Was that how it would be? Was I destined to be treated like shit for the next few weeks whenever he decided?
Because that wasn’t what I’d signed up for. I hadn’t signed up to be treated like dirt. Was it really worth it, all of this? If I was just going to be treated like crap?
I wanted my future. Of course I did. I’d worked so goddamn hard for it, but that didn’t mean I wanted to be treated like a doormat for it.
I grabbed my planner and checked my schedule. Today marked a lesson with Professor Keaton. I took a deep breath, grabbed my phone, and called the school. I put on my best sleepy voice and added a cough for good measure as I called in sick. I was offered best wishes and ensured that work would either be provided to me by Jake Haas or e-mailed by my professors.
I hid my phone beneath my pillow and curled up beneath my duvet, only to be interrupted by three loud bangs at my door.
“Whaaaat?” I groaned, peeking out over the top of the covers.
My bedroom door opened, and Bella’s head pokes around the door. Instantly, her face scrunches up when her eyes hit me.
“Eww. What’s wrong with you?”
“Sick,” I muttered.
“Like, Ebola sick or can’t-be-fucked sick?”
“Fuck-you-before-I-vomit-on-you sick.”
“Yeah, ’kay, byeeeee.”
The door slammed, and I pulled the covers over my head.
Such a fucking drama queen.
At least she wasn’t a wimp, I supposed. Like me. That’s totally what I was doing at that point—being a giant wimp. I might as well have just quit school, paid for a plane ticket, and gone home. That would, of course, be totally ridiculous. But still totally logical.
It would solve all the problems. I’d just re-enroll in another school for my final year. I could do that, right? Even if I had to start again. Would that have been easier? It would have been better for me because I wouldn’t have been treated like crap.
I pulled the covers down and sat up. What the hell was I doing, lying in bed, lamenting his asshole-ish treatment of me? Why was I not storming into his office and ripping him a new one?
I wouldn’t have taken that shit treatment from anyone else, so why was I from him? Because I was scared of him? Of what he could do? Of what he had on me?
Okay, I wasn’t scared. Not of him. I didn’t believe he would hurt me. I didn’t actually know what I believed at that point. It didn’t make any sense, but hey. He wouldn’t have hurt me. That wouldn’t have benefitted him in any way. I was scared of what he’d do with the information he had about me, sure. But not of the man himself.
Then it hit me—like a giant smack in the face, the thought came to me.
I needed to level the playing field. Right now, he had a silent army of a thousand, while I lay in bed wondering how to battle against it. If there was one thing I’d learned since becoming a cam girl, it was that everyone had a past, and not everyone’s was a good one. Skeletons were skeletons for a reason.
It stood to reason that, somewhere in his thirty-one years, Professor Jordan Keaton would have a skeleton or two. One that would benefit me if I could uncover it.
Yep... There had to be one somewhere. And I was determined to find it.
Campus was always quiet at the end of the day, when only the teachers and a few straggling students remained. I was hoping to find Professor Keaton in his office, mostly to tell him that his attitude last night hadn’t been okay.
My generic Google search hadn’t dug up much about him. Just his degree and where he taught. Nothing personal at all, and it was then that I’d realized I had a little time, that the best way to catch him was by taking it slow.#p#分页标题#e#
That was exactly how I’d ended up where I was, with the hope that he’d still be there. Rumor had it that he preferred to grade in his office as opposed to taking his work home. I hoped that it would be one of those nights.
His office was in one of the quietest parts of campus—not that it really stood for anything. As I walked down the long hall of the history department toward his personal space, the quietness of the hall was eerie. I was used to there being several different groups of students speeding through to their next class, because for the most part, that’s what this hall was used for: a shortcut.
I reached his office at the end of the hall and let out a small breath when I saw the faint, yellow glow through the blind covering the window. I knocked three times.
“Come in.”
With a shaking hand, I grasped the door handle and pushed it down. The door opened with the tiniest squeak, and I took two steps into the room. He was sitting behind his desk, wearing his glasses, and he was entirely focused on the two stacks of papers in front of him. The one to the right was significantly higher than the one on the left, and I took that to assume I’d caught him in time.