Page 37 of Love Lies Bleeding

“Are you saying you didn’t break into this office?” His head cocks as he watches me like a cat toying with a mouse. I know lying will make things worse, but the truth will condemn Jake too, so I have to be careful. If I say I broke in, I’ll get in trouble but Jake could lose his ability to practice law.

“I just wanted to see the book.”

“So you admit you broke into this office?”

I hang my head and nod as my eyes flood with fresh tears. “But I didn’t steal those papers. Someone is trying to frame me. Ask Jake Marshall if you don’t believe me. I saw him straight afterward.” I’m weaving a web of lies and I hope Jake will support me.

“We will be speaking to Mr. Marshall next.”

“Okay.”

“Miss Baker, I cannot tell you how disappointed I am in you. You have great potential and you threw it away to become a cheater.”

A sob escapes my throat and I try to force it down, to hang on to my composure. “I didn’t take the papers.”

The Dean shakes his head and sighs. “Miss Baker, the papers were found in your dorm this morning when we searched it.”

“What!” I jump to my feet with a screech, hardly able to comprehend what he is saying. “That’s impossible. I didn’t take them.”

“Evidence doesn’t lie, Miss Baker.”

“Well, clearly it does.”

I’m getting angry now, furious that my future is being stolen before my eyes and I can do nothing to stop it.

“Miss Baker, getting angry about being caught won’t help anyone.”

He stands and walks toward another door that leads to a waiting area accessed through the reception area.

“Please wait here while we speak with Mr. Marshall.”

I sink into the chair but my gaze swings around the room, looking for Jake. Needing him to hold me, to tell me it would be okay, but I don’t see him.

For twenty minutes I wait before the deputy dean comes out and speaks to me.

“I’m sorry, Miss Baker, but Mr. Marshall does not corroborate your story. He insists he saw you take the papers, therefore we have no choice but to expel you and ask you to leave immediately. Someone will escort you back to your dorm and watch you pack.”

“What? No! Jake would never do that. He knows I didn’t do it. He was with me. I didn’t touch the desk.”

“Miss Baker, please stop. You’re only making this worse. You’re lucky Mr. Marshall has some very influential friends with very deep pockets and has persuaded us not to press charges against you.”

In a daze, I step out of the reception area into the hall. A door opens further up and I see Jake walk out of the Dean’s office with a smile before turning back to shake the man’s hand.

In that moment, my heart hardens into the clearest diamond and splinters into a million pieces inside me. There is only one reason Jake would lie, and that was if he’d taken the papers.

As the man I thought I loved, who I thought loved me, turns to look at me, I die a little inside. His gaze holds mine with sorrow and grief etched into every pore before he schools his features and a cold hardness takes over as he smirks and turns and walks away, leaving our love bleeding on the floor of his lies.

13. Jake

Present Day

“Hi, is Mr. McKenzie available?”

My ears prick up as I stride across the wide reception area, on my way to meet with Hank, to discuss my best friend’s sudden departure to China. He had been totally blindsided when a woman he’d had a one-night stand with had told him she was pregnant with his child. Against my advice, he’d believed her and fallen head over heels for her, until it had all come crashing down when he’d found out it was a lie.

Anger surges through me as I turn to see a heavily pregnant woman and the bitch that hurt my friend standing there demanding to see him.

“Do you have an appointment?”

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