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Mom’s face falls, a face that looks so much like mine, except for her eyes. “Callum, honey.”
“It’s fine, Mom. I’m just tired.” I walk away, but still hear them talking.
“I don’t know what’s gotten into her.” Mom’s voice breaks a little with concern and my heart squeezes. She doesn’t deserve my anger. He does.
“It’s fine. This is on me. I fucked up,” Richard says, but I walk away because I don’t care what he has to say.
Because it is too late for him to feel bad now. The damage is done.
CHAPTER SEVEN
My eyes flickover to her every five seconds. No matter how hard I try and tell myself not to, I can’t help it. When I saw her Friday night at the club, I was there trying to find an outlet to my newfound frustration. But then I saw her, dressed in a black leather dress that molded to her curves, enhancing her breasts, I lost my sanity. I can still feel the soft skin of her thigh under my palm. I shouldn’t have done that. I never should have touched her, but fuck, I couldn’t control it. The need to have her submit to me, to shut her bratty little mouth, it consumed me. And now she sits here in my class, writing away in that journal, ignoring my existence. Like she has all week. She hasn’t looked at me since she climbed out of my car six days ago.
I watch her black stocking-covered legs bounce under her table. The light blue plaid skirt rising a little too high up her thighs. Her sweater vest is too tight. Really showing off the curves of her breasts. Or maybe it’s because I don’t have to imagine how big they really are anymore that I think they look so perky today. And her light blue bow that I can see fully since her head is bent as she writes away. “I hope you’re taking notes, Miss Madison.”
She looks up, eyelashes sweeping over every inch of me. “Oh, I definitely am.”
I narrow my eyes at her. Is she fucking with me? Purposely distracting me? Is this payback for ruining her night? I smirk as an idea comes to mind. “Actually, Miss Madison, I want you to grab your things and move to the table that’s connected to my desk.”
She huffs. “What is this, elementary school?”
“Move,” I command.
She does, pouting at Jake as she walks away. Hips swaying on purpose. For me. Only me. She takes a seat, being extra loud and obnoxious in doing so, chair scraping against the tile, books being slammed loudly on the table, disrupting my class. My hands twitch, ache really, to punish her for being so bratty. I’ve never suffered from holding my composure, never wanted to say fuck it and ruin everything, but every time she throws these little fits, sparks of bratty behavior, I want to disciple her. My student. And I can’t do that. “Detention, Miss Madison.”
The class laughs a bit until I whip my sharp gaze at them. I give them the instructions for the writing assignment and take a seat at my desk, exactly across from her. She peeks up through her lashes at me, eyes full of life. The blue sparkles like the hues of a sunset on the water. I almost smile, almost, but instead I click my red pen at her. She frowns, looking back at her essay, which she’ll fail. Not because she’s not smart, she is, she just has something against government.
My phone buzzes on my desk and I snatch it up. Reading the text with a scowl.
Mom: Family dinner tonight. We’d love to have you.
Me: Got plans.
I click the phone screen off, looking at my work. My mom, she’s not a bad person, she’s the best. But she chose her side when she didn’t believe me. I know it hurts her that I’m never around, but I can’t stand to look at my stepfather. For many reasons, really. When I was a boy, he sent me off to boarding school, trying to eliminate my relationship with my mom. Not only that, but he was also my dad’s co-founder of their business, and not a year later after Dad died, he was pursuing my mother. His best friend’s wife. He’s much older than my mom, his son was already out of the house by the time we moved in. Which is whatever, I don’t fucking care. It’s all the other seedy shit he’s done. But my main reason I hate him is the conversation I heard him and a friend have in his office. I was teenager at the time, causing my mom all kinds of hell as teenagers do, and maybe that’s why she didn’t believe me at the time—I wasn’t creditable—but the day she brushed me off is the day our relationship crumbled to ashes. But I swore I’d prove it one day. Which is what I’ve spent the majority of my adult life doing. And I’m so fucking close.
The company he and my dad started should have been mine when I turned twenty-five, but I refuse to work with the sick bastard, so I have someone in my place. I still reap the benefits of having shared ownership without ever stepping a foot into the company, which makes Derek, my stepdad, furious, but what can he fucking do about it?
Getting my teaching degree was a safety net. I didn’t know if I would ever use it, but once I realized I wasn’t quite ready to be slapped with a murder charge, I applied at my old boarding school, only coming home when my grandfather was on his deathbed. He asked me to come here and fix our school up. So now I’m on the board for the school as well as teaching in it. I’m basically untouchable here.
The bell rings, bringing me back to the here and now, to the bratty vixen across from me. She doesn’t look up, hiding her pools of blue from me. “Miss Madison.”
Now she looks up, a smile from whatever she was looking at still lingering on her face. “Yes, Mr. Boyd?”
“Do you know how to use the copy machine?”
She frowns, shaking her head. “Since you took so long to get a TA, I missed those classes.”
“All right.” I stand, stretching my arms above my head. She watches, eyes trailing from the tips of my fingers down to the belt on my slacks. “Let me show you real quick.”
They give the kids an ungodly amount of time to get to class, that’s why I don’t put up with tardiness. She abandons her things, following me. We make our way into the student lounge for TAs. There’s a big table in the middle, for grading papers I assume, three copiers, and a corner table with supplies including hole punchers. “Oh.” She pauses at the door, eyes wide as she takes it all in. “Can I start working in here?”
“No.” I kill that little spark of escaping me and she frowns. “Now, all you do is put the page in this feeder here, select the number of copies you need, then select the page preference—front or back, color or black and white. The page size will never change, always standard, and then hit Copy. Got it?” She nods, stepping closer to the copier. “Show me,” I command.
She steps up, grabbing the page from my hand and putting it in the copier. Looking around, I make sure we’re still alone, before I step in close behind her. I can’t fucking help it. The tip of my shoes touches the back of her heels. She gasps as my fingers grab a strand of her hair. Feeling the silkiness between my fingers. I bring it to my nose, inhaling. Her body trembles in front of me, finger slipping off the buttons as she tries to concentrate. Finally, she gets it, producing the paper.
“Good job, Miss Madison,” I rasp next to her ear. “I need two hundred more.” I rip myself away from her, speed walking all the way back to my classroom and shutting the door. Because what the fuck am I doing? The class is still talking among themselves since I was not present when they walked in. Usually, they’d all be in their seats, facing forward. Her journal sits at the table and without a second thought, I swipe it up.
CHAPTER EIGHT
