21. Bravery reward
Chapter twenty-one
Bravery reward
As Greta shifted awkwardly in her seat, her fingers picked at imaginary flecks of dust on her trousers just to have something to do with her hands.
Professor Andy sat across the sprawling oak desk in an office that smelled of old furniture and musty books.
She was a middle-aged woman with short, grey hair styled to look imperfectly perfect.
With pleasantries exchanged, Greta steeled herself; perfect posture, cool, calm, and collected.
At least that’s how she was hoping to present.
She was feeling very much like a swan on a lake, graceful and demure in appearance, while all the efforts to remain so were happening very much beneath the surface of her highly polished veneer.
Greta’s nerves oscillated wildly inside her white blouse and navy blue tailored power suit.
Her hair was a stark contrast to her frayed emotion—a slick bun with not a hair out of place.
Her cat eyes were winged to perfection, with concealer doing God’s work over her insomnia-induced dark eyes.
Dylan had called her “fucking stunning” that morning, her gaze lingering over Greta as she stood in the kitchen.
She’d kissed Dylan goodbye after she had stayed the night again, having found herself unable to ask her to leave.
Greta felt that on some level she probably should have sent her away, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it.
She wanted her around. She wanted to lie in her arms, so she had buried the urge to run and ignored the voice telling her to push Dylan away.
Greta looked at Professor Andy as Dylan’s voice was a recurring loop in her head.
Just deny it.
They don’t know anything.
They don’t know shit.
But, for the first time in her career, Greta was truly scared.
She didn’t want to deny Dylan, but what exactly was she defending?
An ex-escort she’d been seeing for a weeks-long sordid affair?
Except it wasn’t sordid and it wasn’t an affair; they were two very unattached, consenting adults.
She liked Dylan; she loved her company. Dylan was passionate about the things she loved, intelligent, caring, and ridiculously funny.
She was silly when Greta was too uptight and serious when Greta was breaking.
She was everything Greta wanted and needed.
The facts, however, were the jagged edges that prevented the pieces from fitting together smoothly.
Dylan was twenty-eight and a student at the university.
To any outsiders, those details alone were the definition of sordid.
Greta was forty-nine, established and professionally powerful.
In the eyes of the university, Dylan would be seen as young and impressionable, even though both Dylan and Greta knew she was anything but.
The world would judge them, and Greta wasn’t sure she could withstand that kind of scrutiny.
‘I’d like to start by thanking you for coming to see me, Doctor Vincent,’ Professor Andy said, her soft Liverpudlian accent cutting through the tension. Her tone wasn't lofty or at all professorial, and her northern warmth put Greta slightly at ease.
‘Of course,’ Greta replied, keeping her voice assertive, aiming for a tone that was professional and just the right side of relaxed, but absolutely not nonchalant. ‘Please, call me Greta.’
Professor Andy nodded, her expression remaining neutral. ‘I’m sorry we had to meet under these circumstances, but you understand the necessity, I trust?’ Professor Andy continued.
The nervous energy burning through Greta was making it difficult to remain still as she shifted in her seat again. ‘Yes, of course.’
Of course. She needed more than just a polite reflex. She needed to be the Dr Vincent people revered and respected.
‘The matter we need to discuss concerns a personal relationship you may have, or have had, with Miss Dylan Saint John, who is currently in her final year of a Clinical Research Master’s.’
Greta interlaced her fingers in her lap and forced back the sharp, protective urge to correct the mispronunciation of Dylan’s surname, but she told herself to pick her battles. Her thumbnail scratched over the knuckle of her other thumb.
Just deny it, G.
She clamped her twitching thumb under the other, anchoring her hands together as she prepared to speak. Professor Andy raked her gaze over Greta’s face, the face Greta hoped was a mask of professional indifference.
‘Professor Andy, I–’
‘Please, call me Leila.’
‘Thank you, Leila.’ Greta swallowed against the lump in her throat, certain the sound was echoing off the dated wallpaper in the quiet office. ‘I’m going to be honest with you.’
‘I would hope so,’ Leila replied with a weak, expectant smile.
‘Dylan and I… We...’ Greta sighed, her hand smoothing the fabric covering her thigh, buying herself a final second to think. She steeled herself with a steady breath. ‘Dylan and I are seeing one another.’
‘I see,’ Leila replied. Her brow furrowed for a fleeting moment, but her eye contact remained unbroken.
Greta drew in a deep breath, filling every corner of her chest, and with the exhale came the truth.
She couldn’t deny Dylan. She thought she could bury it, but the reality was too much.
Denying it would mean the end of what they had, or she would have to live a lie that would only lead her back to this exact desk in a few months’ time. She was tired, so incredibly tired.
‘I am under no illusion as to how this looks,’ Greta said.
‘I am forty-nine, she is twenty-eight and a mature student here.’ Saying the words aloud made Greta’s cheeks warm.
It wasn’t embarrassment, it was the suffocating weight of the outside judgment she didn’t feel ready for.
Even the word mature did nothing to lessen the enormity of the situation.
She knew what they had, that there was no abuse of power or coercion, but she also knew that their ages and positions were all the world would see.
‘My relationship with Dylan did not start because I have power over her. We met outside the university at...a bar, approximately two years ago.’
‘Two years?’ Leila asked, her voice sharpening.
Greta nodded, refusing to look away or show even the smallest flicker of shame.
Squaring her shoulders she held Leila’s eye gaze.
‘Yes.’ She exhaled slowly through her nose, clinging to her composure even as she felt her veneer starting to crack.
‘After that we saw each other on a casual basis. So casual, in fact, that I only recently discovered that Dylan is a student here.’
It sounded terrible, despite it being the truth.
The absurdity of it echoed in her head. How could she explain sleeping with someone for two years and learning precisely nothing about them without using the words: I paid her for sex?
Or even that she was a no-strings-attached booty call.
Surely to Leila, casual sounded like a flimsy excuse for negligence.
‘Forgive me, Greta, but that seems a stretch. I would very much appreciate your honesty.’
‘Absolutely, Leila. My honesty is all you will get.’ With her jaw tightly clenched, Greta fought to keep the muscle from twitching.
She drew in a deep steadying breath. ‘We had sex. That was all. When I found out Dylan was a student, I declined the position as her mentor and tried to maintain my distance. However…’ Greta’s mouth was growing drier by the second.
Nerves had completely evaporated all of the moisture but she refused to reach for the glass of water, not wanting to risk a trembling hand.
‘Our relationship has progressed quite quickly, and we are now seeing one another. I won’t make excuses for this, but I will also not call it a lapse in judgment.
I have no power over Dylan. She is not my student.
I don’t assess or supervise her work. I am a consultant medical oncologist who happens to hold an honorary contract.
I have no academic authority over her at all.
That notwithstanding, I am not naive to the optics, Leila.
’ She took another deep breath, her eyes locked on Leila’s.
‘I know that my feelings for Dylan are not a defence. But they are the truth. I have built my life around restraint and responsibility, and I pride myself on my ability to identify and prevent harm. I am not about to throw my career away for something casual, and I will not admit that this is sordid just because the reality of it makes people uncomfortable.’
Leila steepled her fingers at her lips before leaning forward, resting her forearms and interlaced hands on the desk. Her expression remained unreadable as small pearls of sweat formed on Greta’s lower back.