"Shall we?" She got in the car and he shut the door before walking around to his side.

"Thank you for this and for the book. I'm sorry I called you a moron."

"I've been called a lot worse," he shrugged. "At the end of the day you're just another human with a crush on me. Tomorrow you'll go back to your degree and soon the memories of this will fade and I'm sure you will live a happy life as you are. It doesn't bother me at all."

Jess thought this was perfectly fair as she stared out the tinted window of the Ferrari. Neither of them said a word until they got closer to Jess' Halls. She gave Damon directions to where it was and the best place to park and he followed her instructions to the letter.

He helped her out of the car and at the door to her block he dropped the rucksack on the floor. "Thank you again for everything, you've been very kind."

"Good luck with your degree" he said gently, before he got back in his car and Jess was left sighing deeply over him.

Over the next week she reviewed her notes on the Medici and poured over Lady Mary's so-called scandalous book. They were more gossip than actual scandals in the modern term, but Jess loved all the gossip.

She hadn't forgotten Damon or Stefan and Holly had emailed her to tell her the party was fun but nothing special. Damon seemed to have other things on his mind and Holly thought perhaps Jess was one of them.

Holly said she'd nearly finished her story for the secret competition and asked Jess about hers, so Jess had to confess that she probably wasn't going to enter. "It just wouldn't be fair on you Hol. If Bonnie didn't pick my one then he'd pick it anyway. At least if I don't enter then you get a slim chance."

The girls laughed, but deep down Jess was conflicted about Damon. He'd humiliated her in front of everyone, nearly put her life at risk. But then he'd taken her home and given her a book worth thousands of pounds that was missing, thought lost forever or destroyed.

Then one afternoon after lectures she noticed something sticking out of her letter box in the communal hallway. She opened it to find a very thin envelope written in a feminine hand inside.

The envelope contained another envelope and it made her smile.

So she opened her laptop and dug out the USB stick that she had squirreled away in a fake book. All the fanfiction that she had written or partially written was stored on it and most of it was partial due to writer's block or something more interesting coming along.

But there was one she was keen to explore based on half a dream and too much time spent watching The Scarlet Pimpernel on YouTube.

So for the next week she worked on that every spare hour that she had and when she was finally satisfied she posted it off with a smile.

A few weeks later she got a letter back saying her story wasn't picked. So she phoned Holly who told her that she had won. Jess couldn't help but but be happy for her friend who sounded like she was actually jumping on the bed with joy. But at the same time her stomach had sunk and she knew that he had moved on.

She decided to try and forget about him by agreeing to go to a new bar that had opened with her friends. Since it was opening night she put on a pretty dress and heels, rather than jeans, a top and boots.

She was just putting her earrings on when she heard excited voices outside and a knock at the door. "Jess! Someone here to see you!" Jess opened the door and saw Damon standing there. "May I come in?"

Not knowing what to say, she just stood aside and let him into her room where he stood there silently until she closed the door. "I'm sorry you didn't win the competition, in my personal opinion it was the best one, but Bonnie and I clearly have different tastes in literature." That got her wondering what Holly wrote and she made a mental note to demand a copy.

"I'm here to collect the favour you owe me for tutoring you," he grinned. "I have to compliment you on your outfit, it's perfect and you look beautiful."

Jess found herself blushing, like Damon's opinion was the only one that mattered. "Shall we?"

The rest of the evening was a blur. They went to an upmarket bar where she had champagne cocktails and danced with Damon. She bumped into someone as the floor was packed, he turned and told her she was an idiot and needed to get off the dancefloor if she couldn't dance properly.

He whisked the woman she was with off and she laughed. Jess was angry and so was Damon, but while she was up for stomping on his foot Damon had other things planned.

The song changed to something that was really upbeat and Tasha found herself being thrown around the dancefloor, dancing steps as though she were a professional. The guy who told her to get off the dancefloor tried to compete, but Damon swung her that way and she couldn't resist throwing his own words back at him.

At some point he walked away from the dancefloor, but Jess neither noticed or cared.

After the song ended and she'd had something to drink, they danced a couple of slow dances before Damon whispered in her ear that it was time to leave. She really didn't want to but it was three am.

He drove her back to her halls, the silence in the car calming her down and sobering her up a little.

Being the gentleman that he was, he helped her out of the car and into her halls where he helped her up the stairs and along the corridor to her room. "I had such a great time tonight. Do you want to come in for some breakfast?" She asked with a smile. His eyes seemed to light up, she leant into him and he kissed her on the lips.

Jess closed her eyes so she could experience it better. Of course he was an amazing kisser and it was doing funny things to her, like making her knees go weak.

He pulled back and she opened her eyes, disappointed that he'd stopped. He stroked her face with one hand and leant her face into it as he smiled. "You're a very pretty girl Jess, very tempting. But I think you need to get changed and go to sleep. Don't you?"

"Hmm," was all she could say. He chuckled softly and gave her a long, lingering kiss before telling her goodnight.

When Jess finally woke up she had a pounding headache.

The events of the night before came flooding back to her and she couldn't believe she'd gotten so drunk that she'd lost her mind over a boy. Even if he was Damon Salvatore.

But then she glanced over at her desk. There was a single red rose with a black ribbon tied around it and it made her smile and want to lose her mind again. She wondered if she would ever find anyone who would even come close to Damon, or if she would forever dream of the one that got away.

Either way, everyone else was up and she was hungry. Reality smacked her in the face and told her to wake up, so she left the rose on the desk and walked out of her room and into the rest of her life.