Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 88010 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88010 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
His eyes narrow a fraction. “I would like to see the transcript, Melissa. I believe they are able to be obtained with a simple email to the administration.”
“Usually, yes.”
“But?” He voices the part I left unspoken. I start to squirm in my bikini, not sure if the sun is hotter, or his gaze is. Both are starting to feel searing.
“Mine’s been put on hold. It’s sort of an admin error. I am working it out, though, so please don’t worry about it. I understand if you can’t offer me the job without it, though.” God. Lying to this man feels like a risk I probably shouldn’t take, but not lying means probably not getting the internship. So I lie. And I hope he doesn’t notice, or doesn’t care.
There’s a long moment in which he could say anything to me, he could revoke the job, and that would be the end of the sliver of hope I’ve had. This is going to keep happening. People are going to want proof of my academic achievements.
“I will see you at home tonight,” he says. “Dinner is at seven p.m.”
CHAPTER 2
Melissa
Things are moving so fast, but I’ve gotten all my things together and come to Mr. Ornix’s house as he requested.
“Okay, but don’t fall in love with him, because I don’t want to have to marry an old man,” Tempest said as I left her place in the car Mr. Ornix sent for me.
His house is even further up the hill, down a wooded driveway. It is built in an old-fashioned style. Don’t ask me which one, I have a business degree, not an architectural one.
I am met by a butler, my bags are taken, and I am ushered directly into dinner.
“I don’t think I am really dressed for dinner; maybe I should get changed.”
“Mr. Ornix indicated you were to be seated upon arrival,” the butler says smoothly. “Do not worry about your attire.”
I enter the room with more than a little trepidation. There was an energy between the man and me, and I’m aware that older men are often attracted to women in their early twenties. I don’t know if I hope he doesn’t make a move—or if I hope he does.
The house is decorated sparsely and in a fashion that again, I’d have to call… historic. It’s giving off vibes of brooding Victorian bachelor who owns the land as far as the eye can see.
I sit down at the dinner table. There’s a napkin in a silver ring on one side, and something in another napkin ring on the other. Doesn’t look like a napkin. Looks like paper. I wonder what secret rich person thing this is. Is it sort of like the fancy little forks? Or the spoons that have a serrated edge for some reason?
I’m sort of afraid to ask and prove myself uncultured.
Mr. Ornix is sitting across from me. He nods toward the extra ring and its contents.
“Open that before we have the soup course. You will not want to spill anything on it.”
Confused, but intrigued, I slide the ring off the paper and unroll it. The first thing I see is the golden UCLA college seal, the book with Let There Be Light written across the base on a fancy ribbon. The moment hits me as biblically as the quote. This is my degree. The degree they withheld.
“How did you get this?”
“That is a good question,” he says. “You see, this is where paying off certain fines becomes useful.”
I try to keep breathing. Okay, he knows there were fines. This doesn’t have to be all over yet. They probably didn’t itemize what the fines were for. I know how rich people operate. They throw money at little things like this. They don’t check the details. They don’t care about them. They’re not relevant. I tell myself that he sent an assistant in, and they threw down a credit card and he just tidied all this up the way Tempest’s dad would have.
I watch as Ornix takes something from the inside of his jacket. He unfurls a roll of paper, but his is not a degree. It is an old-fashioned receipt.
“You had thousands of dollars in fines for your behavior on campus.”
I want to shriek and giggle, and run around to discharge the sudden bolt of energy rising through me.
“Yes, but I’ve matured since then.”
His eyes run down the form. “According to this, your last fine was issued a week ago.”
“Yes, sir, I’ve matured a lot in the last week.” I bite the inside of my cheek to stop myself from laughing.
He looks stern, almost thunderous. I don’t want to lose my chance at this internship, because it pays crazy well and I really need the money, but keeping it together is going to be almost impossible. If Tempest were here, she’d be straight up screaming with me, I know it.