Page 108 of Educating Arrogant Mr. Hunter

Rage barreled through me. No fucking way was I going to let this happen.

“What if my students see the photos?” she cried, each word punctuated by her sharp inhales.

I couldn’t reassure her they wouldn’t. My instinct was to charge in and take over. To tell her what she needed to do, but I had to realize this wasn’t about me. Wren had to make the choices herself. But I’d sure as hell offer to do everything in my power to take down those that wronged her and try to get her job back.

“Do you want my help to fix this?” I asked. I didn’t bother to add try to help because if she let me, all hell would break loose until this was done.

“How?” she whispered.

I handed her a box of tissues. “I’ll contact the heads of my PR department and our lawyers. They’ll get everything removed and taken down.” Or at least where they could. Digital media never truly disappeared.

She wiped at her eyes and nose. “Beckett, I can’t ask you to use company resources on this.”

I tilted her head so she could look into my eyes and see how serious I was. “It’s my company. I can do whatever I damn well please. Okay?”

She nodded.

“We’ll have people working on taking down the images. You need to decide if you’re prepared to press charges against your stepmother.”

Conflicting emotions flashed across her face. Anger. Sadness. Disappointment. Frustration. Resolution. “I am. I don’t want to, but with this last stunt, she’s given me no choice.”

“She’ll fight back and try to get you to sink down into the muck of her evilness.” This would likely be a difficult battle, but one Wren didn’t have to face alone.

“I know. I won’t let her though.”

“I’ll be there to support you every step of the way. You’re not doing this alone.”

“Thank you, Beckett. I’m such a mess right now that it’s hard to even form a thought, nevermind a plan of attack to fix this.” She cupped my cheek and placed a brief kiss on my lips. “What do I tell Zoey about not being her teacher anymore?”

“We tell her the truth. They made a mistake. They should never have fired you.”

“I agree, but what about the photos? I can almost guarantee that the London’s won’t hesitate to tell Violet. And she’ll likely tell Zoey. I don’t want her to hear a sordid, twisted version of what happened.”

She was right. As much as neither of us wanted to get into the specific details of this with my eight-year-old daughter, we had to.

“We’ll talk to her this afternoon.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

WREN

Tomorrow was the Winter Festival. We’d sold out of tickets, the rides were in place, the vendors were ready to set up the next morning, and Santa was practicing his ho, ho, ho’s.

All I needed to do was convince the Board of Directors to reinstate me into my old position. It had only been a week, and I missed my kids like crazy. Technically I wasn’t even supposed to help with the Winter Festival, but I was discreetly doing it anyway.

Beckett had wanted to jump ship, but I told him the kids and the school community looked forward to this event too much for us to drop it at the last minute.

After a lot of back and forth, we sat Zoey down and told her the truth. That I’d made a decision I regretted, but at the time, didn’t feel like I had a choice. We didn’t show her the pictures, but let her know that there were ones of me circulating that I had not agreed to show the world.

Not only did she handle it well, but she was our biggest ally. What we feared had come true. A few parents had shared the pictures of me that were released. Zoey, in turn, informed them about consent and the lack thereof. The last thing we wanted was for her to learn shame surrounding body image—or think that what I’d done was wrong. I needed to make sure Zoey knew that the real problem was that I hadn’t been given the choice to pose for the photos. My stepmother had taken advantage of and exploited me.

Our girl was a force to be reckoned with, determined to protect those that deserved it. We fought to educate parents about what happened to me. I couldn’t change the fact that these pictures existed, but I could control a piece of the narrative.

I paced outside the large conference room the Board chose to meet out of each month. Uncomfortable tingles pinched underneath my skin, like a million fire ants marching over me. Part of me wanted to rip off the offending layer, but I knew it was my body reacting to the stress of the moment.

I moved to one of the windows, not even really seeing outside. Slowly I counted to ten, and then pictured my happy place: beside Zoey and Beckett. In my mind, the three of us sat together on the couch, snuggling and laughing.

Through the window, I noticed the door across from me soundlessly open and the parent I’d connected with came through.

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