Vengeful Heart: Fighting Heart Erotic Bad Boy Romance Series Book 3 (9 page)

I had done all I could, but there was a chance neither Luke nor Amanda would be honest with what they’d seen and heard.

“I’m going to clean up,” I said. I went straight back to the bathroom and locked the door. I pulled my iPhone out of my skirt pocket and I opened the screen on the dictation app. The red light icon was still blinking. I pressed stop. My back-up had worked. And now my plan was ‘game-on’. I took a breath and started to shake with the realisation of what I’d just been through.

I heard a meeting was to take place at the college two days later. Cantor was the one who told me. In spite of Ridgley’s overtures that we would be together after he lost his job, I hadn’t contacted him and he didn’t contact me during the whole time. He was as good looking as they come for a forty year old guy, but now he wasn’t exactly thrilling me with his style. I guessed the job was far more important to him than he had let on, and he was willing to put me on hold if there was any chance of keeping it. I understood, but I wasn’t happy about it. Knowing that I already intended to close the door on Ridgley should have been some comfort, but it wasn’t. My memory of our time in the dusty old archive room returned to me at night, and stirred my loins a few times during those forty-eight hours. Sex with Ridgley couldn’t happen again, but when it had happened it was very good. It would be one of those memories I could quietly cherish all my days – the time I did it with the sexy Prof at Smiths College. But if I could have swapped those loin-stirring feelings and everything else that had happened just to get Cody back, I would have done it in a heartbeat. I would have done anything. But Cody was probably in seventh heaven fornicating with Joanna Laws and had long forgotten about our time in York.

I received an email the day before the meeting. It said I was to attend the second half of the meeting to give my account of what happened between me and Ridgley. Reading between the lines, I guessed this was also about Brandon too. Everything always seemed to be about Brandon. I couldn’t fathom why Smiths spent so much time on him. He was a jerk and he did them no credit whatsoever.

Three fifteen pm. The door of the Dean’s office opened, and Professor Cantor invited me in. In the corner was a woman from Student Services, her laptop open and she was taking notes of something that had just been said, probably by the Dean. Next to her was a soft-faced woman with frizzy brown hair and a couple of streaks of grey. She had serious eyes but a pleasant face. She sat on one side of the Dean’s big-ego desk, her hands folded over her knees. She wore some kind of Lanyard with the college emblem on it. Then on the other side of the desk, head bowed like a naughty schoolboy on detention was Professor Ridgley. Cantor sat opposite the Dean beside an empty chair. The old man smiled and indicated that I should take the seat. I sat down and nodded a greeting to the Dean. He made a weak acknowledgement of my presence, and then pointed his face at some paper he had in front of him. The Dean was obviously not on my side –
situation normal
.

“So, Ashley. We’ve been discussing what happened between you and Mr Ridgley, who is a senior member of our teaching staff on the English Faculty. You will be aware of the rumours gathering strength among the student body that you and Professor Ridgley had an intimate encounter last Tuesday. The allegation is that you and Mr Ridgley were caught in a compromising sexual situation at a time when the English Department was supposed to be closed for business, a time when teachers should have been engaged in lesson preparation, marking, or had gone home. The bare facts mean we must treat this with careful consideration, and with thorough discipline for those we must hold accountable. Rules were broken, lines were crossed, and this institution cannot tolerate that. We have high standards here at Smiths. Do you follow me so far, Ashley?”

“I follow you, Dean, but I’ve got to say something.”

“Then fire away. What do you wish to say at this point?”

I held his eyes firmly in mine. “I’d like to say that it’s a crock of shit.”

The woman doing the dictation looked up at me and then at the Dean. The Dean nodded and she typed. The woman with the frizzy hair smiled benignly and raised an eyebrow. She didn’t seem as establishment as I guessed after all.

“It’s a
‘crock’
… why is it a
‘crock’
, Ashley. Do enlighten us. If there’s not a single grain of truth in all of this and we are simply wasting our time, then we may as well go and get on with our lives, eh?” Sarcasm dripped from his words. Ben Stiller would have been ashamed of his lookalike.

“This allegation came from Brandon Lynes and his friend Penny Alborough. They were spreading the rumours after Brandon had me followed to Professor Ridgley’s office.”

“You were, what did you say, ‘tailed’?” said the Dean.

“No, I didn’t. I said ‘
followed’
. Tailed implies I watch too much TV and that I’m a fantasist. Which I am not.”

The woman with the frizzy hair grinned and rubbed her nose to hide a slight smile.

“But you were discovered locked in a room with Professor Ridgley, weren’t you?” said the woman.

“Hold on. I want to know what has been discussed so far and who these people are before I say another thing.”

The Dean looked irritated, but he nodded. “Introduce yourselves, please.”

“Bonnie Davis, Student Welfare Support Officer,” said the frizzy woman with a friendly smile.

“Yvonne Wilson, Student Services Administrator,” said the other woman, an older blonde in very thick glasses.

“You know the others, of course.”

I looked at Ridgley. He looked like he was in pain, probably because I had taken on the infallible overlord of the college. Tom looked at me, but his smile was pained and his eyes weren’t bright as they usually were.

“As for our discussions… I think it’s better if we heard your version first, Ashley.”

In my peripheral vision I noticed Tom make the slightest nod. He meant for me to tell the truth, so that was what I would do… up until the part where we met again in the dusty archive room.

“We were attracted to each other,” I spoke to Bonnie Davis, needing her benign face as opposed to the Dean’s imperious looks. “I went to speak to him about my troubles with Brandon Lynes, who bullied me, threatened me, threatened Cody Barnes, and told me that he had the power to have me kicked out of this college…”

The Dean interjected. “Brandon Lynes, the young man who you live with as your current sexual partner.”

My head swept round. “You’re wrong Dean and you’re out of order. My sexual relations are off limits here. What matters is that I went to see the Professor since he saw that I was suffering because Brandon Lynes was emotionally abusing me, threatening me…”

“Come on!” said The Dean, making a dismissive gesture with his hands.

“No, hold on here. This bears a direct relation to why I had a meeting with Professor Ridgley.”

“Can we hear her, please? That’s why I’m here after all…” said Bonnie Davis. The Dean’s jaw swelled and tightened, but he acquiesced to let me speak.

“I never denied we were attracted to each other. But that’s why Professor Ridgley paid enough attention to notice that I was in a bad place. I wasn’t happy, and I hadn’t been for weeks because Brandon Lynes had been coercing me by using threats against the people I care about. I don’t have sexual relations with Brandon Lynes and haven’t had for a long while. In fact I don’t have ANY relations with Brandon Lynes, apart from being his prisoner.”

The Dean shook his head. He caught himself and stopped.

“But how can we use any of that information?” said the Dean. “It’ll be her word against his!”

“We must do something, Dean,” said Ridgley. “This situation is untenable. Miss Pearson needs our help and support,” said Professor Ridgley.

“I think you’ve already provided plenty of support, Mr Ridgley. The College will take over from here on in, I think,” said The Dean.

Bonnie Davis nodded. “You should have come to see me, Ashley. Helping students with pastoral problems is my field of work. I’m here to ensure student welfare…”

“But I never heard of you until today,” I said.

“Yes… our um,
internal structure
… could be better,” she said diplomatically looking at the Dean. “But at least we can help you now.”

“Yes, yes, yes. That’s all well and good. By all means take over and support Ashley towards the best solution for her. And take nothing off the table. If she has to withdraw from her course, we wouldn’t stand in her way,” said the Dean, not looking at me.

“Hold on, I’m not withdrawing from anything. I fought to get here and I’ll fight to stay…”

“I think withdrawal will not be necessary in this case, Dean,” said Bonnie Davis, backing me up.

“What we need to remember here, committee, is that a cardinal sin has been committed which goes against the values of this college.”

“With due respect Jonathan – a cardinal sin? What is this, the Spanish Inquisition?” said Cantor with a mirthless chuckle. “The girl fancied her Professor, and what student hasn’t taking a liking to a teacher at one time or another, even you once upon a time, who knows? She may or may not have had sexual relations with Professor Ridgley, which they deny and which there is no proof either way. So you can’t hold that against them. But what you can say is that they were in a boundary breaking situation that should not have happened.”

“And that was my fault,” said Professor Ridgley.

“Yes, it was!” said Dean Mayhew with unrestrained anger. He took a breath.

“We must come to a decision. A resolution here and now.”

“Once all the facts are considered,” countered Cantor.

“What are the facts? The only facts we have is that this young lady and Professor Ridgley had a covert sexual encounter which contravenes college rules. For that the Professor must face discipline and…” said the Dean.

“And Miss Pearson should be given the support of the college,” said Bonnie Davis, before the Dean could finish. “If she was abused by Brandon Lynes, then what happened afterwards with Professor Ridgley could be seen as a further abuse.”

“Bonnie, thank you, but what happened between Professor Ridgley and me was not any kind of abuse…” I said. Tom Ridgley winced and covered his eyes.

Bonnie Davis made a short silent chuckle.

“I mean it, Dean. If the college fails to do its proper duty by Ashley there could be serious repercussions later on. And I know you care about repercussions, Dean.”

“Come along, I’m not that much of a beast,” said the Dean, sounding every bit the monster.

“I am just saying that Miss Pearson claims to have been a victim of abuse by Brandon Lynes as reason for her seeking a meeting with Professor Ridgley. We have no proof of that whatsoever. But we do have knowledge of Miss Pearson having sexual relations with Brandon Lynes, then Cody Barnes and later having a covert meeting with Professor Ridgley. What does all of that tell you?”

“What does it tell you, Dean?” I asked. He looked at me and fell silent. “I’d like to know.”

“Careful, Jonathan,” said Professor Cantor. “You’re in danger of over stepping the mark yourself.”

“I am simply saying Miss Pearson’s defence is that she was in a sense abused into making a bad decision by Brandon Lynes. There is no evidence for it.”

I was outraged. I felt the heat in my cheeks and the fire in my chest. I wanted to smash the Dean’s face, but then I would have been kicked out in an instant.

“You know Brandon Lynes well don’t you, Dean?”

“Not well at all, actually,” he said.

“But you
are
friends with his family…?”

“I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”

“Listen to this.” I opened the dictation app and played the recording. The argument was loud and clear. Then came the scuffling. If you wanted to be obtuse, you could have pretended what you were hearing was all mere sound effects, a cheap homemade drama for radio. But if you listened to Brandon’s voice, and mine, and the sound of violence, there was no way you could believe the recording was anything other than real.

Bonnie Davis’s face had gone from benign to disgust by the end of the recording. Professor Cantor shook his head, looked at me, and then at the Dean. Tom Ridgley looked as if he was in pain. He looked at me, his eyes pleading with me for something. “Ashley… when?” he said.

“Two nights ago. That’s Brandon Lynes, Dean Mayhew. That’s Smith’s rising star.”

The Dean was stunned into silence.

“Before hearing that recording, Dean, I was going to recommend you consider suspending Mr Lynes from study. You know his grades are poor and his attendance is failing. After that, I think suspension for Mr Lynes is the least we should be doing to correct him.”

“That’s appalling, truly appalling…” said Bonnie Davis. “Did he… I mean, are you all right?”

“I’m okay. I told you. I’m a fighter. But listen to me, Professor Ridgley tried to help me, okay? That’s all.”

“Bonnie? Can you look into this with Miss Pearson? Do what needs to be done, whatever she needs,” said the Dean.

“You’re going to do the right thing here, Jonathan?” said Cantor, carefully.

“Give me some credit, Bill. Of course I am. That’s my job. And the right thing is this. Brandon Lynes will be immediately suspended from study while Bonnie and her team support Miss Pearson. Do whatever is necessary. Make an inquiry. Call the police if necessary.”

“And Tom here?” said Cantor.