“What?” Donovan asked, forcing me to repeat myself.
“I’m not pressing charges,” I said louder. “I’m sorry.” I didn’t even know who I was apologizing to. Myself. Every victim of assault who’d never gotten a chance to face her attacker in cuffs.
“Fine.” Donovan let go of Theo’s arms, but when Theo turned around to face him Donovan kneed him in the nuts. “You deserve worse, you asshole. Unfortunately, the U.S. legal system probably wouldn’t give you much more than that. Penalties at The Keep are more severe though. You’re not welcome here. You won’t do business with our families. Your investments at King-Kincaid will be canceled. Now get the fuck off my property. You’re bleeding all over my Ferragamos.”
Theo wiped the blood dripping from his nose with the back of his hand and leaned a shoulder forward as though he were going to challenge Donovan. Then he seemed to think better of it and took a step backward. “All right. All right, Kincaid. Didn’t realize you were saving this one for yourself.”
“Get the fuck out of here.” Donovan never raised his voice, but his tone and his eyes and his posture said it all. Theo took off.
I was still shaking, still crying. I swiped the tears from my eyes and started to turn to thank Donovan when a car pulled up to the curb. I turned my attention there instead. It was my escort. What timing.
When I shifted back to Donovan, he was already climbing back up the stairs toward the front door without a goodbye. Without even an, “Are you all right?”
I cried the entire drive home. Cried for an hour in the shower. It wasn’t until hours later when I was curled up in the fetal position in my bed that I realized that Donovan’s Ferragamos were boots. And they’d been tied. He’d seen my situation through his bedroom window then taken the time to lace them up before coming downstairs to rescue me.
3
I didn’t go to classes on Monday.
I said I had the flu and stayed in bed, facing the wall. Sheri brought me microwaveable soup and crackers from the Shell station, and I told her I was only crying because my head hurt.
Tuesday, I managed to pull myself together. Nothing happened, really. Theo hadn’t actually raped me. I was the same girl I’d been before. It wasn’t like I had to see him again either. I didn’t have any classes with him. He was an upperclassman, and we didn’t run in the same circles. And no one else knew what had happened—I’d decided not to tell a soul—so all I had to do was smile and pretend nothing had happened. Easy peasy.
If it wasn’t exactly easy, it was at least doable. As doable as it had been when my mother had died five years ago and kids at school had pointed and whispered behind my back. I’d put on a happy face and acted as if it meant nothing. As if it didn’t hurt. That experience with tragedy had taught me an important lesson in how to deal with hard things—you smile, you nod, you go on.
That’s how I’d planned to handle Intro to Business Ethics too. I knew it would be different because of Donovan, because he knew. But it wasn’t like he was going to bring it up in class. We’d never even talked before that night at The Keep. He was my teacher. I looked to him to learn things. He looked at me as another paper to grade. I didn’t think it would be a problem.
I walked in to the lecture hall, early as usual, and headed for a seat in the front row. Normally I came in from the door below, but this time I came in from above since I’d stopped for a bottle of water before class and taken a different route to get there. As I walked down the stairs, I glanced down at the teacher’s desk, and maybe I was a little nervous about seeing Donovan because I silently hoped it was Velasquez teaching today.
It wasn’t.
Donovan sat at his laptop, wearing his grey trousers and a dress shirt and tie under his black pullover, and as though he could sense me, he looked up just then and caught my gaze.
I froze, unable to take another step.
My knees swayed. Sweat beaded on my brow. It was like he was a trigger. My entire pretense fell apart, and I was transported back to that night. I swore I could feel Theo’s palm across my mouth. The sound of his nose cracking echoed in my ears. Emotion overwhelmed me.
But it wasn’t just terror and humiliation that I felt. There was something even worse underneath it all. Something ugly but undeniable.
As soon as I recognized it, I flushed with panic. Donovan had to notice because his eyes narrowed and his chin tilted up with curiosity. I wanted to turn around and run out of the classroom, but that would only direct attention to myself. Besides, my legs felt like jelly at the moment, so I slipped into a seat in the row I was already standing in and ducked my head, pretending not to realize that my behavior might be odd or that he was still watching me.
Actually, I wasn’t pretending—I didn’t care if he was watching me. I didn’t even care about keeping an eye out for Weston like I usually did. I had to figure out what the ever-living fuck was wrong with me. My heart was pounding, my clothes felt too hot, I felt restless and unsettled.
But it wasn’t thoughts of Theo that had me riled up. It was Donovan. From the way he’d taunted me in his bedroom to the way he’d commanded the situation with Theo to the way his jaw set when he studied me with those intense eyes.
God, those eyes…
I snuck a glance at him as he stood up to start the lecture, and another tumultuous, confusing wave rolled through my body. I shifted in my seat, but it didn’t help. When he started talking it was even worse. His voice sent shivers down my spine. I drank in every word, yet sentences went by without me comprehending a single phrase.
I was seriously fucked.
Whatever was happening, there had to be a perfectly natural explanation. Like, I was having a psychotic break. My mind was trying to change the terrible thing that happened to me by associating Donovan and pleasant feelings with that night instead of Theo and those awful ones.
Except these feelings weren’t exactly pleasant. They were sick and tormenting. They were fierce and turbulent. I had to cross my legs and uncross them at least a hundred times just to make it through his lecture, the whole time hating myself because I couldn’t settle down.
It all made me mad. And uncomfortable. And then mad again. For so many reasons. I was mad at Donovan anyway because of everything he knew. Not just about what Theo did, but those other things that he’d said about me in his room. Those things he’d perceived about me so easily. I didn’t like him knowing me like that. It felt invasive. Like a violation.
And I was mad about how he’d taken his time in rescuing me.
And how he didn’t even seem to really be sure he was glad he saved me at all.
Mostly I was mad about the thoughts I was having about him, even though they weren’t really his fault. Yet, if he hadn’t been so fucked up with the way he’d gone about dealing with that night, I wouldn’t probably be so fucked up with the way I felt about it now. So maybe it was fine to blame him for that too.
Whoever was to blame, it didn’t matter. I was the one who had to deal with it. It wasn’t like he cared about how I’d come out of the nightmare. I’d figure it out, somehow.
After what felt like the longest hour of my life, the class was finally over. I took off the second we were excused, careful to dodge Donovan by going up the stairs again instead of exiting below. I’d planned to grab lunch with a friend, but I had to run by my apartment first to change my panties before my next class. That’s how bad it was.
Once I was out of Donovan’s presence, I was sure the whole strange thing would blow over. I thought about Weston to clear my head. He was the guy I’d been into. He was the one that gave me butterflies to think about. Still. Even now.
The rest of the day, however, I found my mind wandering back to Donovan now and then, found myself imagining different endings to the night at The Keep. What if he had asked me back inside after Theo had left? What if I hadn’t left his room in the first place?
I was ashamed of myself.
But it’s where I got the idea of how to deal with th
e bad dreams I’d had ever since it had happened. That night when I woke up in a cold sweat with the ghost of Theo’s touch on my skin, I slid my hand beneath my panties and erased the memory with thoughts of Donovan.
“Did he hurt you too badly?” he asked, cupping my cheek as Theo hobbled down the street. His hand was warm against my skin, tentative without being gentle.
“Not too badly,” I whispered, looking into his hazel eyes. My escort pulled up at the curb and both of us turned toward it, but instead of walking away, Donovan pulled me into his arms.
“Let me take care of you tonight.” With a nod, he sent the car away. Then he bent to his knees and pulled down my pants, pulled down my underwear, neither asking permission nor apologizing for his eagerness.
But I wanted him there, so it was different than when Theo had forced me.
The air was cold on my bare legs, but soon all I felt was the heat of his tongue between my folds. He licked up and down my slit aggressively several times, then thickened his tongue to a point and inserted it inside me.
I came almost at once and slept soundly until morning.
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.
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 whisp
ered 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.
I scowled. I hated it when he looked at me like that, but I wondered right then if I’d miss it if he suddenly stopped. I had a feeling I would.
I wondered if he’d miss it if I stopped staring back.
“Do you have another class now?” Weston asked.
I pulled myself away from Donovan’s piercing gaze and found Weston holding my bag out for me. “Thank you. And nope. Break until two.” I shuffled into the aisle after him. “You?”
“I usually meet up with a friend for lunch.”
I nodded. I’d thought for a moment he was going somewhere with his questioning. Guess he was just being polite.
But then he cocked his head in my direction. “Join us?”
The friend, it turned out, was Brett Larrabee. I’d been aware of Brett from the parties at The Keep, but we’d never officially met, and I was glad for the introduction. An extremely extroverted, politically conservative, openly homosexual African American, Brett was an oxymoron, and I found him absolutely intriguing.
He was also quite a talker. He’d led us to a small Vietnamese café, that was surprisingly not busy considering how good the food was, and proceeded to monopolize the majority of the conversation while we ate.
I didn’t mind. I was happy just to be included on the excursion. Every few minutes I had to remind myself I was awake, that this wasn’t a dream. That I was actually sitting at a table making a fool of myself with chopsticks in front of Weston King.
“The DOW is down, the DOW is down, the DOW is down,” Brett said with weary distress as he scrolled through his financial app on his phone. Even though he talked a lot, he still managed to eat the fastest. He’d finished and had been playing on his cell for the last five minutes. “The Fed better not raise interest rates. It is not the time.”
Dirty Filthy Rich Boys (Dirty Duet Book 1) Page 3
