Kept

by Cate Corvin

  Vincent’s smile twisted into a smirk. “None of them will know you’re there in anything but a professional capacity. As tempting as it might be, I won’t be ripping off your dress and fucking you on the exhibits.”

  My toes curled at the thought, sick puppy that I was.

  “You could have anyone there as your date. I’m not… not the material for that world.”

  He finally released my face and brushed a stray strand of my hair back into place. “Your excuses bore me, Jane. You’re going.”

  With that final pronouncement of doom, he kissed me hard enough to bruise.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I strode furiously to the library, but my rage cooled with every step I took.

  This was, after all, just another facet to being the Pet. Jump when they say jump. Strip when they say strip. Be at an art gala when they tell you to be there.

  I had no one to blame but myself for getting into this situation.

  Sean had taken up an open table in the library. Thanks to his new girlfriend, whoever she was - he had yet to mention a name or if she was even a fellow Bourdillon student- his unwelcome attention had finally cooled. I didn’t feel awkward in the slightest when I dumped my bag on the empty half of the table.

  “Hey, Jane.” He didn’t look up from the textbook he was focused on.

  “Hi, Sean.”

  And that was it. I gathered the full cart of books Mrs. Clarke had left for me and picked my way through the non-fic until the sun went down, and weeded several outdated monographs that needed replacing.

  When I had a sizeable stack of serviceable texts that just needed new binding or page glue, I stopped for a break and made myself a small cup of coffee. Sean stretched and put aside his last book.

  “The fine print is killing my eyes,” he grumbled. He’d taken out a pair of silver-framed reading glasses.

  “I can get you a magnifying glass instead,” I offered, riffling through my bag for lip balm, but he shook his head.

  “Nah. I’ll just suffer looking like a nerd.”

  I sipped the coffee and burned my tongue. “You’re a Chem student, Sean, you’re a nerd no matter what you wear.”

  His mouth spread in a grin. “Wow, thanks, Jane. Glad to know how you see me.”

  “Nerds stick together, right?”

  He really was so much more pleasant to be around when he wasn’t looking at me like a dog gazing mournfully at a hamburger just out of reach. I left my stuff in a mess on the table and ran for a quick bathroom break, wondering if Rhett would be around tonight.

  When I got back to the library, Sean’s face was creased in a scowl. I shoved the school magazine back in my bag after glancing at the clock. Ten minutes to lock-up. “What’s wrong, Sean?”

  I was taken aback when he glared at me, but a second later it passed. He just looked strained. “Headache.”

  “Advil?” I shook a tiny bottle, and he just shrugged and slammed his book shut. The pouting look of consternation hadn’t left him.

  “I’m just going to go home and sleep it off.” He dumped his books on the cart and walked back out with a word.

  I gazed after him, utterly mystified by the switch. He’d been laughing when I left, and furious when I came back five minutes later.

  With Sean, who knew? I had a feeling he was a puzzle I was never going to figure out.

  I swept my stuff back in my bag. My cell lying on top of the mess, the screen lit up. A new message had popped up while I was in the bathroom and my heart stuttered.

  I’d been careful to program my phone so code names showed up on the lock-screen instead of their real names when I got a new message. If anyone asked, they were old friends from Northeast. Vincent was programmed as Josh, Gabriel was Don, and Rhett was Brent.

  I had a new message from ‘Brent’: I missed you. You know where to find me.

  I breathed a sigh of happiness. Rhett was back, and the message had come in at the perfect time.

  I locked up, shut off the lights, and found my way to the staircase that led to the roof. As soon as the metal door creaked open under my touch, someone else jerked it open the rest of the way, and I suddenly found myself ensnared in an embrace and warm lips on mine.

  I threw my arms around Rhett’s neck and kissed him back, ignoring the fact that the last time I’d seen him he’d been cold. Right now, he was burning me up and taking me with him.

  Being wrapped in his arms had the same comfort of coming home.

  “Where’ve you been?” I asked, kicking the access door shut with my heel. “I missed you, too.”

  It wasn’t the sort of thing a pet should say to their owner, but they were training me well in honesty.

  “Family troubles.” Rhett raised my chin and kissed a line down my throat. There was a harshness to his touch tonight that was unlike his usual self. “Remember them?”

  I’d met his family a few times in passing, but they were distant people. I did remember his older brother Oliver in his Jaguar at seventeen, already having determined he was going to take over the family business with Rhett in tow.

  “Somewhat. I was more focused on you, to be honest.”

  He laughed, a bitter sound. “That’s probably for the better, then.”

  I drew back, planting my hands on his solid chest. “Talk to me, Rhett. What’s going on?”

  Rhett stopped kissing me, but he didn’t let go. I sank into him and looked up, waiting for him to tell me what was on his mind that would make him so irritable. It seemed like everyone in my presence was getting annoyed today.

  “Just another week of fending off Oliver,” he said. The creases at the corners of his eyes grew deeper. “I’ve spent my entire life working for this- teaching is what I want to do. You’d think I confessed to murdering an entire litter of kittens the way they treat it.”

  “Why does he need you specifically?” I laid my cheek on his chest, feeling the heartbeat under it like it was my own. “You obviously have no interest.”

  “You’ve met Oliver. He’s a persistent prick.” He snorted. “I always thought there was a measure of safety in being the second son- no one gives a fuck what you do if the first one is there to take over. But my parents are on his side now, telling me I need to either join the corporate board or find a woman to start popping out the next generation of Harlows.”

  At this, my own heart started beating faster. No. I wasn’t ready for my time with Rhett to end, even if there was no real future for us. “It’s not their place to tell you what to do.”

  He was silent for several minutes. “Jane… it’s different at the top. All the girls I knew from my parents’ dinner parties were married off by the time they were eighteen, and they’d known their future spouses since they were thirteen. Nobody will say ‘arranged marriage’ because they like to pretend they’re not living in the eighteenth century, but there’s no gilding the lily. These things are expected of me.”

  An acidic taste rose in the back of my throat. “And if you don’t…”

  “They’re holding the trust fund over my head. Fuck it. I’d rather live off my salary now than have my arm twisted into knocking up some society girl.”

  I ran my fingers over his muscular forearm, shivering at the flexing hardness just beneath his skin. I felt strangely guilty, like I should be telling him to save his own ass and keep his trust fund, go find a pretty blonde with a fat bank account and just enough emotional baggage for Xanax and chardonnay to take care of, but I was selfish and I wanted him all for myself, even if it was just for now.

  “I guess a society girl might not be into your particular brand of twisted,” I said lightly.

  He laid his cheek on my forehead and I felt him smile. “No. There’s only one who seems to really enjoy it.”

  Was I really so transparent? “You’re the best of the Harlows, Rhett. Don’t let them get to you. I always thought you were the kindest.” I balled my fist against his shirt, then reached up to touch his face. “The smartest. Definitely the
most perverted.”

  He laughed, the sound fading into the sky. “That most of all.” His blue eyes seemed to glow like the heart of a glacier when I looked up at him. “But you seem to be flourishing under it, so there’s one point in favor of perversion.”

  My breath caught in my throat when he stroked the line of my jaw. “I know the blackmail hurt you, Jane. But have I treated you badly for a moment beyond that?”

  I shook my head, completely mute. If anything, I had flourished under it. It was fucked up that it’d taken a crime to rip me out of my shell.

  “Remember that,” he said, squeezing me a little tighter. “Sometimes you need to hurt to grow, but we’re past that now.”

  Then he was kissing me, and I didn’t have a word of protest until he backed me to the edge of the roof and turned me around. I braced my hands on the wall, looking down at a dizzying four-story drop.

  “Rhett…” My voice was thin with anxiety. The bricks under my palms were crumbly with age, and the spots of the lawn below lit with floodlights seemed like a mile away.

  “I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you,” he said, unzipping my jeans and working them down over my hips.

  I gasped when his cock slid inside me, forcing my hips forward towards the wall. Rhett’s hand slipped between me and it, his fingers teasing my clit until the heat forming in my stomach had burst into full bloom.

  He pushed in hard, grunting when I tightened around him. I felt more grounded with him inside me, keeping me from focusing solely on the drop only inches away from me.

  “Think you could be a society girl, Pet?” he asked, his breath ragged as he pumped into me. “You’d belong just to us.”

  I huffed out a breathless laugh, my heart jumping when the brick under my left hand crumbled a little more. “I already do.”

  He pressed harder on my clit and I moaned, unable to hold the sound back. It echoed over the side of the building.

  Rhett fucked me like he was trying to drive away his demons, slamming into me and kneading my clit mercilessly. My knees were trembling when the orgasm finally swept through me, the explosion of pressure in my abdomen drawn out as he kept thrusting.

  He leaned over me, gripping the wall with white-knuckled fingers as he pushed in hard a final time, breath coming out in a gasp when he came, his pelvis bucking forward.

  “I mean ours, Jane,” he growled. “In the open.”

  He hadn’t even pulled out of me yet and he was coming up with sheer insanity.

  “Impossible.” I pushed my hips back against his, drawing another groan from him. “You’re my teacher, Professor Harlow.”

  We slowly got ourselves together and he pulled me against him, my back to his chest, and wrapped his arm around my stomach. “I won’t always be.”

  To my surprise, anger flared up inside me, hot and bright. “Who are you trying to convince? We shouldn’t even be here.”

  Embarrassment came next when I realized tears were prickling the corners of my eyes. I wasn’t going to cry in front of him.

  Rhett released me to spin me around to face him, but I stepped out of his grasp.

  I’d accepted my lot when I became the Pet. That was all on me.

  But helping my mom, taking me on dates, teasing me with the prospect of more that could never actually happen… that was just cruel, and there was nothing to be gained from that kind of hurt. It wasn’t going to make me into a stronger person, just cut me deeper when the time came for them to cut me off and send me on my way with whatever I’d earned for my compliance.

  “You’re from the kind of family where arranged marriages are a given,” I said, blurting out the words before he could speak. “You’re from a different level than I am. I dropped out of college before this because I couldn’t afford to matriculate and pay bills. Pretending this is ever going anywhere else is ridiculous at best, and I already have my entire life on the line here.”

  “Jane, I-”

  “You don’t want to hurt me?” I interrupted. The anger had become a smoldering, bone-deep rage. If life was fair, I would have them, but fairness was just a pipe dream and nothing more. “Then don’t act like this could ever go past this. Don’t talk about how you’re going to need to go fuck someone else and knock them up, then spin me a cute tale about how that could be my life. It won’t be. I know why I’m here. All of this is because you’re holding evidence over my head, but let’s not pretend it’s because you think I could ever be an equal.”

  I didn’t give him time to form another word before I’d spun on my heel and disappeared into the stairwell.

  No texts appeared on my phone that night. I curled up tight under my covers, sickness churning in my stomach, staring sleeplessly at the wall.

  Maybe I should’ve said yes, I could be that girl. Professor Thayer seemed to think so. Professor Harlow thought so. Professor Spears wanted to see what I’d evolve into, and maybe he expected someone who could stand up to them.

  When I was with them, I felt alive. I felt like there was a chance to tuck away the mouse forever and be wanted and appreciated the way I’d always seen in other girls and been jealous of. Maybe they were cruel people, but they made me want to be better.

  This time, maybe I’d slammed the open door of opportunity in my own face.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I passed Professor Harlow in the hall the next day, and his blue eyes lingered on my face, but he said nothing.

  If he wasn’t playing mind games with me, I’d be perfectly happy to climb back into his arms like a good Pet. Until I had reassurance that it wasn’t all castles spun in the air for his entertainment, we were going right back to the way he’d treated me before. A transaction and nothing else.

  He didn’t look aloof, though. A thin line of concern had creased itself between his brows, and his gaze flicked to me more often than not during his lecture.

  I wondered if there was a chance he was serious, that he didn’t just see me as a scholarship student who was all fun and games until it was time to cut her loose.

  Then I admonished myself for thinking something so ludicrous.

  I was making the fatal mistake of allowing my emotions to cloud my judgment. If they really cared, wouldn’t they destroy the photos and cut me loose? There was no reason for me to have these feelings for them at all, and yet… here I was.

  Snapping at Rhett and leaving him alone on the roof had felt a bit like ripping my own heart out of my chest and tossing it over the side of the building. He’d looked like I’d been the one ripping apart his feelings.

  But allowing myself those dreams was dangerous territory. At the end of the day, I was still under their thumb.

  I scribbled down notes, trying my hardest to pretend I didn’t notice every single time his gaze drifted my way.

  When the bells chimed, I tossed my notebook in my bag and joined Rachelle and Sean. He still hadn’t recovered from his sudden headache, scowling as he walked, and he took off for his next class as soon as we hit the hallway.

  “What is his deal?” Rachelle asked, glaring after him. “He snapped at me when I asked to borrow a pen. Can you believe that?” She had three pens and a marker stuck in the bun on top of her head.

  “He’s been like this since yesterday,” I said, frowning at Sean’s back. “He was in the library and he just flipped a switch.”

  “Maybe he has migraines.” Rachelle shrugged, the topic already sliding out of her mind. “Hey, your mom is really nice. We should have dinner more often! You guys wanna come to my place? My chef makes a killer pork adobo.”

  I glanced at her sidelong as we walked. She had a chef. In her apartment.

  Go figure.

  “Tell her to wear a blue wig next time, we can be twins!”

  I made a vague promise to bring my mom over, wondering if I was making a mistake by allowing them to bond. If I wasn’t careful, I’d end up with the two of them making Victoria’s Slut-cret statues in our living room and papier-mâché-ing them with romance book pages.<
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  I was distracted all through the afternoon classes, made even worse when I cut through the Hall of Art and saw Professor Spears’ back to me. A pretty student with blonde hair was talking, beaming up at him. He had his arms crossed over his chest in that distant way of his and the door was wide open, but that didn’t stop a ball of ice from forming in my stomach.

  Because one day, that pretty blonde girl was going to walk out of Bourdillon University as the cream of the crop. Either her, or a girl just like her, would be the one who would get to talk to one of the Three Demons like they were actual prospects, not just fuck-friends.

  Hell, I didn’t even have that. I was there because I’d screwed up and they had one over my head. Nothing friendly about it.

  I exhaled and pushed my way into the library, ignoring the sickness churning in my gut. I told myself it didn’t matter, but no matter how many times I told myself that, the lie grew weaker and weaker.

  It did matter, and I finally realized what I wanted: to be on that equal playing field. Even if nothing ever came of it, at least I would know I was there because I’d earned it.

  I sorted through the old card catalogue with a renewed sense of purpose, crossing off every weeded book with a fat black slash of permanent marker. I was going to go to that art gala, and I’d interview one of the top artists there. The featurette on Rachelle would be my toehold into the Bourdillon student magazine, but I wanted something big for the next article I submitted.

  If I kept writing, I’d find something that would spark my fire again. I hadn’t realized how much life had beaten me down and how much I’d missed it until it was gone. If I played my cards right and kept it up, I might be able to end up on the magazine staff by the end of the year.

  I’d walk out with a Bourdillon degree and journalistic experience. I’d be able to walk out into the world, maybe not on the same playing field, but definitely on the sidelines with a way in. I wouldn’t be part of the nameless, faceless audience again.