When he opened his door, he fully expected her to stay on her side of the threshold, but she followed and took a seat in one of his chairs. “I’m visiting my Irish roots. Paris is lovely, but I do miss home.”

Aiden tried not to look at her as he moved around his desk. He needed a safe barrier between them so he could keep his shit together. He wasn’t the one who bailed on the university and a relationship for sunnier pastures. After accusing him of not taking his career seriously and going on the job market in secret, Aiden had an entire year to get over her. And when he felt he was safely over the Lisa Hump, she came blowing back into town glowing with Sorbonne prestige.

From the look of her, she was still the stiff professional who dumped him during an end of the year faculty banquet. She still wore her famous all-black skirt suit and her black bobbed haircut stayed in place, just like the rest of her. When they first met, he enjoyed how put-together she was. So sure and calculating in her mannerisms and speech. Lisa was the human manifestation of everything in its right place. Her stiffness was something he got used to over their two-year relationship. Now, as they faced each other in his office, she was foreign to him. She was more severe than ever. “It’s nice to know that humble old Galway still has a soft spot in your heart,” he muttered while gathering his textbook and handouts for the students.

Lisa sighed. “I didn’t come here to make waves, Aiden.”

He stopped and looked at her. “Then why are you here?”

“We’ve got the Western Ireland Humanities Conference in a week and I’m staying with friends. You’re still presenting, right?”

Aiden’s heart sank. He didn’t have time to think about the conference. The call for papers was a lifetime ago, back when he promised Lisa that he would try to pick up the pace on his scholarship. Now that he was struggling with his tenure checklist, a circle-wank event was just another distraction from his writing. “Yes, I’ll be there.”

Lisa leaned forward in her seat, her fingers steepled at her pointed chin. Condescension threaded her voice as she chose her words carefully. “I simply wanted to meet with you with the hope that things were cordial between us.”

Aiden checked his watch. Six minutes until class. “I can be cordial,” he said through gritted teeth.

“It’s important that we not let our past relationship shadow the important work we’re to present to the university,” she said in a voice just as haughty as the Victorian literature she obsessed over. Since leaving Ireland, Lisa had buried her Dubliner accent in favor of something more continental.

The corner of his lips curled. “You won’t have to worry about that, Dr. Brennan,” he said mocking her professionalism.

Lisa sat back and clapped her hands. “Wonderful. I’m glad we could get that unpleasantness out of the way.”