Page 61 of Private Tutoring
I shook my head and faced Harmony. We stood in the middle of the stage, with too many eyes on us for me to make any kind of move except one. “Are you okay?” All my students deserved to be asked that question after a serious accusation. Even if it had no truth or merit. Especially then.
She nodded, but the move was tense and jerky. “I’m fine.”
Harmony was an amazing actress, but at this moment, she was completely vulnerable. Leighona had driven a powerful fear into Harmony, and I didn’t know how to make it go away. The darkness of the stage exits beckoned me to ask Harmony to go with me to my office. Out of the question. One wrong move and the class might see through Leighona’s accusations to the heart of the matter. We were not innocent. The four of us knew the possible consequences of sleeping together, but as we’d told Harmony, none of that had anything to do with her grades or performance. She earned everything on her own merit.
The dean would call bullshit if he knew. Thank fuck he didn’t have a clue.
The class shifted out of drama mode and resumed their earlier jobs of finalizing the set for opening night. We had no time to spare for hysterics or hurt feelings.
We did have time for a clarifying question or two, and I wasn’t about to let Harmony skate past with dropping that line about threats without following up.
“What did you mean about threatening messages?” Again, a perfectly reasonable question given the circumstances. “Is someone threatening you?”
“Yes. But since it’s obviously not Leighona, I don’t know who.” She ran a hand over her face before moving it back to lock over her abdomen. The protective gesture twisted my insides.
She was supposed to feel safe with me, in any situation, in any room. How had I failed her so deeply that she hid this from me? “What kind of messages?”
She raised eyebrows with an incredulous look. “What else?”
My stomach dropped, my blood turning to ice. I had no possible way of answering that without giving us away. “You need to report those messages. No one has the right to make you feel afraid.” I waited for a few of the closer students to move out of earshot before I spoke again. “Why didn’t you tell me? Us?”
She raised one shoulder to her ear and rubbed it back and forth. “Because it felt like my problem. No feelings, remember?” She turned and walked away, breaking my heart with that single rejection.
Fuck Stephen’s no feelings rule. I had feelings for Harmony. Probably too many. And they were all screaming at me to follow her and figure out how to make things right.
I couldn’t, and that burned my insides to cinders. I had to let her walk away and pretend like everything was fine until we wrapped up the class and I dismissed them with a wave.
30
STEPHEN
Iwas sick and tired of this day. For whatever reason, it seemed like everything was going wrong. I’d forgotten my phone at the apartment and didn’t have enough time to go back and get it. Harmony had left the house sometime in the middle of the night, and I hadn’t seen or spoken to her since.
Going a full twenty-four hours without hearing her voice was a fucking nightmare. I wanted her with me. She’d probably think I was being an obsessive asshole, but it wasn’t that. I craved her company. Harmony made me happy, and I’d had so little happiness in my life.
My last class had ended twenty minutes ago, and I had forty more minutes before the next one began. My heart wasn’t in the mood for teaching today, but I cleaned off the whiteboards and prepared for the upcoming rush of students anyway.
A prickling sensation on the back of my neck warned me I was being watched. Years as a professor in what the students called the Dream Team created an awareness that triggered anytime someone stared too long.
I turned and spotted a tall, slim girl with straight brown hair watching me from the door. Delilah Walker. Harmony’s friend. I’d seen them talking, sitting, and laughing together in class.
“Hello, Miss Walker.” I brushed the eraser over the board, keeping my body angled so I could see her as I worked. She’d never given me any trouble in class, and I didn’t expect any now. Though she’d given me the same ogling looks that I’d learned to ignore.
She took a step into the room and dropped her bookbag in the nearest desk chair. Her smile had a predatory feel that I disliked. “Professor Harding, do you have a few minutes?”
I made a show of checking my watch and contemplating. “A few. Is there a problem? Something I can help you with?” I almost didn’t offer, but I couldn’t refuse her the same help I’d give anyone else in my class. She excelled in mathematics, so I had no idea what might need.
Harmony. The thought grabbed me by the throat and strangled my vocal cords. A good thing, since I was an instant away from asking if something had happened to Harmony. That single question would have put us all in jeopardy.
Delilah swayed closer, her hips making wide motions that she might have thought looked seductive. “I know about you and Harmony.”
Somehow, I managed to keep cleaning the board despite every fiber of my being longing to surge into motion. I couldn’t give in to the fear clawing at me. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” My voice remained low and controlled.
“Oh, but you do.” She laughed and set her hands on her hips. “I know all about it. Harmony told me everything.”
No. Harmony wouldn’t do such a thing. My hand stiffened around the eraser. “I’m not following.” When all else failed, deny, deny, deny. It had gotten me out of a few sticky situationsin the past. Nothing fatal, and nothing even close to what happened between me and Harmony.
Delilah moved to my desk and sat. Her mini skirt rode up her legs, and she smiled while inching it higher. “Let me refresh your memory. You had sex with Harmony. Multiple times. You, Matthew, and Roberto. All three of you had sex with her.”
