Page 52 of A Vicious Rumor

I raised my eyebrow at him. "It seems like that is in name only. I thought you would jump at the chance to make him suffer. Am I wrong?"

Zachary scrunched his face. "There's a few things I jump for. Good pussy being one of them. Making Rock suffer," he hummed in uncertainty for a moment, "maybe."

I got the feeling that I was losing him, and then I remembered what Ronny told me, and I decided to try it out on Zachary, first. I stood and shrugged my shoulders. "Okay, well. I guess I'll find someone else to help then if you don't want to. No big deal. I'll just see myself out." I walked over to the door quickly, and by the time I had my hand on the handle, Zachary had quite literally jumped off the couch and made his way over to me. His hand landed atop mine and I looked up into his eyes. At this distance his cologne overwhelmed me, and I could see why women would fall for him.

Not me, though. He was all form over substance.

"Let's not be so hasty," he said. He pulled my hand off the lever, and I let him. "I was just playing around."

"I'm not here to play around, Zachary," I replied.

He smirked and stayed close to me. "I can see that. But you know," he said, pausing to take a deep breath. "I think you and I could have a lot of fun playing around."

I slipped beneath his arm and made my way back over to the chair. I took a seat and watched him chuckle softly to himself while shaking his head before pushing off the wall.

"Alright, Tiger Lily," he said. "I'll play this game with you, but you gotta make it worth my while."

"You called me that before. How did you know that's what Tyson calls me?" I asked him, genuinely curious and breaking my charade for a brief moment.

Zachary looked a little startled himself. "Paper tells us things."

"Oh," I said, realizing that created more questions in my mind, but I put them aside for the time-being. "Well, what did you have in mind?" I cringed as soon as the words were out of my mouth. I shouldn't have given Zachary the power to make the first move. The person who controls the pen controls the deal.

He smirked, picking up on my error. He sat up straighter and held up two fingers. "Two things: first, your mom works in vital records, yes?"

I nodded my head slowly.

"Good. At some point, I'm going to need you to go to her office and pull some information, but no one can know about it."

I cringed. "I'm not sure that's even possible."

Zachary gave me a look followed by a wink. "You're a smart girl. Something tells me you'll figure it out."

I sighed. "Okay, and the second thing?"

Zachary moved closer to me now, kneeling in front of where I was sitting. His hand rested on my knee before slowly making its way up. I looked at him with startled eyes, but he just kept that signature smirk on his face. "I think I would like to play with you, little Tiger Lily," he said. "If I'm going to be helping you on a daily basis, it's only fair that you help me at the same frequency."

I gulped. "We never even outlined what it was that you'd be doing," I said.

Zachary chuckled. "We didn't really need to," he said. "Your plan was pretty obvious. You and me, an item," he said. He sat back for a moment, as if in thought. "But, it doesn't work to have you so far away and at a different school. Plus, it wouldn't do well for my own image to be dating someone from outside the school."

I rolled my eyes, but he shook his head. "My family owns the Academy, my dear. Actions of the rich are all very regimented, you'll see."

"I don't follow," I said.

"I want you to transfer schools for your senior year."

"There's no way I could afford your stupid Academy," I scoffed. "Are you trying to embarrass me?"

Zachary shook his head and took my hand. "Not at all. I'll take care of all that," he said. "We have a number of scholarship slots available in any given year. I'll see to it that you get one."

"School starts in a week!" I said, my eyes widening. "And it's a really far drive from where I live, and my mom and I only have one car."

"I guess you'll be staying here, then," Zachary said, the corner of his lips lifting. "That'll only work even better for our game, don't you think?"

I hesitated in answering, not sure which game he was talking about.

"The game of making Rock jealous, I mean," he said with a wink. "This is what this is about, isn't it?" Zachary asked me.

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