I thought you said Dr. Lucian Stanhope."
"I did say that—-" Cassidy stopped speaking, with Audra looking like she was about to faint. "Seriously, are you okay?"
"I don't really want to have anything to do with him," the girl confessed.
"Oh." Cassidy was momentarily speechless. William's half-American cousin was almost as good-looking as her boss, but whereas William was all things nice, Lucian was all the other things that would always get him on Santa's naughty list...all the while collecting arm candies and notches on his bed posts by the dozen.
Lucian was a womanizer in every sense of the word, but as far as she could recall, he was not the kind of man who would force his attentions on a girl or make false promises to get into a girl's pants.
And sure, there were more than one occasion that his acerbic tongue had countless residents running away in tears, but since Cassidy herself was known to do this, she could not in all conscience hold this against him.
There must be something else I'm missing here, but what?
Cassidy racked her mind for all the things she could remember about William's cousin. Her boss once mentioned that Lucian was a year younger, so that made him thirty-five...and thirteen years older than Audra's twenty-two.
There also was that time when William had the sports channel running in the background while he was working, and when he saw her glancing at the TV in surprise, he had explained that it was a Top Ten feature on Athletes Who Should've Gone Pro, and that Lucian was one of them.
Apparently, Lucian had been a kick-ass football player back in the day, and he had broken hearts by the thousands in Liverpool when he turned his back on professional sports and instead pursued a medical degree.
His fans had mourned what could've been, saying over and over that he could have contributed so much to the sport, but ironically enough, it was actually Lucian's decision to become a doctor that enabled him to contribute something of far greater value.
Despite his relatively young age, William's cousin was nowadays considered as one of the world's most in-demand orthopedic surgeons, and the world's biggest names in sports credited Lucian for saving them from what could've been career-ending injuries.
A sports hero in a nutshell, albeit not in the way his fans had hoped, and so for Audra to act as if he was the Devil reincarnate...
"I give up," Cassidy said finally. "I can't think of a single reason why you seem so scared—-" She saw Audra quickly shake her head, and Cassidy's confusion grew. "So...you're not scared?"
"I was in his class once," Audra admitted. "And it wasn't that he said or did anything scary, I mean, he's not like that, you know. But...it's just...he makes me feel weird."
"Weird?'
"It's probably because he's the only famous person I know," Audra reasoned out uneasily, "and that's why I feel weird."
"But weird how?"
"I'm just always tongue-tied and restless when he's around. I can't seem to keep still, and it feels like I'm always about to run a fever."
"I see."
"I think it's because I'm worried if I mess up, he'd bite my head off."
"Oh."
Audra started gnawing on her lip. "Whatever his message is, it's gotta be bad, right?"
Cassidy couldn't answer right away.
"Miss?"
Merciful Lord, save me.
Was it her job to tell Audra that what she was probably feeling was sexual attraction?
CLASSES HAD ENDED FOR the day, but Audra had yet to recover from this morning's message. Apparently, even Dr. Stanhope had heard about Audra skating on thin ice with her thesis, and he wanted her to know he could offer her private lessons...if she so chose.
But would she so choose, considering how weird she always felt in her presence?
As someone who had studied in a ladies' school run by nuns from nursery to high school, Audra knew next to nothing about the opposite sex. But the difference between right and wrong, she did know, and the term "private lessons", mm...
It could be misconstrued in so many ways that were wrong, and Audra supposed that was the reason Dr. Stanhope had asked his cousin (the hospital director himself, imagine!), who then very properly asked his secretary (Ms. Dawson was too lovely to be called a monster by most, really!) to deliver such a message.
But...the question still remained: would she so choose?
Four years had already passed since she that time she attended Dr. Stanhope's class. She had been eighteen then, fresh out of St. Mary's Academy, and Audra could still remember quite vividly how the mere sight of him had her tensing up like he was an executioner sent to burn her at the stakes.
Not that he made her feel like a witch, of course.
If anything, he was the one who had witch-like powers, with the way he always made her feel so, so...weird.