They say Cinderella found her Prince charming in a castle, but Nora Carter found hers in a classroom. The castle had towers and guards but her classroom had chipped desks, fluorescent lights, and a door that squeaked every time Professor Rhys Blackwood walked in. He didn’t wear a crown, instead, he wore black all through—Black sweater, black watch, black words that cut clean across the lecture hall and left everyone else quiet. Ice-blue eyes that didn’t linger, and thin lips that didn’t smile. He was the Blackwood name. Old money and old rules. He was a man who gave up an entire empire to teach dead poets to living students. He was an off-limit and untouchable Professor. Nora Catter was the opposite of a princess. She was quiet, always at the back row, she had long dark hair she tucked behind her ears, brown eyes that watched instead of spoke and thin lips that stayed pressed shut. She wasn’t here for trouble, she was here for literature. Except, literature had a face now, and a voice that read Austen like it was a secret, a presence that made her heart stutter every time he said, “Miss Carter?”. She didn’t lose a glass slipper, she left things instead. A margin note, a folded corner and once, by accident, a tiny heart in the corner of her essay. He was supposed to grade it and move on, he wasn’t supposed to pause, and he wasn’t supposed to look up, scan the back row, and hold her gaze for half a second too long. In the castle, the prince noticed Cinderella because she was the only one who caught his attention at the ball. But in the classroom, Professor Rhys Blackwood noticed Nora because she was the only one who never asked him for anything. She didn’t want a prince, she just wanted to hear him say her name without the word “Miss” in front of it. And that, was the most forbidden thing of all..