Chapter 18

Kendal

I had far too much work piled on my desk the night before to chase after Dana like I wanted to. Her coming to my office was a little too risky, and yet there was no way I was going to get onto her about it. The woman was willing to turn her world upside down to try and have me beside her as soon as humanly possible. It meant the world to me.

The only thing that could fuck things up for sure was Heather.

After shoving a piece of toast down my throat the next morning, I drove to the school in silence. I had to talk to Mark. He was the only one who could pull Heather off my back. I could do it myself, but it would be ugly as fuck, and I'd be cleaning up the remnants of that conversation for days.

I pressed the button to call Damon as I turned onto the freeway.

"Sup, buddy? You headed to the office?" He sounded far too chipper for six o'clock in the morning. Being with Bethany changed everything for him.

"Yeah. I'm going in to talk with Mark this morning. Heather is all up in my face trying to get me to bend her over the nearest piece of furniture. I'd never do it, but the bitch is crafty. She'll figure out a way to make it look like I did."

"And you think Mark is going to help you?"

"Why don't I like the way you just asked that question?"

"Because I was reading an article in the paper yesterday that was an interview of big daddy Turner. You know her fucking family is loaded."

"Of course I know."

"The bastard is pledging two million dollars to a new project at UT. I'm thinking Mark might know a little something-something about that."

"He does." I ran my fingers through my hair and pressed the gas, needing so badly to feel like I was in control of something. "He told me the other day that he wants Heather to be quite happy with her position in our department and it's my job to keep her there."

"Oh wow. This is seriously getting better by the minute."

"I have to go talk with him. I don't really have a choice Damon. He might be under pressure to make Heather's family pony up for whatever project they're interested in helping to build, but he's still got a fiduciary duty to the professors in the accounting department. Including me."

"That's true. We'll see if he abides by it." Damon snorted. "I would just record the cunt making demands of me and play it over the loud speakers during the first class period. That should shut her up."

I rolled my eyes. I had no clue how Bethany could deal with him. He was forever a child stuck in the body of a man.

"All right. Good talk, buddy. I'll check in later."

"Take care of yourself, Kendal. No one else is going to do it for you, man."

"Not even you?" I smiled.

"Oh yeah, I for sure will. Come work for me and I'll give you all the freedom you want, a plush corner office and more money than you'd know what to do with."

"Your offer just keeps getting more and more attractive. Too bad I hate Corporate America."

"Pick the lesser of two evils, my friend. You know what I'm saying."

"I can't give up just yet. I've worked too hard for it."

"You'll figure it out. You always do." Damon dropped the call and I let out a long sigh. He was right. I was fighting a battle for something that wasn't paying dividends. Where I loved teaching, it wasn't nearly as attractive as it had been when I was younger and still believed the world to be a relatively good place.

I pulled into my parking spot and sat there a few minutes until someone knocked on my window. Eliza.

After turning the car off, I got out and gave her a warm smile. "I'm glad to see you. We have a conversation that you owe me the other half of if I'm not mistaken."

"We do." She moved back as I grabbed my bag and joined her in our short walk to the business building.

"Tell me about the meeting with Daisy. Why did she leave?"

"Because she fell in love with her boss, and he didn't return the favor. She was nothing more than a nice warm body to snuggle up with when he grew tired of his pregnant wife." She glanced over at me with disgust on her face.

"Oh no." I shook my head as my heart fell. "That's horrible. Daisy was a great professor. So bright and friendly."

"And young and stupid." She took a deep breath as I opened the door to the business building and waited for her to walk inside. "You're being the same way."

"Young and stupid?" I moved up beside her, already knowing the answer to the question before I asked it.

"Yes." She stopped in the middle of the hall and turned to face me. "You need to take care of this before it ruins everything you've worked so damn hard for." She poked me in the chest and glared up at me. "I cared about Daisy, and I care about you. Fix this before it's not able to be fixed. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, Eliza, but it's not like Mark doesn't have his fucking fingers in the pie. He wants me with Heather. There's not a whole lot he's going to be willing to do to help me out. It does him no favors to crucify her even though the bitch deserves it."

"Then you go above his head, Kendal. He's not the final voice in this organization. You go up as far as you have to go and you figure this out."

I ran my hand down my face as my stomach tightened. "I don't want any drama. I just want to teach my class and try to live my life."

"Well, tough. Your life is suddenly locked into the middle of a huge vat of shit and you can paddle to the side and take care of making sure that no one else ends up where you have because of slutty women with hidden agendas, or you can just stand still until you eventually sink underneath the muck and wonder what the hell happened." She poked me again. "You're smarter than this. It isn't going away. Fix it."

I watched her walk away, hating the part of myself that wanted to simply turn in my resignation and walk away forever. Mark wasn't going to be an ally in the fight I had against Heather. He was playing her part on the other side of the street and Daisy was me, just under very different circumstances.

"So... who was she?" Heather walked down the hall toward me, catching me off guard by her question.

"Sorry?" I muttered before walking to the elevator.

She got in beside him and pressed the button for the top floor before turning and moving to stand right in front of me.

Reaching out and wrapping my fingers around her perfectly pale throat sounded like the best choice at the moment, but it wasn't me anymore. My days of playing asshole alpha male were over. I hated that prick and promised myself I would never subjugate another woman to who I could be. No one. Not even Heather, though the bitch was begging for it.

"Who is she?" Heather extended her phone toward me.

It took a second for me to realize what I was looking at. Dana.

"Why the fuck?" I snatched Heather's phone and pushed at her chest as she moved in to snatch it back. "Why do you have a picture of her?"

"Because she's the girl you're dating... isn't she?" She muscled her way closer to me, and I snapped.

"It's none of your goddamn business who I'm dating." I gripped her throat tightly and pressed myself to the front of her as something inside me snapped. "If you think for one second that you're going to come into this school and push me around after all the shit I've been through to be here... You got another thing coming, bitch."

"Let go. Kendal. Let go." She clawed at my hands, and after watching her squirm for a minute I released her and walked out into the hallway.

Fuck her. Fuck Mark. I was going to the top. I'd go sit in the goddamn president's office all day long until I got his attention. Or better yet... I'd pick up Daisy and her and I could take a trip down to the local news station. I wasn't being pushed around anymore. Not by anyone.

"Kendal. I wasn't going to do anything about it. I just wanted to know who she is." Heather followed me to my office and stood like a wounded bird just inside the door as I set my stuff down and glared at her.

"She's the woman I'm going to marry one day. The one who's going to give me babies and hold me at night when I'm tired. She's everything you're not. Get the fuck outta my office. This shit ends here."

"Be careful." She brushed her hair back and lifted her phone to take a few pictures of herself. The angry fingerprints around her throat were incriminating, but I didn't care. If she wanted to ruin my career and the University let that happen after hearing my side of the story, then so be it.

I didn't belong there anyway.