Page 46 of Ice Cold, Red Hot
“I reported him.”
My mouth might have dropped open. “What happened?”
Daria gestured around us. “Not a hell of a lot,” she said. “I was allowed to stay on the project, my credits were restored, and Ethan leaves me alone, which is both good and bad. But no disciplinary action was ever taken. As far as I know, it just got swept under the rug.”
My hopes crashed. Of course. The university didn’t want a scandal.
“But I kept all the evidence,” she said, a note in her voice that told me she had a plan. “I didn’t have any backup. But you might.”
She pulled out her phone and forwarded texts andemails to me that were eerily similar to those I’d received from Ethan. “There’s a pattern here,” she said, raising her eyebrows. “He’s done this before. It’s your call if you want to do something about it. I’ll back you up.”
My heart raced. I should do it, right? Call a spade a spade and make sure Ethan didn’t get away with that kind of manipulation?
I thought for a moment. I’d just decided to put my head down and focus, take what I could from the opportunity. My family depended on me succeeding here. Not causing a stir.
I looked up at Daria. “I don’t think I can,” I said. “Maybe I’m just being too sensitive.”
Her eyebrows rose and her pretty light eyes held mine. “Let me know if you change your mind,” she said, before turning away and returning to her computer.
Ethan came in an hour later and moved straight to my side, dropping into a chair and pulling it so close that his breath hit the side of my face as he spoke.
“Morning, tiger. I like the dedication I’m seeing.”
“Just easier to get work done when it’s quiet,” I said, not looking at him.
His hand moved to the desk, one finger landing atop my forearm as I typed at the keyboard. He stroked that finger up and down my arm, my stomach churning. “Maybe we can talk more about the rewards that come with this kind of dedication after the mixer this evening.”
I froze. I had zero intention of going to Ethan’s apartmentfor his graduate psych mixer, but I knew if I said no now he wouldn’t let it go easily.
The words nearly choked me as I said, “yeah, maybe.”
Ethan’s attitude shifted instantly. He leaned in even closer, the single finger replaced with his hand. He squeezed my arm and whispered into my ear. “I can’t wait.”
As he rose and headed through the door to his office, I glanced at Daria, who was openly staring, an expectant look on her face. I picked up my phone and responded to her messages: I’m in.
I’d intended to avoid the lab for the rest of the day, but realized I hadn’t backed up the data logs to a thumb drive to take home for the weekend, so I found myself back there in the late afternoon.
Marcus and Erin were there, working, and there were voices behind Ethan’s closed door.
I dragged the folder into my thumb drive, and while I waited for the files to copy, I stepped close to the office to get a bottle of water from the fridge. That’s when I heard Shepherd’s name from behind the door.
Ethan was laughing and I leaned closer to catch the words. “Come on, he’s practically begging me to keep it quiet. That little loser is flailing without his precious hockey team. Lost his status, lost the girl… it’s pathetic.”
“He punched you. You could totally press charges.”
“Or I could maximize the opportunity,” Ethan said, his voice carrying a feather of malice that chilled me.
“How will you do that?”
“I’m already doing it, bro. The trust fund transfers are keeping me flush, and he’s got no choice but to jump any time I tell him to. I think he realized I could literally ruin the rest of his life and he’s just dying to get back his campus king status and the promise of a pro future.”
“Dude,” the other voice said, half-laughing. “Savage.”
I backed away from the door. Trust fund transfers?
Ethan was blackmailing Shepherd?
I thought through the last interaction I’d had with Shepherd, when he’d seemed utterly defeated—desperate, even. And I’d known there was something there, just under the surface of the sexual tension. Shepherd wasn’t a talker, really… but I’d known in the training room that there was something he wanted to say. I’d been too scared to hear it.
