Or fucking an heir they weren’t betrothed to, apparently.
Then again, no one seemed to give two craps about the royals fucking around—so long as no pregnancies resulted from those affairs—so maybe this standard only applied to me.
“Understood,” I finally managed to bite out, somehow not adding “Dean Fuckhead” after that.
He cleared his throat. “Excellent. Also, I’ve changed some of your schedule around to make life easier.” He shuffled the papers again, and at this point I figured he was just fucking with me. But no, he was actually searching, and he managed to fish out a single piece of cream paper.
“It’ll be sent to your palm reader as well, but here’s the paper copy so you can keep track. You have a few new classes.”
He waved me off then, already reaching for a pen as he filled in some bullshit form. My hands shook as we stood, and it was from pure fury at the audacity of this asshole. Change my schedule?
What the fuck did that even mean? Why?
This couldn’t be good.
Mattie and I didn’t say anything until we were out of his office and far from the prying ears of his staff.
“Show me the schedule,” she said shortly, hand held out.
I shoved the crumpled paper at her, not able to look at it myself because I was already an eighth of a second from punching a wall. Or a dean.
“Motherfucker,” she muttered, eyes running across the writing. “He’s basically shifted you into every one of Alex’s classes—” She broke off. “And a private study hall on Tuesdays and Thursdays.”
My teeth clicked together as my jaw clenched. “Who wants to bet there is one other fucker in that private study group. They’re not even pretending to give me an education anymore. Alex is a third year and studying totally different subjects for fuck’s sake.”
Arbon really was going to do everything to assist Alex in his quest to make me his baby maker.
“What do I do?” I murmured to Mattie, aware that there were multiple students lingering in the halls around us. Classes were due to start soon.
“First we get some food,” she said, straightening and looking every fucking inch the princess she was. “Then we deal with this.”
* * *
Just when Ithought Dean Morgan had already shit all over my day, it got worse.
“Babe! There you are, have you been hiding from me?” Alex was such a good actor it was actually scary. If I didn’t know what I knew…
“Fuck off, murderer,” Mattie hissed at him when he drew close.
We’d barely made it three steps inside the dining room, and my gaze locked on Jordan’s across the room where he sat at our usual table. His jaw clenched tight, and when Alex slung his arm over my shoulder, I gave the New American prince a small head shake.
As much as I’d love to see Jordan and Rafe beat the shit out of Alex, this wasn’t the time or the place. Not while my own future and freedom were so precarious.
“Now, now, Matisse,” Alex chided my best friend, “don’t get your knickers in a twist just because I’ve seen Violet naked and you haven’t.”
The leer he raked down my body with that statement made my skin crawl. The fact that I’d had sex with him would honestly haunt me for the rest of my days… however long that might turn out to be.
“What do you want, Alex?” I whispered while turning to face him with a pasted-on smile. I’d hoped that might dislodge his arm from around my shoulders, but if anything he just took it as an invitation to hold me closer.
The smile he gave me back was so genuine. So content. Holy shit, he was a fucking sociopath.
“I can’t show affection to my girlfriend in public? After we’ve been socloseit’s starting to look a bit suspicious that we’re never together. You wouldn’t want anyone questioning our love, would you?” He tilted his head to the side, looking genuinely concerned. I stared up at him for an uncomfortably long time, searching his ocean-blue eyes for any trace of the cold-hearted, lying bastard I knew him to be. But I found nothing. He was that fucking good.
Mattie nudged my elbow, breaking my concentration. “Vi, let’s get some food. We need to discuss that assignment, remember?”
I blinked at her, but Alex was the one who replied. “Oh, of course. That assignment.” His mouth twitched with a mocking smile, making it clear he knew there was no assignment. “Well, I wouldn’t want to interfere with your classwork, Violet. After all, we can’t have the future queen of Australasia flunking out of Arbon Academy. What a scandal that’d be.” He laughed at his own shitty joke, and I forced my lips to curve into a humorless smile.
“Uh-huh,” I replied, and really, I felt like I deserved a damn medal for even managing that much. “See ya.”
