Page 14 of Reckless Temptation

“Not really, sir.” She flashed him a quick smile as she scrambled to be an obedient law student. “I apologize for the interruption.” With her pen poised over a notebook, she winced and then squeezed the excess water from the pages. No matter how ridiculous she looked, and likely felt, still dripping onto the floor, she was ready to get to business.

“Apology accepted, Sabrina.” George acknowledged her with a mere nod. “Just see that your tardiness doesn’t become a habit.”

“Yes, sir,” she replied, not mocking him but serious.

Sabrina?

I let my gaze wander over the rest of the occupants in the room.

I spotted Tiffany straightaway.

She sat there two rows behind Sabrina.

Glaring. Seething. Staring at the drenched late arrival with so much loathing that I instantly placed her.

Huh.

This had to be the competition my stepsister was so worried about.

George smiled back at Sabrina, then resumed lecturing. It looked like he didn’t mind Sabrina showing up late, even though he was a stickler for punctuality.

Whatever.

I turned away, dismissing Sabrina and how she’d collided with me in the hallway.

Just like my calculating stepsister, she was nothing more than another cut-throat bitch, super-focused on her studies.

What-the-fuck-ever.

I lacked direction in my life, but I wasn’t going to invite someone like her to get in my way ever again.

5

SABRINA

That wasn’t the first time I ended up soaked in the middle of a long day at campus.

Back in the fall, Rachel tripped me right in front of a puddle and I got wet from that.

But having her boyfriend push me into the fountain was a new low.

All my papers were soaked. Ink was smeared. Notes were lost. Since Professor Angus required us to handwrite papers, all the progress I’d made on my assignment due the next day was gone.

Even my laptop suffered. While it hadn’t gone into the water with me, the case wasn’t enough to insulate it from damage in hitting the concrete.

When I finally got home, wet and itchy from my clothes slowly drying all day, I found my laptop acting up from the impact. All my recent work was gone.

That was why when Dad came home from work, he raised his brows in surprise at how he found me.

I sat at the kitchen table, scowling at my laptop as I rebooted it, then was forced through an update. Propping my foot up on his chair, I carefully balanced an ice pack on my knee that was severely bruised from smacking against the fountain wall on my way in.

“I would ask if you’ve had a long day again,” he said as he entered, “but that seems pointless.”

I nodded, leaning toward him as he gave me a side hug and a kiss on the top of my head. “A very long day.”

“What happened?” he asked as he sat in Mom’s chair, pointing at my knee.

“I…” I sighed, unable to tell him the truth. Honesty was something I stuck with—always. But I couldn’t own up to the fact that I suffered from bullying, constantly. Whether it was from Tiffany or that rough-looking punk who knocked into me in the hallway without so much as asorryor offer to help me pick up my stuff, I was a victim, whether I wanted to be or not.

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