Whatever it was that Donovan did to me didn’t go away but I got better at dealing with it. I learned not to look him in the eye. I stopped sitting in the front row in class. I did what I always did—I smiled, I nodded, I went on.
And at night, I continued to soothe my dreams with fantasies of him fingering and fucking me, usually in some strange version of my assault. Sometimes it would happen after he’d pulled Theo off me. Sometimes Theo wasn’t there at all. Sometimes I asked him to. Sometimes I begged.
And sometimes—a lot of the time—he was as callous and cruel as Theo had been.
Chapter 4
“Sorry about that.”
“No—” I did a double take at the guy who’d bumped into me as he was getting into the seat next to me. Weston King. “—problem,” I finished.
I sat up straighter in my own chair and glanced down at what I was wearing. Jeans. Sweater. Ponytail. Boring. Ugh. Well, what did I expect? It was kind of hard to hide from someone like Donovan while still trying to be noticed by someone like Weston. Both were impossibilities, I’d decided in the three weeks since the Theo incident, because it seemed I always saw Donovan and Weston never saw me.
Until today when, miracle of miracles, Weston happened to take a seat next to me.
My heart was pounding a thousand beats a minute, my knee couldn’t stop bouncing. Eep! Our elbows were practically touching. Then there was the added glee I had when he pulled out a spiral notebook from his bag. He was a boy who took notes old-school style! Swoon!
This was almost enough of a delight to distract me from the lecture Donovan had been giving before Weston had arrived. Unfortunately, the former still had a pull on me that I couldn’t deny. Especially when he was addressing issues that got me worked up such as the one he was tackling today—deregulation in the financial industry.
I’d come a long way on this topic in my short time at Harvard. While I could see the hurdles and obstacles that regulation put on investment firms such as King-Kincaid, I was still a girl who came from the other side. It wasn’t the billionaires losing their pensions during the Great Recession. It wasn’t the rich having their homes and cars and lives taken away from them. Regulation was how ethics were implemented, as far as I was concerned, and I’d said as much in as many ways as possible in my last paper.
As much as I believed in regulation, I knew that, as always, my annoyance at Donovan had less to do with what he was preaching and more to do with what he did to me in my thoughts on a daily basis in the bedroom. What he was doing even now, as much as I hated to admit it, drawing me to him. Commanding my attention. Demanding my focus.
Damn, I hated him.
“Fuckwaffle,” I said under my breath.
Weston shifted in his seat next to me. “What did you say?”
Oh my god. My face went red. “What?”
He leaned in close so I could hear him without disturbing the class. “Did you just call Kincaid a fuckwaffle?”
“I shouldn’t have said that.” But if that’s what it took to have Weston lean in to whisper in my ear then I’d consider saying it again. Maybe. After my embarrassment died down. Like, in the next century.
“Don’t take it back!” Weston exclaimed quietly. “That’s awesome! I love it.”
I spun my head toward him. “Aren’t you guys friends, or…?” Man, his eyes were even bluer this close up. And he had freckles—light ones—along his nose.
“More like family, and I love him like a brother. But he’s a total fuckwaffle.” His brow rose. “And I don’t think I’ve called him that yet. Do you have a pen I could borrow?”
“Uh…yeah.” I dug in my bag searching for one.
Weston peered over my shoulder. “That one. That Sharpie would be awesome.”
We grabbed it simultaneously, our fingers brushing, and I had to bite my lip not to gasp.
“Thanks,” he said, smiling just enough to show that wicked dimple. Jesus, I could fall inside that dimple and never crawl back out. That dimple was going to be the death of me.
I watched as he flipped through his notebook. The pages had single words written across them, all landscape. Tool, Shitstick, Asshat, Douchebag, Buttmunch, Jizztissue. He stopped on a blank page and took the top of the black Sharpie off with his mouth. I was seriously going to make out with that Sharpie lid later. Then he started writing: Fuck—
“What are you doing?” I asked, suddenly both nervous and excited like I was about to be privy to something that might be a little bit bad but not so bad that words like expulsion or policeman could be brought up. The kind of bad that always seemed like it might be fun but also might be addictive.
“I always write notes for Donovan when he teaches to let him know how he’s doing. Fuckwaffle is not a note I’ve given him before.” When he finished writing the word, he held up the notebook as if he was scoring an event.
I was seriously giddy. “And you do this every class?”
“When Velasquez isn’t here. Well, sometimes when he is here I try to sneak in a note too.” Some other students in the row across the aisle flagged Weston so he’d show them today’s note.
How had I missed this before today?
Weston brought the notebook back in front of him and waved it around a few more times for Donovan, who didn’t even blink in our direction. If we were sitting farther up in the hall, I’d wonder if he could read it, but we weren’t that far from the front and the black Sharpie made it pretty clear.
Genius.
“Does he ever acknowledge you?” I asked, amazed at how stoic Donovan remained.
“Nope.” Weston closed the notebook and tucked it back into his bag. “It never gets old either. I must have a nine-year-old’s sense of humor or something. It’s like when you go to Buckingham Palace and try to get the guards to smile, you know?”
The farthest place I’d ever been from home was here. Even our one family trip to Mexico had been closer. “I’ve never been to Buckingham Palace.”
He looked at me then, really looked at me. Judged me, maybe, for never having been to England—the most basic of rich people places in the world. Did that matter to a guy like him?
A smile eased across his full lips. Ah, that dimple. “Then I’ll have to take you there.” He leaned close again and tugged my ponytail. “I’m Weston.”
I almost forgot how to breathe. “I know who you are. I come to your parties.” Or I used to. “I’m Sabrina.”
Almost simultaneously as I introduced myself, my name rang out across the hall in Donovan’s baritone timbre. “Sabrina. Care to share your thoughts on regulation and ethics? I know you have quite a few.”
My stomach dropped. I hated talking in front of a class, but more importantly, Donovan never called on students. Never. What the hell was his problem? We weren’t the first kids to be caught chatting during his lecture, surely.
“Fuckwaffle,” Weston whispered next to me, sending me into a fit of nervous giggles.
Thankfully, Donovan noticed the time. “Saved by the figurative bell. It looks like class is over.” The resentment in his tone was thick. “Grades for your corporate strategy and ethics awareness assignment will be on the portal by the end of the week. Remember this thesis will count for half your grade.” He seemed to be staring at me as he said this, most likely because he was still sore that I’d disrupted his lesson.