After 24 Years of Marriage, My Husband Got His Costar Pregnant and My Son Asked Me to Accept Her novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: Decent Men

Philip's POV

I was packing my desk when Randall Alder knocked on the open door.

He had come alone. There was no assistant behind him with a tray of coffee, and no coat held ready.

"Professor."

"Mr. Alder."

"May I?"

I gestured at the chair across from me, and he sat in it with his knees apart and his hands loose, as a man does when he has been told to look relaxed.

Up close, he looked fifty-one and had not slept.

"My lawyers sent a letter last night," he said.

"The dean showed me."

"I'd like to withdraw it."

I put the stapler in the box.

"That's generous."

"It isn't generous. It's a proposal." He leaned back. "The complaint goes away, and so does the one against your student. The studio makes a gift to the film program. A large one, with your name on the building if you like. All I need is the drive, and the copy on the booth computer, and your word that this stays inside the school."

"And Helena?"

He smiled slightly.

"That's the other half. I'd ask you not to see her."

"She isn't mine to see or not see."

"Of course. But you've been seen, Professor. In a car in a parking lot. At seven in the morning at the school." He lifted one hand. "I'm not accusing you. I'm telling you how it looks, and how much worse it will look."

I looked at him for a while.

I had sat across from a great many men who wanted something from my students. The good ones asked for it. The others offered me a building.

"No," I said.

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