“Did your father make you speak to me?” I ask.
She glances toward the trio of sidekicks, her lips tightening. Perhaps they’re serving as witnesses for Uranos.
“Sorry,” she spits.
I hold up a palm. “Don’t allow anyone to gaslight or coerce you into changing the way you think.”
“Professor?” Her brows pull together.
“We need more people in positions of power standing up for the rights of women.” I cringe as I say the words.
No matter how much I believe them, I’m a hypocrite who took advantage of a vulnerable young woman who had just been abandoned by her father.
That’s how Phoenix sees me, and she isn’t wrong.
I’ve dealt with persistent women my entire adult life. If I had wanted to get rid of her, I could have done so with a few well-placed words and actions.
I could have given her the money she had demanded with no strings, but I wanted to see her on my knees, with those pretty lips around my cock. I wanted to fuck her throat until she coated the floor with tears. I subjected a student to all manner of deliciously sexual acts, and said nothing when a man called her a whore.
When Miss Belus shoots a second glance at the other young women and clutches a clenched fist to her chest, I know for certain they’re spies sent to make sure she carries out her father’s order.
I turn to the Grace cousins. “Do you have an apology for me, too?”
“No,” says the one in the middle.
“Then fuck off to your next class.” She parts her lips but I speak first. “Let me clarify, before you tell me this is your free period, get out or I’ll blast every member of the Belus family with clips of you tonguing lollipops.”
The trio hurries out of the lecture theater.
I wait for the door to shut before turning back to the former women’s officer. “Is everything alright, Miss Belus?”
Her jaw tightens. “You didn’t need to speak to them like that.”
“Not everyone who makes unwanted advances are men.”
Her jaw tightens. I wait for her to retort, but she only raises a shoulder.
“Thanks. I’ll think about what you said.”
Miss Belus walks out of the lecture theater, letting the door close behind her with a gentle click.
At times like this, I’m glad to be a bastard. If Phoenix or Miss Belus knew the identity of my father, their reactions toward me wouldn’t be quite as mild.
ChapterThirty-Six
PHOENIX
I should never have opened the door to Charlotte this morning and never allowed her to drag me to Advanced Finance and Accountancy.
Professor Segul delivered that lecture as though my presence was barely an afterthought, his gaze wandering to the right side of the lecture theater.
At one point, he was practically eye-fucking the Grace cousins.
There’s no doubt in my mind that one of them has taken my place and reports to his office each morning. The few times he looked at me it was with complete indifference, the way a person might switch from one brand of toothpaste to another.
I can’t exit the lecture fast enough. I leave Charlotte with Veer and Axel and hurry down the hallway before she notices I’m gone.
It’s great that she and the bass guitarist hooked up last weekend, but I’m not in the right headspace to hear anything positive about men.