Chapter 12
Lacey
“OnemoreclassandI’m finished for the day,” I said as I walked down the crowded corridor to class with Polly on Tuesday morning.
It had been three days since that night, and I hadn’t felt the crawling goose bump sensation or seen the dark spray of dust that lingered after seeing him. I hoped that meant he had disappeared for good, but in reality, I knew it wasn’t the case.
“Your timetable is fab, mine is all over the place. I’ve got another class after this and then have to wait two hours for a lecture,” Polly grumbled. “But today is still my good day. I’ve got Mr Bingham again later today.” She grinned.
“You talk about me with Liam Phillips when you practically begged Roger Bingham to take you to bed. Fluttering your eyelashes at him as you leaned on your hands and cooed to him.”
Polly laughed because she knew she spent the last class flirting with the much older lecturer. He wasn’t like the young Liam Phillips. Polly liked the older man, it seemed.
“I thought you were secretly wanting Blake,” I said as we reached our class.
She shrugged her shoulder. “No, we’re just friends. He is too busy to date, apparently.”
“He is training to be a doctor and on the football team,” I said, trying to lighten her mood, and pushed open the door and seeing a single desk at the front of the room, I quickly put my bag on top to snag it.
Polly stopped at the desk with me. “They have a football match at the weekend and asked if we both wanted to watch.”
“Sounds fun, all those hunky footballers to ogle,” I said and grinned.
“Absolutely.” Polly smiled. She had the loveliest of smiles, little dimples delved in the side of her cheeks and her deep brown eyes crinkled at the side but the colour shone like pools of water in the moonlight.
A throat cleared at the front of the room. “Ladies and gents, I’d like to get the class started because I have to get away immediately after. If you take your seats and open your reading material to page eighty-nine.”
“I better go,” Polly said. Rolling her eyes, she scurried off to a spare desk. I took my seat and opened the reading book to the requested page.
A few minutes later, the door opened as the room hushed for the start of the class. I glanced up from my book as the sexy, brooding man with pillow-top lips strutted into the class. He stared at me and I stared back, our eyes locked for a few seconds more, and I could see a flicker of something behind his eyes. There was so much more to him than he gave, but as I tried to work it out, he quickly cleared it away.
He gave me a grin and walked past me, dropping a piece of paper on my desk.
I pick up the message and read it.
Meet me at eleven-thirty at the café. I want to speak to you. Kane.
Shocked was an understatement. The man with very few words wanted a conversation, but at least now I could remember his name. I blew out a sigh and placed the message in my pocket and got on with learning about corporate tax law.
During the lesson, I contemplated the message a few times and hoped Seb kept our clandestine meeting to himself, as the last thing I needed right now was Carter’s friends knowing what we did. Because the revenge part of me wanted Carter to know about it, something inside me wanted to gloat. But the nice side of me preferred Seb would keep it to himself. Our secret, and then I’d know Seb liked me and it wasn’t a one-off encounter.
At the end of the class, I strolled out of the university to the car park to get my bike, when a coldness slithered over my neck. I spun to the university windows and there he was—the same man smirking at me. There was something about him I couldn’t put my finger on because he was nothing like I’d ever seen before.
But there was something else. Maybe it was because he didn’t look real. It was like he was projected to where he stood. I narrowed my eyes and stared for a moment as I tried to work out what it was about him that had me on edge.
Was he stalking me, or was it a coincidence?
I blinked hard and swiped my tongue over my lower lip. Then opened my eyes, and he was gone.
Shaking off the encounter, I straddled my bike, turned on the engine and rode for a while, but much slower than I normally would because something was brewing. Things were changing around me. I could feel it in my bones.
I’d rode, taking fresh air in my lungs and cleared my thoughts and now the only thing I wanted to do was to get back to my room in the halls of residence, put on some music, chill and investigate my parent’s accident.
Once home, I stripped out of my leathers, and relaxed in a pair of leggings and a clean T-shirt. Then I grabbed myself a glass of water and took the paperwork for the details of the car accident from my bag, got myself comfortable and continued reading the coroner’s report.
Did their deaths have something to do with what I was feeling?
Was it not the accident it appeared?