“Who did you blow to be in here alone?”
Her nose scrunches up in disgust. “The Dean is my stepfather, you disgusting twat. And he did need to see you.” She grins, checking her cuticles. “But he had to step out rather quickly. You know, to check in with my mom.”
Oh, no. My face falls. If the Dean is her stepdad, then that means …
Pure, unadulterated mischief glimmers in her satanic eyes when she sees me piecing it together. She gently puts her feet down on the floor and then pushes up from the desk. Sauntering around the edge, like a cat trying to coerce a tom, she plants her svelte hip against the front of her stepdad’s desk.
“At the risk of sounding superfluous, what do you want?” I deadpan. It’s hard to play indifferent when your adrenaline is pumping a mile a minute.
Even though I didn’t agree to her deal, I’ve still kept my distance—not for her, but for me. I needed to focus and get my head in the game as far as Maverick coming to live with me. But that wasn’t good enough, it seems. Now, she wants to push her weight around more. I’m so over this bullshit, I could snap!
“We have a problem. A big problem. Remember what I said the last time?”
“You didn’t say shit,” I sneer. “Your lackeys held my head underwater and nearly drowned me in the goddamn toilet. And for what? Because you can’t keep your man in control?”
“Step off, or things will get ugly,” she warns with her eyes narrowed into tiny slits. “Don’t think I haven’t had people peeping in during classes and shit. I see the way you speak.”
A dry cackle of laughter falls from my lips. “About school, you psycho. Jesus Christ.”
Jolting up from the desk, she shoves me back into the door. “Step off, teen mom.” My eyes widen as I suck in a sharp inhale. “Oh, yeah, I know all about that little bastard of yours. I’m warning you now if you won’t stay away from Hunter, all bets are off, bitch.”
“Did you just …” A vicious laugh shudders my chest, terrifying even me. My eyes land on her, hard and angry. “Did you just call my son a bastard?”
Cassandra Radcliff is about to die.
Fire blazes through my entire body. I use all my weight, shoving her back into the unforgiving desk, screaming, “Don’t fucking talk about my son! Hunter means nothing to me, and this pissing contest is just fucking pathetic. I was never the type to get caught up in the elusive allure of the Golden Crew, and I’m still not.
“So, if you feel threatened, honey, that sounds like a goddamn personal problem, and maybe you should look into that. Because I’m telling you right now, the next time my son’s existence falls off your tongue, I’ll cut it off.”
My entire body rebels at the thought of cowering to her, so I refuse to do so. Mainly why I didn’t succumb to her bullying in the bathroom that day. I am a born and bred hellraiser, and I’ll be damned if some skinny bitch thinks she can step into my face and tell me what to do.
I didn’t back down when she had me nearly drowned in the toilet, and I won’t now. Playing smart is not the same as cowering, and that’s what I was trying to do by getting out of this school. Even though I hate her with a passion burning like the seven layers of hell, I agreed with her. Hunter is not my responsibility. We have a past, yes, but we have no intimate future.
He doesn’t want me. Words cannot be taken back from the cosmos once they’ve been uttered, and he screamed them in my face.
Stepping close, she gets into my personal space, and it takes everything I have to be the bigger person and not stomp her ass all over the place. If I do that, I can forget about getting into another college, let alone one with a daycare program. Whipping the Dean’s daughter? That wouldn’t look good on my record.
“Don’t push someone’s buttons unless you’re ready to deal with what you turn on,” she snaps, and the innuendo behind her words is simply too much to pass up, even in a situation like this.
I’ve never been to the point where I am now. Where I don’t give a shit anymore about what happens. I don’t care about what she or Hunter or any of their friends can do to me. Or what they threaten me with.
That’s where I am right now, and while that may be risky, I am thriving.
Shifting backward, I cock a brow in fascination. “I didn’t know you swung that way, honey, but sorry, I’m strictly team dick.”
She looks taken aback until she realizes how stupid she made herself look and tries to hurriedly fix it, which inadvertently makes it worse. “Th—I didn’t mean it like that. You’re putting that in my mouth.”
I put my finger next to my cheek, making a poking motion. “Putting what in your mouth? Don’t poke buttons. Remember?”
Now, I know I shouldn’t be pissing her off because she has something on me no one else does. But she crossed a line when she brought up Maverick, and I’m too much of a raging bitch to allow her to get away with that.
She crossed another line when she called him that disgusting name. I refuse to shy away from anyone who thinks it’s okay to speak about a baby in those terms.
And, you know what, this makes me realize Jenna was right all along. If I leave now, everyone will believe I’m a coward, and I can’t take the heat. I’ve been a single mom since day one, heat is the only setting I know.
Meeting Cassandra glare for glare, she must realize the same thing I do. She turns up the heat of her bitchy glare, which really just makes her look constipated. Her face turns a shade of red that’s really disconcerting. “You are finished here.”
“I’m terrified.” I fake tremble, infuriating her further.
If I’m going to be the person whose life goes up in flames, then I’ll be the only one pouring the gasoline. This is my life, and I’ll be goddamned if anyone has a say in how I live it. I may have lost my fire there for a little bit, but I refuse for someone like Cassandra Radcliff to win.
Shoulder checking me, she seethes, “Keep one eye open, trash.”
It would be so easy for her to squeal to Hunter about Maverick. Because if she knows about Maverick, then it’s not hard to put two-and-two together who his father is. Considering the only person I’ve ever been with is Hunter, and she likely knows that being the stalker bitch she is, something tells me her silence speaks volumes for her intentions.
Unlike last time, I’ll be ready. It was foolish to think I could run from my problems. Sooner or later, it’ll catch up with me. Again. And from the looks of it, it’s going to be sooner, so I might as well hit that bitch wide open. Might as well get ready for it now and start planning my son’s arrival, because I will need to do some major planning to make sure he’s safe if I’m staying. I don’t believe people would be so cruel to pick on a toddler, but I won’t put it past them.
Since walking into that auditorium and seeing Hunter, I’ve been planning how I should integrate Maverick into my life here at GOU without Hunter finding out. It was always going to happen, just a little stealthier than I’d originally planned. Of course, it would be hard, but it wasn’t completely impossible.
Hunter only cares about himself, so it wouldn’t have been hard to hide a tiny child. And that’s what I was hoping for—his ignorance. Except, Cassandra, the wicked bitch of the east, just had to go and throw a long, jagged ass monkey wrench in my plans.