Page 125 of Teacher's Pet

Glancing around the room, I half expect to see an officer stationed at one of the desks, waiting to escort me out in cuffs.

Mrs. Briar clears her throat.

“Thirty minutes, Ana,” she whispers, her voice steady, unreadable. “The thirty minutes between classes, I told you, I am not your teacher then.” She pauses, exhaling sharply. “But Ineedto know what’s going on.”

Gripping the edge of my desk, my knuckles ache from the pressure.

She may not be my teacher right now, but she’s stillhiswife.

And after seeing the way Roman so shamelessly rifled through Noah’s desk, the way he prowled around like he had the right to own every piece of this school, I can’t afford to see her as an ally.

“I don’t know where you got that idea,” I whisper, my voice tight. “If Walker or Cole spoke to you-”

“I heard him, Ana.”

Her voice cuts through the air, sending ice down my spine.

“I heard Noah speaking to your friend Elijah,” she continues, her expression unreadable. “Elijah barreled into that classroom, ready to go to war for you. Noah denied nothing.”

My stomach twists.

“And my husband, Roman,” her voice falters for just a second before she steadies herself, “he told me he saw you in Noah’s classroom well before class had begun. He said it looked like you had been caught.”

My breath locks in my throat.

And then I laugh. A sharp, humorless sound, bitterness bleeding through the cracks.

“You’re seriously casting judgment my way?” I hiss, narrowing my eyes. “When your husband was a goddamn priest? Your priest?”

Her eyes flicker, but she doesn’t waver.

“Allegedly,” she quips.

“Allegedly,” I repeat, shaking my head. “Well then, Mr. Ackerman is allegedly fucking me.”

Silence stretches between us, thick and suffocating.

Mrs. Briar exhales slowly, then rises from her desk.

She moves toward me, not with anger, not with judgment, but with something else. Something I can’t quite name.

Then she asks, point-blank.

“Do you love him?”

My chest tightens.

I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.

“I-”

“Yes or no, Ana.” She doesn’t let me run, doesn’t let me hide. “Do you love Noah?”

The weight of the question crushes against my ribs, suffocating, too heavy to hold.

And before I can stop myself-

“I don’t know,” I admit. “He’s been a distraction.”

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