“Fine. Call me what you want. But if you write my paper and agree to one date with me, I’d be willing to call things even.”
No way. Things would never be even. He might hang Club V over my head for as long as he could, no matter what I did.
“Think about it, Senna. You don’t have to decide right now. But I think it’s a fair deal.”
We were silent for a moment, myself because I was in such shock and couldn’t think of a single thing to say. He wanted me to write his paper? We could both get kicked out of the university for a stunt like that. I couldn’t risk it.
“Ty, I can’t. I just can’t. You don’t know how much college means to me. I could lose it all,” I pleaded.
“Fine. Totally fine. But I will be going to the school newspaper tomorrow to let them know what one of our students does to pay her tuition…”
Jesus. It was one thing for a couple of my professors to know, and even a few of Ty’s idiotic fraternity friends, but the whole university knowing about my dancing? That could make my four years at Wellshire very, very long.
I took a deep breath. I was going to hate myself for this, but survival was all I cared about at that moment.
“Okay, Ty. Okay. What’s your paper supposed to be about?”
Chapter 22
PROFESSOR JAMIE CARTER
I had to hand it to Senna.
After our brief encounter at Club V, she came into my math class with her head held high, made eye contact, took notes, and asked questions. My stalking did not deter her, and I was glad.
It was a dick move of me, to show up there to satisfy my lust and curiosity. I’d invaded her privacy. I wasn’t proud of it.
But damn if I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I knew Benno felt the same, and if Chase didn’t yet, he soon would. She was different from the other undergrads we were surrounded with. Hell, she was different from any of the women we usually met. Not to mention stunning, with her badass haircut and clothes. She just did not give a fuck, and that thrilled me to no end.
And kept me up at night, rubbing one out.
“Okay, guys. Here’s your first quiz. It’s brief, and is based on the homework you’ve been doing, so it shouldn’t be too hard.”
When I handed the test to Senna, she smiled and said thank you, just like it was any other day.
While the class took the test, I kept a half-assed eye on them to make sure they didn’t cheat, scrolling through my email to do some catching up.
Jesus. That pain in the ass reporter from the student newspaper was at it again.
After several requests for interviews, I’d finally met with the kid. He was a senior, but he was small and nerdy, and clearly out to make his name. I knew from my instructor friends in the journalism department that if the students who wrote for the school paper had good stories for their portfolios, they were much more likely to land jobs after graduation. That left the truly ambitious ones to scramble for some good, interesting material that was in short supply on the typical college campus. Seemed they could only showcase so many stories about the school’s sports teams, lousy food in the dining hall, and bad plumbing in the dorms.
But mine was not a boring story. No, mine offered the promise of drama and dirt, suspicion and betrayal. It wasn’t enough that my father was in prison and that I’d been found innocent of anything to do with his pyramid schemes. There were people who still wanted a piece of me.
I’d thought, when everything went down, that would the end of the whole situation. That it would be put to bed. But in reality, it was just the beginning. And years later, I was still identified by it.
The bullshit my father had heaped on me and so many other people was to follow me for the rest of my life. It was a fact I’d finally accepted, as much as I hated to. And now some ambitious college reporter wanted to use me in his attempt to get a foothold in the after-graduation world.
Gee, thanks, kid.
So I’d finally agreed to meet with him, although there was nothing more to say about how my father had cheated people, and how it had affected the rest of our family and me,