Page 16 of Royal Academy

CHAPTER 8

Nick stormed out of Lia’s room and strode down the hallway without a real destination in mind. He couldn’t understand how one small woman could be that infuriating. Just how in the hell had she managed to come up with a cat?

He knew that she was doing it just to spite him, and that caused his blood to boil. Grabbing his phone he passed a herd of giggling second-years and made his way outside. Benedict picked up on the third ring.

“I was wondering how long it would be until I heard from you.”

His mate Benedict had always been a good friend. That was the only reason why he hadn’t thrown in the towel for this stupid bet.

“She has a damn cat, Ben!”

Instead of the sympathetic horror that Benedict should have portrayed the rotten bastard let out a shout of laughter.

“Lia hates cats, Nick. She wouldn’t keep one,” the amusement in his tone grated on Nick’s nerves.

“I just came from her room where indeed she was holding a cat and telling me that she was going to keep it.”

There was a moment of silence before Benedict asked dangerously low, “What were you doing in my sister’s room?”

Nick immediately remembered her soft skin under his fingertips and the sight of her gorgeous tits in that pink sports bra. He almost screamed in frustration. Ben’s little sister wasn’t allowed to have anything appealing about her. And she most certainly couldn’t have tits, that was not even a question up for debate.

“Look, man, do you trust me or not?” Nick was careful to make his tone light, but there was a sliver of steel in there as well. “Her room is next to mine and I went over there because of the noise that was coming from that direction.”

Benedict’s harshly indrawn breath was audible, “Who was in there?”

Nick breathed a sigh of relief that he was off the hook, “A couple kids were in there throwing away a good seventy percent of her closet.”

Suddenly it became clear to Benedict what she had been speaking to him about earlier on their video chat.

“She asked me what I thought about her clothes,” Benedict said thoughtfully.

“What did you say to her?” Nick was honestly curious.

If he could separate the fact that she was his best friend’s brother and look at Lia objectively. He would say that she had the quirky cute girl next door vibe. Her clothes were a bit terrible and she held herself like she was waiting for the next hit. But when she smiled her entire face lit and she was almost…

He didn’t want to continue that thought.

“I didn’t,” Benedict answered, “And I think I hurt her feelings. Maybe it will be good for Lia to change up her style a little. Our father has tried for years but he always has gone with telling her what a disappointment she has been. That only served to make her cling tighter to things. I have often wondered what she would be like if our mother had lived.”

Benedict rarely spoke of his mother and Nick felt a pang of regret that he hadn’t the slightest notion of what to say. Luckily he didn’t have to say anything because Benedict kept going.

“Just keep an eye out for her. She said that you would be team teaching. I don’t know if you can truly understand what it was like for her there Nick. We had already moved on and the girls were horrible to her. Not only that but once the teachers understood that she wouldn’t report back to our father they were often cruel as well.”

“Why didn’t you get her out of here?” Nick couldn’t help but wonder.

Benedict cursed, “I didn’t know the whole of it until she was almost finished. Lia had become more withdrawn at school but we were off at university and I was busy playing the field, living my own life. I abandoned her, and I feel terrible about it.”

Nick felt a pang of remorse, it wasn’t that he had been mean to Lia, but he certainly hadn’t been kind.

“I will watch out for her,” Nick said gruffly.

It was as if even though he couldn’t see Benedict he knew that his friend had visibly relaxed.

“You might want to start taking those allergy meds if she keeps the cat,” Benedict warned.

Was there a hint of amusement in his voice? Nick chose to ignore it.

“Yeah,” he replied gruffly.

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