Page 4 of The Worst Man

Hank shook his head and then downed the last of his whiskey. Without meeting my eyes he said, “You know they already are.”

Wait. Had he just given me a compliment? It was hard to tell sometimes with him.

Charles smiled fondly. “Miranda is generally considered one of our most prepared speakers. I always look forward to reading through the packets you pass out to accompany your lecture.”

“Our very own Hermione Granger,” Hank mused snidely, trying to compare me to the know-it-all from Harry Potter. Little did he know that I actually took the quip as a compliment. Hermione was the real hero of that story.

I rolled my eyes. “If you think that’s an insult, try again.”

Natasha tapped her lips thoughtfully. “I can kind of see it. The hair and the glasses are the same.”

Hank’s head quickly swiveled to Natasha. “I wasn’t talking about the way she looks,” he said, his voice hard.

She shrank back and raised her hands in a sign of surrender. “Oh. Um, I didn’t realize. I thought you were—”

“What?” Hank leveled her with a probing stare that had her taking a further step back.

She laughed nervously, and her gaze swung around the group, eventually landing on Samuel. Briefly, her eyes traversed over his hard, lean body, starting with his light, sandy brown hair and then moving south to take in his pale green eyes, full wide mouth, and strong, cut jaw.

A sly smile split her crimson lips. “I’m going to grab another drink. Would you care to join me?”

Samuel’s eyes found mine, seemingly seeking out my permission. He and I had a complicated history, to say the least. In most every respect, we would have been the perfect couple—except for the small fact that we were completely incompatible in bed. Still, we were young and in love once, so situations like this could be awkward.

Well, not for me so much as for him. I sometimes got the impression that Samuel might still be in love with me, and if I asked, would be willing to forego some of his more … ahem … more interesting sexual needs in order for us to get back together.

But since that was never going to happen, I smiled brightly as if to give him my blessing. While I certainly didn’t enjoy being tied up and spanked to the point of tears, who was to say that Natasha wouldn’t?

Samuel smiled back, only a small lifting of his lips, and turned to the auburn-haired beauty. “That sounds lovely.”

“I’m going to grab a drink another drink too,” Charles said, bouncing on his toes to try and flag down a waiter.

Apropos of nothing, Rory said, “Miranda could probably outdrink all of you.”

Five sets of eyes—including mine—swung her way, and four people started speaking at once.

“What?”

“Fat chance.”

“Our Miranda?”

“Oh, that’s right.”

I stared at Rory in shock, but not before I saw the way that Hank was staring at me.

“You’re looking at the undisputed champion of the Paterson Hall beer chugging contest four years running,” she said. “Technically speaking, the first time she came in second place, but then Swayze puked all over the floor so she won by default.”

And then Hank’s head swung from me to stare at Samuel, as if suddenly realizing what he’d just said. “Wait, you knew about this?”

Samuel grinned at me fondly, his eyes warm behind his tortoiseshell glasses. “Of course I did.” From all outward appearances, he looked like your classic academic. Nothing about the way he spoke or carried himself gave even the slightest clue that when he took off all that tweed, underneath was a dominant man who needed his woman submissive and sweet. And since I was nothing but argumentative and stubborn, we never would have worked out in the long term.

“How?” Hank barked, his tone gruff and … angry?

My eyebrows screwed down in confusion and Samuel’s grin dipped a fraction, his eyes flashing with momentary sadness before he quickly masked the emotion. “We used to date. I know a lot about Miranda that I’d wager you don’t.” And that sounded vaguely challenging.

Hank crossed his arms over his chest, his eyes darting between the two of us as if he was seeing us for the first time in a whole new light. Gone was the strangely assessing look he’d worn earlier, and in its place was something … determined. “When was this?”

“When we were at Oxford together,” Samuel said, smiling at me over the rim of his whiskey glass.

---