“Are you serious?” My voice broke into a million pieces. I couldn’t believe this. The scholarship that I’d worked so hard for would vanish, just like that?
She pressed her lips.
“But I—I don’t understand, Coach. I work just as hard as every other girl here. I mind my own business, attend every single class, stay out of trouble as much as possible, and all of that will be taken away from me because of what I do in private?”
She sighed. “I will have to tell the president and the board. I can’t keep something like this a secret when it is brought to me from another student. Then there is a chance that I will lose my job if they hear about it and know that I knew but didn’t speak up. I can tell them to keep this confidential, but I know for a fact that this will not sit well with them. This school is all about faith, Kandy. They will feel you are undeserving of the scholarship and will revoke it regardless. There’s no difference between telling your parents now, and telling them later when they let you go. That’s just how the system works here. They like to protect their students and this school’s reputation.”
Telling my parents that Cane had visited me on campus was going to ruin everything all over again. My family was finally on steady ground and so much happier. Dad was getting promoted soon and Mom was going to be starting her own law firm within the next year. Cane had his mom and sister back and was content. He was under a lot of stress, yes, but it wasn’t because of me for once. I couldn’t ruin that or disturb the peace again.
“My parents—they don’t like this guy. That’s why I kept it under wraps. I don’t want to stop seeing him. I—I can tell him to not visit campus again, I swear. Just please don’t tell the board, Coach. I can talk to Sophie—maybe we can work something out. I’ll tell her she can keep the number one spot. She can have it—I just don’t want my parents to find out about this!”
Carmen shook her head, giving me a perplexed gaze. “Kandy, I wish I could sit on this. I really do. Trust me, if it had been me that saw you in the parking lot with him, I would have kept it to myself. You are an amazing player and I know you have a good heart, but since a teammate and another student at this campus knows, I can’t keep this to myself, sweetie. I’m sorry.”
My bottom lip trembled as I stared at her. I dropped my face into the palms of my hands, shaking my head and fighting a sob. This couldn’t be happening. I swear there was always one thing after another and it wasn’t fair. Why did my life have to be so unfair? I swear Nana cursed me!
“Maybe they’ll show mercy,” Carmen went on, voice softer. “Maybe they’ll give you another chance since it’s your first offense…” I didn’t listen to whatever else she had to say. Her words were going in one ear and right back out the other.
She finally dismissed me and because of my panic, I didn’t go to classes for the rest of the day. Hell, would there have been a point? One of them was a class with Brody and I didn’t want to see him right now, worried I would punch him so hard he’d be left unconscious.
I camped out in my dorm room for the most part. I called Cane but his phone went straight to voicemail, so I assumed he was on a flight or very busy.
I hardly ate and my friends constantly asked if I was okay but I shrugged it off. I tossed and turned that same night. I could feel something bad getting ready to happen and it twisted me up inside. I wasn’t ready.
I’d worked so hard…why was this happening to me?
Thirty-Four
KANDY
I was on edge for three days straight. I hadn’t heard anything from Carmen or the school, or even Brody and Sophie. Deep down, I had hoped that Carmen never even brought it to the board’s attention. Maybe she spoke to Sophie and Brody and told them to back off…but the fourth day after, proved otherwise.
A man in a gray suit had knocked on our door. Morgan had answered it and when he asked for me, my heart dropped to my stomach.
“Kandy Jennings?” the man requested.
“That’s me.”
“The president of Notre Dame has given me instruction to bring this letter to you. He asks that you please read it carefully and then meet him at 1:30 for a mandatory hearing.”
I nodded, taking the letter, and the man bobbed his head and walked off.
“What’s going on?” Morgan hissed at me as I read over it.
“I don’t know,” I murmured, but I knew exactly what this was. 1:30 was in an hour. I guess they didn’t want to waste any time on this one.
“What does the president need to see you for? What did you do?”
I sat on the edge of my bed, blinking hard as I read over the sentence that was printed on the paper, a dozen times.
Kandy Jennings,
This letter hereby states that you have a mandatory board hearing to discuss documents and proof of misconduct on the premises of Notre Dame University. Please report to the main building at 1:30 p.m. sharp.
The campus president himself signed the letter.
Morgan was over my shoulder, reading the letter as well. “Holy shit! Misconduct? What the hell did you do, Kandy?”
I sighed, blinking the burn out of my eyes. “Remember that older guy I was telling you about? The one I can’t get over?”
“Yeah…”
“He was the man who spoke at the seminar we went to before break. Remember?”
“Wait—shit! The hot one with the tattoos?” Her eyes stretched wide. “He’s the guy?”
“Yes.”
“Well, shit! Now I see why you can’t get over him! He’s fucking hot!”
“I know but…Coach Carmen had pictures of me kissing him in the parking lot. The day when I skipped out on going shopping with you and Gina, it’s because I was hanging out with him.”
She gasped. “Shit. How did she get pictures? Was she watching you?”
“No. I’m certain it was from Brody. Brody showed up the night Cane dropped me back off. It was a little after curfew and no one else was around. Brody got all mad at me and called me a slut. I think he showed Sophie and Sophie told Coach because Carmen said it was a teammate who told her.”
“Are you fucking kidding me! That bitch!”
I shrugged. “Not only that, but Coach said there’s a possibility I can lose my scholarship over this.”
“Wow…if you do, that is really fucked up. This team needs you! What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. Maybe the board will give me a pass or a warning?”
She nodded, but it was very unconvincing.
My shoulders sagged, my eyes dropping to the letter again. Morgan kept trying to convince me that everything was going to be okay, that I was a good student and had good grades to back me up, but deep in my heart, I knew things wouldn’t be okay.
I left the room forty-five minutes later, crossing campus to get to the main building.
I walked up a tall flight of stairs and checked in with a secretary with white hair and thin-framed glasses, sitting behind a desk. When I rounded the corner after checking in, Coach Carmen was sitting in one of the chairs. She gave me a wary smile when she spotted me.
“How’s it going, Jennings?” she asked.
“Could be better,” I mumbled.
I was upset, but not really at Coach Carmen. She was just doing her job and I couldn’t fault her for that. I was an athlete and easily replaceable. This was her livelihood.
We waited for ten minutes before they called Carmen in. She rubbed my shoulder before going inside.
My heart was clanging against my ribcage, my mouth dry, and palms slick as I waited. I kept checking my phone for the time.
I wanted to text Cane and let him know that I may or may not have been losing my scholarship in less than an hour, but I would have had to tell him why and I didn’t want him to blame himself. I wanted to talk to him…just not about this. Not yet. He had enough on his plate as it was, plus I could have been jumping to conclusions.
Thirty minutes passed before the door pushed open and Coach Carmen walked b
ack out.
The look in her eyes as she focused on me, told it all.
“I hope I convinced them enough to let you stay,” she said, and then she walked off.
A minute later, my name was called.
Thirty-Five
KANDY
The board meeting room was huge—probably too big for only five people to occupy.
A row of tables with leather rolling chairs behind them, were across from me, and there were two men and a woman occupying some of those chairs. They had folders in front of them and were murmuring amongst themselves as a man escorted me inside, asked for my cellphone, and then told me to sit at the table in the single chair in middle of the room. In front of the single chair was a microphone on the table.
When I sat, the chairmen and woman looked at me. The woman was young, with brown hair pulled up into a top bun. She gave a small, sympathetic smile, but it only pulled at my heartstrings, making this much more complicated.
“Kandy Jennings, correct?” the man in the middle, with an obvious toupee, inquired.
“That is correct.”
“Nice to meet you. I am President Reverend Jones, this is Vice President Richard Grayson, and the school psychologist and therapist, Leslie Bailey. Can you say your full name and date of birth into the microphone please?”
“Yes. It’s Kandy Alexandra Jennings. I was born on September 19th, 1999.”
“Okay. Thank you for that. We are going to get started. While this is happening, please direct your answers to the microphone and answer as honestly as possible.”
“Okay.” I glanced down at the microphone.
“Miss Jennings, we’re going to get right into it. I’m sure you know why you’re here.” Mr. Grayson started. He was chubbier, bald with rosy cheeks, the collar of his shirt tight around his neck. “We have several images here of you with a man who is not a student or a teacher, on our campus. You were in his car, correct?”
“Yes,” I answered.
“And what were you doing in his car?”
“We had hung out that day and then he dropped me off.”
“Where did you go, if you don’t mind us asking?”
“He had booked a hotel here.”
All of their eyebrows nearly touched their foreheads. My heart sunk.
“Were you inside his hotel room, Miss Jennings?” Mrs. Bailey asked.
“I was.”
She nodded, looking down at one of the papers in front of her. “Okay. And is it true that this same man is Mr. Quinton Cane? He was here as a speaker for a business seminar but saw you and took you to a hotel?”
“N-no. That’s not how it happened,” I answered. “We knew each other before the seminar even happened. He knew this was the school I was attending so he signed up to be a speaker, but it wasn’t planned for me to go to his hotel. We agreed to do that when we spoke after the seminar.”
“Okay. We spoke to one of the student athletes this morning, and he told us that Mr. Cane was very aggressive with you? That something seemed off and you seemed afraid to be alone with him. Is that true?” she went on.
“That is not true.” I tried hard not to let my voice waver.
“Could it be that he forced you to go to his hotel? Made you feel as if you had no choice?” the president asked.
I shook my head. “No. What we did was a mutual understanding and consensual.”
Mr. Grayson sighed, folding his fingers on top of the table. “Listen, Miss Jennings. We may be able to help you keep your scholarship here, but not if you are covering up for this man. If you felt uncomfortable in any way while he was around, you can let us know and we can report it to the authorities. We want to protect you as best as we can.”
“I understand that, but Mr. Cane did not harm me, or threaten me, or make me feel like a victim, if that is what you are implying.”
They all looked at each other, before dropping their gazes.
“You told Coach Carmen that you did not want us to tell your parents. Why is that?” Reverend Jones asked.
I swallowed hard, my leg bouncing as I answered. “Because my parents don’t approve of him.”
“Why? If you don’t mind me asking?” Mrs. Bailey asked.
“Because…he used to be really good friends with them.”
“I see.” She wrote something down. “So you don’t want your parents to know because they don’t know about what you are doing with him? That you’re sneaking around with him?”
“Something like that.”
Both of the men stared at me.
“Miss Jennings, I am going to be completely honest with you here.” Reverend Jones shut his folder. “To me, it seems you are trying to protect this man, and I can understand wanting to do that for someone you care about, but what he did is intolerable and what you did with him by leaving campus and sneaking around with him, is just as unacceptable. You are a young nineteen-year-old woman. He looks to be in his forties, perhaps? You have no business messing with a man that age. At Notre Dame, our athletes represent what we stand for. We take pride in our athletes and our students. Imagine if someone else had caught wind of this, had taken pictures and of you with him and put those pictures in an article. Imagine if that article had circulated and went into the world about an older man messing with a young student on our campus? It would make the school look bad. It would make me look bad. It could cause us to lose sponsors and have families wanting to pull their children out of our schools.” His brows dipped into a frown. “Even though Coach Carmen pleaded your case and wanted you to stay, I just cannot jeopardize the image of my school for one person’s actions. Furthermore, we refuse to take this to an actual court and make a spectacle out of this situation. I’m sorry, Miss Jennings, but we are going to have to have your scholarship annulled so we can give it to someone else at this time. Someone who will respect the rules and understand the faithfulness of our university.”
I had no words. I knew this was coming, but even still, all forms of languages were lodged in my throat. The first thing I felt was brokenness, all over again. The next thing I felt was fear, because the words that came out of Mr. Grayson’s mouth next, froze me right up.
“We have already had arrangements made for Coach Carmen to contact your parents. By Wednesday afternoon, we expect you to have your dorm room cleaned out and for you to have left the University of Notre Dame. We will send security to check that this has been followed through and then follow up with an official letter as to why this has happened. The letter will most likely be sent to your home address.”
I huffed, as if it would decrease the weight on my chest, but it didn’t. I pushed out of my chair as they asked if I had any questions. No, I didn’t have any questions, but I was fuming.
After getting my cellphone back, I yanked the door open and rushed down the stairs, out to the cold. The wind nipped at my cheeks and tousled my hair but I didn’t give a flying fuck.
I kept going until I was across campus and in front of the familiar fraternity house. I banged on the door with a heavy fist, and Leo answered. “Yo, why the fuck are you knocking so damn hard?” he snapped.
I shoved past him and went through the living room where two girls were topless, and right for the kitchen where I heard people talking.
Standing in the kitchen was my culprit. Sitting on the countertop right beside him was Sophie, and there were a few other football players around but I didn’t care to figure out who they were. My eyes pinned on Brody as he stood with his lower back pressed to the edge of the counter, a slice of pizza in one hand and a drink in a red cup in the other.
“Well, look what the cat dragged in! My balls are already blue just looking at you! Get the fuck out!”
He was trying to show off in front of his friends, and yes, he got a good laugh from them, but he wasn’t going to have the last one. Not after what he did to me.
I stormed toward him and snatched the drink out of his hand, bringing it up and dumping it right over his head. All of the footbal
l players in the kitchen belted out roars of laughter and Sophie started to snicker, but I grimaced at her, snatching the wet pizza out of Brody’s hand and smashing it on her face. I smeared the warm, soaked pizza all over her, including the top of her head, and then dragged it down to her white blouse.
She shrieked while Brody stood with his hands out like a fucking idiot, like he couldn’t believe this had really happened.
“Thanks to you two, I just lost my scholarship,” I seethed.
“Good for you,” he chortled, still clinging to his pride. “You fucking deserve it. Go be a slut somewhere else.”
Normally, it wasn’t like me to blow up. It took a lot for me to get truly, truly angry, and Brody had struck a nerve. My hand struck his face before I could tell myself to back away and leave. His face was wet so the slap was loud and it echoed. My hand stung afterward and I knew for sure it had hurt him. The entire kitchen went silent when Brody’s head turned with the hit.
He breathed hard through his nostrils, fists clenching, but I shoved him away, making him stumble backwards and hit the counter edge. “Fuck both of you!”
I stormed out of the kitchen and out of the house before any of them could stop me.
I jogged away from the fraternity house, going all the way back to where my dorm building was. When I’d made it safely, I dropped on the bench, letting the adrenaline wear off and catching my breath…but I shouldn’t have. Because when it wore off, reality pummeled me like a swift train.
I was heaving hard, trying to catch my breath and cry at the same time. It was chilly outside, but the tears were flaming hot, running down my cheeks. People walked by and looked at me as if I were insane and I couldn’t blame them.
In the span of four days, my life had been ruined all over again.
All for wanting Cane.
Was this how it was going to be for the rest of my life? I didn’t know if I had it in me to keep going through stuff like this. Ever since I started wanting Cane—like really, really wanting him—my life has spiraled.
The Cane Series: A Complete Forbidden Romance Series (4-Book Set) Page 48
