Reluctant thief Baz Barret is tasked with stealing from the formidable archaeologist Rei Collingwood--who happens to also be his college crush and rival--but when Rei goes missing after the burglary, Baz must find her before he's blamed for her disa...
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Rei really hadn't meant to knock him out.
Well—she had, but that was before she realized it was Sébastien Barret climbing through her damn window.
What did one do with an uninvited, and now unconscious, visitor? Tie him up? Yes, probably. Calling the police would also be a reasonable response, but Rei wasn't sure she wanted to be found yet.
However, tying him up would be a good start, a sign that she was serious and not to be trifled with.
Rei didn't have any rope on hand, though. The best she could manage was pulling the laces out of her gym shoes. Just as well. She hadn't exactly gone running during her self-inflicted exile.
The next step was more awkward. She knew him. Rei wished she didn't. It would've been much easier to ruthlessly tie up a stranger. Yes, he broke into her apartment and all that, but it still felt intrusive to touch him, like she wanted permission.
There were two things wrong with that: a, she rather doubted he'd grant her permission to tie him up and b, she'd knocked him unconscious and he was rather incapable of giving permission.
After too much deliberation, Rei just got on with it and gingerly shifted Sébastien.
Hell.
Rei hadn't expected the bicep she found. Thank God she knocked him out and he wasn't witnessing her flounder. She held her breath and didn't breathe again until she'd securely tied his wrists together, positioning him into a sort of sitting position against the wall instead of the window.
Now what?
Rei got to her feet to pace. Did she find some way to get him to come to? Throw some cold water on him? Wait? Watching too many action movies growing up had led Rei to believe she would have a lot more fist fights over archaeological digs and yet, Rei had zero practice interrogating anyone. It turned out in the real present day, the biggest obstacles between her and digs were funding, visas, and bureaucracy.
She took a pillow from the sofa and sat cross-legged in front of Sébastien.
He disappeared mid-semester while she was still an undergrad only to turn up out of the blue in her secret apartment, dressed suspiciously covertly for the occasion.
She understood him even less than she had in university. By the time they shared a classroom, Rei already naïvely thought herself Dr. Monroe's favorite. She was smug and smart and too eager to please.
Sébastien Barret had sat in the third row, reading during the lecture and wearing the (in Rei's opinion) obnoxious logo of the Faraday Athletics department emblazoned across his chest. Some full-ride scholarship jock, Rei assumed, taking art history for a presumably easy A. No one who had actually taken a class with Monroe before would make that mistake.
Monroe called on him, much to Rei's sick satisfaction, posing a question on pre-history art discoveries in Europe. Rei awaited her moment to shine, so sure he would fumble for an excuse, turn red at being caught inattentive in front of sharp, stern Dr. Monroe...
