Page 65 of Good Girl

Last night, I learned the truth.

I was pregnant and I didn’t know what the fuck I was going to do about it. I’d been on the pill since I was fourteen to deal with how terrible my periods were, but it clearly didn’t stand a chance against the seed of three incredible men.

Pregnant.

The word spun like a carousel in my mind as I stood in front of Derek’s office door. How did my life become this in such a short time? A week ago, I was enjoying the kinkiest, most intense sex session of my life. Now I was here, sneaking into Derek’s office to try and change Paul’s grade just so that I could cling to my fantasy a little longer, with a baby growing in my belly.

If the truth coming out didn’t end my relationships, the pregnancy surely would.

Mildred had been kind enough to inform me of all my options, but only one had stuck out to me. It was the option that would make a pregnancy impossible to hide as the months went on, and as soon as I was found out, they would surely be fired if Haley had her way.

They’d probably blame me for that too. For not being more careful. None of us had spoken about deeper relationships, never mind a baby. My mind ran like a hamster wheel.

I took a deep breath and reached for the door handle. It opened easily, and I walked inside, immediately hit with the scents of dark oak and rich leather. Derek’s office was exactly as I had imagined, clean and pristine, exactly like his demeanor. Floor-to-ceiling bookcases lined one wall, and the opposite was decorated with some fancy old artwork that I only spared a glance toward. Derek’s desk sat adjacent to the door, and I hurried forward, neatly dodging an oak coffee table, leather sofa, and a drinks cabinet shaped like a half-open globe.

Fancy.

In all my time with these men, I hadn’t given much thought to howrichthey must be, working at a place like Brown. I had gotten in here on a scholarship with regulardonationsfrom my mother.

Oh, God.

Those would certainly end the moment she found out I was pregnant. She’d likely endmewhen she learned that it was impossible to tell who the father was.

I could hear her now, yelling her utter disappointment at my existence. She would disown me, I had no doubt of that, and I would be left with nothing.

No friends, no family, and certainly no boyfriends. Derek had mentioned how he was doing everything he could to avoid another investigation, including refusing to report those strange threats he had been receiving. I suppose Paul would stop those now that he had this over my head.

Though, the thought of Derek’s firm, dark eyes looking at me with nothing butanger, as his world crumbled because of me, sent a flutter of panic through my chest.

The ground swayed beneath my feet, so I quickly slipped onto the tall, leather-bound chair at Derek’s desk and wriggled his mouse to wake his computer. By a sheer stroke of luck, he was still logged in, and in the back of my mind, I knew that meant he likely wasn’t far away from his office.

The files before me might as well have been in a foreign language, given how little I understood the system. It was difficult to navigate how Derek had things set up, so I began clicking on everything I could think of, from folders to Excel sheets, programs I had never seen before, and documents that contained things I definitely shouldn’t see, it took me a while to find the grading sheets.

My hands trembled as I opened up the search bar, ready to type in Paul’s name, when the door clicked and I froze as if I had just been dunked in a bucket of ice-cold water.

“Charlotte?” Derek walked toward me in slow, controlled steps with a steaming mug in one hand and a folder tucked under the other. He was dressed in a dark pinstripe suit and waistcoat with a pristine white shirt underneath and he looked mouthwatering. I slowly lifted my gaze from the screen and met his dark eyes, my heart thundering in my throat.

“Derek,” I said hoarsely and very slowly rose from the seat.

“Are you okay? I haven’t seen you all week and you haven’t been taking any of our calls. You look so pale,” Derek said. He set the folder down on his desk, and his lips curled into that soft smile I knew so well. “We were beginning to think we had pushed you too hard last weekend, but Matt was starting to worry that you were—” Derek cut himself off when he rounded the desk and saw what was open on the computer.

Everything inside me froze and heat prickled sharply over my entire body.

His expression darkened. “Charlotte... what are you doing?”

“I–I...” Words caught in my throat and I swallowed hard. Warmth bloomed across my cheeks and sweat beaded on my spine. “I–I was just... I...”

I couldn’t come up with any sort of excuse, and I stood there like a puppet whose strings had been severed. Derek stepped closer, and the moment he ducked his head to take a closer look at the screen, I made a break for it.

I darted through the office and ran into the hall with Derek’s angry yell of my name chasing me all the way back to the dorm. I didn’t stop running until I made it there safely, and I threw myself inside, heart pounding wildly and my knees aching from such a frantic sprint.

“Well?” Haley, standing in the middle of the room with her arms crossed, barked at me. “Did you do it?”

“I can’t,” I gasped, fighting for air. I nearly doubled over as my body screamed at me for such a sudden burst of violent activity. “Haley, I can’t do it. It’s wrong, please.”

“No, what’swrongis professors taking advantage of a clueless student so desperate for affection that she spreads her legs for them without a second thought,” Haley hissed. “Maybe some people will have sympathy for you if the tale is spun that way.”

“Haley, please. What you’re asking me, what you’re threatening, it could ruin their lives.”

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