HATE CRUSH Read online

  My irritation only compounds when on Tuesday, she doesn’t show for class either. When I ask Sybil where she’s at, she tells me that Stella is sick, which I already know from the attendance logs, but that isn’t the explanation I want to hear.

  Stella isn’t sick. This much I know. But I suspect her absence has everything to do with the fact that news of her father has just gone public, and now the entire school knows. I wonder how she’s handling it, and then I berate myself for thinking I could ever care. I am a Carter, after all.

  By Thursday, I’m strung so tight it’s inevitable that I’m going to snap. And when she finally shows her face in my class, it’s the first time I feel like I can breathe again. I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with me, or what I’m even supposed to be doing for the lesson plan today, which becomes apparent to the entire class as I fumble around with my paperwork. It’s at this point the chatter starts, and Louisa makes a point to let her voice be heard above all the rest when my back is turned.

  “Hey Stella, nice outfit. Did your daddy steal that too? Maybe you should consider changing your signature color to prison orange so you guys can match.”

  Her friends start to snicker before joining in on the witch hunt with their own remarks. “Will you have to do sexual favors to spring him?” Libby adds.

  “I’m sure she’ll see him again soon. She can work off some of his time,” Louisa retorts. “On her back.”

  Slowly, I turn and meet Stella’s gaze. Her cheeks are red, and it’s painfully obvious she’s on the verge of tears as Sybil turns around to defend her. But I interject before she can say anything.

  “Louisa.” Her name snaps from my mouth like a whip, and she jumps before swiveling her head in my direction. She thinks she’s untouchable because her father donates sizable contributions to the school every year to make up for her hellish behavior. But today, she will come to understand that unlike the rest of the staff, my willful ignorance is not for sale. “I’d like to see you and Libby in the hallway. Now. Gather your things, you won’t be coming back here today.”

  The classroom falls silent as Louisa and Libby gather their things with wide-eyed expressions and follow me into the hall. I had the best of intentions to remain professional, but Louisa is already opening her mouth, armed with an excuse for her behavior.

  “It was just a joke, Mr. Carter,” she says sourly. “We didn’t mean anything by it.”

  “Do you think it’s a joke to Stella?” I ask. “Do you think for one second she found your ignorant and cliched commentary funny?”

  Louisa’s mouth falls open in dismay, and her face mottles with the anger of a teenager who’s never heard the word no in her life. “You know this is how things work, Mr. Carter. She doesn’t belong here. And I’m sorry that I’m the one who has to point out the obvious, but she’s the daughter of a criminal.”

  “Oh?” I fold my arms over my chest and examine her. “And you’ve never done anything illegal or immoral, Louisa?”

  Her lip trembles as she attempts to hide her surprise. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I believe there were several shoplifting incidents your father took great care to keep off your record. There was also the matter of the pills the headmistress found in your locker. And then there was the time you seduced a teacher your freshman year in exchange for a better grade. Mr. Norman, if I remember correctly. I’m not certain if that was before or after you were caught in a compromising position with two boys in the library.”

  “What is your point?” she snaps.

  “My point is that you should be very careful who you throw stones at, considering the skeletons in your own closet. Regardless of how much your father pays, nothing is a secret here at Loyola.”

  “You can’t say those things to me,” she protests. “You’re a teacher.”

  “I can, and I just did. Now take your things and leave. You will not receive a grade for the test today, and you won’t have a chance to make up for it either. Perhaps next time you consider opening your mouth in my class, you’ll have something educational to add to the conversation.”

  “You can’t do that.” Libby pales. “Our grades for this class go on our college applications, Mr. Carter. Please—”

  “Then you might consider keeping better company.” I shrug. “Or learning to pick your battles. Regardless, it makes no difference to me if you want to implode your futures to prove a petty point. Now I have a class to teach. Goodbye, ladies.”

  I leave them standing there, slack mouthed and dumbfounded, with no doubts they’ll be running straight to the headmistress to demand my termination. But if I’m being honest, I give zero fucks about whatever storm they bring my way. When I re-enter the classroom, my eyes fall on Stella, her face hidden by the veil of hair around her as she scribbles in her journal.

  I rattle off my instructions for the class to read silently amongst themselves, adding their essay assignment to the whiteboard before I dust off my hands.

  “Miss LeClaire, I’d like to see you in my office.”

  Her head snaps up as everyone else opens their books and begins to read quietly. I don’t wait for her response. Instead, I walk into the hall and unlock my office door. Stella isn’t far behind, and when she joins me inside, the silence swallows us whole when I shut her into the small space with me.

  Our eyes meet, and I have no fucking clue what I want to say to her. But I find that words aren’t what I need right now. Instead, I stalk toward her and pin her against the wall with my body as my fingers tangle in her hair and my mouth crashes into hers.

  Stella is too stunned to put up a fight, and for that, I’m grateful. I know how I left things with her, but I also know what she needs right now. I kiss the hell out of her until neither of us can breathe, and then I drag her to the desk like a caveman and spread her out on top of it. Prying her legs apart, I yank her panties down and tear them off, stuffing them into my pocket.

  She watches me with a dazed expression as my lips ghost over the creamy skin of her thigh, all the way up to the paradise between her legs. When I lash at her with my tongue, she whimpers and curls her fingers into my hair.

  “Sebastian.” It sounds like a protest, but there is no heart in it. I eat at her pussy and fuck her with my tongue until she trembles around me and shatters into a million pieces beneath my hands.

  My dick is so hard I could fuck her for hours and never be satisfied, but this was never about me. Once she is satisfied, I rise to my feet and kiss her again, softer this time. A kiss I hope conveys the words I can never bring myself to say.

  I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry that everyone has let you down.

  She melts beneath my touch, and I don’t want to let her go. Finding my voice is a challenge, but somehow, I manage.

  “Time to return to class, Stella.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  STELLA

  WHEN SYBIL and I arrive back at the dorms after dinner, neither of us are in the least surprised to find that my wardrobe has been ransacked and all my clothes are in the middle of the floor, covered in flour.

  “You know this is probably just the beginning,” Sybil groans. “She’s going to be after you like a dog with a bone now. Nobody humiliates Louisa.”

  “I didn’t even humiliate her,” I growl as I gather up some of my things and begin to shove them into the laundry basket. “She did it to herself.”

  “Yes, but in her mind, she can’t let you get away with that. Same with Mr. Carter. Guaranteed he has a target on his back now too. But I gotta give the guy mad props for calling her out like that. It’s about time someone finally did it.”

  “Well, she’d have to be insane to go after him,” I remark absently.

  “I think you mean that the other way around.” Sybil stoops down to help me gather my clothes.

  “What do you mean?” I glance up at her.

  “Louisa thinks she owns this school because she practically does. Her father donates a shitload of money every year for Loyola to put up with her. They even bought the new science building, which I figure must be worth at least a million. That’s why everybody turns a blind eye to her catty little comments. The staff are all secretly aware that if it comes down to them or the money, it’s always going to be the money. Mr. Carter wouldn’t be the first teacher that Louisa got fired.”

  “Are you serious?” A knot forms in my throat. “She can really do that?”

  Sybil shrugs. “I’m just saying it’s happened before. I don’t know what will happen this time, but he really stuck his neck on the chopping block today.”

  Clothes forgotten, I flop down onto my bed and worry my lip between my teeth. Up until now, Louisa has just been a thorn in my side. But it’s an entirely different matter if she’s messing with Sebastian.

  “What can I do?” I ask Sybil. “She’s not going to stop.”

  “Honestly, I have no idea.” She shakes her head. “You could fight fire with fire, but that means stooping to her level.”

  “I don’t have time for that.” As it stands, my schedule is already overwhelming enough. And I don’t want to resort to immature antics to deal with Louisa.

  “I know.” Sybil offers me an apologetic smile. “In the meantime, I think you just need to be cautious. The last thing you want to do is give her more ammunition. So, be careful if you’re sneaking around with a certain teacher. She would call you both out so fast your head would spin.”

  My chest squeezes as I imagine the possible fallout. “You’re right. We need to be careful.”

  BETWEEN DEALING with the public shame of my father’s crime and Sebastian’s constant mood swings, I’m exhausted. I spent the entirety of the day deflecting questions about my family from other students and trying to keep my head down. The headmistress even took it upon herself to address me privately, asking if I was okay.

  I told her that I am, but that really isn’t true. I’m hanging on by a thread and pretending that I’m not is harder than I thought it would be. Despite what my dad has done, I miss him. And even though my mother told me she wouldn’t be around, it still hurts that I haven’t heard a single thing from her. The only silver lining is that my phone was officially disconnected today, so at least I can’t readily search out the news articles.

  My entire future is up in the air, and it’s all so overwhelming. Right now, I’m supposed to be planning for college and what I’m going to do once I no longer have the safety of Loyola to fall back on. But how can I do that if I’m barely managing to handle the current circumstances?

  I curl up in my bed and try to sleep, but it doesn’t come. I have this horrifying notion that Louisa will come crashing through my door at any moment like the Kool-Aid man and try to ruin what little sanity I have left. But when my door opens tonight, it isn’t Louisa standing there. It’s my other tormentor. The one I can’t seem to make sense of no matter how hard I try. And stupidly, I take comfort in the fact that he’s here. I feel slightly less crazy whenever he proves that he’s thinking of me too.

  “Hi,” I murmur, though all I really want to do is blurt out a million questions. What is he doing here? Is he going to use me and leave again? Because tonight, I really can’t handle it. I will break for real, and I’m so terrified he doesn’t care.

  “Shh.” He closes the door behind him and slips off his coat, and then his shoes. It’s an unexpected move, and I watch him in nervous anticipation to see what he will do next. I have no idea what to think when he slips into the tiny bed beside me.

  “What are you doing here?” I whisper, too afraid to move for fear he might disappear like some figment of my imagination.

  His response is to stroke my hair and kiss my forehead. A gesture I wouldn’t even believe Sebastian Carter was capable of if I hadn’t witnessed it myself. He pulls me against him and wraps his arm around me.

  “I’m here, Stella. Just go to sleep now.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  SEBASTIAN

  AS THE NEXT week comes and goes, I harness my self-control and do my best to avoid Stella. After spending the night in her room and leaving her asleep the next day, we have not exchanged a single word. She comes to class, and I dutifully ignore her while Louisa and her minions shoot daggers into the back of my head.

  The headmistress called me into her office to discuss the situation, as I knew she would. She made a point to say that perhaps I was too hard on Louisa, but what she really meant was she didn’t want to lose her father’s funding for the school year. I contended that Louisa is a senior, and the money will dry up eventually, regardless. After that blunt statement, I was dismissed without further argument.

  In an attempt to take the edge off my frustrations, I’ve been logging extra time at soccer practice and taking longer runs than I typically would. If I’m not fucking my pent-up energy into Stella, I need to find other ways to manage it. And right now, she needs to come to terms with her family situation. But when the weekend comes and I discover she isn’t on campus, her casual disappearance sends me over the edge.

  “She isn’t here,” Sybil informs me when she catches me lurking around outside of Lawrence Hall.

  Her face confirms everything I already suspected, and if I were a smart or even a rational man, I would deny her unspoken accusation. But I’ve never been smart or rational when it comes to Stella, and right now, I can’t be bothered to give a fuck that Sybil knows.

  “Where is she?” I demand.

  “She left me a note that said she was going into the city.” Sybil explains. “That’s all I know.”

  My jaw clenches, and I’m forced to temper the hostility in my tone before I give myself away. “The city as in… New York?”

  “I’m assuming so.” Sybil shrugs. “If I had to guess, I’d bet she was looking for her mom.”

  It occurs to me that I don’t have Stella’s contact information, and why the fuck didn’t I think to get that? When I ask Sybil for the phone number, she gives me a puzzled look.

  “She doesn’t have a phone anymore. At least not one that works. Her service was cut off, and I offered to pay for it, but she said no.”

  “Of course, she did.” Blackness seeps into the edges of my vision as I consider Stella’s current circumstances. “So she’s gone to New York City without a phone and no way to contact anyone.”

  “It would appear that way.” Sybil blinks at the sudden darkness in my expression. “Do you think she’ll be okay?”

  Ignoring any possibility that she won’t, I move on to what’s important. “Do you have any idea where her mother might be?”

  Sybil considers it for a moment before she nods. “She mentioned something once about her mother having an affair with their driver, Luis. Maybe if you could find him, you’d find Stella.”

  Thanking her for her help, I leave Sybil behind as I dial an old friend from Harvard. At one point in time, he was my roommate, but now he runs a multi-billion-dollar security corporation. He helped me with my investigation into Katie’s death, and I’m hoping he’ll do the same for my current situation.

  THREE HOURS LATER, I’m banging on Luis Furtados’s door like the SWAT team. When Stella’s mother answers, she appears stunned as I push my way inside.

  “Is she here?” I demand.

  “Who?” Lila barks, staring at me as if I’m a peasant beneath her shoe. All while she’s living in a shoebox of an apartment with little more than a single suitcase to call her own. I take in the sad state of her affairs and realize this is a lost cause. The entire apartment can be seen from where I’m standing, and there’s no sign that Stella was ever here.

  “Have you spoken to your daughter?” I ask through gritted teeth.

  “No, I haven’t.” Her lips pucker as if she’s sucked on a lemon. “Are you from the school?”

  She tilts her head to the side, examining me in a new light, and I realize my fuck up about the same time she does. It isn’t normal behavior for teachers to chase their students into the city, even if the tuition at Loyola costs a small fortune. Lila certainly knows that, and I’ve sparked her curiosity. I have a feeling this isn’t going bode well for me.

  “Sorry for the intrusion.” I turn on my heel and leave before she can ask any more probing questions, but in my gut, I’m certain this won’t be the last I hear from Lila Monroe.

  With my only lead crumbling in my hands, a thousand different scenarios play through my mind. Stella could be injured, alone, hungry, lost, or any number of the above things, and I can’t get to her. Why didn’t I think of something so goddamned simple as getting her a cell phone? And why didn’t she stop to think how this would affect me?

  Because she doesn’t know. Stella has no idea why something like this would make me worry. When she looks at me, she thinks I’m her savior, but she’s blissfully unaware that I’ve already failed to protect someone else I cared about. Now I feel like I’m failing her too.

  Without any other leads to fall back on, I drive to the only other place I can think of, hoping the address will be worth something. The apartment doesn’t belong to Stella’s father anymore, but maybe she went looking for him. It’s a long shot, but when I walk up to the sixth floor and find her sitting outside the door, I can finally fucking breathe again.

  “Goddammit, Stella.” She blinks up at me through tear-filled eyes before I drag her up into my arms and examine her. “Are you okay?”

  “How did you find me?” she croaks.

  “That doesn’t matter,” I tell her, refusing to divulge the level of insanity she provokes in me. “What are you doing? What are you thinking coming here alone? Do you even realize what could happen to you?”