Page 12 of The New Girl

“Lysander asked you out? No offense, but that’s easy to check. I’m doing it right now.”

She reached for her phone.

“No one knows we were together—no one who will talk about it anyway. Besides, the Chancellor walked in on us before anything could happen and I doubt he’ll post about it on social media.” I undressed and pulled on an oversized tee-shirt. “I’m brushing my teeth and then going to bed. Are you staying up to study?”

Alexis dropped her phone. “Stop right there. TheChancellor—as in Chancellor Westfield? You are a complete fantasist! You can’t stand not being one of us so you have to make up a story about being in the same room as the chancellor.”

Alexis was a psychology student. I sighed as I collected my towel and toiletries bag. The bathroom was down the hall. At this hour, I should have the place to myself.

“I wish I was making it up. It was humiliating. And I don’t understand Lysander’s behavior at all. After his stepsister killed herself, he blamed Westfield for her death, so why would he let his stepdad put a camera in his room?”

I moved to the door. Alexis’s voice stopped me.

“Lysander doesn’t have a stepsister.”

“Yes, he does. Belinda. She killed herself in May by jumping from the bell tower.”

“A girl named Belinda jumped from the bell tower but she wasn’t Lysander’s stepsister. She was his girlfriend. We don’t talk about it with outsiders, Jane, so it doesn’t surprise me that you have it all wrong. Sander and Lindy met at a party held at the Westfield mansion in the Hamptons when they were sixteen. Sander’s mother was married to Antony Westfield at the time. It was love at first sight for Sander when he laid eyes on Belinda. She was stunning. The most beautiful girl in our circle, but she had an overprotective father who never let her out of his sight. Lysander got tired of the drama after awhile and broke it off with her. Lindy jumped soon after.”

“That’s not the story I heard.” I wondered how much was safe to tell Alexis about the Club. “I heard that a secret club was implicated in her death. Lysander is a member and he shouldered the blame.”

Alexis shrugged. “Belinda could have been a member. I’ve heard stories about the Adventurers Club and if I were you, I wouldn’t get involved. You are exactly the sort of live bait they try to recruit. I was approached when I first arrived and turned them down flat.”

My roommate lifted one perfectly plucked eyebrow when her gaze fell on me in my oversized tee-shirt that I brought to sleep in. “Of course, beggars can’t be choosers. If you have nothing else to offer but your pussy to get ahead, then by all means, join their ranks. They’ll keep your secret for as long as it suits them, but if you step out of line.... Once you’re in, you can’t get out. Not without paying a heavy price.”

Her warning came too late. I was already in. The camera in Lysander’s room had recorded everything. It was enough to destroy my chances of getting a teaching position after graduation.

The Chancellor himself said that my bursary was safe. But he also said I was perfect.

Perfect for what?

I brushed my teeth in the cold, sterile bathroom, wondering at the strangeness of his remark. Antony Westfield had watched his stepson finger me to climax and said he was impressed by what he saw.

A throb of arousal pulsed between my thighs.

Chapter Seven

Ididn’t bother going through his secretary to make an appointment. Somehow, I knew I wouldn’t need one. He was going to want to see me too.

Westfield’s portrait hung in the dining hall when I came in for breakfast. It was seeing him staring down at me like a stern parent that steeled my resolve to find out what was going on last night between him and Lysander and how I was caught in the middle.

Antony Westfield was sexy in an older-man-steeped-in-power kind of way. That kind of male is attractive to lots of young women—not me—I never looked at older men, and power never held my attention for long.

It was like his eyes were following me as I ate my breakfast sausage and eggs—eyes that had seen me naked and ejaculating all over his stepson’s hand.

My skin burned.

Westfield had the patrician bearing of most men of his class. Intellectual, accustomed to getting what he wanted, the good looks he had in youth hadn’t faded with time. His hair was gray at the temples and his build was heavier, but I could see themasculine beauty he must have had as a young man. He had the confidence of a man who was used to attracting women.

I didn’t understand why Lysander lied to me about having a stepsister. Was it to make me feel sorry for him? Or did he think it would make me jealous if I knew he had a girlfriend at one time? It sounded to me like he was in love with Belinda and he probably held himself responsible for her death. But why wouldn’t he tell me the truth? I wouldn’t have judged him. As Alexis was fond of reminding me—I was not one of them.

But neither was Lysander in an odd way that I couldn’t put my finger on. He seemed set apart, outside of their circle. Maybe Belinda and her death was the reason. Alexis’s warning about the Club rang in my ears. If they had something on him, maybe that’s why he set me up last night. Maybe he was being blackmailed.

But why was I the bait?

Chancellor Westfield could have me ejected from St. Swithins if he wanted, but not before I found out the truth.

He was a lot sexier in person. Self-consciously, I crossed my arms over my breasts as he removed my coat and hung it on a coat rack that looked antique.

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