45. Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Five
Emma
“I’m sorry. There’s nothing I can do. My hands are tied.” Mrs. Abrams places both hands behind the desk in front of her.
“Bullshit.”
I think that might be the first time I’ve heard my dad cuss.
My entire family, including Parker, is standing in the dean’s office.
A blanket of stars accompanies the candlelight from her desk.
There are no solid stone walls. Instead, her office is one big, windowed dome that reminds me a lot of Luxxia because of the blue accents everywhere.
Mrs. Abrams must love blue because her hair is also a dusty blue that she pins up in curls.
“Dad.” Eva grabs his hand.
This is his boss, after all, but I don’t think he cares right now. He’s extra angry because Mrs. Abrams was in meetings all day, so Evangeline had to attend the entirety of the Donor Program orientation.
“No, there is no way this is a binding contract,” my father says. “She signed documents on your campus that she did not consent to.”
“I understand that, and I agree with you completely. This is unacceptable, and we’ve opened an investigation into the matter based on Emma’s information.
But I don’t have the power over the Donor Program.
You will need to appeal through program channels.
That said, Evangeline has my full support behind an appeal. ”
“That could take months.”
Evangeline has picked the skin around her nails to the blood. She’s been quiet, maybe to avoid worrying anyone else, but I know her. This is what she does, complete internal shutdown. I grab her arm and hug her close.
“I’m sorry, there’s nothing more I can do for tonight,” the dean says.
My stomach is in knots after dropping Evangeline off at her room, and I make my way toward Luxxia House. The ground is still wet from another afternoon rain, and the lights along the path illuminate the stones in an oil-slick-like haze.
I haven’t heard from Dacre all day long. I thought surely I’d get a text.
Something is wrong. Why else wouldn’t he answer a single one of my texts?
Maybe his phone died, or maybe his meeting with his grandfather is going extra long. It might be both.
I’m not having doubts about Dacre. I’m ready to make something of this, and last night was incredible.
We clicked in a way that I’m sure I don’t need to be afraid anymore.
So why is he not texting me back? One of the richest families in Vviveren doesn’t have charging cords available in their plethora of limos?
Dacre’s hands still feel as if they’re all over me. His lips brush the space behind my knee. The words of praise he whispered make my skin shiver.
No. He loves me. Everything is fine.
I check my phone again, even though it’s only been a few minutes.
My heart jumps as I read Dacre’s text on my home screen:
“Meeting is taking longer than I thought. I’ll be gone for the next few days. Don’t wait for me. Luv U”
I stare at my phone. Crickets softly sing, and they shuffle around my feet in the low light of the lanterns. An eerie calm settles over me in the middle of the path as I read the text over and over again.
The air grows thick with my unease, and I break the text down section by section.
The meeting is “taking longer than he thought.” Yeah, no shit. He’ll be gone for a few days. What part of this meeting would take days to complete? This isn’t a business meeting; it was specifically about confronting his grandfather about personal matters.
Maybe the most confusing part of the text is “Luv U.”
I scroll up through all my texts from him. Granted, Dacre hasn’t typed “I love you” to me in a text yet, but he doesn’t abbreviate. Even in the announcement texts for the culinary club, he spells out the word “birthday.”
I might be coping. This is the text I’ve been waiting for all day, and it’s not what I expected. He didn’t even answer any of my questions, which makes me think maybe he can’t.
Across the campus, the lights of Luxxia glow. This isn’t what I had planned for the night.
It could be a typo or maybe a weird fluke of autocorrect.
But since when does Dacre not take every meticulous minute to curate everything in his life?
He even uses a period after every sentence, with proper commas and grammar.
In this, he didn’t put the period at the end of his sentence, as if he were in a hurry.
Something isn’t right.