Chapter 113

The next morning, I wake up with Neil curled around me. We’re both naked and sated. We didn’t have penetrative sex last night, but we had both found release multiple times throughout the night. In Neil’s arms, in the dark, I felt safe and contented.

But now, with the dawn light shining in through the windows, a sense of foreboding fills me. I’ve learned from previous nights with the Hayes brothers, that words whispered in the dark were often rescinded in the morning light.

As Neil rouses, he holds me to him. His front is lining my back with his arms strong around my waist. We fit well together, like two perfectly-shaped puzzle pieces.

I treasure the moment, mentally locking it away. I wish I could freeze time, and keep everything just like this.

But then Neil wakes up more, and he startles. His arms loosen, then totally slip away from my waist. He rolls and stands off the other side of the bed.

With a sinking feeling in my stomach, I watch as he searches around the room for his clothes and steps back into them. He doesn’t look back at me once.

He busted off most of the buttons on his shirt, so when he slides it back onto his shoulders, it hangs open, revealing a vertical sliver of his bare chest down the middle. A hickey I made is visible between his pecs.

“So,” I say, and it feels wrong. Surely our first words should be good morning or last night was wonderful. Instead, I’m forced to say, “Is last night one of those nights we are going to pretend never happened?”

Neil doesn’t answer. He runs his fingers through his long hair, trying to get it into some kind of order. But nothing he can do makes it look less wild, and who knows where his hair tie landed last night.

He sighs, and it hurts worse than his indifference. Because now, I can see the resignation in him. Gone is the possessive heat from last night. Now, he’s back to being his father’s perfect son.

“Should I start packing?” I ask.

“Why would you do that?” He’s still not looking at me.

“Last night, you told me I had to leave.”

“I said a lot of things last night.”

Ouch. He did, but to hear he’s taking them all back… it’s like a knife in my ribs.

I start to pull back the covers, though I keep the bedsheet around my breasts. I feel oddly vulnerable now, and shy. I don’t want to be naked around him anymore.

“I’ll pack,” I say.

“No.” His attention finally lands on me, and I still. “You’re not fired. The contract is still intact.” His gaze dips away and he sighs again. “I’ll face whatever comes.”

He starts for the door. I scramble out of bed, holding the sheet around me.

“But, Neil—”

“Don’t worry about it, Chloe,” he says. His voice has gone flat again, and I shiver. Before I can recover enough to speak, he opens the door and leaves.

He closes the door behind him, and I stare at it for a while. I know he won’t come back through – probably never will again – but I want him to. So I wait.

I wait even as I shower and change. I wait as I gather my school supplies into my bag. I wait up until the moment I need to leave, or I’ll be late for class.

Even then, I keep my eyes open for him as I walk across campus.

So I’m on high alert when I hear another group of students talking about him.

“I never thought any of the Hayes brothers would settle down,” one of the students said.

“Well if it had to be one of them, it makes sense for it to be the oldest,” said another. “Besides, Neil and Angela have been dating for a while. It only makes sense that they would get engaged.”

“I guess,” said the first.

“Angela is so lucky,” said the third, a girl with a dreamy look in her eyes. “Neil is the perfect man. I bet he’ll make a great husband.”

I glower without meaning to, and force myself to stop paying attention. My legs feel sluggish but I push myself forward. I don’t want to hear anymore. I’ve heard well enough to cut me.

Angela said yes.

I knew she would. It shouldn’t come as a shock. But it still does.

Because last night, when Neil and I were intimate, he was engaged to someone else. No wonder he pushed me aside so quickly this morning.

Last night shouldn’t have happened.

I should have known better. I did know better, but I still fell under his spell. He’s probably with Angela right now.

They are going to get married, and kiss, and have sex, and make babies, and grow old together.

None of that should bother me. But it does. Worse, it makes me fucking heartbroken.

It’s not that I’ve convinced myself that Neil and I could do any of those things. I’ve known my place from the start. I’ve known that whatever moments of passion that I share with Archer or Neil are stolen. In another month, my contract is up, and we all move on.

But to know he so easily moved on… That he hasn’t even considered me…

Last night, he said he couldn’t get me out of his mind. Was that a lie driven by lust?

Frowning, I focus on the sidewalk as I force myself forward. I’m so lost in thought, I don’t notice the person in my path until I nearly step on their shoes.

I stop at once. An apology on my lips, I look up… and see Wyatt. My apology dies, and I back up a step.

“I saw Neil this morning coming out of your room,” Wyatt says. I guess he’s not wasting time today, jumping straight to mockery without the precursor of polite small talk. “I saw the hickeys.”

I cross my arms. I won’t dignify anything he says with a response. He only wants a rise out of me. I won’t give him the satisfaction.

Wyatt snorts a harsh laugh. “You are their little whore, aren’t you? And you probably like it.”

“No one asked for your opinion.”

“You’re a fucking embarrassment,” Wyatt snaps. He steps closer to me, and I back up to avoid him. I nearly fall as my foot falls off the sidewalk and onto the street. “You’re probably just trying to get pregnant to trap them.”

That is so not true, I don’t even know where to begin. For one thing, I would need to have someone’s dick inside of me to be pregnant, and that has never happened. Not that I was going to tell Wyatt any of the details of my sex life.

Suddenly he steps backwards, putting a large berth between us. I’m confused, until a rush of freezing cold water splashed all over me. Behind me, a car hit a mud puddle, and now I’m covered head to toe in cold brown water. It drips from my hair and my elbows. My whole body is soaked.

Wyatt laughs. “Now everyone will know how disgusting you are.”

Ignoring him, I storm past him and keep heading for class. His laugh follows me the entire way.

My classmates cast me curious glances all through class. Even the professor seems distracted by my appearance.

Only Debbie asks, “Are you okay?”

I nod. I don’t want her to worry.

Yet the cold is seeping so deep down into my bones that my hands are trembling.

And I sneeze.