28. Haven
Chapter 28
Haven
Professor Rooke is perched on the edge of his sofa, cradling a cup of coffee in his hands. He glances up at me as I come back into the living area, and then gives me a double take.
The fireplace casts a warm glow over his face, smudging the shadows cast by his features. It’s hard to make out his expression. Are his brows raised in surprise or outrage?
“Is this okay?” I ask, stopping halfway to the sofa.
“Yes.” He clears his throat. “Glad you could find something that…fit.”
I tug on the rolled-up sleeve. “I had to make it work.”
“Yeah,” he murmurs. “It…it works.” He clears his throat again, flicks a hand toward my coffee cup. “Hope it’s still warm enough. You took longer than I thought.”
“I couldn’t resist that shower,” I say, giving him a small smile as I come to sit beside him. “It took some convincing to turn off the water.”
“It’s a great shower.” He nods a few times, his eyes fixed on the flames dancing over the pretty pebbles. “Great shower.”
It’s weird as hell sitting this close to him without underwear on, even if there’s no way for him to know. I pick up my coffee and inhale its scent.
God, this feels awkward.
“No bourbon this time,” I say wryly as I take a small sip.
He laughs, and then immediately cuts off the sound. His eyes flicker over to me, and then dart away, like he can’t bear to look at me.
Oh, shit. Can he see the marks Kai left on me?
I grab the front of the hoodie, near the base of the hood, snuggling deeper into it like I’m still cold. Although, after letting that shower pound my body with hot water, I’m anything but cold.
“Here.” My professor leans over, snagging the throw from the back of the sofa and dragging it over my legs.
I get the feeling it’s less about keeping me warm and more about covering me up. Maybe this hoodie was a bad idea. I should have looked for shorts or something.
Or a pair of Professor Rooke’s silk boxers.
Coffee splutters out of my mouth. Fuck, that thought came out of nowhere. I was not prepared.
“You okay?”
“Hot,” I lie, wiping at my mouth and ducking my head to check I didn’t get any coffee on his dove-gray hoodie.
When I look up, I catch him staring at me again. He looks away, sips at his coffee, grimaces. “Why are you here, Haven?”
Now I’m glad I took the time to shower. Sure, the water jets that pummeled my body into submission were amazing. And my professor’s body lotion smells as good as he does. And I might have washed my hair with his shampoo, too, and then towel-dried it while I stared into the mirror above his vanity and wondered what it would be like to live here.
Desperately trying to keep the dream alive.
But more importantly, I figured out how to explain him finding me on his doorstep.
“I, uh…have to take a few days off.” I close my eyes, holding up a hand in case he tries to interrupt. “It’s personal, and I don’t want to talk about it.”
When I dare to peek at him, he’s staring into the fire. “You waited outside my door in the pouring rain to tell me you wouldn’t be in class for a few days?”
His voice is as hollow as the lie I’m trying to pass off as the truth.
“Don’t be dramatic. It was barely drizzling.”
“You were soaked.”
“I didn’t know you’d be home so late.”
“How rude of me for not predicting the future.”
I let out a frustrated sigh. “I thought a face-to-face thing would be the more…mature way to go.”
He’s quiet for a moment, then glances at me from the corner of his eyes. He’s still dressed like he went to class today, but thankfully he’s buttoned up his white shirt again.
“Nothing more mature than rubbing someone’s mistake in their face.”
Indignation blazes over my cheeks. “What?”
“I shouldn’t have called the other night, and then said all those things. Shouldn’t have left it like that.” He shakes his head. “I’ve had other things on my mind. I’m only human.”
I let the silence filter down between us, silently drumming my fingers against the warm coffee cup in my lap.
“I’m sorry too. I’m still trying to get a handle on how this whole professor-student thing works. None of my teachers ever got involved in my studies. It’s kinda overwhelming.”
“Should I back off?” His voice is barely audible, his attention still directed to the fireplace. “Let you destroy what I assume is your one and only opportunity for a better life?”
If it hadn’t been drizzling, I swear I would have heard crickets.
“What makes you think?—?”
“Applying for that grant was your Hail Mary. I know it. You know it.” He takes a slow sip of his coffee, and then shifts to face me on the sofa, one knee sliding up onto the cushion. “You’re not as good a liar as you think you are, Miss Lee.”
My envy for him is violent and sickening.
He looks so comfortable in his own skin. This wealthy, educated, confident, sexy fucking man. He makes me feel like a pathetic piece of shit. I thought he didn’t know how bad off I was, but I guess he’s really good at poker.
And here I thought I was playing solitaire.
“So why don’t you pretend for a moment that we’re both adults here, and tell me what the fuck is more important than your future?”
Kai broke something inside me.
I used to be real good at smothering things with a pillow until they stopped squirming.
My shitty childhood.
My even shittier family.
My lack of everything that makes for a decent life.
But Kai fucking shredded my defenses.
There’s no holding back my resentment. My indignation. The fury Professor Rooke’s condescending smirk sets off inside me.
I slam my coffee cup down on the table. When I turn and duck my head toward him, he leans back like I’m attacking him. I grab the back of the sofa with one hand, the front of my warm, gray hoodie with the other.
“ This , Professor,” I hiss, tugging down the fabric.
He’s frowning, coffee cup hovering over his lap where he lifted it so it wouldn’t spill, his eyes glued to mine.
But then his gaze darts down to my throat, and his face slackens. He straightens, our faces inches apart, and slowly sets his coffee cup on the floor beside the sofa.
I push away from the sofa, but he catches my wrist and pulls me back. I almost topple into him, finding my balance just in time.
“Haven,” he whispers.
He brings his hand up beside my neck, using it to hold back my hair so more light falls on the red ligature marks around my throat. I flinch when his thumb brushes my skin.
Brown eyes gleaming with orange firelight stroke my neck in rhythm with his thumb.
“Tell me his name.”
I jerk away, but my professor is faster than me. He grabs the back of my neck and hauls me back again. This time, both my hands go to the back of the couch to stop myself falling on top of him.
“This isn’t his fault.”
He barks out a rough laugh as his eyes latch onto mine, blazing with an angry heat. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“I mean it, Professor.” My arms shake as I try to keep some distance between us. “I antagonized him.”
His response is a feral growl. “You antagonized him?”
I wish I could look away, but I’m trapped by my own morbid curiosity, desperate to see how this plays out. I’m not just taking a gamble here, I’m putting everything on the line and yelling, ‘all in!’ like they do in movies.
“Let me go,” I say, pushing harder against his grip.
“I’m not letting you go until your ass is in a chair at the sheriff’s office.”
His words put a nauseating lump in my stomach. “What?”
He releases my neck, grabs a handful of my hoodie near the shoulder instead. Pushing me back, he stands, putting our bodies flush against each other before I can take a hurried step back.
“You must report this.”
I knock his hand away. “I don’t have to do anything.”
He stares at me like I’ve lost my fucking mind. Joke’s on him, because I’m pretty sure I have. “Haven, you’ve been assaulted?—“
“And I told you, I had it coming!” I dust myself off, taking another step back in case he tries to grab me again. “Anyway. I’ll be back at classes next week, once the bruises have gone away. I heal quickly.”
We stand just like that, two feet away, both our hands clenched into fists like we’re contemplating going a round to see who wins this argument.
Then he slumps, eyes dropping to the floor between us. He pinches the bridge of his nose, sighing. “Christ, I should have stuck to private practice.”
There’s a crease of defeat between his brows when he looks at me again. “Fine, Miss Lee. You think you deserve this? Who am I to call bullshit on your warped reality?”
That puts a lump in my throat, but I swallow it down with force. “Good. I’m glad we have an understanding.”
He scans me with dead eyes, like I didn’t just take the fight out of him, but the life too. “People should be able to strangle anyone they want, right? With enough provocation ?”
“Okay,” I say, pursing my lips, nodding. “Yeah, I figured you wouldn’t understand.”
I back up so I can veer around the sofa on my way to the front door. Professor Rooke turns his body, but he stays in the same spot. Simply raising his voice to reach me.
“Is that all he did, Haven?”
My feet root to the spot. I stare at Bastian over my shoulder. “What?”
He strokes the air beside his neck. “That all? Because if you change your mind, you only have a couple of days to do a rape kit.” He glances away. “Already showered, though. Most of the evidence would be gone.”
“He didn’t—“ I cut off, swallowing hard when I realize he’s baiting me.
Fucking asshole .
“I’m not a victim,” I say through gritted teeth. “I fought back.“
Now there are tears in my eyes, and God, that makes me mad. Sure, I had to throw this guy a fucking bone of some kind, because why the hell else would I have pitched up at his house like I did?
But I don’t want his protection.
I don’t want his passive-aggressive sympathy.
Or do I?
My face goes slack. I blink away my tears.
Is that why I came here? As some misguided cry for help? Or g
What the fuck was I thinking?
Professor Rooke eyes me. “Leaving already? Don’t let me stop you. You’re obviously eager to get back to your car.”
My startled blink has nothing to do with keeping back tears. “Excuse me?”
He lifts his eyebrows. “Where you sleep?”
The room flickers through my trembling lashes. “Kai told you?” I whisper.
“Kai?” His gaze darts to my neck, and I can see realization dawn on his face. “Kai.”
“No! That’s got nothing to do with this.” I shake my head violently as I storm back to him. “It was your stupid fucking game. He read out the secret Melissa wrote about me in front of everyone .”
My professor doesn’t seem intimidated when I poke him in the chest. I guess he could take me down without breaking a sweat.
Unlike Kai. I gave that loser a run for his money.
“In class?”
“Yes, in class!” I throw up my hands. “He ran the lesson because you decided you had somewhere else to be today.”
There’s a chunk of hair in my face, and I try to huff it away in annoyance, but it just falls back.
“I haven’t spoken with Kai today.”
My eyes flicker over Professor Rooke’s face, hunting for a lie. But there’s nothing there. Just a stoic mask. Guess the coffee sobered him up. Or maybe all this talk about assault and rape.
“Then how the fuck did you know?” I whisper.
“When I visited your address, and you weren’t there,” he says calmly.
He might as well have punched me in the stomach. Air leaves my lungs, and I barely keep from flopping onto the couch like a bag of dry cleaning.
“You did what?”
He carefully reaches for me, and I’m so fucked in the head, I let him hold on to my wrist. As cautious as if he’s handling a newborn lamb, he backs up, tugging until I follow.
“Did you really think AHC would award someone a grant without doing a background check on them first?”
The words ring in my ears like a slap.
Background check.
“The lovely Korean family who live at your supposed address in Ashwood Crossing claim they don’t know any Lees. Haven, or otherwise.”
He’s leading me into his bedroom.
I don’t resist.
Ever so gently, he turns me so my back is to the bed, and then slowly pushes down on my shoulders.
And I let him.
“Everything else on your application checked out, so I just left a note in your file that we had to confirm your current address.”
He curls a finger under my chin, lifting it so I’m forced to look up at him.
I don’t fight him.
“But then I met you. And I saw your car. I’m not stupid, Haven. It’s obvious you’re in trouble.”
His eyes flicker to the marks on my throat, and then he disappears into the bathroom. Light pools into the bedroom when he turns on the light, and I hear the cabinet doors opening, closing.
Am I still in shock? Why else would I just sit here like an idiot and wait for him to come back?
Pressure keeps building behind my eyes the longer I sit there, my mind marinating in everything he’s told me.
I visited your address.
I should be relieved that when he returns, he’s holding a first aid kit in his hand, and not a knife.
Professor Rooke takes out a salve, leaning so his shadow doesn’t block out the light from the bathroom as he gently applies it to the sides of my neck.
“Will I get kicked out of college?” I whisper.
He screws the lid back on the tube and tosses it into the kit.
“No, Haven. That grant is for students in actual need. And you, most definitely, are a student in need.”
He rifles through the first aid kit again and takes out a bottle of pills. Shakes one out.
When he sees me watching, he holds it out on his palm.
“For the pain.”
I blink at him. “I’m not in pain.”
“You will be, once the endorphins wear off. Open your mouth.”
My lips part, stars glittering in my eyes as I peer up at him through tear-studded lashes.
“You’re safe now, sweet girl.” He sets the pill on my tongue and pushes my chin closed. “Everything’s going to be fine.”