Chapter 17
SEVENTEEN
RUELLA
“So, what’s this about you having dinner with Max?” Corden smiles before shoving a spoon full of rice into his mouth.
I roll my eyes.
“Well, if someone hadn’t cancelled on me…again. Then I wouldn’t have had to have dinner with him at all,” I lie. I had every intention of eating with Max for information, regardless of Corden. If he didn’t cancel on me first, I would have on him.
He mock gasps and puts his hand on his chest. “So, because I had an assignment due, you replaced me?” I take a sip of my water as I hold back my smile.
I shouldn’t be enjoying this so much, I should be making other friends to try and get information.
Corden and Deena don’t know anything, and yet I am still spending my time with them.
If my father found out I was spending valuable time making real friends for nothing but companionship he would probably break my wrist.
I can’t seem to care as much these days. The eventual pain will be worth these moments I am trying to hold onto.
“Max?” Deena asks. “Max Fielding?”
When I glance up, she isn’t smiling. Her eyes are wide, and her lips have thinned.
“Yeah,”
“You had dinner with Max Fielding?” She repeats.
Oh shit. Does she fancy Max.
“It was just dinner,” I rush out. “We have a class together and we were going over a paper. Nothing more than that,” I try to reassure her.
Her face takes on a look of betrayal and her face flushes red before she pushes her chair back to stand.
“I have to go,” She says as she picks up her bag and tray.
“Deena…wait,” I try but she turns and walks away.
“What the hell was that?” Corden asks watching her retreating form leave through the doors.
“I have no idea,” I pause. “Do you think she likes him, likes him?”
Corden shrugs. “Maybe. They do spend time together,”
My eyebrows hit my hair line. “They do?” I ask confused. “I have never even seen them acknowledge each other,”
“Rue they’re from the home Marrowton supports. I see them walk there a few times a week to help with the younger kids,”
“Oh,” I wince. “I hope she knows there’s nothing romantic between us,”
“Explain it again the next time you see her,”
We are silent for a while as Corden finishes his plate of food and I flick through my phone before my final class of the day. Then I remember I haven’t seen Corden alone since the night of the records room.
“Oh hey, I have been meaning to ask you something,”
“Shoot,”
I move a little closer to him and lower my voice. “In the records room,” he quickly scans the hall and then looks at me. “Who’s was the file you took a photo of?”
He clears his throat before glancing around a second time.
“When my brother attended here, he always spoke of a girl he was partnered with in class. They hated each other, sort of rivals trying to win the top spot. Anyway, things changed, and they became friends. Best friends,” I stay silent as he grabs his phone.
“In their final year here, she suddenly stopped showing up to class. Whenever he tried to contact her, it went unanswered. Then when he asked the faculty, they said she has dropped out,” My eyes widen at the familiarity of it all.
“But he knew that couldn’t have been the case. She was joint top of the class with him, she wasn’t struggling at all so she wouldn’t have dropped out. She had an internship at some big tech company coming up after graduation, so it just didn’t make any sense,”
He sighs. “Weeks went by of him trying to get in contact with her. He even tried to call her parents, but they were out of the country. When they eventually came back, he went to her home in Kent, but they told him she had gone. Left them a letter that she didn’t want anything to do with the family anymore and they hadn’t heard from her since,”
I notice my hand is tapping my thigh as I listen to Corden, the rhythm soothing to my racing heart. I pull it away and clench it between my other hand.
“My brother didn’t believe it at first. Even if she wanted to run away, she would have told him about it.
He would have helped her do it. But then he started to look into everything, hacked into accounts and every file he could to do with her and the family.
He found out that her parents had her set up in an arranged marriage to a man thirty years older than her,”
My stomach rolls.
Who does this to their children. Everyone thinks all the money and power are things you would want, but it very seldom comes without a catch.
“I know right,” Corden scrunches his nose up.
“Anyway,” He sighs. “My brother accepted it as a reason to run away from her family and have no contact. But he has never stopped looking for her. In fact, she’s the reason he started his whole business,”
“If this story wasn’t so tragic, that would actually be a little romantic,” I shrug.
“Yeah,” he chuckles. “He never did figure out his feelings for her until it was too late,”
“That’s really fucking sad,”
He nods as he fidgets with his phone. “Well, he never really speaks about her anymore, I hadn’t even remembered her name until recently…until I opened that drawer, and it was on a file,”
“What do you think it means?” I push.
“I have no fucking clue Rue,” He lowers his voice. “But after spending the past week going through every name from that file, I am starting to think the Academy is covering up things,”
“Like what?” I pry again.
“Every girl on the folders in those drawers have dropped out. Which I could accept knowing about my brother’s friend, things like that happen a lot more than you think,”
“But”
“But that doesn’t explain why Piper’s name is in that draw when she is still here,”
“Do you think they didn’t leave of their own accord? Do you think something is going to happen to Piper?”
“Like I said, I don’t know,” He looks at me determined. “I am thinking about taking it to my brother, see if he can dig up something else with this new information. I’m hooked now and I need to find out what this all means,”
I nod. “I can help,”
He grins. “More late-night madness?”
“More late-night madness,” I smile back.
Maybe this is what I need. A partner to help with the search, one that is tech savvy and came into the investigation on his own.
I thought that person could have been Asher.
He has information I need and for some reason I trust him.
The same can’t be said for his friend Daylan who I still suspect is the person who attacked me on my run.
I haven’t found a slip up yet in all my observations from the shadows, if it was him, he is really good at playing the part of a respectable Duke.
“Oh shit, I have to go drop off a paper. See you in class,” Corden stands and grabs his tray.
“See you soon,” I start to pack up my things to head to the library. I have an hour before my next class so I can squeeze in some homework.
As I pull my bag over my shoulder, I feel his eyes on me.
When I turn, the two magnetic irises draw me in immediately and I am back in that billiard room once more.
I remember his hands on my body, his lips claiming mine and the rush of emotion that came with it. I feel the flush on my cheeks as my heart starts to race, along with the throbbing between my legs. He is so devastatingly beautiful it hurts to look at.
My brain decided to have mercy on me and reminds me of why I have been avoiding him all week.
You are lying to him.
I am. I am lying to everyone. It is turning out to be a lot harder than I first thought. I wish I could turn it all off, but he is something I never saw coming. A want I didn’t know I had. A reason to stay. When I know I can’t.
Then comes the guilt. The guilt of still not telling him about his sister’s name in that drawer. Or the fact that I plan on using her to find out what happened last term. The truth I cannot give without telling him why I was searching in that drawer in the first place.
His brow furrows at whatever he sees, and, in that break, I make my escape. I turn and practically run from the hall, and get halfway down the corridor before I realise, I left with the damn tray of food.
I groan.
I can’t go back now.
I make sure I am alone before I dump the tray next to the bin.
Fuck Asher and his hold on me. This isn’t who I am. I am not this stupid girl swooning over a man that is so far out of reach you would have to have a telescope to see it.
No, I am the girl with a plan. One that doesn’t include romantic feelings. Especially towards a moody, morally grey man with a sharp smile and secrets behind his vicious, yet beautiful eyes.
***
“Omg he asked you, didn’t he?” One of Darcy’s friends squeals at her as I pass them in the hallway on my way to class.
“He did,” She smiles back.
“To be attending together is practically telling the world you guys are dating,”
“Obviously,” Darcy scoffs. “We have been together for ages; this is the next step to making it official in society. Daddy and his father are in talks about marriage,”
“Omg this is so exciting,”
Darcy’s eyes meet mine as I pass her. They take on a cruelty as she steps into my space.
“Did you hear that tramp?” She asks.
“Sorry I don’t speak dumb bitch,” I snap a little too harsh. For deciding only an hour ago to take a step away from Asher Vander, the jealousy I am feeling sure doesn’t seem to be in understanding of the fact.
She grins wider, and I curse silently for giving myself away. She can see it written all over my face.
“Me and Asher will be making our societal debut,” She takes her lip stick out of her bag and starts to put it on. “Looks like I win,” She snaps the lid shut while her friends snigger behind her.
I take a breath, but the growing knot stays in place.
It’s not like I thought one stupid night and one earth shattering kiss would change anything. Maybe it was only earth shattering for me.
“Congratulations,” I push past her. As I open the door to the lecture hall, I pause and turn back.
“Oh, and Darcy,” She turns with a raised eyebrow. “You have lipstick on your teeth,”