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“Have you read your handbook?” she asks with a sarcastic tone. She just wants to hear me say no.
“The white binder with the logo?” I ask.
She reaches into her desk drawer again and tosses a blue textbook across the desk. I reach out quickly, anxious it’s about to skitter across the surface and fall into my lap.
Those cool eyes are on me again. “That’s your handbook. I found it on the top shelf in your closet. And judging by the inch of dust on it, you haven’t even cracked the cover.”
I squirm as she stares another hole into me. “I didn’t know it was mine.”
“You attended orientation.” She scowls, but I look back blankly. “Never mind. It was an oversight. The school reviews the handbook with the freshman but not the upperclassmen. Someone should have reviewed it with you. So, let’s start.”
“I have class this afternoon,” I squeak.
“This is your class, Ms. Bowen. Open up to page one twenty-four, and read the first page.”
Fuck. I balance the heavy book in my hands and open it to page one twenty-four. My eyes bug out of my head, and Rawlins smirks with satisfaction as I stare at huge print letters that read Sexual Conduct.
“Read it out loud,” she insists.
I clear my throat. “Sexual Conduct. As your body matures, certain urges are felt, and as nature takes its predestined path, there will be a strong desire to fill those needs.” I can feel the heat burning my cheeks as I read. I’ve never talked about sex with an adult, not even my own mother, and never like this. Never in prissy proper terms with diagrams and pictures.
“You know all that, I’m certain.” She waves her hand. “Skip ahead to page one twenty-eight and read, starting with the second paragraph. Out loud.”
I clear the bubble of phlegm out of my throat then swallow. “Students are expected to conduct themselves in a superior manner when intermingling with members of the opposite and same sex. The pursuit of carnal activity is strictly forbidden while pursuing academic studies at Stonehaven. Civilized people refrain from intimate sexual activity with themselves and others until certain criteria are met—the most important being matrimony.”
The picture is starting to fill in, but what picture will I eventually see? None of the boys would dare talk about the incident in Wyatt’s room. Or Bryce at the café. Or Wyatt and me by the warehouse. I touch my cheeks, and they are scorching hot. I never blush unless I’m sweating hard during a workout. Rawlins holds up her hand, and I stop trying to pronounce a word with eight syllables and two vowels.
Rawlins scowls sharply before she speaks. “You have been accused of impropriety by three male upperclassmen.”
“Me? What about them?”
“What about them?” She flips her bob dismissively. “They’ve been students at Stonehaven since the sixth grade and have reached their senior year without an incident until you prowled onto campus. Your varied and numerous sexcapades have reached my ears. I’d like to say I was shocked.” She shakes her head. “But I’m not surprised to find your moral compass spinning wildly in circles.”
“It takes two, and I had help,” I reply defiantly.
Her eyebrows rise, and maybe being overly honest wasn’t the best defense. Sometimes honesty can cause big trouble.
Rawlins glares at me even harder. “You are a siren luring boys from good, decent families onto the rocks of ruin with your low-class breeding. I know your kind. Trap them with a baby because a ring won’t be offered.”
“How dare you,” I shoot back, “It’s not like that; it’s never like that. They’re worse.”
She sits back in her chair and flips her hair, refusing to address the truth. “Your father is an active donor to the school, so tossing you out on the curb like an alley cat is not an option. I’m going to have to watch you. Just because you’re rubbing shoulders with the privileged, you are not one. Not yet. If only this was your sole offense, but there was another complaint, and it was much more serious than this.”
My heart beats harder, and it’s a wonder I can breathe.
“Bryce Shelton accused you of stealing money from his room after a supposed tryst,” she explains, “And that money was found in your room and returned to him. He talked me out of pressing charges, but if it happens again…”
I gasp. “That was my money.”
“Really? Where did it come from?” she asks.
“I can’t say.
“Astrid, your father is a very wealthy man. There is no need for you to abscond with other people’s funds.”
“I didn’t abscond!” I’m shouting now. “He’s lying. He’s lying about everything.”
She reaches down in that fucking drawer again and pulls out my underwear. That asshole.
