On the Steamy Side

by Louisa Edwards

  Dusting off her hands, she turned back to the class and continued. “I have a bachelor’s degree in Organic Chemistry from Yale, a PhD in Physical and Analytical Chemistry from Johns Hopkins, and a PhD

  in Biological Chemistry from Bryn Mawr. I’m here at the Academy to study food. By which I mean, of course, the chemical processes and interactions between ingredients under controlled conditions. The ACA has unparalleled facilities for the kind of research I’m interested in conducting, but apparently, in return for the use of those facilities, I have to step in and take over Professor Prentiss’s class when he can’t be bothered to keep his penis in his pants. So. Here I am. What do you want to know?”

  Wes looked around the room. He could practically hear the crickets chirping.

  Dr. Wilkins arched a brow. She didn’t appear even slightly surprised. “No? Nothing? I told President Cornell this would be a waste of time. You all want to make good food, but none of you wants to know the reasons behind what works and what doesn’t.” She shook her head as if baffled. “You probably all think of cooking as a creative endeavor, as ‘art’.”

  Who the hel was this woman?

  She looked about Wes’s age, certainly no older than twenty-five. Which meant she must’ve been in her teens when she got that first degree.

  Dude. Prodigy alert.

  One of the students, Bess, a plump blonde who was categorically not a prodigy, said haltingly, “Are you really our teacher?”

  Wes winced. Well, at least she hadn’t asked if Wilkins was a real doctor.

  “No.” Dr. Wilkins looked affronted at the very idea. “I’m a scientist. Teaching is a waste of my prodigious mental acuity and valuable research time. As I already told President Cornell. He, however, seems to think there’s something to be gained by forcing a woefully overqualified genius to teach a basic-level chemistry course any monkey could run. I can only be grateful that the semester is almost over. More than three weeks of this nonsense would put me severely behind in my research.”

  “Wow.” Wes heard Sloane’s awed whisper. “I kind of love her.”

  “That’s because you’re a sociopath,” Nate told her. “This woman is like your soul sister or something.”

  “I’m surprised you don’t dig her, Nate,” Wes said out of the side of his mouth. “You usually love being told you’re a moron eight different ways before breakfast.”

  All eyes followed their new instructor as she shrugged and moved to the podium. Dr. Wilkins shuffled her papers until she had the one she wanted on top, then proceeded to sit down on the floor at the front of the room and read. Silently.

  Slowly, like the hiss of steam spouting from a boiling kettle, a buzz of whispered conversation streamed up and out of the students. Immersed in her reading, Dr. Wilkins appeared unaware.

  Wes studied her while the others huffed and speculated. He noted the curve of her pale cheek, the relaxed spread of her denim-clad legs as she became absorbed in whatever that paper was. She was short, he decided, but perfectly proportioned. Her skin was like the porcelain tableware they used at La Culinaire, the Academy’s student-staffed restaurant, creamy white and so fine it was almost translucent.

  And he could tell it wasn’t faked, that total lack of interest in the physical world around her. For all intents and purposes, she wasn’t in this classroom anymore. The realization got under Wes’s skin like the juice of just-diced Serrano peppers.

  He’d never been able to stand being overlooked, and he especially hated being called stupid. It was pride, nothing but pride. He knew that. And pride, which had gotten him in big, bad trouble on more than one occasion, should’ve been kicked out of him years ago. Only somehow, it hadn’t been. It was a given now. He knew himself, knew his own hair-triggers, and accepted them.

  The question was, what would he do about it in the case of the incredibly insulting and dismissive Dr. Rosemary Wilkins?

  Smart answer: absolutely nothing. She was his instructor, she held his grade in the palm of her little hand.

  But then, no one had ever accused Wes of jumping to do the smart thing.

  Slowly, deliberately, Wes raised his hand.