by Mia Carson
He smirked when her eyes widened. “Have I really?”
“You didn’t notice?”
She shook her head, her curls flying in the way he loved. They cascaded down her shoulders as she pulled her t-shirt over her head. “No, I didn’t. Guess that’s a sign, right?”
Once she was dressed, she stole one last kiss, Reider fighting the urge to tackle her to the bed again, and she handed over the key to the dorm. “No,” he said and tucked it back in her hand. “Keep it. Easier that way.”
She nodded, placed it in her wallet, and walked towards the door. “See you soon. Be a little late for class so we don’t arrive at the same time. Might arouse some suspicions,” she added then ducked out of the room.
Reider ran his hands through his hair, running over the timeline again as he dressed and gathered up his bag. Three weeks, tops, and they would be on the road and out of the state for good. There was a lot to get ready for, and he knew he would have to be careful pulling the money from the accounts, but if it was for Johanna, he’d make it happen. Her cash would cover a down payment, and the money he transferred into a new account would be their nest egg to get them started.
He told himself it would happen. It had to. After he left the dorm, he turned to make sure the door was locked. A heavy hand landed on his shoulder and whipped him around, slamming him up against the door.
“What the hell were you doing with her?” Micah snarled. “She’s a damn Chadwick!”
“Keep your voice down,” Reider snapped and shoved his cousin back.
The hall was empty, but that didn’t mean people weren’t close enough to hear. Reider grabbed Micah by the shirt and dragged him into an empty study room, slamming the door behind them.
“Are you spying on me?” he growled as Micah paced angrily around the room, his face red and hands fisted tightly at his sides. “Micah, look at me, you bastard.”
“Me?” he yelled and stopped to stare Reider down. “You’re sleeping with her, aren’t you?”
“You don’t know what you saw,” Reider tried to lie, but Micah’s harsh laugh told him there’d be no talking his way out of this. “If you say anything, I’ll—”
“What? What can you possibly do to me?”
Reider’s mouth opened and closed a few times. Threats of violence would get him nowhere. Micah was already over the edge, and the glimmer of hate in his eyes told Reider he would almost welcome an excuse for a fight.
“You can’t run to Mommy and Daddy,” Micah added, clapping his hands together. “Oh, you’ve put yourself in quite the dilemma, haven’t you?”
Resting his palms on a nearby table, Reider breathed loudly through his nose. “What do you want?”
“For me to keep my mouth shut about your little tryst here?”
“Yes,” he bit out. “What do you want?”
Micah cackled and tapped his chin. “I asked you for a favor before and you turned me down, so I’ll ask again, but I want double.”
Reider grimaced, thinking of the money he needed to run off with Johanna. “I can’t.”
“Well, then, I guess there’s no sense in holding off,” he said and pulled out his cell. “Your parents will be thrilled to know their only son is sleeping with the enemy, and from that glow in your eyes, it’s about more than banging her.”
“Fine!” Reider yelled as Micah’s finger hovered over the screen. “Fine, double, but it won’t be easy for me to get it to you.”
“Figure it out, and once you do, it has to be cash. You have until this weekend for the first payment.”
“First payment?” Reider repeated as his gut twisted.
“One payment isn’t enough to keep me quiet. The PI I hired is close to the truth, but he keeps threatening to take everything and burn it if I don’t pay him on time,” Micah said and slipped his cell in his pocket. “The Chadwicks are close to being ruined. You might not want to stand too close.”
“She has nothing to do with the accident,” Reider growled and stalked towards his cousin.
But Micah took a step back with a grimace of disbelief, his anger pouring off him in waves. “Are you admitting that something did happen?” he asked quietly.
“No,” he hissed, trying to recover, but the suspicious twitch to his cousin’s face didn’t waver. “Johanna and her sister are trying to get away. Don’t bring them down in whatever you’re planning, please.”
“Interesting,” he replied. “I’ll consider it, if you pay me. Mess up, and I’ll tell everyone what the two of you have been doing. Disgusting, sleeping with the enemy.” Micah shook his head all the way to the door and shot Reider one final glare before he left.
The door clicked shut, and the sound hit Reider like a fist to the face. He staggered to a nearby chair and sat down, his head hanging as he thought about what to do next. He had to tell Johanna, and they would have to leave as soon as they could. There was no more time for planning, not if Micah knew. He was a ticking time bomb, a damn unstable time bomb, and Reider was not going to risk his future with Johanna on that asshole.
He’d get the money transferred by the weekend, and they’d get the hell out.
12
Johanna hummed as she typed her next reports, her eyes darting to the place her cash was stashed every few minutes. In three weeks, they would leave this behind, and she was anxious to get going. She considered packing, but if her brothers saw, they’d ask her where she was planning on going and it would ruin everything. The less time they spent hounding her steps, the better, especially now that she thought Fredrick might have something to do with the Marquettes’ car accident.
Her brothers could be assholes, but the idea of them causing an accident where people died seemed a little much, even for them. Still, she was on edge around them and stayed in her room as much as possible.
She also had to tell Izzy about her plans and get her to go along with them. She knew her sister said she wanted to leave, but this was Izzy’s home, and though she was a romantic at heart, Izzy had never been out of the state. She’d be leaving behind everything she knew, and Johanna feared her little sister wouldn’t be up for it.
As she tapped her fingers on the keys, her mind incapable of focusing on her reports anymore, her cell vibrated in her pocket. She reached for it as her door opened and her parents hurried inside, bickering with each other as if she wasn’t even in the room.
“I told you this was going to be a problem,” Lucy snapped and sat down hard on Johanna’s bed. “Honestly, Ben, I told you to take care of this weeks ago. Weeks! Now look what we have to go through!”
“I had taken care of it,” Ben snapped, running his hand over his balding head. “It's not my fault the venue hasn’t been reopened by the city.”
“Uh… hi,” Johanna said slowly. “What’s going on?”
“The party this weekend was supposed to be downtown, but they seem to have had a tiny little fire and the place hasn’t reopened yet! We have to have it here, and it’s going to be a disaster,” Lucy moaned dramatically.
Johanna smirked but hid it quickly behind her hand as she coughed. “So? You like having parties at the house,” she said. “Used to have them once a month.”
“Yes, well, this year, we invited all the socialites of the state to expand our influential sphere and for some reason, we invited the Marquettes,” Lucy snapped. “Why did I ever think it was a good idea?”
“You said you were doing it so you could gloat,” Ben chimed in.
Johanna frowned, glancing from one to the other. “Gloat over what?”
Lucy sighed and stared longingly at her daughter. “Oh, sweetie, we expected you to be dating Brandon by now, maybe even engaged. Their son has yet to settle down with anyone, and until he does, their whole business is on the line.”
Usually, Johanna was good at maintaining her composure, but not anymore. She stood abruptly and paced across the room. “You were holding a party to show off a forced engagement?”
“Not forced,” Lucy argued
and stood, too. “We hoped you would understand your position in this family by now and do what was asked of you to uphold our name and the business. Why do you think your brothers set you up?”
“Why don’t they have to settle down?!” she yelled, years of pent-up fury rushing out with her words. “They sleep around like man-whores, and you never get onto them to settle down! Why is that? Why does the fate of our family legacy fall on my shoulders?”
“You are a Chadwick, and you will do whatever is required of you to keep this family moving forward,” Ben stormed.
Johanna shook her head. “No. I won’t date some jackass for you two, and I sure as hell won’t marry him!”
She pushed past her dad and charged out the door, tears stinging her eyes. She grabbed her keys and purse off the side table and ran out the front door to her car. Her parents yelled after her, but she didn’t stop. Johanna did not want to go back. She drove mindlessly until she found herself parked on campus. It wasn’t too late, and the quad was lit up, as were many of the windows. Not sure what made her do it, she got out of the car and hurried across the grass towards the far building and Professor Ashford’s office. The light was on in the room, so she knocked before she could stop herself.
“Yes? Come in,” he called out, and she swung open the door. Reading glasses perched on his nose, Ashford looked up with a furrowed brow. “Johanna? What are you doing here so late?”
“I—uh, I’m not sure, actually,” she mumbled and hesitated. “Sorry, I shouldn’t be here.”
She turned to go, but he called her back. “Wait, please, you look like you should sit down. Did something happen?”
Johanna glanced over her shoulder, but the thought of heading back home instead of over to Reider’s place like she wanted to so she could fall into his arms smacked her hard in the face. She sagged, her body collapsing in on itself. Ashford rushed forward and guided her to a chair, closing his door behind her.
“Why don’t you tell me what happened?” he said gently, patting her hand.
“It’s stupid really, and I shouldn’t be here, but Reider said you knew about us and I have no one else to talk to,” she rambled, wiping her face with her shirtsleeve. “I’m sorry. You’re busy.”
“Nonsense,” Ashford said and stood. He rummaged through several drawers in his desk, muttering under his breath, and when he straightened, he had a bottle of whiskey in his hand and two glasses. “I can’t help but feel this is all my fault anyway,” he added with a shrug. “I put you in this situation.”
Johanna took the glass filled with whiskey he offered and slouched in the chair as she ran her fingers over the rim. “Yeah, but now that we’re together, I can’t thank you enough for doing it.”
Ashford raised his glass. “A toast, then, to you and Reider.”
Johanna barely raised her glass before she gulped the liquor until she drained the glass in seconds and slammed it on the desktop, motioning for another. “Too bad it’s never going to work… can’t, because my family is full of assholes,” she muttered bitterly.
Ashford kept his mouth closed as he filled her glass again and watched her slam that one back, too.
“I can’t even go to Reider for comfort like a normal damn girlfriend. Can’t dance with him at the parties or even plan a normal future together,” she continued, glaring into the whiskey. “All I can do is watch my life be planned for me by my family and realize the only way for us to be together is to run. Run far, far away and never look back. But I can’t even do that! They’ll follow us, I know they will.”
She played with the glass, turning it so the amber liquid caught the dim yellowed light from the two lamps on the desk. A single tear slipped down her cheek, and she wiped it angrily away.
“Are you two making plans to run?” Ashford asked quietly, leaning back in his chair.
“We don’t have any other choice.” The words were strained with fear. “But my brothers, they’ll never let me go, and if they hurt Reider… if they ever found us…”
Images of Reider beaten and bloody rose in her mind, and she remembered what he’d told her about the car accident, about how Micah thought someone set it up. Her brothers could be responsible for killing two people. Would they really hesitate to kill another? She drained her third glass, smacking her lips at the bite of liquor burning down her throat.
“Maybe I can be of some assistance,” Ashford suggested, and when she held out her glass, he frowned but poured her another anyway. Then he held out his hand. “Keys. You’re not going to drive anywhere, not now.”
She handed them over and nursed her fourth glass of whiskey. “What did you have in mind? And why help us anyway?” she asked confused. “We’re nothing to you.”
“You two are the hope for ending this ridiculous feud and uniting the town,” he told her. “I’m tired of watching people be afraid of which family to side with for fear of what the other one might do in retaliation. If you two are going to run, I’ll do what I can to help. Stall your families somehow.”
Johanna nodded with his words as the whiskey seeped into her mind. She giggled darkly. “This could go horribly wrong,” she muttered through her hysterical laughter. “We’re so screwed.” She shot back the rest of her drink and wondered how long she and Reider really had together.
Reider pulled into the campus parking lot and hopped out of his Wrangler. He ran towards Ashford’s office, the professor’s words running through his head that it was imperative he come to his office tonight. Reider wasn’t sure what to expect, but when he knocked and Ashford pulled open the door, his jaw clenched at what he saw.
“What the hell is going on?”
Ashford sighed and closed the door. “Almost a whole bottle of whiskey.”
Reider nodded slowly and moved forward. Johanna lay on the small couch in the professor’s office, her feet hanging over the edge. Her eyes were closed, and her chest rose steadily up and down, but her face scrunched every few moments as if she were having a bad dream.
“Why is she here?” Reider asked as he went to her side and knelt. He kissed her forehead and smoothed back her curls as Ashford leaned back against his desk. “I’ve been trying to get a hold of her all night.”
“Yes, here’s her cell,” he said and handed it to Reider. “Seems you both had bad days. Her parents are forcing her to push forward with a particular man… Brandon or something?”
Reider grunted in anger. “Yeah, and my cousin is blackmailing me over our relationship,” he snapped. “Damn it, why did we think this would work? There are too many problems.”
“Is that right?” Ashford said, and Reider frowned at the stern tone of his voice. “You hit a wall, and you’re going to give up like that? Both of you?”
“What am I supposed to do? We have a plan to run, but we won’t get far, not with her brothers coming after us and my cousin knowing all about us,” Reider argued hotly and stood. “I won’t see her hurt, not because of me.”
“But you’ll see her with another man?”
Reider yelled and moved as if to hit Ashford, blinded by rage, but he stopped his fist in time as a quiet voice called his name. He whipped back around to see Johanna’s eyes squinting at him. “Johanna? Are you alright?”
“Drunk,” she said and giggled. “Very, very drunk.” She sat up unsteadily, and he gripped her shoulders. “Why are you here?”
“Professor Ashford called me,” he said, studying her face, and despite the reason she was drunk, tried not to laugh at her random giggles. “You look lovely.”
“Thanks,” she muttered then burst out into laughter again. “Wait, you said… You said your cousin knows?” She was still laughing, but he could see the struggle to focus in her eyes. “How does he know?”
Reider shot a look at Ashford before replying quietly, “Dorm room.”
“Damn,” she whispered. “That little bastard.”
Reider grinned. “Yeah. Yeah, he is.”
“Wait, if he knows, it ruins everything,” she
gasped. “Reider, what are we going to do? We can’t have him walking around for three weeks while we try to leave!” Tears welled in her eyes, and she leaned into his chest as he held her close.
“I don’t know,” he said into her hair. “I don’t know what we’re going to do.”
Ashford moved around behind Reider, but he didn’t look to see what the man was doing. His future with Johanna fell apart around him, and there was little he could do to pick up the pieces. If his cousin knew, the second he thought Reider was going to leave, he’d spill everything. And if Johanna’s brothers realized what they were up to, they would lock her up inside that damn house and never let her see him or anyone else again. Johanna said Fredrick was hiding something, too. Reider had assumed the two guys were thick-headed assholes, but now, he wondered how dangerous they really were.
“Johanna, you said there is a party at your home this weekend?” Ashford asked, his fingers moving swiftly across his keyboard.
She sniffed hard and nodded against Reider’s shoulder. “Yeah, but that doesn’t help anything. Maybe… maybe we should break it off… give up.”
“Do you love each other?” Ashford asked gently, and Reider turned. He and Johanna stared at the man who had started their adventure. He studied the two students he wanted to mend a decades’ old rift. “Do you?”
“Of course we do,” Reider said fiercely.
“We do, but this isn’t easy,” Johanna added.
“Love isn’t supposed to be easy,” Ashford insisted. “I will help you both plan your escape, but if this is to work, you must move quickly. The night of the party, you’ll be at the same place.”
“Wait,” Reider said, realizing he missed something. “I thought the party was at the conference center downtown?”
“Not anymore,” Johanna said, sobering with each passing second. “Now, it’s at my home.”
“While everyone else is busy, you two will sneak away. Bring everything you need to my office on Friday. When you leave the party, come here, and we’ll get you out of the state,” Ashford told them. “I’m not going to see two more people torn apart by your families’ hatred.”