Page 28 of Love, Academically

“Here,” Rhys said, as he refilled Lila’s water glass. They were sat at the ridiculous round table, filled with low glass vases overflowing with pink and white flowers. His mother must have thought they were at a society wedding, because the white covered chairs and gauzy bows were just too much.

“Thanks,” Lila took a sip. “Everything okay?”

“Everything is perfect, Lila,” he said, shuffling his chair closer to hers. He rested his arm across the back of her chair, just like he had on that first night he had pretended to be her boyfriend, and rested his leg against hers.

“Is this okay?” he whispered, leaning towards her.

“You’re my boyfriend, Rhys,” she said, with a tight laugh. “Of course it’s okay.”

Rhys frowned. Okay, there was definitely something going on with her. Shit, he’d been too forward, all but dry humping her in the middle of this stupid hotel function room (no matter what his mother said, it was not a ballroom). He went to move his arm, not wanting her to feel uncomfortable.

“No, no, Rhys,” she said, putting a hand on his thigh, causing a soft heat to build up in the pit of his stomach. “I’m sorry, it’s absolutely fine. Of course it is.”

“Is everything okay, Lila?” he asked. “Are you all right?”

If she wasn’t, he would take her home right now, family be damned.

She bumped him with her shoulder.

“I’m fine, Rhys.”

“Shit, you’ve got—” There was a piece of hair snagged under the one strap of her dress, “hang on.”

Rhys carefully pulled it out, his fingers gently grazing the curve of her shoulder, raising goosebumps on her skin.

“Pwy wyt ti?” Who are you?

Fuck.

The table went silent as Llewellyn Dallimore’s voice boomed across it. Rhys breathed an “I’m sorry” before straightening up to face his father. The rest of the table was silent, his mother picking at the tablecloth in front of her. Elin took a long drag of her drink.

“Dad, this is Lila,” Rhys said. “My girlfriend.”

His hand tightened around her shoulders.

“Hello, nice to meet you,” Lila said with a bright smile.

“Saesneg?” English.

“Dad,” Rhys said, a warning clear in his voice, at the same time as Lila spoke.

“I’m afraid I don’t know any Welsh except, now let me get this right,” she said, taking a breath. “Cymru yw gwlad y dreigiau a Tom Jones.”

Wales is the land of dragons and Tom Jones.

“You learned that?” Rhys asked, gobsmacked. Welsh was hard, there were no rules, no vowels, lots of sounds that just weren’t there in English.

The table fell silent. This could go one of two ways. Either his father could laugh and all would be well with the world, or he would be upset at the absolute mangling of his beloved language.

“I’ve been practicing all week. Did I say it right?”

Those big blue eyes looked up at him, and even if she had said Wales is the land of sheep and shit, he would have been fucking impressed that she’d taken the time to learn it.

“We got the gist of it,” he said with a genuine, wide smile.

Llewellyn Dallimore threw back his head and laughed, a big, belly laugh that shook the table, shook the room. Fuck, it must have shaken the entire building.

“Well, shit,” Elin said. “Colour me impressed.”

“Language,” his mother chastised.

“Where did you learn that, my girl?” his father asked. “Lila, is it?”

Well. His father had managed to both call her a term of endearment, and her actual name in one breath.

She nodded.

“Google translate. I was worried that it wasn’t right? It’s really hard to find a sentence that didn’t involve spitting or hawking spit or…” Lila was saying. “Why is Welsh so spitty?”

“I think we can all agree it is the effort that counts,” he said, with a sparkle in his eye. This was the father he wanted. The one that was proud of his son, that wanted the best for him. Not the bitter, angry old man who wanted an exact replica of himself; a power hungry, money-grabbing robot.

Rhys couldn’t be that anymore, and he didn’t want to be.

“Right, Rhys? It’s the effort that counts,” his father said pointedly, his smile turning downwards as he looked at his son across the flower arrangements.

“Yes,” Rhys said coldly. “The effort, indeed.”

“Speaking of effort.” His father placed the glass of whiskey down on the table. Rhys had learned at a young age that his father didn’t actually like whiskey, but he felt it made him look distinguished. “How is your effort going, bach?” Boy.

Now, whilst ‘my girl’ or ‘my boy’ was a term of endearment, ‘boy’ by itself was most definitely not. Especially the way his father spat it at him, attempting to make him small and meek.

“My effort, as you so correctly put it, is going extremely well,” Rhys said.

“Hmm,” his father waited for Rhys to fill the silence, but he knew this trick. He just waited, keeping his face blank, serene, unbothered. Lila’s hand pressed on his leg, stopping it from bouncing uncontrollably. “When can I expect an update? You don’t have long left.”

A not so veiled threat that if his Fellowship application was rejected, he was due back at Dallimore Headquarters to fall into the bleak corporate void and lose every part of himself that he had worked so desperately hard to find.

“Soon,” Rhys said.

“I’m ever so proud of him,” Lila interrupted, throwing him a warm smile. “It’s such an achievement to even apply for Fellowship at the Royal Historical Society. Especially considering Rhys is so young.”

“Young?” his father challenged with a sneer. “He’s not young. He’s over thirty. I’d made my first million by twenty-five.”

Rhys’s shoulders tensed. No matter what he did, he hadn’t made his first million by twenty-five and therefore he was a failure.

He would never make a million, not unless he sold his shares in Dallimores.

Frankly, he was happy not making a million.

That was absolutely fine by him. As long as he could spend his days tucked in the library, working out the motives of people who were long dead, wondering about the logistics of moving an entire household so many thousands of miles, then he was happy.

“Gosh, that’s impressive. But I meant in academic terms,” Lila said.

“Thirty is young in our world and many people don’t even have the capacity to apply for a Fellowship, let alone actually be accepted.

Did you know there are only twelve applications accepted each year?

You have to apply to apply. It’s ridiculously competitive.

” She looked up at him. “I’ve never seen anyone work harder than Rhys.

Even if he doesn’t get the Fellowship this year, I’ll still be incredibly proud of him. ”

Emotion clogged his throat. Lila didn’t have it in her to lie, so those words of pride, of support, were real and true. He reached blindly for her hand under the table and held on to her tightly.

Lila

The death grip he had on her was beginning to make her fingers numb.

“Rhys, you’re crushing my hand,” Lila whispered as the plates were cleared. Rhys had only let go of her to eat and then had greedily reached for her again, interlocking their fingers on full display for his entire family. He loosened his hand, but didn’t let go.

“So Lila, you’re a lecturer too?” James asked, leisurely leaning back in his chair.

“James,” Elin said, patting his arm. “She’s the Departmental Coordinator.”

“I manage all the lecturers. They wouldn’t know how to tie their shoes without me,” she told James with a smile.

“You need a woman to tie your shoes?” Llewellyn put in.

How rude was he? Firstly, interrupting a conversation between her and James, and then insinuating… well, she didn’t quite know what he was insinuating, but it didn’t feel good.

“I need Lila to do a lot more than that, Dad,” Rhys quipped, raising his glass of water to his lips.

Oh. My. God.

Elin nearly choked on her drink.

“Rhys,” she hissed, but her fake boyfriend just smirked and raised his eyebrow.

What in the blessed Countdown Conundrum was that? Because whatever it was, it made her insides melt and her mouth fall open. A little eyebrow quirk made her clench her thighs together in need? For Rhys Aubrey? Apparently so.

“Oh yeah? Do you have quite a large job description?” James asked from beside her, completely oblivious and innocent. What a pure, naive little penguin.

“Oh, shut up, James,” Elin said, with a snort.

Llewellyn stood and held his hand out to his wife, looking around the room with his eyebrows drawn together in a frown so much like Rhys’s.

His big frame bristled with importance. Rhys was a perfect mix between his fine-boned mother and the air of authority exuded by Llewellyn Dallimore.

They had disappeared to ‘work the room’, and the tables were being cleared and the lighting dimmed.

A string quintet set themselves up in the corner as Rhys leaned close to her.

“I’d like to dance with you,” he said, his warm breath ghosting across her cheek.

That was a no. Firstly, she could not trust herself in the heels that had been strapped to her feet, and secondly, she couldn’t trust herself pressed up close to Rhys Aubrey.

This was an arrangement. This was fake. Yes, they had to make it convincing, she supposed, but that didn’t mean that she had to put herself in a position to… what? Have him bend her over the nearest chair and give her a jolly good seeing-to?

Well, that was a picture she couldn’t seem to shake out of her mind and it was making her extremely warm. It had been quite a while since she’d had an orgasm that wasn’t by her fingers or her trusty bedside drawer friends.

“No, I don’t think dancing would be a good idea,” she said slowly, “what with my ankle and all.”

“Is it hurting?” he asked with a frown.

“No, it’s just,” Lila looked to the ceiling for inspiration, “I’ll show you up.”

“Okay,” he said with a smile. “Let’s get a drink.”

“Do you reckon they’ll have non-alcoholic sparkling? I don’t want any more champagne,” she said.

Lila did want more champagne (who said no to expensive champagne), but more champagne would lead to reckless decisions.