“Will do. Oh, and Dr. Suri just called. She wants you in her office in ten minutes.”
Donovan sat forward, his chair squeaking in protest. “For what?”
“Didn’t say. And you know I’m not asking. She had that tone.”
He sighed. “Fantastic. I’m on my way.”
Ysabel wished him luck, and he got up to head over to the main building, hoping Suri hadn’t somehow found out that he’d shown up late again today. He greeted people as he made his way through the snaking hallways and jogged up the stairs. When he walked into the office, Agatha, Dr. Suri’s assistant, gave him a broad smile. “Long time no see, Dr. West.”
“I’ve missed your beautiful face, Aggie. But you know me, I try to avoid trips to the principal’s office.”
“Stop trying to charm an old woman. It won’t work on me.” But she gave him a wink from behind her glasses before picking up her phone. “Dr. Suri, Dr. West is here.”
Aggie nodded and hung up the phone.
“You can go on in,” she said.
“Am I in trouble?”
Aggie’s smile went sly. “Aren’t you always? But not the kind you’re thinking.”
He lifted a brow. “Now you’ve got me curious.”
“Well, you know what they say about that.”
Donovan frowned at the playful warning but walked over to the door and stepped inside of Doc Suri’s office. Suri was at her desk, intimidating despite her diminutive height and the soft bun twisted atop her head. The president in her oval office. Her gaze slid to him with dark eyes that could go warm with friendliness or singe with disapproval. Well, at least he’d heard about the first one. He had yet to truly witness such an occurrence. She stood. “Dr. West, glad you could make it over here between appointments.”
“Sure, no problem. What can I help . . .”
But his words drifted away from him when someone rose from the seat across from Suri’s desk.
“I wanted you to meet someone,” Dr. Suri said.
The woman whom he’d run into in the parking lot had turned toward him. She closed her eyes for the briefest of seconds, like she was pained, but then quickly hid it behind a tight, Mona Lisa smile.
Suri stepped around her desk. “Dr. West, this is Dr. Marin Rush. She’s interviewing for the open position on your floor. Since you’d be training her if she’s hired, I thought it was important for you to join in on the second part of the interview.”
“I—” The name was ringing bells in his head—thick, reverberating sounds. Marin. Marin.
“Marin, this is Donovan West.”
Marin’s lips tilted into the barest of smirks, and that’s when it came back to him, in one, scrolling memory. Late nights and long conversations. Teasing glances and longing looks. He’d kissed those lips. He’d touched this woman. But only once. Mari.
Fuck.
Mari—no, Marin—took a step forward and put out her hand formally. “Nice to meet you, Dr. West.”
He took her hand. It was chilled, delicate, but the squeeze she gave him was firm and confident. He didn’t want to let it go. “You can call me Donovan.”
“Donovan, then.”
He couldn’t read her eyes. She was giving him a professional mask. A stranger’s face. But the way she’d said his name and the slight flush in her cheeks told him she wasn’t unaffected. This was why she’d been so freaked out when they’d collided outside. She’d recognized him. Now he felt like an ass for not placing her sooner. But she looked so different. No less striking but a much more refined version of the girl he’d shared spring break with all those years ago.
Dr. Suri smiled, which lit her normally stern face with a cheerfulness he hadn’t seen before, and headed back behind her desk. “Marin attended Dallas University and worked under Dr. Paxton like you. You were probably there at the same time, though Marin just graduated last year, so I doubt you crossed paths.”
“Last year?” He frowned.
Marin smiled. “Yes, I remember hearing about your success with your research after you graduated. I was a sophomore at the time. Congratulations on that, by the way.”