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“That’s all you care about, isn’t it? Your precious board seat. I don’t have anything to say to you, Christian, but the next time you touch me, I’ll raise the issue with the chancellor.”
“Threats now, is it?” He closed the distance between us, caging me against one of the shelves. “Do you think I have nothing on you, Whitney? I’m going to give you a chance to make this right. You tell your parents you changed your mind and want me back.”
“It’s a little late for that now. Everyone back home in the Hamptons is already talking about your upcoming nuptials with Nicole.”
His growl reverberated throughout the area.
He pushed off the shelves, looking me up and down. “This isn’t over, Whitney.”
“It is over, Christian. We’re done.”
He smirked, his eyes narrowing. “Yeah, sure.” He turned from me, tucking his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “Tell your little professor I said hi, will you?” He looked back at me over his shoulder, his smirk only growing wider.
I felt the blood drain from my face as he walked away and disappeared into the stacks.
I gave him a few seconds’ head start and walked back to my table. Jessica was standing there looking shellshocked. Her mouth opened, but I shook my head, keeping my eyes down as I said, “I’m fine. It’s fine.”
“You don’t look fine.”
I stuffed my books and laptop in my bag and gave her a pleading look to drop it before saying, “I’ll catch up with you tomorrow. Coffee before class?”
Jessica looked wounded but nodded. I felt her gaze on my back as I walked swiftly toward the stairs and broke into a jog, reaching the first-floor landing in record time.
I wasn’t sure where to go. I felt on the verge of tears for the first time since I’d found out about their affair, which was crazy because I wasn’t upset about it in the slightest. I didn’t care that Christian, my boyfriend of three years, and Nicole, my little, had been hooking up behind my back. I didn’t care.
What I did care about was Christian knowing something he shouldn’t. I hadn’t done anything wrong... yet. But I’d gotten close.
The hazy, wine-soaked memory of the night I’d asked Rhys to kiss me thundered back into view as I walked blindly across campus with no clear destination.
I found myself in Hollis Hall. It was quiet compared to the rest of campus, where every free table and chair was taken up by frantic students making up for the fact they’d spent their entire semester so far partying instead of paying attention in class.
But not in Hollis Hall. A few people milled about, sitting in chairs within the shadowed alcoves with their laptops propped on their laps.
I adjusted the weight of my bag and walked down the main hallway toward the lecture halls and stopped in front of the room where Rhys taught his graduate classes.
I knocked, but there was no answer. The door was unlocked, so I stepped inside, finding it empty and still.
With a sigh of relief, I climbed the shallow steps to the middle row and set up my books and computer. The calm quiet seeped into my mind, blurring the anxiety and strife I’d felt in the library after Christian tried to bully me into submitting to him.
I felt awful that Jessica had witnessed it. Christian was rough, always had been. I’d either blocked it out or gotten used to it, which made me feel even worse for letting our relationship go on so long.
“Pay attention,” I whispered to myself. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”
It didn’t matter. What mattered was my paper for Art History, which I hadn’t even started on.
I stretched my arms over my head and buckled down.
An hour passed, then another.
Then the door to the lecture hall opened and closed with a snap, and I looked up to see Rhys enter the room, balancing his laptop in one hand and carrying a worn leather messenger bag in the other. He hadn’t seen me.
My fingers hovered over the keyboard as he set his laptop down on a table on the platform and started pulling materials out of his bag. It wasn’t until I mustered the courage to look away from me and start typing again that he looked up.
I glanced in his direction and quickly looked away.
He said nothing, and I said nothing, and an hour later, we’d simply shared the space and gone about our business in companiable silence.
I shut my laptop and gathered my things, meaning to walk right out of the hall without saying anything to him in passing, but my legs stopped working when I stepped off the last step and stood before the platform.
