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So I concentrated on Dr. Aretino’s lecture, my pen scribbling notes for the next hour. I even successfully answered two questions he posed to the class.
    That burbling anxiety returned when he turned off the PowerPoint projector and began closing his notebooks that were open on the lectern. All around me, my classmates also began packing up.
    If I moved quickly, I could escape with the pack out into the hall.
    “Emma! Emma, will you stay a moment, please?” Dr. Aretino said, waving at me. I thought for a moment that I could pretend I hadn’t heard or seen him, but then I realized that if I did want to pull my grades around it would be best to stay on his good side.
    So I went down the stairs and stood in front of the lectern, keeping it between us. The fluorescent lights on the ceiling reflected as shiny white patches on his forehead.
    “Ah, my golden girl, I have been wanting to speak with you.”
    “Dr. Aretino...” I started.
    “Giuseppe! Always with this Dr. nonsense even though I have asked you many times to call me Giuseppe!”
    “Giuseppe,” I started again.
    He came around the lectern and put his hands on my shoulders. Then he gave me a once over, tut-tutting under his breath. Again, I felt the way his eyes slithered over me. “You are all right, yes? That brute did not mistreat you, did he?”
    “Brute?” I said, realizing he meant Liam. “No, of course not. He was a total gentleman. Listen, Dr. Aretino, Giuseppe, I know you probably want to talk with me about my grades.”
    “Grades?” he said, squinting for a moment and then widening his eyes. He still hadn’t let go of my shoulders. “Yes, yes. Grades. Emma, you are a smart girl. And beautiful. There is no reason your grades should be as they are.”
    “I know,” I replied, that puddle of anxiety in the pit of my stomach flooding to become a full-fledged pool. “I’ve been having a hard time with some personal things, but I promise that if you give me the chance I will pull my marks up. I know I can do it.”
    Giuseppe stopped smiling. He finally let go of my shoulders. Even though my shirt covered my skin, I knew he’d been gripping me hard enough to leave pale white finger impressions on me. He sighed, then leaned back against a table beside the lectern.
    Something about his expression, about his body language, set that pool of panic roiling. Something is wrong.
    “Emma, it is late in the semester. I am not certain that even getting perfect scores on the remaining assignments and exams in all your courses will be enough for you.”
    My heart started lowering into that acidic pit. It seemed so ironic to me that now that I’d decided to stay I’d be forced to leave. “That can’t be true, professor.”
    “I know how you feel. When I realized it, I felt a great sorrow as well. But I am afraid it is true... No, do not cry,” he said.
    This confused me. I wasn’t crying. I didn’t feel anything but shock. But he reached out anyway, as though to brush a (non-existent) tear off my cheek. I stepped back reflexively.
    “Do not be so shy. You are beautiful. There is always a way for beautiful girls to get what they want. Perhaps there is an arrangement we could make?”
    Despite the numbing effect of the shock, I grasped what he meant immediately. This was his chance, he thought. He could see what a bad position I was in, and he would help me out of it. For a price, of course. For something he’d wanted from me ever since I’d come to Rome.
    Perhaps it was also that numbness that permitted my next lapse. Dr. Aretino reached out and squeezed a lock of my hair between his thumb and index finger. He rubbed the strands, feeling their texture, that greasy smile of his coming over his face again.
    Since I didn’t immediately slap his hand away, he took that for some sort of tacit consent.
    “Emma...” he said, trying to wrap his other hand around the small of my back.
    My senses came back to me finally and I jerked away from him. The sudden