AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘I have a report done on everyone I spend more than ten minutes with. It’s part of my security protocols so don’t feel special.’
She sucked in a breath, digging deep to prevent the effect the drastic redirection her life had taken from those halcyon days from showing on her face. ‘Things change.’
That infernal eyebrow cocked again. ‘Things?Enlighten me,’ he invited, even as his focus sharpened.
Lauren reminded herself that this was what she’d agreed to, what she had to endure to help Matt. Nevertheless, opening one of the many wounds she’d cauterised for the sake of self-preservation wasn’t something she relished. ‘You weren’t the only one who was affected by what happened. I... I fell behind a little in my studies.’
‘Why?’ he shot back.
She absolutely wasn’t going to admit how terribly she’d missed him, how the magnitude of that night had weighed on her so heavily that the joy and enthusiasm she’d taken in her studies had evaporated. How she’d barely been able to get out of bed, never mind make it into lectures, without the glaring reality that she’d had a direct hand in him no longer being at her side, escorting her to class when his crushing coursework allowed.
‘Did your conscience haunt you? Guilt has a way of doing that, I understand.’
‘Do you intend to keep baiting me or would you like me to answer your question?’
He levelled a cold stare at her, and she took another breath.
‘I took some time off, which meant I had to decline the internship offer. That had a knock-on effect on the New York offer. They invited me to reapply the next year.’ She paused, memory searing. ‘But I didn’t.’
‘Why not?’ he pressed again.
The painful conversation she’d had with the dean replayed in her mind. ‘The dean strongly hinted that I wouldn’t be successful if I reapplied. Everyone knew about the...scandal and he was reluctant to endorse my application.’ She raised her gaze to his. ‘I suppose that pleases you?’
‘That you wasted your potential because you compromised both yourself and me without a moment’s hesitation? No, it doesn’t.’ His voice was soft and almost doubly lethal for being so.
Looking into his eyes, Lauren was startled by the veracity in them. He really was genuinely displeased by her circumstance. ‘I thought you’d gloat about it.’
A single clench of his jaw. ‘Which proves how little you know me. Thenandnow.’ Before she could react to that, he continued, ‘So the dean withdrew his support, but he wasn’t the only avenue to achieving your goals. Where was the strong-willed woman who wanted to change the world?’
Reeling under her father’s threat to harm you...
The equally esteem-shrivelling discussion with her father unspooled in her head. This one she wasn’t ready to spill so she shook her head. ‘I chose to start by supporting my father’s position.’
The eyes focused on her contained enough scepticism to make a lesser woman fidget. But she’d learned to hone her emotions in public, to hide her discomfort and her desires, to blend into the background until needed.
‘Does it really work?’
She frowned. ‘Does what work?’
‘Lying so effortlessly to yourself?’
‘Just because I don’t agree with your view of me doesn’t mean this isn’t what I want.’
The clock chimed again.
Tahir’s gaze flitted over her shoulder and the muscles in Lauren’s stomach tightened.
He set his cup down. His forty-five minutes had flown by, and Tahir was pushing the hourglasses towards her again. ‘Choose,’ he said.
Her heart skipped several beats as she reached out and chose the one farthest away from her. Drawing back the cloth, she exhaled noisily when she saw her pick.
‘You have fifteen minutes. Turn it when you’re ready,’ Tahir said.
She didn’t hesitate. She told herself she wanted to press on with advocating for Matt but deep down she wanted to sprint away from how lonely and vulnerable she’d felt after he’d left England. Lefther.
She lifted the delicate hourglass, carefully turned it upside down, her mouth drying as she watched the first grains filter through.
‘You say you won’t interrupt your judicial process but last year you advocated for two of your subjects to be freed.’
