Chapter 11
Savannah
If there were a special circle of hell reserved for university faculty children, it would look exactly like the Wrighton University Benefactors Booster event.
Crystal chandeliers. Linen-draped tables. Tiny hors d’oeuvres that looked like they’d been assembled with tweezers, with my father working the room like a campaign trail politician, shaking hands with people he’d insulted in private not twelve hours earlier.
“Savannah, smile,” he murmured without looking at me, the kind of low, clipped tone that meant it wasn’t a suggestion.
I did. Because that’s what you did at these things — you smiled, you nodded, and you let the alumni and donors believe you were as thrilled to be here as they were to be writing six-figure checks.
I was halfway through calculating exactly how much longer I could last before slipping out when the crowd shifted near the entrance.
An excited murmur turned into a ringing crescendo of applause and cheering, and then there they were. A handful of the Alabama Lions football team. I hated that I craned my neck to see if he was with them.
“The football team is here?” I asked my dad, who was standing beside me. “You didn’t tell me they were coming.”
“Ugh, the football team, great,” my dad muttered beside me. “I should go greet Coach Sutherland and his stars.”
I nodded, but he never saw me. My father had never understood why the room changed when athletes walked in. He understood the checks they brought. That was enough for him.
The very fact that the Lions won the championship was the reason this year’s Benefactors Booster was so well attended, and that the people here were going to be happily writing out those checks my father sought because of the guys who just walked in.
But the means of how he got the donations didn’t matter to Dad, as long as he got them. I was never sure if I respected his drive or pitied it.
I looked over toward the door, just as the crowd parted, and like Moses walking across the seafloor, with the waves rising on either side of him, never daring to touch, Dante Spence entered the reception room as if he were the god of football himself.
Except . . . not the Dante I knew. Not the guy in sneakers, jeans, and a hoodie, trash-talking in the library.
This Dante was in a tailored charcoal suit, Lions-blue tie knotted loosely at his throat, clean-shaven, sharp-eyed, and not a strand of hair out of place.
His smile — the one I’d seen him use to annoy me — was now aimed at a semi-circle of donors, warm and confident, like he’d been born for this kind of room.
I almost didn’t recognize him, and I hated that the sight of him made my stomach flip. Because here, under the glow of the chandeliers, Dante Spence looked like a hero.
An untouchable one . . . and I wasn’t sure which version of him was real.
He spotted me before I could decide if ducking behind the large centerpiece was an option.
His eyes flicked over me — quick, assessing — and that polished smile didn’t falter for a second.
His gaze swept over me in one clean, clinical glance, and then he turned to the man at his side, who was speaking to him.
I looked down at my dress, wondering if he’d seen something he didn’t like.
My dress was a deep cornflower-blue satin slip dress that skimmed my figure without clinging, the hem brushing mid-calf.
The neckline was a clean V, elegant but not revealing, with thin straps that showed off my shoulders.
My shoes were a silver strappy sandal; the heel was modest, but even so, I wouldn’t be sprinting across campus anytime soon.
When I looked up, he was in front of me.
“Sav.” Dante said my name like we were old friends meeting by chance, not two people currently engaged in an ongoing war of snark and suspicious glares.
“Ten.” I matched his tone, though mine probably had more ice than charm.
My father reappeared at my side, the smile he reserved for star players who brought in funding blooming instantly. “Dante Spence, good to see you here tonight. I trust the postseason’s treating you well?”
“Better every day, Dean Cole.” Dante shook his hand, firm and respectful, like he hadn’t spent the last two weeks making my life difficult. “Savannah’s been a huge help to me, by the way. I appreciate her time.”
I almost choked on my sparkling apple juice — expensive, but still fake champagne for those under twenty-one. Help? That was one word for it.
My father’s gaze flicked to me, sharp and unreadable, before turning back to Dante. “Glad to hear it. We value commitment to academics as much as athletics here.”
Before I could think of sneaking away, Dante did the unthinkable — he offered me his arm.
“Would you excuse us, Dean? I’d like to steal her for a moment.”
My father hesitated, and I was sure he was going to refuse.
“Don’t worry, Dean Cole,” Dante murmured smoothly. “I’ll bring her back in one piece.”
Dad flushed and then, with a quick nod of his head, he turned and walked away, which was all the proof I needed that the devil works in mysterious ways, and the devil, quite possibly, was Dante Spence.
When I refused to take his arm, he guided me toward the quieter edge of the conference room, his hand warm and steady against my back, his public smile still in place for anyone watching.
“What the hell are you doing?” I hissed.
“Same as you,” he murmured without looking at me. “Playing my role, while taking a quick break with a friend.”
“That’s your role.” I gestured subtly toward the donors now watching us as if we were a Hallmark movie. “Where you play corporate quarterback, not here with me, friend.”
He finally glanced down at me, his smile curling just enough to be private. “You think the team can win games without winning rooms like this first?”
There it was again — the shift. The reminder that Dante was more than just the guy who got under my skin. He could move through this world as if he owned it. The most unsettling part? I wasn’t entirely sure I hated it.
Dante was about to say something — something irritating, I was sure — when a voice like a champagne cork popping cut in.
“Well, well. Aren’t you two just the picture?”
I turned, and Mrs. Whitmore, queen of the faculty’s events committee and serial gossiper, was beaming at us like she’d just stumbled into a headline in the sports pages. Her diamonds winked in the light, almost as bright as her teeth.
“Savannah, you look beautiful as always,” she said, already sliding in between us like she’d been invited. “Care to introduce me?”
My brows lifted so high I was pretty sure they’d left my forehead. “You don’t know who he is?” I asked, glancing at Dante.
His smile was as blinding as hers, only sharper. “Ma’am, Dante Spence. Pleasure to meet you.” He flicked a glance my way, and the pointedness of it hit me like a jolt — sharp, sudden, and impossible to ignore.
“Mrs. Whitmore,” I said quickly, “heads the organizational committees for several other fundraisers within the faculty events calendar. Mrs. Whitmore, this is Dante Spence, the quarterback of the Alabama Lions.”
“I thought I recognized you,” she said, and I barely held back my scoff. “And how do you know Savannah?” she asked him, her gaze flicking between us.
His jaw tightened. “We know each other from campus.”
Mrs. Whitmore waved that off like it was adorable that he was pretending. “Of course you do, Savannah’s such a popular girl.”
I was? It was news to me.
She carried on regardless. “Still, it’s just lovely to see our quarterback with such a charming young lady. You two make such a striking couple.”
Couple? I felt my mouth go dry. “We’re not—”
“Savannah’s a liaison with the Academic Administration,” Dante cut in, smooth as polished glass. “She tutors, as well as does . . . other things around campus.”
He didn’t miss the sharp glare I gave him at the mention of ‘other things.’
“Oh! Well, that makes sense,” Mrs. Whitmore trilled, oblivious to the tension between us.
Or so I thought, and then I caught the look in her eyes, moving between us, calculating.
“Still, you’d better keep an eye on this one, Savannah.
He’s the darling of our pride right now.
” She winked at Dante, the pun felt forced, and he didn’t react.
“We wouldn’t want him breaking any hearts before next season starts. ”
With that ambiguous statement, she was off to charm someone else into writing another check. I exhaled slowly, realizing I’d been holding my breath.
Dante’s smirk was faint but very much there. “That was fun.”
“Other things around campus,” I muttered, even though my cheeks felt hot. “I hate you.”
“Sure you do,” he said, then turned back toward the cluster of boosters waiting for him like he was the main attraction — which, in this room, he probably was. “Do you want to wait here, or come with me?”
“It’s not me that will convince them to write the checks,” I said, turning away in case anyone could lip-read.
Dante flashed his teeth as he looked out over the room. “In that dress?” he said, turning to look at me. “I wouldn’t be too sure.”
He walked away before I could comment; my tongue felt stuck to the roof of my mouth. Did he just compliment me?
I sipped my sparkling apple juice and reminded myself that Mrs. Whitmore’s assumption meant nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
So why had it given me a thrill of pleasure when she said it?
I slipped back into step beside my father, our little circuit of the room continuing as if we were a two-person parade float: smile, nod, shake hands, repeat. I’d mastered this choreography years ago, but tonight it felt harder to keep my head in the game.