My Ex's Uncle, My Trap novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: The Hearing

I held the phone out so he could read it.

Pierson read it, and his face went very flat.

"So it's decided before the Showcase," he said.

"Can he do that?"

"He just did."

He didn't ask what I needed. He waited for me to say.

"Don't come to the hearing," I said. "Don't call anyone. Don't stand in the hall. If you're anywhere near it, they'll say the rich uncle fixed it."

"Okay."

I spent Monday building stage six and rehearsing for the bucket.

The hearing room had a long table and a pitcher of water nobody touched.

Five people sat on the far side.

Two professors. A woman from the integrity office with a laptop. A student representative who looked about to throw up.

And in the middle chair, Clifford Wardell, in a gray three-piece suit with his class ring on.

My advisor sat at the end of the table as a witness, not looking at me.

Winston sat at a small table to the left, in a navy blazer, with my four green notebooks stacked in front of him.

"Miss Keating," the dean said. "You're here to answer a complaint that you misrepresented Mr. Wardell's capstone design as your own. Do you understand?"

"I understand the complaint."

"Do you have any evidence of your work on the project? Records? Files?"

"Somebody wiped the build shop key logs in March," I said. "And somebody took the camera drives from my job."

Winston didn't look up. His ears went pink.

"That's a serious allegation," the dean said mildly. "Do you have evidence of that?"

"No. That's sort of the point of wiping it."

One of the professors coughed.

"Then the panel will rely on the documents," the dean said. "Mr. Wardell's design notebooks, in his own..."

"Hand me one," I said.

The dean paused.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Any page. Pick one. Don't show it to me. Tell me the stage and the page number, and I'll draw it on the whiteboard from memory. Every dimension."

← Chapter 9 · All chapters · Chapter 11 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend