Page 113 of Brutal Prince

I end the call and slip my phone into my pocket. When I turn around, Ms. Parsons is a few feet from my desk, arms crossed and her rosebud mouth puckered tight.

“No phones in my class,” she says, enunciating every word with utter precision. “Understand me?”

Holy crap, I’m obviously not in her good books anymore, am I?

“Sorry, Ms. Parsons.”

She lifts her chin, shakes her head, and mutters, “I’m so disappointed in you,” as she walks away.

I glare at her. She was the one who suggested the fucking horse rides. What the fuck did she think would happen? Naive little—

“Don’t want your face getting stuck that way, Angel.”

My eyes snap up and track Briar as he saunters past my table. For a heart-stopping moment, I think he’s going to sit behind me. But he winds his way through the aisles and takes his seat in the far back of the class without making eye contact with me again.

I sink back in my seat and run Addy’s conversation through my head. When the second bell rings, I almost jump out of my fucking skin. As soon as Ms. Parsons starts reading out the announcements, I smuggle my phone out of my pocket and send her a text.

Do you have evidence against Briar?

I wait, glancing up every millisecond to make sure Ms. Parson’s doesn’t catch me on my phone and decide to confiscate it.

My message sends but, by the end of homeroom, it still hasn’t been delivered to Addy’s phone. It’s not even half an hour’s wait, but those minutes could have been an eternity. A very special kind of hell that I barely survive.

As soon as I’m out the door, the bell for the next period still clanging in my ears, I’m on the phone to Addy.

My call goes straight to voice mail.

What the fuck?

I might be gone for a while…

My mind races back to everything I heard Briar and Marcus discussing last night at the church. Is her family’s business really in jeopardy? She never said she was having problems—

What, in the handful of days you’ve known her? Shocking how private people can be about money.

I laugh quietly at myself as I head for Psychology. I’m so lost in my own thoughts, it takes me a full minute to realize someone’s following me like a second shadow.

When I glance over my shoulder, Briar gives me one of his smirky grins. “What up, Angel?”

I face forward and speed up, but I’m a cat trying to outrun a cheetah. Briar skips ahead and stops in front of me. When I try to detour around him, he slides an arm out to stop me. When I try to go the other way, he does the same with his other arm.

Boxing me in with my back to the wall.

Students stream past, and none of them seem the least bit interested in my predicament.

“What do you want?” I ask, and realize my voice isn’t anything approaching sexy or seductive, which is a problem. I don’t have enough information to change tactics, not yet. Until I can get hold of Addy again, I have to keep up pretenses. I try fluttering my lashes, but I’m not sure if it works.

Briar leans in a little. “You’re joining me for lunch.”

I tamp down an automatic protest, and give him a coquettish smile. “Oh, sure. Wonderful.”

His smile cracks a bit, but then he hitches it up even higher. He grabs my chin, tilts my head back, and plants a chaste kiss on my mouth.

Even that brief contact ignites my body like a fourth of July firework special.

I’m still blinking at his retreating form when I realize I must look like a complete moron, and push away from the wall.

Lunch. Perfect. I can study Briar in his natural environment, perhaps figure out who else in his crooked brood may have had a part in Jessica’s murder.

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