Owned by My Sinful Guardian novel · Chapter 14 of 32

Chapter 14: The Graduation Photo

I turned the phone around and held it up over the pass.

Magnus looked at the screen.

I watched him recognize the gym.

I watched him recognize himself.

He didn't say it wasn't him.

"Office," I said.

"Darby..."

"Now, Chef."

The sous chef took the tickets out of his hand without being asked.

I walked down the back corridor past the heavy wooden door, and this time I didn't feel any heat off it at all.

He came in behind me and shut the office door.

The papers we'd knocked off his desk on Thursday were stacked neatly now.

I didn't sit.

"That's you."

"Yes."

"At my graduation."

"Yes."

"I told a reporter on the record we met eight days ago." My voice went high, and I let it. "I told your whole dining room twenty minutes ago."

"We did meet eight days ago."

"Don't."

He closed his mouth.

"Tell me," I said. "All of it. Right now. If there's anything else, I want it tonight, not on Randall's page."

He stood with his back against the door.

He looked bigger in the small room, and somehow less.

"Your uncle mailed me the date," he said. "He wrote that you were graduating and that the family would appreciate a gift. I sent one."

"I never got a gift."

"I know that now." His jaw moved. "I told myself I'd sit in the parking lot. Then I told myself I'd stand at the back for one minute. I stayed until they called your name."

"Then what?"

"Then I left. Before you could turn around. Before anybody could see me and say I'd broken the deal."

"Randall's son saw you."

"I didn't know that until tonight."

I looked at the photo again.

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