Total pages in book: 168
Estimated words: 164910 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 825(@200wpm)___ 660(@250wpm)___ 550(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 164910 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 825(@200wpm)___ 660(@250wpm)___ 550(@300wpm)
And oh, am I. One year of teaching under my belt, I happily accepted an offer to teach summer school, too. I like it here.
“Hi.”
I lift my head and catch sight of a man leaning into my doorframe.
My blood rushes hot, filling my ears, and I can’t hear the air conditioners anymore as I stare into the darkest blue eyes I can ever remember seeing. Ones I haven’t seen for four long years.
Of course, I can’t tell they’re blue from this distance, but they look how they always looked in the dark.
With his shoulder pressed into the wood and one hand in his pocket, his gaze seems to dance under those golden blond brows, a shade deeper than his hair.
I dig my knuckles into my desktop.
I should’ve known he was one of the suits downstairs. I knew he’d show up at one point. It’s been four years. He would’ve graduated college by now.
Rising up and straightening my spine, I can’t tell yet if I’m still the taller man.
Callum Ames quirks a smile. “I honestly expected you to wrap a hand around my neck,” he says, adding under his breath, “Again.”
I turn the page of my lesson planner to the new week. “But we can’t avoid each other forever…”
His chin dips, his eyes still locked on mine. “No.”
I can’t avoid him at all. He’s an alumnus of Marymount Academy, where I now work.
And that little pseudo–Skull & Bones gathering I interrupted downstairs was no doubt a Ministry meeting. Now that Callum has finished college, I’m guessing, he’ll take his place among other boosters—and probably the board of trustees—who really make the decisions about who will teach their children and what they’ll learn.
And who attends this school.
There are many members—all alums—spanning a few generations, but the majority will have left town for the summer by now, and others limit their participation to simply making donations and casting the occasional vote. It’s the younger men enjoying their newfound power trip who take a more active role.
And it’s all men, no women, even though the school is coed. That’s the way it started more than a hundred years ago, and they’re big on tradition in St. Carmen.
They meet when any topics come up for discussion or decisions need to be made regarding the landscape of the school. The faculty, admissions, construction, renovations, publicity, curriculum…
But this has never been primarily a place of education. It’s a kingdom that keeps the young in the social circles of their parents’ choice, creating a network of relationships the students can call upon down the road in their financial and political careers.
His presence here isn’t a surprise. We expected as much when we put our plans in place.
But still, I have to force my breathing to slow so he doesn’t hear it. He’s changed.
I let my gaze drop down his form, noticing the broader chest, the fucking perfect cut of his black three-piece suit and midnight-blue shirt.
He takes me in as well, and I think I almost see a glint in his eyes when he notices the grease on my white sleeves, a few smudges on my forearms. You’ll never get the Bay off me.
Finally, he turns away, inhaling sharply as he surveys my classroom. “My stepsister tells me how much she loves this room.” He pushes off the doorframe, gesturing to enter. “May I?”
Fuck off.
I won’t say that, though. Not yet. He’s essentially my boss. This whole town is.
Walking across the back of my classroom, he studies the nook in the corner Krisjen decorated with a worn leather couch and pillows slightly hidden from my view behind bookshelves. There’s a carpet on the floor and art on the wall and a green plant, and I’d much rather have had a set of darts or a video arcade to let the students blow off steam, but they seem to like this room feeling like a dark academia library, and I don’t know why I like that they like it.
His stepsister graduated a couple of years ago—finishing high school online—but she spends her days here, “assisting” me.
Really, she just hides. I look him up and down, wondering if she hides from him like she does from his father.
He turns his head toward me. “What does she do in here all day?”
“Ask her.”
“I’m asking you.”
And the last person I’m going to fucking talk about her with is you. “I can’t explain anything for her.” I take a sip of my two-day-old bourbon, disguised in the coffee cup I left on my desk on Friday afternoon after the students left. “Anna-Katherine…”
Callum’s eyes darken at me using her new name.
“…lives in a world no one else sees,” I tell him.
Maybe he thinks I’m fucking her, but I don’t fuck people I like.
He shakes his head, drifting past her favorite place to sit. “No,” he says. “She retains what’s good and buries the rest.”