Page 48 of When Hearts Collide

The silence in the room is heavy and suffocating. I pull at my fingers, afraid to look up at the man before me. I can’t let Jocelyn take the fall for everything. I can’t let him report her. She’ll be so devastated. And her mom?

After a few seconds, I gather my courage and look up and my heart plummets to the floor.

The harshness in the slate eyes, as sharp as a steel blade. The twitching muscles in his jaw. His perfect lips curled up in a hard sneer.

The absolute hatred pouring out from the man standing behind his desk, every inch of him straining against his perfectly tailored black suit, every inch the powerful billionaire the press has mentioned in the papers.

My pulse skitters and grows thready. Acid churns in my gut.

“You were in on it, weren’t you? You’re a fucking cheater too. You thought I wouldn’t find out.” His voice is a low, guttural whisper, lethal in its quality.

“You thought I was stupid, didn’t you, Ms. Callahan?” Ms. Callahan. A sharp ache slices across my chest. “You thought you could wind me around your pretty little fingers, bat those lovely eyelashes on your face, and maybe shed some tears and I’d just let you go?”

“R-Ryland.” His name slips out automatically and he flinches, his eyes flaring at my usage of his first name, something I’ve done a thousand times in the privacy of my thoughts but never aloud.

“It’s Professor Anderson to you, you cheating, deceitful little girl.”

“P-Professor, I…I—”

“You what? Trying to buy yourself some time to spin more lies? You thought you could take advantage of my feelings toward you, didn’t you? Treat me like a fool?” His face is chilly, his eyes flashing—the fiercest lightning in the dark skies.

Tears spring into my eyes as I hear him acknowledge out loud for the first time this invisible yearning between us. “Your feelings?” I whisper.

“Stop!” His command is terse, his anger so palpable, the betrayal clearly cutting deep inside him.

Going into the exam, I knew if I got caught, it’d be over, because he hates cheaters. Everyone in the school knew it. I saw the way he berated Fanny and Gregory in front of the classroom. Rumor was, they were expelled.

Ryland has never told me the reason he hates cheaters so much, but I know it to be true from the venom in his voice when he’s said the sentiment in the past. But I never expected his hatred to stab me in the core, leaving me a bleeding mess before him.

I never expected it to hurt like this.

But I didn’t have another choice, did I? I’d walked in Jocelyn’s shoes before. Intimately. Felt the sadness and helplessness of not being able to do anything as everything fell apart when Mom passed away. I experienced anger and depression in the years after.

I know personally how exhausting it is to pretend everything is fine for the sake of uplifting everyone around me.

How could I deny Jocelyn? How could I let her disappoint her mom in what looks to be the remaining few months they’d have together?

There wasn’t any other choice.

My vision blurs as I stare at Ryland towering before me, every inch the livid, vengeful god about to exact revenge or punishment on the mere mortal. The disappointment and anger radiating from him are knives to my heart.

My tongue is furry and thick. I pull and twist my fingers. “I…I had a reason for it.”

His silence is foreboding.

“Jocelyn’s mom is dying of breast cancer and she hasn’t been able to devote more time to class and studying. She was going to be put on academic probation if she failed your class. I helped her study. We pulled an all-nighter trying to get her caught up on the material, but there was simply too much for her to absorb in such a short time. And so when she nudged me to glance at my test…I let her.”

I look up at him, my fingers twitching with the need to take his hands, the hands currently knotted to his sides, white knuckles, and all. “P-Please understand. I went through what she did. I had to help her. Please don’t punish her. If you need to punish anyone, punish me. Report me instead.”

My cheeks are wet with tears as I let go of the dreams I had—the honors program, graduating at the top of class, honoring my memories of Mom and Mr. Roberts. The repercussions for cheating are severe: a big black mark on my transcript and I might get expelled. But I couldn’t do this to Jocelyn.

I couldn’t do this to the little seven-year-old girl crying on top of her dying mom deep inside me.

Ryland is still silent, his chest heaving large breaths, loud in the chilly room, which used to be so warm, so heated because of him, but now feels as frigid as the arctic.

I whisper, “It’s the right thing to do.”

He flinches, his eyes widening, darkening, his glare even sharper and slicing at my words. His lips twitch and sneer, the whites of his teeth flashing.

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