Chapter 2
Savannah
The clink of crystal against china was starting to give me a headache.
I smiled for the third time in sixty seconds — the exact same curve of lips I’d been practicing since I was twelve — while another donor told me how thrilling the national championship win had been for Wrighton, even as her nauseating floral perfume assaulted my sinuses.
“Your father must be so proud to have the Blues in the spotlight again,” she said, swirling her wine like it was part of the performance.
“Yes,” I replied smoothly, because of course that’s what she wanted to hear. “The entire university community is still buzzing.”
Buzzing. Right. That was one word for it.
The Alabama Lions, or the Blues as they were casually known because of their team colors, were the topic of conversation everywhere.
Still. Even two weeks later. Football season was over, the players were very much in the offseason, but the school was still riding the high of the win.
The university’s donor dinner had started at six sharp, a parade of alumni, corporate sponsors, and people with money who had their names etched into campus buildings.
The people who would write their checks a little faster with the national championship in the school’s trophy room.
Or whatever they did with it. The banquet hall smelled faintly of beef tenderloin and roses, every table centered with an extravagant arrangement in the school’s blue and white.
I’d been playing ‘Savannah Cole, the dean’s daughter’ all evening.
Not Savannah, the grad student. Not Savannah, the person.
“Savannah.”
My father’s voice cut into the conversation, smooth and authoritative. “The academic support office is looking for you. Something about filling in for a tutor?”
I glanced over my shoulder. One of the program coordinators, Kylie, stood a few feet away, clutching her clipboard like it might protect her from my father’s stare.
I rose out of my seat and smoothed my dress down, then walked quickly over to them, not too quick to make me look hurried, though. Dad wouldn’t appreciate me drawing attention to us.
“Savvy,” she said quickly. “I hate to do this to you, but we’re short tonight — it’s for Dante Spence.”
A football player. I didn’t usually get them.
My father’s jaw tightened just enough to notice if you knew him as well as I did. “You don’t need to be involved with the football team. They attract . . . unnecessary attention.” His gaze shifted to the coordinator. “Surely there’s someone else—”
“There isn’t,” Kylie said, voice wavering. “Dante has a meeting at seven-thirty and we need to get his academic check-in completed tonight.”
“It’s not a problem, I’ll do it,” I said, eager to take any opportunity to leave this mind-numbing dinner. Even if it meant replacing it with a football player. Dad would be unhappy. But the thought of another hour of Mrs. Perfume was unbearable. “I’m happy to help.”
My father’s eyes narrowed a fraction — a silent reminder that in his world, football players were headline risks, not people. “My daughter, so willing to sacrifice her free time.”
As if being here was my choice for how to spend my free time, but I said nothing, just gave Kylie the go-ahead to email the information I needed.
Kylie trailed after me into the crisp night air, the sharp scent of damp pavement replacing the perfume and polished wood of the banquet hall.
“I’m so sorry for the last-minute notice,” she said.
“What was the dinner for this time?” she asked me, looking over her shoulder to ensure no one was behind us.
“Or does it matter if you get to eat steak all the time?”
I let out a little laugh. “Not all the time,” I told her with a smile. “I think that was the first time since last Wednesday.” I pulled my phone from my purse. “This evening’s soirée was for alumni donors of the sciences.”
“Dear God, Savvy, how do you keep smiling?” Kylie gave me a sympathetic smile. “When do you ever get to study?”
I could have had a mini rant. I could have stopped and let out every bottled emotion. I could have . . . I could have done a lot of things. Instead, I shrugged.
“It can get tedious, but they can also be interesting.” I caught the look she gave me. “Okay, tonight wasn’t the best example,” I added with a rueful smile. “I won’t say I welcomed the interruption . . . but I won’t say I didn’t either,” I added with a wink.
Kylie laughed. “Well, in that case, you’re welcome. He’s in meeting room twenty-one at the library. His academic record just needs a quick perusal, and a plan in place for some tutoring. Shouldn’t take long.”
I nodded, checking my phone — five after seven. Great. Nothing like walking in late to meet the campus ‘superstar.’
The heels were a mistake. My calf muscles were screaming by the time I crossed campus, thank God it wasn’t raining. The stadium, where my football star shone, cut across the skyline in the distance — an ominous reminder of exactly whose orbit I was about to step into.
The library was quiet when I stepped inside, the kind of hush that felt both peaceful and oppressive.
Libraries were supposed to be quiet, but tonight, there was a charge to the silence, or maybe I was having moments of fancy.
Not something I was prone to, but I felt anxious about this meeting.
Which was silly. As a liaison with the Academic Association, I’d tutored many students in my time.
So, he was a football player. My first athlete to tutor.
But at the end of the day, Dante Spence was a student just like me.
But Dante Spence was nothing like me.
He was the quarterback of the Alabama Lions. He was incredibly talented.
I also knew that, as part of their athletic scholarships, the Academic Association offered tutoring packages; after all, athletes had demanding schedules, but they still needed to study just like the rest of us if they wanted to graduate.
I followed the signs for the meeting room, my pace quick but deliberate, until I reached the door marked twenty-one.
I exhaled once, smoothed my dress, and opened it.
The room was empty. Damn it. He’d left because I was late. I turned to leave, and then I spotted him before my brain had time to prepare for it.
He was in the corner of the meeting room at the window, looking out across campus. Still. Not restless, not bored — watching. Even alone in an empty room, he looked like he was calculating something.
Six feet plus of muscle in jeans and a hoodie.
The legend in the flesh. Quarterback extraordinaire.
My pulse gave an involuntary kick as I drank in his side profile.
Dante Spence was gorgeous.
He wasn’t in his football jersey; he was dressed casually, and I don’t think I’d ever seen him dressed normally.
I’d seen him on the field, seen the replays on the sports channels, but standing this close was different.
Cameras flattened people; they couldn’t capture the way someone’s presence filled a room.
Dante Spence had that kind of presence — bigger than the space he occupied, as if the stadium lights were still on him even in a beige-walled meeting room.
His thick, light blond hair was shorter now than it had been two weeks ago. It was neater at the sides, pulling attention to a jaw that looked even sharper in real life than on TV.
He turned then, and my gaze clashed with his. Pale blue eyes, focused, carrying that quiet, infuriating calm that the sports reports always said made him impossible to read. I admired it when he played. The cool calmness. But one-on-one, it was a little intimidating.
He didn't fidget. He didn't fill the silence. He just watched me, and I felt it everywhere at once. It made something low in my stomach twist in a way I didn’t want to name.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” I said, moving into the room and closing the door behind me. I slipped off my black coat and draped it over the back of the chair beside me.
His eyebrows lifted slightly, but he moved toward the table with grace and confidence.
Dante sat down and then flashed me the smile that had been plastered everywhere for weeks, if not months.
Despite myself, I felt a flicker of something in my chest and quickly squashed it.
Whatever it was, it was definitely not an appropriate reaction from a tutor toward a student.
He wasn’t just handsome — he was clever with it. Aware of his looks, he weaponized them. I was sure he knew exactly what kind of effect he had on people.
And I despised the fact that I wasn’t immune.
He watched me for a moment longer before he spoke, almost like he was deciding something.
“I didn’t know it was a formal event.” His voice sounded exactly the way he did on TV — clean, Northern edge, vowels clipped just enough to make him sound like he belonged somewhere colder, where February actually froze solid.
I looked down at my dress and let out a low laugh. “I was at an event,” I explained. I took the chair opposite him, wondering why we were in a meeting room that could seat twenty when there were only two of us.
He leaned back in his chair, one arm draped along the back like he owned the place. “Yeah, figured you didn’t dress like that just to meet me — though I wouldn’t complain if you did.” Dante glanced over my shoulder toward the closed door. “Are we expecting anyone else?”
“No.” I checked my phone, scrolling through the email from the coordinator. When I looked up again, he seemed more relaxed — like he’d already decided how this was going to go.
“Do you know why you’re here?”
His eyes dragged over me in a way that felt both deliberate and lazy. “Not exactly . . . but if it involves you and me in a room for an hour, I’m not complaining.”
The flirtation was automatic — too quick, too practiced. A reflex he reached for because it usually worked. It made me wonder what he was hiding behind it.