I narrowed my gaze but didn’t respond to his words. Silently, he stared at me for another second before I turned to face the professor who was lecturing about some Greek god I’d probably heard of already.

Just great.

“We need to discuss this project,” I stated, impatiently, as students hurriedly exited the lecture hall. I’d stopped Robert just outside of the door, needing to get this over with. This might be a low level class, taken by mostly freshman and sophomores, but I wasn’t going to let it mess up my nearly 4.0 GPA.

“What’s there to discuss, princess?” he asked, a dark eyebrow raised.

I huffed, hating that stupid moniker he’d used with me ever since our first encounter freshman year. I rolled my eyes at that particular memory.

“My name’s Deborah. D-e-b-o-r-a-h. Got it?”

Another smirk. “I think so.”

“Freakin’ trust fund babies …”

“What was that?”

“Nothing. Listen, you might have been okay with skating your way through these last four years and—”

“Is that what I’ve done?” He folded his arms across his chest, voice deepening.

Shaking off the silly shiver that moved down my spine, I straightened my back, lifted my chin, and looked up … and up, until my eyes caught his. He stood tall, towering over my five-foot-six frame by at least eight inches. I opted not to stare directly into his eyes for too long, for reasons I couldn’t quite put my finger on, at that moment.

“Look, I don’t care what you’ve done these last four years. It’s our last semester and I’m not going to let you mess up my nearly perfect GPA. We need to develop a plan for this final project. I’ve written out a schedule to track our progress—”

“Really? Already? Today was the first day of class.”

I blinked and tilted my head. “And?”

He didn’t respond, not directly, anyway. He chuckled.

Swallowing, I had to avert my eyes as anger and something unfamiliar bubbled up in my chest at the sound.

“Don’t worry, princess. I wouldn’t dream of destroying your precious grade point average. But I have another class to get to. We’ll have to meet some other time.” He tilted his head, winked at me, and then sauntered off, leaving me fuming.

Why I was so angry, I didn’t know, nor did I care to actually explore. I had another class to get to as well, and it was halfway across campus. I was grateful to have a reason not to just stand there and watch Robert as he walked away. Despite my gratitude, however, I couldn’t help my eyes from staring at his back as he strutted off as if he owned the entire campus. Loathe as I was to admit, I’d observed him from afar over the past four years, although I’d done everything to avoid Robert Townsend and the snooty group he socialized with.

All I needed to do was get through the next sixteen weeks of the semester and I’d never have to see, speak of, or think about Robert Townsend again.