Of course I wanted to press charges. Except…
I thought about it again. Went quickly through the scenario—white rich boy accused of assault by a nobody girl. Alcohol involved. No actual rape. Scholarship at risk. There was no way this would end in my favor, as much as I wanted it to. As much as the world needed brave warriors for violated women, it wasn’t what I wanted for myself. It shamed me, but it was my truth.
“It’s fine,” I mumbled, a tear slipping down my cheek. I just wanted to forget all of this. Go home, take a bath. Pretend none of this ever happened.
“What?” Donovan asked, forcing me to repeat myself.
“I’m not pressing charges,” I said louder. “I’m sorry.” I didn’t even know who I was apologizing to. Myself. Every victim of assault who’d never gotten a chance to face her attacker in cuffs.
“Fine.” Donovan let go of Theo’s arms, but when Theo turned around to face him Donovan kneed him in the nuts. “You deserve worse, you asshole. Unfortunately, the U.S. legal system probably wouldn’t give you much more than that. Penalties at The Keep are more severe though. You’re not welcome here. You won’t do business with our families. Your investments at King-Kincaid will be canceled. Now get the fuck off my property. You’re bleeding all over my Ferragamos.”
Theo wiped the blood dripping from his nose with the back of his hand and leaned a shoulder forward as though he were going to challenge Donovan. Then he seemed to think better of it and took a step backward. “All right. All right, Kincaid. Didn’t realize you were saving this one for yourself.”
“Get the fuck out of here.” Donovan never raised his voice, but his tone and his eyes and his posture said it all. Theo took off.
I was still shaking, still crying. I swiped the tears from my eyes and started to turn to thank Donovan when a car pulled up to the curb. I turned my attention there instead. It was my escort. What timing.
When I shifted back to Donovan, he was already climbing back up the stairs toward the front door without a goodbye. Without even an, “Are you all right?”
I cried the entire drive home. Cried for an hour in the shower. It wasn’t until hours later when I was curled up in the fetal position in my bed that I realized that Donovan’s Ferragamos were boots. And they’d been tied. He’d seen my situation through his bedroom window then taken the time to lace them up before coming downstairs to rescue me.
3
I didn’t go to classes on Monday.
I said I had the flu and stayed in bed, facing the wall. Sheri brought me microwaveable soup and crackers from the Shell station, and I told her I was only crying because my head hurt.
Tuesday, I managed to pull myself together. Nothing happened, really. Theo hadn’t actually raped me. I was the same girl I’d been before. It wasn’t like I had to see him again either. I didn’t have any classes with him. He was an upperclassman, and we didn’t run in the same circles. And no one else knew what had happened—I’d decided not to tell a soul—so all I had to do was smile and pretend nothing had happened. Easy peasy.
If it wasn’t exactly easy, it was at least doable. As doable as it had been when my mother had died five years ago and kids at school had pointed and whispered behind my back. I’d put on a happy face and acted as if it meant nothing. As if it didn’t hurt. That experience with tragedy had taught me an important lesson in how to deal with hard things—you smile, you nod, you go on.
That’s how I’d planned to handle Intro to Business Ethics too. I knew it would be different because of Donovan, because he knew. But it wasn’t like he was going to bring it up in class. We’d never even talked before that night at The Keep. He was my teacher. I looked to him to learn things. He looked at me as another paper to grade. I didn’t think it would be a problem.
I walked in to the lecture hall, early as usual, and headed for a seat in the front row. Normally I came in from the door below, but this time I came in from above since I’d stopped for a bottle of water before class and taken a different route to get there. As I walked down the stairs, I glanced down at the teacher’s desk, and maybe I was a little nervous about seeing Donovan because I silently hoped it was Velasquez teaching today.
It wasn’t.
Donovan sat at his laptop, wearing his grey trousers and a dress shirt and tie under his black pullover, and as though he could sense me, he looked up just then and caught my gaze.
I froze, unable to take another step.
My knees swayed. Sweat beaded on my brow. It was like he was a trigger. My entire pretense fell apart, and I was transported back to that night. I swore I could feel Theo’s palm across my mouth. The sound of his nose cracking echoed in my ears. Emotion overwhelmed me.
But it wasn’t just terror and humiliation that I felt. There was something even worse underneath it all. Something ugly but undeniable.
As soon as I recognized it, I flushed with panic. Donovan had to notice because his eyes narrowed and his chin tilted up with curiosity. I wanted to turn around and run out of the classroom, but that would only direct attention to myself. Besides, my legs felt like jelly at the moment, so I slipped into a seat in the row I was already standing in and ducked my head, pretending not to realize that my behavior might be odd or that he was still watching me.
Actually, I wasn’t pretending—I didn’t care if he was watching me. I didn’t even care about keeping an eye out for Weston like I usually did. I had to figure out what the ever-living fuck was wrong with me. My heart was pounding, my clothes felt too hot, I felt restless and unsettled.
But it wasn’t thoughts of Theo that had me riled up. It was Donovan. From the way he’d taunted me in his bedroom to the way he’d commanded the situation with Theo to the way his jaw set when he studied me with those intense eyes.
God, those eyes…
I snuck a glance at him as he stood up to start the lecture, and another tumultuous, confusing wave rolled through my body. I shifted in my seat, but it didn’t help. When he started talking it was even worse. His voice sent shivers down my spine. I drank in every word, yet sentences went by without me comprehending a single phrase.
I was seriously fucked.
Whatever was happening, there had to be a perfectly natural explanation. Like, I was having a psychotic break. My mind was trying to change the terrible thing that happened to me by associating Donovan and pleasant feelings with that night instead of Theo and those awful ones.