The door opened, and a girl stared at Andre with a mortified expression. Gabrielle was definitely not in the room.
He hid his displeasure with a smile. “You must be Gabrielle’s roommate.” He held out his hand. “Andre.”
She eyed his hand like one might a poisonous snake. Slowly he let it fall.
“Do you know where Gabrielle is?”
He could see the girl’s breath quicken. She was nervous. Good. “Sh—she’s at the library picking up her books.”
The library. He strode down the hall, leaving her stuttering for words.
A minute later the dorm’s front doors burst open, and Andre stormed out. As Andre left the building, he threw the rose into the trash.
His driver got out of the car. “Sir?”
“Take me to the campus library.”
***
Peel’s library was close to the dorms, and the car ride was short. Yet it was still plenty of time for Andre to seethe. When was the last time he was stood up? He couldn’t even remember.
The Mercedes came to a halt, and for a second time that evening Andre stepped out. Now, however, all traces of his suave manner were gone. He was pissed.
He walked up to the library’s thick oak doors and kicked them open. They slammed against the wall, the wood splintering apart.
Startled students screamed at the noise. More joined in once they saw who was standing at the library’s threshold. Andre scanned the crowd, looking for one person.
Gabrielle.
His eyes found her as she walked away from the counter, forcing books into an already overstuffed bag. Belatedly she noticed the silence. She looked around until she caught sight of Andre.
“Shit,” he heard her swear under her breath.
Chapter 4
Why had he come looking for me? Couldn’t he take a hint?
Andre angrily stalked forward until he was more than comfortably close. In a deceptively calm voice, he asked, “Did you forget we had a date tonight?”
Silence. Everyone was in the library was listening.
I lifted my chin. “A ‘date’ would suggest mutual interest. What you did was blackmail.”
For a moment, nothing happened. Andre just stood there frozen, as though he had not registered my words. Then, before I could react, he picked me up and threw me over his shoulder.
“What the—? Put me down, now!” Instead of putting me down, Andre began walking to the door, like any normal caveman. Students who had gawked at the scene now parted to make room for him. No one was going to do anything. In fact, they all looked a little frightened.
“Help! Please, someone! Andre, put me down!” I began to bang on his back with my fists and my book bag. I tried to wiggle off of him, but he had a viselike grip on me.
Now I began to scream. “Help!”
Andre pushed open the doors, and the night’s chill rushed over my skin. He didn’t stop walking until he came to a black Mercedes.
A man came out of the driver’s seat. “Sir?” He sounded concerned.
“Everything’s fine. Could you grab the door? Oh, and turn on the child lock.”
The man hurried to open the rear car door. I huffed. Andre was kidnapping me, and his driver opened the door for him?
Andre unceremoniously dumped me into the car and followed me in.
I scrambled for the far door. Grabbing the handle, I pulled. Nothing. I tried again.
“Damnit!” Fruitlessly I pulled on the handle a few more times, but nothing. I wanted to cry.
The driver got in, and the car pulled away from the curb.
“Sir, are we still going to the marina?”
There was a long pause, long enough to make me look over at Andre. He was assessing me with his eyes. “Yes, I think that would be best.” I attempted to put as much distance as I could between him and myself, leaving me squished into the corner of the car.
I sputtered, “You’re still taking me on the date? Are you kidding me? You can’t just snatch me up and—”
Midsentence Andre turned his attention to my books, which had miraculously made it into the car with me. In particular, he focused on a textbook that had slid partially out of the bag.
“Living and Dying in a World of Wonder: An Introduction to Supernatural Beings,” he read out loud. I let out an indignant huff and crossed my arms. “They’re still making students read this?” He pulled the book out of my bag and began flipping through it. “You know, this book is nearly as old as me,” Andre said.
I eyed the book, a cloth-bound, gold-leafed book that looked like it came straight out of Old Man Time’s library, and then looked at Andre, who appeared to be in his mid to late twenties.
“That book is nearly as old as you? That’s a joke, right?”
My words irked Andre; his eyes narrowed. “It’s a manner of speaking.”
“How old are you?” I asked. It was a rude question, but I had a right to know how old this guy was if I was being forced on a “date” with him.
“A little over seven hundred.”
Now I was thoroughly confused. “Seven hundred … years old? Wait. What? You’re actually serious?” All that is holy, please tell me I was not trapped in a car with a crazy person.