The Alpha Men's Secret Club 3(8)
But what if he didn’t love her back?
She was sure that he must have some affection for her, but love? It was such a strong, overwhelming conundrum of a word. A word that had many ripples – that should not be spoken of without repercussions.
As he pulled out of her, his face flushed and his chest heaving, she settled for: “So what are we going to do now?”
Not ‘you’. ‘We’. We are in this together. I will follow you wherever you want to go.
He sank back into the pillow beside her. She turned to him and laid a hand on his chest.
He thought for a while before saying, “Would you be surprised if I told you that I don’t yet know?”
“No. You need time to process this.”
“Damn right,” he muttered.
“I mean . . . it’s not as if you need the money.”
“I’ve never worked for the money.” He paused. “I actually liked teaching.”
“You’re good at it.”
“I know.”
She had to smile in the dark. A little of the old, confident Rust was creeping back through the depressive, alcoholic haze.
“Can you get another teaching job?”
“I suppose. Though they would want to know why I resigned from my old one . . . and with the press like hounds down there, word is bound to get around.”
“You’re a handsome, rich professor. You’re bound to be fodder for the press.”
“No. It’s the fact that you are barely legal that’s keeping the vultures down there.”
She kept silent. Yes, her life was irrevocably changed by this too.
He said wryly, “They’re trying to paint me as a dirty old man.”
“You’re far from being old.”
“Yeah, but I’m still older than you are. That’s what matters to the press.”
She knew he was right.
“So what do we do?” It was back to her question.
After a long pause, he said, “I’ll think about it . . . and let you know.”
She knew she wasn’t going to get anything else out of him tonight. And he was right. He had to consider his options. Most of them would involve moving away from this campus . . . which meant . . . she wouldn’t be able to see him.
Unless she followed him.
Unless he allowed her to.
And it was the fear that he wouldn’t let her – because he didn’t want her enough to want her to be with him, or out of some noble sense that he would be ruining her education and her life if she did – that kept her awake the rest of the night.
6
The next day when Kate returned to campus, people swung to look at her as she alighted from the cab. All at once, she could discern the difference. People were whispering to each other and blatantly pointing at her.
She immediately blushed.
They knew.
Even if the Dean and his staff kept it a secret, that bitch Fiona Montgomery certainly wouldn’t. So Kate did the only thing she could. She held her head up high and marched back to the room she shared with Michaela.
Only –
“How could you?” Michaela’s shriek greeted her like a banshee’s wail at the door. “I’m your best friend in the world – your only friend in the world – and you didn’t think to tell me you were fucking Rust O’Brien?”
“Sssssh!” Kate could see heads popping out of the dorm rooms everywhere. She quickly popped her entire body in and slammed the door shut.
“Everyone knows,” Michaela avowed.
“I know.”
“The word is spreading around like a herpes virus.”
“I know.”
“Why did you keep it from me, girl?” In Michael’s voice was a deep-seated hurt.
Kate’s heart sank. She knew she had hurt Michaela by keeping secrets from her. She took Michaela’s hand and sat her down on her bed.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you then because I was afraid of losing him. But I’ll tell you now. I’ll tell you everything.”
And so she did – the way she had pursued Rust to THE ALPHA MEN’S CLUB one night and what she had done after. About what they had done in front of Carlo. About what Fiona had done to Rust. She relived it all again, and her heart pounded as her emotions ran the gamut of her fierce longing for Rust to the ephemeral anger she had felt when he had been done wrong.
Michaela was in turns aggrieved and sympathetic and amazed. At the end of it all, she clutched Kate’s hands and held them tightly.
“I’ll find that Carlo and Fiona Montgomery and tie them into a knot together. Then I’ll sit on them and make pancakes out of them,” she said fiercely.
Despite her distress, Kate had to laugh at the mental image that presented. “I think they might like it. But the whole thing was bound to come out anyway.”