Lessons In Corruption (The Fallen Men Series Book 1)

by Giana Darling

  I hated it.

  It didn’t really feel like me, not the new Cressida who rode on the back of motorcycles, got drunk on weeknights with strangers and let teenage boys feast on her pussy in the middle of her classroom.

  Which was exactly why I donned my good girl armor. I couldn’t let those things happen again. Not only because it was morally suspect but because I simply couldn’t afford to lose my job. Shamble Wood Cottage needed a ton of repairs, I had to fund my voracious book-buying habit and I was racking up law fees because William refused to sign our gosh darn divorce papers. Without a divorce settlement or alimony for him, I’d need to work at EBA for the next five years before I could even make it financially possible to go back to school.

  So, armor and good behavior.

  Warren picked me up for school at quarter to eight, his smile bright as I entered the car.

  “You look amazing,” he complimented as I buckled up.

  I smiled slightly at him. “Thanks. I had a rough night and wanted to feel pretty.”

  He laughed as we pulled out of my driveway. “Fair enough, but you look pretty nice every day.”

  “That’s sweet, Warren, but I’m still not going to sleep with you,” I reminded him drily.

  He laughed again and shook his head. “I didn’t offer to drive you to school so you would sleep with me. I mean, that would be chill, but honestly, I live close by and I’m not crazy about the idea of you walking across Entrance by yourself.”

  “I’ve been fine,” I pointed out. I’d been making the walk for the last two weeks while my car was at Hephaestus Auto. When I called them the other day, a gruff man had told me that my car was better off in the dump but that they were working on it. So, I’d been walking until yesterday when Warren had noticed and offered me a ride.

  We rode in silence listening to an oldie’s station Warren let me choose and Elvis Presley’s Heartbreak Hotel came on. My gut clenched as something sour blossomed inside me. I both hated and loved that both King and I loved Elvis especially because I listened to his music all the time. It meant that even when I didn’t want to think about my too-sexy-for-his-own-good student (which was always), I did. The song reminded me that I’d have to find a way to stay unmoved by our transgressions of the day before and reaffirm my position as just his teacher.

  Warren and I had just pulled into the parking lot when my phone rang. Focused on facing King in our fifth period, I didn’t look at the screen before I answered.

  “Hello?”

  “Cressida Irons,” my mother’s voice trilled over the line. “I’ve been calling you every day for the last week. Where in heaven’s name have you been?”

  I dropped my forehead against the glove compartment with a painful thud. The one thing I didn’t need this morning was a lecture from Phoebe Irons.

  “It’s my mum,” I told Warren with a wince as I covered the speaker on my phone. “Unfortunately, I have to take it. Do you mind?”

  Warren smiled and handed me the keys. “I have a mother too. Take your time and just get the keys back to me sometime later today.”

  Thank you, I mouthed as I raised the phone to my mouth again.

  I waited until he’d exited the car to say, “Hi, mum, just been busy with school. It’s the last two and a half weeks of the winter trimester.”

  She made a disappointed noise in her throat. “Not an excuse to leave your mother’s phone calls unreturned.”

  “No,” I sighed when she paused for my response.

  “Really, Cressida, I know you are going through some kind of horrible mid-life crisis—”

  “Quarter-life crisis,” I corrected her automatically because I’d never been so aware of my age before. “I’m only twenty-six years old, mum.”

  “Twenty-six years old and married. You’re hardly a spring chicken anymore.”

  Ouch.

  “I want you to come to Sunday dinner this weekend. You haven’t been home since Christmas,” she ordered.

  I hadn’t been home since Christmas because it had been an absolute unmitigated disaster. I’d given in to my loneliness and my mother’s insistence and attended the family celebration because I was a weakling. Christmas Eve hadn’t been too horrible. It had started off with awkwardness between my parents and me, which was unusual because we used to be so close. My father was a professor of Greek and Roman studies at the University of British Columbia so it was safe to say that I’d inherited my dorkiness from him. We read the paper first thing every morning, first together at the kitchen table when I still lived at home and then over the phone for a morning debriefing when I lived with William. He loved to quiz me on current events, debate with me over moral quandaries in the media. He was my husband’s best friend, which meant that I saw my dad just as much as a married woman as I did when I was growing up.

  My mother and I were part of the same book club, we went for power walks every morning before I went to work at EBA, and we talked on the phone at least once a day. Since leaving William in September, all of that had stopped. My parents hadn’t allowed me to move back in with them. They couldn’t fathom why I was leaving such a good man and they were actually angrier than William had been when I’d told him I wanted a divorce.

  So, I’d taken what meager money I’d had in my own bank account to get a little apartment too close to East Hastings Street for comfort and, when that money started to run out, I’d turned to Lysander. With the money he’d lent me, I’d bought my little house in Entrance six weeks after leaving William and I’d never turned back.

  That Christmas Eve was the first time we’d seen each other in two months and I’d foolishly thought they’d embrace me. Mum would make me her famous hot chocolate that was more chocolate than milk and dad would whip out his latest research for me to read over and give him notes on.

  Instead, the awkwardness followed by a house-shaking fight.

  I’d never fought with my parents like that before. We all shouted, called each other names and, regrettably, I’d told them that they were awful parents for giving me to William.

  The night had ended in tears on all sides.

  The next morning, despite assurances that they wouldn’t ambush me, William had been next to our Christmas tree when I descended from my room. When I’d immediately turned to go back upstairs, my mum had demanded that I speak with him or she would never see me again.

  I’d spoken to William. He’d graciously forgiven me for my ‘tantrum’ and asked me to come home. In response, I retrieved the divorce papers I’d tried to send him in the mail four times from my briefcase by the door, and handed them to him. In an uncharacteristic bout of anger, he’d tossed them in the flaming hearth then told me I wouldn’t survive without him to guide me or without his fortune. He’d stormed out, my parents began to shout again and I’d hastily retrieved my bags and left.

  So, you can imagine that I wasn’t looking forward to a repeat performance.

  “I can’t make it this Sunday, mum. As I said, it’s end of term and I’m swamped with work,” I said, studying the texture of Warren’s dashboard like it held the secrets to the universe.

  A loud, nails-on-a-chalkboard silence followed.

  “William was here yesterday. One of his colleagues asked him out, you know. You probably remember her from his work functions because she is uncommonly pretty. Natalie Watson, her name is.”

  Great, we’d moved onto target practice. My mum liked to shoot arrows at random tender spots until they stuck. If she wasn’t my mum and I wasn’t her bullseye, I would have respected her for her ruthlessness and tenacity.

  “Great, mum, you should encourage him to say yes,” I said.

  Another silence, shorter this time while she collected herself for another attack. “He would be better off with someone like her who could properly appreciate how much William works.”

  I rolled my eyes. For some reason, my parents and William were convinced that I’d left him because he worked too hard.

  If only it had been th
at easy.

  “Probably,” I agreed lightly. “Listen, mum, I’m at school and I have to go in now. I’ll answer next time you call, okay? Maybe we can talk about what you’ve been reading lately. I just finished a great book, The Ghostwriter by Alessandra Torre.”

  She sniffed. “I read that ages ago when it first came out.”

  Anger pricked over my scalp. “It only came out a few months ago, and I don’t have much time to read for pleasure now that I’m trying to make ends meet.”

  “You wouldn’t have to make ends meet if you’d stayed at your proper place by your husband,” she fired back immediately.

  I leaned back in my seat, ran a hand over my closed and throbbing eye sockets. “Okay, have a good day. Talk to you later.”

  “If you don’t talk to William, Cressida, don’t be surprised if he takes matters into his own hands,” she warned ominously before hanging up.

  Great.

  A knock rattled against my window. I screamed, dropped my phone into my lap and whipped around to see Tayline’s face pressed grotesquely against the glass, Rainbow holding her stomach and belly laughing behind her.

  “You freaks,” I yelled through the door. “You gave me a freaking heart attack.”

  Tay peeled her mouth off the window so she could join Rainbow in her cackling. I shook my head but their antics immediately made me feel better after the toxic phone call with my mother. I grabbed my messenger bag from the ground at my feet and swung out of the car.

  “That was almost murder by surprise,” I lectured them both with my hands on my hips, using my best Teacher In Charge voice. “You’re lucky I have a strong heart.”

  Rainbow wiped the tears from under her eyes. “Dude, that was priceless. We should start every morning like that.”

  “Agreed,” Tay said, bumping my thigh with her hip because she was so short. “Thanks for the laugh.”

  I rolled my eyes at them but couldn’t control my smile. “You guys are children.”

  “Yeup, takes one to know one. It’s what makes me such a good teacher,” Tay nodded sagely as we made our way into the school together.

  I’d taken to spending all of my breaks with the duo and I found myself in the surprising position of having my own friends. It was incredibly pathetic that I was in my mid-twenties and I’d never had girl friends outside of my mother’s book club.

  Needless to say, I was enjoying Rainbow’s calculating wit and Tayline’s goofiness. They didn’t take life too seriously, which I loved because it meant I couldn’t take myself too seriously.

  “So, I heard Warren finally asked you out and now you’re sitting in his car in the parking lot. What gives, Cressie? Don’t you remember that conversation we had at the beginning of term? We’re best friends now, we’ve claimed you, which means we should be the absolute first people who know about your love life,” Tay lectured me as we pushed through the doors to the main hall and entered the calamity of students and teachers rushing around before classes started.

  “Honestly, I kind of forgot about it,” I admitted with a sheepish look that made them both burst into laughter.

  Rainbow even slapped her knee. “That is wicked. If Warren knew that, his manhood would be in serious question. You know Pillow has been trying to catch his eye all year?”

  Speaking of the woman, Willow floated down the hall past us on a cloud of very expensive and very strong Chanel perfume. Tayline coughed loudly but raised her eyebrows in innocent query when Willow shot her an irritated look.

  I shook my head. “Children.”

  Tay stuck her tongue out at me.

  “So, you’ve been separated for months and you aren’t getting a little antsy for some action?” Rainbow asked.

  They both followed me to my classroom, waited for me to unlock the door and turn on the lights before stepping inside with me. Rainbow sat in King’s seat in the first row right in front of my desk, which made the blush I’d been trying to keep at bay, flame to life.

  “Oh, she is!” Tayline crowed.

  “Hush.”

  “Do you have a crush?” Rainbow asked, her eyes narrowed on me.

  Insanely, I wondered if sitting in King’s desk was giving her some kind of intuition about us.

  “Get up, get out of my classroom, children!” I ordered, clapping my hands to hurry them along. “Some of us have work to do before class.”

  “Yeah because you were too busy crushing on someone to do your work after school,” Tayline called over her shoulder as I literally pushed her out the door.

  “Don’t think you’re getting off this easily,” Rainbow warned even as I closed the door in their faces. “You’ve got until lunch, sister.”

  They both stared at me through the window in the door but I turned my back on them before they could see the depth of my flush.

  I collapsed in my desk with my head in my hands and asked myself when my life had gotten so complicated.

  The answer came to me easily; the day I’d seen King’s gosh darn beautiful face across the parking lot of Mac’s Grocer.

  I should have known it was coming. Mum had practically announced his arrival in her phone call that morning. Still, I wasn’t prepared for the announcement that came over the PA system at the end of my fourth period history class.

  “Mrs. Irons, please report to the front office, your husband is here.”

  Immediately, my students shifted in their seats. I was close to my students so they knew that, in my mind, I didn’t have a husband anymore. My hand remained poised over the white board mid-way through writing out the conditions of the Paris 1918 Peace Treaty. I could not believe that William was at EBA.

  “Miss Irons?” Benny called tentatively. “You want me to go with you to the office?”

  Immediately, my chest tightened with love and dread.

  Benny; my sweet, sweet boy.

  “Or I could go for you and tell him to fuck off?” Carson suggested as I turned around, catching sight of his massive football player arms flexing in teenage bravado.

  Every since I’d turned him into the Headmaster, Carson had been surprisingly active in my classes. He’d always been a fairly bright student but I got the sense he was ashamed of his behavior with King that day and wanted to prove to me that he was a good kid.

  No one laughed at his suggestion, but a few other students nodded their heads as if that was an acceptable option.

  I wrangled up a smile and affixed it awkwardly between my cheeks. “Don’t be silly, guys. He may not be my husband anymore but he isn’t a monster. Remember, there are two sides to every story.”

  “Every time you talked about him, your face went blank,” Ally Vandercamp told me with a wise nod. “We never liked him. You’re way too pretty to settle for some old, boring banker guy.”

  “Lawyer,” I automatically corrected. “And Ally, you shouldn’t jump to conclusions like that.”

  She was right, William was old and boring, but that didn’t mean she should think that.

  “I heard Mr. Warren thinks you’re hot,” Ally continued, unperturbed. “You guys would make a super cute couple.”

  “Totally,” Aimee chirped.

  I was beyond grateful that King was not in this class.

  “Okay, enough about my personal life,” I told them sternly. “I’m going to the office to deal with this and you all are going to open your textbooks to page 318 and read more about the Paris Peace Conference.”

  “Yes, Miss Irons,” they all parroted back at me.

  I shot them a droll look that had some of them laughing as I collected my purse and headed to the front office.

  My steps were slow and heavy taking me there but still, I arrived before I was fully ready.

  William stood before the reception desk with his hands in the pockets of his neatly pressed flannel trousers, his thick salt and pepper hair brushed back beautifully from his high forehead. His elegant, masculine beauty was impossible to deny even though I was no longer drawn to it. He presented himself
impeccably from the Phillip Patek watch at his wrist to the glossy sheen of his expensive Italian loafers. His suit was custom-made, one I’d ordered for him last Christmas from Ermenegildo Zenga Bespoke for $25 000, and I knew that if I drew closer to him, he would be wearing the cologne I’d first begun to buy him when I was a fifteen-year-old girl with a crush. I’d saved up my allowance for six months to afford the Clive Christian C cologne but the expression on his face when I’d given it to him in the back hall that Christmas had made it totally worth it.

  My estranged husband stopped talking with Georgie the moment I stepped through the doors but he took a moment to collect himself before he turned to face me. When he did, his face was a handsome mask. I knew the sight of me had to have affected him but there were no tells, no tick in the jaw or flexing of the hands. Just nothingness.

  “Cressida,” he said in his smooth, dulcet tones.

  A friend of his had once told me that William was like a Canadian James Bond without the smarm. I hated that I agreed with him though it was for different reasons. Like the fictitious spy, my husband was incredibly two-dimensional.

  “William,” I returned. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m here to see my wife.”

  I stood, slightly stunned by his audacity, as he strode forward, took me by the shoulders and pressed a kiss to my cheek.

  “What are you doing?” I hissed into his ear as he pulled away.

  He smiled but it didn’t suit his face the way it suited King’s. It was impossible not to compare the two now that I’d sort of had both. They were the only two men to ever touch me sexually and now William was here at school, in King’s domain. Goosebumps broke out like a premonition written in Braille over my skin.