Half A Million For A Girlfriend, Both Men Belong To Me novel · Chapter 20 of 24

Chapter 20: The Dean

The dean's office had a ficus, a clock that ran four minutes fast, and a framed photograph of a bridge.

I sat in a chair that was lower than hers.

I had read this scene once before, in a dream, and I knew exactly where the box of tissues was.

"Miss Curry," the dean said. "Thank you for coming so quickly."

"Your email said Tuesday at nine."

"It did."

She was a tidy woman in her fifties, with reading glasses on a chain and a folder squared against the edge of her desk.

She opened it.

"We've received a complaint," she said. "It's accompanied by documents. I'd like you to look at them before I ask you anything."

She slid six pages across.

I recognized them all.

My invoice, with the eye-contact line.

The page from Rowan's notebook.

A screen capture of a spreadsheet with six tabs, cropped so that the MAIL tab was gone and the PHOTOS tab was not.

"I'll be direct," the dean said. "Your scholarship is funded by the Ashworth Freight Foundation. Rowan Ashworth chairs it. The student handbook says a scholar may not accept payment from a donor or a donor's family for anything outside of campus work."

"I know."

"These pages suggest you accepted ten thousand dollars a week from Mr. Ashworth."

"I did."

She blinked.

I think she had expected me to cry.

"I was paid to report on his brother," I said. "I reported that he was eating vegetables. I'll bring you the texts."

"And the half million dollars?"

"That's a separate contract, with Beckett. It was a fee for a service, and he's not a donor. He's a student, like me."

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