Chapter 28 #2
“Lara was the only one who was there for me. Before my mother killed herself with alcohol.” I snorted in frustration, blinking away the tear. “Lara unknowingly saved my life twice.” His stare from beside me burned into me and I smiled sadly... gratefully. “The Rydells seem to be guardian angels.”
The temptation to look at him was strong, but I was too vulnerable right now. With him, I would let down all my walls. And those were our most dangerous moments.
I took a deep breath.
“I'm going to find a job and write until I get my first book out.”
He stared straight ahead again.
“Under which of your names?”
My smile returned automatically.
“Why should I tell you that?”
“So I can read your first book and ask you for an autograph when we see each other again.”
When we see each other again.
My moths were doing somersaults in my stomach.
I swallowed.
He wanted to stay in touch.
And there they were again. The tears. I managed to hold them back. But that wasn't possible for my fragile hope.
“Quillon Veritas.”
“Not your pen name?”
“Bold of you to assume that's my real name.”
“Normally, authors live under their real names and present themselves under their pen names. You live under a pen name as if it were all you have.”
Smiling, I stepped off the path and across the lawn toward the sea of white tulips and stole one of them.
“Maybe a quill and the truth are all I have.”
All I need to write a book.
Blue was too personal to me. A name I didn’t want to share. With anyone but him.
Davian smiled too before pulling something out of his pocket and holding it out to me.
“Here.” I took the piece of paper and looked down at his neat, albeit ornate, handwriting.
“I forgot to give this to you. Even though you won't need it anymore.” He ran his fingers through his hair.
“Your debating style has some flaws, but nothing that can't be improved with enough practice. One of your strengths seems to be reaching your opponent on an emotional level, even if you do slip into personal attacks, for which there are skillful alternatives.”
A strength that only came to the fore when I was interested in the topic. But I would let him believe that I had at least one academic strength.
“Thanks...” I slipped the note into my brown briefcase. “Good luck with the debates. I can see you outplaying the other professors with your candidate.”
Davian laughed, and it sounded frustrated.
Playing Mr. Ganz
Carlos Rafael Rivera
“I'd love to sit back and watch this ridiculous bullfight, but Joseph is determined to teach Troy a lesson.”
His very name cast a shadow over my mood.
“Why would he use you for that when he has his own candidate... or his son...”
I had to be careful not to let anything show.
But this man had tyrannized me so much over the past two weeks that there was now no place in the Richter estate where one could not find shards of broken whiskey glasses under the cabinets.
I didn't even have room on my arms anymore, let alone my thighs, as the wounds healed slowly... that was how quickly new ones appeared.
Instinctively, I pulled my sweater sleeve down.
“He trained me for years,” Davian explained. “We used to work together as lawyers.” Lara had told me that, and it had finished me off. “This persistent man is counting on me to be able to fight for his position as future director of the law faculty.”
Davian snorted amusedly, but I stumbled over his words.
“Wait... What exactly do you mean?”
“If Troy wins, there's a chance Arnold will pull his son back into the race as his potential successor. Joseph and Troy are something like arch enemies.” He shook his head with a smile, and there was something desperate about it.
“And since Troy is fighting with everything he's got, Joseph needs me on his side.”
Wasn't it already set in stone that my father would one day become the head of Maplecrest Law School?
“If Joseph or I win these debates, it proves to Arnold that he trained his former student well, and that this student, in turn, had also trained me – the next student in line – well. It's overly complicated lawyer thinking, so I don't want to confuse you with it any further.”
Damn... There was a chance my father would lose the last thing keeping his ship from going under.
“Everything okay?”
My head turned to Davian and I nodded hastily, but then fell into a stare.
This man was my father's pride and joy. Not his intelligent liberal son, not his politically successful daughter, and certainly not his failed misstep. No. Davian was my father's last rock in the storm.
“You look so pale...”
I blinked and looked away again.
“Yes, I...” I clutched the thick leather strap of my bag. “I think... I think I'm glad to be leaving this place. Everyone here is so... competitive.”
Everything in me prayed that neither my father nor Davian would find someone who could defeat Troy's candidate.
It wasn't fair to Davian, but he would get over it.
My father? He would fall. Deep. So deep that he would hit the bottom so hard that he would finally wake up, even though I doubted he would ever see the damage he had done.
But what was my hope worth?
Fate was a lousy traitor.
I wander from place to place,
searching, never finding,
even though I already know
where I belong.
– Blue