****
“If you don’t leave soon,” Igor said gently the next day, “you might be late for your meeting with the student council, signorina.”
Reluctantly turning away from the driveway, Fawn glanced back at Igor with a forced smile, saying, “I’m not even surprised you know my schedule as well as I do.”
“Security’s been instructed to shoot to kill if Mr. Bennett makes one wrong move.”
Since the words were spoken with a straight face, she said weakly, “You’re joking...right?”
But it was as if Igor hadn’t heard a thing and instead the older man opened the car door for her, saying with a respectful bow, “Have a good day in school, signorina. Please do not hesitate to call if you need any kind of assistance.”
As Igor gently but firmly ushered Fawn inside her car, she could no longer help herself and blurted out, “Have you heard from the prince?”
“No, signorina.”
“I see.” But the truth was, she didn’t, and his absence hurt. “He told me he’d be here.” And it wasn’t like the prince at all to break his word.
Seeing the fear lurking in Fawn’s gaze, Igor deliberately attempted to lighten the mood, saying, “The day has arrived then.”
Fawn blinked. “What day?”
“The day,” he intoned seriously, “that the signorina has become quite clingy.”
Fawn’s jaw dropped.
Igor stepped back and closed the door in her face.
Holy sweet Jesus—-
As Igor kindly waved goodbye from the front steps of the mansion, Fawn raced down the driveway, trying but failing to outrun her embarrassment.
She was being clingy!
Fawn shuddered.
It was a good thing the prince wasn’t here, after all, or Igor wouldn’t have been the only one to witness her fall from grace. The prince would have seen it for himself, too, and she’d never have heard the end of it if that happened.
When she made it to school, Fawn was surprised to find a good number of the prince’s bodyguards waiting for her outside the university, working incognito in civilian clothing and looking not much different from the other students in the area.
Martin, the guard closest to her, was seated on one of the steps, a book in his hands, and doing his best to look like he was unaware of how a small group of eighteen-year-old girls was eyeing him like they wanted to have him for lunch.
Walking to Martin, she asked under her breath, “Are you here for the prince?”
Martin stared at her blankly. “Do I know you?”
The girls behind him tittered, and Fawn glowered at the guard. She was so telling his wife about this, Fawn vowed to herself even as she turned away, realizing that Martin – or any of the other security guys for that matter – would never talk to her while on duty.
As she headed to the conference room, she pulled out her phone to send a text message to Priscilla.
Are you in uni? Your bodyguards are hanging out here.
Fawn waited restlessly for the prince’s reply, but none came even by the time she made it to the conference room. The prince hadn’t wanted her to attend this without him, but she had insisted, knowing that it presented her with the perfect opportunity to have some closure with—-
Oh.
She halted by the doorway, unable to pull her gaze away from Grant, who was deep in discussion with the student council president in front of the room. It was her first time to see him like he had come to class without having taken a bath. His hair had a messy, greasy look to them, and his eyes were bloodshot and swollen. Even his clothes looked like they were the same ones that he had gone to bed with, its collar half-turned, and the front marred with a rather large stain.
What was wrong with him? Taking one of the seats at the far end of the table, she tried catching his eye, but either he was too intent on his talk with the president or he was deliberately avoiding looking at her.
“Good morning, guys,” a voice cooed from the doorway, and Fawn stiffened. It was Lou, and even though she no longer felt the same way for Grant, she realized that it didn’t make her hurt any less at seeing the girl her boyfriend had cheated on her with.
Lou was dressed in a white skin-tight dress that looked prim and proper up front but exposed her back completely with crisscrossing strings. All eyes were on Lou as she sashayed towards Grant, leaning to kiss him on the cheek—-
Fawn’s eyes widened when Lou suddenly pulled back, her nose wrinkling in revulsion. “Oh my God, Grant, you stink!”
The entire room fell silent.
Fawn waited tensely for Grant to blow up or at least defend himself, but he only looked at Lou, mumbling in a dull voice that everyone could hear, “I’m sorry.”
The student council president was shaking his head. “Seriously, what’s wrong? You’ve been out of it since you came here. Do you have a hangover or something?”
Grant shook his head.
“Then what is it?” Frustration underlined the president’s tone. “This is your brainchild, Grant, and yet not a single word you’ve told me made sense. Get yourself straightened out or I’m getting someone else to take over.”
As the president stalked towards the head of the table to take his seat, Fawn’s anxious gaze swung to Grant, who looked even paler now and almost like—-
Was it just her, Fawn wondered uneasily, or did Grant actually look like he wanted to cry?
Lou hissed something to Grant’s ear, too low for anyone else to hear, but with her face a mirror of fury, it was pretty easy to guess that she didn’t care about comforting Grant.
The door to the conference room opened again as Lou continued to reprimand him in front of everyone, and Fawn, thankful for the distraction, turned to see who the newcomers were.
She almost fell off her
