She cleared her throat, her gaze darting to my side. “Ms. Webb, you may go.”
My hand twitched.
Mind fucking racing as I thought of what she might’ve said.
Once the door shut behind her, the board member moved so he was in my line of sight, and the principal sighed. “You said nothing yesterday, Mr. Dixon,” she said questioningly.
“Ma’am?”
She pushed from the desk, hands folded in front of her. “It has been brought to our attention that there might be some fabrications to the allegations against you.” She hesitated, brow lifting slowly as if waiting for me to speak. “You were given every opportunity to share your side, but you said nothing.”
Irritation escaped me on a breath.
“And you’re saying nothing now,” she added meaningfully when silence filled the room.
“I’m not sure what you expect me to say, ma’am,” I roughed out as all that darkness started receding. “I was brought in here yesterday and accused of cheating on my wife and having a recurring affair with someone. Immediately after that, I was told what I was being written up for and warned about my future here. I was never asked my side.” I shrugged. “Besides, y’all already had your minds made up. There was nothing to say.”
Understanding and shame passed across her face as her head fell to the side.
Of anyone, I knew she understood.
When Savannah and I were in high school, Mrs. Warin had been sure I was beating Savannah or had some kind of twisted relationship with her. When I first got the job as assistant coach, she’d been one of the loudest to rally against me. But over the years, Mrs. Warin and I had come to understand and respect each other.
She’d apologized for past judgments, and I’d been happy when she’d gone from our guidance counselor to our principal, knowing she was what the school needed. So, for her to fall so easily to the side of believing the worst in me again, it had pissed me off.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “Teachers heard kids talking about it, and then Vice Principal Webb confirmed it and elaborated . . . but you’re right. We should’ve gathered both sides before making accusations and taking action.”
When she gestured to the board member, he cleared his throat and said, “I second everything Principal Warin said, and please accept my apologies as well as the rest of the boards’.” He waved his hands before putting them back in his pockets. “The penalties and warnings against you have been withdrawn, and Ms. Webb is stepping down as an educator for this district.”
Surprise wove through me, but I just waited.
“There were eye-witnesses to yesterday’s events in your office,” Principal Warin took over. Her eyebrows lifted significantly when she continued. “Among other witnesses elsewhere.”
One of my shoulders lifted. “Finding her in my office is the only place there’s ever been anything.”
“We were informed she’d been trying to gather information on you in town recently, and those claims contradicted the details Ms. Webb gave us yesterday. When confronted, she admitted the story of your ‘relationship’ was fabricated,” Mrs. Warin said. “Taking yesterday’s events into consideration, as well as the career- and character-destroying story she told to bring you down with her . . . well.” She lifted her hands in a way that said there wasn’t much left to do, the corners of her eyes creasing with apology.
Except, I still had nearly all of Amber wanting me to pay for something I hadn’t done, or just wanting something I refused to give them.
“Is there anything you’d like to say now that we’re listening, Mr. Dixon?” she asked, her words slowing and trailing off when someone began yelling out in the front office.
She took a hesitant step toward the door, and I slanted my head in that direction as my blood began buzzing. Reacting to that voice.
“. . . ever had a chance with him? Bitch, he’s married. And despite what you deluded yourself into thinking, I know how to keep my man satisfied and keep him from straying to whores like you.”
Fuck.
“That’s mine,” I ground out, pushing from the chair and hurrying for the door with Mrs. Warin behind me.
“It’s time you leave,” someone shouted back just as we stepped into the hall. “This is incredibly inappropriate behavior for a school.”
I looked over at the sound of Savannah’s scoffing laugh to see every person in the office watching the encounter with wide eyes and trying to hide their shocked amusement before landing on where my wife was looking down at Stephanie Webb even though she towered over Savannah.
“Says the woman who stripped naked and waited for my husband to find her in his school office,” Savannah bit out, expression pure challenge and looking ready to throw down.
And, fuck me, it was so damn sexy.
“I got her,” I said quickly, holding up a hand when Mrs. Warin began stepping forward.
“Highly inappropriate, Mr. Dixon,” she said under her breath, but even she was fighting a smile as she turned back to her office. “We’ll be waiting for your return.”
“Ma’am,” I muttered as I started for my wife.
My world.
The girl who set my goddamn blood on fire.
I really hadn’t planned on going to the school. I’d been driving somewhere else, and the next thing I knew, I made another turn and was continuing on until I was parked in front of the high school and stalking up to the doors.
But in all fairness, I’d been going through absolute hell the past few weeks. My emotions were all over the place from Baby-Number-Four. And even though I’d had every intention of only going to settle things with the other half of why my life had imploded, I needed to take care of the person attempting to ruin it just as Beau and I were fixing it.
When I’d woken that morning, everything had felt surreal.
Too perfect. Too dreamlike.
I’d gotten ready for the day and gone downstairs, finding coffee already brewed and a few peony heads from our garden on the edge of one of the islands beside a note in Beau’s masculine scrawl.
Every last breath
But after breakfast and talking with the kids to hear all about the fun they were having, I’d finally started going through my phone. All the calls and texts from people I knew but hardly ever spoke to, asking if I was okay. If I needed anything. Everyone claiming they’d always known Beau would do something like this. Calling him disgusting and worthless. Telling me I should’ve kicked him to the curb long ago.
And my perfect morning had shattered as my heart broke for that man. Feeling like we were thrown back in high school, where he was constantly under the town’s judgmental scrutiny, and I was begging them to see him a certain way.
Except this directly affected my marriage and pissed me off.
Which is why I was pushing through the main doors of the school and turning into the front office, staring down each set of eyes that flashed my way. Challenging them to say one word about Beau or our marriage.
If someone so much as hinted at any number of the things that had been texted to me, I would lose my mind.
“Hey,” I snapped when the source of all this ridiculousness crossed into the hall from one of the side rooms.