The Professor (Book 2)

2: Gossip Girls

I was angry.

Actually, scratch that. I was fuming.

Yesterday's surprise of seeing Harry and then speaking to him and watching him act so... distant had ticked something off inside me. Like he was mad at me. I knew we had ended things, and I was fine with that, but I had at least expected a bit more... well, I don't know exactly what I had expected. Just... more.

The thing was, I had always known I'd see him again one day. When we parted ways last summer, a part of me had known this wasn't the last time I'd laid eyes on Harry Devon. Even if the circumstances wouldn't be the same, I knew somewhere in my heart we would meet again, lock eyes and have words.

But then yesterday happened, and it wasn't what I had expected at all.

The man I had spoken to yesterday hadn't been Harry Devon. He had been a pale imitation, a cheap knock-off of some version he'd never be. Cold, unattached. Granted, he had never been warm and fuzzy to begin with, but the Harry Devon I knew never would've stood before me and lied to my face so blatantly.

Something had to have happened in the past two months. Something had to have changed him, and the only thing I could think of that could've done it was...

Richard Devon. His brother.

Did he finally somehow find a way to get under Harry's skin? Find something to push him into teaching, something that he couldn't get away from, even with all his mighty brains? Nothing less would drive the Harry I knew to this, at least nothing I could think of.

I knew I couldn't be the reason. He had told me to go, so why would he then push himself back into my life again, only to act so cold and distant towards me?

He wasn't here for me, as much as my barely mended heart wanted him to be. But that was fine.

What wasn't fine was the way he had treated me.

He had looked at me as if I was a past memory, a memory he didn't want to come near again, which meant he was over and done with us. A closed chapter. And I would accept that—I had accepted that the day I left his mansion, but then yesterday...

Yesterday, he stood before me and treated me as if I had meant nothing to him, as if the things we had shared had been... nothing.

As if he hadn't kissed me like I was his last kiss and then painstakingly told me to go because we both knew it was for the best.

The man I had talked to yesterday... he didn't even bother to give me a decent lie, let alone trust me enough to tell me what had brought him here, to the last place on earth he wanted to be.

He didn't even acknowledge me as a friend.

And that was wherein my anger lied.

Pacing furiously in my dorm room, I was happy my roommate was out with her friends, probably off on a daybender, partying with some frat house or sorority. It gave me the peace I needed to let out some steam, cursing under my breath as I reviewed yesterday and what had happened.

I didn't know what the truth was yet. All I knew was, something was way off, and I intended to find out why. Harry Devon wasn't here of his own volition, that much was obvious. Harry was many things, and while I had called him an asshole more times than I could count, he wasn't this kind of asshole. The cold, distant and emotionally abusive one. Something had to have pushed him to come here, to become this, and my gut told me to start with Richard.