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But on the other hand, Benji had been enjoying himself so much since going offline.
Either way, a decision had to be made. Time was not on Benji’s side and whether his Daddy was home or not, Benji knew that he needed to do something – and fast.
Chapter 16
HARRISON
Harrison was pissed off. Like, seriously pissed off. The rock climbing with Zane had been fun for as long as it had lasted. But only about an hour in, Harrison had received an email summoning him to see Dean Hoffman.
Harrison would have ignored the email, but something about the seething, angry tone of it made him reconsider. After all, as much as Harrison didn’t respect Hoffman, he did acknowledge that he was his boss and it was wise to not overtly go out of his way to anger him.
‘Urgh. I hate Hoffman almost as much as you at this point,’ Zane said, wiping the sweat from his brow. ‘I’ll drive you back. Trust me, my 911 can shift.’
‘I don’t doubt it,’ Harrison said, wiping his face with a towel. ‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this meeting. Hoffman’s been trying to ride my ass for months. This feels… different somehow.’
Without further ado, Harrison and Zane hopped into Zane’s Porsche 911 and made it back to campus in record time.
With the sound of Zane’s car roaring away, Harrison took a moment to compose himself before he entered the Dean’s building. It was the oldest building on campus and had been maintained to a very high standard – no doubt using up plenty of the budget that could have gone toward improving the student accommodation.
Okay. Let’s get this shit over with.
Just keep it cool.
Whatever you do… stay fucking cool.
Harrison took a big breath and walked through the heavy mahogany entry doors and made his way toward Hoffman’s office. Harrison stood outside the shut door and knocked.
No answer.
Harrison knocked again. And then another knock.
‘Jesus. Where is this asshole?’ Harrison muttered, feeling angry at the possibility that Hoffman had taken him out of his rock climbing and then not even bothered to show up.
‘You may enter,’ came the voice from inside Hoffman’s office.
Harrison rolled his eyes. Another Hoffman power game. It was getting very old indeed and Harrison wasn’t sure how much longer he could deal with this situation.
Stepping inside the office, Harrison waited as Hoffman stood with his back to him as he picked a book off the shelf. The office itself was pretty much a standard college office. Wall to wall shelving full of books. A comfortable and tasteful couch in one corner. A large desk.
But the one thing that separated this from a normal office was the large, gold-framed portrait of Dean Hoffman than hung on the wall. It was grotesque and spoke to Hoffman’s enormous ego that he would even contemplate such a thing.
When Hoffman turned around, Harrison noticed that his mostly bald head was looking shinier than ever. Not only that, but Hoffman’s strands of remaining hair were looking thinner than ever.
Just shave it all off, man.
Own it.
Harrison sensed that Hoffman was toying with him. But the fact that Hoffman was simply not speaking was beginning to border on very strange behavior indeed. What the hell was Hoffman expecting Harrison to do? Hoffman was a fifty-five-year-old man in a senior management position, he should have been far, far better than this.
Then, with the atmosphere getting tangibly intense, Hoffman focused his grey-blue eyes on Harrison…
‘You’ve had a good run, you really have,’ Hoffman said, taking delight in the sound of his own voice. ‘But like your publishing record, all good runs come to an end.’
‘Wait, what the hell is this?’ Harrison interrupted, not appreciating Hoffman’s tone. ‘You call me here out of the blue, and you’re going to start talking down to me like this? It’s not acceptable.’
So much for keeping your cool.
Fuck it. This asshole has gone too far…
