AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Silence falls over our alcove, only the sound of shuffling steps and rustling pages filling it until I burst into laughter. The bright, expectant look on my bookworm friend’s face morphs into disappointment.
“I’m sorry I can’t share your enthusiasm, Annie Bunny, but said man’s fiancee just accosted me downstairs.” My eyes slide over to Eva. “In case you don’t have information onherfamily, let me tell you that Gertrude Fairfell is Carlton Wilde’s first cousin. Related to the Kings. Set to become a Queen. Pure-blood, virgin heiress, and a beauty at that.” For some reason, that’s the word that hurts me most. Sade is going to enjoy fucking her. I’m just a side bitch he uses to appease his dark side.
“She won’t satisfy him, Justine,” Eva says softly, placing a hand on my knee. It gives me pause. The way she stares at me, it’s like she knows something I don’t. Eva Brannan is a great judge of character, but still. “She’ll never be able to replace you. Sade Royales is never letting you go, even if he wants to.” She makes it sound like it’s a death sentence, but I love the way it feels.
“How can you be sure?” I whisper.
Eva wets her lips, averting her eyes, even though her hand stays put on my knee.
“I can’t tell you that. Confidentiality related to my job. But trust me–Sade has had his eye on you since before that party.”
My shoulders sag.Beforethat party. When he still believed I was pure and innocent.
“Doesn’t matter. I’m just a piece of trash in his eyes now.”
“Arrrghh, woman,” Annie’s bumps my shoulder with hers. “You’re determined to keep wallowing, aren’t you? You have an answer for everything.”
“Annie, two people downstairs called me Afterparty Justine. Do you understand what that means?” Then softer, sorry that I snapped at her. “Sade will use me until he’s sick of me, and then I’ll be fair game to all the predators on this campus. Even Dogg is sure of that, that’s why he’s willing to wait.” I sigh, my heart feeling like a huge bruise inside my chest every time it beats. “At least I don’t have to bear the responsibility of a fight between them.”
“Justine, this thing is making you miserable. Maybe you should take a few more days off campus,” Eva offers sweetly, rubbing my thigh as if that could give me some comfort. “You need a breather.”
“And I wish I could take it. But...” One breath in, one out, and here it goes. “Sade won’t let me.”
I hang my head, not wanting to meet their confused stares.
“Wait, back up,” Annie says. “You mean he won’t let you as in he’s making decisions for you?”
I look up at her, slowly. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you like the idea of him going all controlling on me.”
“Of course I do, because it confirms what I said. The poor devil is head over heels for you.”
I open my mouth to protest, but her eyes narrow behind those big glasses, daring me to start whining again. I decide to just hear her out this time but she points a finger at me like a spear.
“And I’m done catering to your whining. If we keep doing this, you just won’t stop. You’ll keep refusing to see the obvious if it slaps you in the face–Sade Royales is so into you, he doesn’t know what to do with himself. He’d do things for you no sane man would do for a woman.” I open my mouth again, but she already knows what I’m going to say, and shuts me up with another cautioning wave of her finger. “You’re gonna ask how I know that, because there she is, Lady Justice, wanting all the facts to weigh them against each other. Well let me tell you that I know the kind of feelings you can awaken in a man. I’ve known you long enough to see your essence. The elusive, the diaphane, the wistful.”
My throat tightens. It’s probably what Sade saw in the beginning, too, before I disappointed him so abruptly.
“You should stop reading all those books,” I tell her.
“Maybe you should take them up instead,” she counters. “With so much hook-up culture all around us, romance books aren’t even entertainment anymore. Our freaking health insurance should cover them.”
“Yeah, especially those involving butt plugs and whips,” Eva mocks. Annie opens her mouth to argue with that when we hear loud running down the hallway.
The librarian from before pokes her head out from behind the glass door, ready to teach the perpetrator a lesson. But the girl skids to a halt right in front of us, blocking the librarian from sight.
Pushing her usually perfectly styled chestnut hair from her face, Mel struggles to catch her breath.
“You guys,” she says, winded. “Dean Rowland went missing.” Her eyes are filled with anxiety when they settle on me. “And the police want to talk to you.”
***
Justine
“THERE THEY ARE,” MELwhispers, her eyes set on the three men in uniform across the hall. Two of them are holding tablets, while the one who seems to be in charge asks a bunch of students some questions.
“You let me do the talking.” Mel squares her shoulders, taking her stance. “Stay close.”
She starts putting one foot in front of the other while I trail after her, trying to keep my shoulders pulled back. Left and right, people are watching. Goddammit, will I ever live this down? Seems like I’ve become everybody’s full-time clown.
