Baited by Love novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: A Semicolon

The dean's office had a bowl of butterscotch candies on the desk, and I had already looked at it three times.

Preston's father sat in the dean's own leather chair.

The dean, a worried man in a gray suit, sat in a visitor's chair beside him.

Lorelei stood by the window with her folder held against her chest.

Lars had taken the chair at my left and put my bag on the floor between his feet.

He kept one boot on it.

"Miss Brightwell," said Preston's father. "Thank you for coming."

He did not smile, and he was not rude.

He looked at me steadily.

"Miss Kincaid has brought something to my attention," he said. "She believes you have information about my son's coursework."

Lorelei opened the folder and took out a page.

"It's difficult, Betsy," she said gently. "I'd much rather have told you in private, but his father deserved to know before the ceremony."

"I wrote them," I said.

The room stopped.

Lorelei's mouth stayed open around the next word.

I had planned a speech on the walk over.

I had planned three speeches, in fact, and all of them were better than this.

But Lars had his boot on my bag, and I had nothing to hold.

"Preston's essays," I said. "I wrote six of them, last year and this year. He signed them and handed them in."

"All six?" said the dean faintly.

"And the footnotes. He added the title pages."

Preston's father did not move.

"Do you understand," he said, "that the university treats this as an academic violation?"

"Yes."

"Your scholarship has a clause about violations."

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